Isotta hesitated before stepping into the alimentari. It couldn’t be her imagination that every single time she’d entered the shop, the voices had stopped like a TV suddenly switched off. And heads had turned suddenly away as if the packaged biscotti were suddenly deeply intriguing. She knew small towns were known for being closed to outsiders, but this sort of scrutiny and awkwardness was unlike anything she’d imagined.
This time, she’d brought Margherita, her first outing with the child. She hoped that the presence of the little girl would soften the silence, or at the very least give her something to focus on rather than how long her arms suddenly felt.
Margherita sprinted in her funny, rolling gait toward the shop’s entrance. Obviously she’d learned to equate the shop with a treat. Indeed she ran into the dimly lit shop, rounded the shelves, and stopped in front of the candy. Isotta followed, smiling bravely at the customers that, as expected, had grown stiff.
She murmured to Margherita, grateful to have discovered that small town notions of health food were not the same as Florentine ones. She had initially been shocked at the snack cakes that her husband (husband!) and mother-in-law (mother-in-law!) gave Margherita for breakfast. Just this morning, she had bit her lip before suggesting maybe some pane with marmellata. But she hadn’t spoken loudly, and it was easy for everyone to ignore her. Everyone except Margherita who had toddled over to her and rested her hand on Isotta’s knee before patting her face softly and tottering to fetch her snack cake. So she didn’t fear crossing a line by treating Margherita to some candy. At least there was one aspect of her new life that didn’t feel like she was teetering on a precipice.
Isotta sank to her knees next to Margherita and pulled her close. Margherita selected a Lion bar and clutched it to her chest before taking another and trying to feed it to Isotta, wrapper and all. Isotta laughed, “Not for me darling. You’re all the sweet I need.” Isotta stood up and brushed off her knees to find the cashier, his friend, and an old lady with her hand gripping an orange staring at her.
You might empathize with the villagers, certainly, but it would have been nice if they had adopted a bit of artifice. This was an awful lot for Isotta to take.
Pressing her lips into a smile, she guided Margherita through the rest of the shop, picking out a pack of yogurt, a box of ditalini pasta for the soup Anna was making for lunch, and a bottle of pureed tomatoes. Placing the items on the counter, she looked the cashier directly in the eyes before saying with more firmness than she planned, “Buongiorno.”
“Buongiorno, signora,” he answered, his voice laced with softness.
Unexpected softness. Isotta looked around, and noticed for the first time, that the people in the shop weren’t holding themselves distant in the way of people unaccustomed to strangers. They looked like they were in mourning.
But why? She felt like there was a puzzle in front of her, missing too many pieces for her to make sense of the whole design. She pushed the money to the cashier who returned her change with a sorrowful smile. Isotta smiled back, more confused than ever.
She followed Margherita’s tiny, pumping legs back up the hill and into the alley that led to her new home.
It still felt strange to open the door and barge in. But of course, she couldn’t exactly knock either. She split the difference and allowed Margherita to proceed her, and called out, “We’re home!”
Anna called from the kitchen. “Ah, you’re back.”
Margherita barreled into her grandmother’s legs, and Anna hoisted her up as she continued to stir the soup. Isotta dropped the bag on the kitchen table and started unloading. She wanted to help cook, but she knew from experience that Anna might trust her with Margherita, but she definitely didn’t trust her with lunch.
“Anna?”
“Sì,” Anna answered, blowing on a spoonful of soup before tipping it into her granddaughter’s mouth.
“I want to ask you something difficult but I’m not sure how.”
Anna blanched. Isotta wondered if her mother-in-law feared being asked something bedroom-related. The fear of making Anna uncomfortable propelled Isotta to blurt out her question. “People keep looking at me like I’m a deformed animal. Like they pity me and find me disturbing at the same time. Is that normally how locals treat a newcomer? Or could I be doing something wrong, wearing something wrong?”
Isotta gazed down at her cream sweater. It was a little form-fitting perhaps, but didn’t seem provocative. At least not by Florentine standards. She missed the look of relief that flashed across her mother-in-law’s face. By the time Isotta looked back up, Anna had turned back to her soup, hitching Margherita higher as the child tried to stick her finger into the burbling liquid. “Wrong? What can you mean?”
“I don’t know. Like just now, I handed money to the guy at the alimentari, and he looked like his pet rabbit had been mauled by a fox.”
A quick intake of breath, and then Anna answered, eyes firmly on the broth, “You are reading into things. People here are not like they are in Florence. They are just trying to figure out if they should invest time getting to know you if you’ll just be doing your shopping in Girona.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it. Anyway, I happen to know that Giovanni, the man who owns the alimentari, is in love with his first cousin, so he always looks depressed. Stop worrying so much.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“I’m telling you, Chiara. That stranger is up to something.”
“What do you mean, Stella?”
“Look, the other day when I was walking with Vale—”
“You were walking with Vale? Stella—”
“Nice try, Chiara, but this isn’t the time to talk about my relationship with Vale. No time is the right time, actually. I’m a grown woman and I can do what I want. Anyway, that’s beside
