Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [85]
Etta and Chiara have not returned. I look for them in the crowd. Pete says, “The line was long at the café, the girls won’t be back for a while.” I sit back. Then, Pete catches my eye in a way that tells me that he’s going to kiss me. I shoot up off the bench and call for Etta. Chiara comes around the corner, followed by Etta. They’re laughing. I motion for them to join us.
“Mama, are you okay?” Etta looks at me, then at Pete.
“I’m okay. I was thinking about Joe.”
“Oh,” she says.
“Who is Joe?” Chiara wants to know.
“I’ll tell you all about him,” Etta tells her.
“Who needs siesta?” Pete asks and picks up my book and bag. The girls and I take our room at the hotel. Pete goes to his room and tells us he has big plans for our dinner.
Pete takes us to Cielo, a little restaurant on a side street. It is quaint—the walls filled with old pottery and the ceiling covered with tiny white lights on wires. After the most delicious dinner of my life, gnocci (tiny, light pasta ovals made of potato—“gnocci” means knees) in delicate white cream, baby lamb chops grilled with fresh sage, a glass of hearty Chianti, hot espresso, and a bite of Etta’s cream puff, I feel better.
After supper, on our way to the Ponte Vecchio, Pete surprises me and takes us by Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning’s apartment on the corner of the Piazza San Felice. He points up to the windows and I imagine Elizabeth there, recording the parade on the street below in vivid detail. “You think of everything,” I tell Pete. He just smiles.
Gala is off to Venice with her busload of Americans. (She had to skip dinner with us to take her tourists to the Opera.) We’re leaving in the morning, back to Schilpario. As the girls run ahead, I can hear their laughter as it echoes off the stone walls of the narrow side streets.
“When I get you home to Schilpario, I have to go down to Rome.”
I feel a pang of disappointment. What did I think, that Pete was here to entertain me ad infinitum? Or at least until my vacation ended and I was ready to pack up and go home. “Business?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can manage.
“Yeah.” He pauses. “I probably won’t see you again.”
“I understand.” Of course I do. Pete saw me fall apart about my son and realized that there is more to this picture than he realized. Fine. It’s best if he goes now. I shouldn’t look forward to seeing him, and I don’t like counting on him to take us places and show us around and make us laugh.
“I’m getting too wrapped up here,” Pete tells me as we walk.
“I know,” I tell him. Boy, do I know.
CHAPTER NINE
There’s a puppet show in Bergamo that Giacomina wants to take the girls to, so Papa plans a day down in the city with them. Zia Meoli will have us all over for dinner. I decide to go along at the last minute. I want to shop while the girls are at the show. I haven’t heard from Pete since he dropped us off after the trip to Florence. It’s been about a week, and the longer he’s gone, the clearer I become. It’s amazing how everyday feelings can get out of control in Italy. As the date of our departure draws closer, I turn to practical matters. I really need to shop. The dollar is pretty strong, and I haven’t bought gifts for Iva Lou and Fleeta. They want leather purses, and I am going to deliver northern Italy’s finest to them.
The shops in Bergamo are small and exclusive, but the prices are good. I am supposed to haggle with the shopkeepers; I even practiced the technique with Papa. He tried to drill it into my brain that the shopkeepers never expect the customer to pay the price on the tag, they want you to negotiate. But I am just too much of a people pleaser, and too chicken to haggle. I just want to pick and pay. So the shopping excursion turns into a chore almost immediately. I give up and go for an espresso. There are cafés tucked in between