“Because of the domed roof?” One side of the building was capped with an enormous orange-red circular roof.
“No, but nice catch. ‘Duomo’ means ‘cathedral,’ and the word just happens to sound like ‘dome’ in English, so a lot of people make that mistake. The cathedral took almost a hundred and fifty years to build, and that was the largest dome in the world until modern technology came around. As soon as I get a free afternoon, we’ll climb to the top.”
“What’s that?” I pointed to a much smaller octagonal building across from the Duomo. It had tall gold doors with carvings on them, and a bunch of tourists were taking pictures in front of them.
“The baptistery. Those doors are called the Gates of Paradise, and they’re one of the most famous works of art in the whole city. The artist’s name was Ghiberti, and they took him twenty-seven years to make. I’ll take you on a tour of that, too.” He pointed to a street just past the baptistery. “Restaurant is right over there.”
I followed Howard across the big open space (piazza, he told me) and he held the restaurant’s door open for me. A man wearing a necktie tucked into his apron looked up from behind his stand and stood a little straighter. Howard was like two feet taller than him.
“And tonight, how many?” he asked in a nasally voice.
“Possiamo avere una tavolo per due?”
The man nodded, then called to a passing server.
“Buona sera,” the server said to us.
“Buona sera. Possiamo stare seduti vicino alla cucina?”
“Certo.”
So . . . apparently my father spoke Italian. Fluently. He even rolled his Rs like Ren. I tried not to stare at him as we followed our server to our table. I literally knew nothing about him. It was so weird.
“Can you guess why I like it here?” Howard asked as we settled into our seats.
I looked around. The tables were covered in cheap paper cloths and there was an open kitchen with a wood-fire pizza oven blazing away. “She’s Got a Ticket to Ride” was playing in the background.
He pointed up at the ceiling. “They play the Beatles all day every day, which means I get two of my favorite things together. Pizza and Paul McCartney.”
“Oh, yeah. I noticed the framed Beatles records in your office.” I gulped. Now he was going to think I’d been snooping. Which technically I guess I had been.
He just smiled. “My sister sent those as a gift a few years ago. She has two boys, ten and twelve. They live in Denver and they usually come out every other summer or so.”
Did they know about me?
Howard must have had a similar thought, because there was a moment of silence, and then we both suddenly got superinterested in our menus.
“What do you want to order? I always get a prosciutto pizza, but everything here is good. We could get a few appetizers or—”
“How about just a plain pizza. Cheese.” Simple and quick. I wanted to get back out in Florence. And keep this dinner as short as possible.
“Then you should order the Margherita. It’s pretty basic. Just tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil.”
“That sounds good.”
“You’re going to love the food here. Pizza here is in a whole different category from the stuff back home.”
I set my menu down. “Why?”
“It’s really thin and you get your own large pizza. And fresh mozzarella . . .” He sighed. “There’s nothing like it.”
He honestly had a dreamy look in his eyes. Did my more-than-a-friend love for food come from him? I hesitated. I guess it would be a good idea to at least sort of get to know him. He was my father after all.
“So . . . where’s ‘back home’?”
“I grew up in a small town in South Carolina called Due West, if you can believe it. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles from Adrienne.”
“Is Due West where you rearranged all the traffic barricades and caused a traffic jam?”
He looked at me in surprise. “Your mom told you?”
“Yeah. She told me lots of stories about you.”
He chuckled. “There wasn’t a lot to do in Due West, and unfortunately, I made the whole town pay for it. What other stories did she tell you?”
“She said you used to play hockey and that even though you’re pretty even-tempered, you used to get in fights on the ice.”
“Proof.” He turned his head and ran his finger across a scar that disappeared under his jawline. “This was one of my last games. I couldn’t seem to keep it under control. What else?”
“You guys went to Rome and the owner of a restaurant thought you were a famous basketball player and you guys got a free meal.”
“I forgot about that! Best lamb I ever had. And all I had to do was take pictures with the kitchen staff.”
Our server came over and took our order, then filled our glasses with fizzy water. I took a big swig and shuddered. Was it just me, or did carbonated water feel like liquid sparklers?
Howard crossed his arms. “Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I can’t believe how much you look like Hadley. Did people tell you that all the time?”