“What’s the song about?” I ask him.
“Um.” Leo frowns again and then stares out into the distance, grimacing further. “It’s about an inheritance.”
“It’s about an inheritance,” I say, laughing as a tear rolls down my cheek.
“I didn’t think about it,” he says, shaking his head.
And just like that, the next song begins, a man—a tenor—singing something a little more upbeat and jaunty.
We eat, and we lie on the blanket as Puccini fills the air, the sound beginning to fade as the wind picks up.Leo tells me about his childhood spent roaming farmers’ markets in Central London with his mother, hating her interest in food when all he wanted was a burger. He talks about trips to Tuscany for summers, and I feel a strong connection to him as he describes pebbled beaches and burned skin and large gatherings in piazzas where the children climbed in the fountains and the parents sipped on Campari and soda and ate too much food. “Conversations were so boring,” Leo says, laughing.
“Especially as they got more drunk,” I agree.
I talk about my favorite places to eat in London. We laugh. On the ride home, Leo drives, and this time, I put my arms around his waist.
“It’s safer,” I suggest.
“It’s also warmer,” he says, as I relish the feeling of his body against mine, my head resting against his back.
22
YOU LOOK CUTE, Olive,” I say to myself, while I ready my hair for the wedding.
My new dress is cornflower blue and falls in an empire line to the floor, with small, puffed sleeves that can be pushed up or pulled down off the shoulder.
I picked it up at the market yesterday, while Leo went shopping for groceries. We took lunch at a small trattoria. So far, we’ve settled on panzanella and the simple tomato sauce, but we still need another dish that really sings with tomato. We shared slow-roasted porchetta with porcini and burned leek, and Leo had a redfish soup with sea snails, which turned my stomach, much to his amusement.
“Why do macho chefs always order the weirdest thing on the menu?” I’d said, eyebrow raised. “Dad did it all the time. Tripe and intestine stew? Yes, please. Duck poo ragù? Rack that nasty shit up.”
“You know, for a food writer, you’re pretty unadventurous,” he’d said, waving a fleshy lump of snail toward me.
“You enjoy your slimy mollusk, my friend,” I’d said, teasing as he struggled to swallow it,desperately trying to pretend it was delicious. “Go on, Leo, chew that baby down.”
We both had a couple of days of decidedlynotdrinking and, instead, sitting by the pool as Leo worked on dishes in Chiara’s kitchen and I flicked through my dad’s manuscript. I can describe my time in Catania. I can paint the sky with words, but thosestoriesare not coming.
The truth is I feel awkward being sentimental. Every time I write somethingfrom the heart(as Leo is fond of advising me to do), it feels soppy and embarrassing, like I’m standing naked in front of the school and everyone’s pointing and laughing at me.
I will keep at it, though. I’mdetermined.
I look into the bathroom mirror and feel elegant. My hair is pinned up, my fringe swept to the side and fixed with a small pearl clasp.
“Bathroom’s all yours,” I call out as I close the door and make my way downstairs.
Leo comes down moments later, fiddling with the cuffs of his crisp white shirt. He looks utterly perfect in a straw-colored suit and matching hat with brown trim.
“I’m excited to go to a proper Italian wedding,” I say, coming to join him by the front door. “How will we get there? Shall I call a car?”
“Oh. We’re not driving,” he says, turning, finally, to look at me. “Wow.”
“Thanks,” I say, curtsying. “Just a little something I found at the market.”
“Um. Before we go, though, can I give you this?” Leo hands me a bound stack of printed paper withNicky’swritten across the front.
“The proposal?” I say.
“I wanted to update it a little,” he says, looking down at me with those big brown eyes. “Now that I know what you like.”
“I’m going to leave it here so I don’t lose it,” I say, dropping it on the side table by the door.
