He laughs, scribbling my order on his pad. “Sì,” he says, collecting my menu and gliding off.
Right. I take a deep breath, and then I pull the manuscript out, flicking my thumb down the pages, guilt rising at how much attention Leo has paid to it. Brightly colored Post-its with scribbled notes stick out of the edges.
The manuscript feels like a precious artifact. And in a way it is. It’s the culmination of all my dad’s years of hard work. I get a small chill down my spine looking at it. In some ways, I feel like when I open the book, it will be my last conversation with my dad. Perhaps that’s truly why I’ve put it off for so long.
I run my fingers down the title page, my dad’s name in black.Nicolò Stone. With a breath I open up to a random page, scanning across the introduction to Bologna, but then my eyes catch on my name,and I close the book quickly. I feel a wave of something like vertigo. I’m not ready.Will I ever be ready?
I know for sure I cannot do this here.Not surrounded by people. I need to read this somewhere alone.
I slide the manuscript back into my bag. I don’t need to read it right now, anyway. I have the list of ingredients, with a few notes from Leo written in parentheses. I scan it:garlic, mushrooms (covering porcini and truffles), olive oil, Parmesan, rice, pork (cured and cooked), balsamic vinegar, capers, aubergine, polenta & other grains, bread, eggs.
When the waiter brings the dishes, all at once, I fork through them slowly. The arancini is delicious, but rice is already taken, so we’d have to focus on the black-squid-ink filling, but, although it’s to die for, I’m not sure squid ink can maintain us for three whole recipes.
The second dish is so inviting. I plunge my fork into a piece of soft squid, devouring too much of the North African-influenced couscous dish. There are so many potential key ingredients in here: any one of the different seafoods, even the flecks of marigoldorange zest that add a hit of tangy citrus.
But then I try the pesto pasta and it feels like the best of the three. It’s rich and unctuous. I only wish I had room for more.
Didn’t Leo mention almonds in his short list of potential ingredients yesterday?
ME:I just had a very nice dish with almonds.
LEO:I’m all ears.
ME:Pesto alla Trapanese—do you know it?
LEO:Oh yeah. I know it.
ME:Shall we meet around 5?
LEO:
I cruise back toward Catania on the autostrada, allowing myself to feel a little better.
I stop halfway down the coast for a first plunge into the Mediterranean. I park in a small verge covered with shrubs, and climb across rocks until I get to a set of metal stairs and a railing, which leads down into the turquoise-blue sea. There are only two other people here, men in matching red trunks, lying across the rocks, their bronzed chests to the sun. And so I peel off my clothes and head in, in my underwear; the water is cool, but only for a second. I lie back, starfishing in the water, the sun beating down on me.
After I’ve sunk myself into the water, my heart slows, my breath too.
I start to feel somehow a little less adrift and more at home. I wonder, as I trail my hands through the gently lapping waves, if I will ever find peace with my relationship with my father. Is there a way to forgive the past and move on from this guilt and sadness I feel? I wish I’d called him more. I wish I’d asked him what happened one more time, to see if I understood as an adult what was so confusing as a teenager.
Maybe all that’s needed is time.“Time and bravery will get you through anything,”my mother used to say.
But there is no time right now. There is a book to finish. And there is Leo, with his lopsided smile, waiting for me.
8
WHEN I ARRIVEback from Taormina, Antonia is standing at reception and points me toward the kitchen entrance.
“He’s waiting for you in there,” she says, a perfect eyebrow raised in disapproval.
“In thekitchen?”
“Sì,” she says, looking down at her bookings.
Confused, I push open the door to the hotel kitchen to find Leo standing there with four bowls of neatly presented pasta waiting for me under the heating lamp. What the hell?
“What have you been doing?” I ask. “Are you cooking?” I am still wet from my swim and I clutch at my ratty ponytail nervously and slide onto the seat opposite him.
“Of course,” he says, shooting me a look of faux laid-back chill. “I made four different pestos and two types of pasta.”
