Page 33 of Gelato at the Villa (Suitcase Sisters #2)

Claire bought spices and sample-size bottles of various olive oils.

I slid over to the booth next door to pick up one of the lemon muffins stacked in the case next to the chocolate Nutella muffins.

I bought one of each, knowing Claire wouldn’t mind if we shared half of both.

I paid the older woman with euros and pointed to a sign at the back of the booth that had the words “Buono come il pane.”

“Is that the name of your shop?” I guessed that with so many tourists she would understand my English, but she looked confused and looked to where I was pointing.

“Buono come il pane,” she said. “Means ‘as good as bread.’”

Now I was the one wearing the I-don’t-get-it expression. Did it mean her muffins were as good as bread? They looked better than regular bread to me.

“It’s what we say of a person with a gold heart,” she explained.

“A heart of gold?”

She leaned over the counter, appearing eager for me to understand. “You take bread from the oven. It smell nice. Warm. It’s good, sì?”

“Sì,” I answered. “Very good.”

“This is how we call a person who give to you the feel of warm bread.” She pointed her curved finger at me. “You want this friend, sì? You want they are as good as bread.”

“Ah, I see.” I tried to read the sign with the right pronunciation. “Buono come il pane.”

She smiled.

“Grazie.”

“Prego.” She said something else to me in Italian and turned to help the next customer.

Claire joined me with her purchases, looking content. I opened my paper sack to show her the muffins before breaking one in half and sharing it with her.

“Oh, that’s good,” she said as we started walking again.

As soon as I swallowed, I tried out my new Italian saying. “And you, my friend, are as good as bread.”

“Thanks?” She looked hesitant. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

I explained the saying as we headed upstairs to find something more to eat.

The area was filled with enough tables and chairs for hundreds of people.

It was uncomfortably warm, and the fragrances from the various cooking stations seemed to collide.

I didn’t like the noise or that the space was so crowded.

“This way,” Claire said.

I hoped she had some inside knowledge on where to order a slice of pizza and where to sit. She didn’t. Instead, she stopped at the first pizza place we came to and told me she would stand in line while I found a table.

I grabbed a table that had chairs for four.

I’d barely sat down when a middle-aged woman with a backpack plopped next to me and an older man, also wearing a backpack, landed in the chair across from her.

His face was red, and the two of them spoke in a sharp tone in a language I didn’t recognize.

I looked around to see where else we could sit.

I saw no other options, so I stayed where I was and put my bag with the remaining muffin in front of Claire’s place across from me.

Hopefully it would ward off anyone hunting for a place to sit.

The next fifteen minutes had to be the least enjoyable minutes of our trip.

Claire arrived with a single slice of pizza for us to share and two cans of lemon soda.

We ate quickly, barely paying attention to what was going down our gullets.

The couple beside us continued to argue in their mother tongue, getting louder as the noise level around us increased.

The pizza and the remaining muffin were devoured in record time, and the fizzy soda seemed to ride on top of it all in my stomach as we tried to exit. I couldn’t tell how any of it tasted.

As soon as we were outside, I pulled Claire away from the main entrance, where people were bumping into each other entering and exiting. I walked far enough away so that we could stand in a fairly uncrowded spot and talk for a minute.

“That was...”

“I know,” Claire agreed. “Not at all pleasant to be seated with those strangers at that table.”

“Do you think we should reevaluate our day-trippin’ plans?

” I asked. At that moment, all I wanted to do was go back to the villa, take a refreshing swim in the pool, and listen to nature from a leisurely reclined position in the padded lounge chair.

But when would we ever be in Florence again?

Plus, we had agreed to go to Amelia’s dinner that night in Florence.

“I think we should keep going,” Claire said. “Stick with the plan for now.”

“Okay.” I glanced over at the bustling flea market area. “Do you mind if we don’t shop there? Unless your heart’s desire right now is to purchase a leather jacket to wear the rest of the day.”

“No leather jackets for me,” Claire said. “How about if we go for a favorite on your list and try to get into one of the largest churches in the world instead?”

“Yes, please.”

It took only a few minutes to walk to the Duomo.

Anchored at the heart of Florence, the huge church was named for the cathedral’s famous dome that was an architectural wonder in the 1400s and still dominated the city today.

The Duomo contained several sections, and each required a ticket to enter.

However, the main cathedral required no admission fee to walk around, so that was what we planned to do.

We were stunned when we found the line for free entry and saw how far it went.

We could stand outside for an hour, possibly two, before being admitted.

“It’s fine with me if we skip this and venture on to see other parts of Florence,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Claire asked.

I nodded. “At one point you wanted to climb to the top of the dome. Do you still want to try to get tickets?”

“No, I’ll pass. We saw Florence from the hilltop,” Claire said. “I could live without seeing it again from a different direction and being smooshed in a hot and stuffy space. Unless you really want to climb to the top?”

I grinned. “The possibility doesn’t panic me, but when you said ‘smooshed in a hot and stuffy space,’ my stomach did a flip.”

“Mine too. You know what we need?” Claire checked the map. “Here it is. Perfect. Vivoli’s!”