Page 77

“I love the way you say Alice in Italy.Ah-lee-chay. Bella.”

“That child rules the household,” Signora Strazza says under her breath.

“Mamma,” Angelo warns.

“I can’t say anything!” Signora Strazza gets up and goes into the kitchen.

I don’t look at Angelo. As a veteran of family arguments at the dinner table, I don’t want to encourage this one. Signora Strazza returns with the main event, the entrée. “I hope you like spaghetti with peas and cream.” She places it next to Angelo to serve it.

I twirl a few strands on the end of my fork. The light cream sauce on the spaghetti is buttery, and the capers and peas are tart and crunchy. Conor was right; Signora Strazza can cook. She drops her voice and speaks to her son in a local dialect, which I couldn’t translate if they offered me every language app on Google. It sounds like it’s about Dalia and her daughter. Signora Strazza is like my mother: she can’t let anything go, and when she attempts to, it’s just another version of passive-aggressive behavior. Angelo and his mother’s conversation is so spirited, I am certain a fight will break out any moment. I continue to twirl the spaghetti and eat it. Truthfully, I don’t care what they do, as long as I can have a second helping of this pasta.

“How do you make this?” I interrupt their conversation.

“I bake the peas with garlic and fry the capers before adding them to the sauce,” Signora Strazza explains.

The old Philly Baratta dodge always works. When my mother worked herself into a gale-force cyclone, I could always bring her back to center with a diversion. Sharing a recipe is a fail-safe.

“Do you cook?” Signora Strazza asks.

“I love to cook. I learned everything from my grandmothers. I roll my own pasta. I learned that from my Grammy B; her peoplewere from Puglia. But I learned the rest from Grandma Cap. She was a Montini from Carrara before they emigrated.”

Signora Strazza puts down her fork. “The Montinis. They lived on the river.”

“My grandmother told us about the river! They must bemyMontinis.”

After dinner, Angelomakes espresso. He brings three cups of vanilla gelato to the table and pours the spicy, hot espresso over the ice cream. “Affogato,” he says.

“My favorite,” I tell him. I taste the creamy vanilla gelato with the espresso finish and savor it. Sometimes, when I came home from work, I’d skip dinner and Dad and I would have this dessert instead, the elegant version of an Italian milkshake. Italy and New Jersey are never far apart, at least when it comes to dessert.

Angelo and I clear the table. I attempt to help Signora Strazza with the dishes. She takes themopeenfrom me and hangs it on a hook in the kitchen.

“You go. You and Angelo.La passeggiata,” Signora Strazza says, fluttering her hands. “Go!”

“La passeggiata,” he offers.

“Sure.”

I follow Angelo outside; we walk under the loggia around the piazza.

I can’t be certain, but Signora Strazza was nice to me and aloof to Dalia. Something is up, so I ask Angelo, “Did you tell your mother we kissed?”

“Who would do that?”

“The same guy who invites his girlfriend to dinner and doesn’t tell his tenant in the attic when he invites her to the same dinner party.”

“You think I’m up to no good?”

“Did you tell Dalia you kissed me?”

“No.”

I stop in the middle of the piazza. “Angelo, I think you’re playing me.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re one of those guys for whom one woman isn’t enough.”

“Let me ask you something. You ended your marriage. Did you wake up one day and decide the relationship was over?”