For everything you’re going to build.
I’ll be there at seven. - D
I read it three times.
Then I sit down on the kitchen floor next to my beautiful, ridiculous, impossibly expensive mixer, and I laugh.
Not the hysterical kind. Not the crying kind.
The happy kind. The kind I’d almost forgotten existed.
Dario Marchetti is coming to see me.
He remembered my favorite chocolates and my perfume and the color I need instead of beige. He bought me a mixer because he believes I’m going to build something. He sent flowers and notes and pieces of himself across the miles, and in two hours he’s going to walk through my blue door.
I should be terrified.
I’m not.
I’m going to bake.
Amaretti.
Italian. Traditional. The kind of cookie I’ve avoided making because every time I thought about it, I thought about him, and thinking about him hurt too much to bear.
My hands shake as I measure the almond flour. Shake as I separate the eggs. Shake as I fold in the sugar and the amaretto and the tiny pinch of salt that makes everything sing.
I pipe perfect rounds onto the baking sheet. Dust them with powdered sugar. Slide them into the oven.
And then I wait.
The bakery smells like almonds and hope. The flowers are arranged on the counter. The chocolates are hidden in the backbecause I ate too many and need to pace myself. The apron is still on. I haven’t taken it off since I put it on, haven’t wanted to.
I look at my reflection in the darkened window.
Teal apron. Flour in my hair. The faint scent of perfume I used to wear when I was still myself.
I look like Stevie Reeves.
I actually look like me.
The timer goes off. I pull the amaretti from the oven. Perfect. Golden. The cracks on top spreading like little smiles.
I arrange them on a plate. Set the plate on the counter.
Then do what any self-respecting disaster would. I unlock the front door at 6:30 because the symbolism is giving me a contact high.
He left his door unlocked for me, so now I’m leaving mine open for him.
This is either romance or I’m about to get murdered on a Hallmark set.
I pour two glasses of wine. Set them on the small table by the window. Light a candle. Wonder if this is too much, not enough, completely insane.
All of the above, probably.
The clock says 6:52.
I should sit down. Should try to look casual. Should not be standing in the middle of my bakery vibrating with anticipation like a golden retriever who heard the word “walk.”
