Italian for Beginners by Kristin Harmel Page B

I’d had since I left Italy, I was out of things to say.
    Similarly, Francesco seemed at a loss after telling me that his mother was still living outside the city, that his sister,
     Alessandra, had moved to Venice and had fallen in love with a gondolier (a big scandal, apparently), that he had decided to
     leave his computer programming job to go out on his own and start a handyman business, and that he hadn’t dated anyone for
     more than a few months since me. So we sat through our antipasto course in awkward silence, commenting only about the food
     and the wine, which I noticed both of us were drinking quickly.
    Sure enough, two glasses of chianti and fifteen minutes later, I was feeling bolder and less self-conscious about how uninteresting
     I may have seemed, how lined my face was, how jiggly my thighs had become, and whether Francesco had noticed any of this.
    “I see you like
il vino
, bella,” Francesco said in amusement as I started in on a third glass.
    I raised an eyebrow. “You’re drinking just as much.”
    He smiled, nodded, and beckoned for the waiter to bring us a second bottle.
    Once we were halfway through our entrées—seafood pasta with a light cream sauce for me, and rosemary T-bone steak with a side
     of alfredo pasta—we were talking comfortably again. All the edges of my self-doubt were softened now. I even told him about
     Becky’s wedding and how Grandma had humiliated me in front of the congregation.
    “But why is this the situation?” he asked, his face growing more serious after he had finished laughing about my admittedly
     amusing humiliation.
    “Why is what the situation?” I asked.
    He seemed to struggle for words. “You. You are still single. Why? You are a pretty woman. I am sure a man would want you.”
    I tried not to take his words the wrong way.
    “I just haven’t found the right one yet,” I said. Then, seeing an almost wounded expression cross Francesco’s face, I backtracked.
     “But maybe the right one isn’t in New York.”
    We let the words dangle meaningfully between us. I noticed that Francesco didn’t argue, and I knew from the look on his face
     that he understood exactly what I meant.
    “Perhaps,” he said finally. He studied my face for a moment more and then winked at me. “Perhaps he is here in Roma.”
    My heart leapt. He was definitely flirting with me. All of the awkwardness I’d felt earlier had been in my own mind, a product
     of my own subconscious trying to defeat me with a barrage of doubts. I cleared my throat, smiled, and said in my sexiest voice,
     “Maybe he is.”
    We rushed through the rest of our meal and the remainder of the bottle of wine, taking long sips as we stared at each other
     over the rims of our wineglasses. Francesco kept making
cin cin
toasts—to us, to the past, to the future, to Rome itself, to the good fortune that had brought me back to him after all these
     years.
    Still, something felt off, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. As I downed more wine, I resolved to chalk it up to the inevitable
     discomfort of being lovers who had become strangers and were slowly finding their way back.
    Francesco paid the bill quickly, and after we both downed a shot of ink-black Lavazza espresso, we stumbled out into the street,
     Francesco’s strong right arm around me, pulling me close. I could feel his weight on me, and I liked it.
    The walk back to his apartment was short; we had taken a roundabout, scenic way to get to the restaurant. Francesco fumbled
     urgently with the lock to his door, then we fell inside together. Before he had even closed the door, he was all over me,
     kissing me passionately, pulling me close to his taut body.
    The next few minutes were a blur of murmured words of passion, shoes being kicked off and landing with loud thuds on the tile,
     items of clothing flying almost cartoonishly into every corner of the room as we undressed each other frantically. I think
     we both felt an urgency to the