Margherita's Notebook (7 page)

She approached the door and opened it. The rusty hinges creaked. Preserved under the thick layer of dust that covered the terra-cotta floor, the stacked tables, and the huge stone fireplace were all her most beautiful memories.

She entered the kitchen, which had been her favorite place when she was a child. It was there that she'd learned her mother's culinary secrets. It was there that, little by little, her great passion had been born. It was a sort of game: together they would prepare the food, mixing spices and seasonings as though they were magic concoctions; together they would knead and roll out dough, invent new recipes . . .

She gently touched the kitchen utensils that were laid out on the marble table as if they were ready for use any minute now. Margherita shut her eyes, trying to bring back the memories. She thought she could hear Erica's voice again. “Add a pinch of coriander, a little nutmeg, a dusting of pecorino cheese, don't be afraid to mix the flavors, follow your instinct . . .”

The insistent vibration of her cell phone interrupted her reverie and brought her back to the real world.

“Hey, kiddo,” her father announced. “He's gone.”

“Did you have a hard time convincing him?”

“You know me, I can be very persuasive. And after all, it was like playing a home game for me.”

Margherita could tell from Armando's voice that he was smiling.

“It's better this way,” she answered, relieved. And she meant it.

Maybe it had been the memories, or maybe it was because making food had always been a lifeline for Margherita, but she felt like doing some cooking.

I'm going to make something special, she said to herself.

So she shut the restaurant door behind her and headed into town with a smile on her face.

Recipes filled her head. She felt inspired and wanted to try something new.

First stop: the fish market and Gualtiero's unmistakable voice, who, as soon as he saw her enter his shop, stopped gutting a turbot to come over and say hello.

“Margy, when did you get here? How long are you staying?”

“Longer than you might think. I can't stand the city anymore!”

“It was about time! When you're born here, you die here. Sooner or later even my hotheaded son will figure that one out.”

Gualtiero's son's name was Giovanni. He and Margherita had gone to elementary school together, covering for each other whenever they did something they weren't supposed to.

“How is Giovanni?” Margherita asked.

Gualtiero winked at her.

“Today he's in Florence. He and Maria made up again.”

Margherita smiled. Even when they were in school, Giovanni and Maria were always breaking up and making up. Then Maria's family moved to Florence, and Giovanni started commuting back and forth. This was still going on, just so that they could be together. Whenever he could get away from work, he raced down to see her.

“It means they love each other. You really should let him go.”

“You know what I think: reheated soup never tastes any good!”
Gualtiero answered with a well-known Tuscan proverb. “But what about you?”

Margherita, ignoring Gualtiero's comment, began looking over the fish on the counter: sea bream, sea bass, red mullet, stopping when she saw a squid that was about medium size.

“That one.” She pointed at it.

“You haven't lost your eye for good fish! So fresh it's still moving its tentacles,” Gualtiero commented as he wrapped it up for her. “What are you making for us?”

“Squid-and-eggplant rolls, delicious and not fattening.”

The fishmonger wrinkled his nose, unconvinced, but Margherita wouldn't let him change her mind.

“Try adding some vinegar, a pinch of chili powder, and some marjoram to the cooking water, and then we can talk about it.”

Inspired like an artist, Margherita picked up her package, said good-bye, and headed toward the small emporium on the opposite side of the street.

Neatly packed inside crates was a blaze of color: peppers, white cabbage and savoy cabbage, zucchini, lettuce, and eggplants. Margherita picked out purple, fleshy eggplants, freshly picked marjoram, and finally leaf lettuce to garnish the dish.

She chose each item meticulously.

“Remember, the first step when you want to make something supreme is to choose only the finest raw ingredients,” her mother always said to her. “All it takes is a tomato that's overripe, or an egg that's expired, and you risk spoiling everything.”

Her mother would have chosen only the vegetables she needed. But Margherita couldn't resist the temptation of a
bright green ripe avocado, an antidote for depression, or a bouquet of fiery red radishes with their shiny leaves, ideal for insomnia. One by one, she gathered her choices in her arms in a wobbly pile.

