Italian for Beginners Page 29

  The hostess snapped her gum at us. “I don’t know if that’s allowed.”

  Karina stared her down. “I know the owner,” she said. “And I’m sure it’s fine.”

  She took me firmly by the hand again and dragged me into the main dining room before the hostess could protest.

  As soon as we got through the doorway, we both stopped in our tracks.

  The room looked entirely different than it had last time I’d been here. Gone were the nondescript prints of old Italian paintings, as well as the fake vines and grape bunches that had lined the walls. The entire interior, in fact, had been redesigned. The curtains were a lovely black velvet now, and the tablecloths were a rich black, too, which looked striking against the exposed brick walls.

  But the most obvious difference was my photographs, which were spaced evenly around the room, six on each of three walls. All together, they looked larger than life in their stark black and white.

  I stood motionless for a moment, staring at the work I’d done. I’d never seen them collected this way before, and certainly not eighteen of them together at this size. They were all framed in shiny black wood lined with silver, which only enhanced their sharp, black-and-white-movie quality. As I gazed around at the walls, I felt I was reliving my month in Rome in vivid detail.

  I recognized a scene from the Ponte Sant’Angelo, and two angles of the Trevi Fountain. There were several shots of the Forum and one shot of a café off the Piazza Venezia. There was a shot of the Pantheon and two of the banks of the Tiber River. There were three photos of Vatican City, and one of the Mouth of Truth, which reminded me, of course, of Roman Holiday— and of Marco. And there were also several shots of Romans going about their daily business: two old men playing chess outside the bakery near Karina’s apartment, a trio of old women hobbling down the street, two teenage girls on a stoop leaning together and obviously gossiping about a boy who was passing by. Most striking, though, were two pictures that sat side by side in the center of the back wall.

  One was a shot of a little boy playing soccer in the park. You couldn’t see his face, and since it was dusk, it was hard to make out any distinguishing details.

  “That’s Nico, isn’t it?” Karina asked softly.

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. It was strange to see him on the back wall of Michael’s restaurant.

  But perhaps even stranger was seeing the shot beside it. It was the picture I’d snapped of Aunt Gina as she was cleaning the window of the store the day I’d met her. She had just turned around, as if she knew she was being watched, and her eyes met mine through the lens, just before I snapped a final shot and turned away, pretending that my attention was elsewhere. I had, of course, seen the photo on the screen of my computer before agreeing that Gillian could show it in her gallery. But I’d never seen it blown up to such a large size. Even from a distance, you could see Gina’s deep eyes, her smile lines and her worry lines, and the expression of curiosity on her face as she stared out from the photo. I took a few steps closer, oblivious to the diners around me, and gazed at Gina, feeling a pang of sadness as I thought about how far away she was and how much I missed her.

  “That one was my favorite,” said a deep voice behind me that I recognized immediately, “because the woman in the picture kind of reminded me of you.”

  I whirled around. “Michael,” I said flatly. I swallowed hard. He was just a few inches away from me, looking at me closely. I glanced around for Karina, who had backed all the way across the room and was watching us with an amused expression. She gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  “Hi,” he said simply.

  “Hi,” I said.

  We stood there, just looking at each other, for a long moment.

  Then Michael blinked and cleared his throat. He glanced behind me. “Is that Karina over there?”

  I nodded. “Yes. She and her son are visiting.” I glanced in her direction again and realized she had disappeared.

  He looked confused. “She didn’t tell me she was coming.” He paused. “She told me about the gallery that sold these pictures, though. Is that why you’re here? Did you come to see the photos?”

  I hesitated and nodded slowly, not sure what to say.

  “They really make a difference, don’t they?” he asked, looking around at all the pictures.

  I nodded, but I still didn’t say anything. I couldn’t seem to find the words.

  We stood looking at each other again. “So, you’ve been doing okay?” Michael finally asked. “It’s, um, been a while.” I could tell he felt as awkward as I did. There was something comforting about that.

