“One sec”—he points at the back of the dress—“the, um... Here. Let me.”
He reaches behind me, his fingers brushing the back of my neck, his breath near my ear, and for just a moment he looks down at me, our eyes connect, and I feel everything in my body flicker with desire.
Then he hands me the sale tag that I forgot to remove from the dress, with a mortifyingly huge orange fifty percent off sticker on it.
“The sale tag,” he says apologetically.
“Right,” I mutter, smoothing the front of my skirt. The corner of Leo’s mouth twitches, but his eyes follow my hands and linger on my hips.
“Come on. I know a bar.”
Leo leads me down a lane, and, behind him, I try not to drag my high heels, still embarrassed. Leo points to a sign, almost hidden behind overgrown vines, that reads LA CASA BLANCA. Inside, its Catanian bones have been newly furnished in dark wood, pin-striped wallpaper, and leather sofas, and both an American and an Italian flag sit behind the bar, which is filled with a huge selection of American whiskey.
“La Casa Blanca. The White House,” I say, understanding, as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” blasts through the room. “I usually think dive bars when I think of American bars.”
“Yes, this is giving us more Baroque Obama,” says Leo.
I erupt into spontaneous laughter, bursting the tension with my throaty cackle. Leo just sits there at our little round table looking smug.
“I didn’t know you had such wit,” I tease as my laughter subsides.
“You don’t really know me at all,” he replies with an eyebrow raised as he looks for the waiter.
He tugs at the cuffs on his shirt again. A sharply dressed non-American waiter appears. Black vest, crisp white shirt. “Cosa vorreste bere?” he says, grinning. His voice is deep and rich, and he’s oh so handsome.
“I feel like I should be ordering whiskey rocks,” I say, waving around at the American interior. “But I’d love a glass of rosé from the Gambino vineyard—do you have it?”
“Sì, sì”, he says, smiling.
“And for you, sir?” he says, switching to English.
“I’ll take an old-fashioned,” says Leo, smiling.
“I brought your manuscript,” I say, pulling it out of my bag and setting it on the table. “I thought we could check over the recipes for the other regions together and see how we can make oranges work,” I say.
Leo nods, watching me as I look back down at the cover again and open to a random page.Puglia.
“This looks amazing,” I begin, just as our drinks arrive. “And here’s the aubergine,” I add sheepishly, turning the page to Leo’s laughter.
“So good,” he says, nodding. “Did you read the stories?” I can feel his eyes intent on me as I turn the pages, and I become hyperaware of the scrape of the paper against my fingers, the tickle of my hair against my neck, the light flow of air against the bare skin of my shoulders, as though his eyes on me have heightened each of my senses...Stop it, Olive.
“I promise I’ll read the stories before we leave Sicily,” I say quickly, before looking at Leo and putting my hand over my heart.
Leo nods. “Fine. Let’s focus on the recipes.”
He pulls the manuscript across to him. “Okay. You’ll see he usually does something like an antipasto or starter-type dish. Or maybe a salad. And then a secondo or a pasta dish. Then sometimes dessert, but not always.”
“Ooh, pasta alla norcina,” I say, pointing to a recipe that catches my eye. “Ooh, Venetian prawns with polenta?” I look up at Leo, my tongue hanging out. He screws his mouth up to try to contain a laugh.
“Look at the clam risotto,” he says, touching the edge of the page. “How good does that sound?” I pass a single picture of my dad standing over a pan of steaming muscles. It’s a candid photo, and old. Maybe early nineties. It captures him so completely as the father of my childhood.I reach across to turn the page, quickly.
“So we’ve got two recipes, right?”
“Cake is number one. Orange and fennel salad is number two?” he says, nodding.
“Yes to the salad. We should try a version with capers. And that second version we tried at the market was cut lovely and thin, which really gave the fennel a softness.”
“Done,” he says, scribbling down notes.
