Page 46 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

“That’s right, bambola ,” Nonna Lisi whispers behind me. I smile to myself, dropping the raw eggs into the mound of flour piled high on the thick wooden butcher block counter in front of me.

Then I turn my knuckles over, mixing the raw, eggy concoction with my bare hands, kneading the freshly ground flour and creamy yellow yolks ever so slowly, just like Nonna Lisi showed us how to do a few minutes ago.

The mixture grows slimy and smooth between my fingers so I tuck in more flour before turning the dough in on itself, again and again.

“You’re a natural, bambola ,” she says, patting my forearm appreciatively, leaving a handprint of fine white powder clinging to my skin. Then she turns to Silas to inspect the pile of floury egg in front of him.

“Yours still needs some work, uomo bello ,” she says to him, her eyes sparkling. Then she grabs a hold of his forearms and shoves his hands deeper into his slimy ball of dough on the same countertop, grinning over at me as she does.

Nonna Lisi’s weathered face is beautiful, as faces that have the good fortune to age during a long life built on a foundation of happiness tend to be.

Like each smile has left its mark. Her eyes crinkle in long lines all the way back to her hairline when she smiles, and her mouth looks as if it’s been stuck in a permanent grin ever since she was just a little girl.

I loved her the moment I saw her, and haven’t stopped smiling since we arrived at her house to make our pasta.

I watch Silas work the dough, his fingers lithe and capable, pushing into the soft mound before pulling it back from the wooden countertop, kneading it into submission with precise rhythm and skill.

Is there anything he’s not good at?

I think Nonna was just giving him a hard time to make me laugh.

Watching him work the dough like that is making me feel hot under the collar, so instead, I tear my eyes away to look out the stone-framed windows.

Settling on the breathtaking view of the shoreline and similar stone houses neighboring this one.

I am in love . And not just with Nonna Lisi, who is everything I hoped she would be, but with her home — the stout little house that we’re standing in overlooking a view of Italy’s infamous Amalfi coastline.

Since we were delayed last night, we came here after landing at the private airport in Pontecagnano, taking off from the tarmac in an old Rolls-Royce convertible that took us here to Amalfi for a late lunch, and then Nonna Lisi’s home.

It’s perched atop a rocky cliffside overlooking the sea, surrounded by a vibrant grove of green-and-yellow lemon trees.

The cobblestone walkway leading up to her house was cracked in a thousand different places with each piece of stone settled deeply into the ground, colorful and worn, like painted concrete.

It’s as if the earth itself had simply grown in around them.

Then, when Nonna Lisi had answered the door, I’d practically melted into the pavement myself too, seeing her for the first time.

Her face shows decades of sunshine and laughter.

She’d greeted us at the entrance of her property under a smooth, stone archway.

Crystal, nearly translucent, blue eyes, like two teal pools cut deep into an old leather cloth, shined up at us, ushering Silas and I into her humble abode which, like her, is weathered and worn and comfortable in every way.

I imagine we’re two of a thousand guests or more who’ve made their way into this very house, into this very kitchen over the couple hundred years it’s been here.

And then when we got to the worn wooden countertop, it was Nonna Lisi who had instantly made us feel the most at home, even more than our surroundings.

It’s as if she’s an ancient fixture of the room itself, surrounded by a dozen or so clay pots and bowls without a single measuring spoon or plastic cup in sight.

“Who needs a measuring spoon when it’s all in here,” she’d said grinning at me, while tapping her heart. “I’ve been making pasta in this kitchen since I was a little girl with my own nonna. And now, I show you.”

The three of us had quickly tucked ourselves into Nonna Lisi’s kitchen lined with big square windows cut into the stone, surrounded by chestnut shutters, thrown open to let the hot rays of the evening sun inside.

The ocean glitters below, as if a big diamond has been ground into dust then thrown across the surface of the water, casting shadows and colorful prisms that dance and parade their way across her cream stucco walls.

When we first started our lesson, she’d spoken to us as if we were a couple, here at the start of a marriage or romantic journey together. When I realized her mistake, I’d quickly waved my hands in front of us all to correct her.

“No, no, I’m sorry, Silas and I are just friends,” I told her.

“Friends?” she repeated, glancing back and forth between us. “Says who?” She nudged me, grinning.

“Says both of us,” I assured her, glancing up at Silas, who nodded in agreement.

“You came all the way to Italy to my kitchen to make pasta with your friend ?” she repeated, looking like we were out of our minds.

I shrugged and laughed. “I guess so?” It did sound absurd when spelled out like that.

“You won’t be just friends after tonight,” she said before pulling bowls and eggs out onto the weathered surface behind her.

“Oh, yes we will,” I replied under my breath, glancing at Silas like she probably says this to everyone who comes to her kitchen.

“And I don’t say that to everyone,” she said, her back still to me, as if reading my mind.

My eyes had darted back to hers when she turned and smiled, taking both my hands in hers after setting everything down.

“Just make the pasta.” She smiled gleefully. “You worry too much, bambola . I can see it in your eyes.” Then she touched my cheek, beaming.

“I don’t,” I said at the same time Silas nodded, saying, “She does.”

My jaw dropped at him, but Nonna Lisi had laughed and released my hands, shuffling around her kitchen to pull a bowl of freshly ground flour over next.

As our lesson started, I watched her hands, like expensive Italian leather — both soft and impossibly strong — pull one creaky wooden cupboard open after the next to extract buttery smooth carved utensils and wooden bowls, each one silky to the touch from decades of use as she held them out to us to take.

