Margherita's Notebook (31 page)

“You could at least change the channel!” The last thing Margherita wanted to hear were lottery results.

“Just a second . . . please.”

Margherita glared at him. “Papa.”

“Genoa: 7, 13, 1, 67, 20, 44,”
the voice read out carefully.

Armando's eyes were glued to the screen. As if he were in a daze, he kept repeating, “Impossible . . . 7, 13, 1, 67, 20, 44 . . . Oh, my God, I'm going to faint . . . 7, 13, 1, 67, 20, 44 . . .”

Margherita saw the color drain from her father's face as he brought his hands to his chest, and she rushed over to him.

“Papa, what's wrong? What is it?”

Armando looked at her, still incredulous.

“Mamma mia . . . the dream . . . only once, she said . . .”

He's talking nonsense. Should I call a doctor?

“It came up, do you realize? It came up!”

Margherita turned around and stared at the screen. Genoa 44 was right there, in sixth position.

Oh no! Number 44! It came up and I told him he couldn't play anymore!

She gave him a look of concern. “Papa, please, don't have a heart attack . . .”

“It came up! It came up!” he kept repeating to himself with tears in his eyes, unable to say anything else.

If he dies, it's my fault! Will I ever be able to forgive myself?

“Papa, don't . . .”

He gave her a huge hug.

“We're rich, Margy! It's over! We're rich!”

Suddenly, Margherita realized he'd lied to her again.

“You didn't bet again!”

“Just once, just this one time. Your mother told me to!”

Before his daughter's furious look, he told her about the dream.

“. . . she insisted: Genoa, bridges, tango. Number 44 hadn't come up. Bridge is 13, but tango, or rather dancing, is
13, too. So I thought 13, 44, and since the bank director had told me that there was only one bridge left in Genoa, it became 13, 44, 1. I took the last two hundred euros from the drawer and played them all on Genoa. And I did it! I got three in a row!”

Margherita was listening to him in disbelief.

“Your mother told me to. Just once, I swear!”

“How much did you win?” Margherita managed to ask.

“Nine hundred thousand euros before taxes. I'll pay off all my debts. The mortgage on the restaurant, the house . . . You'll never have to worry again, sweetheart!”

Margherita felt confused.

“Papa, you'll never stop . . .”

Armando gave her a huge smile.

“You're wrong about that. I promised your mother I would. I'm kicking the habit. For once you can believe me.”

And this time he meant it.

August sped quickly by. Armando was making all sorts of plans on how to invest his money, and he seemed to be his old self again. Margherita was happy for him. She forced herself to smile, although her heart was still in tatters. She'd never felt so alone.

One afternoon the doorbell rang just as she was getting ready to go out with Artusi. Margherita opened the door and was surprised to find a large sign attached to the gate with
I'M SORRY
written across it.

Standing behind the sign was Matteo, with a hopeful look on his face.

Margherita's faced beamed.

“Peace?”

“I
never argued with you.”

Matteo hugged her hard.

“I know, I'm the one who acted like someone out of a movie. I was hoping our friendship could turn into something else, and when I realized you were in love with someone else, I lost it . . .”

In spite of herself, Margy smiled. That was Matteo, forever her best friend. She avoided mentioning Nicola and looked at him with great fondness.

“Friends again?”

He nodded.

“I needed to spend some time by myself to understand one thing,” he said, looking into her eyes, “that I have no intention of giving up our friendship.”

This time she was the one to hug him.

“Nor do I. You'll always be my best friend . . . even though I'm not in love with you.”

Matteo smiled with a look of resignation on his face.

“I've come to terms with it, believe me. And I'm dating a woman who's new at the agency, her name's Claudia . . . right now it's just a thing, but . . .”

“I'm so happy for you!” Margherita exclaimed, feeling relieved. “When can I meet her?”

“Hey, chill, it's nothing serious yet! We've only been out a few times . . . Plus, I don't want to scare her off. I know how high your standards are.”

Margherita laughed.

“If you like her, I'm sure she's okay. Now, let's take Artusi for a walk and you can tell me the whole story . . .”

As they took off together, Margherita's heart felt much lighter. Now that she'd found her old friend again, she felt less lonesome.

September was just around the corner and the last of the season's tourists were leaving Roccafitta to go back to their everyday lives. Giulia walked her guests to the gate to bid them farewell. She had no other reservations, but she couldn't grumble. The season had been a good one: she'd had a full house in August. So why was she feeling so restless? She had no financial concerns—the farm's honey and royal jelly sales were buoyant—and yet she felt dissatisfied. Maybe the time had come for a change, she thought. And yet in Roccafitta she felt at home like nowhere else in the world. Giulia headed toward the toolshed to see if there was something to keep her busy and her mind off such thoughts, when a large camper van with tinted windows stopped in front of the gate. Giulia turned around and smiled. Great! New guests she could devote herself to. She walked back so that she could see them in.

