Margherita's Notebook (2 page)

He disappeared into the bathroom.

“All you have to do is smile and show you're interested in the product!” Margherita repeated in a mocking tone. She looked at her watch and sighed. She threw open the
window, fluffed up the pillows and made the bed, ran to the “kitchen” to wash the cups and dishes that had been left (by Francesco) in the sink, then raced to the living room area to straighten out the sofas, make a neat pile of the magazines that had been strewn about everywhere (by Francesco), pick up the sneakers (Francesco's) peeking out from under the sofa, open the windows, stick the sneakers in the shoe rack, pull out a pair of her own, put her coat on over her pajamas, put Artusi on a leash, and rush outside.

Once she was out in the street, she tried to hurry the dog, who, fruitlessly, seemed to be looking for a few blades of grass in the cracks of the neglected and ramshackle sidewalks, over which loomed, in a vaguely threatening way, the monotonous concrete tenements that made up their “residential district,” as it was called in the ads created by the agency Francesco worked for. Margherita closed her eyes and for a second imagined that she was at home, in Roccafitta, that she could smell the flowers, which must have been in full bloom by then, and breathe in the smell of the sea carried by the spring breeze . . .

“Hey, lady, what are you, asleep? Get off the road!”

Margherita quickly opened her eyes and met the hostile stare of a driver. The scents and fragrances of home faded away, replaced by the enraged honking of cars. Margherita hurried back onto the sidewalk, pulling Artusi by the leash as she tried to convince him to follow her home.

When Margherita got back to the apartment completely out of breath, Francesco was coming out of the bathroom. Margherita took off her coat, got out of her pajamas, and, while balancing on one foot, grabbed her clothes.

“Still not ready?” Francesco looked at her disapprovingly. “You
can't
be late today!”

Margherita had to purse her lips to keep from answering rudely, and locked herself inside the bathroom without saying a word.

He's being obnoxious!

A half hour later she had arrived, puffing and panting, at the address for her job interview.

I need to smile and look interested.

The line of hopefuls whose turns were before hers soon got shorter. When they called Margherita's name, she found herself standing in front of a guy in his thirties wearing a blue suit, hair sculpted with gel, and a fake smile on his face.

“Mrs. Carletti, do come in, I was expecting you,” he said as though they were accomplices, which irked Margherita right from the start. If they didn't really need this job, and if Francesco hadn't insisted, she would never have accepted his boss's help. Instead . . .

I need to smile and look interested.

She turned on autopilot and nodded enthusiastically while listening to the man's spiel about the role of the promoter, the company's “calling card,” the importance of one's image and the company's in its relationship with the customers, about the “three levels of communication,” about the need to harmonize with various types of customers, how to speak and what expressions to avoid, how to pitch promotions and present the product, how to manage the meeting with the customer—as well as his or her possible objections, and, finally, about “the PPI,” the Personal Plan for Improvement. Margherita wondered whether she might dislocate her jaw and cervical vertebrae if she kept on smiling and nodding so enthusiastically. But she needed this job. They needed the money to
pay back the loans they'd taken out to buy their car and the TV, and to pay for Francesco's golf club membership. And everything seemed to be heading in the right direction.

That is, until she saw the products.

The guy gave a quick description of the different types of cheese, stressing the importance of the packaging and the way they were to be presented to the consumers.

“Sometimes all it takes is a smile, a pat on the head of the child sitting in the shopping cart to sell two or three items,” he explained. “I don't think you're going to have any problems with that,” he added, giving her an overly appreciative look.

Was this revolting individual hitting on her?

Margherita stopped smiling, looked him straight in the eye, and asked, “Why don't you tell me something about the cheese itself?”

The guy stared at her, speechless, and that was when Margherita hit the ground running. Were only the best raw materials used? Were the artisanal methods described in the advertising respected? Were the ingredients all natural? Did the milk come from select dairies? Did the aging process take place in a controlled environment? Were they sure there was no contamination of the aquifers?

As she fired off these questions, the smile on the man's face gradually faded away.

“All you're supposed to worry about is selling the product, nothing else,” he answered drily.

“Are you saying you won't answer my questions? You can't expect me to convince people to buy something without knowing whether it's genuine, or whether it might be harmful to their health?”

He glared at her and said, “Okay, then, you're free to go.”

Margherita was thrown for a loop. “Go where?”

“Home. This interview is over.”

Margherita found herself back on the street. She was dazed, but she was also aware of the anger building up inside her. She fished her cell phone out of her handbag and called Francesco. He'd understand, she was sure of that.

Instead, he was furious. “I can't believe it! It was a done deal! What the hell got into you?”

