“The other Cinque Terre,” the captain says proudly. “With better food.”
“It’s called Golfo Paradiso,” Leo says to me as he reaches out and threads his fingers through mine.
“Sure looks like paradise,” I say, resting my head on his shoulder.
Thisis the Italy of sixties cinema. Winding cliff-top roads, naked torsos weaving through traffic on Vespas, pretty girls drinking Campari al fresco, children with sticky gelato fingers tearing past, towels streaming behind them, toward the sea.
At each bay, fishing boats tussle like suckling pigs for moorings in small harbors. Huge shiny white mega-yachts float far from the squawking of children and gulls, their crisply uniformed crews tending to the sunbathing “beautiful people.” I glance back to Leo, feeling giddy with the thrill of it.
“Anchovies,” says the captain as we pass a village called Sori.
Then, later, as we pass another unassuming little village, he points again. “Pansotti. And focaccia di Recco.”
I glance down at my phone and search it up. It’s a thinner kind of focaccia, flatbread almost, filled with gooey cheese, the recipe for which dates to the twelfth century.
“Every town has their food,” says the captain, grinning. “But Recco? That is the food capital of Italy.”
“We gotta go there,” I say to Leo.
Leo pulls back, reaching for his laptop. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to this last night,” he says.
“You were a little distracted, Leo,” I reply, grinning. “Oh, don’t read it now!”
“I have to. Before we get to Roger’s,” he says.
I nod, sitting back, my thumb to my mouth, chewing on the nail nervously.
“My first encounter with the bittersweet taste of the Moro, a Sicilian blood orange, was sitting outside under a gnarled olive tree, during the height of a June heat wave. Small puffs of cloud the only blemish in the otherwise perfect blue sky, the bloodred flesh yielding a juice so refreshing it felt as close to perfect as I’ve ever come. The second encounter came at a fish market in Catania, where a group of men in flat caps spooned red-orange mounds of Moro granita into their mouths between games of cards. I was back in my dad’s world, and the memories of oranges were everywhere.
“‘It’s the color of sunset on the outside, and a bleeding heart inside,’ said the sous chef at legendary Catania eatery Rocco’s—”
“Okay, stop now,” I say, mortified.
“‘The tangy hint reminds one of the tart sweetness of raspberry or cranberry...’” He peers over his laptop. “You know, you should be a food writer.”
“Fuck off,” I say, staring across the sea, the Ligurian water bright and reflective in the midday sun.
“It’s really good,” he says quickly.
Leo continues reading in silence, and I try not to think about what he might be making of the rewrite. Over the past week we’ve spoken at length about the approach: Should we try to mimic Dad’s voice? Ghostwrite the section, so to speak? Or should it be my voice? Should the last three chapters,after his death, be written by his daughter while she travels to his favorite places?
There was no argument. This part of the bookhasto be my journey to get to know my father, and the food and the places that helped shape him.
“It’s beautiful, Olive,” says Leo after some time.
I ignore him.
“I’m ignoring you,” I say, to drive home the point.
“You’re going to have to learn to take compliments,” he says.
I blush and redirect.
“Shall we send it to the publisher?” I ask. “I mean, I’ve nearly finished the Tuscany section, and if she hates it we should know sooner rather than later.”
“She isn’t going to hate it,” says Leo. “Are you worried, Olive, about getting a bad review?”
I narrow my eyes at him, grinning playfully. “You know, I’d take a four out of five. There is nothing wrong with four out of five. One or two out of five? If you know you’re good at what you do, then you don’t have to take those reviews to heart. You can dismiss them. But a three-star? That’s mediocrity. That’s the review to break your heart.”
