I REMEMBER READING AN ARTICLE in a cooking magazine once about the art of the Italian meal. Everyone had their special recipes tucked away, of course, usually handed down generation to generation, but that in summertime the heat would keep many out of their kitchens. Taking advantage of the wonderful markets around every corner, people would leave the cooking to the experts when the stifling summer temperatures hovered above eighty-six degrees, and today had been no exception.
So I did what all good Romans did. I opted to let someone else cook. I cruised the market on the way home, scooping up container after container of prepared salads, roasted vegetables, a few different kinds of beautiful cheese, and a box full of decadent pastries. Schlepping everything home on the bus had been an adventure, but I’d managed it without spilling one morsel. Proud of myself for navigating the city, with packages no less, I allowed myself a little extra strut as I made my way into the courtyard of Daisy’s apartment building, greeting neighbors like I’d been doing it for years.
Marcello was coming. Also, he’d be having dinner . . .
THERE WAS A KNOCK at the door a few minutes past seven, just as I was slipping into a fresh linen dress, sleeveless and airy. I tucked a few flyaway hairs back up into my messy bun and padded to the door. Taking a final look at everything I’d set out, I smiled and opened the door.
“Tesoro, I—” he started to say, but then stopped as the door widened further and he could peek inside. “Tesoro,” he said again, his slow smile matching my own.
I’d lit candles, candles, and more candles. I’d practically cleaned out a stall or two at the market. Tealights, tapers, tall and fat and short and stubby—I’d set candles on every flat surface in the entire apartment and the effect was exactly as intended. I’d created a little wonderland, and who didn’t look extra sexy in a wonderland lit by candlelight?
“Come in,” I whispered, my pulse beginning to beat faster just for seeing him, my skin pebbling in anticipation of his touch.
“Beautiful,” he told me, looking all around at the flickering light but only speaking when his gaze came to rest back on me. And what’s this?
“You brought me flowers,” I said as he handed me a nosegay of ruby-colored sweet peas and baby pink primrose, gathered with a bit of lace to hold them together. “You’re spoiling me.”
“You are meant to be spoiled,” he replied, stepping into the apartment and closing the door. Reaching out, he gathered me into his arms, crushing me against his chest. “I missed you today.” He bent his head, nuzzling my neck and inhaling deeply.
“You did?” Sighing, I wrapped my arms around him, twisting my hands into his hair, feeling the silky strands between my fingers.
I could feel him nodding against my skin. He dropped kisses along the column of my throat and up to my jawline, moving back along toward my ear. “I missed this face.”
“This face?” I said, although to be fair it was more like a squeak. Now I could feel him smiling against my skin.
“This face,” he echoed, dropping kisses on both of my cheeks. He continued kissing whatever he’d missed. “This mouth” kiss, “this neck” kiss, “this shoulder” kiss. His hands that were tight on my hips now moved down, slipping across my bottom and giving it a squeeze. “This beautiful sedere.”
“Good God, did I miss listening to you speak Italian,” I murmured in his ear, nipping at the skin just below. “You could make me come apart just with your voice.”
Words, filthy words, words like scopare and limonare and dolce figa spoke to me in a voice that I’d dreamed of for years yet knew I’d likely never hear again outside of my own perfect memories. He kissed me stupid, pushing us, guiding us both back into the apartment and onto the couch, where my dress was promptly pulled up and my new lingerie was revealed.
“Woman, what are you wearing?”
I raised up on my elbows and looked at him innocently. “Oh, this?” I lifted my bottom and pulled the dress up and over my head, tossing it across the room so he could get the full effect.
Champagne-colored bra and panty set. Lacey. Ruffled. A little bit see-through in some places. A lot bit see-through in other places. Tasteful with a touch of cheeky. Exactly how Marcello liked me.
He licked his lips, eyes hungry. Just before he leaned down, he caught sight of the dining room table, set with plates and glasses, and the bottle of wine I had chilling in an ice bucket. He looked at me, then back at the table, then back at me again.
“Tesoro, you cooked, shouldn’t we—”
“I didn’t cook. I bought. I assembled. It can wait. Believe me, it can all wait.”
“Ah yes, but . . .” At war, he continued to look back and forth until I uncrossed my legs and showed him the part that was exceptionally see-through.
