Apricot Kisses (2 page)

“What is it?” I mumble.

“You don’t exactly look recuperated.”

“Don’t I?”

Her eyes narrow. Claire, my French colleague, is less than five feet tall and as slender as a deer, yet she completely unnerves me.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the circles under your eyes, does it?” She waves a magazine at me, which I guess is the newest issue, with apricots on the cover. It gets me going. Just thinking about that horrible trattoria makes me livid. How long do you have to cook vegetables to make them gray like that? I needed a whole glass of wine to rid my mouth of the taste of MSG in the ribollita. Claire sets the magazine on the table with raised eyebrows. The headline jumps out at me: “Tre Camini Spoils
la Dolce Vita
!”

“Believe me,” I say, “it was high time someone spoke openly. I know what good Italian food is supposed to taste like. And at that place”—I stab at the red-shingle roof in the photo—“they definitely don’t serve good food. The chef should count himself lucky he only had to deal with me. My mother would have skinned him alive.”

But Claire isn’t listening. Her pine-green eyes drilling into me, she lowers her voice. “
Bon sang.
Give me a break. You were in Italy! The country of gorgeous art and
savoir vivre
, the country that also happens to be your birthplace. You’re supposed to come back tanned and happy with at least four more pounds on your tushy. Instead, you wrote five articles, e-mailed every three hours, and wrote thirty letters to the editor. And your behind is as skinny as it has always been.”

“I happen to love my job,” I say. “Italy might be your dream destination, but my only connection to it is my mother’s last name. Besides, it’s not
savoir vivre
. It’s
la dolce vita
.”

“I see. Still, I’d like to know why you can’t live without your laptop for a couple of days.”

“Stop bugging me, Claire,” I say. “It was a bummer of a vacation. It rained ten days out of fourteen, I wasn’t relaxed for a second, and I definitely had no nostalgic feelings for the place. I combed through village after village, surrounded by stupid Italians who drove like they all won their driver’s licenses in a lottery—not to mention chefs who should have been delivering newspapers instead. Of course I work during vacation.” I shrug. Claire wouldn’t understand anyway—being a food journalist is all that has survived of my dream of being a serious writer. I worked night and day, typing till my fingers were raw, all just to get a column of my own. And my column, and the influence it gives me in the food world, means everything to me. Even if it isn’t always pleasant.

Claire’s expression softens. “How bad was it really?” she asks. I rummage in my purse and come up with an ashtray, two dessert spoons, a soap dish, and a sugar shaker. Claire sighs. “Do you have the addresses so I can send these back?”

“Of course I have the addresses.” I fish in my handbag some more. On each restaurant’s brochure, I meticulously marked down what I swiped from the place. Embarrassed, I add a tampon case to the loot—souvenirs of six gastronomic bombs within two weeks. Greetings from
la dolce vita
.

“Wow, what a cute sugar shaker!” Sasha sneaks in, and a few brown drops fall on my papers.

“My god! Look at you.” Claire adjusts her glasses and assesses Sasha’s raincoat. “Why are you wearing a kid’s coat? And such an awful hat. Did you crochet it yourself?”

“I just like this coat. And I like my hat, too.” Sasha shrugs and leans against my desk. “Why do we always have to return the trophies you take from the places you tear to pieces in print? Why don’t you keep the stuff? It’s not worth anything anyway.”

“But that would be theft.” I shake my head.

“It would be . . . Hanna, I think you’ve lost your mind.”

“Shut up, Sasha. That’s not true.” Claire points to the clock on the wall. “And you were late today.”

“Hanna was late, too,” Sasha says, her revenge for our conversation in the elevator. I gasp, but Claire is faster than I am.

“Just as a reminder,
mademoiselle
,” she says to Sasha. “We are the journalists and you’re the intern. We might not be sticklers for hierarchy in this office, but the rule still applies: you’re the one who makes the coffee. That means your workday begins before ours, so you can turn on the machine. Understood?”

“So I’m late because I stood in line for you at the coffee stand. Well, that makes my day.” Sasha rolls her eyes.

“I knew you were smart. Now get lost and bring me a
café au lait
,
s’il te plait.
And after that, you’ll send Hanna’s mementos to their owners without mouthing off anymore. The way it’s always done.”

