“Now I’m a bookseller,” I tell him.
“Is that the dream for you?”
I’m taken aback by his question. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me what my dream was, for myself, my future.
“Yes,” I tell him. “And no.”
He tips his head. “Go on.”
“I used to dream about opening up my own bookstore when we lived in St. Louis. Well, it started in St. Louis. I got a job at a local indie bookstore there when my publishing job in New York didn’t happen. Back when we were in college, Ethan told me he planned to build his consulting career for a few years in St. Louis, then take it to New York, which lined up perfectly with my professional hopes. While I waited for him, I got a job at the bookstorein St. Louis, and then he kept delaying the move to New York, until…”
“He said, ‘Just kidding, let’s go to Pittsburgh instead’?” Alex offers.
I nod.
Alex’s jaw tightens. “And he had no qualms about crushing your career aspirations?”
“I wasn’t too disappointed by the time he told me about Pittsburgh. I’d fallen in love with bookselling, and I’d started dreaming about how I could open up my own place one day. Then we moved to Pittsburgh, and I got a job at The Bookshop to build my network here, and instead of dreaming up my own store, I realized I wanted the one I was working in.”
His eyebrows lift. “As in, you want to own it?”
“One day,” I tell him. “If it works out. Fern, the owner, she’s built something incredible in that store for the past thirty years, but… it’s also frozen in time in some pretty major ways. I have ideas, plans, tools for expanding it physically, online, through social media, with in-person and online events. The Bookshop is great as it is, but it could be incredible. There’s so much that’s possible that I’d love to do to make the store a knockout.”
Alex smiles. “Sounds like that’s the dream.”
“Operative word beingdream,” I tell him. “For now. What about you?”
“My dream?” he asks.
“And your background, your family. Same as I told you.”
Alex drains his water like he wishes it was something much stronger. “Well, I come from a dysfunctional Italian restaurant family. Lots of yelling. And good food. And big fights. And great music. Too much churchgoing. Not enough therapy.”
“Ooh.” I lean in. “I read a book about a family like that.”
He leans in, too. “Sounds like the last kind of book I’d want to read.”
“Tell me more.”
While we finish our breakfast, he does. I hear all about Alex growing up in Luna’s kitchen, napping on benches during prep hours when he was too young to be in school. Learning to cook from his parents, aunts, and uncles. Earning his place in the kitchen first in the grunt work of peeling, chopping, washing dishes. Then, finally throwing himself into cooking, driven to be the best, to make a place for himself among what sounds to be a very intense, very large extended family and three formidable sisters.
“For a long time, I hated it,” he says, sitting back in his chair. Our plates are empty. My belly is deliciously full.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because it was so consuming, chaotic, volatile. I felt… trapped in a world I didn’t ask to be brought up in.” He peers down at his plate, arms folded across his chest, as he says, “But then I realized, I didn’t have to feel trapped. Or even stay stuck. I could be so fucking good, I’d blow right out of there. And for a while I did. I made a name for myself, worked at some of the world’s best restaurants. Then I came back here when my dad had a heart attack scare, met Jen through a friend of a friend. Stayed for Jen. Opened my restaurant, became obsessed with my restaurant. You know the rest. Broadly, at least.”
“I do.” I lean in, elbows on the table. “So after all that, what’s the dream for you?”
He peers down at the table, runs his finger along a mark in the wood. “I’m not sure, honestly. In another life, in which I wasn’t tethered to Pittsburgh, I’d leave, open up a new place in anothercity, not because Pittsburgh’s a bad place; it’s a great city in lots of ways—affordable-ish housing, already strong and growing stronger food scene, tons of green space, a culture of hard work and humble beginnings. It’s just that staying here, when so many people here know me, Jen, my family, it’s like the narrative’s already written for me, which makes it tougher to envision how I can evolve, change, be inspired. It feels…”
“Limiting?” I offer.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“I get that,” I say quietly. “Do you… resent Mia for that? Tethering you to Pittsburgh?”
Alex smiles softly. “Nah. Staying here makes some parts of my life feel harder, but… she’s worth it. She’s worth everything.”
