Apricot Kisses (17 page)

“Not very convincing,” she says finally and withdraws her hand. After what seems like an eternity, she adds, “But I’ll look the other way.”

Relieved, I get up, wishing I could shake myself like a dog—and not because my pants are dusty.

“You’re doing me a big favor,” I say. It’s hard to sound grateful. I’d much rather wring her neck for humiliating me in front of the entire world, even if only a few rabbits saw me on my knees.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says. “I’m doing it for my job, which means at least as much to me as the apricots mean to you. And for Lucia, who liked your stupid idea because she believes in true love. I won’t be the one to tell her the truth.”

She’s right. Disappointing Lucia is like leaving a pizza in the oven too long. You burn your mouth and then do everything you can to never do it again.

“We’ll let Lucia believe her fairy tale until I have my fields and your boss has forgiven you. Then you’ll be out of here, and I’ll take care of everything else,” I say, as if everything else will be a breeze. Lucia isn’t going to speak to me for the next thirty years.

“And you’re sure you’re not in the Mafia and ‘out of here’ means I’ll find myself in some lake with my feet in concrete?” She rubs her arms as if she were cold. The gesture makes her seem stubborn and vulnerable at the same time, and I have to fight the urge to step closer to her.

“The Mafia is everywhere around here, Signora Philipp. But you don’t have to worry—there’s not a single lake.”

But she doesn’t seem to find me funny.

Her handshake is dry and firm, just like the way she speaks: short and resolute. Then she gathers the sandwich wrappings, neatly folding rather than crumpling the paper, and limps in her one slipper toward the truck. I bite my lip.

“Signora Philipp?”

“What?”

“I think it’s time we address each other less formally.”

Hanna

I prepared myself for all sorts of responses—anything from a one-minute laughing fit to a sermon. I even prepared myself for a torrent of French expletives. But I didn’t expect silence on the other end of the line.

“Claire, are you still there?” I whisper.

“Hm.”

“Is that all? You can’t come up with anything more than a lame ‘hm’?”

Silence again. In the background, I hear the sounds of a metropolis at night. How I’d love to be back in Berlin right now, sitting at my desk in the deserted office, listening to the clicking of my keyboard and the radio on low, while the muted sounds of cars and occasional honking come through the windows. A week ago, silly cow that I am, I had no idea that my life was so together.

“Oooh, I’m still sorting,” she finally says. An alarming word. She usually only says “sorting” when she’s talking about Jan’s socks.

“And how much longer do you need?” I ask.

“Hold on a moment. You don’t answer my calls for days. Then you call at one in the morning with a crazy love story and expect a coherent analysis from me?
C’est impossible!
” Claire starts laughing.

“What do you mean, ‘love story’?” I say, and she just laughs louder.

“First you have to toil in the kitchen so Fabrizio will take back his poor grandmother, who’s languishing in your underwear. Then he wants you to marry him so he’ll drop the suit. And now you—both of you—have to play the loving couple for his crazy family even though you aren’t in love. And on top of that, this Italian lord of the manor is not an obnoxious country boy, but an educated and extremely sexy man. So if you ask me, it definitely sounds like a love story. Actually, an
amour fou
, if you know what I mean—a tale of passion. Dime-novel writers would kill for that storyline.”

“But I don’t think Fabrizio is sexy at all.”

“Of course not,” Claire says. “Your nether regions have always been slower than your brain.”

I gasp. This conversation isn’t going the way I wanted it to. Whatever her reaction, I didn’t expect to be
more
confused after telling her everything.

“Claire, I know it’s a disaster. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“What do you want me to say?” Claire asks, and I can tell that she’s smiling. She drives me up the wall sometimes.

“What do you think? I want you to tell me how I can get out of this mess.”

“Pas du tout”
is her prompt reply.

“What do you mean, ‘not at all’?”

“I mean absolutely not. There’s a reason you are where you are.” I can imagine her nonchalant shrug. “Make the best of it.”

Make the best of it? That’s easy for her to say. I close my eyes. “So you think I should actually marry him?” I say, even though the answer was obvious even before I called.

“What do you have to lose? Worst-case scenario, you can’t show your face in this Monte-whatever again. It seems like Signor Camini will keep his promise. And divorces can be arranged quickly—if you will still want one.”

“Of course I’ll want a divorce.”

“Then it’s all crystal clear,” Claire says gently, and I can tell she doesn’t believe a word I say. “But if you want my two cents’ worth: Find things to like at that place. I know you have to sweat it out in the kitchen, and this Rosa-Maria sounds scary, but hey, you’re at a romantic manor house in Tuscany with a gorgeously built . . .”