“Coming up!
Immediat . . . amente.
” Sasha salutes, then ducks when Claire tosses a pen at her.

“Get lost?” I grin. “Claire, you’re a sweetheart.”

“I’m not sweet at all—stop kissing up. Hellwig wants to see you. Today. At the airport. And it didn’t sound like an invite for a chat.”

Absentmindedly, I pick up Claire’s ballpoint pen from the carpet. “I thought the boss was in Helsinki.”

“He fit in a layover in Berlin before flying to Vienna. The Austrian office—oh, don’t even ask.”

I don’t need to ask to know what Claire means. Our Viennese office manages to win the internal award for most boring edition every single month. It drives our editor in chief crazy.

“Do you know what he wants to talk to me about?” It can’t be a good sign that Hellwig is summoning me to meet him at the airport. I hope he isn’t considering transferring me to Vienna. Although, come to think of it, Viennese coffee and those delicious buttery confections might sway me.

“Well . . .” Claire purses her red lips.

“Don’t make me pull each word out of your nose.”

“You want to pull words out of my nose? You Germans are seriously crazy.”

“Claire!”

“Honestly, I have no idea what he wants. All I know is that you have exactly an hour and a half to arrive at the airport on time. So chop chop.”

Fabrizio

I don’t know what I expected. An empty restaurant at noon? Respectful silence, as hurrying people learn, from one look at my face, that I can’t tolerate being jostled?

With my carryall on my shoulder and Nonna’s urn under my arm, I wind my way through the crammed airport restaurant. I’m lucky: there’s an empty table in the back of the place, right by the window. I navigate around a baby stroller, climb over pieces of luggage, and nod to a woman who graciously pulls her suitcase out of my way. I drop into the chair and push away the last person’s tray—an abandoned plate of spaghetti that the gourmet splattered with ketchup. A waitress shows up out of nowhere, her order pad at the ready. Her smile reveals an impressive row of white teeth.

“What can I bring you?” she asks.

“Your dentist’s phone number.”

Her smile widens. “You’re Italian.”

“That so? Thanks for reminding me.” I have no choice: I smile back, even though she’s wearing too much makeup and I’m not in the mood to flirt. “I haven’t looked at the menu yet. What would you recommend?” I try not to stare at her full chest.

She giggles. “We’re not a starred restaurant, you know.”

“You aren’t?”

“The daily special is pork roast with mashed potatoes. It’s only six euros.”

“Who could resist that.” I grin and set Nonna on the upholstered chair next to me. She’s not very stable. Changing my mind, I plop the urn on the table. “All right, I’ll take the special and some water.”

“Are you in the food-service industry?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You scrunched your nose when I told you our daily special.”

I glance at the red-and-blue monstrosity. It doesn’t seem right to put one’s grandmother next to instant mashed potatoes. And Nonna didn’t like pork.

“You should study psychology,” I say. “Your powers of observation are amazing.” Maybe I should put Nonna on the windowsill. That way she’d have a view of the runway.

“Actually, psychology is one of my minors,” she says. There’s a pause. “All right. I’ll go and get your order.”

“Sorry?” When I glance up, all I see is her round, disappearing backside. Very pretty.

I turn away and watch a Lufthansa plane dock at a gate. A man in a yellow security vest drives a cart toward it. As another worker opens the cargo door, my briefcase starts to vibrate. Well, my phone, which I’ve been successfully ignoring for two days. It’s probably Lucia, or maybe Rosa-Maria. If I’m unlucky, it’s Marco. They’ll kill me even before I touch down on Italian soil. I can’t blame them after the stammered message I left on the trattoria’s answering machine:
Nonna died. I’ll arrive Friday.
That’s all I said.

I bend down to my briefcase with a sigh. I can’t find the phone right away; instead my fingers touch something stashed in a side pocket that I’d rather forget: the magazine from the waiting room. I automatically flip to the article, which I’ve read at least twenty times, and wish for the hundredth time I hadn’t translated its harmless-looking sentences for Nonna.

Tre Camini Spoils
la Dolce Vita
!

