Dolci di Love (14 page)

‘Is not nothing,' she said.

Trapped inside that plastic cape with a scalp full of blonding solution, Lily felt her heart pound, felt the blood thunder through her thighs, her forearms. She was ready to spring to her feet and run.

‘My boyfriend…' Eugenia began.

Lily's hands gripped the arms of the chair.

Her
boyfriend
.

This was going to be bad.

She looked at Eugenia's image in the mirror, but the wretched woman wasn't glowering with rage, she was just standing there,
hunched over, looking at the floor, shaking slightly. She did not look like she was going to dump all the dye on Lily's head and throw in a cup of acid for good measure. She did not seem inclined to grab the shears and give her a buzz cut.

In fact, she collapsed on the chair next to Lily and burst into tears.

‘My boyfriend is run away!' she cried. ‘He is run away from me!'

Her husband's mistress clearly needed comforting, but as Lily sat there, her hair standing out Smurf-like from her head, she couldn't bring herself to do anything but shift uneasily as Eugenia's weeping drowned out the music.

‘You are very upset,' she eventually said. ‘I'm so sorry, this must be a very difficult time for you, but perhaps we should wash this dye off and I could come back another time?'

‘Sorry, sorry,' Eugenia sobbed, her tears falling like the week's earlier rain. It was impossible to not feel sympathy for her, but she was still the woman who was stealing Lily's husband, and she just couldn't sit there and counsel her, even if she had known what to say.

‘OK, well, I think I will just start doing it myself if that's all right with you,' she said, moving over to the basin and turning the faucets on.

‘Sorry, sorry.' Eugenia sobbed even harder as she watched her client rinsing her own hair. ‘I am so sorry.'

‘I'm sure he hasn't run away,' Lily said, applying shampoo. ‘He's probably just gone somewhere on business.'

‘One week he is gone,' Eugenia said. ‘One week he is not wanting to see me.'

One week,
thought Lily, upside down and rinsing as she calculated when she had left home. She'd assumed Daniel was staying longer in Italy because of the mistress and children, but if he wasn't with them, where the heck was he?

‘How long have you had this boyfriend?' she asked as casually as she could, rubbing conditioner into her hair.

‘A long time,' Eugenia answered. ‘We have a child. We have children. But he is a bad boyfriend. Very, very bad!' And she was off again, weeping.

The children! They had all but escaped her mind. This nervous wreck who could barely dye half a head was in charge of Daniel's children.

How could he leave her like this? Her Daniel, known for his kindness, his understanding, his lovely character, and endless patience? It was bad enough that he was cheating on Lily and leading a secret life somewhere else, but to be botching that up too? Had he walked in right then she would have mohawked the living daylights out of him.

But he didn't. And Eugenia was clearly not expecting him to. The weeping woman reached into her pocket and shook a couple of pills out of a prescription bottle.

As Lily dried and styled her own hair, Eugenia stayed slumped in her chair, crying.

‘My purse,' Lily said when she was done, pointing to her bag, which lay at Eugenia's feet.

‘Sorry, sorry,' she wept as she handed it over. ‘You have lovely hair. Come back tomorrow and I give you free blow-dry.'

It was all Lily could do to mumble an apologetic goodbye and flee, leaving poor Eugenia collapsed in front of the mirror, rocking back and forward, and chewing through the Kleenex.

‘A
re you going to tell me what is going on?' Luciana asked after Lily left the kitchen. ‘You look as though you've been run over by a horse and cart. What did she say?'

Violetta sat down. Her head was spinning. ‘What was that? With getting her to help make the
cantucci
? You think anyone can make our
cantucci
?' she asked.

Luciana raised the spindly remains of her eyebrows. ‘You can talk. What was that with getting her to round up the “
santamerda
”?'

‘You know, I'm getting mighty sick of you questioning every single thing I do, Luciana!'

‘Well, I'm getting mighty sick of it too. If you'd just answer my questions perhaps we would both be happy!'

