“Sophia.” Gio’s youngest sister bobs a curtsy.
For his part, Gio looks testy, his jaw set stiff. “Contrary to what it might look like, we’re not auditioning for The Sound of Music,” he says. “My sisters were just leaving.”
“Do you sing, Iris?” Sophia says, ignoring him. “You can be our new governess.”
I laugh as I unwind my scarf. “I do, actually.” I don’t know why I admitted that. I haven’t sung in years, not in front of people, anyway. I inherited my mother’s voice as well as her blue eyes, but she was the performer in the family. “I’m afraid I’d be a terrible governess, though. I can’t sew clothes from curtains or throw puppet shows. The only thing I’m any good at is cooking.”
“Please let me apologize for my sisters,” Gio says, his hand on his heart.
“Always so grumpy,” Sophia mutters and, beside her, Viola looks at the floor to hide her laugh.
Francesca, on the far end, takes charge. “Enough, girls. Iris, I’m sorry if this looks like an ambush.”
“Because that’s exactly what it is,” Gio says.
“We just came by on our way to the hospital,” Francesca says, and they all nod, wide-eyed.
“Even though visiting hours don’t start until noon and you all really ought to be at work?” Gio adds, earning himself dirty looks down the line from his sisters.
“This is my work,” Sophia says, raising her hand as if she’s in class. “I don’t know what everyone else is doing here.”
“That’s it, Soph,” Elena says, in the middle. “Throw us under the bus after you texted us all to say Gio’s dating a dead ringer for Jess from New Girl. You know how much I loved that series.”
Sophia throws her hands up, laughing. “Was I wrong, though?”
“You’re wrong, and you’re being rude,” Gio says, cutting in. They all shrug, unapologetic, and he opens the door on to the street. “Out. All of you.”
His sisters file out, murmuring variants of “nice to meet you” and “good luck putting up with him” as they pass me.
He snags Sophia’s hood at the back of the line. “Not you. You work here, remember?”
“I thought you might prefer me to leave you to it,” she says, smiling sweetly.
“And I thought you might prefer me to leave you to it,” he says, pulling his apron over his head and handing it to her. “Iris, shall we? I have an idea.”
I glance uncertainly at my beloved gelato maker on the counter.
“You can leave your tiny machine there, it’s safe.”
I pick up my bag and scarf. “Umm, okay. Lead the way.”
7.
“SORRY, I JUST NEEDED TO get OUT of there,” he says, steering me through the sidewalk cafés and busy last-day-of-festival preparations. “I swear, when they get together like that they’re just…” He shakes his head, searching for the right words.
“A lot?” I suggest.
“Too much,” he says. “Way, way too much.”
We lapse into silence as we walk, awkward now we’re alone and his sisters have thrown their spin on things.
“They were just kidding around,” I say, trying to get us back on track. “Forget what they said. I will. In fact, I already have. I can’t remember at all.”
He glances down at me and I see the tenseness in his face ease. “Thank you,” he says. “Because I’d hate for them to scare you away, you’re the best hope I have.” He pauses, and then hurriedly adds, “For the recipe, obviously. Not for anything…oh, for God’s sake.”
I press my lips together, because he’s tying himself up in knots and making it worse. I veer into the nearest brightly lit store, feigning distraction as much to change the mood as anything else.
“Really?” he says, coming to an incredulous standstill.
I stand beside him, momentarily taken aback. It’s a rainy autumn morning outside in New York, but in this place it’s wall-to-wall, in-your-face, jolly-holly Christmas with jingle bells on.
“Oh my word,” I say, backed up by the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey. “It’s only September.”
“Not in here,” deadpans a passing store assistant wearing a “Christmas in New York!” T-shirt, his deely boppers flashing red and green.
“He doesn’t seem that thrilled to be here,” I say, still acclimatizing to the riot of glitter, revolving trees, and nodding reindeer heads on the walls. The store is huge and stuffed to the rafters with all things festive, like we took a wrong turn and ended up at the North Pole.
“Me neither,” Gio says.
I can’t lie—I love it. I don’t think about gelato recipes or bookstore lies because I’m too busy trailing my fingers over rack after rack of glittering baubles, from homespun holly to tacky pink flamingos in sunhats and golden angels draped in the Stars and Stripes. I pause at a rack of cooking-related baubles, holding up a silver-glittered whisk.
“If it was December, I’d totally get this,” I say, hanging it back with reluctance.
Gio trails beside me, much less enamored with the whole place than I am; but then I guess this is nothing new to him, the store is practically his neighbor.
“This place has my mother written all over it,” I say, pausing to look at a huge Christmas village display. I watch the small steam train chug along its track around the illuminated houses and old-fashioned shops, remembering childhood Christmases. It’s testimony to my mum that all I really recall of those years is the hazy, nostalgic glow. There certainly wasn’t much in the way of money for expensive presents, but it was homely and ours, just the two of us in our festive bubble. She was a charismatic person, exciting to be around, someone who could make any day, any occasion, any circumstance fun.
“Is she still in London?” Gio asks.
I look at him, blink a couple of times to shake the memories away and pull myself back to now.
“My mum? No. I lost her three years ago,” I say. “No siblings either. Just me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Your dad?”
Charlie Raven strolls through my mind, scraggy-haired, drumsticks in one hand, a beer in the other. “He died when I was much younger, but to be honest, he never really figured in my life even when he was alive.” I shrug. “Just one of those things.”
Gio picks up a snow globe and turns it over. “Families are complicated, huh?” He watches the snow settle as he places it back on the shelf. “My sisters this morning are a case in point.”
“I like them,” I say. “They scared the shit out of me, but I like them.”
“They have their moments,” he says. “Fran was born not long after Santo and Maria took me in. I went from a cold apartment to a warm home with Disney-level parents and a baby sister. And then another one. And then another one.”
“And then another one?” I say.
“A particularly opinionated one,” he says.
“Yeah, I noticed you two clash sometimes,” I say.