Authors: Elizabeth Butts
“His name is Nick. Well, I guess I told you that yesterday. He was nice to me yesterday. He joked with me and didn’t know about me which was really nice. He’s Nonna’s nephew.”
Without turning around to see her reaction, I headed back to my room.
It was Friday, so I only had to put in one more day at the prison we affectionately referred to as high school. I walked through the halls, trying to not be noticed, as always. The more invisible I was, it seemed the less I got harassed in the hallways. Unfortunately, when you actually attempt to look halfway decent, instead of looking like a 1990’s grunge throwback, you get noticed. A lot.
Today was spent dodging shocked looks, leering glances and more than one cat call. I avoided the lunch time humiliation by sitting out by the football field. My parents wondered why I dressed like an angry homeless person (their words, not mine). Well, that was why. It was easier to not be noticed.
At one point in the later part of the day, I walked by Nick. I smiled to myself, on the inside, of course, when he did a double take in the hallway. Never mind the fact that I walked down a hall in a section of school I had no classes in and made myself late for fourth period Chemistry. I just ‘happened’ to be there in time to walk past him. Don’t judge.
When school ended, it was all I could do not to run the six blocks to Nonna’s. When I got within line of sight of the little cottage, I slowed down to a normal walk. I was sweating in areas that were
not
cute, and my mascara was running. So much for trying to look better for him. At this point, I figured the only thing that would make me look enticing would be a paper bag. I figured my hair was a lost cause, so instead of freaking out about it, I pulled into what I hoped was an artfully constructed messy bun.
Standing at Nonna’s front steps, I self-consciously pulled at my top, wondering if it was the right one. Would Nick like it? Did he like it when he saw me today? Maybe I just looked ridiculous, like a made up elephant. I felt tears threaten my eyes, and shook my head. NO. I would not allow myself to wallow in self-doubt. Squaring my shoulders I knocked on the door.
“Come on in!”
“Hey, Nonna!” I sneak a couple glances around the house, looking for
him
. “Um, how’s it going?”
“Great, as always! Refuse to have it any other way.” She chuckled under her breath. “I’m about to make dinner, come help me.”
I looked at the clock in her living room. It was only 3:00pm.
“Isn’t it a little early for dinner?”
“Not when you make everything from scratch, it isn’t. And trust me, scratch is best.”
Scratch cooking? I snorted. I know, so ladylike, right? My mom, as much as I love her and I truly do, could barely make mac and cheese from the blue box. She kept trying, though. I’m not convinced that she hasn’t been secretly trying to poison us to death.
“I could help, I mean, try to help. I’ve never made anything.”
Nonna turned and looked at me with shock.
“You’ve never cooked?”
“Nope, or baked. My mom isn’t really all that good at culinary pursuits. She even managed to crucify those premade cookies that you just cut out of the tube and bake. It’s tragic, really.”
“Well then, I think we have figured out why we have stumbled into each other’s lives. I am going to start teaching you how to cook. I have recipes that have been passed down for centuries. Until now, I had no one to share them with.”
Her enthusiasm was contagious, so I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. Then again, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her no. I was definitely intrigued at the thought of learning some cool old recipes. But, what if I sucked at it? I suddenly realized that I was biting my lip while having this internal conversation.
“Don’t talk yourself out of it. I can see your head having an argument with your heart. If you don’t do something because you are afraid of failure, you have already failed. You owe it to yourself to try. If you try and it doesn’t work out, then it’s not failure, it’s a lesson.”
I swear, this woman should write a book of her advice on life. I start giggling as I picture her as a guru, a long grey beard twisting around her white robe covered body.
She raised an eyebrow at me, and held out what I supposed she considered an apron. It was baby pink with white polka dots, and a ruffle that went around the whole damn thing. Frickin pink. I didn’t do pink. My mom soured me to the color pink years ago. I was somewhat convinced that if any shade of that color were to touch my skin, it would burn like a flesh eating virus. No way I would be caught dead wearing this. Especially if Nick was around. I was going for intriguing and unaffected. Not fluffy. Definitely not fluffy.
“Uh, you don’t happen to have one of these in black, do you?” I sneered in disgust at the girly-girl apron.
“You need to lighten up and just relax. Let life happen. It’s an apron, for God’s sake, not a statement on your personal level of angst or anything. Aprons are not meant to make a statement, outside of ‘I’m smart enough to put this on and not ruin my eighty dollar pair of artistically torn jeans’.”
Okay, the woman had a point.
“Besides, Nick isn’t going to be around today, he has to work at the store today.”
Crap. Well, crap on two levels. Crap on the fact that he wasn’t going to be there, and crap that I was being so damned transparent.
“Oh, that’s fine. I wasn’t expecting to see him or anything.” I did my best aloof and apparently I failed miserably, judging by the way she looked me up and down with a knowing smirk on her face.
“So, uh, where does he work?”
“His dad owns the motorcycle service shop a few blocks over. Nick can’t officially work on the bikes because he’s only seventeen, but he does help out. He’s an apprentice.”
Motorcycles? Swoon. Seriously, swoon. My mouth went dry picturing him on a bike.
Nonna chuckled under her breath as she started gathering bowls and ingredients. I heard her say something about hormones, but I didn’t care. I was enjoying the mental image way too much to be annoyed by her comments or assumptions. Correct assumptions, of course.
“So, what are we making?”
“I am in the mood for some zeppole.”
“What is a zep-oh-lay?” I slowly tried to reproduce the sounds that rolled off of her tongue with ease.
Her penciled in eyebrows somehow managed to meet her forehead with the look of wide-eyed shock on her face. As comical as the image was, I forced myself to maintain a straight face and not laugh at her. Actually, I was irrationally proud of somehow managing to shock this strange woman.
