Catarina's Ring Read online

  Chapter 2

  JULIETTE, AMILIA AND THE DAY THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

  “Juliette!” Amilia waved to her daughter.

  Juliette Brice took off her sunglasses, squinted against the sun pouring into the cozy bistro, and waved back as she made her way to their table.

  “What happened to your finger?” Amilia asked when she sat down.

  “Work casualty,” Juliette answered, looking at her now stitched and bandaged index finger. “I got distracted,” Juliette said, visualizing the kitchen door swinging open unexpectedly, as she—startled—sliced her finger with the razor-sharp chef’s knife, cutting down to the bone.

  She’d gasped, the shock of realization coming a fraction of a second before the pain itself. Juliette’s right hand had shaken as she tried to open the package of bandages to hold the cut together.

  “Can you help with this?” she’d asked her boss.

  “Hand it here,” Elizabeth grabbed the packet of narrow, sterile strips from Juliette and then passed them to her one at a time to close the wound. Once it was closed, the two women paused and looked at the bandaged finger.

  “Put on a finger cover, and get back to work.”

  Juliette had inhaled deeply to steady herself, grabbed a rubber finger cover out of the first aid kit and rolled it on.

  Amilia listened to Juliette’s account of how she spent the previous evening and smiled in spite of her attempted stoicism.

  The two leaned their heads towards each other, temporarily oblivious to the hustle and bustle around them. Amilia, with her dark brown curls, was more petite and classically Italian looking than her taller daughter, whose light brown hair was long and silky smooth. But their eyes told the story of their connection. Both viewed the world through beautiful ice-blue eyes, the exact color of Juliette’s grandmother Catarina’s, and her mother’s before her.

  “Why are you smiling at me with that mischievous look on your face while I’m telling you about my work woes?” Juliette playfully reprimanded her mom who was obviously up to something.

  “Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been thinking a lot about your work situation lately and I have an idea.”

  “Funny you should say that, because while I was sitting in the ER at two o’clock in the morning waiting to get stitches, I also had a thought or two about my job situation.”

  “Then you go first,” her mom said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that even though working with the renowned Lucian Kidd turned out to be a disaster, it was a learning experience and it’s time to stop licking my wounds and realize that there are different avenues to achieve what I want to achieve. Nonna used to say, grace and grit is what it took to get what you want in life and I think it’s time for me to call on a bit more grit. I’m almost thirty after all.”

  “That’s exciting, Juliette. I’m proud of you.”

  “I was just so hurt at the time. I didn’t know it would take this long to get over it, but I think I needed time to heal and regroup.”

  “And now you have?”

  “I think so. I could hardly even talk about it when it first happened. I had been so excited to work with him and everyone was happy for me, and then when instead of getting accolades for my inspired cooking and classical chef training I got fired, it was horribly embarrassing. I didn’t know how to process it, let alone tell people what happened.”

  Amilia squeezed Juliette’s hand. “You know hiding out and doing catering work for Elizabeth instead isn’t the answer, right?”

  “I know. She’s practically as horrible as Lucian was, but figuring out what is the answer is the hard part. I feel paralyzed and I’m not sure where to go from here. Do I apply somewhere as a sous chef and start from the beginning? Try to get a job as a recipe tester? I’m just not sure.”

  “If you could do anything what would it be?”

  “I would do what I’ve always wanted to do—open my own little café.”

  “What if you set aside all your fears and went for it?”

  “I would in a heartbeat if I could get investors, but who is going to invest in someone who has next to no track record and has been fired by a well-known chef?”

  “You do have a track record, Juliette. You were practically a legend at the Culinary Institute, which is why Lucian hired you in the first place.”

  “Spoken like a mom,” Juliette smiled affectionately at the woman she loved more than anyone, “but legend is overstating it more than just a little.”

  “Well whatever, you were awesome!” Amilia said, looking over the menu to decide what she wanted to order.