  “I got your note,” I blurted out suddenly. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I just… I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I’d screwed it all up, just by not listening to you. But I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for anything. I wasn’t ready for what might happen if I called. I—I know I was wrong not to, but I didn’t know what to do.”

  Once the words were out of my mouth, I felt strangely like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. And now, the butterflies were back as I waited to hear what Michael would say. Once I had opened myself up to him, admitted I was wrong, it was as if I had reopened a closed road to my heart. I was handing him the power to reject me. And that was scary.

  “It’s okay,” he said finally. “I’m sorry, too, for not trying harder to clear things up with you that night.” He paused and thought for a second. “I think I wasn’t ready, either. I wanted to be. But I wasn’t. And I think I knew that deep down.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. I wasn’t sure what he was telling me. Was he still unready? Was he still scared?

  “But I think I’m ready now,” he added after a moment. “For what it’s worth.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “I think I am, too,” I said softly.

  We stood there for another awkward moment. It was as though the restaurant had faded around us and it was just Michael and me, in our own little bubble.

  “I kind of like standing here,” he said suddenly. I knew he was trying to alleviate the awkwardness. Neither of us seemed to know what to say next. “I feel a little like I’m in Rome,” he added. He paused, and when I didn’t reply, he added, “But I guess that sounds sort of silly.”

  “No,” I said. “It doesn’t. That’s how the pictures are supposed to make you feel.”

  He laughed. “You say that like you know the photographer.”

  I looked at him closely. “I do,” I said softly. I looked up and met Michael’s eyes. I didn’t know whether to tell him or not. But suddenly, I found that I wanted to. I was proud of this, and proud that the photos I had taken made him feel something. “It’s me.”

  “What?” Michael asked, looking confused.

  “The photographer,” I said. “It’s me. I took the pictures.”

  He looked even more baffled. “What? No. It’s a photographer named Audrey something. A new talent, the gallery owner called her.”

  “Audrey Verdicchio,” I said.

  “That’s it.” Michael snapped his fingers. “How do you know that?”

  I took a deep breath. “Audrey Verdicchio was my mom’s name,” I said. “When I decided to try to sell some of the photos I’d taken in Rome—with Karina’s help—I decided to use her name. I didn’t want anyone to know it was me.”

  He stared at me. Then he looked slowly around at all the photographs until his eyes landed on the one he’d said was his favorite. “And that woman in the picture?” he said.

  “My aunt Gina,” I said softly. “That’s probably why she reminded you of me.”

  “My God,” Michael said softly. He shook his head. Then he looked back at me, and after a moment, a slow smile spread across his face. He laughed. “So all this time, I’ve been surrounded by you. Literally.”

  I laughed, too. It was sort of funny when you thought about it that way. “I guess so,” I said.

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t usually believe in signs. But there’s got to be
some cosmic message in all of this. Right?”

  I hesitated and nodded.

  “So at the risk of sounding like a fool,” he said, “would you consider going out with me again? If I promise to you that I’m not, in fact, married? I haven’t even been out on a date since that disaster date I had with you.”

  “Well, the whole date wasn’t a disaster,” I said with a half smile.

  “No, it wasn’t,” he agreed. “But the end was.”

  I nodded and looked down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am. Do you think we can ever forget about it? Can you forgive how silly I acted?”

  Michael paused, and for a long moment, I thought he was going to say no. But then he spoke, his voice slow and deliberate. “Maybe it’s not about forgiving or forgetting,” Michael said. “Maybe it’s about remembering everything and being willing to start over, anyhow.”

  “Even if it means you might get hurt,” I added softly. I thought of my father and my mother, how much more I understood now, and how much I’d probably never understand.

  “But sometimes, it’s worth the risk,” Michael said. He took my hand. “Don’t you think?”

