Buon Appetito

“There’s a reason I’ve asked for you both to come here,” Mr. Perroni stated as he sat down at a familiar table, setting his cane down next to himself. “I’ve gotten a bit old, you see. And I’ve been considering selling the biz, but I don’t wanna just give it to some shmuck.”

There had been rumors about Mr. Perroni talking with big prospects interested in taking over the business but wanting to completely revamp the place. It hadn't changed in thirty years. The same old red brick facade stood out from all the newly renovated black-and-white shops on the block, and the inside still reeked of bread yeast, which I found oddly comforting as if it was home away from home.

“This is my baby,” he huffed. “It’s all I’ve got. It’s all I’ve ever put love into, and I don’t wanna just give it up.” He threw his hands onto the gingham tablecloth, the same red and white design from years ago.

Lilah sat down across from him, taking his hands into her own. “I would be honored to care for your baby, sir. After all you’ve given me, and taught me, it would be an honor.”

“I know, Lilah. I know you would. But so would Patrick.” He looked back and up at me, and I felt my Adam’s apple rise then drop with a deep swallow.

I hadn’t been a chef in quite some time. After my dad died, I quit my job as a Michelin star chef and took some time to travel the world, trying different cuisines in honor of him, something he had always dreamed of doing.

“So, I propose a bargain for you both,” Mr. Perroni said. “I will sell the restaurant...to you both...in a partnership.”

***

“Why would I ever choose a partnership with you?”

Her words were sharp. Sharper than any knife I had used before, but it wasn’t the first time she cut me deep.

“Lilah,” Mr. Perroni interrupted, walking out onto the patio where we both stood. “Don’t bite his head off just yet.”

Lilah had folded her arms and shifted into a stance I couldn’t help but adore. She wasn’t the sweet gal I once knew. She had become a fierce businesswoman, and if the rumors were true, chasing a dream I knew of since we were seventeen.

We worked together at Battello’s, during our high school and college summers. It was the only time of the year we got to see each other, seeing as I lived on the New Jersey side, and she on the New York side during the school year with her mom; she lived with her dad in Jersey during the summertime.

We had our first date on Battello’s patio after a long night shift. Mr. Perroni himself served us pizza at midnight that night. I’ll never forget the fresh scent of basil on her breath and the way her lips tasted like plump garlic knots. She was everything I had dreamed of in a girl, but I didn’t tell her then. I should have, especially when she told me her dream.

"Buon Appetito," Mr. Perroni cheered before setting down a familiar pie on the table near us. "Still your baby portobello, no?" He winked my way, and somehow it felt like he was referring to something else other than the pizza pie.

Lilah turned her back and walked towards the patio railing, facing out towards the New York City skyline highlighted from the setting sun across the water. Her arms were still folded like a tight garlic knot.

"Would you like a slice of heaven?" I asked, thinking being coy would melt the ice between the two of us, if the steamy Margherita pizza didn't do the trick.

"I can't believe you," she retorted. "You know what, never mind. I don't even know why I'm talking to you. I swore to myself I never would after what you did."

"Did what?"

"You know exactly what."

"You can't believe everything you hear, Lilah. I told you that a long time ago, if you can remember."

Mr. Perroni had disappeared, but I got the impression his absence was done on purpose, like the perfectly timed bake of the Margherita. He was a magician in the kitchen.

"I heard you went off to Italy for several years...to learn from Perroni's nonna. And heard you fell in love with an Italian man."

Lilah shifted her head within an instant, looking at me dead in the eye for the first time in a long time. "'You can't believe everything you hear,' right?"

I scoffed, hiding the fact that deep down my heart was pounding out a knot it had been tied into for far too long. I had forgotten what it felt like to look into her eyes. "So are the rumors true then?"

***

"I've been working at this all my life, Ma. It's all I've ever wanted." I proclaimed over the phone. "Not to marry a man who already has his life picked out for him. Not to just be a wife. I'm coming back to New York to make a name for myself."

No one ever understood me. Feeding me rumored lies of becoming a thornback while trying to sway me a certain way; a way every woman around me only knew. I missed the summers with my dad, feeling like I could be myself and chase my dream of owning a restaurant, just like Mr. Perroni. He put his heart and soul into his mom-and-pop shop and made it into a well-known hole-in-the-wall on the Jersey side of the Hudson River.

Regardless of the rumors spread about his establishment looking lackluster, he made it his very own, creating Italian cuisines with pure love, and loving his customers like family. He loved his employees like family too, and I am forever grateful for becoming part of the family.

I'll always remember his gracious offer for me to travel to his hometown in Florence, Italy to learn from his nonna, whom he hadn't seen in many years even though he wished to. She treated me like her own great-granddaughter. And although his nephew, Giuseppe, fell in love with me while I lived there for three years, I knew he wasn't the man of my dreams. He was the man living my dreams.

"Something tells me Mr. Perroni is going to give me his shop, Ma. I can't pass up such a proposal."

***

If I had known Mr. Perroni was going to offer his restaurant, his baby, to me and Patrick I would've never traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to hear him out. Then again, I wasn't interested in living out my dream in Italy.

I didn't expect to see Patrick ever again in my life, after hearing about him cheating on me with a girl he met in culinary school. It was bad enough him knowing I always wanted to go to the Culinary Institute of America but could only afford community college. I couldn't face him after two major disappointments caused by him. And yet, here he was, on the same patio where we had our first date, the first date of my life.

"Are the rumors true about you?" I asked, although I didn't want to hear the truth. It was bad enough I left a great proposal in Italy any gal would be happy to accept. I couldn't take another hit after the blow Mr. Perroni gave of only offering to sell his restaurant if Patrick and I both went into a partnership together. That would mean I would have to see him every day for the rest of my life.

"Are the rumors ever true, Li?" he said, and something within me sparked a fire that shot up my spine. I hadn't heard him, or anyone, call me by that name in over ten years. Ten long years of hiding the real me. Only he and my dad called me by such a name.

"Some rumors are true, yeah." I huffed, but my heart was unraveling its own knotted lie, one I had avoided for far too long.

"Is it true you still love Margherita pizza?"

"My love for Margherita will never change," I said before accepting his peace-offering of a slice. The crust was just right, crispy edges with a soft center, just like me. If only my name was Margherita.

We sat there, face to face, eye to eye, eating the same kind of pie from the night of our first date, served by the same man who had raised us in the culinary world, and suddenly I felt myself transport back to the time when we were seventeen.

"Do you remember my dream?" I spit out without even thinking.

"How could I forget?"

"I thought you would have been married by now. Have kids of your own by now, too. I heard you found the one."

Patrick laughed, but I didn't find my words to be amusing. "Rumors. They never seem to be true."

We both went for the last slice of pizza at the same time, just like we had when we were teens. A roar of laughter bounced between the both of us, and I caught a glimpse of Mr. Perroni smiling over Patrick's shoulder through the window, like an angel would.

"You know, I never told you my dream," Patrick stated. "I've been waiting all my life to tell you, and I find it wildly ironic how this is the exact same spot where we shared the exact same pie where you told me your dream."

I gulped when his eyes flashed up at mine. He had a serious look on his face; one I had never seen before. He had no longer been the boy I fell in love with. He had become a man.

"My dream is you, Li. And sharing my heart with you like it's the last slice." He proposed the piece, waiting for me to grab it from his hand. "And I'd be honored to share my dream with you. Will you share yours with me, too?"

I guess the rumors are never true.