“How on Earth is it possible that you do not know what zeppole are? Have you been hiding under a rock for as long as you’ve lived here?”
“Uh, no?”
“Your Italian cultural education is sorely lacking.”
“You do realize I’m not Italian, right?”
“You’re not? Well, what are you, then?”
“I’m, uh… huh. Honestly, I have no idea.” I wasn’t kidding. I really hadn’t ever really cared about stuff like that, so I didn’t ask. Mom and Dad never really talked about it, and Dad was adopted, so personal history was never that important to us.
“So you technically
could
be Italian, right?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Just as I thought! Plus, if I’m going to be your self-appointed adopted Grandmother, you are going to have to accept the fact that you are now part Italian. And any good, self-respecting Italian woman must know how to make zeppole! My personal favorite has the ricotta filling. Mmmmmm.” Her eyes closed as she mentally savored the flavor that she imagined from this thing she was about to make.
“Okay, I guess this pseudo-Italian chick needs to learn to bake. But I thought we were going to be making dinner.” I cringed as I reached for the apron. I was pretty certain I felt my skin singe a little when I touched it, but I put it over my head and tied it in the back.
“Who said you can’t have dessert for dinner?”
I had to concede the point on that one.
“So, what now?”
“We need sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter, salt and some eggs.” She rattled off the ingredients so quickly that I couldn’t quite process. I was a little dazed and looked around the tiny kitchen trying to figure out where I would find these things.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I have no idea where any of that is. It’s my first time baking, remember?”
“Sorry, I keep forgetting. Don’t worry, you’ll be a pro in no time. Flour and sugar are in the cupboard next to the sink. Butter and eggs are in the icebox. Salt is in the little dish next to the stove. Cinnamon is in spice rack on the counter.’
I scurried around the kitchen, gathering all of the ingredients and secretly enjoying her somewhat old school way of speaking. I mean, really, icebox? Who called the fridge an icebox?
Nonna talked as she cooked. Like, a lot. At first I was shocked by the flow of conversation. She was able to somehow speak non-stop while tossing a pinch of that and a dash of this. I found myself staring at the recipe in confusion. I was pretty sure she was making this up as she went along.
“So, you like to bake?” Yeah, it was a question. But, I figured I didn’t really have to ask.
A smile crossed her face that I had never seen. This was not forced, over the top, or exaggerated in any way. It was, well, sweet. She paused in her automatic motions of creating the Italian pastry.
“It is my passion. My grandmother, my nonna, would spend hours with me, telling me stories of her childhood in Napoli. Uh, sorry, Naples. She would describe her childhood home so wonderfully that I could see it. It was as if I visited Naples every time we baked together. I could probably walk downtown from her home. I could find the bakery from her front door, just from years of us folding dough together, cutting cookies, and cream fillings. When I bake, I get to spend a few moments with my nonna, and I get to visit Naples.”
“Did you ever go to Naples?”
For the first time ever in our short association, I saw sadness quickly cloud her clear eyes. She shook her head, slowly. Looking down at her hands, not meeting my eyes she answered.
“Life got in the way. The plan was to go for my honeymoon. My first husband, James, and I had it all planned out. We were going to visit the villages that our families were from. We would discover cousins we’d never met. We would walk hand in hand while touring old castles. I wanted to go see the ruins at Mt. Vesuvius. But then his number came up. Suddenly, he was on his way to Fort Benning in Georgia.”
Looking at the confused look on my face, she smiled sadly.
“His draft number. We had been at war already for several years. I had hoped it would be over before he was of age, but that wasn’t the case. It was 1943.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and got up to rummage through a small drawer in a little table that was set next to her recliner in the living room. She stood up, smiling sweetly at the item in her hand.
She held it out to me and I found myself looking into the eyes of a much, much younger Nonna in a short dress, and a bird cage veil. Next to her stood a young Marlon Brando lookalike, circa “A Streetcar Named Desire”. What? I had a thing for old black and white movies.
I held the photo closer, absorbing all the beautiful detail of the worn black and white photo. I saw a couple that was in love, but at the same time, scared.
“How long after the wedding did he leave?”
“The next day.”
I couldn’t help but gasp. How sad! I felt pain in my heart for this young couple who obviously loved each other so much.
“We were supposed to have a huge wedding in six months. You know, an enormous Italian affair. But when his number got called, we had two weeks. Two weeks to pack in all the memories that we could because suddenly all of our plans were now uncertainties. So, we found a justice of the peace and with our parents’ blessings got married.”
She smiled at the photo again, lightly outlining the curve of James’ jaw.
“He was a hottie, wasn’t he?” I nodded, wanting to laugh at her using the phrase ‘hottie’, but at the same time, I had to agree with her.
“We were childhood sweethearts. I had known him since elementary school. We would walk to school together. One day in high school he reached for my hand. I know that probably sounds strange in today’s world, but that one gesture was as romantic and thrilling as any ‘hook up’ you kids could muster up.”
I tried to act as if I wasn’t affected by her story, but I could picture them, in black and white. I could see him shyly reaching for her hand. Her gasp of surprise and a sweet smile, encouraging him. Sigh. I wished that was more like what dating was like today.
“It took him another year to get up the nerve to kiss me, and it was the sweetest, most gentle moment of my life. We were eighteen when we got married. Only eighteen. We were scared to death, and as I look back, we were just babies. But he was adult enough to go fight for our country. So we were adult enough to get married. That night was our first time.”
I looked at her with shock. She’d held off that long? I mean, I was willing to jump Nick on the steps day one. She had held off for
years
?