by Lucy Knott
‘Luca. Grazie ma no wine for me this evening. Give me all the cheese but no wine. I must make sure this dress is perfect. I can’t work on it while tipsy,’ she said as she glanced at her design and nodded at each of the tools she had set aside, mentally ticking the boxes in her head to make sure she had everything she needed.
‘Ma of course amore,’ Luca nodded and sat down against the door frame. ‘I am not here,’ he said, holding up his hands and sending an innocent grin her way. He meant it too. He hadn’t come to distract her. He had come to be with her and keep her company and to be there when she locked up in the dark. He was a sweetheart, he tugged at her heart strings. Though she couldn’t help laughing out loud. It would be hard to pretend he wasn’t there, with all six-foot-three of him crouched in the doorway, his tight navy jumper hugging him in all the right places. She watched him for a few moments as he rustled around in the basket and plated up some warm focaccia from Alfonso’s and an array of meats and cheeses. Her stomach growled – she couldn’t remember when she last ate. This dress was quite demanding. Touched by Luca’s kindness, she sat down next to him, kissed his lips softly, catching him off guard and helped herself to a slice of focaccia. ‘Grazie mille,’ she whispered.
‘You eat, then work. It is better like this,’ he replied, taking a sip of his wine. She couldn’t argue. The focaccia and nibble of parmesan settled her stomach’s grumbles and just a small sip of wine fired her up ready to create a masterpiece. Because that’s what she was going to do – create a masterpiece that would make the owner of this dress fall in love with it all over again. Love was what it was all about. You had to love what you were wearing. It made life fun.
‘You cannot wear this dress, no?’ Luca asked as she busied herself cutting into the neckline and pinning where she would need to sew a new hem in place.
‘I wish,’ she muttered through the pins in her mouth. ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’
‘I think it suits you, to make your pretty eyes pop,’ Luca said, with a casual wave of his wine glass.
‘Thank you. I hope they love it, whoever gets to wear it,’ Louisa said with an enthusiastic smile as she took the dress to the sewing machine. Tonight, she couldn’t fear the machine, she had to use it with confidence. ‘So, are you excited about visiting Manchester?’ Louisa asked.
‘Of course,’ Luca said enthusiastically. ‘You make my dreams come true.’
‘How were your mamma e papa when you told them about being away for Easter?’ she asked, while placing the dress precariously under the needle of the sewing machine. She wanted to get the shoulders secure with the machine, but the rest would have to be stitched by hand. There was no way the girth of the dress would allow her to use the machine for it all.
Luca popped a piece of cheese in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. He had such a careful way about him, as if how he made people feel mattered to him. He genuinely loved his family and cared for their happiness. Louisa knew she could always talk to her sisters about anything and everything, but when it came to her fear of hurting them or worry over being selfish, Luca understood her.
‘They make some loud noises at first, ma I think it is because of you that they are happy for me to go. And I tell them I must take things to Amanda.’ Luca let out a small laugh. ‘Food is important, ma love is important to them also.’ Louisa took her foot off the pedal; only the sound of Luca lips against his wine glass and the swish of the wine inside could be heard.
‘That’s very sweet of you and them,’ she said, gently caressing the fabric, pausing to take in Luca’s words before making her way back to her worktop. ‘I think they worry about missing you and about you being safe. They can’t protect you when you are far away and.’ She too let out a chuckle in thinking of how she had been brought up with her nonni and the traits her mum had picked up, ‘Italians have hearts of gold, but they are stubborn to boot.’ Luca raised an eyebrow at that phrasing – it had come out in English as she didn’t know how to translate it in Italian. ‘They can be set in their ways. Believe they are right and know what is good for you. It takes some time for you to figure out what you think is good for yourself.’ Her eyes washed over the room, her sketches, the material silky soft in her hands and then down to Luca. She was figuring it out, she thought, and it wasn’t so scary now she had taken that first initial step; saying yes to uprooting her life and taking a chance on Italy.
It wasn’t until she looked at him this time that she noticed a stack of boxes peeking out from by the door frame.