‘You can't just let anyone come into our kitchen and make our
cantucci
. It doesn't work like that.'

‘No, it works better! Did you see how she mixed the dough? She was a natural. Those beautiful, strong young hands. Look at these smooth straight logs, Violetta. She did that in no time at all while thinking about something else. What on earth are you so scared of?'

‘I'm scared of what little we have left going straight down the drain and taking us with it,' Violetta argued, but that wasn't the truth.

‘I know my memory's going but I'm sure you used to be more fun than this,' Luciana retorted.

‘And you used to be six foot tall,' her sister barked back.

‘Well, if I was six foot tall now, I would pick you up and throw you out the window.'

‘And I would roll down the hill and not stop until I hit the coast where I would set up another
pasticceria
in competition with your one and squash you like a tiny little cockroach.'

‘A tiny little six foot tall cockroach. Good luck with that!'

They bickered like this for a couple more hours as they baked Lily's dough and grumpily made more of their own in nowhere near the time or fashion.

Then the widow Ciacci's head poked up at the window.

‘I have a report to make,' she trilled. ‘No need for a meeting as it's only an update.'

‘Get on with it,' snapped Violetta.

‘Burn the
cantucci
again, did we?' the widow Ciacci asked cheerfully. ‘Honestly, there isn't a molar left among the lot of us, you may as well try your hand at marshmallow.'

‘I said get on with it!'

‘Well, I've just been to the bank to—oooh!' She disappeared from the window. ‘
Allora
! Not again,' they heard her say from the street below. Her chair had seen better days, that was for sure.

Luciana poked her head out the window but her neck was too stiff to look downward.

‘I'm OK,' the widow Ciacci called up, and eventually there she was again. ‘Serves me right for using flour and water instead of going to the
alimentare
for glue. Anyway, as I was saying, I had to go to the bank to get money out because I lost thirteen euro playing
pachesi
with my sister-in-law. She's quite the whiz, could make a fortune in the back streets of Palermo, let me tell you. But anyway, when she came to meet me to pick up the cash—first time
she's ever turned up anywhere on the dot as far as I know—she told me that she'd nipped away from her job at the salon on Via Ricci while a “pretty blonde American”, that would be our
calzino's amore,
was having her roots done. Fancy that! Her roots! Do you know what this means?'

‘The salon on Via Ricci?' asked Violetta.

‘She's not a natural blonde!' crowed the widow Ciacci.

‘I don't think anyone is a natural blonde,' said Luciana.

‘Did you say the salon on Via Ricci?' Violetta asked again.

‘Yes, yes, Via Ricci.'

Violetta turned to her sister. ‘Didn't you tell her to tell the widow Ercolani to recommend any salon
other
than the one on Via Ricci?'

Luciana looked puzzled. ‘I think I did, although you didn't bother to tell me why. Or did I?'

‘Yes, yes, you did,' assured the widow Ciacci. ‘but she didn't go to the tourist office in the end. The widow Pacini saw her cutting across, just up the hill here. She found the salon on Via Ricci all on her own, but I wouldn't worry too much if I were you, Violetta. Eugenia Barbarini may have her problems, but she's a very good hairdresser, according to my sister-in-law, as long as she remembers to take her pills. Or is it if she doesn't take her pills?'

‘Eugenia Barbarini,' Violetta echoed.

‘Yes, Eugenia Barbarini, you know—strumpet daughter of the late loony Maria, sister of crazy Carlotta, mother of the peculiar kid who was in your store yesterday.'

‘I know who she is,' Violetta said, her mind whirring as the widow Ciacci's chair gave way a second time. ‘
Allora
!' they heard again, then Violetta poked her head out the window.

‘Get the town perimeter covered and when you find Lily try to keep her contained. Don't ask why, just do it. And get widow
Del Grasso to head straight to Poliziano and tell her to use the restroom first this time. If Lily turns up and stays for more than two glasses of wine, I want to hear about it, pronto.' Then she shut the window and pulled the curtain.

