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Piazza Bella - Aperitivo: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | XIII
Piazza Bella - Antipasto: I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X
Piazza Bella - Primi: Prologue | II
Alberto dragged us into his butchery preparation area, where he hurriedly made coffee and tipped two bags of biscotti and amaretti roughly onto a plate with trembling hands. He excitedly stuttered words, half in Italian and half in English, with damp eyes and occasional tears rolling down his cheeks.
He paused frequently and stared at us in disbelief, shouting Jack Keady’s girls are here, with animated arms, revealing his high emotions.
I was awestruck by the series of chance coincidences that had brought us together. If this wasn’t serendipity in its most overwhelming sense, then I couldn’t comprehend our meeting at all. Bella’s shocked expression told me she felt the same way as we held hands under the butcher’s block.
We sat on wobbly, smooth but unvarnished wooden stools around a one-foot-thick wooden butcher’s block that had curved deeply in the middle from wear. It would be a four-person lift should anyone wish to move it, and in that solidity, it brought home a sense of permanence to me.
My Dad had been here, touched that wood, and probably worked on it. I shivered, feeling a metaphysical presence that had stamped itself into the grain of that wooden block long ago.
My heart pounded as I imagined Jack Keady was all around me, doing almost precisely what I had just done in negotiating supply. It felt odd and strangely comforting to walk in his footsteps, but at the same time, a ghostly quality of the situation caused me to shiver vigorously again.
I tapped the table that must have been there Alberto’s whole life.