Chapter 2 - THE MAN AT TABLE SEVEN
Giovanni recognized me before I put the tray down.
There was no hesitation.
No puzzled narrowing of the eyes.
No polite uncertainty.
His coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Sophia.”
My name sounded wrong in his voice.
Too familiar.
Too intimate.
Five years disappeared in a single breath.
The woman beside him turned.
She was somewhere around thirty-five, elegant without trying too hard, with blonde hair pulled neatly behind one ear and a cream wool coat folded across the chair beside her.
The little girl sat opposite Giovanni, coloring on the paper place mat Marco kept for children.
She looked about six.
Maybe seven.
Giovanni slowly placed his cup down.
“What are you doing here?”
I gripped the silver tray with both hands.
“Working.”
His eyes traveled over the pale blue bakery uniform, the white apron, my inexpensive shoes.
Something changed in his expression.
Not pity.
Worse.
Pain.
“You work here?”
“I just answered that.”
The woman glanced between us.
“Giovanni?”
He did not look at her.
I began placing the tasting plates on the table.
Lemon ricotta cake.
Chocolate hazelnut tart.
Almond cookies.
My hands were shaking badly enough that the spoon against one saucer made a tiny metallic sound.
Giovanni noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He used to notice when I changed shampoo.
“Sophia,” he said quietly.
“Please don't.”
“I spent five years—”
“I said don't.”
The little girl stopped coloring.
I immediately lowered my voice.
She was watching us.
So was the woman.
Giovanni leaned back.
Five years had changed him too.
There was gray at his temples now. Not much, but enough to make him look older than the thirty-six-year-old man I remembered.
His shoulders seemed broader.
His face harder.
But his eyes were exactly the same.
Dark brown.
Like Lucia’s.
I looked away.
The woman extended a hand.
“I’m Celeste Arden.”
I stared at it before forcing myself to take it.
“Sophia Garcia.”
Celeste's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly.
She knew my name.
I saw it.
Giovanni saw that I saw it.
“That isn’t necessary,” he said to her.
“What isn't necessary?” I asked.
Celeste withdrew her hand.
“Nothing.”
The little girl lifted a crayon.
“Uncle Gio, can I have the pink one?”
Uncle Gio.
I looked at Giovanni.
His face changed again.
“This is Emilia,” he said. “My daughter.”
The room went very still.
The child frowned.
“You said I could call you Uncle Gio here.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Giovanni almost smiled.
“Emilia is my niece biologically,” he explained. “My sister Francesca's daughter. I adopted her after Francesca died three years ago.”
I had known Francesca.
She had been twenty-nine when I left.
Loud.
Funny.
Always sneaking chocolate into expensive handbags.
My chest tightened.
“Francesca died?”
Giovanni nodded.
“Car accident.”
“I didn't know.”
“How would you?”
There was no accusation in the words.
That made them worse.
Emilia pushed a pink crayon toward me.
“Do you like pink?”
I looked down.
“Yes.”
“Celeste doesn't.”
“I like some pink,” Celeste protested.
“You said my shoes looked like bubble gum.”
“They did.”
Emilia giggled.
For one strange second, everyone almost looked ordinary.
Then Giovanni asked, “Are you married?”
The fragile moment shattered.
Celeste stiffened.
I stared at him.
“That is none of your business.”
“It was a question.”
“You lost the right to ask me questions.”
His jaw tightened.
“I lost a lot of things without being told.”
I reached for the empty coffee pot.
“And I lost them while standing right beside you.”
That landed.
Giovanni looked down.
Celeste studied me differently now.
Less hostility.
More curiosity.
But it didn't last.
Giovanni said, “Celeste and I are engaged.”
There it was.
A second knife, though I had no right to feel it.
“Congratulations.”
Celeste's engagement ring was elegant.
Not enormous.
Not flashy.
Giovanni had learned something.
My own wedding ring had been a diamond large enough to embarrass me in grocery stores.
I had sold it three months after leaving to pay rent.
“You heard I married Isabella Bellini,” Giovanni said.
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
“I didn't hear.”
He frowned.
“I saw the photographs.”
Something passed through his eyes.
“You saw photographs?”
“Your wedding photographs, Giovanni.”
Celeste looked at him.
Apparently this was new information to her too.
“It wasn't a wedding,” Giovanni said.
I almost laughed.
“You were standing beside another woman in a church.”
“The church ceremony never happened.”
“The newspaper called her your wife.”
“Because legally, for four months, she was.”
The words struck harder than I expected.
I put down the coffee pot before I dropped it.
“So you did marry her.”
“Yes.”
At least he did not lie.
“Then congratulations five years late.”
“I never touched her.”
“Stop.”
“It was a civil agreement. The Bellinis wanted—”
“I know what they wanted. You explained it before I left.”
“I told you I was considering it.”
“And then you did it.”
“After you disappeared.”
His voice sharpened for the first time.
Emilia looked up.
Giovanni immediately lowered it.
“After,” he repeated.
I swallowed.
“I didn't disappear. I left.”
“Without telling me where.”
“You knew why.”
“No, Sophia. I knew you were angry. I knew you were frightened. What I did not know was that you intended to erase yourself.”
“I needed to survive.”
“So did I.”
The pain in his face was suddenly naked.
It frightened me more than anger would have.
I turned toward the door.
“I need to get back to work.”
“Sophia.”
I kept walking.
Something slipped from my apron pocket.
A small laminated photograph landed beside Giovanni's shoe.
I froze.
My lungs stopped working.
I knew exactly which photograph it was.
Lucia standing in Flushing Meadows Park last October.
Red sweater.
Two missing front teeth still weeks away.
Dark curls flying around her face.
Giovanni bent down.
“Don't.”
Too late.
He picked it up.
For several seconds, he simply stared.
Celeste looked over his shoulder.
Emilia leaned sideways curiously.
My body went cold.
Giovanni's thumb moved slowly across Lucia's face.
Then he looked at me.
I had seen Giovanni furious.
I had seen him bloodied.
I had seen him give orders that emptied restaurants.
I had never seen him look afraid.
“Who is she?”
I crossed the room and held out my hand.
“Give it back.”
He didn't.
“Sophia.”
“Giovanni.”
His eyes returned to the photograph.
Lucia's eyes.
His eyes.
He calculated.
Of course he calculated.
Giovanni had survived his entire life by noticing what other people missed.
“How old is she?”
“Give me the picture.”
“How old?”
Celeste whispered, “Giovanni.”
He stood.
I stepped backward automatically.
He noticed and stopped moving.
That hurt him.
Good.
Maybe it needed to.
I held my hand out again.
“Her name is Lucia.”
His face lost color.
Behind him, Emilia looked from the photograph to Giovanni and back again.
Then she said, with the devastating simplicity of a child who had no idea what she was revealing:
“She has your eyes.”
May you like
Giovanni stared at me.
“How old is Lucia, Sophia?”