‘What on earth is going on?' Luciana asked her. ‘You look like the same horse and cart has come back and run you over a second time.'

W
hatever Lily had thought she might achieve by coming to Tuscany, she felt a long, long way away from it.

In the space of forty-eight hours she had been talked to by a tiramisu, berated by her GPS, sought refuge from a total stranger, and nearly relieved of her crowning glory by the unhinged mother of her husband's secret love children.

The truth was, she thought, after half an hour of being lost in the back alleyways between Eugenia's salon and the
pasticceria
, she felt a long, long way from anything.

But when she finally emerged back onto the Corso, she found herself in a familiar spot, right beside the little
gelateria
she had seen the day before when Carlotta was out in the street being fired.

The same handsome man was standing in the doorway and lavished her with a beautiful smile. ‘Signora,' he said, ‘can I interest you in a gelato?'

He was short, shorter than she was, but had the most gorgeous big, brown eyes. Italian men really knew what to do with that unusually seductive part of their anatomy. If Alessandro's eyes were deep pools of sadness into which, nonetheless, a person still felt like diving, the gelato man's eyeswere a bubbling Jacuzzi: just as inviting but fizzing with energy.

‘I'm sorry, I'm not much of a gelato fan,' Lily said, smiling back at him.

‘No!' he cried, holding up his hands in mock horror. ‘There is no such thing I think as “not much of a gelato fan”. You obviously haven't tasted my gelato. Come on, come on, just try some. Just a little bit?'

She shook her head, but before she could scuttle away, he walked over to her, holding out his hand.

‘Mario Cappelli,' he said as she shook it. ‘Come on in, I'll give you one on the house. I will not be able to rest thinking there is such a beautiful woman right here in Montevedova who is not much of a gelato fan.'

Up close he looked almost edible. His skin was like slightly burnt caramel, and those eyes so chocolatey they made her feel hungry. Although a glass of wine would be nice, she thought, as she allowed him to lead her to the glass-front freezer where his gelati were glistening.

There were a dozen or so flavours, but it was the three different sorts of chocolate, at varying levels of decadence, that caught her attention.

Three glasses of wine would be even better
, Lily thought, eyeing up the triple chocolate.

‘If you are going to go
cioccolata
, you are barking up the right alley,' Mario said. ‘This is my own favourite: chocolate gelato with chocolate drops and chocolate
crema.
My grandmother and I make it all right here,
fatto a mano
. The best in the whole town, if not all of Toscana.'

It was wrong, Lily thought, to be looking at
triplicare di cioccolata
but to be wanting wine instead. It was wrong to want to drink wine at all after disgracing herself so horribly in Pienza. The thought of what had happened there still made her skin crawl and conjured up a picture of her mother asleep at the dining table while Lily and Rose chomped silently through burnt macaroni and cheese.

‘Well, I guess I'll have the triple chocolate,' she said suddenly. It had been years since she'd eaten ice cream, but she didn't particularly have any place else to be, only places she particularly didn't, and this wasn't one of them, so why the heck not.

She sat at the one table in the window of the store while Mario scooped out a huge helping of the delectably glossy gelati and put it in front of her. She was just lifting the first spoonful to her lips when Francesca, still wearing her tatty wings, poked her head in the door.

Lily's heart jumped—she had so much of Daniel in her! It was truly extraordinary. It wasn't just the eyes, the cheekbones, the chin; there was a slight reticence that was uncommon in good-looking people, the opposite of arrogance. It made the likes of Francesca and her father all the more appealing.

The little girl's face lit up, but Lily wasn't sure if it was at the sight of her or the gelato.

‘This is really too much for one person,' she said to Mario. ‘I don't suppose you would have a second spoon?'

She waved Francesca over and she flew to the seat opposite, fizzing with excitement.