‘Luca, what are those?’ she asked, pointing at the edges of a tier of boxes. She abandoned the dress and walked over to the door where she found five boxes stacked, biggest to smallest, like a Christmas window display.
‘We take them to Amanda,’ he replied, sitting up straighter, excitement in his eyes.
‘Luca, I already have a bag full of cheese and salami,’ Louisa tried to protest.
‘Si, ma she will need more. I pick a few things extra and Papa wanted to send wine to celebrate and meats you no find in England.’ He was looking at the boxes when Louisa turned back to look at his face. This evening his designer stubble made him look neat yet rugged. It suited him. His dark brown hair had grown an inch or two and Louisa liked it. He was strikingly handsome. When he turned to meet her gaze, a bright smile spread across his beautiful features.
‘Mamma mia,’ Louisa shouted which made him laugh shyly. She squatted down next to him and began peppering his face with kisses. She only stopped when he gently caught her bobbing head and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. When he let go, she felt an overwhelming surge of happiness course through her veins.
‘You are one in a million,’ Louisa expressed. ‘Grandpa would have loved you.’ He truly would have, Louisa thought, casting another look at the boxes, and he would have done the exact same thing. Amanda was in for a treat.
*
‘Veloce, veloce!’ Shouts of ‘quickly’ burst from the mountain top, in between the sound of the rising cockerels. Orzoro was still covered in darkness, only the streetlamps, Nanna’s bedroom light and her Zia’s kitchen lights were on to aid in this morning’s rush.
Louisa and Luca had been up since before the crack of dawn, having only slept two hours once the dress was done. Dressmaking was serious business and so was eating cheese and drinking wine until the sun came up. They had scrambled to get to her zia’s house to pick up Nanna and her zia’s. Louisa was running on empty, but she was determined not to miss their flights and to be home in time for San Francisco Beat’s gig and whatever it was that Levi was planning that had required her not to tell her sisters of her arrival just yet. But with boxes galore in tow, the taxi had been a squeeze and they had spent a good portion of the early morning derailing the schedule as they tried to fit everything in the boot.
Now, Louisa stood staring at Zia Sofia who was trying to cram not one, but four caciocavallo cheeses into a carry-on bag. ‘Mamma mia’ Louisa sighed. ‘Zia, no, non posso, I can’t.’ Her zia simply stared at her, her bluey-grey eyes shining with sheer determination and a look that read, ‘Italians don’t joke when it comes to cheese. It’s going in the bag.’ Louisa gave up and tried rallying the rest of the troops instead.
Two taxis could be heard beeping at the bottom of the one-hundred-step staircase, while Luca and Louisa tried frantically to get four elderly ladies to put down the salami and focus on getting safely down the steps.
‘Nanna, vai, vai,’ Louisa said, signaling to Luca to start ushering Nanna out the house and down the stairs. ‘I’ll help the others, they’re masters at this, you see to it that Nanna manages.’ she finished, rushing past Luca and sitting on the suitcase that Zia Sofia was doing her best to close, the bulges of cheese making it very difficult. Zia Sofia offered her an innocent smile that under any other circumstance would have made Louisa want to cuddle her, but she was already sweating at the thought of going through customs. Cuddles were not on the agenda this morning, not when her brain was focused on smuggling a
hundred pounds of dairy products through the airport.
Once Nanna was making her way to the waiting taxi, Louisa cajoled her zias to the front door and got their bags on to the balcony. Taking the key from Zia Rosa, she pulled the heavy steel door to a close and triple-checked that she had locked it correctly. Her zias, though elderly, were accustomed to the uneven steps and long walk down to the main road. They did it almost every day, often carrying heavy shopping bags with them too. Still, Louisa was impressed by how smoothly they walked and with no complaints. Halfway down the stairs, Luca ran back up to meet them and help them with the rest of the way. Small beads of sweat were forming on the crease of his brow which tugged at Louisa’s heart strings; he truly was a gentleman.