“Marcello?”
His eyes never even flickered up to my face. I don’t think he even tried, as a courtesy. “Si?”
“Wouldn’t you love dessert first for a change?”
Turns out he did. And he had it three times before dinner . . .
“THE ARTICHOKES, they are very good.”
“Right? I sampled a bit here and there, and these were too good to pass up.” I passed a plate. “Try the green beans, they’re fantastic.”
“Mmm.”
I loved hearing him make that sound. He’d made it only moments before, when he’d laid his head across my naked breasts, wrapping his arms around me tightly and sighing contentedly as I stroked his hair. All while he was still inside me. Mmm indeed.
After our impromptu “dessert” on the couch, we’d moved into the dining room for dinner. Wearing the button-down shirt he’d worn to work that day, I’d moved around the kitchen quickly, placing bowls and plates on the table filled with all the tidbits I’d picked up at the market. Marcello, blessedly naked from the waist up, opened a bottle of Gavi, filling our glasses and pausing only to drop a kiss on my collarbone as I passed by with a plate of vegetables. Or on my wrist as I set a wedge of pecorino down in front of him.
Or the space high on the back of my thigh just before it became my bottom when I bent over to retrieve a spoon I’d dropped.
Famished, we tucked into our assembled meal, sated . . . for now. That was the thing about Marcello and me, it was never enough. We could have sex for hours and hours, seemingly endless orgasms that stretched on an entire night and well into the morning. But when we woke? Hands were groping and hips were thrusting and it all began again. I was a different woman around this man. I felt more like a woman around this man, powerful and sexual and raw and wild. And as he licked a bit of lemon zest from his lower lip, crunching down on a green bean, I saw his eyes begin to darken once more. I knew this meal would be over quickly . . .
I ate with gusto, knowing I’d need the energy tonight.
IT’S AMAZING, WHEN YOU’RE IMMERSED in a new place, how quickly you begin to pick up the little things that make you a part of the scenery, rather than just observing it. When I arrived in Rome, I still craved a more American breakfast (eggs, bacon, pancakes, etc.), but now I ate my bit of pastry and drank my strong, nearly naked espresso standing up at the little bar in the window of a tiny shop with all the other Romans on their way to work.
To my relief, hearing and seeing the Italian language on a daily basis was beginning to pay off, and I found myself reading, more or less, the thousands of fliers that were posted all over town for various concerts, parties, exhibits, and countless other summertime activities.
And it was one of these fliers that I found myself reading while waiting for the bus one afternoon after work. Advertising a concert series for the International Ensemble Chamber Music Festival at the Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, a famous baroque church in the historic center, it appeared to be a popular evening activity for anyone who liked their music with a stunning courtyard backdrop.
I wanted to go. And I wanted to take Marcello.
“To a chamber music concert?”
I’d called him one night after work, thinking ahead to the weekend. Although originally I was hired to work only a few days a week, the frescoes were proving more difficult to restore than initially thought and I was putting in some serious overtime this week to bring the project in on time. Something that I was anxious to do, considering this was my first gig. By Friday night, the idea of relaxing under the stars and listening to some beautiful music while sitting next to a beautiful Italian man sounded like heaven.
I curled my knees under me as I sank onto the couch, exhausted after a long day but glad I could just pick up the phone and call Marcello like it wasn’t a huge deal. “Sure, we used to go to concerts all the time in Barcelona. I thought it’d be fun. Looks like this Friday night it’s a salute to Gershwin.”
“And you are craving something extra American for some reason?” he teased, and it made me smile.
“You’re not seriously picking on Gershwin, are you? And while I’m loving Roman life big time, I wouldn’t say no to a Nathan’s hot dog if someone put it in front of me.” It was summertime, and I hadn’t been to a summer society soiree at the club or the annual lobster bake and barbecue. Not complaining, but it was a different kind of summer for so many reasons. “Just say you’ll go.”
“Then we will go,” he said, laughing. “Friday night?”
“It’s a date.”
THAT FRIDAY I SPENT THE day with my frescoes. I was coming to know them so intimately.
Although from an artistic standpoint, they’d be categorized as “average,” from my standpoint they were priceless. They spread across the interior as the basic wall covering. Depicting scenes from daily life in the eighteenth century, the murals were agrarian in nature: water wheels, olive trees, shepherds and their sheep.
