“If you’re wondering if it’s time to eat, it is!” I say, laughing.
“One more stop,” he says.
I lean back and hold on to the rail just behind me. I’m tempted to lean forward and put my arms around his waist and my cheek against his back, but I don’t.
The next stop is a village down in the valley, where Leo parks outside a rustic cottage attached to a large, modern farmhouse. I wait by a wood fence, watching cows lazily chew their cud in the field. It doesn’t appear to be a shop, but Leo emerges a few minutes later with a small block of cheese wrapped in paper.
He nods at the bike. “Come on,” he says.
I climb back on, Leo still driving, and we start to climb up.
“Where are we going?” I say. “It’s getting late! The sun is going to start setting soon and I don’t fancy this ride back in the dark.”
“Trust me,” he shouts back, as we head through the woods and emerge at the top of a valley, lit in an almost golden shine from the evening sun. Leo pulls over to a clearing.
“A picnic?” I say at last, gazing out across the view.
Leo removes his helmet and starts to unpack everything from the bike. Two beers wrapped in a cold tea towel. The bread. The Sicilian olive oil. Knives. Forks. A couple of ceramic bowls. He drops a wide blanket onto the long grass and motions for me to sit.
“Not just a picnic,” he says, looking at his watch. “Come on, sit.”
I salute his command and take a place on the blanket as Leo lays the food out.
“This is the best bread in the area,” he says. “The very best pecorino. The most delicious ravioli with a simple tomato sauce. My favorite Italian sweet pastry for dessert. And two beers, because that’s what I liked to drink at eighteen.”
“You found all these places?”
“I made a sport of finding the best food I could, and every time I come back, I go to the same places to make sure they’ve not dropped their standards.”
I laugh, patting the blanket for him to join me. “I like this Leo. This Leo is a very good Leo.”
Ahead, I can see two villages on the other side of the valley, but my eye catches on what looks like an amphitheater in the distance.
And then the music starts.
I gasp, turning to Leo, who is watching me with delight. Then he laughs.
“Look at you,” he says, flicking the top off the beer. “You can’t come to Tuscany and not find a way to listen to opera for free.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Auntie Chiara showed me,” he says, laughing. “There are people all along this hill hidden between the trees,sitting having picnics.”
A lone woman’s soprano voice ascends the valley and soars through the air on the wind. The song is so desperately sad and beautiful, wavering with sorrow and despair.
“‘O mio babbino caro,’” he says quietly as the voice lifts above the strings.
“I know it,” I say. “I’ve heard it. What’s it called?”
He nods. “It’s fromGianni Schicchiby Puccini. It means ‘My Dear Daddy.’”
I feel my eyes prickle as he says it, the voice rising up the valley so haunting, so special.
“Everything will be Puccini,” he says. “He’s the local composer. In Sicily it’s all about Bellini, but in Tuscany, we love Puccini.”
“It’s not a football team, Leo,” I say. “Quiet, please.”
The song continues and I’m utterly spellbound. “I’m not going to cry at the opera,” I say, sniffing, but the moment that Leo has put together: the sun starting to set, the music filling the valley, the picnic... it is all just so special.