When they reached the taxis, Louisa had to wipe the sweat from her top lip. The sun was only just starting to rise in the distance over the boot of Sicily, but it was already shaping up to be a scorching Italian spring day. Luca took her bag from her and indicated for her to take a seat. She hesitated, knowing that there were more bags to be brought down, but before she could argue that she needed to get the rest of the bags, Luca dashed up the stairs to retrieve them. Again, her heart struck another love chord.
Louisa braced herself for the journey ahead. She passed around bottles of water and took two travel sickness tablets before offering them to her nanna and zias. They waved the medicine away with hearty laughter. She nodded at them in admiration. Maybe one day she could conquer this road without being medicated.
Luca came bounding back, three mid-sized suitcases in tow. He placed them in the boot of the minivan with the help of the taxi driver, before coming over to check on them all.
‘I drive with the small car,’ he said, helping himself to the tablets resting on Louisa’s knee. He took big gulps of water and winked at her, knowing all too well himself the road that lay ahead. When he was younger, he had told Louisa, his papa would make him drive the long route of one thousand turns to make cake deliveries. It had been his initiation into the family business, proving that he was a hard worker and would not let the family down. Even after this practice, Luca dreaded the road. His stomach had never quite got used to it.
‘It will be okay,’ Louisa said, stepping out of the taxi to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. With most of the boxes taking up the backseat of the small taxi, her zias had done well to order a minivan. There was now more space for everyone to fit comfortably. ‘Keep your eyes on the road ahead amore, okay?’ she finished, as she checked her watch and kissed Luca quickly before taking her seat and getting buckled in. She watched Luca run around to the front of the small taxi and climb in before signing the cross that she would make this treacherous car journey without fainting and that there would be no sniffer dogs at the airport.
Chapter 21
Nanna’s Chocolate and Sambuca Biscotti
Ingredients:
6 tbsp butter
⅔ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
2 ½ tsp vanilla
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 large eggs
2 cups of all-purpose flour plus extra*
1 packet of chocolate chips
¼ cup of sambuca (this is a guideline, but more sambuca = more flour)
What to do:
Beat the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla and baking powder until creamy.
Add the chocolate chips and sambuca and mix.
Beat in eggs.
Add your flour until smooth and you are able to make a dough.
*With the addition of the sambuca, more flour will be needed so the dough isn’t too wet or sticky.
Place the dough onto a baking sheet and shape it into a log.
Bake for 25 mins at 180 degrees.
Reduce oven temperature and take out the biscotti. Allow it to cool for a minute while oven is cooling and then slice into separate half-inch biscotti slices.
Bake at 170 degrees for another 30–35 mins.
There she stood outside Torta per Tutti, her face beaming, the sun shining gloriously in the clear blue summer sky. Raised high above her head she held a trophy. The trophy was shaped like a cannolo, bearing the inscription ‘Best Italian café in Manchester’. Her nanna and grandpa stood by her side – in fact, the whole family were there spread out across the double pages of the proclaimed Food magazine. It was the perfect scene.
‘Grandpa?’ Amanda heard herself saying. ‘Grandpa?’ she repeated, this time more forcefully willing him to answer. Suddenly her eyes flew open. She promptly sat up in bed, a chill sweeping over her entire body. Taking in the light pink walls and vintage posters of San Francisco and Jack Kerouac book covers that adorned the wall, she took a sharp intake of breath, feeling a tight pain shoot through her chest.
‘Bloody hell, Grandpa,’ she said wiping her eyes and shaking her head. It had all been a dream. If the corny cannolo trophy hadn’t given it away, her Grandpa certainly had. It took Amanda a moment to compose herself and to register the fact that Dan had shot up beside her.
‘Hey baby girl, hey,’ he said, reaching over and rubbing her back. Amanda breathed in a huge gulp of air. Dan gave her a minute, not rushing her to speak, allowing her to process her feelings, showing they mattered. Amanda surveyed the bedroom once more, her eyes resting on the postcard of Italy she had pinned to the wall. It was one her grandpa had sent from one of his trips back when the girls were younger. His words had jumped off the page right into her heart. She could only see the colour of the postcard faintly thanks to the light from the streetlamp outside, seeping in through a crack in the curtain. It was still dark out. She turned slightly and caught a glimpse of her alarm clock; 1.30 a.m. Another two hours and she would be getting up to begin her day at her café.
