Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance (25 page)

“Oh my God!” I said, rushing into the room. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to celebrate your big thirtieth birthday,” Mary answered, hugging me.

“But how?”

“I planned my trip to Paris so I’d be there when you were in Italy. We’ve celebrated twenty-nine birthdays together. I wasn’t about to miss this one. When Danny said he’d be in Ireland this week, I asked if he was game to fly over.”

“I’ve been wanting to go into Chianti country to taste some new wines and products anyway, so this was perfect.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Happy Birthday, Casey.”

“This is so great. I can’t believe it!” I looked at the rest of the group. “So, you were all in on this?”

“Who do you think wrote and directed the scene?” John said. “Danny and Mary were easy, but the maître d’ took some major directing skill.”

“I made the—how you say
travestimenti
?” Nicole said.

“Disguises,” I translated for her. “I’m blown away. I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say. Sit, so we can eat. I have to catch a ten-fifteen plane back to Paris.”

Danny sat down next to me, and waiters immediately appeared with platters of antipasti and several bottles of wine, which they left on the table.

The antipasti led to baked pasta with porcini and cream and several bottles of big Tuscan red wine, which led to Tuscan pork roast with garlic and rosemary, and more bottles of an even bigger Tuscan red, which led to salad, then cheese, and a really big Tuscan red. The crew all made toasts and as the wine flowed, the toasts got funnier. John ended his by saying, “And remember: a day without wine is like a day without sunshine.”

“And what’s a bloody day without sunshine?” Rocket asked, raising his glass.

“Night,” said Danny sending us into more fits of laughter.

Between courses, we passed the disguises around the table,
and took several rolls of very funny, potentially incriminating photographs. I figured that the show was picking up the tab for the meal and if they saw the pictures, they would wonder if any one of us were competent to be out on our own.

When Sally put on the pink gloves, black mustache, and yellow curls, Rocket jumped up to get a clearer shot and pulled the tablecloth with him. It sent two glasses of water flying into my lap and Danny’s.

“Whoa,” Danny said in a falsetto voice. “You got me where the sun don’t shine.”

“Does charmeuse shrink?” I asked Mary, standing up to wipe the water off my skirt.

“I like it better when you wet the top,” Danny said.

“How’s that?” Rocket asked, leaning by him to get a closer look at my dress.

“Casey has had a few run-ins with water lately,” Danny explained.

Rocket leaned back and said in an exaggerated whisper, “Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, mate, there’s not much of that top to wet.”

“Oh, I noticed,” he said, grinning at me. It would have taken a lot more than cold water to dampen our spirits. We were all ready to party, and we did. We laughed our way right through dessert and on to chilled glasses of
limoncello
. I had never had the sweet, thick lemon liqueur, and after one sip I declared that I would never let another liquid cross my lips.

“It’s like the absolute perfect lemonade. Not too sweet. Not too tart. No, not lemonade; more like a melted lemon sorbet,” I said.

“Be careful,” Danny said. “It’s lethal. The alcohol content is quite high.”

B
Y THE TIME WE
dropped Mary at her plane and got back to the hotel, John had curly blond hair, Rocket wore the purple hat and pink chiffon scarf, and a Sally with long black hair had convinced Danny to come to Ravenna with us when he got back from Chianti. It just seemed like the best idea to all of us. John had his arm around Danny and told him he could bunk in with him and they’d show the Brits how to have a good time. Seemed to me the Brits had figured it out fairly well on their own. We agreed that Danny would meet us back here on Thursday so we could travel to Ravenna together.

Danny walked me to my room and I leaned back against the closed door; leaning was easier than walking or standing. He rested his hand on the door next to my head. “You okay?”

“I’m great. I still can’t believe you came all this way for my party.”

“Why not? You came to mine.”

“That was across town. This was across England and France and . . . did you have to cross Spain as well?”

“No. But I would have.”

“That’s because you’re sweet.” I slurred it slightly.

With his one hand still on the door and the other by his side, he leaned in toward me and rested his cheek against the side of my head. “Mmm. Casey. Casey. What is it about you that attracts me so?”

“My knife skills?”