And the colors! Rich golds, bright greens, blues the color of the Aegean—below the kitchen grease and candle smoke, the colors I was recovering were as vibrant as the day they were painted.
And here and there I’d find a flourish, not quite a signature, but a certain swirl that I was beginning to recognize as the scenes flowed one into the next. Had it been an artist, there may have been an actual signature, but back then this kind of work, beautiful and technically sound as it may be, would have been the work of a tradesman. Someone who wouldn’t have been afforded the luxury of an actual commission, but certainly an artist in his own right, whoever he’d been. Hence, the flourish. I’d found it on day one while restoring a particularly festive scene of a butcher and his wares.
Some of the original paint had faded so significantly that it was only under a fine light and a pair of strongly magnified glasses that I could see the intention behind the lines, and recover it as best as I could. Between the hog being hoisted above the boiling cauldron and then the bristles being scrubbed off, there was a curious swirl of blue mixed into a scene that was composed entirely of reds and browns, yellows, and a bit of green to depict the hayfields in the background.
This swirl of blue appeared again in a scene of a gaggle of geese walking before a maid on their way to market, and once more in the corner of a field of ripe dusky olive trees. I’d begun to look for it, wondering about who it was that made his presence, however small and inconsequential it might have been, known to anyone who cared to look for it.
Who was he? What did he like? What did he love? Did he love his job, spending his days in some rich man’s villa composing scenes of country peasant life? Did he dream of someday painting in a grander house, in a church, or even in the Vatican across town? Or was he simply a tradesman, happy to be working and putting food on his family’s table and unable to conceive that a twenty-first-century woman dressed in denim overalls and pigtails with a device strapped to her arm linked to two tinier devices embedded near her eardrums would smile to herself as she uncovered another blue swirl as she hummed along to the tune of “Sure Shot” by the Beastie Boys.
Setting my tools down and stretching my back, I took a step back and regarded my work. Three quarters of the frescoes had been recovered and restored, and looked damn fine if I did say so myself. I was covered in drippy lime, fingers aching, skin cracked from the wet plaster drying repeatedly and taking every ounce of moisture from my hands along with it, and I couldn’t remember a finer day.
“Why haven’t you been doing this longer?”
Startled, I whirled around, finding Maria standing next to me and regarding my frescoes with a confused look on her face. I tugged the earbuds out, asking her to repeat what she’d said.
“I say, why haven’t you been doing this longer? Or rather, all along?”
“Oh,” I said, hitting pause on my music and scrunching up my nose. “Um, well, I took some time off after college and, well, got married, and I always planned to go back to work but there just never seemed to be a good time to go back and then—”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded, stepping away from me and toward the work I’d been doing today. She scrutinized the colors, the depth, where I’d had to embellish and where I’d had to re-create almost entirely. She leaned close to the plaster, closer, so close I was afraid she’d come away with a coat of green on the tip of her nose.
It’d match the one I was sporting. I also liked to lean in.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said once more, mostly to herself. I wanted to rock on my heels. I wanted to chew on my braid. But instead I stood up straight and waited for her critique.
“Very good, Avery.” She nodded, casting me a sideways smile. “Very good.”
I beamed! I’d come to realize that a good from Maria was the equivalent of an American awesome! A very good? I’d kicked some serious fresco ass today . . .
She began to walk away, but then turned just before she left. “You get married again if you want, but you don’t stop doing this.” She gestured to the wall. “Yes?”
“Yes,” I answered, butterflies springing to life inside my belly. But right now wasn’t the time to celebrate, it was time to get back to work . . .
“. . . AND THEN SHE SAID, ‘Very good, Avery,’ in that quiet, stern way she has; you know how she can sound.”
“I do. A very good is high praise from her,” Marcello said, echoing my thoughts from earlier.
“I know!” I chattered, threading my arm through his as we walked down the street outside the concert. People were already lined up, mostly couples, but a few families here and there, and some tourists.
Tourists. I could spot them now.
“She told me I should keep on doing what I’m doing.”
“And will you?”
I pondered this as he led me into the courtyard. “I don’t know; I mean, I’d like to. I don’t know if I can.” He steered us toward the ticket line, but I patted my pocket. “Don’t need to stand in line there, mister, I’ve got it covered.”