Maybe I should get a basket.

She was struggling to make her way to the checkout line when, prominently displayed before her, she saw a package of
brigidini di Lamporecchio
, thin, crisp cookies that were a local specialty.

Do they use anise seeds or fennel seeds to make them, I wonder?

But when she reached out to pick up the package, the precarious balance of her multicolored pile was shattered. The lettuce flew up in the air, the eggplants fell to the floor and rolled off, and the squid leaped out of the bag and landed right smack on the shoulder of a stranger. A tall, handsome, and unbelievably sexy stranger.

With an expression of obvious disgust, the stranger observed the cephalopod with its glassy eye as it dripped over his expensive suit.

“Get it off me!” he yelled, trying to pull it off his jacket.

All Margherita could do, however, was stare helplessly at him. For the first time in a long time, she realized she was standing there with a blank look on her face staring at a man. It was as if in the past six years her eyes had been covered with prosciutto. But not the kind that's sliced paper-thin and you can see through, no, the kind of prosciutto that's cured in the mountains and is as thick as a steak! It was understandable, though, because this wasn't any ordinary man. If she'd been asked to describe him, she would have said he was like a fancy cream puff, not just some sponge cake you might wolf down for breakfast. And with eyes so dark they reminded her of melted chocolate . . . Such a shame he was
shouting like that. There was definitely something ridiculous about the situation. Could such a masculine-seeming specimen really have lost it because of a harmless squid? It wasn't exactly Moby-Dick or a great white! Margherita thought, unable, in spite herself, to hide her amusement.

The man's mood didn't improve when he noticed that the person responsible for the disaster, instead of looking sorry, was having a hard time trying not to laugh.

“Do you find this funny?”

Margherita tried to regain her composure. “I'm sorry, I'm really sorry . . . I'm mortified. But you're actually very lucky . . . it matches your jacket!”

Nicola Ravelli gave her an icy stare. This woman with her angelic air had managed, in just a few seconds, to do what many others had failed to: make him lose his cool.

“Get it off me, now!” he demanded in a voice that was just a tiny bit too loud, her mother would have said.

Silence fell over the shop. Everyone turned around to look at them. Margherita, embarrassed, reached out for the main course of her dinner, freeing his jacket from its slimy tentacles.

“Finally!”

With a sigh of relief, Nicola took off his jacket, so that he was wearing only his shirt. A white shirt. And very sexy. “Have you lost your mind? Or perhaps you don't have one.”

Irked, Margherita gave him a nasty look. “If it's about the suit, don't worry, I'll pay to have it cleaned!”

“I have no use for it anymore, it's ruined!”

The man's gaze traveled from Margherita's groceries, scattered around on the ground, to Margherita herself. What followed was a merciless diagnosis: “disorganized, impulsive, irrational.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“And childish,” Nicola added, thinking: everything I absolutely hate in a woman!

Margherita blushed. True, it was her fault the squid had landed on his jacket, but this guy had gone too far.

“A little kindness wouldn't hurt,” she remarked as she picked up her groceries, hoping to embarrass him.

But by way of an answer, he rubbed it in even more. “Isn't it enough that you've ruined my suit? Are you expecting me to invite you for a cup of coffee?”

Margherita looked with disgust at the frozen food and ready-made meals that filled his basket.

“No thank you,” she answered, adding sarcastically, “on the other hand, what can you expect from someone who buys that kind of crap.”

And before Nicola, who was quite taken aback, could respond, Margherita added, “You are what you eat.”

Then she turned and headed for the door while he stared at his basket, speechless.

It was only when she reached the street that Margherita realized she'd been holding her breath the entire time. Her hands were shaking. But she had no intention of allowing an arrogant ignoramus—not even an unbelievably handsome one, damn it!—to spoil her day. Without looking back, she abandoned the battlefield and headed home.

