Love & Gelato(17)

“I’ll show you strong feelings.” She reached for a pair of glasses and slipped them onto her nose, giving me a once-over. “Oh, Lorenzo, where did you find her?”

“We just met on the hill behind the cemetery. She’s living here with her dad for the summer.”

“You’re one of us!”

“American?” I asked.

“Expatriate.”

“Hostage” was more like it. But that wasn’t the sort of thing you told someone you’d just met.

“Wait a minute.” She leaned forward. “I heard you were coming. Are you Howard Mercer’s daughter?”

“Yes. I’m Lina.”

“Her full name is ‘Carolina,’?” Ren added.

“Just call me Lina.”

“Well, thank the heavens, Lina—we need more Americans here. Preferably live ones,” she said, waving her hand dismissively in the direction of the cemetery. “I’m so glad to meet you. Have you learned any Italian?”

“I memorized like five phrases on the flight over.”

“What are they?” Ren asked.

“I’m not saying them in front of you. I’ll probably sound like an idiot.”

He shrugged. “Che peccato.”

Odette grimaced. “Promise me you’ll never use even one of those phrases in this house. I’m spending the summer pretending to be somewhere other than Italy.”

Ren grinned. “How’s that working out for you? You know, with your Italian husband and children?”

She ignored him. “I’m going to get us some drinks. You two make yourselves comfortable.” She squeezed my shoulder, then walked out of the room.

Ren looked at me. “Told you she’d be happy to meet you.”

“Does she really hate Italy?”

“No way. She’s mad that we can’t go to Texas this summer, but every year it’s the same thing. We get there and she spends three months complaining about the terrible food and all the people she sees wearing their pajamas in public.”

“Who wears their pajamas in public?”

“Lots of people. Trust me. It’s like an epidemic.”

I pointed to the table. “Is she an artist?”

“Yeah. She paints ceramics, mostly scenes of Tuscany. There’s a guy in Florence who sells them in his shop, and tourists pay like a gazillion dollars for them. They’d probably have a conniption if they found out they’re done by an American.” He picked up a tile and handed it to me. She’d painted a yellow cottage nestled between two hills.

“This is really pretty.”

“You should see upstairs. We have a whole wall of tile that she’s replacing one by one with the ones she’s worked on.”

I set the tile down. “Are you artistic?”

“Me? No. Not really.”

“I’m not either. But my mom was an artist too. She was a photographer.”

“Cool. Like family portraits and stuff?”

“No. Mostly fine-art kinds of stuff. Her work was displayed in galleries and at art shows, places like that. She taught in colleges, too.”

“Nice. What was her name?”

“Hadley Emerson.”

Odette reappeared, carrying two cans of orange Fanta and an opened sleeve of cookies. “Here you go. Ren goes through about a pack of these a day. You’ll love them.”

I took one. It was a sandwich cookie with vanilla on one side and chocolate on the other. An Italian Oreo. I bit into it and a choir of angels started singing. Did Italian food have some kind of fairy dust that made it way better than its American counterparts?

“Give her more,” Ren said. “She looks like she’s going to eat her arm.”

“Hey—” I started, but then Odette handed me the rest of the cookies and I was too busy eating to properly defend myself.

Odette smiled. “I love a girl who can eat. Now, where were we? Oh—I didn’t really introduce myself, did I? I swear, this place is turning me into a savage. I’m Odette Ferrara. It’s like ‘Ferrari,’ but with an a. Pleased to meet you.” She extended her hand, and I wiped crumbs off mine so we could shake. “Can we talk about air-conditioning? And drive-thru restaurants? Those are the two things I’ve been missing most this summer.”

“You never even let us eat fast food when we’re in the States,” Ren said.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t eat it. And whose side are you on anyway? Mine or the Signore’s?”

“No comment.”

“Who’s the Signore?” I asked.

“My dad. I have no idea how they ended up together. You know those weird animal friendship videos, where a bear and a duck become best friends? They’re kind of like that.”

Odette cackled. “Oh, come on. We’re not that different. But now I’m curious. In that scenario, would you consider me the bear or the duck?”

“I’m not going there.”

Odette turned to me. “So what do you think of my Ren?”

I swallowed and handed the rest of the cookies to Ren, who was eyeing them like they were his precious. “He’s . . . very friendly.”

“And handsome, too, isn’t he?”