Page 44 of Broken Trust

Nella buzzes me up before I even ring. She's in her pajamas with her hair in a towel and a face mask smeared across her cheeks that makes her look like a very angry avocado.

“You're a wreck,” she says, pulling me inside. “Wine?”

“Please.”

Her apartment is tiny and warm and smells like the lavender candles she buys in bulk from the market. There are nursing textbooks stacked on every surface, a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, and a fat orange cat named Garibaldi asleep on the radiator, who opens one eye at me and closes it again in disgust. I sink onto the couch while Nella pours two enormous glasses of red, and she drops down beside me and tucks her feet under her.

“So,” she says. “How was the cheese man?”

“Good. His pecorino is incredible. I'm going to put it on the menu in October with the fava beans and some of Fiorenzo's honey.” I take a long swallow of wine. “And I took a car there and back.”

Nella gives me a look over the rim of her glass. “Your supplier is in Borgo San Pietro. That's a short stroll from the train station.”

“I know.”

“You hate taking Ubers. You’ll either take a train, metro or even a bus. There’s only one time you took an Uber and that was to get away from your horrible date. I’m not fixing you up on a blind date again.”

“I know, Nella.”

She sets her glass down, careful not to knock the puzzle, and turns to face me properly. The avocado mask is starting to crack around her mouth.

“Gia,” she says slowly. “How many Ubers have you taken this month?”

I stare into my wine. I can feel my cheeks going hot.

“Eleven,” I mumble.

“Gia!”

“Twelve, if you count the one last week that I canceled when I saw it was a woman.” I bury my head in my free hand. “Oh my God. Don't look at me. I'm a lunatic. A grown woman who does Uber rides to bump into her almost ex-husband.”

“Husband,” she corrects me. “He still hasn’t signed the divorce papers.”

Nella stares at me for a split second.

“How long?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” The words tumble out in a rush, like I've been holding it in for months, which I suppose I have. “At first I told myself it was because it was about to rain. Then I started ordering them on purpose. I check who's driving every time, and my heart does this stupid little jump. Then I made it until Christmas before I admitted to myself what I was doing. And I still haven't stopped.”

“Have you called him?” Nella asks gently.

“No.” I pick at a loose thread on the cushion. “I wouldn't even know what to say.”

“Give me a divorce!” I mimic.

Nella takes my wine glass out of my hand and sets it next to hers. Then she scoots over and wraps her arms around me, green mask and all, and I press my cheek into her shoulder and let myself cry the way I haven't since opening night.

“I don't want to love him,” I sob into her pajamas. “I've tried so hard not to. I built a whole life without him. I've got the restaurant, and Matteo asked me out last week, and I should want that. I should be falling over myself to accept it.”

“But?”

“But every time I shut my eyes, it's Dante.” I pull back and look at her, my face a mess. “It's always been Dante. I've met a hundred men over the years, Nella, and none of them come close. Not even a little. It's pathetic.”

Nella goes quiet. She reaches up and peels a strip of the dried mask off her cheek, and underneath it her skin is pink and her eyes are wet.

“Stop it. There's nothing sad about it,” she says. “I hate saying this, I really do, because I've spent two years wanting to put that man in the ground. But I think he's your soul mate, Gia. Maybe he always was.”

I gape at her. Of all the things I expected her to say, that wasn't one of them.