Francesca leaned into the aisle to follow the flight attendant’s progress. Then, as she turned to look the other way, he was suddenly there.
‘As if I wasn’t going to come along to watch you in all your pasta glory.’
‘Ale . . .’ Her free hand clasped her hot cheek in disbelief. ‘But, what . . .? How did y—?’
‘I was always on this flight. Paid the guy at the gate fifty euros to ensure I could be the last to board.’
An incredulous burst of laughter erupted from her lips. ‘You did that?’
‘I’m practically a local now. Right? I can play the whole Italian bureaucracy-corruption game.’ He kneeled down next to her in the narrow aisle.
‘Alessio . . .’ Her eyes settled on the little cup of tea sitting in her lap. ‘Ale, none of the last three months really makes any sense. This. Us. None of it.’
‘It shouldn’t. And yet, it makes the most sense of anything I’ve known, lived, seen, felt . . . and I don’t want it to end.’
‘Neither do I.’ Francesca reached across and caught the back of Alessio’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss. As they parted, her attention returned to the little cup. ‘This means the world to me. Onestamente.’
‘I know it does.’ He took her hand and brushed his lips tenderly across the back of it. ‘And you know what, I realised something about this little cup.’
Francesca smiled, leaning in again. In a whisper, she breathed, ‘Tell me.’
‘Your perfect measure. The only way to make pasta . . .’
She rolled her eyes playfully. ‘Eh, sì, “Signor One hundred grams”, needs to measure everything.’
Alessio pressed a low laugh into the back of her hand. ‘The cup, when full, holds exactly one hundred grams. That’s it. To the gram.’ He made a chef’s kiss gesture with his right hand.
‘What?’
‘It does. I measured it one night.’ He took the cup from her lap and took a sip of tea. ‘And it can also hold a very good cuppa.’
‘Allora, whose victory is it? Yours or mine? Is the cup correct, or the amount it holds?’
Tapping his fingers thoughtfully against the cup, he said, ‘It’s our victory. Together.’
Francesca’s expression bloomed with delight. ‘It’s as if it were always meant to be.’
‘It’s pasta-tively destiny.’
il prossimo giugno
The following June, Francesca had just folded the last of the lace-trimmed aprons and set it atop the pile at the end of the kitchen bench when she heard it.
The first of Impastino’s thirty-four tolling bells.
‘Amore!’ she called out. ‘It’s happening!’
Alessio’s head popped over the saloon doors. ‘I’m here. Let’s go!’ As she stepped out of the kitchen, he caught her in his arms. ‘Will you be alright? Are you still feeling good about this?’
She looked around them, studying all they had achieved over the past twelve months since that fateful day Alessio had checked in, and what they had conceptualised and conceived together since. Francesca nodded. ‘This is the way forward. This is how we can share our love of pasta with the world. Not just with Impastino.’
The pad of his thumb caressed the underside of her chin. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
She gave a gentle shake of the head. ‘No, no. I’m proud of us.’
The dining tables were gone, replaced by a number of long narrow benches, each brandishing a specific name – linguine, lasagne, tortellini, fettuccine, cavatelli and farfalle. Chairs had been swapped for a series of stools, lined up against one wall, next to which sat a new sideboard with open shelving. On the top lay a collection of new pasta boards, hand-made from local reclaimed wood. Underneath, small wicker baskets held piles of pasta-making utensils – cutters, rollers, stamps and moulds, pasta machine accessories and knives.
In the middle of the space was a central larger workstation in stainless steel aptly named Fatina dei Fusilli. Upon the bench sat the usual implements and gear, including the plastic Virgin Mary–shaped bottle of holy water and the tazza della pasta.
