Penny nodded. She was glad he understood. Francesco took the big board across to the table and she followed, pouring orange juice into tall glasses for them and grabbing cloth napkins from the credenza.
‘He does drive me crazy though, too – so don’t think I am a total angel.’
‘Crazy how?’
‘He’s forever on a campaign to get me to move up to Derbyshire to run his pub. Doesn’t understand why I don’t want the pressure of such a massive place. We fall out about it every three or four months, and then make up and don’t breathe a word of it until the next disagreement is due.’
‘You talk about him with a lot of love, though.’
‘Well, yeah,’ Penny said. ‘He’s a legend.’
Francesco tenderly chopped some tomatoes at the table and salted them after artfully fanning them out.
‘And your biological dad left?’
Penny didn’t typically offer up that information to people she was dating. It was private, and she knew men immediately leaped to the conclusion that she must have daddy issues.
‘My mum got secondary breast cancer when I was nine, and by the time I was ten she had died from it. I think my dad knew it was going that way, because he left before she passed away. I think … Well, actually, I don’t know what to think, because I haven’t seen him since. But in his spinelessness I got the best father a girl could ask for. I’d walk over hot coals for Uncle David. Both my sister and I would.’
‘But she travels a lot, you said?’
‘She does. She’s back all the time though, and we’ll all get together for my uncle’s husband’s birthday in a few weeks. He’ll be sixty-five and will milk every second of it. He’s brilliant.’
They talked easily and happily, occupying the space of Penny’s home together as if they’d done this many times before, eating their brunch and drinking their tea and talking their talk. He kept looking at her intently, asking questions and listening to her answers, nodding as he processed what she said, laughing when she was being funny, and saying lovely, insightful things when Penny asked him about his life, his job, his ambitions. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and so Penny let herself enjoy it, too.
‘This is good. You. Me. This,’ Penny offered, letting the spring sunshine warm her face as it bounced off the water. They’d decided to walk off brunch with a meander to the reservoir. It was freezing – she’d needed a scarf and a hat – but bright, which made all the difference.
‘I think so too,’ Francesco answered, smiling. ‘And to think it almost didn’t happen because you weren’t going to text me …’
Penny let out a ‘ha!’ sound. ‘No! I would have done!’ she said, playfully hitting his arm.
‘No you wouldn’t! A month had already passed!’
‘I was building up to it!’ she insisted.
‘Lies! You were blowing me off.’
‘Okay,’ Penny cackled. ‘I was blowing you off.’
Francesco’s face fell. ‘You were?’
She shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’d spoken three words to each other before Stuart cornered you to write your number down. How was I supposed to know you were actually interested?’
‘Ah, yes, I can see how me writing my number down and saying “I look forward to hearing from you” must have given off all kinds of mixed signals.’
Penny rolled her eyes. ‘So you just … gave me your number? How often do you do that? Because that sort of nonchalance makes me think you do it all the time.’
‘Gotta take your chances,’ Francesco said, moving a branch out of the way for them both.
‘So you do do it all the time!’
‘I do not often get invited to leave my number for good-looking café owners who hold eye contact for an uncomfortable length of time, no,’ Francesco said. ‘But it felt like there was a connection, or something. I don’t know. And then when I saw you at Dofi’s restaurant, too. When stuff like that happens it feels like sort of a cosmic obligation to take a leap of faith, don’t you think?’
‘What if the leap means you fall and break an ankle?’
‘Dark,’ Francesco lamented, shaking his head. He was mocking her.
‘I’m serious! I’m thirty years old. I’ve leapt many, many times, and somehow it never pays off. I’m not like “woe-is-me” or anything, I just mean … How do you stay optimistic? Not the general you, I mean you, specifically. How do you, Francesco Cipolla, stay optimistic in matters of the heart?’
They arrived at a small gate and Francesco went through it, and then turned and leaned against it so that Penny couldn’t. She wasn’t expecting it, and so wound up bumping up almost nose-to-nose with him. She looked at him.
‘How do I stay optimistic in matters of the heart …’ Francesco replied, his voice lowered.