I’d turned each one over, feeling the history in my hands.

She smiled and hummed as she worked, eventually pulling out three heavy goblets and a ceramic jug of red wine.

“ Cin cin !” she’d exclaimed, pouring the glasses nearly full to the top, before handing two to us and keeping one for herself. Then she’d tipped hers back, letting at least a third of the wine pour down her throat before turning to us and asking suddenly — innocently — if we were in love yet.

I’d laughed and held my cup between my fingers, rolling it back and forth, suddenly at a loss for words. Silas happily stared at me, waiting for an answer.

“No,” I’d finally said, when enough time had passed and Silas hadn’t answered at all. “We’re friends. Like I said. Not lovers. We’re not here to — no.”

“Okay,” she said simply, then grinned with her back to the countertop, for a few beats. “We’ll check again soon.”

I’d laughed, choking a bit on my wine, wondering if this woman had some secret power that wasn’t advertised with her pasta classes.

She tapped her temple. “I know these things,” she’d said.

Silas had chuckled under his breath and I’d whacked him in the gut — gently, but enough to make him laugh even harder.

Then she’d grabbed our hands and shook them together, giggling like the whole thing was hilarious.

“Okay. We make pasta first! We learn to fall in love with that!”

I’d bit the inside of my cheek and squeezed her hand back while she beamed between us, as if she knew she was making a love match instead of Italian cuisine tonight, regardless of what we denied.

Now, Silas and I each have a pile of sticky white flour and egg in front of us, willingly participating in an unspoken contest for the most delicious pasta at the end of all this.

I can tell she’s quite taken with him, if her giggles over Si are any indication, clicking her tongue over anything he says like a proud mother hen, while finding any reason to leave white flour residue all over his arms, both dusted in white by now.

“You love it?” she asks, noticing me staring outside at the view again as we work the dough.

“This? Yes,” I confirm, smiling. “What’s not to love?”

“You love where you live?” she asks.

“Oh, do we love Boston?” I repeat slowly, stealing a glance at Silas, unsure of how to answer. She’s been telling us tales all evening about how much she has never wanted to live anywhere else in the world, even since she was a little girl living here with her own nonna.

“I do love it,” Silas begins, slowly. “But, I can see why you love your home here though, and have never wanted to leave. You have the type of place that begs to be adored. I can see myself missing this place for the rest of my life after only spending an evening here,” he tells her, and I’m touched.

Because even if I couldn’t put my own thoughts and feelings about tonight into words as eloquent as that, Silas just nailed it.

That’s exactly how I’d describe our evening here too.

“Then stay here,” she says, pushing a pocket of dough with his hands.

He doesn’t look up. “I wish it were that easy,” he says.

“You have to get your hands dirty, like this,” she tells him.

She sprinkles a bit of warm water over the top, making the mass grow stickier between his fingers.

“You need to get messy. Sticky things aren’t bad, you know.

People are scared of all the messes nowadays.

Want every little thing to make sense. Things I have loved the most?

They don’t make any sense.” She smiles, as if remembering.

“Perfection? No, no one can love perfection. You find the best things in the most messy parts of your life.”

She pulls the mound of dough off the wooden counter, then slaps it back down again with a thwak .

“This is love.” She waves her flour-covered hands around the kitchen, the worn, ancient walls and weathered clay pots.

“True love is worn and messy.” She draws out the word messy, like she’s driving home a point, and part of me wonders how she knows our lives — our relationship — is as messy as it gets.

“Why are you here if you’re not in love? Is there someone else?”

Silas laughs, the sound of it echoing off the walls while she pulls his hands from the dough. She takes a quick turn with it, working her magic with the mixture until it looks just like it’s supposed to look.

“Keep going,” she tells him, pushing his hands back down again.

“We make sure you fall in love—” We both narrow our eyes at each other over her shorter head, wondering how this funny little woman can be so outspoken — “with pasta!” she finishes, bursting into laughter at her own joke.

Then she rises on her toes to tap a spot of flour onto the tip of Silas’ nose, even though his own face towers high above her.

“You’re too handsome, uomo bello ,” she grumbles. “But she’s too bellissima for you.”

Silas nods, breaking into a grin.

“Trust me, I know,” he says, and we all laugh.

The remainder of the night unfolds like that.

Nonna Lisi, charming as can be, teaching us every traditional way to roll pasta, gnocchi, and drink wine, while we all take small breaks to stare out at the shimmering sea below the home she’s lived in her entire life.

Until at last, the length of the horizon finally swallows up the remainder of the sunlight, and it’s sadly time for us to go.

She ushers us toward the door. I’ve been given two giant yellow lemons picked from her tree out front for the long walk back to our hotel together. We’ve opted to walk since it’s such a nice night and the little town against the coastline is stunning.

“Live in a city that doesn’t beg to be adored, and travel with a woman who hasn’t been loved by you? You’re making mistakes, uomo bello . Life won’t wait,” she tells him, patting his flour-covered cheek. Then she winks at me happily and reaches up on her toes to give me a tight hug goodbye.

Tears spring to my eyes when I remember that she isn’t a long-standing part of my life, and I might never see her again.

“I’ve loved everything about this,” I tell her, squeezing her back one last time. “I will never forget you, and I will do my very best to be messy.” I smile warmly at her, holding up the giant lemons between us.

“And then I will come to the wedding,” she says, patting our backs as we go.

I shake my head and laugh, but don’t say another word, because something deep inside me twists her words around a memory I’ll take with me forever. Forcing every last detail into my memory bank for safekeeping. And then we walk out into the night.