Page 58 of When Love Gives You Lemons
His eyes narrow. “Yeah. Maybe.”
Possibility.
Fast-forwarding through the footage shot at the villa after a transformational day, I see the story of the Avello Family Lemon Groves.
One simple fruit—the foundation for not only one of the most incredible meals of my entire life—the fresh pasta and the tiramisu, which was light as a feather and melt in my mouth orgasmic—is also the cornerstone of a whole culture.
It’s impossible to shake the reality and trajectory of their livelihoods, the family history, so deeply impacted by global climate change as millions of tourists flock to the Amalfi Coast every single year to take Instagram-worthy shots of Positano and tour the grottos and chow down on the local catches, but how many of them give back? And I’m no better—my family isn’t, anyway. We’re doing the exact same thing (on Topher’s dime, since noneof us could even Google a trip like this if the entire bill wasn’t being footed by my extremely generous cousin), so we’re not absolved of this. In fact, now that we know, I feel like we have an obligation.
I have anobligation.
Maybe I’ve been thinking about this @FoodForChange contest all wrong. It’s not about winning a mentorship—sure, that would really help jump-start me on some sort of path toward a concrete career—and it’s sure as hell not about followers and likes. It’s about at least trying to make a difference. I never thought of my platform as something worthy of a cause, of spreading awareness about something important—no, crucial! It was always about me. Doing what I wanted to do, building an audience around me, trying to find the spotlight to actually make sense of my life, gain purpose. Topher is a self-made millionaire at twenty-five. Matty always dreamed of going to college and being an “entrepreneur,” whatever that means. Even Ricky’s goal of being a woodworker like his father and nonno before him is within his grasp.
Me? Maybe I can use my following to spotlight the Avellos’ lemon groves and the hardships they’re facing, how they’re losing farmers to cities due to a lack of crops, and that their entire way of life here in what outsiders consider to be “paradise” is dying.
I can’t explain it, but I feel a kinship with the Avellos, with the land, my Italian roots burrowing deep into the volcanic soil and spreading, spreading, spreading.
For the first time in my life, there’s a flame for something beyond Ricky and the artificiality of Clock. This goes beyondClock and even @FoodForChange. It’s small. A spark, but that’s all I need to start a fire.
With a renewed sense of purpose, I save all the footage I’ve filmed to my drafts and make this my goal, not just for the week or the contest, but also to explore more in depth beyond this week. According to Sienna’s carefully laid out itinerary, tomorrow and Sunday are the only free days, so I’ll go back both days and see if I can interview Niccolò.
Skipping up the steps of the villa toward the pool area, I spot Ricky on the lanai overlooking the pool and the sea, a short, thin cylindrical glass of bright yellow limoncello next to him. His strong hands furiously work a pencil. Every few minutes, the wood dangles between his fingers and he looks up and out at the blue water, crinkling his brow. Returning to the page in front of him, he writes.
My heart swells, then sputters out of sync because as close as he is, he feels completely out of reach. Tears swell as the realization settles I may have to love Ricky DeLuca from right here for the rest of my life.
As long as he’s happy.
He doesn’t see me as he gets back to work, furiously mapping out his emotions in words the way he used to in his former journal all those years we were together.
I wish I knew what he is thinking . . .
ACT II
RICKY DELUCA
“Quanto Basta”
As I overlook the Tyrrhenian Sea, salt and sunset warping the pages of my new journal, I replay the conversation with Fielder, where he asked if I’ve turned him into a monster in my head.
“Can I change that?” he asked. His voice was timid, but so raw, not like the shiny, filtered Fielder you see on @LemonAt-FirstSight. It caught me off guard. I hadn’t seen that version of him in a long time.
After Fielder stood up for Cam at the tailor, then seeing Fielder nearly get clipped by the Vespa, I don’t know, maybe it made me soften up a bit.
My heart was beating so fast, almost as if Cam could hear me when I said, “Anything’s possible.”
Problem is, I meant it.
I spot Fielder by the pool staring at me, and my heart starts beating fast again, pounding against my rib cage the way it did all day with him at the Avello Family Lemon Groves—watching his face light up with every new fact Niccolò told us, seeing his eyessparkle like fireworks on the Fourth of July when he tasted the pasta and chowed down on the lemons like apples, ripping at the flesh with his teeth, noting how the dimples in his cheeks creased, and I resisted the urge to press them like buttons the way I used to when we were together.
Fielder notices me looking, and I quickly turn away.
That’s when I spot Cam walking into the pool area, towel draped across his bare shoulders. He waves half-heartedly to me. We haven’t spoken since he left. When I got back to the room, he was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him, so I slipped out, and knowing him, he most likely won’t bring it up if I don’t, since he hates confrontation and prefers to move past all tough moments without so much as a conversation, another byproduct of his upbringing.
Cam walks over to Fielder to shake hands, and I sink into my seat.
Flipping the blank pages of the journal Fielder bought me at the Avellos’ shop, I feel guilty because I told Fielder I’d stopped writing.
In Seattle, dorming at the woodshop, I wrote every night.