Her stomach lurched. He made it feel so easy. He was so comfortable in his own skin, wore the pressure of their date so lightly. Maybe he didn’t feel any pressure at all.
‘Yeah,’ Penny said. ‘Because your optimism is … attractive.’
‘Oh?’ said Francesco, so close now that Penny could feel his breath on the space between her top lip and nose. She realized she had tilted her head to the side, just slightly, ready to be kissed by him. They held themselves millimetres apart, and Penny stopped breathing altogether. She waited for him to lean the tiniest bit forward but instead he held his position, the top corner of his mouth rising up into a half-smile, and Penny realized he was waiting for her to kiss him. She had to go the last half-inch. And so she held onto the fence and pushed her weight to the front of her feet, towards her toes, to make herself reach him. She gently edged herself up towards his mouth so that her lips met his, and there they stayed, tasting one another, giving in to each other’s breath until a man coughed loudly and deliberately and said, good-naturedly, ‘Pardon me but, do you think I could get past?’
They pulled apart and burst out laughing.
‘Sorry,’ said Francesco, moving out of the way to let Penny through, and then the man with his Bedlington Terrier. ‘There you go.’
‘Enjoy yourselves,’ the man said, and it made them look at each other and laugh again.
‘Did that answer your question?’ Francesco said.
Penny grinned. ‘I can’t tell if it answered my question or posed about eighty thousand new ones,’ she countered.
‘I see. Well. Only time will tell …’
‘That’s very true.’
After that they walked hand-in-hand, happy in their mutual silence. What else was there to say? Penny was happy. In that moment, everything was perfect.
4
And so their love affair began. ‘It almost feels too good to be true,’ Penny told her sister on one of their Personal Podcasts. ‘But, easy doesn’t mean bad, does it? Maybe easy just means right?’
‘I think it’s lovely,’ Clementine had replied, somewhere north of Beijing where she’d been called in to oversee a planning issue with the local government. ‘And if you’re not sleeping together yet at least you’re not getting – oh gosh, what word does Sharon use? Dickmatized! At least you’re not getting dickmatized. I think it’s actually quite romantic, taking the time to get to know somebody before you go to bed with them. I think the new sexual revolution is actually about realizing there’s more to intimate relationships than sex.’
Sharon had guffawed when Penny had reported that back.
‘I love your sister,’ she said, wiping tears of amusement from her eyes, ‘and I, too, am thrilled you’re not getting dickmatized. But let’s face it, you’re not going to marry a shit shag, are you? It’s a bit important.’
She held up her thumb and forefinger to emphasize ‘a bit’, looked down at her gesture, and then wordlessly increased it in size.
‘Give me a minute,’ Penny squealed, knocking her hand away jokingly. ‘Five days post-kiss hardly makes me the Virgin Mary.’
‘No,’ said Sharon. ‘You’re right. Enjoy it for what it is! The world could end tomorrow!�
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‘Well, if the world was to end tomorrow …’ Penny sniggered, and they both hooted with laughter, knowing that the imminent end of the world might speed things up a bit.
At home that night, as Penny lounged in her cosiest tracksuit, idly wondering what to watch on telly for the hour before bed, her phone rang, and Francesco’s face popped up on screen. Penny stared at it. He was calling her? Who calls anyone anymore? she mused. She loved hearing from him and everything, but a phone call? At least a Personal Podcast could be listened to in one’s own time. The only people who made phone calls anymore, Penny had assumed, were the boomer generation, like Uncle David. She continued to stare at it, not knowing what to do. Penny knew actual husband and wives who didn’t even talk on the phone.
As it stopped ringing and ‘one missed call’ appeared as a notification, Penny turned over the possibilities.
Did you just try to call me? she texted.
Yeah. It’s okay, Francesco replied. I just finished my shift. I can try later if you’re free?
Penny was confused. To talk on the phone? she replied.
That’s what normally happens when one person dials the other, and that other person picks up, yeah.
Oh. Yeah, sure. Later.
