He answers the call before the final ring.
“Charlie! You made it! Tell us how it’s going!” Mom says, the first and closest face in a crowded rectangle of them. Grandma and Grandpa are in the back peering over. Dad is poking in from the side.
“Yeah!” Grandpa says, hungry for information. “Tell us everything!”
He goes to speak before realizing he can’t tell themeverythingbecause in his duffel bag, nestled beside his passport,is the foreclosure warning from the bank he never gave his parents.
His acceptance into the contest happened quickly—a total whirlwind of good news—and he felt it was a sign from the universe that everything would work out. If he can secure a marriage to Dario over the next week, there is no way Dario won’t pay off their debtbeforethe bank can legally file a foreclosure claim with the courts. “Where to even begin?” Charlie says.
SIX
CHARLIE
The next morning, Charlie gapes at the whimsical AMORINA CHOCOLATE FACTORY AND MUSEUM sign towering over his head as he steps out of the van with his fellow contest winners in tow.
The building fans out in all visible directions. Its exterior is a Technicolor dream of brick and tubing and pluming smokestacks. The scent of rich chocolate spills out from every crevice in the brickwork. His whole body lurches forward.
The stately front doors fling open, revealing Dario in a new fuchsia five-piece suit, the same color as the Amorina logo. The vibrant suit is paired with tan-heeled white shoes, a white shirt and a red-striped tie that matches his jaunty pocket square. On his head is a tan fedora with a red ribbon wrapped around it, and his hair winds out from underneath. He stretches out his arms in greeting, revealing steampunk-style half gloves on his hands. Charlie must admit that the ensemble is sort of doing something for him. Much showier than the stained T-shirts and ripped jeans his usual hookups live in.
“Benvenuti nella fabbrica di cioccolato Amorina,” says Dario with the pizazz of a carnival barker. “Welcome to the Amorina Chocolate Factory. Today I have the pleasure of guiding you through the newly refurbished and reopened museum. Come in.”
Charlie leads the charge inside, childish glee bubbling up to the surface of his skin. Beau and Ansel are close behind. Selina turns Michelle into her personal photog, demanding she capture a video of her entering the storied factory.
Inside, the floor is a tan tile and in the center is the Amorina logo, which is a fuchsia heart draped in melty chocolate. Dario stands in the center of it, backed by a wall of sepia-tinted photographs charting the company’s entire history. Workers crisscross behind him with smiles on their faces, showcasing what a fun place this must be to work.
Charlie wishes his entire family could be here to experience this with him. This is his first time away from home for any extended period, and in the background, homesickness is an adhesive bandage slowly being torn from his skin.
This is all for them, he reminds himself. And if he’s having fun while here, so be it!
The tour starts in earnest in a large, colorful gallery room. Boxes and cases display photos, preserved artifacts and golden placards. Charlie tunes up his listening ears, eager to learn about the company behind his favorite candy.
Dario details with a clear voice and bright eyes how in the early 1910s, his great-great-grandmother Eleanora Amato decided to use her family’s meager Umbrian bakery as a launch pad for her artisan chocolate business. Later, it grew into an empire with the help of Vincenzo Cotogna, the neighbor boy with a nose for business.
“The Amato and Cotogna families would tell you their children were destined for one another from birth, but Eleanoraand Vincenzo were adamantly against the idea for the longest time,” says Dario, gesturing them toward a display in the front corner that prominently features a portrait of the two of them. “You see, my great-great-grandfather’s family was in the pasta business, huge factories that employed hundreds.” He gestures to a scale model of a factory, not dissimilar to the one they are inside but less fanciful. “He was enamored with Eleanora’s dark chocolate recipe, as were many in Umbria and beyond, so when he returned from World War I he had the idea that they could turn her small business into an industrial enterprise, an entire chocolate empire.”
The group moves over to an interactive exhibit with a sign above it that reads: Dove tutto ha avuto inizio…Where It All Began…
A backdrop photo of La Pasticceria Amato hangs unwrinkled behind a 1920s-model car propped up on tall wheels, calling to mind a monster truck rally Charlie once went to with his dad at the Allentown fairgrounds. Two massive headlights poke out of the cone-shaped hood, and they gleam in the studio lights that are set up in the corners of the squared-off area.
A woman dressed in an Amorina polo with her black hair pinned up shows them a rack of period-appropriate costumes, hats and props to the right of the car. “Who will go first?” the woman asks in heavily accented English.
Most of them decline the photo op, except Selina who struts in front of the camera.
“I never say no to a hot set,” she informs the group. In the car, on the way, she had shown them all her entire modeling portfolio—from Paris runways to perfume ads. During an internet search last night, Charlie learned that she is one of the world’s preeminent trans models, really moving the needle for representation in the fashion industry. She also plans to launch a line of her own handcrafted earrings, of which she presentlywears a pair. Two giant chocolate bars hang from her ears. “My followers are going to love this.”
She rifles through the rack, flinging her chosen pieces at the worker, deeming her the wardrobe assistant, even if the employee appears unwilling.
Charlie grows restless as Selina toils over an outfit for ten minutes or more. Noticing a nearby bench, he takes a seat and pulls out his sketchbook and pencils to distract himself. The shapes of the old-timey car inspire him, and while pictures on his phone are great, he has challenged himself to do as many flash tattoo designs as possible while he is here as a more active memory book.
The swipe of a pencil across paper always puts Charlie into a state of flow, mind and hand moving in perfect harmony.
By the time Charlie is on to shading the hood of the car, Selina is adjusting the lights to suit her needs despite the protests of the worker not to touch them because they’re hot. Dario, clearly displeased by the delay, checks his watch and announces that they should keep moving.
“Go on without me,” Selina says, pulling a compact mirror from her purse as she sits on the hood of the car, oblivious to a sign telling her not to. “I have to get this right. Perfection is part of the job.”
After a short nod, Dario waves the rest of them on. Charlie glances back over his shoulder, wonderingIs Selina Dario’s type?If so, there is no way he can compete for Dario’s attentions. He knows he has his attractive features, but he’s far from stylish. He only packed one pair of shoes. Selina brought a whole second suitcase full of them. And she somehow looks just as beautiful in a feathered hat and beaded flapper dress as she does in platform sandals and a modern, low-cut jumpsuit. In contrast, Charlie thinks he looks like a dog playing dress-up when he has to put on anything nicer than jeans.
At the next bay of history, Dario talks about how it wasn’t until his great-great-grandparents started Amorina with an eye trained on growth that their longstanding friendship and new business relationship turned into something more romantic.
