“But, we Italians, we perfected it.”
Aida drank in the mahogany-colored liquid. “Mmm. Cloves, cinnamon, vanilla, and...”
“Juniper and coffee too,” Ilario said. “I know what goes into this bottle but have never figured the recipe out. I think there is something else, something special that she never told anyone about. We will never know, since she is long gone.”
The drink warmed Aida’s insides. “It means our enjoyment is that much stronger, because it is special.”
“Esattamente,” Ilario said. “You understand.”
“How long have you worked for Lady Ozie?” Aida asked.
“Not even six months yet for me,” Pippa said. “I was workin’ as a chef in a li’l restaurant in the Campo de’ Fiori. Mo found me and made me an offer I couldn’t say no to. Even if I gotta work under thisrompicoglioni.” She raised an eyebrow at Ilario.
“I am not a pain in your ass,” Ilario said in Italian, lightly smacking his sous-chef on the arm. “You are the pain in mine.”
Aida loved their banter and comfort in teasing each other so roundly in front of her.
“Mo found me in much the same way. I was working in Bologna as a sous-chef at a Michelin restaurant.” Ilario smirked at Pippa, who stuck her tongue out at him. “That was two years ago. It is nice to be paid so well to not work so hard and still do what I love.”
“Who is Mo?” Aida asked.
“You’ll meet him soon enough...” Ilario began before Pippa interrupted him.
“He’s a bit smarmy, that Mo. Too bleedin’ cheeky for me. Somethin’ ain’t right about ’im.”
“But he found you the job,” Aida pointed out, puzzled.
“Don’t mean I trust ’im.”
“Mo works for Lady Ozie,” Ilario explained. “You’ll understand what Pippa means when you meet him. He can be... a little... how do you say, sarcastic. You’ll get used to him.”
Pippa shook her head and gave Aida a contrary look.
“Trista never mentioned this person,” Aida said.
Pippa snorted. “That girl keeps to ’erself. Don’t know what rock they dug ’er up from under. She never shows emotion. Even when that poor sod Johannes died. Thought I might see ’er face crack, but nah.”
Johannes—the man who had held her position before Aida arrived. “I heard he died of a heart attack?” Thenocinowas already making her sleepy, but she wasn’t about to lose out on the gossip.
“That’s what they told us,” Ilario said. “It was quite a shock. That man was... how do you say,erasanocome unpesce?”
It took Aida a moment to translate the idiom, healthy as a fish. “We say healthy as a horse.”
Ilario rolled his eyes, causing Pippa and Aida to giggle. “He was like this healthy horse of yours. Always going jogging. Ate mostly vegetarian and only rarely let me make him something with meat.”
“And just a month before ’e died, he was rabbitin’ on to us about the clean bill of ’ealth his doctor give ’im,” Pippa added. “All ’is blood work was good, ’is blood pressure was bleedin’ perfect, barely a bit of body fat on ’im.”
“I thought he smoked,” Aida said, recalling Disa’s words at that first meeting in Boston when she had asked about her predecessor.
Pippa snorted. “Absolutely not. Johannes could ’ardly manage to sit on a rest’rantterrazzowith someone smokin’ near ’im.”
“If someone like him can die from an attack on the heart, what hope do we have?” Ilario said. He lifted his glass. “We have this.”
“Liquid ’ope,” Pippa agreed, raising her glass to his.
Aida clinked her glass against theirs and downed the rest of hernocino, unsettled by the conversation about Johannes. Why had Disa lied to her? She excused herself afterward, thanking them for the drink and the company.
On the way back to her room, Aida passed by her library office, and next to it she saw that the light was on under Trista’s door. She paused outside to see if she could hear her assistant and was met with only silence. But as she continued on, Aida heard Trista’s voice, hushed, low, talking as though there were another in the room with her. She could only catch snatches of the conversation and couldn’t make out who the other speakers might be.
