Читать книгу Francesca's Kitchen - Peter Pezzelli - Страница 10

A few fragile flakes from the approaching snowstorm were already drifting down when Francesca left the market and started on her way home. It was late morning, nearing lunchtime, and the cars zipped up and down the road as she walked along the sidewalk. There was a palpable feeling of nervous tension in the air; she could see it in the faces of the passing motorists as they hastened along, almost frantic to run their errands before the real snow started to fall. Watching them go by, seeing the impatient frowns of the men and the worried looks of the women chirping away on their cell phones instead of paying attention to the road, Francesca could not help but laugh. It was always the same whenever the weathermen predicted a winter storm. The specter of a few inches of snow put everyone in a tizzy.

Clutching the handles of the cloth bag in which she carried her groceries, Francesca made her way along the sidewalk, keeping a watchful eye on the pavement lest she slip on a patch of ice. That was all she needed to have happen. God forbid she should fall and hurt herself; she would never hear the end of it from her son and daughters. Francesca might just have easily taken the car to the market instead of walking; she was a perfectly capable driver. But she liked the exercise and enjoyed being out in the open air. Besides, in her mind, the world was already going by much too fast. As far as she was concerned, people spent too much time hurrying from one place to another, from one task to another, without ever taking a moment to appreciate the journey. People, she often observed, would be far better off if they could only learn to slow their lives down a bit, but they were generally in too much of a rush to give the idea much thought.

An added benefit of walking to the market was the opportunity it afforded Francesca to monitor the comings and goings in the area. Hers wasn’t what one might call a tough section of town by any means, but some of the shine had gone off the neighborhood since she and Leo had first moved there years ago. The main avenue down which she was walking was lined with two-and three-decker tenements, where generations of predominately Irish and Italian families had once lived together. They had been proud people who had kept their properties immaculate. It grieved Francesca to see the dilapidated condition into which many of those beautiful old homes had descended since the old families had moved out. Not that it was the fault of the new Hispanic and Asian families that had taken their place. Francesca blamed the landlords from whom the new families rented the houses. Had they lost all their pride? She was heartened, though, by the new shops and little restaurants and other businesses she saw the newcomers opening here and there. The neighborhood, as she saw it, was in transition. In time, these renters would become owners, and then those houses would be restored to their proper states. It was inevitable. Nothing instilled pride in a person more than owning his own home.

Francesca rounded the corner off the main road and walked up the street to her house. The street climbed a considerably steep hill, but her legs were more than equal to the task. Over the years, she’d made that climb more times than she could remember. When she finally made it to the house and through the front door, Francesca hurried straight to the kitchen, to put away her groceries. Her haste was not due to any great concern about the food spoiling. She kept the temperature so low inside that even if she left it all out on the counter, everything would probably stay fresh for days. Her real purpose in bustling so purposefully through the hallway to the kitchen was the reassuring noise that it created. It dispelled some of the quiet in the house and made her feel like less of a ghost rattling around within its walls.

The little red light on the telephone answering machine was flashing when she came into the kitchen. She gave the button a tap and listened to the messages while she sorted out the groceries on the table. The first was from Alice: “Hi, Mom. It’s me. Just wanted to see how you were doing. I talked to Rosie yesterday. She said you guys had a good time together at her house. Hope you’re all settled back in, now that you’re home. We were watching the Weather Channel last night, and they said a big storm is heading your way. Looks like you might get a lot of snow. Make sure you stay inside. Don’t try to shovel the walk or clean the car by yourself. Get one of the neighborhood kids to do it. You don’t want to slip and fall. Anyway, no snow out here, just a lot of rain this week. So, that’s all. I just wanted to say hi. Hope to see you soon. Yesterday, Will and Charlie were wondering when you were going to come out to visit us again in Oregon. They miss your lasagna. Give me a call when you get a chance. Love you.”

A beep, then the next message, this one from Rosanne: “Hi, Mom, It’s me. You home? What are you doing? Out gallivanting again, or are you just screening your calls? No? Not there? Okay, just wanted to see how you’re doing. I talked to Alice yesterday. Told her about your trip. Heard you guys might get a bunch of snow up there today, so I hope you get home soon before it starts. Call me.”

A succession of beeps without messages followed, then: “Hello. This is the West End Public Library calling to let you know that some books you reserved have come in. We’ll hold them here for a week. Thank you.”

Francesca hurriedly put the groceries away and picked up the telephone to call Alice in Oregon. She was a little concerned because, given the time difference, her daughter ought to have been at work. Was something wrong, something she hadn’t mentioned in her message? Francesca was always trying to read between the lines in this way, wondering how much her children didn’t tell her about what was going on in their lives. It troubled her deeply. True, her children were all adults now. But even though they were all grown up, they still had a lot they could learn from their mother. There were still lots of ways she knew she could help them if they would only let her. Francesca knew that Rosie and Alice did their utmost to withhold from her anything that they thought might make her worry. But that only made her worry all the more! In her mind, it would be better to know the truth and play a part in dealing with it.

As was most often the case, though, there was nothing for Francesca to worry about. Alice had stayed out of work that day simply because her son Will had a case of the sniffles. Francesca was relieved. Just the same, she lectured Alice on making sure that her son got plenty of rest and drank enough fluids. A nice bowl of chicken-and-escarole soup would probably do wonders. She gave her daughter the recipe. For her part, Alice lectured her mother on the dangers of the ice and snow sure to accompany the storm the weathermen were predicting. Rosie did the same when Francesca called her a little while later. Francesca assured both of them that they needn’t worry; she wasn’t about to be taking any chances with the weather. It gave her a modicum of satisfaction to know that now they were worrying about her. What goes around always comes around.

When she was finished talking to Rosie, Francesca hung up the phone, erased the messages on the answering machine, and paused to look out the back window. The kitchen was her favorite room in the house, not so much because of her love of cooking, but because of the beautiful view it afforded of the city. When the leaves were off the trees, like they were at this time of year, you could look out across the backyard and see all the way downtown, to the dome of the State House, and beyond, to the houses up on the East Side. Turning over in her mind the third message on the answering machine, she stared thoughtfully at the drab shroud of gray clouds that had covered the sky over the city since her return from Florida. The snowflakes, she noticed, were coming down now with greater urgency, in a light but steady flurry. Deep within herself, part of Francesca was urging her to just stay inside, to curl up on the couch and take a nap. Another part of her, though, longed to be out of the house once more despite her daughters’ advice to just stay put. She fretted about it for only a minute before deciding to pull her overcoat and hat back on.

“This is New England,” she told herself while she fished the car keys out of her pocketbook. “It’s supposed to snow in the winter.”