Dan was rubbing his hand in circles at the small of her back; his touch warmed that part of her body, making the rest of her icy in comparison. She quickly shoved her arms under the duvet and leant back into Dan’s chest. She stayed there for a moment, not saying a word, tracing the tattoos on his forearms. Her favourite – a black and grey rose – she knew was there but couldn’t quite see in the dark. The feel of Dan’s skin on her fingertips soothed her.
‘It’s our first Easter without him,’ she breathed softly, closing her eyes as Dan brushed his lips over her hairline. The familiar touch of his plump lips made her feel at home; made her feel strong in her most vulnerable moments.
‘And look at what you’ve created. Honey, I think your grandpa would be impressed, you’ve gone above and beyond with all you have done at the café and you’re only just getting started. The smiles you brought to all those people yesterday, how happy they were with their pastiera … he’s proud of what you’ve done, keeping his spirit alive,’ Dan finished, dropping a kiss on her bare shoulder. Sending home all her customers who visited Torta per Tutti yesterday with a pastiera and colomba had been a tradition her grandpa started at their house. No one would ever leave without a homemade pastiera courtesy of Amanda and Grandpa during the Easter holidays and it was a tradition Amanda had known she wanted to uphold in her café. She was looking forward to giving more out today and adored the thought of everyone slicing into them tomorrow.
Dan’s words wrapped a hug around her heart. He was right. She missed her grandpa terribly, but the hole in her heart had been somewhat filled with barley and ricotta like every loving scoop of it she poured into her pastiera this past week. Easter at Torta per Tutti was truly spectacular and Amanda had felt her grandpa’s presence with every casatiella she made and every Kinder egg she had sold this week. She had gone into work every day with an extra pep in her step.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered to Dan, tilting her head and turning to face him. The thin strap of her camisole slipped down as she did so, making Dan’s eyes stray from hers and wander over her lips, to her shoulder. She could feel the heat coming of his body. When he brought the strap back up to her shoulder with his gentle touch, grazing her collar bone with his fingertips, a spark ignited in her stomach and Amanda felt a
rush of heat to her cheeks. She ran a hand through his floppy brown hair and kissed him tenderly. When she pulled away, she watched the familiar way he kept his eyes closed savouring their kiss, his long lashes beautiful, his cupid’s bow perfectly pouting. Amanda wanted to enjoy this moment, to enjoy his company with no one else in the room, but she couldn’t shake the nagging insecurities in her mind. The media image, Dan doubting her trust, the late nights, Dan being out of sorts and the tension between them recently – it had all been adding up and they still hadn’t really talked about it or got to the bottom of what was niggling at them.
‘Dan, do you trust me?’ Amanda asked, her words confident with a hint of a wobble. She would never put Dan through any of the things Jason had put her through. Dan was the person she wanted to be with and that would never change. It hurt her to think that he thought otherwise, enough to question her friendship with Liam. She wasn’t going to sugarcoat this one. They had hidden feelings from each other before and she had thought all that was in the past. If something was wrong, he needed to respect her and tell her. If he thought they were better off as friends, he needed to speak up. Though her stomach knotted at the thought that he wasn’t happy and how she would cope if that were the case.
Dan’s eyes flew open; tiny golden specs flickered in his dark pupils with the trickle of light coming through the curtain. He shook his head, her hand still cupping his jaw. There was hurt inside his eyes.
‘Of course, my love,’ he uttered, his voice croaky with the early hour, stroking a hand over her hair.
‘Then why have you been so distant lately? And I’m not talking about the whole stupid ban from the café thing. You’re not telling me something, I can see it in your eyes. Since when do you get jealous and question my friendships or turn up late to studio sessions? And don’t think I haven’t noticed your hushed phone calls.’ Dan leaned into her palm.
‘I’m sorry. I promise there is nothing to worry about with us,’ Dan said, while Amanda could see the flash of turmoil in his eyes like he didn’t know how to open up. This wasn’t like Dan.
