Chapter 50
I skip lunch, spending the time in my room alternately sulking and contemplating my decision. I video call Aurora to fill her in on all the newest developments. There’s a lot to say.
“You’ll make the right choice,” Aurora tells me encouragingly as she helps the kids hand-dip their own bayberry beeswax candles.
“Look at it this way. You have two good choices. Host your own TV show or stay in Italy running a historic olive farm and making lots of shiny brown-eyed babies with your Italian hottie. It’s like one of those books where you can choose your own adventure.
Both options are great.” She winks at me. I roll my eyes.
“That’s not helpful,” I tell her.
“Just keep things in perspective,” she tells me sunnily.
“You’ll know what to do when the time comes.
” I have a sense she wants to say more but is holding back by sheer force of will, trying to let her baby sister make her own decisions.
Adulting is hard. I just wish someone would walk by carrying a big sign with an arrow that says THIS WAY.
After I hang up from the call with Aurora, I check my email and find a message from Michelle. Last week I sent her several more recipes, photos, and additional content, and she’s giving me feedback.
Claire LOVES this! Epicure is very happy with this direction! Keep up the good work! Can’t wait to see the finished collection of recipes!
All exclamation points is good news. My editor is happy, my agent is happy, and I’m on track to generate enough recipes to finish the cookbook by the deadline if I can stay focused and disciplined for the rest of my time in Italy.
So that’s a relief. Regardless of what I decide, I will have a cookbook of delicious recipes with my name on it. At least that’s something.
I answer a text from Sandra informing me that one of our windows in the apartment is broken. At the same time I get a text from Solomon that contains the words
An unfortunate cricket bat incident while Method acting…
I just forward them the maintenance man’s number again.
I hear the door to Alex’s room open and shut once in the early afternoon, but other than that, the house is quiet.
Outside, Lorenzo is working in the courtyard and I can hear his distant sonorous baritone warbling along to an Italian ballad on his ancient black radio.
I haven’t seen or heard Nonna in a while. I wonder where she is.
I busy myself online. Reluctantly, I check the comments from the final post of The Bygone Kitchen episodes, the one for Sunshine Salad. I posted it a few evenings ago, saddened that it was the last one Drew and I may ever make. It felt like the end of an era.
In an unexpected twist, it turns out that Jell-O salad is surprisingly controversial.
Ethel has declared it “a trip back in time” with a string of pineapples, suns wearing sunglasses, and flower emojis.
Marv says it’s the most disgusting thing he’s ever made.
Another woman says her children ate the entire salad while she was taking a nap.
A mom in Minnesota states that Jell-O contributes to diabetes and includes links to articles on the dangers of sugar.
I click on the post and watch the episode in its entirety, wishing I had some Jell-O salad.
I could use the boost. I watch Drew’s little goofy dance number, the fedora tilted at a rakish angle on his head, and my obvious joy as I show viewers how to make the gelatin salad and pour it into a mold.
It seems like a lifetime ago, and yet it feels so comfortable and familiar too.
I’m good at this. I love this. Under the eye of the camera, I feel shiny and happy, productive and…
safe. The show gave me a creative outlet and a sense of joy and safety.
But it is over now. The thought makes me sad.
I poured my heart and soul into that show for five years and now it’s just…
done. It feels so anticlimactic, so disappointing.
On impulse, I make a final post for The Bygone Kitchen profile using a video Alex shared with me. It is Nonna, Alex, and me making the pizza together. Nothing fancy, just having fun in the kitchen and making something tasty.
My life has taken a slight change of direction , I write under the post. Currently, I’m in Italy with my nonna and my sister.
I’ll be taking some time off for personal reasons but hope to be back with you soon!
Until then, enjoy some pizza for me! I quickly type up the recipe for the pizza and add it to the links in my profile in case viewers want to make it.
Then I close my computer and take a deep breath.
The Bygone Kitchen might be over, at least for the foreseeable future, but now I’m being offered a new opportunity—bigger stakes, more money, exponentially more viewers.
I could become a household name, like Ina, like Giada.
It’s so tempting. It’s the safe option, the obvious choice.
I have been working toward this for so long.
Sure, it’s not The Bygone Kitchen , but it’s a great next step.
I’d be with Drew. The money would be a relief.
It would be fun and it could actually help people.
It’s everything I said I wanted. But that would mean leaving Italy, leaving the farm and Nonna, leaving Nicolo.
Tiring of the endless loop of questions with no answers, I decide to go try to patch things up with Alex. I knock on her door but there’s no answer. I try the handle and peer into the room. The bed is neatly made. There’s a sweatshirt lying over the back of a chair. But she is not there.
I send a text: Where are you? Can we talk?
No answer. She always has her phone with her, so she’s probably ignoring me. I decide to call instead, but her phone is turned off. That’s strange. I’ve never seen Alex turn off her phone. I start to get an uneasy feeling in my gut.
I head down to the kitchen, which is also empty. The Fiat Panda is gone from the courtyard. Maybe Alex went somewhere with Nonna? Now there’s a scary thought. Alex riding along as Nonna navigates the twisty narrow roads with more confidence than aptitude.
Lorenzo looks up when I step out into the courtyard. He’s pounding nails into a plank but stops when he sees me.
“Have you seen Alex?” I ask. “Or Nonna?”
He wipes his brow with a crumpled, stained handkerchief. “Bruna went to the bank in Garda Town about an hour ago,” he says. “and I saw Alex walk down the drive soon after. Maybe she’s going for a swim? It’s a hot day,” he observes.
My concern ratchets up another notch. Alex has been gone almost an hour. Did she go into the water by herself? Or try to hitchhike somewhere? Surely, she wouldn’t be so foolish.
“If you see her, tell her to text me.” I’m already headed down the lane, hurrying as fast as I can.
My sandals slip a little on the gravel and I almost lose my footing.
By the bottom of the driveway, I’m panting.
I pause for a moment, scanning the road for any sign of Alex.
I’m growing more uneasy by the second. It’s the heat of the day and a few insects are buzzing lazily around me.
I can smell the lake and the chalky scent of sunbaked rocks.
Maybe she hitchhiked to one of the little towns?
Or maybe she texted Tommaso to pick her up?
I’m trying not to panic. She’s my responsibility and I’ve lost track of her.
Across the street and down a few hundred feet is the beach. I decide to check it first. There is a narrow path between a few buildings that allows access to the lakeshore. I take a deep breath and call, “Alex?” No answer. I head down the path.
In the sunlight the water is a vivid sparkling blue-aqua in the shallows and deepening to turquoise in the center.
Across the vast expanse of the lake, tall green mountains rear up from the western shore, their ridges and folds shadowed beneath a cloudless blue sky.
The effect is breathtaking. Even in my alarm it catches me off guard.
I never quite remember how truly stunning this place is.
I reach the few steps down to the beach and pause at the top, scanning the shoreline.
The last time I was here it was dark and I was drinking limoncello and preparing for some mild larceny with Nicolo.
Today the beach is empty, just a wide swath of white pebbles cascading down to the shore.
But there’s something in the water. My heart stops.
There, right where the color deepens from aqua to turquoise, a familiar little figure clad all in black is floating face down, motionless.
In an instant the bottom drops out of my world.