I close my eyes and listen to Frank Sinatra croon his famous love song to New York, and I smile because I know that somewhere, somehow, my mother put in this special request just for me.
I came to New York in search of a fresh start, alone and unsure if I’d be able to make it here. I’m not unsure anymore. This heart-racingly wonderful, chaotic, neon city is my forever home, if it’ll have me.
I’m not alone anymore either. I’ve been invisibly connected to the Belotti family my entire life, by a painted glass door and a torn green napkin and endless bowls of comforting vanilla gelato. How lucky I am to have somehow, miraculously, joined the dots, that the stars aligned and led me to that exact same glass door. It’s wishful thinking to imagine my mother has somehow had a guiding hand—but if such things were possible, I know she would have moved heaven and earth to lead me to Belotti’s. The gelateria on Mulberry Street was her safe place here in this city, and now, three decades later, it has become mine.
Back then, she had the choice to stay and she didn’t. We were similar in so many ways, my mother and I, but my New York story ends differently, and that’s not because of fate or the stars or even because of my mother. It’s because of me. It’s because of the strength I found to get myself on a plane to New York with just my beloved gelato maker and a battered suitcase. At the time I felt as if I was running away, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can finally see the whole messy, beautiful picture.
I was coming home.
Epilogue
…
SIX WEEKS LATER, VALENTINE’S DAY
“I THINK I JUST SAW ONE,” I say, pointing at the sky. “Right there.”
Gio follows the arc of my finger and then looks sideways at me. “You did not.”
I laugh under my breath. “No, I did not. It’s too cloudy. But you went to all this effort, so I’m going to lie and say I saw a shooting star and you’re going to smile and pretend you believe me.”
“I’ll never stand straight again after this,” he says, shifting his shoulders against the ridged metal floor of the open-back pickup truck he moved mountains to hire as a Valentine surprise. He’s driven us upstate for most of the day so we can lie out under big dark skies to look for shooting stars, but the weather is not being kind to us.
“I should have got an inflatable mattress,” he grumbles.
I shake my head. “It had to be a checked blanket, or dinner on top of the Empire State Building.”
“Or some other equally trite shite,” he says, in the same terrible English accent he used on our initial bookshop encounter twelve months ago. I couldn’t believe he’d remembered what I said that day, nor could I believe the effort he’d made to surprise me with this echo of our first meeting, a checked blanket in the bed of a truck under the stars.
I land a punch on his arm and smile into the darkness. I can think back on that day now without the accompanying feelings of dread and shame, because it triggered a chain of events that led me here with the love of my life.
Gio rolls on his side and gazes down at me. “I don’t think we should make this our annual tradition,” he says.
“Definitely a one-off,” I say. “My turn to plan Valentine’s next year.”
“Can it be somewhere inside, with a bed?”
I nod. “Deal.”
I sit up cross-legged and pull my rucksack toward me. “I got you something,” I say, lifting a gift-wrapped parcel out of my bag. I hand it to him, and he reaches under the blanket and produces a gift for me too.
“Swap,” he says.
“Open yours first,” I say.
He pulls the ribbon and opens the box, and his laugh is quiet as he looks at the two silver spoons lying there.
“One big, one little,” I say.
“Cucchiaino,” he says, massaging my knee.
I turn the gift he’s given me over in my hands.
“I know what it is,” I say.
“Open it anyway,” he says.
I unwrap the book and trace my fingers over the intricate cover design. It’s a special edition hardback with golden sprayed edges, not at all reminiscent of the paperback we argued over last Valentine’s Day. I’m glad; perhaps I’ll be able to read this copy without any lingering feelings of shame and regret.
“Coniglio,” he says.
“No clue what it means but say it again,” I say, because he knows full well it does something to my brain when he speaks Italian.
“Rabbit,” he says. “It means rabbit.”
“Smartass.” I spot the hidden rabbit on the cover and then lie down again and prop myself on one elbow. “Think that sky is going to clear?”
“Not a chance,” he says.
“I don’t care,” I say. “It’s all about the truck and the blanket for me anyway.”
“You could have said that before I drove five hours straight to get here,” he says, winding a strand of my hair around his fingers.
“It was romantic. I love you for trying.”
I lean over to kiss him and he rolls me on to my back beneath him.
“You’re right about this truck, though,” I say as my shoulder blades jar against the metal.
“I love this truck right now,” he says, putting his hand inside my sweater. “I might buy it.”
“Not too cold to make out?” I whisper, when he kisses my neck and says something I hope is unspeakably dirty in Italian.
I open my eyes and, honest to God, I see stars.
For Sally and Rose,
my inspiring friends
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU TO MY WONDER agent, Nelle Andrews, and my UK and U.S. editors, Harriet Bourton and Hilary Teeman. I will forever appreciate your extra-mile kindness and unflinching support while I worked on this book.
Special thanks to all at Notarianni Ice Cream in Blackpool for providing the initial spark of inspiration for the story via a segment on The Hairy Bikers—all of my hours spent idly surfing cooking shows are not in vain!
Thanks as always to everyone at Viking and Penguin UK and the rights team for your continued brilliance, I feel fortunate to be in your hands.
Huge thanks to everyone at the mighty team Dell. I’m so thankful for our continued relationship and the thoughtful way you share my stories with the U.S. audience.
Much gratitude to all of my overseas publishers; it’s amazing to think of my books in the hands of readers in distant corners of the world.
Love to the Bob girls for the many, many years of friendship and cheerleading, and to Emily Blackledge in particular for your wise singing advice.
And last but never least, love and thanks to my lovely family and friends. As always, you are my favorites and my best.
An Author’s Inspiration
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