Page 116 of The Pairing

“It takes me many summers with the tour company to convince them,” Fabrizio tells us, “but tonight, we dine in il ristorante di famiglia!”

The menu is a straightforward tour of Neapolitan staples: pappardelle in eight-hour ragù napoletano, pasta alla genovese, braciola, roasted squid, octopus cooked in white wine. For antipasti, Fabrizio’s mother brings out plate after plate of eggplant involtini and fried nuggets of mozzarella. We devour more pasta than any human should ever eat and follow it with hunks of pork and beef stewed in the ragù. It is, unpretentiously and unassumingly, the best meal I’ve had in Italy.

Maybe it’s the atmosphere of a traditional Neapolitan cucina. Maybe it’s Fabrizio’s father sweating under his heavy beard in the kitchen, stirring enormous vats of stew, communicating only by shouts through the kitchen window in the voice of a man who gets incredible deals from the local butcher. Maybe it’s Fabrizio’s mother, who dances in and out to deliver more parmigiana or squeeze Fabrizio’s cheeks or interrogate someone on why they haven’t cleared their plate. Or maybe it’s how happy Theo seems to be here, nearly weeping with laughter at the photos of teenage Fabrizio and his brothers on the walls.

Just as Fabrizio’s mother is beginning to nag him about the length of his hair, my phone sounds a long buzz in my pocket.

It’s probably Cora, forgetting I’m in Italy and calling to chat about what she’s been reading, or Maxine with a recipe question that’s easier to explain over the phone. But neither of their names are on the incoming call.

I slip away from the table and out the front door.

“Paloma?” I answer.

“Bonsoir, mon petit américain,” says Paloma’s crisp voice over the line. “Ça va? Where are you?”

“I’m good,” I say. “I’m in Naples.”

“Ah, Napoli.” Paloma sighs. “Beautiful city. Excellent fish. Are you eating well?”

“So well,” I say, rubbing my chest where I can feel the threatof impending heartburn. “Maybe too well.”

“As you should,” Paloma says. “And your Theo?”

I press my shoulders to the restaurant’s brick wall and lean my head back.

“My Theo is as brilliant as ever.”

“Have you confessed your love yet?”

I cover the phone with my hand, like somehow Theo could overhear from all the way inside.

“Paloma, not that I’m not happy to hear from you, but is there a reason you called?”

“Yes, there is,” Paloma says. “You remember the pâtisserie under me? The one with the macarons, and the old woman?”

“I do.”

“Every Thursday I bring her dinner with fresh fish, so she likes me, and she tells me her secrets. Usually it is about François across the road—she thinks he is very handsome—but tonight it was about the pâtisserie. She wants to close next year.”

“Oh, no,” I say, still unsure why Paloma felt she needed to call with this news.

“And,” she goes on, “she wants to sell it. She wants to find a young pâtissier who will do something nice with it and stay for a long time, the way she did. She asked if I knew anyone, and right away I thought of you.”

“Oh,” I say. “Oh, wow.”

“And?” she prompts. “What do you think?”

It sounds like a dream. The kind of gorgeous, sugar-spun dream that is never as easy as it feels in my head. The kind of dream I was chasing when I lost Theo, the kind my kitchen in Paris wrung out of me.

“That’s so kind of you, Paloma,” I say, “but I have a job, remember?”

“Yes, the job you hate.”

“I don’thateit.”

“But you don’t like it.”

“That doesn’t mean I can just quit.”

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