Penny switched from her WhatsApp with Francesco to voice note her sister.
‘This is not a drill,’ she said, down the phone. ‘The Italian wants to talk on the phone with me. We have a psychopath on our hands. Repeat: we have a psychopath on our hands.’
Her phone screen lit up with Francesco’s face again.
‘Gah!’ Penny said, holding it like a live bomb. ‘Um … um …’ She slid the button to answer. ‘Hi!’ she said, too enthusiastically.
‘I don’t know if I’m more offended that you’d refer to me as a psychopath, or that you don’t even use my proper name to do it.’
‘Ah. Yes. Well.’ She could hear his smile down the line.
‘I take it you don’t like talking on the phone, then,’ he said.
‘Not so much, no. Bit retro for me. I think Uncle David is the only person who actually calls me, you know.’
‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’
Penny grinned. ‘Well now I’ve accidentally sent you a voice note, you have done.’ He just wanted to hear her voice! Her heart leapt into her throat.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Pottering.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he said. She thought he was waiting for her to continue, but then she could faintly hear him say ‘good evening’ to somebody and then the hum of an engine, and she realized he was distracted by getting on the bus. She waited for him to say something else as he got settled, but he didn’t. He was waiting for her to speak. She took a breath. Penny had talked to Stuart only that afternoon about being unafraid to show Francesco who she really was. That meant being cute and flirtatious with him as well as letting him get a glimpse of some of the ‘realer’, less sexy stuff, too.
‘I get tired sometimes,’ she said, deciding now was the time to tell him, cards on the table and all that. ‘So I needed a quiet night.’
‘I see,’ he said.
‘I was pretty sick a couple of years back. It still gets me, sometimes.’
Finally Francesco said a full sentence. ‘You’ve alluded to that a couple of times actually. I didn’t want to pry, but I have to admit I’ve been curious. Was it serious?’
‘Stage two breast cancer at twenty-five. So now my body doesn’t like me to get carried away. I don’t think I’ve been getting as much rest as I need lately so, you know, I’m getting some down-time.’
‘Twenty-five,’ Francesco said, his shock evident. ‘That’s so young.’
‘Yeah. About as young as my mum was when she first got it, except hers came back and …’ Well. Francesco knew the rest.
‘I didn’t know you’d had it too,’ he marvelled. ‘That’s a really shitty hand to be dealt.’
‘It was. And it was tough.’ It felt good to say that. It wasn’t lost on Penny that for somebody who’d minutes ago said she didn’t like to talk on the phone, it suddenly felt really good to be chatting to Francesco. That was the thing about him, she contemplated – all the rules she thought she had were increasingly not applicable. Stuart had said as much, too. He’d basically accused Penny of self-sabotaging every relationship she had by withholding information or affection and then blaming the other person for it not working out. It was a surprisingly insightful observation for him to make, and it had made Penny’s blood boil for about ten seconds before she felt a wave of acknowledgement rush over her. What Stuart had said had some truth. She could begrudgingly admit that. Penny could hear the shouts of lively teenagers in the background as she waited for Francesco’s reaction. She put a cushion behind her head and stretched out across the sofa.
‘I can’t begin to imagine,’ he said, as the noise behind him died down. ‘Do you mind talking about it?’
‘I can’t say it’s all that thrilling.’
‘Well, one day, I want to know everything about you.’ He always seemed to know the right things to say. Penny felt relieved that she didn’t have to share any more, as well as a vague sense of gratitude towards Stuart that she’d shared at least a little bit. ‘But for now,’ he carried on, ‘tell me where you are, right this second. This bus ride home is freezing and I need the entertainment.’
Penny looked around. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sat on my couch with a bottle of water – hydration station over here – and the remote is in my hand because I’ve been watching movie trailers instead of picking an actual movie, and I lit a very luxurious not one but two candles. Different fragrances, too. It’s called layering apparently.’
‘Sounds snuggly.’
‘It is. I’m very good at snuggly. You could even go as far as to call me the Queen of Snuggly-Ville.’ She pulled the blanket off the arm of the nearby chair and put it over her legs so that she was even snugglier.
