Page 7 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

‘Like?’ I laughed. ‘This is heaven! Where did you get these?’

Renata laughed. ‘Get? I make dem. I show you tomorrow!’

Speaking the international language of male, Julian and Marco, followed by the boys, had gone down to the stables. Was it really this easy to make friends with people here? Could even I, Erica, the eternally wary, make friends with someone so quickly?

‘Thank you for all this food – that was very kind of you,’ I said as she tore off a generous chunk of homemade bread, slathered it with jam and handed it to me, licking her own fingers.

‘Food is love,’ she said. ‘Friendship. Many oder tings, too.’

Many other things, too.Now that, if you’ll pardon my pun, was a mouthful. Since I was a kid my relationship with food had been a difficult one.

But it was so lovely to hear such a universal and heart-warming truth in such a charming accent. Because, funny—for me food had only been a prison. Seen this way, though, I could get used to it big time. And I could learn a lot about life from her.

‘Your English is very good,’ I marveled.

Renata shrugged. ‘I st-huddied English at university, bat I never speak.’

‘Why? Tuscany is full of Americans and Brits, isn’t it?’

Renata smiled and nodded to her children helplessly. ‘I never go out. Dey take up all my energy.’

I decided this woman was my kindred spirit. ‘Tell you what,’ I offered. ‘You teach me your recipes and I’ll let you practice your English on me. What do you say?’

‘Deal!’

She smacked my upturned hand hard and I couldn’t help grinning. If Tuscany was only this – improvised breakfast parties, two men talking horses in two different languages and beautiful children munching on fresh food – I was hooked for life.

That had been two years ago.

Now, I yawned, happy just to sit here as Renata chattered away as usual.

‘September 24this the perfect day for a wedding,’ Renata said. ‘It’s not too hot, it’s not windy. It’s just perfection. Hey, are you listening to me?’

Her English had improved immensely since then. Now, she sounded like a pure American.

‘I didn’t get much sleep last night,’ I confessed, and she laughed as she presented me with a Nutella croissant, just like back then. The two years that I’d been here, Renata had showered me with food of every kind. She was an amazing cook. It was thanks to her that I had understood that yes, food was indeed love. And it wasn’t food that was my problem, but my lack of control over my life. Control your life, she always said, and you control your food. And vice-versa. Boy, was she right. When things went well, food and I were good. When things went badly, food and I became iffy. But with her advice, I was doing better.

‘Why didn’t you sleep?’ she asked. ‘You and Julian at it all the time, huh?’

She was one to talk. Renata and Marco were the champions of not being able to keep their hands off each other and sometimes, in front of the kids, he’d place a hand on her breast and all was cool. Julian and I were more prudish in front of others.

Marco was a true Tuscan boy – the very ‘salt of the earth’ kind of guy born from a large family of farmers and pig breeders on his dad’s side. He’d met Renata and got her pregnant while still at university, where she’d constantly heckled her history teacher, who was a blatant capitalist while she couldn’t have been more Marxist. She’d sported a hammer and sickle tattoo, smoking joints, dying her then short, spiky hair a dark red and wearing around her neck colorful exotic flags of all the Third World countries.

Nothing enraged her teacher more. The fact that Professoressa Baldini was Marco’s mother made it all the better for Renata, who loves a challenge. It took the in-laws three years to forgive them for getting together and having twins, but Renata couldn’t seem to care less. She was one of those free-spirited girls whom Marco had been lucky even to try to tame. She was wild but conscientious and a great mother at the same time, like a teenager stuck in her mom’s body.

‘So this time it’s for real! I can’t believe you’re finally getting married!’ she whistled.

‘Yeah, neither can I.’

She eyed me. That was all it took, because she knew me very well.

‘What’s worrying you?’ she asked as she pulled on the tip of hercornetto, catching the Nutella cream with her tongue and missing some as it fell onto her yellow sundress, the one we’d bought together (mine a few sizes bigger) at the town market.

That was another thing that distinguished Renata and me from the rest of the Italian females living here. Well-to-do Tuscan women wouldn’t be caught dead out of a label, but Renata and I had found some very pretty stuff – and cheap, too.

‘Cazzo,’ she swore, dabbing at the stain with a paper napkin, and looked up. ‘Come on, tell Auntie Renata what’s bothering you.’

I swung one bare leg from the stool, watching as my white flip-flops dangled from my toes, exposing the tan line on my feet, since I hadn’t worn stockings since the beginning of April. I met her eyes.

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