Italian for Beginners (6 page)

I smiled at him. “Yeah.” I liked that he had mentioned the future, as though it was a given. It made me feel a little safer.
I liked safe.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve had a really good time with you tonight.”

I smiled. “Me, too.”

“I’d love to do this again sometime soon,” he said.

“I’d like that,” I said. We smiled at each other for a long moment.

Fifteen minutes later, we were strolling back toward Michael’s restaurant. He had suggested a walk around the neighborhood,
and then maybe a glass of wine somewhere, but he had to stop quickly and drop an overdue check off for his head chef, he said.
He’d meant to do it earlier, but he’d forgotten.

Once we reached the doorway to Adriano’s, Michael paused and took a step closer to me. The world around us seemed to slow
as he put one hand on my waist, drawing me closer, and the other hand on the side of my face. He gently stroked my cheek with
his thumb as he gazed into my eyes. I held my breath as he closed his eyes and dipped his head slowly closer to mine until
our lips touched, ever so slightly.

It felt perfect.

We stood like that for a moment, suspended in time, our lips just barely touching, and then the kiss grew more passionate.
I should have felt silly, kissing a man I barely knew right in front of the restaurant he owned on a busy Manhattan street.
But instead, I only felt butterflies. My head swirled. It was the most perfect kiss I’d ever had. He continued to hold me
gently, stroking my cheek with soft fingers while he threaded his other hand through my hair. The kiss seemed to last forever,
and when we finally pulled slightly back from each other, I was breathless. He seemed to be, too.

“Wow,” he said, gazing into my eyes. He took a step back and raked a hand through his hair. “Wow,” he repeated.

“Wow,” I echoed. I could tell that I was blushing, but I no longer cared.

Michael cleared his throat and blinked a few times. “I, um, have to run that check inside quickly,” he said, nodding at the
door to the restaurant. “Do you want to come in for a moment and wait? And then maybe we can take that walk?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Good,” Michael said. He smiled at me. “Because I was thinking maybe I’d like to kiss you again.”

My heart thudded. “I think that sounds like a very good idea.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He gave me a quick peck on the lips. Then he opened the
door for me, and we ducked into the dark interior of the front room of Adriano’s. He showed me into his office, a small room
just off to the right of the waiting area, and told me to make myself comfortable. I sat down in one of the padded chairs
facing his desk and waited while he went off to find his executive chef.

A few minutes later, he returned. “You know, I was thinking,” he said as he strode into the office. “I should give you the
number of a woman I know in Rome who rents rooms by the month. She’s an old friend of the family.”

I smiled. “You’re really convinced I need to go back there, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “I’m just looking for an excuse to come visit. Would you let me crash on your couch?”

“That’s a long way to go for a second date.”

“I was hoping we’d have our second date before then,” he said, holding my gaze for just a moment longer than necessary. I
could feel my cheeks heating up as I smiled at him. He scribbled something on a piece of scrap paper and handed it to me.
I glanced at it quickly. It had a woman’s name—Karina, a phone number, and the word
Squisito
.

“That’s the restaurant where she works,” he clarified. “It’s right near the Pantheon. I haven’t talked to her in a few years,
but if you tell her you know me, I’m sure she’ll give you a great rate.”

“I feel like I’m meeting with a travel agent,” I said with a smile. But I folded the piece of paper and tucked it into my
wallet, knowing that if I did indeed make it to Rome, I’d probably stay at a hotel. But I didn’t want to insult Michael, who
was obviously going out of his way to help me.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

I nodded and stood up. He took a step closer, and we looked at each other for a long moment. He pulled me close, leaned in
again, and kissed me slowly, tenderly. I felt like I was in a dream. I could have stayed there forever.

But the spell was broken by the restaurant’s gum-snapping hostess, who appeared suddenly in the doorway of his office. “Um,
Mr. Evangelisti?” she asked hesitantly. We stepped away from each other quickly, as if we’d been caught doing something wrong.
She looked tentatively between the two of us and then cleared her throat. “There’s, um, a phone call for you.”

He glanced at her. “Can you take a message?”

She looked nervous now. She glanced at me again and cleared her throat. Then she looked back at Michael. “Well, uh, it’s your
mother-in-law,” she said.

My stomach dropped.

Michael’s eyes darted immediately to my face, which doubtless had turned ashen in a moment.

“His mother-in-law?” I repeated in a voice so high I didn’t recognize it.

The girl glanced at me and nodded slowly.

“Oh, my God,” I murmured. I felt like someone had just slapped me across the face and I was still reeling from the impact.
Had I just imagined the connection between us, the electricity in the air, the chemistry? Was I supposed to have become his
unwitting mistress? Or did he think I’d be on board with this plan, just because I was almost thirty-five, pathetic, boyfriendless,
and boring? Like I couldn’t do any better than a smooth-talking restaurant owner who was
married
?

I couldn’t believe I’d almost fallen for it.

I felt physically ill. The butterflies had been replaced by an almost overwhelming wave of nausea.

“Great,” Michael muttered under his breath, as if discouraged that the inconvenient little detail of his
marriage
had come up so soon. “Um, listen, Cat, it’s not what it sounds like.”

I wanted to cry. But I had never cried in front of a man. And I wasn’t about to start now, in front of someone I barely knew
at all and had very clearly misjudged entirely. “No need to explain,” I said crisply. I was already gathering my things to
go.

Michael looked even more wounded by my sudden coldness. I don’t know what he had expected. Was I supposed to be jumping up
and down with glee that I had begun falling for a married man, that I had just shared the best kiss of my life with someone
else’s husband?

“But, Cat!” Michael exclaimed. He raked both hands through his hair in obvious agitation. “It’s… I mean, I…” He didn’t seem
to be able to spit out words. I waited, glaring at him. “It’s just… I mean, she lives with us, and, um…” His voice trailed
off.