  I looked into his eyes, and for the first time in a very long time, I had the feeling I was exactly where I belonged. I smiled back and let myself stare into his eyes long enough to reawaken the butterflies slumbering in my stomach. “Yes,” I said finally. “I do.”

  About the Author

  Several years ago, while living in Europe for a summer, my friend Kara and I took a trip to Italy. The country captured my imagination—not to mention my taste buds!—and some of our adventures even made their way into this book. There was, for example, a real Roman man who tried to convince me to go home with him by looking me unabashedly up and down, waggling an eyebrow suggestively, and saying, “But, Kristin! Listen to your body!” (I told him, “I am listening to my body. It’s saying no.”) There was an Italian cover band that seemed intent on mangling the lyrics to my favorite English-language songs, which sent Kara and me into fits of giggles. And there really was a Marco Cassan, although mine was a restaurant manager in Venice who took me on one of the most memorable trips of my life— a fiveday culinary journey through Tuscany, where we stayed in a converted farmhouse in a chianti vineyard and ate our way through the most amazing under-the-radar restaurants in the country (I can still taste the dense bread we dipped in olive oil in Siena, the soprasetta we ate in San Gimignano, and the wine and fresh lemon poppy bread we feasted on in the countryside while looking out over endless fields of sunflowers at dusk). So for me, memories of Italy revolve largely around amazing food and the kind of romance that fills you up with hope, and I wanted to send Cat on a journey that included that.

  But Rome is awash in history, and I wanted to tie that in, too. And while world history fascinates me—particularly in cities such as Rome and Venice, where the remnants of the past are all around us—I thought it would be more meaningful to have Cat tackle her own history while surrounded by the ruins of the ages.

  Why? It’s because the older I get, the more I realize how my own past has shaped me, and indeed how the past shapes all of us. And it’s not just the past itself that can shape our futures; it’s the way we have perceived and dealt with the past. Misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and betrayals can last a lifetime and change who we turn out to be— if we let them.

  In this book, Cat’s entire life has been shaped by the fallout from her mother’s departure, and as I wrote her story, I found myself realizing just how much my own past has shaped me. I found I had a handful of bad memories and hurt feelings that I’d locked away in a little corner of my mind, never realizing that they had become such a huge piece of who I am today. Cat comes to the same realization in this novel, and it’s not until she deals with her own past that she’s ready to move into her future. I’m trying to do that, too.

  If nothing else, I hope that this novel will make you think about how your own history has impacted you—and how you can deal with the things that have influenced you negatively so you have more power to shape your own positive future. Sometimes, once we dispatch those ghosts, it frees us up to realize that the very things we were looking for have been right in front of us all along.

  You can find out more about me and my other novels (The Art of French Kissing, The Blonde Theory, How to Sleep with a Movie Star, and the young adult novel When You Wish) at my Web site, www.KristinHarmel.com.

  Enjoy the book! Perhaps I’ll meet you over a glass of chianti one day in Rome!

  5 Recipes Inspired by

  Italian for Beginners

  One of the things I like best about Rome is the food! Since so much of Italian for Beginners centers around food—and the people who make it—I thought I’d share with you five recipes for dishes I make at home—and that Cat eats throughout the novel:

  The Big Dipper’s Cheese Fondue

  Cat goes on a date to the fictional Big Dipper fondue restaurant in New York, where she and Michael Evangelisti share cheese fondue and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. You can do the same at home:

  INGREDIENTS:

  1½ cups (12 ounces) shredded Gruyère cheese

  1½ cups (12 ounces) shredded Swiss cheese

  1 tablespoon flour

  1¼ cups sauvignon blanc wine

  Dash garlic powder

  Dash Worcestershire sauce

  In a large bowl, toss the two shredded cheeses together and coat with flour.

  Meanwhile, bring wine to a simmer in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

  Gradually stir in cheese mixture, stirring constantly until melted and smooth.

  Once smooth, stir in garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce.

  Transfer to a fondue pot and keep warm with a small Sterno cooking fuel.

