Italian for Beginners (35 page)

Karina served a panzanella salad of crispy bread chunks, thinly sliced onions, wedges of sweet tomatoes, and a homemade balsamic
herb vinaigrette, followed by a small starter course of creamy risotto with asparagus, zucchini, and mint. The main course
was perfectly crisp, thin pieces of chicken parmesan, flavored with rosemary and served on a bed of handmade fettuccine with
a light, creamy sauce, sprinkled with toasted pine nuts.

“This is amazing,” Marco, who was sitting to my right, whispered to me at one point when Karina got up to bring in more freshly
baked bread from the kitchen.

“I told you,” I said with a smile.

He shook his head and took another bite. “Maybe I could use her at the restaurant… ,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“I think you should talk to her about it,” I whispered, trying to hide my smile just as Karina returned to the room.

Gina was sitting on the other side of me, and I kept catching her staring at me when I was looking elsewhere. Each time, she
shook her head and looked quickly away. Finally, she softly vocalized what I knew she was thinking. “You look so much like
her,” she said.

I nodded, accepting this. “You do, too,” I said. “Being with you feels a little bit like she’s still here.”

Gina nodded and squeezed my hand under the table. “She is.”

Gina and Karina got along wonderfully, and for the first time, I saw Karina’s mother open up and laugh, too. I should have
felt a little left out as the three women gossiped in Italian and Nico drilled an amused Marco with a series of intense questions,
but instead, I sat back in my chair, watching them all, sipping my coffee and feeling more at home than I ever had in New
York. In less than four weeks, these people had become my family, even though we should have had little common ground to start
with. And it warmed my heart to see my mother’s sister, a woman I’d just met but whom I was tied to forever, getting along
so well with Karina, who I knew would be my friend for years to come.

After a dessert of the most delicate, delicious flaked almond pastry I’d ever tasted, Nico got up from the table and came
around to my side while the adults at the table continued to talk, laugh, and enjoy their espresso.

“Signorina Cat?” he asked.

“Yes, Nico?”

He paused and looked at his feet. “I am really going to miss you.”

I blinked back tears. “I’m going to miss you, too, Nico. Very, very much. But I will come back and visit.”

“Do you promise?” he asked, looking up hopefully.

“I promise,” I said firmly.

He paused. “Maybe Mamma and I can come to New York, too. I speak very good English.”

“Yes, you do,” I said with a smile. I remembered Karina saying that she couldn’t afford a trip to New York, so I didn’t want
to encourage him. But at least they would have a place to stay now, and I hoped that might be enough to change her mind at
some point.

Nico looked down again and added softly. “My
papà
lives there.”

I blinked a few times and recovered quickly. “He does?”

Nico nodded and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “Mamma does not talk about him very often. But she says he lives in New
York. I would like to meet him someday.”

“Maybe you will,” I said after a moment. I wanted to tell Nico that sometimes the people who are supposed to love you will
break your heart. I wanted to tell him that his father might not be the man he imagined him to be. I wanted to tell him that
holding on to hope might be a mistake. But he was six. He didn’t deserve to have his bubble burst yet. And besides, I was
a week away from thirty-five, and I certainly didn’t have it all figured out, either. Maybe Nico was right. Maybe people deserved
a second chance, even when they hadn’t earned it.

Nico hesitated again and looked a little nervous. “Just one thing, Signorina Cat,” he said.

“What is it?”

“You promised you would take photographs of me and Mamma and Nonna,” he said. He looked down, as if embarrassed to be asking
me. “Did you run out of time? Maybe you can take them the next time you are here.”

I smiled at him. “Well, Nico, I am glad you mentioned that. I actually didn’t forget.” I leaned forward and whispered in his
ear, “There’s a big, flat bag in the corner of the living room, behind the sofa. Could you go get it for me?”

Nico grinned and nodded. He disappeared, and a moment later, he came back carrying the bag. As he entered the dining room,
the conversations around the table slowed, and everyone looked at it with curiosity.

