Angelica Lost and Found

Chapter 11. The Buttocks of Giuseppina

‘Whoosh!’ says Marco. He suddenly feels as if something has gone out of him, leaving him in some way a new man, light and easy, refreshed and invigorated. ‘Wow!’ he adds.

‘Che?’ says Strozzi as he slides a pizza in to bake.

‘Where?’ says Marco, standing in the pizzeria that bears his name.

‘Where what?’ says Strozzi.

‘Who?’ says Marco as Giuseppina, pizza-laden, sways past him. Coming back to himself in a flash, he affectionately squeezes her left buttock.

‘What’s this?’ she says. ‘You’ve just now rediscovered my natica sinistra? I have one on the other side also. They’re a matched pair.’

Marco bilaterally embraces her bottom and draws her to him.

‘Piano, piano,’ says Giuseppina, ‘the pizza’s getting cold. See me after closing time.’

‘Sweet Pina!’ cries Marco as the joy of life and the vital sap of the vernal season rise in him and he follows her into the dining room. ‘I feel as if I’ve been away for a long time but now I’m back, and only now do I realise all that you are to me! You are my basil and my oregano! You are my mozzarella!’

The diners look up from their pizza classica and give the couple their full attention.

‘I’ve seen nothing of you and heard nothing from you for weeks,’ says Giuseppina with the colour mounting to her cheeks, ‘and do you mock me now?’

‘I do not mock, Giuseppina! I love you!’

‘You’re embarrassing me! Be serious, padrone!’

‘But I am serious!’

Her eyes narrow as she serves the pizzas.

‘How serious?’

Marco goes down on one knee and there is a collective intake of breath from the onlookers.

‘Go for it!’ urge the assembled upholders of traditional family values.

Marco goes for it.

‘Marry me!’ he demands in ringing tones that make passers-by in the street turn their heads and smile.

‘You hear this?’ says Giuseppina to the breathless pizzagoers. ‘What answer shall I give the padrone?’

‘Yes!’ they shout as one.

Giuseppina raises Marco to his feet, kisses him soundly, places his hands firmly where they have been longing to go, and breathes softly into his ear, ‘What’s mine is yours.’

Cheers and applause. It’s like something in a movie.