Catarina's Ring

by Lisa McGuinness

  Like Catarina, Maria was on her way to America to be married.

  “I’ve never met him,” Maria told Catarina when she asked about her fiancé. “I have no idea what he looks like. My mama said he is handsome, but she described my sister’s husband that way and believe me, it’s not a word I would use to describe him, so I’m not very hopeful. I know that I’m plain,” she shrugged, putting a hand to her cheek, “so I’m not worried about that. I just hope he’s kind, and not too poor, you know?”

  “You are not plain,” Catarina smiled reassuringly. “How old is he?” she changed the subject.

  “Thirty-two! Can you believe it?”

  “But that’s so old!” Catarina exclaimed. “I’m marrying a man who is twenty-six, and even that seems older than I can imagine. My sisters married men who were at the most twenty and as young as eighteen. That’s what I always thought I would do. But now this,” she said, and shrugged one shoulder as if to say, “Whatever will be will be.”

  “I have no choice in the matter,” Maria continued matter-of-factly, turning down the corners of her mouth. “My papa arranged it. After all, what was he to do with another daughter? Eh?”

  “You had no choice at all?”

  “No,” she paused. “Did you?”

  “Yes. My babbo said he wouldn’t force me to marry Franco, but I wanted to because I think it will be wonderful in San Francisco.” Catarina had said that so many times she had begun to convince even herself.

  “Well, you’re so pretty, I’m sure you could have found a husband at home,” Maria said, “but who would want me? Not even the poorest farmer asked for my hand.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Catarina looked at her. “You’re very pretty, too.”

  “Thanks for trying, but I know what I know. I just hope my fiancé isn’t too disappointed.”

  “He’ll be lucky to have you,” Catarina smiled at her.

  The bell rang to indicate that dinner would be served in fifteen minutes, so they freshened up, emerged from their cabin, and made their way to the dining room—not really knowing what to expect. What they found was a pleasant surprise. It was large and filled with round tables, covered in cloths even in second class. There were candles lit in sconces along the walls of the room, and the conversation amongst the travelers had an air of excitement. It was contagious. Catarina glanced at the men in uniform to see if any of them was the one who took her ticket when she boarded the ship. Even before Catarina’s eyes found Gregorio, she was filled with a sense of anticipation. But when their eyes met, she felt an intensity.

  Her friends and their older sisters talked about that type of thing happening when they met at the well, but Catarina hadn’t put much stock in it. After all, she had seen all the boys in her village since they were small and none had ever caused such a reaction in her.

  “Love will take your breath away,” her sister once whispered dramatically while they were folding sheets. Catarina scoffed. Especially when she set her eyes on that same sister’s husband. Catarina was the practical one. So, when her eyes finally met Gregorio’s the feeling was unexpected. She watched him say something to the uniformed man he was standing next to, and then he made his way towards her.

  “Signorina Pensebene, would you and your companion care to join us?” He motioned with his hand to a table filled with officers and other passengers.

  Catarina looked over at Maria and raised her eyebrows in question.

  “Si, grazie,” Maria said for them both.

  “How do you know him?” Maria whispered to Catarina as they made their way through the dining room.

  “I met him as I boarded. He took my ticket,” she whispered back.

  “He took my ticket, too, but that doesn’t mean he would have asked me to dine with him.”

  “It’s nothing. My father asked him to keep an eye on me. That’s all. He’s just being kind,” said Catarina as they approached the table.

  When they arrived, Gregorio introduced the two young ladies to his friends and other passengers, and indicated that they should sit on either side of him.

  “You found two young ladies this evening, ‘eh Gregorio?” one of his friends chided him good-naturedly. Gregorio laughed but didn’t respond.

  “Volete un po’ di vino?” Gregorio asked them. Would you like some wine?

  “Si, grazie,” Maria answered, again for both of the girls, before Catarina could decline. She was allowed to have wine at festivals and special occasions, but she wasn’t at all sure her parents would approve of her having it now. Then again, she reminded herself, she was a grown woman, no longer a girl. She was unaccompanied on a ship and destined to be married, so why shouldn’t she sample some wine?

  “Si, grazie,” she said as well, smiling at Gregorio.

  As the evening wore on, Catarina found herself laughing more than she ever had in her life. Gregorio amused her with little stories—all of them humorous—about his past. Her favorite was about a time when he borrowed his father’s fedora without his knowledge to impress a young lady in his village. They were strolling through a meadow on the way to a picnic when it flew off his head in a gust of wind, and before he could pick it up, a goat rushed at it and took a bite right out of the brim. Catarina could just imagine it.

  “And was your father angry at you?” she asked.

  “Yes, it took months of extra chores for me to repay him.” Gregorio told her.

  Each anecdote was like a little jewel he placed into the palm of her hand, one after another.

  “And what about your younger sister?” she asked. “Are you close? You must miss her when you’re away.”

  Gregorio laughed, “Actually, bella Signorina, I have to confess. I don’t have a sister. I made that up as an excuse when offering to look after you.”

  Catarina was shocked.