Margherita felt like she'd been wronged twice.

“It's just that I didn't want to sell something without knowing what's in it!” She defended herself.

“You never change. You'll never change!”

For a second, Margherita thought they'd been cut off. Then she realized what had really happened: he'd hung up on her.

He hung up in my face.

She stared at the screen for a few seconds, unable to move.

Meanwhile, it had started to rain, to pour in fact. The roar of the rain that now poured down on her was the perfect sound track for her mood. To get out of the rain, she slipped into the first grocery store she could find. As she wandered aimlessly along the aisles, between the towering walls of all kinds of food with labels that were often written in an incomprehensible language, she realized it hadn't been such a good idea to come into the store. She kept thinking about the interview, about the probably low-quality products that she would have had to promote, and, most important, about Francesco's reaction. A wave of nausea came over her, so she left the store quickly, elbowing
her way through the people standing in line at the registers. Never before had she wanted so much to be in Roccafitta. Home.

When she got back to the apartment, the elevator wasn't working. Again. The fourth time this week. As she braced herself for the eight-story climb (to be multiplied by two, since she would have to take Artusi out for his walk later), she noticed a letter sticking out of the mailbox. She pulled it out, opened it, and started reading. Suddenly, she stopped. The warning in the horoscope she'd heard that morning came back like an undigested onion.

She reread the unequivocal words: Eviction Notice. Everything around her started spinning. She shut her eyes.

“Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. Breathe in, breathe out . . . ,” she repeated like a mantra.

“Is everything all right?”

Startled, Margherita spun around to find Meg standing behind her. Meg was Francesco's English teacher. (“Being fluent in a foreign language is crucial to my work,” he'd told her. “And I've found a teacher who's a native speaker and whose prices are affordable. I'm sure you see my point, don't you, love?” And she had said nothing about the fact that they were already having a hard time making ends meet . . .)

As Margherita nodded hello, she wondered what Meg could be doing there at this time of day. Had something happened?

“Hi, Meg . . . is there a problem?”

Meg looked her in the eye.

“Yes, there is. We need to talk.”

Dumbfounded, that's how she felt. Stunned. Meg's words had been like a blow to the head. How could she possibly not have noticed anything—for a whole year? How could she have believed the lies Francesco had told her? Suddenly, everything made sense, like the pieces of a puzzle that until that moment hadn't seemed to fit together: lessons at the oddest hours, the ridiculously low cost, the understanding looks that passed between Francesco and Meg, the long and inexplicable periods of time when her husband's cell phone seemed to be switched off, his growing irritability . . .

And now what?

How could she pretend to feel like she was a frothy soufflé when she instead felt like a focaccia that hasn't risen? She held back her tears. She needed to think, and there was only one way she knew how: by cooking. So she took her old recipe notebook with the yellowing pages down off the shelf and started leafing through it absentmindedly, trying to organize her thoughts. Carrot-and-zucchini pie, fanciful
pizzelle
, eggplant
torretta
, mustard-and-mint pâté, and then, suddenly, peeking up from the pages was the drawing of a small red heart, right there, next to “Asparagus Temptation.” She felt like tearing the page out of the notebook, totally erasing the recipe that had turned her life upside down six years before . . .

It was a gorgeous Saturday in March. The air was warm and it made you feel as though winter had finally decided to make way for spring in Roccafitta. Margherita was ready for her first day of the season at the beach with Matteo,
her best friend, and a group of their friends. But at the last minute, Rosalina, who usually helped her mother, Erica, in the kitchen of her small eponymous restaurant had fallen ill, and Margherita hadn't had it in her to go off and leave her mother on her own.

“Don't worry, Mama. There'll be lots of other days to go to the beach, and besides, something tells me that today's going to be a special day . . .”

Erica hadn't insisted, especially because she was expecting a full house at lunchtime. Although the restaurant was small, it was still hard to manage everything without any help. Of course, Armando, her husband and Margherita's father, was fabulous in the dining room, with his jokes and pleasant manner, but when it came to the kitchen, it was best to keep him out. So from the early hours of the morning, mother and daughter had been hard at work at the stove. While Erica kneaded the dough for the tagliatelle, Margherita worked on an idea she'd had for a new recipe. Looking around, she'd spotted the asparagus. “We only serve products when they're in season, it's the best way we know to take good care of our customers!” her mother always said. Margherita grabbed the peeler and started to gently remove the stringy parts from the stems. Then, after she'd broken off the white ends, she sliced off the spears and plunged the stems in a pot of boiling stock for a minute or two. Erica had smiled at her with a mixture of affection and pride. “A new creation?”