  Serve with torn bread pieces (I like Italian and pumpernickel!), celery, carrots, and apples.

  Enjoy with the remainder of the bottle of sauvignon blanc.

  SERVES 4–6

  Squisito’s Roman Rice-Stuffed Tomatoes

  While visiting Rome several years ago, my friend Kara and I had cold, rice-stuffed tomatoes at a restaurant near the Roma Termini train station. They were so good that we skipped the Trevi Fountain the next day in favor of returning to the restaurant for another round! This version is somewhat Americanized, but it’s quick and easy enough that you can make it for a weeknight meal. (As a side note, it was the waiter at the restaurant actually who tried the “Listen to your body,” line on me—the same one that’s used on Cat in the novel.) In the book, Cat and Nico eat rice-stuffed tomatoes at Karina’s restaurant, Squisito.

  INGREDIENTS:

  6 large ripe tomatoes

  1½ cups rice, cooked (I use instant rice or leftover white rice)

  1½ cups tomato puree

  2 garlic cloves, minced, plus a few dashes garlic powder

  10 fresh basil leaves, chopped

  1 teaspoon dried oregano

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon pepper

  Extra-virgin olive oil

  Heat oven to 375 degrees.

  Cut tops off tomatoes and scoop out pulp, leaving the body of the tomatoes intact. Retain tops.

  Remove the seeds, chop the pulp, and place in a bowl.

  Add the cooked rice, tomato puree, minced garlic, garlic powder, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper. Mix well.

  Fill each of the tomatoes with [[frac16]] of the rice mixture. Cover each tomato with its top, place in a baking dish coated with nonstick spray, and drizzle each tomato with a little olive oil, using your fingers to coat each tomato lightly.

  Bake 12–15 minutes, until tomatoes are soft, hot, and cooked through.

  Serve right away or refrigerate and serve cold, as in the book. Cat eats them with a side salad and a glass of prosecco, a perfect summer lunch.

  SERVES 6

  Pantheon Margherita Pizza

  You haven’t had pizza until you’ve had it in Italy. This version is simplified, but it’s a quick a
nd easy way to make a real Italian pizza that will knock the pants off of takeout and delivery. In the book, Karina and Cat dine on margherita pizza near the Pantheon.

  INGREDIENTS:

  1 premade pizza crust

  Olive oil

  6 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced in rounds and blotted dry on paper towels

  ½ cup packed, torn fresh basil leaves

  4–6 ounces fresh buffalo mozzarella (it comes packed in liquid), thinly sliced

  Salt and pepper

  If using a frozen pizza crust, prepare according to package directions and let cool until you can touch it comfortably.

  Preheat oven to 475 degrees.

  Place crust on baking sheet, then cover crust with several liberal dashes of olive oil; use your fingers to spread evenly over crust.

  Spread tomato slices all over crust, covering as much area as possible.

  Follow with basil leaves, again spreading evenly.

  Finally, cover with thinly sliced mozzarella.

  Drizzle with a little more olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

  Bake on lowest rack for 8–10 minutes, keeping an eye on it to make sure cheese doesn’t burn.

  Cool slightly, slice, and serve with a salad. In the book, Karina and Cat enjoy it with a bottle of chianti.

  SERVES 4

  Karina’s Creamy Risotto with Asparagus, Zucchini, and Mint

  I’ve always loved risotto, but I hadn’t had it with mint until I visited Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for my good friend Kristen’s wedding last year. We dined at an Italian restaurant; I ordered the risotto of the day, and I couldn’t stop talking about how much I loved it. In the novel, Karina marries the flavors of asparagus, zucchini, and mint for a flavorful, beautifully green summer risotto, which pairs perfectly with salad and crusty Italian bread (or with panzanella salad; see next). This recipe is the result of much trial and error in my now-asparagus-splattered kitchen.

  INGREDIENTS:

  1½ pounds asparagus, tips cut off and reserved