  Once the waiter brought them each a glass of wine, Amilia decided it was time to put her plan in place. Juliette couldn’t have played into her hands more if she’d scripted the conversation herself.

  “You know how you mentioned that thirty is creeping up on you?” Amilia asked. “And now you’ve said that you’re ready to get back into the ‘chef game’ but you’re not sure how to move forward? Well, I have the solution for you.”

  Juliette saw the twinkle in her mom’s eyes and shook her head and laughed. “What are you up to? I’m a bit terrified already.”

  Amilia reached into her purse and brought out a shoebox-sized gift-wrapped package and set it on the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s an early birthday present so we have time to make plans before the actual big day.”

  Her mom had wrapped the box in printed paper and tied it with a scarlet ribbon. Juliette carefully pulled back the tape and unfolded the wrapping, which was covered in red poppies against a sea of wheat. Inside she found an antiquated looking cardboard box.

  Intrigued, she slipped off the lid revealing a neat row of letters that looked ancient. She gently pulled one out.

  The postmark was San Francisco, 1914 and was from her papa to her nonna. Juliette looked at her mom.

  “It’s a correspondence. Mostly between your nonna and one of her friends, but it begins in Italy with your grandfather writing to her, trying to lure her to marry him. They’re beautiful. I want you to read them to get yourself in the mood for this…”

  Amilia handed her daughter another, small slim box wrapped in matching paper and ribbon.

  “Mom,” Juliette smiled. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s for both of us. Open it and see.”

  Inside, tucked under a row of tissue paper were two tickets to Italy—one for each of them.

  Juliette’s sharp intake of breath said everything Amilia wanted to hear and she smiled, knowing her idea was perfect.

  “I’ve always wanted to go!”

  “I know. Now we can go together. We’ll celebrate your birthday and explore. Heck, maybe we’ll even take a cooking class. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “Fun? It would be amazing! Thank you mom. This is…” Juliette was at a loss for words.

  “I know,” Amilia touched her daughter’s cheek. “We’re going to love it.”

  As they left the restaurant an hour later, Amilia glanced over at Juliette.

  She was proud of the lovely young woman walking beside her. She still couldn’t imagine how her youngest daughter had gotten so old. Almost thirty. It seemed like barely yesterday she was thirty herself. “You know it’s all going to be OK, right?” She said, harkening back to the conversation they’d had earlier at the restaurant about Juliette’s job.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Juliette said in a mock defeatist voice.

  Amilia’s own mother had taught her to create happiness in life. To change things up if she wasn’t where she wanted to be, and Amilia intended to impart the same wisdom to Juliette.

  “Let’s go get some coffee,” Amilia said, nodding to a coffee house just across the street and looking at her watch. “I could use a perk up before I head back to San Francisco.”

  The sidewalks of Walnut Creek, the bustling little cosmopolitan gem east of San Francisco, were filled with people relaxing in outdoor restaurants,
shopping, some walking to meetings, others drinking coffee in cafes. It was a warm late-September day with a hint of fall in the air. It was one of those sublime instances of perfection that imprinted on Juliette’s mind while they waited for the signal to cross the street. She would always remember it as her last pure moment of peace.

  Even after reliving the horror that unfolded over and over again—sometimes in slow motion, often in quick terrifying flashes—Juliette still couldn’t wrap her brain around it.

  The crosswalk light had turned green just as Juliette noticed her shoelace was untied. She bent to quickly retie it then hurried to catch up to her mom who was only a few paces in front of her. Amilia had been saying something over her shoulder about Nonna Catarina when they heard the squealing of the tires.

  The hooded eyes of the drunk driver looked sleepy and unconcerned about the devastation he was about to inflict. If she’d reacted sooner, Juliette thought she could have yanked her mom back, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d frozen in terror as the car plowed into Amilia, who was flung like a rag doll against the thick plate glass of a high-end kitchen store.

