Page 81 of The Best Worst Mistake
The ocean glitters below, as if a big diamond has been ground into dust then thrown across the surface of the water, casting shadows and colorful prisms that dance and parade their way across her cream stucco walls.
When we first started our lesson, she’d spoken to us as if we were a couple, here at the start of a marriage or romantic journey together. When I realized her mistake, I’d quickly waved my hands in front of us all to correct her.
“No, no, I’m sorry, Silas and I are just friends,” I told her.
“Friends?” she repeated, glancing back and forth between us. “Says who?” She nudged me, grinning.
“Says both of us,” I assured her, glancing up at Silas, who nodded in agreement.
“You came all the way to Italy to my kitchen to make pasta with yourfriend?” she repeated, looking like we were out of our minds.
I shrugged and laughed. “I guess so?” It did sound absurd when spelled out like that.
“You won’t be just friends after tonight,” she said before pulling bowls and eggs out onto the weathered surface behind her.
“Oh, yes we will,” I replied under my breath, glancing at Silas like she probably says this to everyone who comes to her kitchen.
“And I don’t say that to everyone,” she said, her back still to me, as if reading my mind.
My eyes had darted back to hers when she turned and smiled, taking both my hands in hers after setting everything down.
“Just make the pasta.” She smiled gleefully. “You worry too much,bambola. I can see it in your eyes.” Then she touched my cheek, beaming.
“I don’t,” I said at the same time Silas nodded, saying, “She does.”
My jaw dropped at him, but Nonna Lisi had laughed and released my hands, shuffling around her kitchen to pull a bowl of freshly ground flour over next.
As our lesson started, I watched her hands, like expensive Italian leather — both soft and impossibly strong — pull one creaky wooden cupboard open after the next to extract buttery smooth carved utensils and wooden bowls, each one silky to the touch from decades of use as she held them out to us to take. I’d turned each one over, feeling the history in my hands.
She smiled and hummed as she worked, eventually pulling out three heavy goblets and a ceramic jug of red wine.
“Cin cin!” she’d exclaimed, pouring the glasses nearly full to the top, before handing two to us and keeping one for herself. Then she’d tipped hers back, letting at least a third of the wine pour down her throat before turning to us and asking suddenly — innocently — if we were in love yet.
I’d laughed and held my cup between my fingers, rolling it back and forth, suddenly at a loss for words. Silas happily stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“No,” I’d finally said, when enough time had passed and Silas hadn’t answered at all. “We’re friends. Like I said. Not lovers. We’re not here to — no.”
“Okay,” she said simply, then grinned with her back to the countertop, for a few beats. “We’ll check again soon.”
I’d laughed, choking a bit on my wine, wondering if this woman had some secret power that wasn’t advertised with her pasta classes.
She tapped her temple. “I know these things,” she’d said.
Silas had chuckled under his breath and I’d whacked him in the gut — gently, but enough to make him laugh even harder.
Then she’d grabbed our hands and shook them together, giggling like the whole thing was hilarious.
“Okay. We make pasta first! We learn to fall in love with that!”
I’d bit the inside of my cheek and squeezed her hand back while she beamed between us, as if she knew she was making a love match instead of Italian cuisine tonight, regardless of what we denied.
Now, Silas and I each have a pile of sticky white flour and egg in front of us, willingly participating in an unspoken contest for the most delicious pasta at the end of all this. I can tell she’s quite taken with him, if her giggles over Si are any indication, clicking her tongue over anything he says like a proud mother hen, while finding any reason to leave white flour residue all over his arms, both dusted in white by now.
“You love it?” she asks, noticing me staring outside at the view again as we work the dough.
“This? Yes,” I confirm, smiling. “What’s not to love?”
“You love where you live?” she asks.
