Page 21 of Blood Orange Christmas
He grins like I told him a fairy tale. He tugs me toward a thin staircase boxed into the corner. It is meant for feet that don’t want to be heard. We climb halfway up and find a landing that branches two ways. The right-hand passage drops toward the kitchens. The left snakes under the main hall. Service tunnels. Pantry passages. A quiet route from stove to table. The kind of planning that lets you feed a room and listen to it at the same time.
“Adventure later,” I say, because the steps are narrow and the morning is not. “We have another job.”
In the kitchen, the ovens are already humming. I set Marco at the deep window with his fish book and a glass of water andline my day up like a row of knives. Salt cod to soak and whip. Saffron to bloom. Lemon zest to knead through a pasta dough until it disappears and leaves only the lift. The feast is a map, but it forgives detours if you treat each stop with respect.
A man leans against the walk-in door like the walk-in leaned there first. Luca. I remember him now from a different night. The garage. The way the chain snapped free without drama. The way a man’s arm found a wall without noise. He has a face built to joke and eyes that don’t. He tips two fingers to his forehead like we’re on a sunny street and not under fluorescent lights.
“You again,” he says. “Chef. I owe you a thank-you for those clams last night. Even the saints in the hall were licking their fingers.”
“Saints don’t lick their fingers,” Marco says from the window, not looking up.
“That’s because the painters always put the food down,” Luca answers easily, turning his body enough to include my son without ever taking his eyes off me. “Give them a little fritto and the stories would change.”
“Fritto later,” I say, because Luca’s gaze makes my skin know it has seams. “For now, I need space.”
He presses a palm to his chest. Offended or performing offended. “Space is your kingdom. I’m just stealing a breath of garlic.” He taps the walk-in door twice, lightly, like a knock that has learned to be polite. “You need anything carried, you call me.”
He means plates. He also means trouble. He slides away without actually leaving. He pauses to tell Marco the dog answers to Pippo because someone thought it would be funny to name amutt after a prince. Marco stores that as law. Luca stores the map of the room in his eyes and then, finally, he goes.
I set the saffron to steep in a little hot stock until it breathes color. I beat air into the cod with oil to make it light without lying. I knead lemon zest into the pasta until the dough smells like planning and leave it to rest under a bowl. I pin a list to the board and add to it as the morning asks. Ice. More towels. A good knife for the pastry station because the one in the drawer has a burr.
Between tasks, we explore a little more. The narrow stairs behind the false panel take us to a landing with a dead heater and a window that looks over the lower vineyard. From here, I can see the angle of the gate and the blind spot where a person could stand and not be counted. A guard crosses, then crosses again, slow and regular. The rhythm of people paid to be seconds ahead of bad ideas. I turn back and count the steps to the kitchen so I’ll know how long it takes if I have to run.
In the afternoon, when the house yawns and even the busiest rooms take a breath, Marco insists on showing me his favorite new door. It is low and heavy and worn where hands have pushed it for a hundred years, with a keyhole big enough to tempt small fingers.
“Wine,” he whispers, delighted, because someone told him the word.
“Wine likes to sleep,” I say, trying the handle. It doesn’t give. The smell that leaks through the seam is cold and old and touched with oak. But there’s another smell beneath it, not wine at all. Iron, faint, stubborn. To the left of the door, on a side table half tucked under a shelf, a letter opener lies next to a rag. Someoneused the rag in a hurry and didn’t throw it away. Even after a rinse, the stain holds the shape of a hand.
I pick up the opener. It’s heavy, a little dull, shaped like a small dagger given a desk job. The rag has been wrung hard enough to twist it out of shape. I set both down exactly where they were and wipe my fingertips on my apron with a care that looks like habit and feels like a warning.
Marco kneels to peer into the keyhole. “We should ask for the key.”
“We should ask Gabriella where the key is,” I correct, softer. “And then we should think about whether we need what’s behind that door or if it needs to be left alone.”
He nods, solemn, like I’ve given him a rule he can teach the dog. We go back to the kitchen, and I wash my hands twice to make a feeling go away that won’t.
By evening, the house begins to wear its guests again. Fewer than last night, tighter circles, the kind of conversation that stands closer to the door even when it smiles. I set saffron risotto on to bloom, letting the stock hit the pan in measured ladles. I stir with a steady hand until the rice goes from hard to listening. I salt toward the end, not the beginning, so the grain knows where to stop. The color turns the deep yellow of good light. I taste, and the heat goes all the way down.
Dante appears at the threshold like the room lifted him there. He doesn’t cross into the kitchen. He knows the line. His jacket is open. His hands are empty. He nods to Gabriella. He looks at Marco with a softness he can’t file off. Then he looks at me.
“Is he enjoying himself?” he asks, chin tipping toward our son at the window, busy drawing “maps” of the vineyard in crayon.
“He thinks the fountain is a castle,” I say. “He wants soup for the dog. He’s discovered cutlery with lemons and has decided we need to use it at dinner.”
“The lemon spoons are for saints,” he says, deadpan.
“Then tonight the saints can share.”
Something pulls at the corner of his mouth and doesn’t spend itself. He watches my hands while I finish the risotto, the slow circles that make grains agree with one another.
“Do you still put lemon zest in your pasta dough?” he asks.
“When it wants it,” I say. “Some doughs get jealous.”
He nods once. He doesn’t ask the questions hanging in the air. He holds them like a match he won’t strike in a room with gas. I don’t help him.
“Would you have told me the truth if I’d stayed?” I ask instead. The spoon keeps moving in my hand. The risotto asks me not to stop.
