Page 20 of A Winter in New York

“You know why I’m doing it,” I say.

“Because he’s got good hands?”

“Because I owe them.” I lift the noodles high out of the pan with long tongs, twirling them into heaps as I lower them into waiting bowls.

“I don’t, though, and I miss your gelato machine. Can it come home yet?”

“Stop being so needy,” I say, handing him the dishes. “What’s next?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You leave me for the gelato people and never come home?” He bangs the dishes down on the pass, shoves his head through the hatch and shouts, “Service!”

When he turns back, I lay my cooking tools down and give him a quick hug.

“What was that for?”

“To say thank you for caring about me.” I step back, my hands on his shoulders. “I’ll always come home.”

He presses his lips into a tight line, and for a second I think he’s about to cry. “It’s the gelato machine I really worry about,” he says, and I hug him again, laughing.

I turn back to cook the final dishes of the night, more glad of Bobby than ever. He’s reminded me tonight that while I may not be a well-established cog yet, I have a home of my own and a good friend, and that’s more than I’ve had in a long time. In his own inimitable, roundabout way I see that he’s trying to tell me to be careful, to keep a healthy distance between myself and the Belottis so I don’t wind up getting hurt. It’s good advice. I’ve started to feel dangerously familiar around Gio, and in all honesty I’m just blocking out the fact I lied to him about Adam, because opening the door on memories of my final two years in London sends me in on myself in a way I hate. I feel my shoulders lift and curve in, my head dip down, braced for impact. I can’t breathe deeply enough or think straight, panic gets hold of me and tosses mearound like a cat with a mouse. I’m not that mouse anymore. I’m not.

—

Monday rolls in cold,bright, and clear, a welcome relief after the rain-fest of a weekend. I spent yesterday cooking an elaborate three-course dinner to celebrate Robin’s return from Chicago. I didn’t go up there and eat with them. They asked me, of course, but it was more about the pleasure of creation than eating, for me at least. Besides, three’s a crowd, they had some catching up to do. In all honesty, I was pretty glad to have the day to myself—no Belotti’s, just me, my recipe books, and the rain on my windows. Smirnoff hung out with me, lured in by the kitchen smells, watching me flex my rusty culinary muscles as he hung around in the hope of scraps.

Mulberry Street is much quieter without the hubbub of the festival, a more leisurely pace of morning commuters and unjostled space on the sidewalk. I pause outside Belotti’s to allow a couple of women in office suits and sneakers to pass by, both of them clutching steaming coffee cups and green-striped paper bags. I’m surprised to hear piano music when I step inside.

I smile at Sophia behind the counter and then turn my attention toward the piano, where someone has just stopped playing mid-tune to peer over the top of it at me.

“Bella, go again,” Gio says, looking at her as he appears with a large drum of coffee beans in his hands, noticing me as he lowers it to the floor. “Oh, Iris, hello.”

The jean-clad girl behind the piano slides off the stool andskips across to stand beside Sophia, her dark ponytail swinging as she goes. She’s slight and swamped by her mustard hoodie, her eyes tracking me as I perch on one of the leather seats.

“Bells, this is Iris,” Sophia says, her arm snaking around the girl’s shoulders.

I meet Gio’s daughter’s eyes and smile, sensing her curiosity. I really hope she wasn’t included in Sophia’s text messages last week suggesting I’m here for anything but to help.

“I liked your piece,” I say, nodding toward the piano.

She shoots me a reserved half smile. “Do you play?”

My mother struggled sometimes with home-schooling, particularly when it came to grappling with the trickier aspects of mathematics and scientific theories, but she was pretty magnificent when it came to music.

“I do. Well, I did. I haven’t, for ages, but I used to love it.”

Gio pushes a coffee toward me. “I didn’t know that.”

“She sings as well,” Sophia says, obviously recalling our von Trapp conversation.

“Me too,” Bella says, her smile widening. I see much of Gio in her; she has his eyes. “I was just practicing piano.”

“She has an evaluation tomorrow,” Gio says. “So maybe she could scoot her butt back on over to that stool and take it from the top again.”

His comment earns him an exaggerated sigh, but she does as he asks all the same. I sip my coffee as she starts, halts, then starts again.

“You’re making me nervous, all watching me,” she grumbles, going pink.

I pick up my coffee and Gio inclines his head for me to follow him through to the kitchen. I look across at Bella, herhead bowed in concentration, and I remember being that age with my mum alongside me on the stool. I was lucky to have her.

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