“Covered?”
“Yep,” I said, pulling the tickets out of my pocket. “I stopped by earlier this week and picked them up. I didn’t want us to have to wait in line.”
“You bought the tickets, yes?”
“I did,” I answered, nodding toward an attendant who was tearing them and showing people to their seats. “Anyway, if the opportunity came up to do some more restoration work I would definitely be interested, but we’ll have to wait and see what she says afterward. If she’d recommend me for another job.” We arrived down toward the front, and I was pleased to see our seats were in the third row, pretty much right in the center. “Wow, I got us great seats, huh?”
“Great seats. Huh,” Marcello echoed, pausing to brush them both off before allowing me to sit down. I knew that huh.
“What’s the matter with the seats?” I asked him in a low voice, leaning close.
“There is nothing the matter with the seats,” he replied, not taking his eyes from the stage. “I was planning on buying the tickets. I would also have gotten great seats.”
“But I already bought them,” I said, confused.
He huh’d again. “You bought the tickets.”
“Why do I feel like there’s something I’m missing?”
“You invited me to this concert, you should have let me buy the tickets.”
“Wait, you’re pissed because I paid?”
His jaw clenched. That meant I was right.
“Holy 1952, women are allowed to purchase concert tickets, they’re even allowed to purchase tickets for their fella.”
“You are making fun of me.”
“A little bit.” I placed my hand on his knee, patting it. “It’s not a big deal. I bought the tickets not to supplant your masculinity, but because I didn’t want to stand in that line, that line that’s still as long as it was when we first got here, mind you, so look who had a great idea about buying tickets early?”
He frowned, finally looking down at me. “I would prefer to pay for things, for us, when we are out.”
I shook my head. “I appreciate that, Marcello, and I’m sure that’s the way things are done here, but if I want to do something nice for you, for us, even if that means shelling out a little cash here and there, I’ll do it.”
“But—”
I placed my finger over his lips. “I know you’re used to getting your own way, and you likely still will, most of the time. But let this one go, okay? Let’s just enjoy the music.”
I watched his face as he listened to me, really listened to me and let my words sink in. My Italian man was old school, even more so than I realized sometimes. And I loved being taken care of by him, I’d never deny it. But I’d also been taken care of by someone for a very long time, and it was something that eventually made me feel small, weak, unable to make decisions for myself.
Did me paying for tickets to a Gershwin concert equal letting an entire marriage go by where I let my husband handle every single dollar that came into the house? No. No way. Not even close.
But it was a tiny foothold that I’d gained tonight, without even knowing it. I wasn’t going to apologize for paying for something. And I’d make sure however old school Marcello was that he knew where I stood on things like this.
I’d take a tiny foothold.
The lights dimmed, the music began, and I kept my hand on his knee throughout the concert. Sometime around “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” his hand covered mine, weaving his fingertips in between mine and holding tight. I grinned into the darkness.
WHAT DOES ONE WEAR to learn how to make homemade pasta? I asked my closet, rejecting dress after dress. I finally settled on an outfit, got dressed, and waited for Marcello to arrive. I sat, then stood, then sat again. Wait, was I pacing? I was pacing now, why was I pacing?
What was I feeling? It wasn’t nerves exactly, but something close to nerves. Excited? Yes. Antsy? Definitely. I had the lovely thrill running through me, a thrill that ran faster whenever I thought of his face, his eyes, his lips. His laugh.
Mmm . . . I got it.
Anticipation.
What we were doing, here, now, in Rome, was something new. We were trying something new.
It was something we’d skipped the first time, although not on purpose. We went from zero to naked in no time flat. Back then, we couldn’t help ourselves. Our hormones were not our own, and they ran the show. But this time, on our reunion tour? Consciously or unconsciously, we both wanted to savor this, experience this together like an actual couple.
I wanted to be more of a proper girlfriend and cook dinner for us, something local and luscious, but even though I’d taken classes in the art of French cooking, I was missing something in my repertoire. An authentic Italian meal.
There were flyers all over town catering to expatriates, those studying abroad, or long-term vacationers. Italian Home Cooking was by and large the most highly recommended on TripAdvisor.