‘And how does one get the opportunity to visit Snuggly-Ville?’
‘Oh, well, it’s incredibly difficult to get in. Very exclusive.’
‘Do you want company? Somebody to do nothing with?’
Penny sat upright. Her hair was unwashed and she was hardly dressed to impress.
‘I mean, I’m going to be very boring company,’ she said. ‘But … I do kind of want to see you.’
‘I kind of want to see you too. Shall I hop in a cab once I’ve showered? I have a discount code for a Bolt.’ He paused. ‘Not that you’re not worth the full price Uber, ha. Have you eaten? I can bring dinner? Or … foot lotion! I can bring foot lotion!’
Penny balked at the suggestion. ‘Foot lotion?’
‘I’ll give you a foot massage.’
‘Francesco, I’m not having sex with you. Not tonight. I am way, way, way too tired for that.’ The idea of him naked, on top of her, made her skin prickle in anticipation – but she was serious. She hadn’t fostered emotional intimacy as a gateway to a shag. Plus, she probably had about another hour and a half in the tank before she passed out.
‘Just for your feet, Penny. Physical touch as a love language, remember? Can you give me some credit, please? It wouldn’t be your feet I’d rub if I was trying to get you into bed.’
‘You’re doing that flirting thing again, aren’t you?’
‘Is it working?’
Penny looked around the flat. It was actually pretty tidy – she had a cleaner come for two hours once a week, to help stop the place getting really bad, and they’d been just yesterday. Penny was a mess, but her house wasn’t. If she dimmed the big light a bit more and lit the lamps instead, they could lie on the sofa and drink tea and …
‘Yes. It is. Come over. Just an hour or two.’
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘You just kick me out if I overstay my welcome, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she replied. ‘Deal.’
‘I can offer you water, or beer,’ Penny said, walking Francesco up the stairs to her place. ‘In fact, a
nything you can find in the fridge that doesn’t require a glass and/or my help is all yours.’
‘Water is fine. I’ll get it. Could I just have one thing first?’
‘If it’s within reach, you can have anything you want.’
Francesco tipped his head to the side and licked his lips.
Penny lowered her voice and whispered, ‘Oh. Well. Yes, you can certainly have that.’
They kissed hello and then Penny flopped down onto the sofa and watched Francesco manoeuvre himself through her kitchen. It was nice to be exhausted but to have company. It was nice that she hadn’t lied about how she was feeling, or put on a show for him. She’d done that enough times before in the past – even on her worst days she’d let nobody other than her uncle and her sister know just how low she felt, how helpless and miserable and defeated she often was. That was why she didn’t have hundreds of friends – it was too much hard work to hide the truth of herself and her limitations. She’d rather have a close-knit group who knew her completely than a huge group of acquaintances who knew her hardly at all. Like Sharon – Sharon accepted her, warts and all, and it was one of the most rewarding friendships of Penny’s life.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Francesco asked, putting down two glasses of water he’d added lemon, ice, and mint from the balcony herb garden to. ‘The kettle is boiling. Tea?’
‘Tea,’ she replied. ‘Yeah. With milk, please. There’s a tiny plastic carton on the top shelf of the fridge. Or there’s oat milk in there too, if you prefer.’
Francesco fussed around, making tea and peering into plastic Tupperware boxes in the fridge and asking after their contents. He tried some of her Pasta Yiayia and brought over the box of tiramisu that Sharon had given her.
They talked about the food, and about the playlist Penny had on. (‘It’s from the second season of Master of None,’ she told him, and he said he hadn’t seen it. ‘You haven’t seen it? Oh Francesco,’ she gushed. ‘You’ll love it. We’ll watch it here, one weekend. Okay?’ Francesco had smiled and said yes, they should do. The meaningful pause afterwards meant they’d both clocked the intention to see each other again, like it was a no-brainer. Of course they’d watch Master of None together! Of course they’d spend a day in her house, on the sofa, doing just that!)
The Love Square Page 5