I cleared my throat as I stood up and took the bag from Nico.

“Karina?” I said. I looked around the table. Everyone was smiling at me. I took a deep breath. “I can’t begin to thank you
for everything you’ve done for me. Four weeks ago, I was a complete mess. If it hadn’t been for you, I might have given up
and gone home. And I wouldn’t have met Nico, or your mother, or Marco or Gina. And now you’ve all become my family.”

Around the table, everyone exchanged looks. Marco and Gina clinked glasses.

“It’s not much,” I continued, “but I wanted to give you a small gift to say thank you. Of course I’ll be back to visit—if
you’ll have me—but in the meantime, I wanted to give you a piece of your family to tell you how much you mean to me. You’ve
made me feel like I belong here.”

“A piece of my family?” Karina repeated, glancing at the bag.

I nodded. “Yes.” I pulled the first of three matted photos out of the bag and turned it around to show to the table.

“Sono di me!”
Nico cried out. “It’s me!” Karina gasped and smiled as she gazed at the photo, which I’d taken several days ago at the park
with Karina, her mother, and Nico. It was a black-and-white photograph of Nico kicking a soccer ball, his face scrunched up
in concentration. He looked older, wiser, than his six years, and his eyes glistened as he looked into the unfathomable distance.

“Oh, Cat!” Karina exclaimed. “It is beautiful. I will treasure it forever.”

I smiled. “Wait. I’m not done.” I pulled a second photograph from the bag and turned around to show it to the table. It was
another black and white, shot the same day. Karina and her mother had been sitting on the park bench, watching Nico. When
I’d gotten up to photograph him at one point, I turned around to glance at them and saw them laughing at some joke. I turned
the lens quickly their way. In the photo I’d captured, they were both midlaugh, leaning toward each other, looking into each
other’s eyes as they giggled like schoolgirls. They looked like best friends as much as mother and daughter, and I’d known
from the moment I shot the image that it would be one of those meaningful portraits that captured the subjects’ personalities
perfectly.

“Oh, Cat!” Karina exclaimed, placing a hand on her chest and blinking a few times. “It is wonderful!” Her mother was nodding
enthusiastically and smiling.

“One more,” I said. I pulled the third and final photograph out of the bag and turned it around for them to see.

Karina’s eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the portrait. “Oh, Cat,” she said softly.

I smiled. It was one of my favorite pictures. Black and white like the other two, it was shot from behind with my zoom lens.
When Karina, her mother, and Nico had walked away from the park the other day and I’d gone in the other direction, I had glanced
back over my shoulder and seen them walking hand in hand. I had turned around immediately to shoot them from a distance. Karina
was in the middle, one hand holding her mother’s and the other holding her son’s. Karina’s mother carried a bunch of sunflowers
in her free hand, and Nico’s soccer ball was tucked beneath his bony upper arm as he skipped to keep up. In the photo, Karina
was saying something to Nico, who was gazing up at her with a huge smile on his face. Karina’s mother had her head turned
to the side to look at them, just enough that, even in the shadows, you could see clearly the expression of love and pride
on her face as she gazed at her daughter and her grandson. In the background of the photo, in the direction the three of them
were walking, lay ancient Rome, its old buildings casting long shadows on the ground as the sun sank toward the horizon.

“
Dio mio
,” Marco said softly. “Those photographs are amazing, Cat.”

I beamed. “Thank you.”

Karina’s mother looked at me with what appeared to be new respect. “Beautiful,” she said simply, the word spiked with her
Italian accent.
“Grazie.”

“
Prego
,” I responded with a smile. “You’re welcome.” I turned to Karina. “Your family has come to mean so much to me.”

“Well,” she said, glancing back to the photo and then at me again. “You are part of our family now.”

Nico came over and gave me a big hug. As I glanced around the table, at all the people I’d come to love in such a short time,
I knew the words were true.

After dinner, I walked outside to say good-bye to Gina and to see her safely into a cab.

“I’m so glad you came to find me,” she said.

