Training in Love

by Manuela Pigna

  “I think your friend has arrived,” I inform Nic a little huffily. He looks up towards the door, where Andrea is looking around, then he turns to me with a small roguish smile. I look at him through narrowed eyes and he returns the look, just like before but reversed.

  “Hey!” Exclaims Andrea, already here, slapping a hand on Nic’s shoulder. “How are you?”

  Nic stands up smiling and embraces him briefly. Better to not exaggerate with girly displays… But you can see they’re happy to see each other, they smile and slap each other on the back. I’d like to understand this - Nic chose my cafè for their meeting after years of not seeing each other? Hmm. I observe Nic, and while they talk, I hear a small, thin, amused voice at my left, “Olivia dear, if you continue to squint your eyes like that, you’ll have wrinkles before your time!”

  This is why Madame Barbieri comes here. Because in her life as a retiree she has nothing to do and she enjoys making fun of us.

  I immediately relax my gaze, but I can’t stop myself from crossing my arms on my chest. I look at the two of them. Andrea waves hi to me with one hand (even if he’s less than a meter away) because he doesn’t want to interrupt Nic. I wave back in the same way, then Madame Barbieri calls me with a “psst” and her index finger. I move towards her and lean over the counter. In a low voice in my left ear she says, “Who is the Sun God, à propos?” Madame Barbieri’s third husband was French.

  I burst out laughing, because “Sun God” really suits Andrea to a T. “He’s a friend of Nic’s… My personal trainer.”

  She looks at me with renewed interest. “Very, very good Olivia,” she finally comments, as though I had completed a test in class correctly.

  I furrow my brow and shrug and decide to busy myself with the cafè. The guys sit down and when I start to walk away, Nic stops me. “Olly? Cappuccino with a chocolate croissant for me.” Then he turns to Andrea who says, “For me an orange juice and a coffee.” I nod and go to the kitchen to get the croissant. After the rush hour in the morning we put them in the kitchen to have more space on the counter.

  Leo isn’t there. Perhaps he’s gone out back. He comes and goes as he pleases. Sighing, I take a plate and a napkin, placing the chocolate croissant on top, but the plate is suddenly snatched from my hands. “Rosy!” I exclaim.

  “I’ll bring it to him!” She says with a sly smile.

  “But it’s my turn at the counter today…”

  “Oh!” She fakes a frown. “Don’t be so fussy! I’m even saving you work!”

  I shrug my shoulders. “Do you want to make the cappuccino and the coffee and orange juice?”

  She jumps around in place. “Yes!” She yells laughing. “And who is the blond guy? My God! I don’t know who to pick! Where do you keep these friends hidden anyway?”

  “They aren’t my friends…” I say in a low voice, but she’s not paying the least amount of attention to me. “Anyway I already asked Nic for his phone number, you’re not going to make me look like an idiot now, are you?” I ask, a little worried.

  “No…” She meditates, croissant in hand. “If they didn’t know each other and weren’t here together I could… But as it is, it doesn’t seem like the thing to do.”

  “No, in fact.”

  I’m about to go back in when she grabs my arm. “Aah, I don’t suppose that while I take care of them, you could do table two? There’s only two of them…”

  So she wasn’t free… I nod looking away.

  When I come out of the kitchen, Andrea turns to me and smiles. I can’t help but answer him with a smile, but he wrinkles his brow a little.

  I go directly to table two without stopping. There are two people who have to order. I spend a bit of time with them, while I explain what there still is to eat and, when I return to the counter, I see Rosy chatting with both of them, smiling like a nut and batting her eyelashes like some Disney movie fawn. I don’t even ask her to prepare table two, I just do it. While I move around behind the counter, Madame Barbieri says in a loud voice, “Olivia dear, wasn’t the counter yours today and the tables for Rosy?”

  I stop for a moment and redden, the boys stop speaking and look at the elderly woman – all decked out at nine-thirty in the morning as though she were going to the Scala Theater to see an opera. Then they both turn towards me while Rose keeps her back to me.

