happy to be here for the summer and save some money.”
Faith was puzzled. She didn’t think the job paid that much. “What do you mean?”
“We will give him room and board besides his wages. He rents an apartment in Rome in an area popular with foreign students coming to take courses now, and his roommates will have no trouble finding someone until he goes back in the fall, even though rents there are very high.”
“So, win-win,” Faith said and started to leave the kitchen, needing no further encouragement to join the group. She knew that Il Secondo, the course after Il Primo, the pasta, was rabbit. Francesca had prepared it by placing a mixture of rosemary, sage, salt, pepper, and lardo into slits she’d cut, and then spreading more of the mixture over the meat inside and out. In another pan she was roasting carrots and potatoes very simply with olive oil and the same herbs as a side dish, caramelizing them slightly at the end with a little raw sugar. A variety of cheeses were ripening on a large board, so Faith knew there would be that course before Il Dolce. And what would that be? A simple fruit preparation or something richer? Some kind of panna cotta or maybe the lusciously rich semifreddi that Francesca had also introduced her to all those years back—hazelnut, pistachio, chocolate, coffee. She left the kitchen amazed that she could still think about food after all the crostini she’d eaten.
Mario was indeed an answer to their prayers, and she sat down next to Tom content in the knowledge that with such a big problem solved, there would only be minor ones, if any at all, for the rest of the session.
Excerpt from Faith Fairchild’s travel journal:
Every woman’s dream. An incredible meal and no dishes to wash. Tom is sitting with Gianni and some of the others having some grappa. For a man who normally nods off before the ten o’clock news, he’s become an immediate convert to the Italian way of life. I’m the one who crashed and am writing this in bed. Trying to figure out what I’m feeling, who I am here. Not thinking about Freddy, just about me, Faith. I read somewhere that when you travel you lose yourself. Not sure. More that you try to find yourself I think. Hard to do in Aleford, where I’m always Reverend Fairchild’s wife; Ben and Amy’s mom; or that food woman, the caterer. Tomorrow we go to Florence. The market and then we’re free until the afternoon, when we’ll return to cook. Want to see all the things am supposed to, but also plan to wander. Need shoes. Or gloves. Or maybe both.
CHAPTER 5
Could she be morphing into a morning person? Faith wondered as she followed Tom quietly out of the house. No one else appeared to be up, although there were faint noises coming from the kitchen indicating breakfast was being prepared. The Fairchilds had decided to walk into the village and have their colazione with the locals. They left a note for the Rossis on the table where someone would be sure to see it saying where they were—Mario had solved the Alberto problem, but the last thing their friends needed was to find another empty room with no Fairchilds, or explanation, in sight.
“I keep pinching myself, cara mia. Can’t believe we’re here and I’m not struggling with my sermon—or the vestry,” Tom said.
Faith squeezed his hand. The path that Gianni had pointed out last night was wide enough for two to walk abreast. Rolling fields and vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see on either side, the dark red ochre soil a reminder of the richness of the Tuscan earth.
“Oh, Tom,” she exclaimed as they came across a solid field of poppies. “It’s like The Wizard of Oz, except good poppies and I’m not Dorothy and you’re not a lion or made of tin or straw.”
“Otherwise, exactly the same, I agree,” he said with an indulgent smile. “I don’t know whether we can find ruby slippers in Florence, but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of red leather shoes. Although no clicking your heels until we absolutely have to go home.”
“Agreed.”
She was in no rush either. A girl could get used to this sort of leisure—a stroll like this with her husband, as well as knowing she’d return to a bed and room made up by someone else.
They were beginning to pass farms and other kinds of