Summer in Tuscany (29 page)

Everyone in the village had contributed to the wedding feast, and Nonna herself had made the sauce for the pasta, from the abundant delicious tomatoes in the
albergo
’s back garden. Ben had provided unlimited champagne and wine, a local Rosso di Montalcino, as well as beer, and the Bar Galileo was open and free to all. Fiametta had baked the wedding cake, five tiers, alternating red, white, and blue icing for the United States and green, red, and white for Italy. On top was a little model of a wedding couple, with a pink-and-white sugar dog that looked exactly like Fido.

With a blast of tarantellas from the loudspeakers, the feast began. There must have been at least ten courses, starting with
bruschetta
: that good, coarse, crusty, saltless Tuscan bread, from the local baker, dipped in Rocco’s own best olive oil and topped with chopped sweet tomatoes and fresh basil, anchovies, and olives.

Huge platters of antipasti were passed around by the women. There was homemade fennel sausage and
salame di cinghiale
, the strong wild boar salami; mortadella and smoked red peppers; ham and shaved Parmesan cheese. Then gnocchi, light as little pillows, bathed in sweet butter and sage; and the best ham from Parma, with figs so ripe they burst with juices; a salad of arugula and baby lettuces fresh-picked that morning. Then
involtini di vitello,
veal rolled in ham and sage leaves, served with
fagioli
; then Nonna’s ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach and covered in her tomato sauce, which gained a round of applause and shouts of
“Brava, brava, signora Cesani,”
amid much laughter.

Next came the
arrosto di maiale
, loin of pork roasted with rosemary, whose aroma was enough to make me drool, served with polenta and porcini mushrooms. Bowls of fresh fruits were brought out, more wine corks popped, and long wooden boards covered in green lemon leaves and an assortment of local cheeses were carried in, plus huge plates of cookies.

Couples were already dancing on the wooden platform under the umbrella pines, and children held hands and whirled around together until they tumbled, laughing, in a heap. Livvie and Muffie chased after the toddlers, helping out the mothers who were taking time out to enjoy the party. Babies cried and were fed; guests yelled to each other across the tables and poured more wine; the dogs barked; the cow gave an irritable moo; the loudspeakers blasted; and over all was a buzz of laughter.

Patty and Jeff, holding hands as always, sat in amazed silence. “It’s like Sunday lunch, only bigger and better, and with sound effects,” Patty said.

Don Vincenzo sipped a grappa; his wire glasses slid down his nose, and there was a contented smile on his chubby face. Then Maggie invited the mayor to dance and almost caused a major upset with his wife, who bristled with jealousy. And Nonna—well, Nonna was Sophia Maria, giddy and glamorous and feminine.

And Ben? He snatched me in his arms and spun me around that wobbly wooden floor, humming along in my ear to Paolo Conte’s song
“Gli impermeabili,”
which apparently means “Raincoats,” a most unlikely title for one of the most romantic songs we had ever heard. It’s a story about lovers and a room with lowered shutters on a rainy night, the touch of a hand on a bruise, and it reminded us of our night of love in rainy Florence.

New York and our own future seemed a long way away, yet even as we danced I remembered that our bags were packed and we were to leave the very next day.

“Kiss me,” Ben whispered, and our mouths met in a long clinging kiss that I hoped would never end. Until I heard the applause, that is, and Livvie’s voice saying,
“M-o-m!”
Of course I was blushing as we swung apart. But then it was time for the wedding cake and speeches.

Somebody turned the loudspeakers down, and Paolo Conte’s soft, quirky
“Mocambo”
blurred. Nonna and Rocco stood there while the crowd applauded and whistled and stomped their approval.

Rocco spoke first, saying what he had to say in both Italian and English, having been coached by Nonna. “I am very happy,” he said, beaming. “I have my Sophia Maria by my side. I have my new family. I have my friends. I have my dog. We are both very happy.”

Nonna tapped the microphone, testing it. She smoothed down her skirt and patted her little veiled hat to make sure it was still at the correct angle. Then she gazed around like a queen at her subjects.

“Amici,”
she said, “
mia famiglia di Bella Piacere
…friends, dear ones, you and my village have always been in my heart. Even though I left so long ago, I never forgot you. Bella Piacere and you people were among the best memories of my life, even though my life was a good one in my wonderful country, America.

“But now I am older. I needed to come home again. And the count and Don Vincenzo gave me that opportunity, though of course that crook Donati almost succeeded in cheating me out of my inheritance.” Boos mingled with laughter, and she smiled.