Nicola, still dazed by his encounter with Margherita, came out of the store a few minutes later. He was surprised to find himself actually looking for her amid the people thronging the sidewalk. He hated it when he didn't have the last word. And besides that, what on earth was wrong with frozen food anyway?

W
atching her cook has always been such a joy, thought Armando, as he noticed Margherita biting her lip with the same funny expression on her face she'd had when, as a child, she was busy working on something that absorbed her mind. Completely focused on what she was doing, she mixed the ingredients, added a pinch of one spice and a dash of another, she incorporated, mixed, and shaped the dough the way an artist would work her clay. Then she brushed it like a painter inspired by a palette of colors: where mere mortals would have seen only colors, she revealed entire worlds. And then, suddenly, she was no longer Margherita. In a flash, standing before Armando was Erica. He could feel a lump in his throat. It wasn't the kind of feeling that Armando usually afforded much space to. He preferred to gloss over things, let his emotions, anything that might hurt him, slip by. Like this sudden pang of missing Erica. It wasn't just
the fact that Margherita physically resembled her mother; it was her gestures as she cooked, the moves of a conjuror, the aura that surrounded her, combined with the distinct aroma of the dishes that Erica had made especially for him, his favorite ones.

“You remind me so much of her . . . ,” he said.

More than the actual words, it was the tone he used to say them that struck Margherita. Armando rarely mentioned his wife. And whenever he did, it was with a tenderness that was veined with detachment. She turned around and looked at her father in wonder. Erica was once again there with them, with her cheeriness, her warmth, her smile, her passion. For a moment time stood still, and then slowly it began to rewind and memories flowed by in slow motion: Erica and Armando each holding one of little Margherita's hands, lifting her up into the air to make her laugh . . . Erica weeping as she chopped onions, Margherita asking her why she was crying, Armando joining in with his wonderful infectious laughter . . . Erica watching over Margherita's first experiments in cooking with Armando looking on proudly . . . Erica and Margherita presenting an amazing birthday cake to an admiring audience, Armando blowing out all the candles . . .

The flow of memories was interrupted by the doorbell, bringing both father and daughter back down to earth. The ringing sounded again insistently, triggering Artusi's howling and Valastro's whistles. Armando was his old self again, with his quick smile and devil-may-care attitude: there was only a touch of sadness in his gaze to betray the things he had just been feeling, which he now locked up again securely in his innermost self. He hastened to the door to see who it was.

“This delicious smell can only mean one thing,” a male voice exclaimed cheerfully from the entrance hall. “Margherita's back!”

Margherita had just enough time to wipe her hands on her apron before a young man with an unkempt mop of hair and an athletic build grabbed her affectionately as if he had no intention of ever letting her go.

“Matteo!” Margherita hugged him warmly in return. Matteo had always been her very best friend. And for many years he'd been a constant presence in her life. His was the shoulder she'd cry on when things went wrong. He was the first one with whom she'd share good news. Then Francesco had come along. Matteo had tried to convince her not to move to Rome. “You'll never get used to city life,” he'd said. But Margherita was too much in love to listen, and so she'd left. Over the past five years, they'd been in touch often, but whenever Margherita returned to Roccafitta, Matteo was the first person she called on, even though he and Francesco didn't get along.

“It's great to see you. Did your nose bring you here?” she asked, smiling.

Matteo pulled back just enough to be able to look her in the eye, while still holding her tight. “Bacci told me he'd run into you, and so did Gualtiero.”

“Of course!” Armando commented sarcastically. “The Roccafitta grapevine at its best.”

Matteo continued to peer at Margherita, as if he were trying to read what was behind her smile and playful nonchalance.

“When did you get here? We were expecting you later on this month. Why the surprise?”

Margherita wriggled herself free from his embrace and
went back to the squid she'd abandoned on the marble counter. Matteo placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Margy . . . ?” He glanced at Armando inquisitively, who shrugged, as if to say, “If she won't tell you . . .”