“Welcome . . .”

The van door opened and Armando stepped out.

“Please, don't say anything,” he said, seeing the smile on her face fade away.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

But Armando wouldn't let her go on.

“You're right, I'm a liar, unreliable, childish. I'm sixty but I act like a ten-year-old. I lied to my daughter, I mortgaged my house, I made a bet that I would win your heart . . .” As he spoke, he kept his eyes on her all the time. He knew it was going to be hard, but he hadn't realized quite how hard. For the first time he was afraid she would never forgive him. So he kept on talking without pausing for breath: “. . . but without you I'm nothing. Look.” Taking her by the
hand, he pulled her closer to the van and pointed: he'd had it painted with a beehive surrounded by bees and the words
HECHURA HONEY
. Giulia couldn't help smiling. So Armando mustered up some more courage.

“Just hear me out for a second,” he went on. “I want to take you with me. We'll follow the blossoming of the flowers, go to Barbagia and the red valleys of Marmilla, where our worker bees will make clear and fragrant asphodel honey. To the National Park of Abruzzo to make amber-hued thistle honey that smells of fruit and flowers. In the fall we can travel around Sardinia and look for strawberry tree honey amid the
nuraghi
, the
domus de janas
, and the medieval churches . . .” Armando was so excited he was irresistible. “I'll never be a good business partner, you'll have to put up with me, sometimes we'll argue, but together we'll also be amazed to see our bees carrying a thousand colored pollen balls back to the hive. I want to see the look of wonder in your eyes . . .”

There was no need to say anything else. This was the Armando Giulia loved, the Armando she missed. She pulled him to her and kissed him. Maybe it wouldn't last forever, but she didn't want to make any long-range plans. Before them was a small dream waiting to be shared, and that was all that really mattered.

M
argherita threw herself heart and soul into renovating the restaurant. Armando had insisted: part of the money he'd won was going toward reopening Erica's restaurant. He owed it to her. Also, he knew it was Margherita's dream. Although at that very moment in her life, she thought to herself, there wasn't much room for dreaming. She tried to keep all her feelings for Nicola under lock and key deep down inside her heart.

A heart he had made into mincemeat.

To focus on her plans for the future.

A future that, without him, would be like a roast without herbs.

To regain control over her life.

A life that was like the dull side of a sheet of tin foil.

Only her childhood memories, her memories of Erica, of the two of them cooking together in the restaurant, were able to offer her some peace of mind. Otherwise, her “after”
resembled curdled mayonnaise, a burnt pie, dough that just won't rise . . . Her regrets were always at the back of her mind, and at times they succeeded in escaping from the place where she'd imprisoned them. That was when her mind would be filled with vivid images, bright colors, a thousand marvelous flavors. The moments when she and Nicola had made love. Playing food games. Feeding each other. Tasting new flavors on each other's skin. Eros and flavor combined in a pleasure that consumed them. And still they could never get enough of each other.

Nicola tried to force his life back into the watertight compartments that “before” he had known how to open and close at his own discretion. But even when he managed to do so, all it took was a scent, a flavor, a certain combination of colors to make the memories—and the desire for her—resurface and overpower him. A
bacio di dama
, a lady's kiss, which he'd found in the refrigerator, had brought his mind back to their first dinner, to the flavor of chocolate and of her. He put it in his mouth and shut his eyes. For a second, so strong was the evocative power of that flavor that he imagined she was right there, with him. Their lips sealed together, desire satisfying desire.

“Did you know that chocolate is an aphrodisiac?”

“You know, you're right, I feel very aroused . . .”

“I'm serious . . . it's scientifically proved, it contains a molecule that—”

“I'm serious, too. Come here and I'll show you . . .”

This happened each time he lingered on a detail that led him back to her: the jar of chile peppers on the windowsill in the kitchen, the armchair positioned so it was easier
to contemplate the woods from the windows in the main hall, the New Age music CD to help him relax, the scented beeswax candles, the small patch of vegetables growing in a corner of the garden where, barefoot (“Go on, take off your shoes, it's wonderful to feel the grass under your feet, to feel free . . .”), together they had planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, lettuce . . . Everything around him spoke to him about her.

Only now did he understand the meaning of the line he had heard so many times in movies, a line that had sounded silly and mawkish to him before: “Nothing would ever be the same again.”