  “You lied to my father?”

  “Si, but please don’t hold it against me.”

  His eyes twinkled with humor and she felt her shock die away.

  “I’m incorrigible,” he told her.

  “I see that,” she said, and allowed herself to laugh with him.

  At some point in the evening they set up a dance floor and he asked her to dance.

  She gazed at the dancers before answering, feeling awkward because the couples already on the dance floor were considerably more sophisticated than she was, with her conservative mid-calf dress and sensible shoes. She had changed out of her traveling dress before dinner, but even the fabric of her best dress showed signs of wear and was plain when compared to the more elegant dresses worn by the other women in the room. She guessed, by looking at the light catching on the richly-colored fabrics of the other female dancers, that at least some of them were wearing silk, whereas she, until now, had only heard about that type of cloth. She herself wore pale blue wool that, although finely woven, was itchy when she got hot and definitely didn’t catch the light in the same way. She also noticed the conspicuously lower-cut bodices many of the women wore. She found it embarrassing, but also intriguing. Although she knew she would feel naked revealing as much chest as some others, she was interested in the new fashion. She wondered if she would ever be brave enough to dress in that way.

  “I’m afraid I can’t dance with you because I don’t know how,” she told him, tearing her eyes away from the dresses she had been admiring and back to Gregorio.

  “There’s nothing to it. I’ll show you,” he said and then coaxed her out into the middle of the floor in spite of her protest. There was a small band to the side of the dance floor and when they began a new piece of music, couples around them began moving.

  “This is called a waltz,” he instructed. He took her right hand in his and placed her left hand on his upper arm. She felt the warmth of his hand on her lower back and realized she had never been so close to a man who was neither her father nor brother—except for, she reminded herself, Signor Carlucci, and had to stifle a shudder at the thought of him.

  I don’t have to wo
rry about him anymore, she reminded herself. I’ve left and he’ll never be able to bother me again. And then she looked up at Gregorio and gave in to the moment. He began to teach her the basic mechanics of the dance. She stepped on his feet several times when she got mixed up about which direction to turn, which embarrassed Catarina but Gregorio didn’t seem to mind. He was patient with her and laughed good naturedly at her mistakes. By the end of the evening she was getting better and could dance a few of the steps fairly well.

  At some point Maria came over and touched Catarina’s arm.

  “We should go back to our room,” she whispered. “It’s getting late.” She took hold of Catarina and gently pulled her towards the door.

  “You’re right,” she acquiesced, “but I should at least say goodbye.”

  She stepped back to Gregorio, who was standing still amid the moving couples, and told him she was leaving.

  “No, stay. Why let Maria tell you what to do?”

  “She’s right. I should go back to our room. It’s late.” Catarina looked around and saw that the room had emptied considerably without her noticing.

  “Well, will you have dinner with me again domani?”

  “Si,” she said, although she was afraid her father would disapprove of her eating with a single man two nights in a row.

  “Until then, Catarina,” he said and then walked back to the table to rejoin his friends.

  “Catarina!” Maria urged her back off the dance floor. “Andiamo!”

  “Here I come!” she said and then took her new friend’s arm and walked back to their berth.

  “He invited us to dinner tomorrow night, too,” she told Maria.

  “That sounds fun, but you better be careful with him. I saw the way he was looking at you and I don’t think your fidanzato would approve one bit.”

  Catarina had to acknowledge that Maria was probably right. Though, what harm can come of it? she asked herself. After all, we’ll be aboard such a short time.

  Chapter 10

  JULIETTE, AN UNEXPECTED DINNER, AND A WELL-COIFFED ITALIAN MOTHER

  Juliette and Roman were sitting in what Juliette had come to think of as “their café” at the espresso bar where they had gone on the second day of class and nearly every day since. The afternoon had turned bitterly cold and the wind whipped outside the windows creating an especially cozy atmosphere inside.

  They had quickly fallen into a routine of having espresso together when class ended, talking over the day and the recipe they’d made. He was true to his word and taught her any and all Italian cultural tidbits he could think of. Increasingly, the talk had moved on to the more personal natures of their lives.

  “Is everything all right, Juliette? You don’t seem happy today.”

  “Today would have been my mother’s birthday,” Juliette told him, a far away look out the window, “but she passed away recently. It’s hard.”

  “Mi dispiace tanto. I’m so sorry, Juliette. I understand the pain. My father has also died. It’s strange, isn’t it, once they’re gone.”

  “Very strange.”

  Roman took Juliette’s hand and stroked it.

  “Was she ill?”

  “No, she was hit by a drunk driver. I was with her when it happened. That’s part of the reason I came here. I had to get away.”

  “Merda.”

  “Yes.”

  “We should celebrate her life. That’s what we do here, no? I’ll take you to dinner and . . . Why do you smile at me?”

  “No reason. You’re just an incredibly kind person.”

  Roman waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not. I’m a cad,” he paused trying to remember a phrase he wanted. “Be worried,” he said in a false intimidating voice.

