Then he sets his palms flat on the table. “So, have you had a look at the menu?”
Ah. So Claudio doesn’t want to talk about the single dad life. Fair enough.
I pick up the menu and decide on fried eggplant and goat cheese before Claudio makes me order a pasta dish as well. Apparently in Italy, pasta is more of an appetizer than the main dish since the portions tend to be small, which bodes well for me, since that means I can have pasta and more yummy stuff. I settle on one with pancetta.
Eventually Vanni tires of the musician and triumphantly places the bill inside the man’s case before running back to us.
The wine is good, the food is great, the heat becoming something of an afterthought as the afternoon wears on. When we’re eventually done (I’m noticing Italians love to linger over their meals), we get our bikes and start riding them through the city.
For me, this is a wee more challenging since the path on the walls was wide and cool. The streets here are busy, narrow and hot, and full of restaurants and people. We wind our way past several churches and towers that Claudio points out to me, and I know my history professor father is shuddering right now because I don’t know the names of any of them, then finally we come to a stop outside a bookstore.
Here’s the thing about me and bookstores. I used to love them, as you would imagine. My mother used to own one in Ullapool when I was young. My father actually bought it for her after I was born, which I always thought was very sweet and romantic.
That was until they divorced and he left her with nothing, gave his new family all his time, attention and money, and my mother was forced to sell her store to make ends meet for us.
But that’s not actually why they make my anxiety go up.
It’s that my books can be found in those stores.
I know, I know, that’s every author’s dream. And as much as it was a goal post I had, a box I needed to check, I didn’t realize how weird it would be until it happened. It’s like I can’t go into a bookstore now without wondering where my books are, what the placement is, if someone will recognize me and make me sign them. Or at least it was that way, until Robyn died.
I haven’t stepped foot in one since.
“You think your books are in here?” Claudio asks me as he locks our bikes up outside. Vanni is already heading inside, rubbing his hands together eagerly. Something tells me he’s heading right for the science section.
“Maybe,” I tell him as he opens the door for me, the bell jingling loudly above our heads.
“Your books are translated into Italian, so they should be,” he says.
I slip him a curious glance. “How do you know?”
“I looked you up, of course,” he says without missing a beat.
The bookstore is bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, but it still feels claustrophobic. Everything is a little haphazard, books shoved onto dark wood shelves, stacks of them taking up the corners. A couple of fans whir above us but do nothing to disperse the heat inside.
“Come,” Claudio says, placing his hand at the small of my back. I suck in my breath, trying not to lose it over the fact that he’s touching me again. In hindsight, I probably should have gotten laid before I got here because I can’t keep feeling this way every time he touches me, and he’s probably going to be doing a lot of that considering he’s Italian, and everyone here seems very touchy feely.
With his fingertips pressing against me, seeming to burn through the back of my dress, he leads me through the nooks and crannies of the store until we come to the mystery section in the back.
“They would be here, yes?” he asks, finally taking his hand away.
I let out a shaky breath and then try to focus on the shelves in front of me.
“Aye,” I say.
He goes to the shelves, his eyes skimming over them until he gets to the G section. “Found them.”
Another flash of relief goes through me. There’s nothing worse than being in a bookstore and not finding your books there. You’re always hit with the feeling that perhaps you’re not a real author after all. I know most of us suffer from imposter syndrome