‘Why aren't you at home?' Lily asked when they'd made a decent inroad into the ice cream.

‘My mamma came home from work,' Francesca said. ‘She need quiet in our house.'

‘Where's Ernesto?' Mario asked from behind the counter.

‘With Aunt Carlotta,' Francesca told him. ‘Forever, I hope.'

‘You don't like having a little brother?' Lily asked.

‘Sometimes it's OK but mostly he likes it with Carlotta,' Francesca explained matter-of-factly. ‘At home, my mamma cries, he cries, everybody cries, and it is very loud.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' Lily said. She looked over at Mario, who gave a noncommittal shrug.

Lily felt the gelato slide cold and heavy in her stomach. She had assumed that Daniel had betrayed her for an idyllic life, but that was clearly not the case and she couldn't decide if this was better or worse. She'd imagined him in a love nest here, his adoring mistress draped in clinging wraparound dresses and constantly smiling at him as she cooked his meals and took care of his children. Instead, Daniel himself was missing, the mistress was a train wreck, one child was fobbed off to an aunt and the other one had been kicked out of the house and was roaming the streets. Luckily there were only two of them to roam.

‘What do you do for your job in America?' Francesca asked.

‘I'm vice president of Logistics for a big company in New York,' Lily explained, taking welcome refuge in her Heigelmann's persona. ‘That means I'm in charge of transporting our product from its factory bases on the Eastern Seaboard all around the rest of the United States. We move more than eighteen million units a month, so it's very important that everything gets to where it's going on time so our customers can buy it and we can meet our budget forecasts. That's up to me.'

‘Oh,' Francesca asked, licking her spoon. ‘What's a unit?'

‘A unit is one of our products. We have more than 185 different products and they're all coded, contained, and shipped out separately.'

‘But what are they?' Francesca persisted.

‘They're a single item,' Lily continued. ‘A single product item is what we call in English a
unit
. If we made spoons like the one you are holding, it wouldn't be called a spoon in any meetings we had about it, it would be called a unit.'

‘
Allora
, English is complicated,' the little girl said. ‘I still don't understand.
Capito
, Mario?
Non capisco
.'

‘I think she wants to know why you don't just call it a spoon,' Mario said.

‘I haven't explained it very well, have I? We don't actually make spoons so I'm confusing you.'

‘But what do you make? That's what I mean,' Francesca asked.

‘Well, we make a lot of things but they are all basically some sort of premixed or premade consumer comestible,' Lily explained, losing faith in her Heigelmann's persona, which was proving to be of little help in present company.

Francesca stared at her a moment, then turned to Mario.

‘Is she speaking a different language?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't think so, but I don't know what she's talking about either,' he said. ‘What's a comestible?'

‘I suppose it is a different language,' Lily said. ‘A comestible is something you can eat.'

‘Oh! What is premix?' asked Francesca.

‘Premixed is where we have done most of the work in the factory, and all you have to do at home is just tip it out of a carton or a package and finish making it. So if you want to make a cake, for example, you buy a packet of our cake mix instead of having to buy all the separate ingredients like flour and sugar and…' She thought of the painstaking torment Violetta went to in making her
cantucci
and wondered if perhaps baking mixes hadn't taken off in Italy.

‘Or, you might buy your biscotti, your
cantucci
dough, premade in a tube and frozen, and all you have to do is slice it up, bake it again, and then you have your
cantucci
.'

‘You make
cantucci
in America?' Francesca asked, finally grasping something. ‘Like you do at Violetta's shop?'

‘I'm not making
cantucci
at Violetta's shop, sweetie, I'm just staying there, and anyway, at home we call them cookies and they come in all sorts of different flavours like chocolate chip or peanut butter or lemon cranberry—that's new by the way. But I certainly don't make them myself there, either.'

‘But that's your work!'

‘No, no, no, my work is in an office, really, just organising and arranging things and going to meetings and actually probably not very exciting at all to a little girl like you.'

