Love & Gelato(50)

Okay. Interesting, but not quite the story he’d told my mom. I tried again. “Do you know if my mom ever saw it?”

He cocked his head. “I don’t know. I can’t remember ever talking to her about Giambologna. Why? Did she tell you about it?”

I can’t remember. His face was as smooth as a fresh jar of Nutella. He definitely wasn’t lying, but was it really possible that he’d forgotten? Had he suffered some kind of head trauma or have a mental block that kept him from remembering details about his relationship with my mom?

Suddenly a new thought tiptoed out of the corner of my mind. What if he wasn’t forgetting? Or denying? What if . . . ? I sprang to my feet, crumbling the muffin in my hand. “I need to go upstairs.”

I ran out of the room before he could ask why.



My mother’s words spun through my mind as I climbed the stairs: Yes, X. I seriously don’t think anyone would read my journal, but I’m giving him a new name, just in case.

As soon as I was in my room I locked the door behind me and fumbled for the journal. I switched on my lamp and started flipping through it.

Howard: The perfect Southern gentleman (Southern giant, Francesca calls him), handsome, kind, and the kind of guy who will go marching into battle for you.

I love being in love in Italy. But truth be told, I would fall for X anywhere.

Howard offered to walk me home, and I found myself telling him about Adrienne and the psychic.

“No way,” I breathed.

There was a reason Howard didn’t know about the secret bakery or the significance of Giambologna’s statue, and why my mom had slipped up and called him by his real name.

He wasn’t X.



“Addie, pick up, pick up!” I whispered.

“Hey, this is Addie! Leave a message and I’ll—”

“Argh!” I tossed the phone on my bed and started pacing around. Where was she? I went and stood at the window. My mom had been in love with someone who wasn’t Howard. She’d had this take-over-everything passionate love affair and then she’d ended up pregnant with someone else’s baby. Howard’s. Was that her wrong choice? That she’d gotten pregnant with Howard when really she’d been in love with someone else? Was that what had made her flee Italy?

I fell heavily into my chair, then popped back up. Ren would answer! I dove onto my bed, fishing my phone out of the covers and dialing his number.

He answered on the second ring. “Lina?”

“Hey. Listen, I did what you suggested. I asked him about the statue.”

“What did he say?”

“He knew all about it, the history and everything. But then I asked him if he’d ever seen it with my mom and he couldn’t remember.”

“What is his deal? Either he has the worst memory in the world or—”

“Or he was never there,” I interrupted impatiently.

“What?”

“Ren, think about it. Maybe he doesn’t know about the secret bakery or the confession of love at the Sabine statue because he isn’t X.”

“Oh.”

“Right?”

“Ohhh. Well . . . yeah. Okay, walk me through it.”

“I’m thinking it went something like this: My mom moves to Italy and makes a bunch of friends, Howard included. Then a few months in she falls for this guy X. Something happens, maybe they fight too much, or there’s too much pressure because the school has some kind of weird rule about dating, and they break up. Then my mom rebounds with this nice Southern gentleman who probably had a thing for her all along. She gives it a try, but she can’t get X off her mind. Then one day she finds out she’s pregnant and panics, because she’s having a baby with someone she isn’t in love with.”

“That totally makes sense!”

“I know. And that would explain why we stayed away from him all these years. I mean, he is a nice guy, and from all the stories she told, he was definitely a good friend to her, but you can’t just pretend to be in love with someone. It would hurt them too badly.”

“Poor, scary Howard,” Ren breathed.

“And that’s why she wrote ‘I made the wrong choice.’ Maybe that was her big regret. She had a baby with someone she wasn’t in love with.”

“Except you’re that baby. So do you really think she’d have written that in the front of her journal?”

“Oh. Probably not.” I sat down. “But, Ren, it’s so sad! I mean, the way Howard talks about her, you can tell he really loved her. And she told me all these stories about how much fun they used to have together. But it just wasn’t enough—she loved someone else!”

“It’s like that old song ‘Love Stinks.’?”

“Never heard of it.”

“You haven’t? It’s in a bunch of movies. It’s about how whenever you fall in love with someone it turns out they’re in love with someone else. And it’s this big messed-up cycle where no one ends up with the person they want.”

“Ugh. That is so depressing.”

“Tell me about it.” He paused. “Are you going to tell Howard that you know? About X?”

“No. I mean, I’m sure we’ll talk about it eventually. But not until I finish the journal. I have to make sure my theory is right.”