“Shut up, Claire.”

“I won’t say anything else. Just buckle down and enjoy beautiful Italy.
Savoir vivre
, remember?”

“I’ll try. I’m sorry for waking you.” I don’t want to hang up. I wish Claire could hug me right now. This Italian chaos is wreaking such havoc with me that I even want my mother.

“
Pas de problème
, that’s what friends are for. But Hanna?”

“Yes?”

“Just listen to your heart for a change.”

Chapter Nine

Hanna

“Hey, Signora Know-It-All! If you want to learn things about Italian food, you’ve got to watch.”

I’ve been trying—desperately—to see the sunny side of my Italian situation. The last three days, I’ve gotten up with Vittoria’s crowing, worn the apron and slippers, and finished Rosa-Maria’s slave labor without complaint. I’m even reading the awful dime novels to soften her up.

Fabrizio’s only shown up for meals—which he eats, like his brother, in silence—so my days are an herb-infused blur of Rosa-Maria’s commands, Lucia’s consolations, and the crushing realization that my article was completely off. Rosa-Maria guards the quality and freshness of her ingredients like a bloodhound.

“
Terribile
, absolutely awful!” Rosa-Maria stares at the content of my pot. I wanted to prove that even Germans can make a delicious Bolognese sauce, but she shakes her head. “The meat is dry and flavorless.” She throws the sauce into the sink.

“But you didn’t even try it,” I protest.

She shrugs. “If the aroma comes out instead of staying in the sauce, the ragù is only good for chickens.” The master cook pushes me aside and sets her own tomato sauce on the stove. She opens the freezer and takes out a brick-size package of ground meat.

“You can’t sauté the meat first. That destroys the flavor,” she tells me. I watch in disbelief as she plops the brick into the sauce. Luckily Lucia rushes into the kitchen right then, drowning out my “Yuck!”

“Does anyone know where I put the guest list?” She glances around the kitchen, lifts a cutting board, checks underneath it, and then drops it back on the counter.

“What guest list? Shouldn’t a wedding at city hall be over in half an hour?” I say suspiciously.

Lucia looks at me as if I’d lost my marbles. Rosa-Maria stirs her pot and chuckles quietly.

“Benvenuto in bella Italia,”
she mumbles and exchanges a glance with Lucia.

“We have to move the ceremony to the community hall,” Lucia says.

“Why?”

“Well, there’s not enough room at city hall.”

“But this family isn’t that big.” Then I understand—although I’d prefer to not know the answer to my next question. “How many people are coming?”

“According to the mayor, our village has three hundred and fifty-six people, not counting children.”

I swallow. Three hundred fifty-six witnesses to the biggest lie of my life. Can it get any worse? I plop down on the bench next to Alberto. He’s staring at the television, and I suddenly wonder if he uses the TV as a cover for eavesdropping.

“But do we have to invite everyone? It’s not even a church wedding,” I say in a tiny voice.

“Fortunately, we don’t have to bother to invite
anyone
. Everyone in the village will show up anyway, if only for Rosa-Maria’s ribollita,” Lucia says. “Of course, they’ll also come because of you and Fabrizio. They just love your incredibly romantic story.”

“How nice.” Help!

“We’ll obviously have to hold a church wedding later—a grand one, with a wedding dress and a cake and all the works. Otherwise everyone will be insulted. I hope your relatives from Berlin will be able to come then, too. This is just a warm-up celebration.” Lucia beams.

Wedding dress and wedding cake. I’m about to throw up.

“All of this really sounds
in-cred-ibly
romantic,” says someone behind us. Marco is leaning against the door with arms folded. My cheeks heat up when I notice a crumpled edition of
Genusto
magazine under his arm. Didn’t I see Fabrizio stash the article in his desk drawer? I somehow manage to endure Marco’s piercing look and paste on a casual smile.

“Ciao, Marco. Would you like an espresso?” I say nonchalantly. It’s not that I don’t like Marco. I still feel the same way about him as on my first day, when we ran into each other in the hallway. But now I seem to run into him all the time. And he always looks at me as if he knows something is fishy. It makes me very uncomfortable.

He comes into the kitchen, kisses Lucia, and gently touches her nose. “Yes, I’d actually like an espresso. Maybe you could drink one with me, Hanna—in the office. There are a few things that we need to discuss about the wedding.”

