Page 70 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

‘Not one! Julian’s got the jeep, yours is at the mechanic’s and I sent Martino off to town with mine to get me some stuff!’

Big gut-wrenching stabs of pain made me double over in a new kind of pain. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I really was in labor.

‘Let me call Renata.’

‘Don’t bother. She’s in Florence for the day with the kids.’

‘So what do we do? I know!’ he cried as I leaned forward into a feline position again, trying to breathe without collapsing onto myself.

He ran out the door, down the hill, disappearing out of my limited line of sight in literally thirty seconds.

The next thing I heard was the sound of a tractor and, believe it or not, coming up the hill was my glamorous wedding planner gay friend at the wheel, his face so white and stiff he looked like a dummy. If it hadn’t hurt so much, I would have laughed.

‘You can’t drive that,’ I moaned, but Paul jumped down to come and get me.

‘The brake!’ I moaned. ‘Pull the brake first!’

‘What? Oh, sorry,’ he cried and scrambled back in before the whole thing careened down the hill again, deluxe wedding planner and all. ‘You’ll be OK!’ Paul cried as he half dragged, half lifted me onto the cart hooked up to the tractor.

I wanted to lash out and kick him into the next field. Well, at least I’d be able to lie down on the soft hay. Only I couldn’t lie down, either, so I sort of pretzeled out, clutching at his seat as he jumped back in and slammed on the gas pedal. Which made the tractor lurch.

‘The brake. Disengage the brake!’

‘How?’

‘Push the toggle and then bring the lever down.’

He obeyed and we were off to a start and I couldn’t help but yowl in pain.

‘No more food – ever again,’ I growled. ‘I swear I’ll go on a diet – lose weight – I promise!’

Paul turned to give me an amazed look, nearly missing a straycipressobranch that was sticking out into the road.

‘Watch where you’re going or we’ll both end up on a gurney,’ I cried, already seeing the headlines in the news:

Tragedy Between Castellino and Siena: Mother of two and BGFF die in a self-induced tractor crash on a quiet country road.

Paul’s face paled and he nodded again. ‘Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll get you there in no time.’

Who was he kidding? The tractor only did twenty kilometers an hour! It was built for strength, not speed, and the hospital was miles away. Although the roads were good and smooth, the hairpin turns, ups and downs, didn’t do me much good.

‘You better step on it, Paul!’

‘I don’t want to jostle you,’ he argued.

‘You’ll be jostling a cripple if you don’t floor it!’ I argued back, taking a deep breath, trying to keep my cool.

In response, another gut-wrenching stab hit me, as if my spine were paper and someone was going at it with a Stanley knife.

‘OK, got it. Sorry, hun, I forgot how vicious you get. Hey, look, there’s Beppe! His car’s broken down.’ As we passed the poor old dairy farmer, Paul called out, ‘Sorry, pal, not this time!’

‘Stop!’ I yelled, and suddenly, the tractor came to a screeching halt.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Let him in – he’s old and it’s too hot out in this sun.’

‘Are you nuts!’ he said and then turned to Beppe, who in the meantime had reached us.

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