  Amilia could tell she was dying by the odd lack of feeling in her body and the look of equal parts terror and horror on her daughter’s face. She wanted so much to be able to tell Juliette it would be OK, that she loved her and if she was going to die, having spent the last few hours of her life with her was exactly how she would have chosen to spend them, but for some reason she couldn’t make her mouth speak. She reached for her and squeezed her hand.

  “Mommy, it’s going to be all right,” Juliette tried to reassure her. “Hang on, please hang on,” she said and squeezed her hand back. “An ambulance is on the way. I can hear it. It’s almost here. Don’t let go of me.”

  Amilia looked into the eyes that exactly mirrored her own. She wanted to smooth her daughter’s long, silky hair away from her face like she used to when Juliette was a little girl. She wished she could tell her one last time that she was perfect. She wanted to tell her to allow herself to be happy, to find love, to chase her dreams and not to worry about her failures. She tried to tell her with her eyes, but she couldn’t hold them open any longer.

  “Stay with me,” Juliette implored. “You’re strong, Mom. You can do it.”

  Amilia tried, but no matter how hard she willed herself to do so, she could feel herself losing the battle to stay and instead of getting coffee with her daughter and then going home to her husband, she knew instead she was going to Catarina. How apt, she thought, feeling surprisingly peaceful, that she had just been talking about her.

  Chapter 3

  CATARINA, MATEO, AND AN UNEXPECTED LETTER

  Market days, especially when Mateo came along, gave Catarina a sense of freedom—at least for a short time.

  “What does Signora Carlucci want today?” Mateo asked, snatching the list out of Catarina’s hand.

  “Let’s see,” he read, “calamari—that sounds delizioso—asparagus, that will cost una fortuna at this time of year, and pugliese bread.

  “How they eat!” he said. “Like kings, while we eat the same thing over and over again. Pasta…minestrone…prosciutto…pasta…minestrone…prosciutto. Maybe I could get invited over for dinner, huh?”

  Catarina snickered, “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” as she shook her head.

  Mateo’s attention was suddenly grabbed by a beautiful girl passing by.

  “La Bella Bianca,” he said to the young woman by way of greeting and bowed deeply as she passed.

  She smiled at him shyly and then turned to Catarina. “Buon giorno, Catarina,” Bianca said as she passed.

  Catarina returned her greeting, then as soon as she was a distance away turned to her brother and laughed. “Don’t torture her, Mateo. I think she dreams about you.”

  The girl was only fifteen, but she had been pestering Catarina about her older brother as long as Catarina could remember, although she never had the courage to even answer his greeting when he passed.

  “Torture her? You’re not serious. One day I’ll marry her, you just wait. Then who will be laughing?” Mateo said.

  “You truly want to marry her?” she raised her eyebrows, then paused to consider. “Not a bad idea, actually,” she conceded. “After all, her papa runs the dry goods stall; you’d never be hungry.”

  “Always practical,” he said. “And who will you marry?”

  Catarina snorted. “Maybe Old Signor Garvagio,” she snickered as a vision of their eighty-two-year-old neighbor came into her mind. Mateo laughed with her. “Not a bad idea, either. You’d be a widow by the time you were twenty. Then you’d have your own vineyard and your choice of young men willing to marry you for your land.”

  The two couldn’t stop giggling at the thought until Mateo abruptly halted and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand.

  “I almost forgot,” he told her. “A letter came today to Mama and Babbo about you. It’s from the Brunellis. Do you remember them? They moved to America when we were little but came to visit that time.”

  “What do you mean a letter about me?”

  “I don’t know. Mama asked Babbo what was in the letter, and he said ‘It’s about Catarina.’ And then I said, ‘What about Catarina?’ and then they both clamped their mouths shut and didn’t utter another word.”

  “You’re such a buffone, Mateo. I’m sure they asked about us all,” she scoffed. “I do remember the Brunellis, though. They were nice. They brought us sweets and had two teenage boys. Do you remember? The younger’s name is Julian or something. I remember him being very serious.”

