Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance (26 page)

We threw a couple more steaks on the fire and cut them up for lunch before we went on to Mario and Sally demonstrating the soup. I kept my eyes on his hands to make sure they were on the soup and not Sally’s butt.

W
E STAYED IN
F
LORENCE
that night and the next morning drove a few hours south to wine country. Today’s shoot would take place completely at one location, but what a location. The Fontana al Sole vineyard and winery was set in the rolling hills of Chianti, overlooking miles of the Tuscan landscape.
The property was a large fifteenth-century villa that had been restored to an extraordinarily beautiful working estate. As well as producing their own wines, the owners, Carlo Pina and his wife, Michaela, our talent of the day, pressed their own olive oil, made pecorino cheese, produced chestnut honey, grew all their own vegetables, and raised their own chickens and pigs. It was idyllic, or so I thought when Giuseppe dropped me off at the front door.

A uniformed maid answered the bell, and I could hear the ruckus coming from the kitchen in the back of the house. At least, I surmised that it was the kitchen from the sound of dishes breaking against a wall. I hoped that wasn’t our set. There was a lot of yelling, and I could hear a female voice say, “
Un sacco di merda
.” That’s a sack of stuff you step in if you don’t watch where you’re going.

The maid disappeared, and a few minutes later Carlo appeared. He was a dashing man, in a Marcello-Mastroianni-when-he-was-forty sort of way.

“Come in. Come in. My wife, she is a little upset right now.”

“I’m sorry. Did something happen?”

He turned his palms up and assumed a look of exasperation. “She seems to think so but, well, you know how these things are.”

Unfortunately, I did know how “these things” were. I figured I’d better find our talent and begin damage control. I asked Carlo to show me the way, but I could have just followed the sobs. They were coming from a shapely blond woman who was sitting at the long wooden kitchen table with her head down on her folded arms. When she heard us come in, she looked up and screamed at Carlo, “
Va via. Sei una montagna di merda
.” In less than two minutes, he had gone from a sack to a mountain of the stuff. This was so not looking good.

Carlo left me alone with the sobbing Michaela, who was about forty and, if you looked past the mascara running down her face and the swollen, red eyes, very pretty. I didn’t have a clue where to begin. She was obviously not thinking about making
panzanella
, and we needed a finished one for the opening shot.

“I’m awfully sorry. I guess I’ve come at a bad time.” How observant am I? I was standing in the remains of six place settings of Ginori china, some with food still attached. “Did you remember about the television show today? You know, you’re going to show us how to make the Tuscan bread salad, the
panzanella
.”

She stopped sobbing and looked at me. For a moment, I thought the gentle, rational sound of my voice had brought her back to the task at hand. But she’d only been gathering her strength to bring her sobs to a whole new decibel level. Now Sally, Sonya, John, Rocket, the crew, and I all knew that no matter what, “the show must go on,” but I wasn’t so sure that Michaela grasped the concept. I needed a better point of reference to get her moving. And I had it—my kitchen at home, my mother, my aunts, my cousins, my Nonna—anyone who was having a “situation.” Cook and talk. Bitch about men.

I moved around the kitchen and opened closets until I found a broom, then I began to sweep up the mess and start a diatribe about the worthlessness of the male species. She jumped right in, calling them all lying, cheating bastards. This was good. She got a dustpan and held it for me and said Carlo was a pig. I found the stale bread for the salad and said none of them could be trusted. She pulled down a large salad bowl and said Carlo was a snake in the grass. I put the stale bread in a bowl of cold water and said men were all scum. She reached for the olive oil and red wine vinegar and said she should never have married
him. I reached into baskets on the counter, took out red onions and garlic, and said we’d all be better off without them. She chopped some tomatoes and basil and said—well, my Italian is a bit limited in this area, but I think she said Carlo had a limp, undersized penis. I sliced the onions and garlic, put them in the salad bowl, and said men were useless. She put the tomatoes and basil in the bowl with the onions and garlic and said she hoped he went to hell with a broken back. I squeezed the water out of the bread, broke it up into the salad bowl, and said men were dickheads. I doubted that she understood “dickheads,” but I was running out of insults in English and Italian. She added, salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar to the salad, I tossed it, and we vowed together never again to have anything to do with men.