  I really don’t know what to say, and after a few minutes of embarrassment, Rosy speaks, “She asked me to switch places for a minute and as a good co-worker I said I would.”

  Madame Barbieri begins to fiddle with her necklace of green stone beads without commenting. I turn towards the coffee machine and go back to what I was doing. I finish up with table two and go back to the counter. Rosy has disappeared. Nic is deep in conversation with Andrea. He’s seated sideways with his profile to me, while Andrea is seated facing me directly and nods from time to time while playing with his half-full glass of orange juice. Every so often he shoots me a quick look, a look I don’t know how to interpret. He seems serious, almost as though I’ve made him angry, but I haven’t done anything.

  I look at Madame Barbieri for comfort, hoping that she’ll make me laugh with one of her funny faces, but today she continues to stare at me in that strange way. I don’t feel comforted at all. She watches me so intensely… It’s never happened before.

  When the two men get up and put their hands in their pockets to start looking for their wallets, I heave an inner sigh of relief. I can’t take any more of them, or Rosy’s overexcitement, or the sudden intensity of Madame Barbieri who is usually so light hearted.

  “Uh Nic,” I begin, a little tired, as I give them their change, “your number? For…” I twirl two fingers in the air to finish the sentence.

  I suddenly feel Andrea’s eyes fixed on me.

  “Oh, yeah,” Nic answers putting his hands in his pocket. He watches me and Andrea does the same. I wait, totally unnerved by their scrutiny.

  “Give me yours, so I can give you a ring and you’ll have it.”

  I nod and begin to give it to him from memory.

  He brings the phone to his ear and waits for a ring, then he hangs up and puts it away. “But,” says Nic, looking at me intensely, “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to give it to her anymore.”

  I raise my eyebrow surprised and don’t say anything. He continues as a smile blossoms on his lips, “You know, recently I’ve raised my standard.”

  I feel something like a small butterfly, light, start from the pit of my stomach and fly up, up until it alights on my lips and spreads its wings in a radiant smile.

  Nic says goodbye smiling and walks towards the door. Andrea watches me without smiling, serious, and takes two steps back – first making his goodbyes, then reminding me about our appointment in the afternoon and then following Nic out of the shop.

  Secretly satisfied, I sigh and turn around, catching the bright eyes of Madame Barbieri, who now has an enigmatic half-smile on her painted red lips.

  ***

  I’m going to the bike path at the lake a week after Nic and Andrea came to the cafè the first time. They came this morning too, but today it was my turn at the tables and they sat at a table. Maybe it was just by chance, but I was pleased.

  When I arrive I see him already there, at the start of the path – today all dressed in gray. He has my notebook rolled up in his hand – the diet diary notebook that I gave him last Saturday.

  I get out of the car and go to meet him. He takes me by the hand. “Come on, let’s talk about your diary.”

  I quickly take my hand away from his. I’m still in my mantra phase, it’s not the case for him to touch me.

  We sit cross-legged on the ground. Even if it is freezing, it’s not raining and hasn’t rained recently, so the ground isn’t wet. I sit beside him. He opens the notebook and turns a couple of pages before speaking. “What do you want to do in life, Olly?”

  Surprised, I look at him and he turns towards me, waiting.

  “Libra
rian,” I answer after a moment’s hesitation.

  He raises his eyebrows. “A what?”

  “A librarian. Why? Do you have something against librarians?”

  He shakes his head. “No, of course not, but… why?”

  “Because I like books, I like to read them, I like putting them on the shelf, talking about them, recommending them to people...” I drop my eyes from his. I think about it for another moment. “And the people… the people that you’d meet at work would only talk about books.” I look at my hands, imagining that sort of future. “Yes, I would definitely like to be a librarian.”

  Andrea is silent for a little. “And writing? Have you ever thought about it?”