I could feel him take a deep breath, and then he leaned back so he could look at me. If he found my comment amusing, he wasn’t laughing. He was looking at me in a way easy to recognize, and I took a deep breath of my own. He lifted his hand from his side, slid it around the back of my neck, and drew my face to his. At first, his kiss was light and then it became deep and demanding. I could taste
limoncello
on his tongue and I
ran my tongue over it hungrily. He wrapped both arms around me and his kisses became so wanting that they sent a quivering warm sensation to the spot that an hour ago was cold and damp from Rocket’s spilled water. Or maybe it was my own wanting of him that was making my nipples tighten and that spot feel warm. My arms were around him and my hands had a life of their own as they caressed his strong, firm back. He felt so unbelievably good that I let myself simply melt into him. I was close enough to feel that his own watered-down body part was reacting, and I slid my hands down to his hips to pull him closer. He moaned softly and ran his hands the length of my body, then stopped and concentrated in the area of the slit.

“Wait,” I said breaking from his kiss so I could reach into my bag for the room key. He took the key from me and unlocked the door. I walked to the center of the room and sensed that he wasn’t walking with me. I turned to see him leaning with both hands against the doorjamb, looking pained. He wasn’t moving into the room, and a Bill Anderson song rudely pushed its way into my head: “Walk Out Backwards (So I’ll Think You’re Walking In).”

“No, Casey.”

“
No what
?”

“Not like this, though Lord knows I want you.” I really wished he hadn’t brought the Lord into a situation in which I was so willingly eager to sin. “You’ve had more than a little to drink, love, and if I come in, you might regret it in the morning.”

“I won’t. I won’t. I double-swear I won’t.”

He reached around the door and put my key on the dresser. “I don’t want to take that chance, because if you do regret it, you’ll hate me tomorrow. Sleep well. I’ll see you Thursday,” he said and closed the door.

“I hate you now,” I screamed at the closed door.

An empty bottle, a broken heart, and you’re still
on my mind. —
Emmylou Harris

T
he next morning there was a note under my door and a pain in my head so intense it made it impossible to focus on the words. I needed coffee and a hot shower. I put the unopened note on the dresser and called room service. “
Caffè in abbondanza, per favore. Quattro caffè. Caffè italiano, non caffè americano
.” I had found that American-style coffee in Italy was little more than colored water. I needed coffee with substance, but the thimbleful the Italians serve was not going to do the trick, so I’d ordered a lot of it, along with dry toast.

“
Subito, signora
”.

“Immediately” meant I had the twenty minutes I needed to stand in the shower and defog my head. My breakfast was delivered ten minutes after I stepped out of the water. Still wrapped in the hotel’s terry robe, I sat down with my four small pots of Italian coffee, dry toast, and the note, which I had already guessed was from Danny. I opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of hotel stationery. “Dear Casey. It’s not
nice to tell people you hate them. I’ll see you Thursday morning at eight-thirty in front of the hotel. Don’t be late. I have your birthday present. Danny.”

Well, if he planned to give me what I had wanted last night for my birthday in front of the hotel at eight-thirty in the morning, we’d be arrested.

Half an hour later, I was dressed and in the lobby. Sally arrived next.

“
Buon giorno
,” she said.

“Not so
buon
,” I groaned. “I guess
limoncello
is not exactly just melted sorbet.”

“You feel okay?”

“Better now, but I wouldn’t have given odds on my survival an hour ago.”

Ten minutes later, Sonya came running up, out of breath and apologizing for keeping us waiting, and the three of us got into the Mercedes. I wasn’t exactly happy when she said she felt as lousy as I did, but I was glad to know that I wasn’t the only one who had misjudged my dinner wine.

Once we were under way, Sonya took a small pile of papers out of her tote and handed them to us. “Michelle, my new assistant, sent me an e-mail with these attached. They’re messages that viewers sent after Danny’s live show. The response has been utterly overwhelming. Viewers absolutely
loved
him! We haven’t had a response like that since your first shows, Sally. They want to see more of him.”

“Why that’s wonderful,” said Sally. “You should grab him for more shows now.”

“I’ve thought about that, and I think I have a great idea. I wanted to run it by you first. Since you’re going to be in the studio to do the voice-overs a week from next Monday, how
about doing a show together with Danny?”