“And my daughter, the
dottoressa,
ended up in jail, almost a criminal herself,” she added. Everyone looked my way, and there was more laughter.

“In the middle of my own happiness with my new husband,” Nonna smiled at Rocco, “I also want to thank my family, Livvie and Gemma, for…for just being my family. And also to thank Gemma for expanding it so nicely by promising to marry Ben, and thereby giving me a second granddaughter, Muffie. And who knows,” she added, lifting a nicely penciled eyebrow, “maybe even more grandchildren.

“My only sadness is that tomorrow they are to return to America.” She stopped here and gave me that long hard look.

“Bambini,”
she said, and I said to myself,
Uh-oh, here comes trouble….

“Bambini,”
she went on, “the Villa Piacere legitimately belongs to me. But now I am giving it to Gemma, and to Ben.”

Startled, I looked at Ben.

“So now they have no excuse not to stay here,” Nonna said firmly. “Gemma, you can become the local doctor. We need one around here. Ben can run the villa as a hotel, which he had already planned to do anyway, and he can get on with his painting and become another Michelangelo. And Livvie and Muffie, you two can go to school in Florence.” The crowd applauded and whistled some more. “That way, I get to keep you all, and you get to keep the villa.” She beamed. “It is, I think a fair trade.”

My eyes met Ben’s. Could we?

I thought about the Saturday nights at Bellevue: the mayhem, the ugliness, the tragedy. My daughter growing up a teen diva, the danger.

And Ben remembered clawing his way to success and the striving to stay there; his daughter growing up a spoiled rich kid, the danger.

Could we leave that harsh, sophisticated urban world behind and face the new reality of a simple life, where the change in seasons is marked by changes in crops and food as well as in the weather; where the wine harvest punctuates the year, and the olive crop is more precious than pearls? Where a great day out is a drive to Florence to sip cappuccino at Gilli’s, making small purchases of a special cheese or a pair of beautiful shoes, finding an old painting in a backstreet junk shop or considering the purchase of a spanking new silver Vespa? Life with a permanently stumbling water supply and erratic electricity; of the cold winter
tramontana
blowing from the snowy mountains, and the long, languorous, hot summer months; of chestnuts in autumn and
Panna cotta
at Christmas and special cake at Easter? Where the latest movie may take several years to appear in the tiny local cinema; where books and music are the diversions, along with an evening glass of wine on the terrace, and where the view and the man you are with are all the magic you need? Ben held out his arms, and I walked into them.

Oh yes, we could.

Three months have passed. I’m here at the villa, my new home, lying in the dark that used to hold such terrors for me, wallowing in the big old bed that sags in the middle from age, safe in my husband’s arms.

We were married a week after Nonna and Rocco, in a small ceremony in one of Florence’s prettiest churches, where I wore jasmine in my hair and we promised to love, honor, and care for each other, forever. I used not to believe in that word—
forever
—but now I know it means for as long as you both shall live. I thought of Cash, and I smiled. I knew how he would approve. I only wished the old man with his beautiful white cat, his
principessa,
could have been at the wedding with us too, because he had shown me how to change my values, helped change my life.

Livvie and Muffie were asleep down the hall. Nonna and Rocco were cozy in their little farmhouse with Fido; and Sinbad, whose flight from New York had not fazed him one little bit, was curled up on my feet.

It’s October and cold. Tonight we lit the fire and roasted chestnuts, and tomorrow we will rise early. We’ll drink coffee with milk from Rocco’s cow and eat Fiametta’s toasted
ciabatta
with strawberry jam, and then we’ll go and help pick grapes in our own little vineyard.

Luchay is still with us, and I have yet to read his full story, along with Poppy’s. Maggie is already planning big Christmas festivities, and Ben and I are planning what to do with our villa.

I look at the sleeping face of my lovely man, and I want so badly to kiss him. I brush my lips over his, so softly, but even in his sleep his arms grip me tighter, until I’m pressed close to him, as close as you can get. The scent of his skin is in my nostrils, the texture of his flesh is smooth under my hands, and the love I feel for him is so tender, I never want to let him go. I kiss him some more, until he wakes and kisses me back.

I want you to think of this story I have shared with you as a minimovie of my life, perhaps with music by Paolo Conte and a song by Marc Anthony that seems to have become my theme: “You Sang to Me,” the one about
crashing into love
. I love that image. I hope it stays with me—with all of us—for the rest of our lives.

And what shall we do with the villa? Shall we try to restore it to its old glory, turn it into a hotel? Ah, well, of course that is another story.

I know someone has said this before, but life, here in Bella Piacere, is beautiful.