  “Not Julian,” corrected Mateo. “Not even close. His name is Franco. I heard Babbo say it twice before I got kicked out of the room.”

  When Catarina returned home that evening she found her mother silently scrubbing artichokes, tight-lipped and tense. Her father was nowhere in sight.

  “Buona sera, Mama. Did you have a good day?”

  “Ciao, mia cara. It was fine.”

  Catarina wondered if her mother would bring up the letter. Mateo’s words had stuck with her all afternoon while she prepared the evening meal for the Carluccis. What did it mean? She had no idea. But, no, of course Mama wouldn’t bring it up. Leave it to Mama, Catarina thought, to never volunteer any information. It was come tirare i denti, like pulling teeth, when it came to getting information out of her mother.

  “Anything interesting happen?” Catarina asked, deciding to bring it up herself. “Mateo said there was a letter from America.”

  “That boy. Always snooping. Always pestering.” Catarina’s mother shook her head and wiped her hands on her apron, but she couldn’t help but smile a little bit, because she did adore Mateo—snooping and all.

  “If you must know, yes, we did have a letter from America,” she said sighing. She stopped scrubbing and turned to face her daughter. Catarina noticed that she looked weary. Her eyes, which were usually sparkling with life, seemed dull and tired.

  “From the Brunellis,” her mother told her. “Do you remember them? You haven’t seen them since you were a little girl.”

  “I think I remember. Franco was the son, right?”

  “Precisamente,” she said. “One of them, at least. He’s a grown man now. A good man, I’m sure, but a man who lives very far away.”

  The thought of America always gave Catarina a thrill.

  “The land of opportunity,” she muttered. She had always heard that, but couldn’t quite fathom what it meant exactly. She tried to picture it, but all she could imagine were people beautifully dressed and dances full of smiling, handsome men and lovely women. Always smiling with big white teeth. And the men in suits . . . not in work clothes out toiling in the fields like her babbo.

  “Opportunity. Yes. That’s what they say. But too far away for my liking,” said her mother with uncharacteristic intensity. “Italy is our country. I don’t want my family spread across so much space like seeds flung to the wind.” Her mother was i
mpassioned and threw her arm out as if she was in the act of it herself, then shook her head and crossed herself.

  Catarina laughed and shook her head at her mother’s irritable response. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mama. No one’s going away. We love Italy, too. It’s our home.”

  Catarina’s mama turned away and looked out the window.

  “But what was in the letter? Was it something about me? Mateo said you and Babbo said it was about me.”

  “No . . . no, cara. It was nothing.” She told her, waiving her hand dismissively, but Catarina noticed she didn’t meet her eye. “The Brunellis just asked after you is all. Now shoo upstairs to freshen up before dinner. You look tired out.”

  “I am tired out. Signora Carlucci works me like a dog. She’s nice, but she loves to order me around.”

  “And Signor Carlucci?” asked her mother. “Any more problems?”

  “He scares me, Mama. I don’t like the way he looks at me. And…”

  “Keep your eyes averted.”

  “If only that worked. He doesn’t care if I’m looking or not when he touches my thigh under the table when I’m serving dinner or ‘accidentally’ rubs against me when I’m walking down the hall. It’s always when my arms are full of food from the market or laundry and I can’t sidestep him fast enough.”

  It felt good to tell her mother the ugly secret. She hadn’t said a word to anyone about it since the one disheartening attempt she’d made with her mother months ago.

  “What? Is this true? He touches you?” her mother asked, the alarm in her voice mixed with fury. “Oh, mio Dio! I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me before. I didn’t understand you when you told me earlier. But if what you say is true, it’s unacceptable. I’m going to have to talk to your father about this.” Her mother pursed her lips and started to pull on her apron strings and go talk to Catarina’s babbo.

  “No, Mama! I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Catarina grabbed her mother’s arm in alarm. “You know Babbo’s temper. You know how he can be!”