  Have I ever thought about it? Of course I have, but I’ve never confessed it to anyone, not even to myself almost. I look at him until I can hold his gaze – as light and clear as mountain water – then I drop my eyes and don’t answer. I hear him sigh after a while. “In my opinion you’d be good at it. Your diary… it’s only a diet diary but… I enjoyed reading it. In some parts it was almost funny.”

  I turn to him, surprised. “Really?”

  “Yes. And, I don’t know, I thought that if you are able to write a diet diary in such a pleasing way… well, you could do a lot better if you wrote something that you want.”

  I don’t comment, but I feel a wave of pleasure in almost all of my body.

  He looks at me for a bit without speaking, then he sighs again and returns to my diary. “Ok, getting down to business. You don’t eat that badly, it’s just that in certain moments you eat for four people.” He says it without any inflexion, with total indifference. I redden anyway and look at my gym shoes.

  “For example,” he continues, “I noticed that on Sundays your eating is decidedly bizarre. At lunch you always eat something really light and in small quantities, while in the evening you eat a huge amount and usually not very healthy things.”

  “Really? Always on Sundays?” I ask surprised. I hadn’t ever noticed.

  He nods, leafing through the notebook. “Two Sundays ago,” he taps his index finger on the page where he’s stopped, “you ate cream of leek soup for lunch and that’s all, but at dinner you ate a pizza, French fries and tiramisu for dessert. Then, as if this dinner weren’t enough, before going to bed you had a cup of milk with eight cookies.”

  Oh my God… I’m so ashamed… Please God, open a sink hole in the earth and let me disappear!

  “Really?” I stutter, all red.

  He nods, alternating his gaze between me and the notebook. “Monday morning you usually eat a lot too, then sometimes you eat small amounts, other times more, sometimes in exaggerated quantities - but it seems just by chance – even if I don’t believe that’s the case. The only trend I’ve managed to put together is that of Sunday and Monday morning.”

  I know why I eat so badly on Sunday. My mother. She always brings out the worst in me. I don’t want to tell him though, so I don’t say anything.

  “Looking at your diary I realized a thing,” he gives it a last look and rolls it up in his hand. “You’re not someone who eats badly in general, someone who has huge bad habits to get over. Olly, it seems to me that when you want to, you know how to put together a well-balanced meal.”

  Of course. With all the diets I’ve tried in my life, something like making a balanced meal must have entered my brain unconsciously.

  “I’m afraid that you’re one of those people who eats out of nervousness. And that may be worse than having bad eating habits because there’s a psychological factor to consider,” he continues.

  He stops and looks at me – after a few seconds he asks, “Do you think you’re someone who eats when you’re nervous or for other psychological reasons?”

  I don’t need to think about it to answer, “Yes.”

  He nods, “I’m not a psychologist, so maybe you should look for someone like that if you really want to do something the right way. Anyway, I brought you something that could be useful to you. At least I hope you can use it.”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to see it right now or after training? Today we’re beginning running…”

  “Right now. I may be too wrecked afterwards to understand anything.”

  Andrea gets up with a fluid motion and offers me his hand. I take it to get up and then quickly release it. He heads towards his car and opens the trunk, but the first thing he pulls out is the scale, and, needless to say, places it in front of my feet.

  “Again?” I ask grumpily, “but I haven’t done any diet! It’s not fair!”

  “We’ll weigh ourselves anyway.”

  “Again with this plural?”

  Andrea laughs. “I’m weighing myself too.”

  I huff stepping on the scale. “Was this the thing? What a great…”

  “No, it wasn’t this,” he says coming nearer and bending to look.

  When the number appears I can’t believe my eyes. “Eighty-one and a half?” I almost shout with happiness. I turn to him, now smiling. “How is it possible?”

  He smiles in turn and my heart skips a beat. Andrea is practically Linda, Andrea is practically Linda, Andrea is practically Linda.

  “Yes, it is possible, it’s actually typical. For this reason I wanted you to weigh yourself. Writing down what you eat, in itself, already pushes you to eat a little better.”