By the time we’d finished preparing the salad, Michaela was no longer sobbing and I was beginning to think we just might make it through the demonstration. I wasn’t so sure about the footage we needed of Carlo and Michaela touring the grounds together.

Michaela pulled through for the demonstration, but the tour of the estate was a completely different state of affairs.
Affair
is probably a poor choice of words, considering the circumstances. It was a horror show. There were occasional outbursts, with Michaela trying to kick Carlo in his undersized, limp penis and Carlo telling her to back off. Sally was beginning to look like a boxing-match referee, standing between them and telling Michaela repeatedly stay on her side. Poor Nicole was constantly repairing Michaela’s makeup and telling her, “There. There. It will be fine.” When we set up the cameras for shots of the olive oil press, the alleged site of Carlo’s alleged sin, Michaela’s emotional dam burst anew. Sonya had reached the limit of her patience. “
Basta!
” she yelled at the startled Michaela, using her favorite new Italian word. “Pull yourself
together or all of America will think you are a whining, whimpering
stunad
.” I’d taught her that word. That did it. We finished the shoot, packed up our gear, and gratefully headed back to Florence.

T
HAT NIGHT
, S
ALLY
, S
ONYA
, and I agreed to have an early, light meal and go to bed at a decent hour. The day’s shoot had left us all drained. We stopped at the first restaurant we found and ordered pasta.

“Boy, I didn’t think we were going to make it through that disaster this afternoon,” Sonya groaned, shaking her head. “I have never seen anyone that emotional.”

“You should come to my house more often,” I said.

“I thought the husband was a real twerp,” Sally remarked emphatically, making me laugh at her choice of words. “I was kind of hoping she’d get him where she was aiming to kick.”

Over espresso, Sonya mentioned that we had to work out the travel details for tomorrow’s drive to Ravenna. “Rocket and the crew are driving the van there tonight so they can shoot B-roll early tomorrow morning. He wants to get a sunrise on the Adriatic. So we have to take John and Nicole in the Mercedes. That makes it kind of crowded, and I thought you could ride with Danny, Casey.”

Oh God. I knew I was going to have to face Danny on Thursday, but I wasn’t planning on spending a whole lot of time alone with him. The tables had taken a very ugly turn from him hitting on me to me looking like a desperate, sex-starved predator throwing myself at him. He’d probably think I’d asked—no, begged—to ride with him, and the last thing I wanted to resemble was another woman panting over him. I had planned to collect my birthday present at eight-thirty, thank him politely, and then get in the car with Giuseppe at
nine. “Why don’t I go with you and Sally in the Mercedes and let John ride with Danny? They were very buddy-buddy the other night and would probably love the time together.”

“That won’t work because I need the time to talk to John. Now that we’re close to the end of shooting, we need to go over editing details.”

“Nicole?” I pleaded.

“I know she’d love having Giuseppe to talk to in Italian. She’s spent so much of this trip trying to keep up with the crew’s English that it would be nice for her not to have to work at talking.”

I raised my eyebrows at Sally, hoping she would offer up her spot, but instead she raised her eyebrows back at me. “I think it will be good for you to get to know Danny better.” She smiled and added, “If he does more shows, you’ll be seeing a lot more of him.”

I didn’t mention that my attempt to get to know him better the other night had had not resulted in my seeing the particular more of him I had anticipated.

I hope that I don’t fall in love with you.
—
Tom Waits

B
y the time I walked through the front door of the hotel the next morning, I had rehearsed enough lines to put two weeks’ worth of a sitcom in the can. I couldn’t not mention the other night, but I wasn’t sure which way to play it. Maybe an alcohol-induced memory lapse: “What a night! I don’t remember a thing after Sally put on the wig. How’d I get home, anyway?” Or I could be brazen: “You have no idea what a good time you missed by closing that door, gorgeous.” Penitent and professional: “I apologize for putting you in that position. I acted foolishly. It won’t happen again.” I hadn’t quite decided which way to go when I stepped outside and saw Danny. He was sitting on a bench facing me, and he was not holding a present. That would eliminate “Look, I don’t want a present from you. I don’t want anything from you.” He stood and smiled. “Audrey. Right on time.”