I was banking on extra points from the teacher since I was bringing my own Tuscan son. Marcello wasn’t sure at first. He insisted he could teach me how to make pasta, gnocchi, and that incredible thick, crusty Italian bread I’d been served at every meal since arriving in Rome, but he’d yet to actually teach me a thing. In the kitchen that is.
A text came in from Marcello, letting me know he was late leaving the office and he’d meet me at the studio. A quick walk through Trastevere lead me to a bright, spacious building. The layout was perfect—every utensil I needed, piles of veggies that could rival the farmers’ markets, and a crush of eager students all sipping wine were scattered around the room.
At the center was a long banquet table set with glasses, plates, and baskets waiting for us to complete our meal and enjoy the feast we would make together. Exactly the kind of atmosphere I’d been hoping for when I signed us up.
Photos of previous happy classes dominated one wall. Students posing with their wine, their dinners, or with the chef. He reminded me a bit of Marcello, with a genuine smile in every picture. Our menu was written on a chalkboard in the kitchen. Pasta Bolognese, chicken cacciatore, Italian broccoli, roasted potatoes, and tiramisu for dessert. My stomach growled in anticipation.
Marcello strolled in, turning heads as he moved toward me. “You want to learn to cook like an Italian, why am I not just teaching you? I am Italian, no?” he said, kissing my cheeks quickly.
“Will I end up naked before we make dinner?” I whispered, pouring him a glass of wine from the nearby table.
“I cannot guarantee that,” he told me, taking a sip and winking over the glass.
I laughed and kissed him soundly, loving the sweet wine on his lips.
The instructor, looking every bit the Italian chef, came out from the back of the room and welcomed all of us to class His assistant handed out aprons along with a small instruction card, followed by a tour of the kitchens, which were pristine.
And now it was time to get to work. We were going to rotate through stations so that everyone got to have a hand in the preparation instead of one group getting to do one thing beginning to end.
To his credit, Marcello paid attention, even offering to chop parsley when the chef asked for volunteers. “Remember, you eat with your eyes first,” Chef Andrea said, explaining that we needed to be careful and take pride in our work. “We don’t want any ugly food. These may be rustic dishes, but you want them to look appetizing.”
“You look appetizing,” Marcello whispered, his breath smelling faintly like the wine and basil he was chewing on.
“Stop,” I admonished, trying to concentrate on my very glamorous task of chopping garlic.
“Good, good. Remember, celery, carrots, and onions for the Bolognese. No garlic. No matter what anyone say, garlic is not in everything.” Chef Andrea laughed, repeating the veggie list. “Just most things,” he added, scooping up a handful of garlic and lifting it to his nose.
The groups worked quietly, sipping wine, laughing here and there, but everyone paying very close attention to detail. A videographer bounced around documenting the class for the local American college, hoping to bring in new students. He caught me dipping my finger in the tiramisu filling and feeding it to Marcello.
“Avery, good job. You two move to the pasta next,” the assistant said, pointing to the stainless steel tables with an old-fashioned crank pasta machine.
We peeled potatoes, slathering them with olive oil and rosemary before lining a baking sheet with them. We pureed sauce, cut pasta, rolled gnocchi down tiny lined wooden boards, and stuffed chickens with lemons, garlic, and onions.
The class wasn’t just about learning how to do each step but about the food. Why the garlic is good for your heart. What makes a traditional Bolognese versus a knockoff version. Why some recipes differed by region. The chef took every question and answered it as if it was the most important thing he’d ever heard.
My apron was covered in semolina and Marcello had a smudge of tomato sauce on his cheek, but we got off easy. Some students had nicks from the ultrasharp knives and sported bandages on their thumbs. Others had imbibed a bit too much wine and had to sit out and wait for dinner.
In the end, we had perfectly al dente gnocchi that we scooped from the boiling water just as they started to float, freshly shaved pecorino in bowls for sprinkling over our hearty pappardelle Bolognese. The potatoes were steaming in a ceramic bowl, the rosemary perfuming the room. Silver platters held the chicken, peppers, and cacciatore sauce.
We sat along the table, sipping wine and digging into the food eagerly. Five hours we spent together, and in many ways, we came out of it with new friends. Marcello even signed us up for another class.
We tumbled into bed that night still smelling faintly of rosemary, too stuffed with wonderful food to do anything more exciting than cuddle and whisper into the night.