“Piss off,” I mutter, not offended because I know he’s only trying to lighten my mood. I flick the pages of my mother’s scrapbook to a picture of Charlie Raven mid-set, sweatband around his head, drumsticks raised. His grin is manic, the look of a guy high on the music he’s making and probably something else too. “My father,” I say, tapping the photo.
“She’d been on the road touring for two years by the time I was born,” I say, just for clarity in Bobby’s mind. “So definitely not. I could just post the recipe to Belotti’s anonymously?” I throw it out there to gauge Bobby’s opinion even though I’ve already pretty much discounted the idea.
He considers it.
“You could. And initially they’d be like, yay, we’re saved! But then they’d start to wonder who, and how, and it would only take them a hot minute to realize that Santo must have given the recipe away. That, or they’d think his brother had been so careless as to let it end up with a stranger and it could start a whole new family rift.” Bobby leans forward on his elbows. “But because Santo is the more likely candidate, and he has amnesia, he might not remember who he gave it to, and they all have to live forever wondering if Santo has a forgotten mistress or a mystery love child about to lay claim to their gelato empire or whatever. So it kind of seems like it would tear their family up either way.”
I’ve thought all of these things, although in less colorful fashion, and ruled out sending an anonymous letter or email on the grounds of hurting the family. It would be kinder to let the business fold. Wouldn’t it? I’ve turned this question around and looked at it from every angle for the last few hours, trying to find a perfect balance where nobody loses. I know instinctively that my mum would never reveal Santo’s indiscretion, but equally, that she wouldn’t have allowed his legendary family business to go under if it was within her power to save it. It isn’t within her power, though. It’s within mine. The Belotti family story has been invisibly connected with ours for as long as I can remember. The guy in the photo was the stuff of fairy tales when I was a child, the man who looked like a film star and made gelato for my mother. Theirs wasn’t a sad, unrequited love story. Forever just wasn’t written in their stars, she said. They were too young, her dreams with the band too big to be derailed by love. To me she was a pioneer, brave enough to let ambition take the driving seat, strong enough to follow her dreams rather than her heart.
Bobby reaches across and holds my hand. “Want me to come with you to Belotti’s this morning? I can improvise, and I need to check out this guy’s hands seeing as they got you so hot and bothered.”
I should never have mentioned the hands thing to Bobby, he laughed for five minutes straight. I love him for offering to be my wingman, though.
“Yes, but no. You’re the busiest man in New York.” I put my shoulders back. “I think I need to do this on my own.”
5.
IN PRACTICE, DOING IT ON my own feels a lot harder than it sounded. It’s raining again, battleship-grey skies overhead as I approach Belotti’s a couple of hours later. I’ve still got no clear plan what I’m going to say or do—I’m showing up because I said I would and because Gio looked like someone hanging on by a thread yesterday. I linger in the doorway, my hand resting on the brass handle. It’s empty inside again, the stained-glass Tiffany lamps splashing red and green light pools across the floor, that same welcoming sense of timelessness. It probably looked almost the same back in the thirties, the fifties, and in the eighties when my mother came here. Different behind the scenes maybe, but the same holy decorating trinity of aged wood, polished brass, and oxblood leather up front. It’s old school but not old-fashioned, the kind of place you might go when you need your nerves soothed and the security of knowing that some things will always stay the same. I’m sure it’s different on a busy summer’s day when they actually have gelato to sell, but today there’s a library kind of calm when I push the door open and step inside.
“Iris, you came back.”
Gio appears, summoned by the traditional brass bell above the door. He doesn’t look as if he slept any better than I did. Framed as he is by the gallery of family pictures behind him, I mentally add him to the list of timeless things about this place. Generations of dark-haired men flank him, all dressed in the same uniform of long-sleeved white shirt and black tie covered with a Belotti’s apron, all similarly tall, ink-dark eyes staring straight into the camera. Gio’s hair is longer, perhaps, and his shirt cut closer to his body, definitely, but the theme is strong.
“You didn’t think I would?”
“I hoped you would,” he says, coming round the counter. “Let me grab your coat.”
I unwind my scarf and dump my huge, battered hobo bag on one of the leather bar seats, letting him take my rain-soaked jacket as I shrug out of it. He heads back behind the counter to hang it over a radiator, and I school myself to take it as a simple act of kindness rather than feeling as if my choice to easily leave has been taken away from me. I refuse to let shadows of my old life with Adam keep a grip on me here, but it’s something I have to consciously remind myself of at times like this. An act of kindness can be simply that: kindness, without ulterior motive or underlying threat.
Gio wrangles with the coffee machine and I perch on the same bar seat as yesterday, lying my blue-striped bobble hat on the counter and unwinding a scrunchie from around my wrist to pull my damp hair back from my face.
“Did you have to come far?” he asks when he turns round, setting coffee down in front of me.
There it is again, the instinct to not reveal too much of myself. I push it down firmly. “No,” I say. “Ten minutes walk.”
He doesn’t reply—in fact, I don’t think he registered my words at all. He’s frowning, his head slightly on one side, his gaze fixed on my hat. His expression is quizzical when he lifts his eyes to mine again.
“I knew we’d met somewhere before,” he says.
I place a hand over my hat, unsure what he means.
“Logan’s Bookstore? Valentine’s Day?” he says.
My hand moves to my throat as dread settles low in my gut. Oh jeez, no.
“Lapin,” I mutter, as it all comes back to me in one hot panicky rush. I’ve done a good-enough job of trying to scour last Valentine’s Day from existence that it’s probably vanished off my kitchen wall calendar. I twitch just thinking about it.
“Did you ever read the book?” he says.
I pass my hand over my hot face. “No.”