Page 41 of The English Bookstore in Bologna

The cameriere brought the wine, poured three glasses, and then left them alone. Sandy held up her effervescent red, the bubbles dancing in her glass, and said, “To heartache, kids. I wish I could say it doesn’t cut as deep when you get older, but it’s hard to dodge. Cin, cin.”

“Cin, cin,” the other two echoed.

Sandy pushed Harold to talk about himself and what brought him here. It took him a minute, but once he started, he couldn’t stop. He told the two women he had a fancy job building backend software for various companies around the world, and how he’d been in a coffee shop in Denver when Alice had walked in, and the fireworks had been so explosive that they’d wound up in Bologna together.

“Let me get this straight,” Sandy said, having a hard time imagining any part of Harold’s love life being classified as explosive. “You followed a teenager back to Bologna and thought it would last?”

He raised his scrawny shoulders. “When you put it like that, it sounds absurd, but we love each other. Or did, I don’t know.” He leaned against the table and fell into thought.

Sandy could see that he was a bright guy. Love dumbed down everyone.

They let him stew in his thoughts till more words came tumbling out of him. “She was way out of my league, so I should have seen it coming. It just felt . . . I don’t know. Real. I’ve never been in love before.”

Something like empathy wedged itself into Sandy’s chest. A girl named Lisa had been the first to break Jack’s heart, leaving him in eleventh grade. His father was in prison, so he was already struggling, and she dumped him by having a friend tell him. He’d fallen into an ugly despair, and Sandy had more than once imagined tearing the limbs off a Lisa voodoo doll and teaching the girl a lesson. Jack had refused to talk about any of it, instead locking the door to his room and listening to Metallica till she called him down for dinner, where he’d barely utter a word.

“Why are you still here?” Sandy asked.

He looked up for a split second. “I’m hoping she might see the error of her ways.”

“Oh, dear God. You’re waiting for her?”

He stared into his wine.

Moira reached across the table and patted his hand.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” he said, defeat dripping from each syllable. “It hurts. And I keep thinking that she’ll realize what we had.” He finally met Sandy’s eyes, and it felt like a son looking at his mother. “I swear she was in love too. It wasn’t only me.”

Sandy sat up straight and crossed her arms. “Do you know how flighty a nineteen-year-old girl can be? I don’t mean to be a cagna, but you’re a gelato flavor, and she won’t know which one she likes till she tastes them all. Dear God, please, please, please don’t sit around and wait for her.”

He couldn’t stop fidgeting, scratching his face, shifting the table mat, sliding his glass left and right. “What else am I supposed to do? Go back home? Give up? If you love someone, you can’t go out without a fight.”

Sandy looked him up and down, a ticking time bomb setting himself up for even more pain. “For one, you’re not dressed to fight. Look at you. You’re a sad sack.” She repeated the same in Italian. “You have this weird stubbly stuff that’s not a beard. Please get rid of that. Get a haircut. Trim the hairs from your ears. Change the way you’re dressing. No offense, but she’s a pretty girl. The moment we met, I wondered what in the world she saw in you. Now that I’ve met you, you’re a nice guy. But guess what, everyone’s nice. You need to stand out. Become the man she wants.”

Instead of being hurt by her words, Harold seemed to sift through them for a solution. His resilience impressed her. This kid had promise.

Only after she thought through what she’d said did her radar go off. She’d been slightly harsh. She added, “I tell you this with the understanding that you’re a sharp and kind guy. Alice would be lucky to get you back. It’s just . . . You have to try. You’re a digital nomad who’s apparently doing okay for himself, living in one of the greatest cities in the world. Free to do whatever you want.” She tapped his glass with hers. A ping rang out. “You need to act like it.”

“If it was only that easy.”

“You have a lot going for you,” Moira chimed in.

And the mouse doth speak. “Either give up and go home,” Sandy said, “or put up a fight starting today. At this moment, you’re caught in the middle, and that’s no place to be.”

After a quick nod, he twisted to Moira. “I’m sorry about your book signing. Now you know why I didn’t want to come. But I’m glad I did.”

“I think you’re great,” Moira said. “Sandy’s right. Alice is lucky to be loved like that. A lot of girls would be envious.”

Was it Sandy, or was Moira staring too deeply into Harold’s eyes? Pity for both of them piled up like sand gathered behind a closed door.

The cameriere set down an impressive charcuterie board: fine cuts of Mortadella Bologna and Salame Felino, house-made pickled vegetables, squacquerone cheese, and the staple of Bologna: Parmigiano-Reggiano, offered in various ages.

They went to work on it in silence.

Once Sandy had enjoyed a few bites of the mortadella—a Bolognese delight she’d never tire of—she said to Moira, “So you . . . What are we going to do with you?”

Moira covered her mouth and finished chewing a piece of cheese, then shrugged.

The only person in Bologna more lost than Harold was Moira, and dammit if that pile of pity wasn’t starting to seep through the cracks. Sandy wasn’t about to say it, but she really did care for Moira. Maybe more so than any other human in Bologna. What she always wanted to say and hoped that Moira knew was that Sandy was the bitterest to the people she liked the most.