“Excuse me?” I stared at him blankly, confusion clouding all my carefully rehearsed lines.

“It’s me, Gregory. And for the next several hours”—he took me by the hand and led me to the curb—“this is our Vespa scooter.”

“Oh my God! Danny! What’s going on?”

“That movie you told me about when we went to McLaughlin’s place. Remember?”

“
Roman Holiday
,” I said in a warm, fuzzy tone I had not rehearsed.

“When Mary asked if I’d come over for your birthday, I tried to think of a present but I couldn’t come up with anything. Then I remembered what you’d said about touring the city on a Vespa scooter and thought you might like this. It’s Florence, not Rome, but I didn’t think that was a crucial component.”

“Not at all! Oh my God, I wish my mother were here.”

“I’m afraid it’s just a two-person scooter, love. We can take photos.” He nudged the kickstand and righted the scooter, then sat on the seat and stretched his long legs out to either side to keep it upright. “Okay, Audrey. Hop on.”

“Wait. I told Sonya we’d meet them in Ravenna by lunchtime.” I turned toward the door of the hotel. “I’d better let her know we won’t be there.”

“She knows. I checked it out with her first. She told me to have you back by tomorrow morning in time for the shoot and mentioned that you should check your e-mail in case there are any scheduling changes.”

I beamed at him and slid onto the seat behind him. “I can’t believe you’ve done this,” I said.

“I’m curious about something,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Was the scooter red in the movie?”

“I don’t know. The movie was in black and white, but I bet it was.”

“Had to be, and you said the movie was old, so this one’s the oldest I could find. A ’sixty-three. Not much torque, but fun to ride.” He started the engine. “So where does this holiday begin?”

“Well, first I have to sneak away from the palazzo by climbing out of a third-floor window, running downstairs, and stowing away on a catering truck. Since I’m already out here, we can skip that part.”

“Good idea. What’s next?”

“I sleep in the street for a while, you find me and take me to your bedroom, I start to undress, and you leave. We’ve done that scene already.” There. I’d mentioned the other night.

He turned his body and grinned at me. “Maybe we need a retake.” And that was all that needed saying about the other night. Sometimes ad-libbing is the way to go. “What happens next?” he asked.

“I buy shoes, cut my hair . . .”

“How many times have you seen this movie?”

“You don’t want to know. I had to buy a second copy because Mom and I wore the first one out.”

“Okay, shoes, hair. Where does the Vespa come in?”

“Now.”

“Thank God. I thought we were going to spend the day shopping and primping.”

“No. We drink champagne and smoke cigarettes at an outdoor café and then we zip around the city and you show me all the touristy spots in a way a princess never gets to see them.”

“That I can do. Let’s go. We’ll make one stop before the outdoor café.”

D
ANNY OBVIOUSLY KNEW THE
city well since he navigated it easily, zigzagging around to avoid the many areas where no vehicle traffic was allowed. We scootered on the outskirts of the city, ascended a hill, and stopped at the Piazza Michelangelo.

“I wanted you to see all of Florence from up here first,” he said as we looked down at the rooftops, domes, and towers of the city.

“Wow. It didn’t seem so large from down there. It’s a lot to take in.”

“I’ll do my best, but we’re only going to get a quick look at most of it and we’ll have to walk a lot of it since you can’t drive everywhere. But we have the whole day. I figure we should leave here at sundown, turn the Vespa in for a car, and drive to Ravenna tonight. Hop back on. Time for champagne and cigarettes.” He drove back down to the city, parked the scooter, and led me to a small café in the Piazza della Repubblica, where he ordered champagne and asked for two straws.

“You’re going to drink champagne through a straw?” I asked.

“They’re props. Cigarettes. Unless you want the real thing. I can go across the square and get you some.”

“No thanks. I’ll smoke the straw.”

From there we walked to the nearby Piazza del Duomo, where Dante Alighieri was born, and then to the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and the green-and-white-marbled baptistry, and the Duomo with its Brunelleschi Dome, which had dominated my view wherever I had been in Florence. He insisted that we climb up the 414 steps to the top of Giotti’s Campanile and just as we got there, the tower’s bells and bells
all over Florence erupted into waves of ringing.