“I lied about feeling unwell,” I say, miserable.
He doesn’t say anything, just waits.
“And now there’s no need for me to come here anymore. For the recipe, I mean.”
He looks at me levelly. “Is that all you come for?”
“In the beginning, yes.” I swallow. “But then things got out of hand between us…”
He nods slowly. I can see his expression setting like fresh plaster. “Out of hand?”
I look at Mulberry Street outside, Christmas lights strung from streetlamp to streetlamp, pretty even on this frosty morning.
“It’s just all happened so quickly,” I say. “I can’t separate being with you from being with your family, and Bella too. The last thing I want is for anything to hurt her.”
“She’s my worry,” he says, a coldness inching into his voice that feels like snow on my heart.
“I think now is the right time for me to not come here anymore,” I say, walking around the edges of saying it’s the right time for us to not see each other anymore.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “I thought you felt the same way I do about us.”
I can’t look at him. “What we do when we’re alone…it’s been good, Gio. It made us forget the rest of the world for a while, but the truth is we both have real lives and it’s threatening to spill over into them, and neither of us want that to happen.”
He leans in and covers my hands with his. “What if I do? What if I say I’m ready for everyone to know, that Bella will be thrilled, that my family have probably guessed already and are just waiting for us to say something?”
Oh, how I would love it to be that easy. I close my eyes and allow myself to imagine it, vivid and piercingly sweet, like a five-second montage from the Hallmark Channel. There’s a tree, and Christmas jumpers, and Bublé on in the background. I can almost smell the hot chocolate and pine needles, feel the warmth of the fire crackling in the hearth. Those movies usually come with a heavy dose of sugar and a problem that’s resolvable with a sensible chat and the belief that love conquers all. That isn’t going to cut it here. I don’t see a world where Gio and I have a sensible chat about the fact my ex isn’t dead after all, and how I’m only here because my mother and his de facto father had a love affair and he divulged their closely guarded family secret. That’s not a sensible chat, it’s a flood of problems for a family who don’t deserve it.
“I’m not ready for that, Gio,” I say, little more than a whisper. “I just don’t think we’re a good idea anymore.”
“Oh.”
He fills that one tiny word with a million others, and I see the shutters slowly roll down over his face, the stiff brace of his shoulders, the lean of his body away from the table. Away from me.
We look at each other in hurt, disbelieving silence. There isn’t a single thing I can say that will make this easier, so I stand up from my chair and leave the gelateria without looking back, the glass door rattling behind me for the last time.
Vivien
…
LOWER EAST SIDE, NEW YORK, SUMMER 1985
THE DOOR HANDLE WAS ALREADY sun-warm when she pushed the painted glass door open the following morning. Santo sat at the same table he’d sat at the previous night, his smile pensive, his eyes saying I’m so glad you came as she slipped into the chair opposite his and held his hands on the tabletop.
“I can’t stay here,” she said. “A big part of me wants to, but I can’t.”
His gaze fell to their clasped hands. “I wouldn’t let you down, Viv.”
Painful tears constricted Viv’s throat—no one had ever promised her that before. “I know you wouldn’t,” she said. “But I’d always wonder what might have been, and I’ve pictured myself watching the band leave without me and all I can feel is panic. I have to be on that bus at midday.”
As she said the words, the sight of Santo’s tear-filled eyes as he looked away toward the street made her flinch with sorrow.
He huffed softly, shaking his head. “I knew it was a crazy thing to ask. I guess I was kidding myself thinking a girl like you would stick around for a guy like me.”
“Santo, no! It’s not that way at all,” she said as she gripped his hands tight, hurting for him even more than for herself. “I just need to see where this thing with the band takes me, you know? It’s my chance to be something, to be someone people can’t forget; I’ve never had that before and I’m terrified I’ll never get it again. What if I stay and you don’t love me once you get to know me? No one else has ever loved me, why should you? I’ve always been a bit too much for people—too competitive, too opinionated, too difficult.”
She’d had it drummed into her many times over the years, both as a child and as a teenager, that she needed to hide her spiked edges to make people want her. She’d learned early not to expect much of people, and for the most part she’d been proved right. Until now. Until Santo Belotti.
“We could stay in touch,” she said, and she desperately meant it. “Long distance, you know? I can call you, we could write…”
He looked at her, really studied her as he held her hands, and she saw a whole storyboard of emotions play across his face.
“My life is here, Viv,” he said. “It’s always going to be here, in this small gelateria on Mulberry Street. It’s what I want. Let’s say the band makes it big—are you seriously going to walk away from it all to come back here to be with me? Come on, you and I both know the answer. And if that’s the dream you want, then I want that for you, even though, selfishly, I want you to stay here.”
She looked down at his hands around hers, strong and dependable, his thumbs stroking her wrists. He was right, of course. She was trying to have her cake and eat it too…
“Listen,” he said, his voice gentle in the quiet gelateria. “You’re too talented to stay here with me. I probably wouldn’t have let you even if you’d said yes. But so you know, you’re just about the most electric person I’ve ever met, and no one could ever, ever forget you. I know I won’t. I’ve only known you two days and I love you already. All of those things you said about yourself? I love all those things about you, and if you were to stay, I’d love all the other parts you think make you imperfect too.”
Hot, fast tears tumbled down Viv’s cheeks.
“I’ll stay,” she said, panicked at the thought of leaving him behind. “I’m going to stay here with you, Santo. I am. No one will ever love me like you again.”
He laughed as he shook his head. “You’re such an idiot,” he said. “The whole damn world’s gonna love you as much as I do.”
She envied his rose-tinted view of the world. “They haven’t so far.”
“Trust me,” he said, resolute.
Viv could feel herself splitting in two, wanting to leave and wanting to stay, both choices terrifying her in different ways. “I wish I could, I want to, but I don’t trust anyone. And no one trusts me,” she muttered.
“I trust you,” he said, steadfast.