“Oh, I’d love to, but”—I look at Rosa-Maria for help; she’s stirring the frozen ground beef to perfection—“Rosa-Maria needs me.”

“Nonsense. It would be nice to not have Hanna under my feet for a while,” she says. Well, it was worth a try.

I make a last, desperate attempt. “But we were going to talk about Prudence and Hugh. I’m just at the exciting part where she finds the MacKay coat of arms in her medallion and Hugh’s attitude suddenly changes.” I have successfully ingratiated myself to the cook through sharing thoughts about
Propelled by Hope
, and I have to admit that I’m now as hooked on each installment as she is. After spending two sleepless nights with the first three, I’m so caught up in this love story—no matter how horrible it is—that I can’t wait to read the next part that Rosa-Maria doles out to me. But Rosa-Maria is too stoic for my excuses.

“No, no, Signora Can’t-Wait-for-It. I’m not going to tell you what happens next. That’ll be the day.” She laughs and wiggles her raised finger. At least she has warmed toward me a little, ever since Prudence and the breathtaking Hugh remind me each night that it has been ages since a man was next to me, let alone on me.

Marco gives Lucia another kiss, strokes her belly, and whispers something in her ear that makes her shake a finger in jest. I clear my throat, embarrassed. He turns around with a smirk on his face.

“Well, then, Signora Philipp. Let’s leave these experts to their work and have a look at the papers.”

“All right,” I say and accept two cups of coffee from Lucia.

Her smile comes from the heart. “It isn’t right anyway that you still do hard kitchen duty, when you’re Fabrizio’s fiancée,” she says.

Oh, you clueless angel. If you only knew.

“That’s exactly why I want to help.” I hesitate for a moment—Marco probably notices. “After all, soon I’ll be part of the family.”

I’m sure the face that Marco makes, as if he just saw a rat scurry across the tiled floor, is not in my imagination.

Fabrizio

“
Dio,
Fabrizio
.
Why are you sitting here alone in the dark?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Can’t you do that in the daylight, like a normal person?”

I squint when Lucia pushes the button to open the distillery’s blinds, and dust particles shimmer in the morning sun.

“Why are you sitting on the dirty floor?” she asks, both hands on her hips.

“You sound like Nonna,” I say, amused, but add, “This is a distillery, dear sister-in-law, not a hotel lobby.”

“This is a dirty shed, dear brother-in-law, not a distillery,” Lucia replies. She wrinkles her nose and gestures to stacked fruit crates in the middle of the room, broken glass in front of the shelves, and garbage bags piled at the door. Her public-health inspection makes me realize that I’ve worn the same stained work pants for an entire week.

“That’s no way to interact with customers,” she says.

“What customers?”

“Exactly. If I were a customer, I wouldn’t come here, either—no matter how good the liqueur is. We have to change that.”

She grabs a crate, turns it upside down, and sits on it, pressing her knees together. “So?” she says gently and puts her hands in her lap. I eye her suspiciously. Women who suddenly transform from lionesses to kittens have to be approached with caution.

“What do you mean?” Answering a question with a question is a safe approach for a man—most of the time, at least.

“You have to ask?”

“Lucia, help me out here. I’m a man. I have no idea what you women think. Why can’t you just ask a straightforward question?”

“Did you find Nonna’s recipe notebook?”

“No.”

“That’s not good, is it?”

“It’s a tragedy, at least for me. Marco will be delighted. It gives him one more argument for selling the fields.”

“You’re wrong about Marco, Fabrizio.”

“Maybe, but he hasn’t convinced me otherwise,” I say. I play with the knob of the thermostat. Maybe the liqueur isn’t right because I had it on too high and the water evaporated too quickly.

Without looking at me, Lucia says, “I thought you’d be happy, now that you found Hanna.”

“I am.”

“So why don’t I ever see you together?”

I sidestep her question. “She’s here. Isn’t that enough?”

“Enough?” She laughs. “You men are strange creatures. Of course it’s not enough! You should show her our neighborhood, take her out, introduce her to our friends . . . Show up in the village together. People are already talking.”

“Are they? What are they saying?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Lucia, if you bring up a subject, you have to make your point. So they’re gossiping about me and Hanna in the village,” I say, trying not to sound annoyed. I can easily imagine the tongues wagging, led by the old nag Gosetti, and the baker’s daughter—who feels cheated out of the title “lady of the manor”—and the lovely mayor’s wife.