How lovely it could have been, sublime, really, if this magazine handed out stars for the most beautiful location. Because Tre Camini is definitely pretty, especially for adventuresome guests who dare to leave the Strada Provinciale 88 shortly after the little village of Montesimo and follow the unmarked gravel road. Their reward? A picture-perfect vista of Tuscany, the kind that tourists love to send home on postcards: a grand manor house crowning a hill that is covered with wildflowers, a hill that is as perfectly round as the puff-pastry bonnet on Paul Bocuse’s famous truffle soup.

The ocher-yellow stone building seems to lean a little, but not enough to cause uneasiness when you enter. You’re the only patron at 8:00 p.m., but even this doesn’t arouse suspicion at first. After all, you’ve been told in the village that the kitchen “up there” is the best, far and wide. But if you believed it at first, disillusionment sets in quickly. The friendly young server is overtaxed when asked for a wine recommendation, and then brings a glass of red wine instead of the requested pinot grigio. It’s the house wine, she says. The nameless wine is light and fruity with a velvety aftertaste, so you are inclined to forgive her ignorance.

Unfortunately, this is the overture to a culinary tragedy beyond compare—and that in a country celebrated worldwide for its cuisine. Half an hour later, the guest sits without a spoon in front of the trattoria’s specialty, ribollita. The famous Tuscan soup turns out to be made with store-bought broth and some frozen vegetables that bob up and down like corpses. It is served with stale bread.

The second course tempts you to a game of pick-up sticks with the undercooked noodles hidden under a mountain of mysterious green sauce. The cook makes a valiant attempt to increase your revulsion with the main course: lamb, the consistency of a leather sole. No trace of a side of vegetables or a salad, just two tough, meaty rags accompanied by a dab of mustard from a jar. By now the guest knows better than to order a dessert—

“Really, our roast doesn’t look
that
bad.”

Startled, I fold the wrinkled magazine and glance at the indifferent assortment of meat, mashed potatoes, and grayish-brown gravy that’s appeared in front of me. Then I look up. The waitress returned in record time.

“Forgive me. My thoughts were elsewhere.”

A frozen smile, the one she probably uses for hundreds of customers, replaces the woman’s earlier flirty one. “That’s all right. Enjoy.”

I put the magazine back into the bag and grab my fork before the waitress says anything else. I’m relieved when she stalks away with swaying hips. Women.

Hanna

Airports always impress me. They are gigantic, colorful, and noisy. Loudspeakers blare the airlines’ broken promises, while the beginnings of a thousand possibilities are detailed on the Arrivals and Departures boards. The Arrival terminals are my very favorite. I already watched some hellos when I arrived at Berlin-Tegel this morning, but still, I’m bummed I don’t have time to savor a few rounds of reunions, which, like the last few minutes of
Love Actually
, always send me reaching for a package of tissues. But I have no time to indulge today, so I race through the terminal, a challenge in high heels.

As I expected, the airport restaurant is crammed. I squeeze through a group of green-capped seniors that has commandeered the bar area and look around. Knowing Hellwig, he’s probably reserved a table, probably somewhere in the back. And, indeed, I spot his familiar profile at a table near the window. I catch myself before I can raise my hand to wave. Hellwig hates to be the center of attention and loathes whoever puts him there.

I force myself to approach him slowly on my stilettos. Unfortunately, it’s obvious from my panting that I don’t go to the gym regularly. I feel like a pupil summoned to the principal without knowing what she has done wrong.

It’s always like that when I meet with Hellwig. There’s something about this athletic, good-looking man and his pale eyes that intimidates me. Claire suspects that something else is responsible for my jitters—total nonsense, of course. Who’d be stupid enough to start something with the boss? Then a suitcase on the floor ruins my dignified approach. I stumble.

“Ouch! Damn.” Pain pierces my shin, my boss shoots me an irritated look, and for a millisecond my eyes tangle with another startled pair—espresso-colored ones.

“Scusi,
signora
.”
The stranger at the neighboring table picks up his briefcase. I force a smile and then ignore him, even though he has espresso-colored eyes.

“Hello, boss! Sorry for being late.” I congratulate myself on my recovery—I’m a little out of breath, but otherwise it’s as if the last three seconds didn’t happen.

“Frau Philipp. A grand entrance—as usual.” Hellwig’s expression remains neutral. I sink down into the empty chair, hold back the urge to rub my shin, and reach for the menu.