  Juliette laughed. “I think you mean ‘Be afraid’,” she replied, in the same feigned voice and then, “Somehow I doubt I have to. And, yes, I would love to have dinner.”

  “Is there any particular place you’ve been wanting to try?” he asked, his warm brown eyes meeting hers.

  “You choose,” she said, her mood lifting a little bit, preferring the prospect of spending the evening with him instead of alone. “After all, you know all the best spots.”

  “Si, ok, yes. I know just the place,” he said with a mysterious half smile while he wrote down directions to her apartment.

  Roman picked her up in a black Alfa Romeo coupe. She had expected him to arrive in a somewhat beaten up small Italian car like so many she saw driving in Lucca. Maybe faded red and a bit dented, smelling of exhaust. The difference between her imagination and the sleek black version waiting for her at the curb, with Roman holding the door open, was surprising and pleasant. The luxurious brown interior leather was the warm hue of a well-used baseball glove and she sank into the comfortable seat. It was the first time she had been driven in Italy, aside from her first cab ride, and she was a decidedly nervous, having seen the way Italians operated their vehicles. As he pulled out and maneuvered his car inches from the cars parked along the streets, she realized he was the exact kind of Italian driver she’d come to both fear and respect. They seemed to have no qualms about missing both pedestrians and other cars by a hair’s width. Their aggressive style was something to behold.

  She tried to relax and give herself over to one more quintessentially Italian experience, while clandestinely doing the deep breathing exercises a therapist had taught her to help cope with the panic attacks she’d had after the accident.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, purposefully keeping her voice light and forcing herself to loosen her intense grip on the door handle.

  “I know it’s a bit out of the way, but I thought I would take you to my family’s restaurant in Florence,” he said, oblivious to the fact that his driving was causing ripples of terror to roll through her body.

  “Really?” Juliette was surprised. Florence was more than an hour away by car. She was dressed in faded jeans with black, low-heeled boots and a simple, pale-pink V-neck sweater. This outfit was more casual than she would have worn had she known she was going to meet his family. She absentmindedly twirled her nonna’s ring, relieved she had it, as well as a stylish, chunky silver and stone necklace Gina had designed, to dress her up a bit.

  “Si, you’ll love it. We make carabaccia, which is exactly the type of thing you’re looking for. It’s rustic. Simple. Just zuppa di cipolle, onion soup, no? But it is made in a way that will leave you begging for more. We have a family secret that I’ll share with you.” Roman paused to add drama, then continued. “We add a cinnamon stick to the broth while it’s simmering. You’ll see. We will start with that and then see what you would like to sample.”

  “It sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

  Their conversation was easy and comfortable and the drive went more quickly than she imagined. The traffic increased as they approached Florence, slowing them down, and then they entered the maze of the city through a huge, ancient gateway.

  “She looks like she must have quite a headache,” Juliette said, pointing out a statue of a woman with a massive block of marble on her head at the entrance to the historic part of town.

  “Indeed,” Roman said. “I have often wondered why she’s depicted that way,” he smiled. “It’s definitely not how I would like to spend thousands of years.”

  If anything, the level of driving became more intense as they entered Florence proper. Even as the crowds increased Roman didn’t slow down for pedestrians or to pass by parked cars on narrow streets, and yet they seemed to confidently escape hitting side mirrors, curbs and even people without missing a beat. Roman turned down an alley, stopping his car behind a restaurant, which she could identify only because of the telltale cook leaning against the wall in a chef’s apron, smoking a cigarette.

  “Mario, come va?” asked Roman. How are things?

  “E pazzesco.” Everything’s crazy. How did you get here so fast?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Antony’s sick and Nic
co is nowhere to be found. Mama wants you to cook tonight. Even if you can, though, we’ll still be shorthanded. But forgive me. Who is this bella with you?”

  Mario threw down his cigarette and stubbed it out with his shoe before blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth and approaching Juliette.

  “Mario, this is Signorina Brice. She’s a student in my class. Juliette, this is my youngest brother, Mario.” She could see the resemblance in the eyes and nose. Although Mario was taller and more muscular, he was equally handsome, and Juliette was curious to meet the woman who had given birth to such gorgeous men.

  “Piacere di conoscerti,” he said. Nice to meet you. Then he nodded his head toward the door to the restaurant.

  “You better get in there and talk to Mama,” Mario told his brother.

  Roman steered Juliette through the back door and into the restaurant’s kitchen.

  “Wow!” Juliette couldn’t keep herself from practically yelping when she saw how small and antiquated the kitchen was. It was nothing like the modern, expansive kitchen of the cooking school.

  The chefs hardly had a place to turn around in here, she thought as she surveyed the space. It was spotless though. Gleaming copper pots and pans hung from hooks above the stoves and the stainless counters were wiped clean. As they passed through, there were only two prep cooks on the line—one frantically chopping onions and parsley while the other sautéed a vast quantity of mushrooms. He and Roman nodded to each other, but neither stopped to talk, so Juliette assumed they weren’t family members. She inhaled deeply while she followed Roman through the kitchen. The aroma of sautéed mushrooms was one of her favorites.