4.
“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO do here, Bobby?”
Bobby places a coffee on the side table and sprawls on the blue velvet armchair opposite mine in his oak-floored penthouse. Bottles clank down below as bins are emptied on the early-morning city streets, sirens and horns, the sounds of New York being refreshed for another new day. I’m not feeling at all refreshed—I’ve seen almost every hour through the night and have brought my troubled conscience upstairs to Bobby.
“I’m literally the only person in the world who can help Belotti’s right now,” I say. “Isn’t that bizarre?”
He reaches for his coffee cup. We’re already on our second—he’s listened to my long-winded story and looked at my mother’s photo of Santo in her scrapbook, the most he’s heard about my history since I’ve been here. It’s credit to him that he answered my six-in-the-morning wake-up knock without grumble, and probably just as well that Robin is away on business. I’m super fond of Bobby’s husband, but sharing my mother’s secret with one person feels like an indiscretion; with two might have felt impossible. As it is, I’m grateful to have someone to share the load.
“The fact you even noticed that door at the festival is a cosmic nudge.” He mimes shoving me with both hands and raises his eyebrows. “You could just email them the recipe and never go back?”
“I’ve thought of that. But what would I say? I can’t tell you how I know it, but here’s your closely guarded secret recipe?” I throw in some jazz hands. “Because I don’t for a second think that would be the end of it, do you?”
“They might just be so relieved that they don’t ask any questions,” Bobby says, although his face tells me he doesn’t even believe that himself.
“Unlikely,” I say. “They’ve traded on this top-secret family recipe story for the last hundred years—the fact it’s known by someone on the outside would be a shock for them.”
“Or…how about I send it to them?” he suggests. “I’ll say, oh I don’t know, I once knew this British chef who looked like Zooey Deschanel if you squinted and she made this fabulous gelato from a secret old Italian recipe she only ever shared with me to serve exclusively at my noodle restaurant, and just maybe, by some outlandish coincidence it’s the exact same…”
I roll my eyes at his daily attempt at a recipe-grab.
“I’m serious, Bob. Santo was the young love of my mum’s life, and now he’s ill and I’m the only person who can save his family business.”
Bobby looks at me over his steepled fingers, serious. “But would she want you to?”
It’s the question that’s kept me awake through the night. On the one hand, I’m absolutely certain she wouldn’t want me to expose the fact that Santo shared his family secret. I don’t know the Belotti family, but having scoured their website and been inside the gelateria, family loyalty and pride runs wild in their blood. And that gelato…it meant a great deal to me and my mother over the years, it sustained us through good and bad times. If it means that much to me, I can’t imagine how much it means to the Belottis, how betrayed they would feel to discover someone else knows their secret too. But at the same time, the joy the recipe has brought me feels like a debt I should repay.
“They must have been so young,” I say. “Santo must have lived all these years with the guilt of having shared the secret. Mum would hate the idea of breaking his confidence, I know that much. Keeping that secret was one of the only things I ever saw her take truly seriously.”
“So don’t say anything.” Bobby splays his hands to the sides. “Forget you know anything about their current troubles and get on with your life.”
I appreciate him playing devil’s advocate.
“And let their business fold when I could have helped them save it?”
Bobby shrugs. “The old guy might remember the recipe tomorrow and all this soul-searching would be for nothing.”
I nod. It would be the ideal scenario. And perhaps he might, but he might not remember it tomorrow, next week, next month, or before the spring deadline, if he ever remembers at all. I look up from my coffee as Bobby inhales sharply.
“You don’t think this Santo guy’s your daddy, do you? What if there’s more than one secret that could come out?” he whispers, scandalized, then cracks up laughing.
“Piss off,” I mutter, not offended because I know he’s only trying to lighten my mood. I flick the pages of my mother’s scrapbook to a picture of Charlie Raven mid-set, sweatband around his head, drumsticks raised. His grin is manic, the look of a guy high on the music he’s making and probably something else too. “My father,” I say, tapping the photo.
“She’d been on the road touring for two years by the time I was born,” I say, just for clarity in Bobby’s mind. “So definitely not. I could just post the recipe to Belotti’s anonymously?” I throw it out there to gauge Bobby’s opinion even though I’ve already pretty much discounted the idea.
He considers it.
“You could. And initially they’d be like, yay, we’re saved! But then they’d start to wonder who, and how, and it would only take them a hot minute to realize that Santo must have given the recipe away. That, or they’d think his brother had been so careless as to let it end up with a stranger and it could start a whole new family rift.” Bobby leans forward on his elbows. “But because Santo is the more likely candidate, and he has amnesia, he might not remember who he gave it to, and they all have to live forever wondering if Santo has a forgotten mistress or a mystery love child about to lay claim to their gelato empire or whatever. So it kind of seems like it would tear their family up either way.”
I’ve thought all of these things, although in less colorful fashion, and ruled out sending an anonymous letter or email on the grounds of hurting the family. It would be kinder to let the business fold. Wouldn’t it? I’ve turned this question around and looked at it from every angle for the last few hours, trying to find a perfect balance where nobody loses. I know instinctively that my mum would never reveal Santo’s indiscretion, but equally, that she wouldn’t have allowed his legendary family business to go under if it was within her power to save it. It isn’t within her power, though. It’s within mine. The Belotti family story has been invisibly connected with ours for as long as I can remember. The guy in the photo was the stuff of fairy tales when I was a child, the man who looked like a film star and made gelato for my mother. Theirs wasn’t a sad, unrequited love story. Forever just wasn’t written in their stars, she said. They were too young, her dreams with the band too big to be derailed by love. To me she was a pioneer, brave enough to let ambition take the driving seat, strong enough to follow her dreams rather than her heart.
Bobby reaches across and holds my hand. “Want me to come with you to Belotti’s this morning? I can improvise, and I need to check out this guy’s hands seeing as they got you so hot and bothered.”
I should never have mentioned the hands thing to Bobby, he laughed for five minutes straight. I love him for offering to be my wingman, though.