“Your mother-in-law
lives
with you?” I repeated in horror. I snorted. “Oh, perfect! This just keeps getting better.”

“No, it’s not what you think!” Michael said. “I mean, it is, but it’s not. I mean, you don’t understand.” He looked desperate.
He paused and turned to the hostess. “Anneliese, can you ask if I can call her back in a few minutes?”

She hesitated and glanced at me. “Mr. Evangelisti, she says it’s about your daughter.”

My jaw dropped.

“Daughter?”
I repeated. “You have a daughter, too?” Is this what my life had come to? He had a wife
and
kids? I felt short of breath, like something heavy was suddenly pressing down on my diaphragm.

“Listen, please, wait right there, and I’ll explain everything,” Michael said. He looked panicked. “I, um, I really have to
take this. She never calls. It must be an emergency. I’m—I’m sorry.”

And with that, he quickly strode out of the office, while I stared after him, slack-jawed and momentarily frozen to the spot.
After he’d disappeared toward the kitchen, I took a deep breath and shook myself. I had to go. I suddenly wanted to be as
far away from this place as possible. I glanced at the hostess, who was still standing there staring at me.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered to her. “He has a wife?”

She looked at me for a long moment and nodded. “Duh,” she said noncommittally. Then she rolled her eyes, looked bored again
and went back to snapping her gum. And why shouldn’t she? She was all of eighteen or nineteen. Her whole life stretched before
her.

Mine, on the other hand, seemed to be rapidly closing in on me, leaving me fewer and fewer chances for happiness every day.

T
hat bastard!” my sister declared later that evening, her voice sounding closer and clearer than it should have given that
she was thousands of miles away in Cozumel, on her honeymoon. She had called to say hello, but she had noticed right away
that something about my voice sounded funny.

I told her what had happened with Michael. “The worst part of it,” I said, “is that I can’t believe my judgment was so off,
you know?”

Becky sighed. “It’s not your fault, Cat,” she said. “You’re just in a bad place right now. And he took advantage of it. Or
he tried to, anyhow.”

I blinked a few times and tried to steady myself, even though I was sitting down at my desk at home. “It was just that he
made me feel”—I searched my mind and then filled in—“hopeful. He made me feel hopeful, for the first time in a while. Like
maybe I’d finally met someone who was different, you know?”

“He was playing games with your head,” Becky said softly.

“I know,” I said. “But it got me thinking. I just keep sitting around waiting for life to happen to me, don’t I? I mean, maybe
I’m not meeting the right guys because I’m not out there living.”

Becky was silent for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s it,” she said.

“But what if it
is
?” I asked, suddenly feeling like time was sifting too quickly through the hourglass, even as we spoke, and I needed to do
something right away to stop it. “What if I’m just sitting in my little cubicle every day and going to and from work and living
in this routine that I don’t know how to get out of?”

Becky sighed. “But Cat, that’s
you
,” she said.

Her words stung. She was right.

Becky tried to give me a few words of support, but I could hear Jay’s voice in the background, and I could tell she was distracted.
I didn’t blame her. It was her honeymoon. She didn’t need to be counseling me.

“Go have fun,” I said firmly. “And take lots of pictures.”

“You got it, Sis.” I could hear her smiling through the phone. “And honestly, don’t worry about Michael. He’s a jerk. The
world’s full of them. You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”

For no reason at all, except maybe that speaking of Rome last night had reminded me of him, Francesco’s olive-skinned, chiseled
face suddenly popped into my mind, as clear a vision as if I had seen him just yesterday.

“Yeah,” I said vaguely, shaking my head. “Maybe I haven’t.”

But as I wished my sister safe travels and told her to say hi to Jay for me and to make sure to have fun, I couldn’t shake
Francesco’s face from my mind.

Maybe I hadn’t met the right guy yet. Or maybe he’d been right in front of me all along, more than a decade ago, and I’d been
too scared to take that leap into the unknown and find out.

At midnight that night, I was still wide awake in my bed, tossing and turning. The later it got, the more distressed I felt.
I hated nights like this. I had to wake up again at six in order to get in my daily half hour of yoga before showering, blow-drying
my hair quickly, and leaving for work by seven fifteen. I knew I’d be miserable tomorrow if I didn’t get enough sleep.

But that wasn’t the primary thing that was on my mind. What was really bothering me was that I couldn’t shake the thought
of Francesco. The more I tried not to think about the married restaurateur, the more I focused on the guy I’d fallen for in
Italy more than a dozen years ago.

So at twelve fifteen, I finally snapped on my bedside light, got up, and walked into my living room. I switched on the lamp
on my desk and opened the bottom drawer. Slowly, I pulled out the small wooden keepsake box I hadn’t looked at since placing
it there years ago.

I sat down on the living room sofa with the box in my lap and cracked it open slowly, as if doing so with less caution would
invite my old life to come lumbering into my new one more quickly than I was prepared for.

The first thing I saw was the photo of Francesco, the last one I’d taken the morning I left Rome. I’d snapped the shot just
hours before I last saw him. It was my favorite picture of him. I had gotten up early that morning to pack the rest of my
things, most of which had migrated from my tiny dorm room to Francesco’s much larger apartment over the course of our two-month
relationship. I had set my neatly packed suitcases by the front door and had crept back into the bedroom to wake him. But
when I stepped through the doorway, he looked so cute tangled up in the sheets, his mouth just a little bit open, the muscles
in his bare, darkly tanned shoulders rippling perfectly, that I couldn’t resist grabbing my camera and snapping a shot. He
never knew I’d taken it, but I’d looked at it so many times, especially in that first year after leaving Rome, that the edges
were tattered and worn, and the photo looked many years older than it was.