“Why not?” said Sally. “I think that would be great fun.”

“Fantastic. I’ll ask him on Thursday when he gets back from Chianti.”

“If he says yes,” Sally said, “we can go over what we’ll do when we’re in Ravenna. That’s perfect. Did you tell him already about his fan mail?”

“Not yet. He’d left by the time I called his room this morning.”

Sally looked at me and raised her eyebrows. She had that glint in her eye. “Unless he slept elsewhere?”

“He didn’t,” I said.

“Oh?” she said. “Last I saw you two were walking off together.”

Sonya looked over the tops of her reading glasses at me. “Do you and Danny have something going on that I don’t know about?”

I looked down at the pile of love letters to Danny Every-one’s-Vole-But-Mine O’Shea. “Do you mind? I’m pretending to read here.”

G
IUSEPPE DROVE INTO THE
hills north of the city and dropped me off at a restaurant known for its Florentine specialties, particularly its
bistecca alla fiorentina
. The classic dish is not just any steak. The beef is cut from the very large, white Chianina breed of cattle, and the
bistecca
is a two-pound or more T-bone served blood rare. The crew had already taken B-roll of the cattle, Sally was on her way to the
macelleria
, the butcher, to see the beef being cut into steaks, and I was on my way to slaughter.

Chef Mario Ponti, the talent, was about five foot ten, with curly brown hair, a rounded belly, and wandering hands. When
they weren’t busy with the food they were busy with me. The first time he pinched me I gave a little scream and wagged my finger at him. I probably should have punched him, because he obviously took my reaction as encouragement. The next time he grabbed a whole cheek and squeezed. I pushed his hand away and told him not to do that again.

“
Mama mia
. You American girls are too tight up.” I didn’t know if he meant my butt or my attitude, but it made no difference. I was going to have to set some rules here. The problem was, I didn’t want to make him mad. I’ve known Italians who’ll kick you out of their places for a lot less than rejecting their manhood. He grabbed his crotch—or, as my mother would say, “adjusted himself”—and gave me “the look.” “
Ah, che corpo!
” he said, looking the body he was admiring up and down. This guy took flirting to a whole new level, which was freaking me out.

“Mario, you’re a nice man,” I lied. He adjusted himself again and grinned at me. I continued: “But I’m . . .” I tried to remember the right vegetable from episodes of
The Sopranos
. Not eggplant—that’s a black guy; not squash or cucumber—those are dopes; fennel. Yes, fennel. “
Una finocchia!
”

He removed his hand from his crotch, looked me up and down once more, and said, “What a waste!” I guess I had it right. A female fennel is a lesbian.

“Not to my lover,” I said.

From that point on it was all business. By the time the others arrived, by putting his hands to their proper use, Mario had a wood fire going in the fireplace for the
bistecca
and had made six pots of
ribollita
, a Tuscan vegetable, bean, and bread soup, in various stages of boiling and reboiling. We set up for the
bistecca
first.

The
bistecca
was not a demonstration but the final scene in
the segment on Chianina beef. The segment would open with B-roll of the cattle with Sally’s voice-over describing what they were, then proceed to the butcher showing how to determine if the cut was authentic, and finish with Sally eating one in the restaurant.

Sonya directed the cameras to set up by the fireplace, and the opening shot showed the red-hot wood coals burning under the footed Tuscan grill and the raw steak sitting on a board on the fireplace hearth. “Action,” said John. Mario salted the meat, drizzled it with olive oil, and transferred it to the grill. After a few minutes, which would be edited out, he turned the steak and John let a few more disposable minutes pass before directing Mario to transfer the steak to a plate. The meat was so large it completely covered the plate and hung over the sides a bit. After a long close-up of the plate, John said, “Cut” and the cameras set up by the table where Sally was sitting. The next shot was of Mario putting the steak in front of Sally. Sally said a few words about how big and gorgeous it was and then sliced into it. There was a close-up to show how red it was; then Sally took a bite and, once she’d swallowed, said, “Now, that’s a steak!” She wished us all a good appetite and John said, “Cut. Nice job.”