  I continue to look at the scale and then him – I’m brimming with happiness.

  As soon as I get off, he gets on just like the other time. Eighty-one.

  “You’re the same, and still weigh less than me,” I say with a half grimace.

  “Not for long,” he reassures me good naturedly. Then he leans into his trunk and gets something. A small book and some sheets of paper. “Try reading this book, then tell me if it’s been of any help. If not, we’ll find another solution. Maybe it will help if you find a psychologist.”

  “Hmm.” I take the book in hand and look at it. It’s called The Answer is not in the Fridge . I’m already interested and begin to leaf through it.

  Andrea covers my hands with his and I lift my gaze to him with a mute question.

  “You’ll have time to read it, now let’s move on.”

  I nod and close the book, putting it under my arm.

  “I’ve written some instructions for the diet you will have to follow. More than a list of lunches and dinners – which are, frankly, difficult to follow - I’ve written down how you should behave, what type of combinations you should make, certain tricks, etc. So that you can start to understand how it works. But basically you’re free to manage it. Here,” he hands me a folder of pages stapled together. “Read them when you have time at home and if you have some doubt or any questions or need something cleared up, feel free to call me on my mobile phone.”

  I take a deep breath and nod again.

  “Shall we start?”

  “Let me leave this in the car.” So saying I go towards my car and leave everything on the passenger side. Andrea is waiting for me at the start of the bike track, and as soon as I join him he explains the program – a mix of running and walking – with his usual simple, concise and clear way of doing things. I think he’d be an excellent teacher. Besides a gorgeous model.

  When we begin to run I feel incredibly awkward. I feel my thighs brushing together, my breasts bouncing up and down and even my cheeks moving… And I’m out of breath right away, in a truly embarrassing way. And people ask why fat people don’t do sports… Simple – it’s terrible.

  What’s more, if all this weren’t enough, I’m doing this side by side with the Sun God – always perfect and beautiful – who observes me from time to time in a way I detest.

  Andrea alternates the running with walking – I follow him. When he walks, I walk. When he runs, I run and so on and so forth. After a few minutes of silence he asks me, “So, what advice would you have for me?”

  “Huh?” I ask to be brief.

  “As a book to read… y
ou said you’re good at suggesting…” It goes without saying that while I already have to breathe with my mouth open, he chats as though he were sitting in front of a table for tea.

  “Ah!” Me, the verbosity in person, suddenly become brief when I’m running I’ve discovered. “I don’t know you well enough.”

  Andrea raises his eyebrows. “That doesn’t make any sense – the people who come into your library won’t know you either!”

  “Yes, they will. The library isn’t a shop, the clientele tends to always be the same and after a while you learn the tastes of everyone,” I answer, and now am short of oxygen.

  Andrea stays quiet, but after a little says, “No, it doesn’t make sense, I’m sorry. You said you’re good at it. You have to be able to give advice to strangers… And then, don’t you know me a little after we’ve seen each other three times a week for three weeks?”

  I puff. “Alright then. I would suggest…” I think for a second while I observe him. What would someone like Andrea like? Certainly not love stories, I’d venture he has enough sticky-sweet serenades in real life… Someone that methodical, rational… At the very least they like mysteries. To use your mind to discover who is the murderer or something like that. And then, men typically like mysteries or fantasy. “I’d recommend the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson.”

  Andrea nods. “Anyway, now I don’t have time to read. I have to focus on my thesis if I want to finish quickly.”

  “So what did you ask me for?” I reply more acidly than I’d have liked.

  “Just because - I wanted to see what you’d tell me.”

  I blow out theatrically and give him a dark look. “Did you have to pick this point to do it? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m short on oxygen at the moment…”

  Andrea gives a short laugh. “That’s ok, you should set a pace that allows you to speak.”

  “This pace doesn’t allow me to speak. I’m about to die and you don’t even notice.”

  “Always so positive and sunny…” He mutters. “Anyway, we’ve finished for today, let’s go back walking.”