If Only

"Thanks for a great class everybody! Don't forget, essays due Friday." The teacher says, crackling through the speakers of Katie's laptop. She gives a little wave to everyone on screen, smiling slightly as she logs off the call and closes the window, leaving only the web browser open. Her face prickles with shame as she thinks about the essay she's barely started, and she looks guiltily at the little Word icon at the bottom of the screen. Make dinner, then finish the essay, she thinks, pushing the guilt away. There are dozens of tabs open on the browser, so cramped together that the name and icon are invisible. This doesn't matter, Katie knows what each cluster of tabs is. She clicks over to a recipe for a baked tomato and feta sauce that was recently made popular by TikTok. She has been thinking of this recipe all through her class, wondering if it would work for a shared dinner with her housemates. The recipe is simple, although she would still need to visit the supermarket - cherry tomatoes, feta, oil, basil, garlic, tossed in the oven for a while and then served with pasta. It's simple, sounds delicious, and it feels luxurious (if not very healthy). There's a thumbnail at the bottom of the page leading to a new recipe for 'quick, 'no-knead' focaccia. It probably wouldn't be as good as bread that has been rested and kneaded, she thinks. If only she'd seen it earlier, she could have started a proper bread during her lunch break. Maybe she could make it tomorrow instead. Is this what Italians eat on a regular weeknight? She wonders, idly scrolling through the many images of basil-topped bowls of creamy looking pasta. Maybe their work days end at 5 exactly, and they walk home in the fading sunlight, along cobbled lanes, and make a multi-course meal they share with their family. Or maybe they also buy pasta, passata, and dried basil from Italian Tescos, Katie thinks, snorting as she imagines a nonna guiltily buying bags of spaghetti she will later claim as homemade. Her housemate knocks on her door and asks if she'd like to join the other housemates for a drink.

"I'm figuring out dinner right now but I'll be out soon! Can you bring me a glass of wine here?" She asks, re-energising to plan this surprise dinner for tomorrow night.

Would 'no-knead' focaccia be as good as bread from the supermarket? These recipes could so easily be combined for a whole, cheap, authentic Italian meal, with a cute checkered tablecloth, candles in Chianti bottles, and a bottle of red wine. She clicks over to Amazon and browses checkered tablecloths. She buys a plastic version that's only £2.50 which she can toss afterwards, it will be delivered tomorrow, and if she starts the bread at lunchtime... She rests her chin on her knuckles, dreaming of a little trattoria on the Italian riviera, with views into a village square and black-and-white photos on the wall. Katie wonders if her homemade trattoria is authentic enough, opening TikTok to scroll through travel influencer pages and see what they have experienced on their adventures. Her hodge-podge version is good enough, she decides, for a budget knockoff. She learns that they can charge €6 for a jug of tap water, and wonders if she can get her housemates to reimburse her for a bottle of real Chianti. The trattoria food and décor are so romantic, with the sun filtering through dusty windows as diners gorge themselves on enormous plates of pasta, nonnas waving wooden spoons as the staff run around with dishes. Maybe she should move to Italy and learn how to make pasta and open her own shop? Would it be better to live in a big city like Rome, or a little town in the south where she can help make wine in the summer? Maybe she would even meet a cute Italian there. The guys in Rome were probably all fuckboys, but the guys in small villages probably loved their mothers too much, ick. She opens Rightmove and then Airbnb to see if there are affordable rentals, and wonders what the coolest regions are. It's properly dark outside now, and she gets up to put on her cosy fleece hoodie, feeling guilty that she hasn't joined her housemates but too deep in the fantasy to emerge now. She clicks on a listing for a quaint cottage in the rural south, surrounded by vineyards and rocky hills. She can set up a desk under the window and start a business doing marketing or copywriting or something that allows for remote work. Probably not many people to meet around there though, she thinks, except old farmers. No one to date. She wonders if an Italian guy will want to move away with her, she wants to see the world after all. The stereotype of Italians is that they love their families, green flag, but a little too much to be fully independent, red flag. She rolls her eyes, thinking about how hard it is to find someone who wants the same things as her - a high paying job, frequent holidays, a well-decorated flat, extravagant meals, and nights out with friends. There are so many couples on social media living the perfect life and making it look so easy. A beautiful house filled with love and cool friends and a dog, social events, glamorous vacations, why is it so hard to find? Getting frustrated, she shifts tabs to Google Flights, to search for affordable destinations. Her back is getting sore from being in bed all day, so she shifts to lying on her stomach. She is impatient for this ideal life, and hopes that if she goes on a trip she'll meet her rich European, get married, and move into a palazzo. That would be the perfect outcome. Then she could learn how to make pasta, maybe even get into baking, and learn Italian, maybe write a book, or get really fit, or do a masters, or learn how to ride a horse. An hour passes searching for the perfect, affordable, glamorous holiday. Flicking through destinations, comparing travel days to find the cheapest flight, and scrolling through Instagram to find the hottest locations to eat, party, or meet people (or relax on a beach, get massages, swim in a clear lake, ski, road trip, hike, unwind, surf). She hears the click of a closing door echoing down the hallway and looks up from her laptop, startled to realise it's midnight and she never had dinner or joined the others or worked on her essay. She gets out of bed, groaning at her atrophied muscles and thinking about booking flights tomorrow as she heads to the kitchen. She switches the light on and pads over to the fridge in her socked feet. There are a couple of pre-made dishes from Tesco on her shelf, which is also populated with a small bottle of milk, really old chicken (that needs to go in the bin), and a couple of jarred sauces. She pulls out a pasta dish from the pile, and peels the plastic film to the side before sticking it in the old microwave. She makes sure to grab a matching knife and fork, a paper napkin, and pours herself a glass of leftover red wine, arranging a little dining place on the stained table. It doesn't look quite right, she thinks, so she goes back to her room and grabs a couple of candles. One of them is lavender scented, which is a little weird when combined with the smell of pasta wafting through the room, but they look right together so she keeps it lit. She pours the pasta out of the plastic container and into a chipped bowl, and turns the lights off. Putting in effort is how you build your dream life, she thinks with a smile. With the candles lit, she can almost pretend that it's a midnight dinner for two at a little Italian trattoria.