‘But I would like to make the cookies with you, Lillian. That would be exciting! Would we do that? In the Ferretti sisters' kitchen? Would we?'

Lily laughed. ‘No, sweetie, I don't have any of the cookie mix with me and even if I did…'

She felt that little door in her mind swinging open and closed again. What was behind it?

‘But before you had this product of the units with the premix you must have made them with the natural ingredients, no?' Mario asked. ‘With flour, sugar—you know, all the old-fashioned things?' He had gone a bit sour on her, Lily thought, which was perhaps not so surprising since everything here was
fatto o mano
. But at home, well, that was the way the world had gone with Heigelmann's pushing it every step of the way. Mixes were cheaper and quicker, and statistics had told her, had told everyone, that nothing beat cheaper and quicker.

Francesca was next to Lily now, fairy wings trembling slightly as she pleaded at her elbow. ‘Please, please, please, Lillian Watson, can we make the American cookies together?'

‘I don't know how,' she told Francesca. ‘I just don't know how.'

‘You never made them when you were a little girl like me?' Francesca asked.

Lily looked into the little face turned up at her now and saw that it might have borne Daniel's features, but it wore Lily's own girlhood longing; for love, for attention, for everything to just be normal.

Francesca's mother was locked in her house popping pills and crying over a doomed romance with the wrong man. Wasn't that Lily's own history? Her mother slapping, cursing, crying…there
it was again—that unexpected pleasant sensation wafting into her consciousness, the same one she got from the ceiling in her room and the smell of the Ferrettis' kitchen.

A glimmer of light shone through the door in her memory. Could it be…?

‘Yes, I think I maybe did make them when I was a little girl like you,' she said gently, unable to keep herself from reaching out and stroking the smooth brown skin on Francesca's cheek. ‘Oatmeal cookies. They were my sister's favourite.'

‘I wanted Ernesto to be a sister,' Francesca said. ‘But he turned out a boy.'

‘Well, I'm sure you will love him anyway, just like I love my sister,' Lily said, and she had never felt more like a coward and a fake.

‘Maybe does your sister know how to make the oatmeal cookies?' Francesca asked. ‘We could get her to show us.'

‘She doesn't live here, honey. She's in America.'

‘But you could call her,' Francesca insisted. ‘Or you could e-mail her or SMS her.'

‘I could,' Lily said, softly. The modern world made it very difficult to not get in touch with people. You just had to want to.

‘Well?' Francesca asked. ‘Can you? Ask her? Pleeeease? Can we make the cookies together? Pretty please?'

Making cookies was the last thing Lily felt willing or able to do, but the truth was that a woman could not spend half a lifetime dreaming of having a small child beg for her company and then, when she found one, turn her down.

‘You know what?' she said. ‘Of course we can. I'll find the recipe somehow, and then you and I will make oatmeal cookies.'

The smile on Francesca's face was worth all the mess she could ever make in the Ferrettis' kitchen—and even a medium-size but perhaps controllable fire.

A less controllable fire was the one she was in danger of igniting by getting so close to Francesca's mother and aunt.

‘You want me to check with someone that it's OK for you to come by?' she asked.

‘I can do that,' Mario said, to Lily's relief. ‘With Carlotta I mean. She will appreciate the help, I am sure. You know when you can do this?'

‘Let's say eleven, tomorrow, unless I let you know otherwise. Carlotta won't be worried that she doesn't know me, that I'm a stranger?'

‘You are not that strange, signora. You should see some of the other people who have stayed at the
pasticceria
. And you're good with her,' Mario said, nodding at Francesca. ‘That's all Carlotta will care about.'

He was a little sweet on Carlotta, Lily thought, trying not to swell with pride at being ‘good' with this child who was so close to being hers—yet also so far away.

‘I'm going to make cookies!' Francesca hooted. ‘American oatmeal cookies!' And she danced out the door and up the street.