Chapter 15
The apartment was quiet in a way it hadn't been the night before. No low music, no ice in glasses, no one performing for anyone else. The chandeliers were dimmed low so they threw a soft amber glow instead of that sharp sparkle, and the city outside the floor-to-ceiling windows looked muted, like it had turned its volume down. The black marble table that had held fifteen place settings the night before was stripped down to three.
Luca had done it himself. I found him in the dining room when I came back up from the laundry, folding the long white runner in half and then in half again. He'd pushed the gold chargers aside and left the wood bare except for three white placemats that didn't match the rest of the penthouse at all. They were the plain quilted ones Rosa had brought up from the kitchen.
"Leave the candles," he said when I reached to snuff them. He was still in his black shirt from earlier, sleeves pushed to his elbows, tattoos dark against his forearms. "Just the two in the middle."
Rosa stood near the kitchen doorway with a small pot cradled in both hands like it weighed more than it did. She'd changed out of her good coat into a soft cardigan, and her hair was pinned more loosely now. When she saw me she smiled, small and tired.
"I told her we should use the kitchen table," Rosa said to Luca in a half whisper. "It's too big, this one."
"It's ours," he said. "We eat here."
He set three bowls down. Not matching. The chipped white double-handled bowl with that dark gold-vein crack went in the center at first, then he moved it to the place in front of Rosa. The other two were plain white diner bowls from the back of the cabinet. I recognized them. I'd washed them a hundred times and never seen them used up here.
I helped Rosa with the pot. The broth was light, a little cloudy, with thin slices of carrot and pieces of chicken that had cooked down until they fell apart. It smelled like onions and pepper and something faintly like bay leaf. Real food, after two days of lobster and steak that nobody had actually enjoyed.
We sat. Rosa in the middle where Vanessa had sat the night before, Luca at the head, me to Rosa's left where I'd stood holding that white cloth. For a second no one said anything. I could hear the low hum of the refrigerator downstairs and the faint hiss of the radiator.
Luca lifted his spoon first, then stopped.
"Emma," he said, looking at me directly. His voice was even, not that restrained serious demeanor from the dinner but something quieter. "I want you to hear this straight from me. Your job is secure. Nothing that happened changes that. If anything, you did what nobody else in this room had the guts to do."
I felt my throat get tight. I nodded because I didn't trust myself to answer right away.
He went on, stirring his soup once without lifting it. "What I would like, if you want it, is to change your schedule. Four days instead of five, same pay. And one of those days, Rosa comes here. Not to eat downstairs. Up here. She'll show you the broth. She said you asked about it last month."
I glanced at Rosa. She gave a little shrug, embarrassed.
"I did," I said. "I asked how she got it so clear."
"It takes an hour you don't rush," Rosa said softly, her hands around her bowl. "You skim. You don't stir too much."
"I'd like to learn it," I said, and I meant it. "If that's okay."
"That's more than okay," Luca said. He finally tasted the soup and closed his eyes for a second. "That's how it should be."
We ate. Not quickly, not like we were trying to get through it. Luca asked Rosa about the market where she got the chicken, and she told him the stall on the corner by the bus stop had raised the price again. I asked if she added lemon at the end, and she said just a little, at the very last minute. The candelabras burned low and steady between us, wax pooling. Outside, a delivery truck hissed by on the street twenty floors down, but up here the only sound was spoons against bowls.
I had expected some big speech, maybe, to close everything that had happened over two nights. But there wasn't one. That was the relief of it. We were just three people eating soup.
When we finished, Rosa did something I didn't expect. She wiped the rim of that chipped bowl with her napkin, careful around the handles, and then she stood. She carried it not back toward the kitchen, but to the very center of the black marble table, right where the white roses had been the night before. She set it down on its white saucer and stepped back.
It sat there, empty now, the crack showing clearly in the low light. Gold and dark brown against the white. Not pushed to the side. Not hidden.
"It's still good," she said, almost to herself. "It just has a line in it. That's all."
Luca reached over and touched the edge of the saucer with two fingers, straightening it just slightly. He didn't say anything about it being beautiful or being an heirloom. He just left it there.
May you like
We stayed like that for a while. No one cleared the plates right away. Rosa rested her hands in her lap. Luca leaned back in his chair, his shoulders finally dropped. I folded my napkin the way Rosa had taught me, into a neat triangle. The chandelier buzzed faintly overhead, and the windows held the city without letting it in.
I realized I'd been holding my breath for two days, and finally I wasn't.
