“Yes! I have to thank Andrea. I haven’t seen him yet.”
“Now I really have to give you this so you remember us. Vivi and I went to themercato dell’usatoagain, and this is something you can take with you to Switzerland.” She reached behind the bar to pull out a small paper bag and handed it to Lora.
“You didn’t have to get me anything!”
“It’s nothing! Just look at it.”
Lora reached into the bag and pulled out a small, pen-like tool with a wooden handle and a spinning, fluted metal circle on the end of it.
“Apansotticutter!”
“Sì!Vivi said you thought it was the greatest thing ever, so when I saw it, I wanted to get it for you so you can remember your first day as a chef.”
“I love this,” Lora said, clutching it to her chest. It was so perfect, so thoughtful. “Thank you. This means so much to me and I am going to take it with me everywhere. I can’t promise I am going to make thepansotti, though.”
“That’s optional,” Giada said, laughing.
She looked over Lora’s shoulder and waved. “Here comes oursindaconow, so you can thank him. I hope he’s feeling better today.”
“What do you mean, ‘better’?” asked Lora as Andrea walked over. His eyes were rimmed in red, and although he had on a clean shirt and was shaved, he looked like he’d been lying in a heap until ten minutes before.
“Did you get some sleep last night?” Giada asked him.
“Not really. Some of the vendors started setting up at six this morning, and I made the mistake of falling asleep with my window open. It’s fine, though. I’m good. Only a few hours to go,” he said, looking down at his watch.
“Thank you, by the way,” Lora said, touching the side of his arm. “I got the postcard with the good news.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, nodding. “I’m glad I could help.”
“I’ve got to get back inside,” said Giada, turning to look at the line of customers building by the cash register. “Good luck with the speech, Andre. I know it will be great.”
With Giada gone, Lora could do nothing but feel her feet rooted to the ground while she stared at Andrea. His eyes locked with hers, though neither of them spoke while the noises of the piazza swirled around them. He looked so tired—it was in the way that he stood, the set of his shoulders. She wanted to reach up and put her arms around him, giving him a place to rest for as long as he needed. But she couldn’t offer him that. And staring at him was becoming awkward. She wanted to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Her fingers closed around thepansotticutter, and before she could control the muscles in her very own body, she raised it up in front of his face.
“Look what Giada and Vivi got me.”
“It’s for pasta.”
“Yes! Isn’t it amazing? They are the sweetest. I will really miss them,” she said, looking at the cutter in her hand.
“I am sure they will miss you. We all will.”
“I’ll miss you too,” she said, feeling her eyes go glassy. Andrea reached down and took her hands. No matter what she said to Vilmari, what she kept telling herself, and what that postcard read, she could not deny the surge of sparks in her chest. She wanted it to stop but also to never end. The lead singer of the band rolled into singing an a cappella chorus of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” before the band joined in, and she laughed. “What is it with this song? And you were right. It doesn’t matter if it’s about West Virginia. I know if I ever hear it again, it’s going to remind me of this little town on the coast of Italy.”
“Good,” he said. “Maybe you’ll take a little bit of us with you.”
“I hope so,” she said, not letting go. “This really has been unforgettable. So far.”
Andrea pulled one of her hands, tugging her to the back side of one of the stands, and turned to face her. Dusk was falling, and the lights hanging overhead cast a glow down over them. She was buzzing, every synapse lit up as he pulled her closer.
“Lora, I know this is probably the wrong time. And I know that one of the first things I ever said to you was that this relationship had no future. But I think I was wrong. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not that far from here to Zurich. There are trains and planes. Europe is small compared to the US. And one of us will have enough time off to come to visit the other. Lots of people do it. Why not us?”
Her mind raced forward, flashing a scene of the two ofthem standing on a platform waiting for her train to arrive to take her back to Zurich. In less than a second, the image made her feel the sadness, longing, exhaustion, frustration that would inevitably win over the romantic idea of gutting it out from afar. Long-distance relationships were like defying physics—two people trying to make time and space bend to their will with calls, texts, visits. But in reality, there was no beating the laws of the universe. No one was closer, and in the end, it was just two lives that were still separate and could never move forward. She’d made a promise to herself. It was the only thing that she could rely on and the only thing she could hold on to. She would make it to Zurich, and all of this odd music and the new friends, Andrea’s town house and the kayak, city hall and the Panda, and even that terrifying bank and the damned box that was still sitting on the kitchen table—all of it would be an amazing memory.
“It’s a really beautiful idea. It’s not that I don’t feel it too, Andrea. Everything about you and me has been intense since the day we met. When I look at this place,” she said, waving around at the twinkling lights, “everything is conspiring to make someone fall in—well, to make someone feel a lot of things.”
“But—” he said, his shoulders sinking again.
“But we are two very busy, very dedicated people who likely won’t have time to text good morning, let alone find a couple of free days where we can hop on a train to see each other. We might make one visit. Two? Then how long until one of us says to the other ‘I need more’? How long until we realize that neither one of us can give up what we do to be closer?”
