“Do you miss it, working with fine food?” she says.
I laugh. “I’ll have you know I make a mighty fine bowl of noodles.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” she says, smiling. “But watching you just now, it’s pretty obvious that you love being creative,” she says. “And it’s also obvious how much you know.”
For a few seconds I remember the ambitious woman I was before Adam, before my mother’s illness, powering my way through noisy, high-energy hotel kitchens, thriving on the pressure, living for the pleasure of preparing dishes to wow our customers. That woman feels a long way from who I am today, but I like to think she’s still in there somewhere.
“I do miss it sometimes,” I admit, surprising even myself. “I had to take a step back when my mother was ill, and then after she died…” I shrug. “I don’t know, it’s a tough industry to get back into.” I don’t mention Adam, and I’m grateful Sophia doesn’t push me.
“No finer city than New York to dip your toes in again,” she says. “If you want to, that is.”
“Maybe one day,” I say. “I’m happy with what I’ve got for now.”
Sophia closes her notebook. “But you’ll help me perfect these flavors?”
I nod. That I can happily get on board with. “I should go through,” I say, glancing toward the kitchen door.
“Don’t rush that vanilla recipe too soon,” she says, then screws her nose up. “I don’t mean that, obviously. It’s just, you know. This is exciting.”
“I get that,” I say, and then I head for the kitchen, and Gio.
* * *
—
“SOPHIA WANTS TO KNOW if aliens have taken over your body,” I say, standing beside Gio at the kitchen workbench.
“Did you tell her yes?” he says.
His eyes linger on me, the lightest brush of the back of his hand against mine.
“I think you’ve done the right thing,” I say. “It’ll create a new buzz.”
“I hope so,” he says. “Sophia works hard, she deserves recognition for her place here.”
“Do any of your other sisters ever work here?”
“We all worked as kids during the summer and as teens for pocket money, but as adults, no.” He shrugs. “It’s not for everyone. Fran and Pascal have a deli in Brooklyn, and Elena teaches math at Bella’s high school. Viola has just made junior partner in a veterinary practice in Queens—she cut open pretty much every teddy bear she ever owned. Sophia and me, though…it’s always been about this place for us.”
“You make a good team when you’re not going for each other’s throats.”
“We’re Italian, it’s how we love.” He throws his hands up and laughs.
I might be giving myself way more credit than I’m due, but it seems to me that Gio laughs more now than he did when I first started to come here. Or perhaps he just keeps the good stuff for people he knows, and it’s taken a while to become one of his inner circle.
“The more I know you, the more I like you,” I say. I wouldn’t have said that before last night, but the boundaries between us have fallen down.
“Me or my family?” He puts his arm around me, his hand flat on my shoulder blade.
“Oh, I like your family a lot,” I say, enjoying the way he’s massaging my aching muscles. “But I like you in particular.”
“I like you in particular too,” he says. “I want to kiss you again right now.”
“Not in here,” I say, wildly turned on by his words and the touch of his hand. “We agreed, remember?”
“Oh, I remember. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to,” he says. “Or telling you that I want to.”
“I’m not sure I can think straight this morning,” I say. “I might need a gelato rain check.”
“Don’t go, cucchiaino,” he whispers.
“How can you make little spoon sound so sexy?” I say.
He laughs against my hair. “Go home, before I do something I regret.”
* * *
—
BELLA SKIPS INTO BELOTTI’S just as I’m leaving, having made headache excuses to Sophia.
“Iris, I hoped you’d be here.”
“I was just on the way out,” I say, although that’s evident from my winter coat and scarf.
“I need to ask you something,” she says, unhooking her backpack from her shoulders. Her cheeks are pink from the cold outside and her hair plaited either side of her head, more student-ish than when I saw her last at Maria’s dinner.
“Will you sing with me at my school’s Thanksgiving showcase?” she says. “Please? We all have to give a performance and I hate doing them because I feel like everyone’s watching me, but if I play piano and you sing, everyone will be so wowed by you that they won’t even look at me.”
My gut reaction is dread and I glance at Gio for guidance.
“Bells, Iris is a busy woman,” he says. “I don’t think she’d have time…”
“Please?” Bella puts her hands together like a child at prayer, her determined eyes round and fixed on me. “Please say yes, Iris, please? I promise it won’t take up much of your time. We’ll do a song you already know so you won’t need to practice much and my school isn’t far. Ellen Connelly keeps going on all the time about how she’s the big star of the show, and she’ll be so pissed if I bring you as my surprise guest after you went viral singing in the park.”
“Language, Bella,” Gio mutters.
“Ellen Connelly is a giant pain in the ass, to be fair.” Sophia rolls her eyes. “I know her older sister, she was just the same, all jazz hands and everyone look at me.”
I consider it. It’s just one song at a local school performance. Something about it sits badly with me, but I can’t think of a way to say no without looking—and feeling—like a jerk, so I relent and say yes. Bella crushes me in a hug, and over her shoulder I meet Gio’s eye and shrug. What harm can it do?
* * *
—
IT’S FUR-LINED-BOOTS-AND-BOBBLE-HATS CENTRAL AS I make my way home to Chrystie Street, but I feel insulated from the inside out as I remember last night. My emotions are like a tangled ball of wool, knotted and difficult to make sense of. My original mission was clear. Linear. Help Belotti’s on behalf of my mother, and out of personal gratitude for everything their recipe has represented for me over the course of my life. But somewhere along the way that straight line splintered into different threads, and now they’re all overlapping and messy. The Belotti family are a passionate force to be reckoned with—even being on their fringes is seductive. Sophia is my culinary kindred spirit. Bella wants me to sing at her showcase. And Gio. Gio is my lover. Flashes of last night flicker across my prefrontal cortex and I’m glad of the chill wind to cool my face down. It’s almost a relief being away from them all for a while—I’m someone who needs to turn their light off sometimes and just sit in the dark. I’m going to go home and wallow in the bath, and then later I’ll toss noodles and try to recalibrate my brain.