Page 1 of Gelato at the Villa (Suitcase Sisters #2)

Chi trova un amico, trova un tesoro.

Whoever finds a friend finds a treasure.

Italian saying

We didn’t expect to love her.

Admire her beauty? Of course. Enjoy her traditional recipes? Absolutely. Appreciate the accomplishments of her many children? No question.

But fall in love with Italy? Become irresistibly smitten with her voice, fragrance, and unforgettable personality so much that we cried when we left her?

No, Claire and I didn’t anticipate that. Nor did we expect that the stories of our lives would be forever altered under the ancient Tuscan night sky. Beauty and chaos, truth and understanding melded in ways I don’t think would have happened for us back home in Redlands, California.

We had to go to Italy.

The possibility of our adventure began as a daydream eight months before we boarded the plane. Claire got the bug while watching a travel show about Italy and proposed the idea of a trip the next time we met for coffee.

“Did you know that we can take a cooking class and stay in a real Italian villa?” she asked. “I did some research and there’s one just outside of Florence that looks amazing. Can you imagine making our own pasta?”

“That sounds like your best dream come true,” I said. “Are you and Jared thinking of going?”

“No, I was thinking you and I should go,” Claire said. “I know you’re not obsessed with cooking the way I am, but don’t you think it would be fun to go to Florence? And maybe Venice?”

“Ooh. Venice.” I let the possibility settle on me and answered in a faraway voice, “I always wanted to go to Venice.”

“Then let’s do it,” Claire said decisively. “Let’s go to Florence and Venice. But not Rome.”

“What’s wrong with Rome?”

“I went there in high school for a school choir trip and...” Claire’s chin dipped.

“I didn’t know you went to Rome.”

“Bad memories,” she said.

“What happened?”

“There was this guy...”

“In Rome?”

“No. From my school. He was in the choir, and he told me a week before the trip that he liked me. I was so excited and thought he was going to be my first boyfriend. I really liked him too. Then on the plane he ignored me and avoided me the whole trip.”

“That’s brutal.”

“I know. It’s hard to get excited about the Colosseum or the Vatican when you’re sixteen and walking around with a broken heart.”

I reached across the table at the coffee shop and gave her arm a comforting squeeze.

“Rome is off our list,” I said with the tone of a solidarity sister.

“And that’s fine with me because my memories of Rome aren’t that great either.

I was twelve when my family went. It was our first trip on my dad’s airline passes, and my mom was determined to see everything.

All I remember is that my brother and my dad got into an argument in a nice restaurant and my mom was mortified. ”

“With all the trips you took with your family, why didn’t you ever go to Venice?”

“I don’t know. Maybe my mom had bad memories of Rome too. The only other place my mom and dad went to in Italy was Bellagio. They loved it. I think they went there twice.”

Claire leaned forward and brushed her bangs back so she could look me in the eye. “I need to do this, Grace. We need to do this. Venice and Florence and let’s add Bellagio. Perfect. Done.”

I knew she was worn out emotionally after losing both her parents in the last year. The weeks she’d spent closing up their home and settling their affairs in another state had sparked a restlessness, and my best friend seemed to be on the hunt for an unnamed piece of her life that had gone missing.

“I’m not the only one who needs to get into an escape pod right now,” Claire said, giving me a stern look. “Your stress levels at work have been too high for too long. What’s that saying about how you need to come apart before you come apart?”

In the same way that I knew about Claire’s emotional exhaustion after the passing of her parents, she knew about my boss, a high-strung ophthalmologist in his late seventies.

His health was declining, and every week at random intervals, he would walk past my receptionist desk without a word and leave the office with no indication of when he’d return.

Dealing with irritated patients for months and trying to reschedule them and provide an adequate apology is more draining than it sounds.

Claire’s proposal of a trip to Italy felt like an open window.

I longed to fly out that window and go far away, where I would not have to deal with another incomplete insurance form or misplaced patient file.

It would be wonderful to spend a whole week without having another patient take out their frustration on me.

I told my husband, Nathan, about Claire’s idea, and to my surprise, he agreed we should go. His exact words were “Claire’s right. You need to do this.”

He reminded me that his mom had gone to Venice with her sister-in-law about twenty years ago. I called her for advice, and Sue had only praise for her adventure.

“Grace,” she said, “you and Claire will be so glad you went. I might be able to arrange a place for you to stay in Venice. Would you like me to reach out to the people I know?”

When Claire and I met again for coffee a few days later, I felt like I was twenty and not almost forty. Dreaming of the possibility of the trip was cathartic. Even if we weren’t able to pull it off, just having something else to think about and dream about did my heart a world of good.

I presented Claire with possible dates, a tentative confirmation from my mother-in-law for a place to stay in Venice, and the promise of flight vouchers from my dad, a retired airline pilot.

I also had lots of advice from my mom on what to see and do in the Lake District of Northern Italy around the chic town of Bellagio.

“Looks like all we need are new suitcases!” A sparkle lit up Claire’s pale blue eyes.

I could always tell her mood by her eyes.

Over the last few years, she had grown her bangs out and they’d become like curtains she could pull down and hide behind on her worst days.

That day, I had an unobstructed view of her expression, and it was clear that something important was happening.

We were about to turn the page and start a new chapter in the book of “us.”

One of the things I loved about our decade-long friendship was that it began because of a book.

Claire had been nestled on the cushioned bench by the door of the coffee shop I frequently stopped at on my way to work.

One morning, as I was leaving with my latte, I noticed the cover of the novel she was reading.

The book wasn’t a new release, nor had it been a bestseller or the top pick of some famous person.

The surprise was that I had just finished reading the same book the night before.

Claire glanced up. I introduced myself politely and nodded at the book. Five minutes later we were friends. It was that easy.

Now, is that odd? Or is that God? I’ll tell you the answer. It’s God. It’s always God when the coincidence is too much of a ... well, coincidence.

It’s poetic, really, that God used a book to connect us, because Claire once said that some books made her feel as if she belonged at the same table with her favorite imaginary friends.

I love that thought because I’ve felt the same way with certain books too.

But until Claire said it, I didn’t know how to name the sense of being invited into the story.

When I was young, my mom read Bible stories to me every night. My tender little heart embraced Jesus when I was eight, and I never doubted that I had been invited into God’s story and belonged at the table along with the many real people He wrote about.

Claire, however, had walked away from that table, so to speak. When you hear why, it will make sense. But what I witnessed in Italy was that the Author and Finisher of her faith was about to add an astonishing twist to her story. I’m so glad I got to share that chapter with her.

It’s been only a few months since our trip, and just the other day I was thinking about how different we would be if we hadn’t made the trek, or, as we learned to call it, the pilgrimage.

We discovered that a tourist travels to seek something new and curiosity-satisfying in a faraway place.

A pilgrim travels to seek a sense of belonging and something soul-satisfying in a faraway place.

Claire and I planned our trip as tourists. We returned home as pilgrims.

Yes, we needed to go to Italy. We needed to gaze at works of art that are without equal anywhere in the world. We needed to meet some remarkable people who elevated our limited concepts of hospitality, kindness, and love. We needed to indulge in every variety of pasta we could find.

Most of all, Claire and I needed the luxury of long, uninterrupted conversations. We needed to sit under a trellis dripping with wisteria and talk about things we’d never shared with each other. We needed to laugh hard and give way to a river of tears.

And yes, we needed to close our eyes and dream new dreams as we savored fresh strawberry gelato at the villa.