“A few people claim you’re only doing it because of Nonna’s inheritance,” Lucia blurts out. I feel my cheeks heat up. Some people are actually smarter than I anticipated. “Is that true? Do you only want to marry Hanna because of the estate?”

“Do you think I’m capable of such a thing?”

Lucia hesitates, and then shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I just don’t want to be the target of all this speculation. We’re part of a village and have to play by the rules if we want to fit in. Lately Rosa-Maria keeps finding excuses for not going shopping so she can avoid the nasty gossip, and Alberto has been too afraid to go to the bakery for his sweets for the last three days.”

“You know about that?”

“You must all think I’m clueless. Obviously Alberto doesn’t drive to the village every day to get the mail,” she snorts with a tiny smile. “But I don’t have to take away all his fun, do I?”

“Have I ever told you that you’re a wonderful woman, Lucia?”

“If that’s your opinion, you should make sure I don’t turn into a cranky nervous wreck. Planning your wedding is all I can handle at the moment.”

“And I thought you volunteered for the job,” I grin, and duck—Lucia is winding up to hit me. “So you think I don’t pay enough attention to Hanna. All right, I can change that. I couldn’t care less about the village gossip, but we’ll take a few strolls across the town square holding hands, just for you. And we’ll go to that stupid dinner at Ernesto’s. Are you satisfied?”

“It’s not a stupid dinner. I think it’s a beautiful tradition that the mayor invites the couple to a dinner at city hall before their marriage,” Lucia says. It seems as if she wants to add something, but my warning glance makes her stop. I push aside the ugly thought that I once left Ernesto’s private residence slamming the doors and haven’t returned since. Today isn’t then, and even in small villages the dust eventually settles over scratches and wounds.

“All right, Lucia. We’ll have dinner there.”

“Good. Now go and shower and put on some clean clothes. If you stink like a donkey, you don’t have a chance—even with your fiancée.”

I offer an innocent smile. “Believe me, Lucia, Hanna accepts me in practically any condition.”

Hanna

It’s strange. I’m sitting in the same room, on the same chair that I sat in one week ago across from Fabrizio, and I feel more confused and insecure than ever. I didn’t realize that Fabrizio’s office is also Marco’s, which explains how he got hold of the article that he’s now smoothed and placed in the middle of the desk.

I give Marco a sideways glance. He leans back in Fabrizio’s chair, arms crossed, and watches a fly climbing along the window. Maybe I feel so uneasy because he doesn’t seem to belong in this room. Fabrizio filled it by his mere presence, but Marco looks like a misplaced puzzle piece behind this desk—somehow part of the picture, but trying too hard to fill a gap that he isn’t meant for. I’m slowly beginning to understand what Fabrizio said on Rabbit Hill. I startle when Marco suddenly addresses me, still watching the unfortunate fly.

“Did you know that Tre Camini is close to bankruptcy?”

I clear my throat. “No.”

He laughs as if my embarrassment delights him. “The advantage numbers have over people is that they can’t be misread. They prove where one really is in life.”

I fidget in my chair. “What exactly do you want from me, Signor Camini?”

“Call me Marco. After all, we’ll be family soon, as you said so beautifully.”

My throat constricts. His eyes are too knowing for me to brush away how uneasy I feel. He’s guessed that something isn’t right with the engagement, and part of the reason lies in front of us. He follows my look and points to the magazine. “Nice article, though somewhat destructive, I’d say,” he says. “You didn’t tell us that you’re a restaurant reviewer.”

“And I didn’t know that you spoke German,” I say.

He just smiles. “There are excellent translators available on the Internet, and they deliver within a few hours.”

I exhale. “The article was a mistake, and I’m here to write a retraction—among other things.”

“The secret mission, hm?” Marco reaches for a green notebook with a red bookmark and uses it to fan himself. “Drink your espresso. It’s getting cold,” he says without much interest, deepening my confusion. I follow the dangling bookmark with my eyes. This man is like a slippery eel—if you do manage to catch him, he shocks you. I pick up my cup, but my hand is shaking so much that I have to put it down. That makes me defiant.

“The article is none of your business, and I can’t think what we need to discuss about the wedding. So why are we sitting here?”

“I knew you were smart right away.”

“Get to the point, Marco. There’s work waiting for me,” I say coolly, not returning his smile. It promptly collapses. The change in his face is almost eerie, and I wonder how I could have been so wrong about him. His graciousness and good nature evaporate. He slams the notebook down and scrutinizes me like a mongoose stares down a rattlesnake.