The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(3)

“Just what I was hoping for,” I say, giving it a cursory glance. “Credit card applications and Key Food coupons I’ll never remember to use.”

He smiles and lifts a hand. “Have a nice day, Emmie.”

“You, too, Mr. Copetti.”

I move next door to another brick building, this one beige, and step into the entryway. Patrizia Ciofi belts out an aria from La Traviata. I peer through the glass door. Despite the opera thundering from his 1990s CD player—the newest item in his shop—Uncle Dolphie is sound asleep in one of his barber chairs. Strangely, it’s the jingling of the bells when I open the door that always startles him. I pull the handle and, as expected, he jumps to life, swiping at the drool on his chin and straightening his glasses.

“Emilia!” he cries, with such gusto you’d swear he hadn’t seen me in weeks. My uncle is more cute than handsome, with a head full of downy white curls and cheeks so full you’d swear he’d just had his wisdom teeth extracted. He’s wearing his usual barber smock, solid black with three diagonal snaps on the right collar, and Dolphie embroidered on the pocket.

“Hi, Uncle Dolphie,” I shout over the music. The younger brother of Nonna Rosa, Dolphie is technically my great-uncle. But Fontanas don’t bother with these kinds of distinctions. I hold out the bag to him. “Pistachio biscotti and a slice of panforte today.”

“Grazie.” He teeters as he snags the bag, and I resist the urge to steady him. At age seventy-eight, my uncle is still a proud man. “Shall I get a knife?” he asks.

I give my usual reply. “It’s all yours, thanks.”

He makes his way over to his CD player, perched on the ledge of a mirror. With a hand peppered in age spots, he lowers the volume. The opera quiets. I set my mail beside the cash register and step over to an old metal cart, littered with magazines and advertising leaflets, and pour myself a cup of coffee with cream.

We sit side by side in the empty barber chairs. His rectangular wire-framed glasses, similar to mine but twice as large, slide down his nose as he eats his treat.

“Busy day?” I ask.

“Sì,” he says, though the tiny shop is empty, as always. “Extremely.”

When I was a little girl, my uncle would have three men waiting for cuts, another for a hot shave, and two more drinking grappa and playing Scopa in the back room. Dolphie’s barbershop was the neighborhood hub, the place to come for opera and boisterous debate and local gossip. But these days, the shop is as vacant as a telephone booth. I guess I can’t blame anyone for no longer trusting a shaky old man to hold a razor to his neck.

“Your cousin Luciana scheduled a haircut today. I promised to fit her in.” He glances at his watch. “She is late, as usual.”

“She’s probably tied up at work,” I say, instantly regretting my choice of words. My impetuous cousin Lucy—second cousin, if I were being precise—makes no pretense of her active “social life.” This, together with the fact that her boyfriend du jour is her coworker, makes it entirely possible that Lucy really is tied up at work. “How’s Aunt Ethel?” I say, changing the subject.

Uncle Dolphie raises his brows. “Last night she saw her sister. She’s always happy when she sees Adriana.” He chuckles and dabs his mouth with his napkin. “If only I could get that woman to appear more often.”

My aunt Ethel and uncle Dolphie live above the barbershop in a two-bedroom apartment my aunt has always believed is haunted. Sweet Ethel claims she sees the ghosts of her relatives from the old country, which, I suspect, is one of the reasons my uncle continues to keep regular hours at the empty barbershop. Everyone needs an escape, I suppose. I used to ask my aunt if she ever saw my mother. She always said no. A few years ago, I finally stopped asking.

Uncle Dolphie drops one last bite into his mouth and brushes the crumbs from his hands. “Delizioso,” he says and shuffles over to his barber station. He returns with the pages I gave him yesterday.

“I am liking this story, la mia nipote talentuosa.”

My talented niece? I bite my lip to hide my glee. “Grazie.”

“You are building momentum. I sense conflict coming.”

“You’re right,” I say, remembering the plotline I imagined today at work. I pull last night’s pages from my satchel and hand them to him. “I’ll bring the next installment on Thursday.”

He scowls. “Nothing tomorrow?”

I can’t help but smile. It’s our secret, my little writing hobby. “Never underestimate the blueprint for a dream,” he likes to say. Uncle Dolphie once told me he had a dream of writing an opera when he was young, though he refuses to share his notes with me, or even his ideas. “Silliness,” he always says, and he turns fifty shades of red. But I love that he once had the blueprint for a dream. I only wish he hadn’t underestimated it.

“Sorry,” I say. “No time to write tonight. Daria is hosting her book club. She invited me to come.” My tone is nonchalant, as if being invited to hang out with my sister and her friends were an everyday event for me. “She asked me to bring dolce pizza.” I peek at the clock—half past three—and make my way to the sink.

“According to Dar,” I say, rinsing my cup, “the book club’s main objective is eating, followed by drinking and talking. If they find time, they discuss the book.”