“I am, too.”

She reached up and brushed her thumb gently across my cheek. She smiled at me sadly. “Your mother, I think, would be very
proud.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I hope so,” I said. A month ago, I would have sworn that my mother’s opinion meant nothing
to me. But now, everything was different. I took a deep breath. “Gina,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not coming sooner,” I said.

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Do not apologize. You came when you were ready. And that is all that matters.”

I looked down. “But I think of all that time I wasted, feeling so angry at her.”

She reached for my hand. “Cat, that time was not wasted,” she said. “Your mother, even though she meant well, she hurt you.
You needed time to come back to her on your own. She was always very sorry for what she did to you. And she never blamed you
for being angry.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded.

“I don’t blame you, either,” she added. “You are a very strong young woman. I see the best parts of your mother in you.”

“You do?”

“
Assolutamente
,” she said. She reached out to embrace me tightly. “Come back to Roma soon,” she said into my ear. “You always have family
here. This is your home, too.”

I nodded. “I know,” I said.

She kissed my cheek, smiled at me, and climbed into the cab. Before she shut the door, she reached into her handbag and pulled
out a gift bag. “I almost forgot,” she said, handing it to me. “For you. To remember us.”

She smiled and shut the door to the cab. I watched as it drove away. As they turned the corner at the end of the street, she
raised her hand in a small wave. I waved back, feeling sadder than I expected to. When she was gone, I reached into the gift
bag and pulled out several small items wrapped in tissue paper, and one larger one. I smiled as I unwrapped them. She had
given me silk scarves from the family store in three different colors—teal, beige, and pale pink. She had also given me a
beautiful pashmina wrap in black.

There was a little notecard enclosed with the gift.
You will always be a Verdicchio
, it read in perfect, ornate cursive.

I smiled, unfolded the pashmina, and pulled it around me. It was soft and warm, and as I stood in the moonlight on the steps
of the building I’d called home for the past few weeks, I felt a bit like I was being embraced.

Marco and I helped Karina clear and wash the dishes, and after thanking her for the wonderful meal and agreeing to meet her
in the morning before I left for the airport, I set out with Marco.

He laced his fingers loosely through mine, and we walked in comfortable silence for a while. All around us, Rome glowed in
the moonlight and under the street lamps that dotted the ancient roads. I felt so sad to be leaving this place.

We strolled until we emerged on the Piazza Venezia, and suddenly I knew where Marco was leading us.

“Are we going to our spot?” I asked with a smile.

He smiled back. “Where it all began.”

Five minutes later, we had reached the Forum and the stout brick wall where I’d fallen asleep four weeks ago. It felt like
a lifetime ago.

Marco pulled me into a hug. “I’m going to miss you, Princess Ann,” he said.

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I need to talk to you about something.”

He nodded, and I could see in his eyes as we sat down that he already knew what I was going to say.

I took a deep breath and tried to slow my pounding heart. “Marco,” I began, “you have changed my life, and I don’t know how
to thank you for that.”

He reached for my hand and squeezed it. He smiled sadly at me, but he didn’t say anything.

I closed my eyes for a moment and opened them again. “Marco,” I said, “I don’t even know how to say this to you. But I don’t
think I’m ready. I’m not ready to be with someone yet. It sounds crazy, because I’m almost thirty-five, but I think that in
the past four weeks, everything has changed. And I have some growing to do.”

“I know,” he said, nodding at me, a grim expression on his face.

“It’s not you,” I said. “I think if the timing were different, we’d have a chance. And maybe that’ll happen in the future.
I don’t know. But for now, even though it sounds silly, I think I need to take some time to myself.”

Marco looked down at our intertwined hands. “It does not sound silly,” he said after a moment. “I think it sounds very wise.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly.

“Do not be sorry,” he said. “It is the right thing.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to hate me,” I said.

He smiled. “That would never be possible.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never felt this way before.”

He nodded. “Neither have I,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I think I knew you were going to say this. But it is harder
than I thought.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he said.