Page 93 of Sunrise By the Sea

Marisa grinned. ‘We’re having toast?’

‘What is wrong with toasts?’

‘Champagne and toast?’

She thought about it.

Well, Maybe . . .’ she said.

‘Not just toasts!’

He jumped up and opened his fridge and pulled out a little glass pot of white stuff. Then he grabbed some grass-like shoots and a pair of scissors. He put these down on the table.

Then finally, reverently, he pulled out a tin and a tiny mother-of-pearl spoon.

Marisa’s eyes went wide.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

He held it up to one of the lights. The gold tin shimmered.

‘Da, of course,’ he grinned. ‘My friends they do not forget me.’

He shook the large tin of caviar happily.

‘So!We havesmetana! We have toasts! We have . . .’

He looked at the chives balefully, then waved his hands, as if the concept of even trying to learn the word would be for ever uninteresting to him.

‘Green thinks!’

And reverently, he opened the tin.

‘I think I should tell you,’ said Marisa, ‘I haven’t tried caviar before.’

His eyes were completely startled.

‘But you are cook! You care about food!’

‘I know, I know,’ said Marisa. ‘We don’t really eat it in Italy. And . . .’

To say that she had always thought it looked weird and slimy seemed frankly a ridiculous thing to say. What a coward she was.

She heard that little voice inside her head calling herself a coward and clamped down hard on it. She was not being a coward tonight.

‘And?’

‘I . . .’

She felt herself go pink.

‘No reason. I was a bit squeamish about it.’

‘I do not know this word. You mean squashink of eggs?’

‘Something like that,’ said Marisa.

‘Okay. It is okay to squash them. There are no babies inside eggs. Just like chicken egg. But much much much more delicious.’

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