Chapter 33
The next few days are a sad blur.
I finish up my last service at Pasta Fresca, and Gia takes a bottle of grappa down from a high shelf (she insisted on bringing out her mini ladder, even though I could’ve easily reached it). She pours us both a glass, and then we sit on our stools in the kitchen and drink.
After a few moments of soaking in the quiet, I down the rest of my drink and say, “Can I come back if I need to?”
“No,” Gia says without even thinking, then stands up and puts her glass in the sink.
She gathers up her things and heads to the door.
But before leaving she turns around again.
“Marna’s starting back tomorrow. You’re not a sous chef.
Your pasta is going to be a little less terrible after being here, and that’s good, but this isn’t your place. Time to go home, Kit.”
She levels me with a look that says everything without saying it. She’s lived her life on her own terms, and she’s reminding me to do that too. She makes me know I can do it too.
And with that she’s out the door.
I wish I could say Emilia’s a little less dramatic, but much like with the Palio, apparently she can get emotional when it comes to things she cares about.
Although I have to admit, it warms a corner of my cynical heart to know I could break someone as tough as Emilia.
“The apricot ricotta cake actually lasts a few days if you refrigerate it when you get home,” she instructs me, pushing a bag of baked goods into my hands. “So don’t eat that first. The bomboloni don’t even last the whole day, so those are for the plane.”
“I hear you,” I say with a small smirk.
“Seriously, don’t give any of your New York friends one of my bomboloni twelve hours after I baked them. I don’t care if they’re picking you up at the airport or whatever. It’s too long. Eat them on the plane.”
“You know New Yorkers don’t ever pick each other up at the airport, right?” I unhelpfully point out.
“Selfish pricks.”
I chuckle. “That’s the spirit.” And I wrap her into a hug.
Emilia is the first female friend I’ve ever had who has my height, and there’s something comforting about hugging someone as equals.
“And don’t share them with Nico on the way,” she continues, her voice muffled by her arms still around my neck. “He can get them anytime.”
“You’re bossy today.”
“How dare you,” she says, pulling back to give me a look up and down. “I’m bossy every day.”
I laugh and toss my scooter keys to her. “Give these back to Flavia, okay?”
She nods and gives me one more hug. I pick back up the baked goods bag and make my way outside.
My scooter is parked at the entrance. The cat that’s been following me around is curled up on the seat.
I scratch her behind the ears, but she’s already ignoring me.
I guess cats can tell when a person isn’t worth paying attention to anymore.
She’s already forgotten me. It’s fitting—this millennia-old town puts its own unique imprint on anyone lucky enough to find it, but we can’t expect it to keep holding on to us once we leave.
I run my hand along the handlebars of the scooter and give it a pat. My little marigold-colored, banged-up, open-air source of freedom. I’m definitely going to miss having it.
But, as Gia said so succinctly, it’s time to go home. Nico’s waiting at his car, ready to take me back to the Rome airport.
We spend the hour and a half singing along to music and not saying much. When we pull up to the curb, he gets out with me and helps to put my suitcase on a cart.
When it’s time to say goodbye, all the words leave me. I fling my arms around him instead and simply breathe him in. He folds into me and we stand, the world honking and beeping around us while we hold on to the moment. He’s solid and still and so perfectly Nico.
“Knock ’em dead,” he says, with a kiss on my forehead.
When he pulls back, I see the prickle of tears in his eyes threatening to fall, but I’m surprised when the ones he wipes away are mine.
There’s nothing else to say. He gives me a small, encouraging half smile, then turns and gets in his car, and it’s really over.
I go to sit on a bench to collect myself before going inside. I’m not going to be the asshole who walks into the airport crying. I give myself a minute and then stand back up.
And then I notice, written in gold across the red bench, another goddamn Italian poem: Nel mondo si porta la pace con l’amore e non con la forza.
I pull out my phone and translate it. The tears start again as I laugh, reading the words: “Peace is brought into the world with love and not with force.”
I think about the day I arrived in Italy and the words John spat at me. You can’t force it, Kit. You’re not going to suddenly find peace in a pasta bowl.
I hate to admit that John was right. I didn’t force peace for myself in a pasta bowl.
I found it with love in an olive grove.