Free Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch Page A

what?”
    â€œThat’s the Duomo. Florence’s cathedral.”
    Duomo. It was like the mother ship. Everyone was funneling into it and we had to slow down even more the closer we got. Finally we were in the middle of a large open space, and I was looking up at a gargantuan building half-lit by the setting sun.
    â€œWow. That’s really . . .” Big? Beautiful? Impressive? It was all that and more. The cathedral was easily the size of several city blocks and the walls were patterned in detailed carvings of pink, green, and white marble. It was a hundred times prettier and more impressive and grander than any building I’d seen before. Also, I’d never used the word “grander” in my life. Nothing had ever required it before.
    â€œIt’s actually called the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, but everyone just calls it the Duomo.”
    â€œBecause of the domed roof?” One side of the building was capped with an enormous orange-red circular roof.
    â€œNo, but nice catch. ‘ Duomo’ means ‘cathedral,’ and the word just happens to sound like ‘dome’ in English, so a lot of people make that mistake. The cathedral took almost a hundred and fifty years to build, and that was the largest dome in the world until modern technology came around. As soon as I get a free afternoon, we’ll climb to the top.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” I pointed to a much smaller octagonal building across from the Duomo. It had tall gold doors with carvings on them, and a bunch of tourists were taking pictures in front of them.
    â€œThe baptistery. Those doors are called the Gates of Paradise, and they’re one of the most famous works of art in the whole city. The artist’s name was Ghiberti, and they took him twenty-seven years to make. I’ll take you on a tour of that, too.” He pointed to a street just past the baptistery. “Restaurant is right over there.”
    I followed Howard across the big open space ( piazza , he told me) and he held the restaurant’s door open for me. A man wearing a necktie tucked into his apron looked up from behind his stand and stood a little straighter. Howard was like two feet taller than him.
    â€œAnd tonight, how many?” he asked in a nasally voice.
    â€œ Possiamo avere una tavolo per due ?”
    The man nodded, then called to a passing server.
    â€œ Buona sera ,” the server said to us.
    â€œ Buona sera . Possiamo stare seduti vicino alla cucina?”
    â€œCerto .”
    So . . . apparently my father spoke Italian. Fluently. He even rolled his R s like Ren. I tried not to stare at him as we followed our server to our table. I literally knew nothing about him. It was so weird.
    â€œCan you guess why I like it here?” Howard asked as we settled into our seats.
    I looked around. The tables were covered in cheap paper cloths and there was an open kitchen with a wood-fire pizza oven blazing away. “She’s Got a Ticket to Ride” was playing in the background.
    He pointed up at the ceiling. “They play the Beatles all day every day, which means I get two of my favorite things together. Pizza and Paul McCartney.”
    â€œOh, yeah. I noticed the framed Beatles records in your office.” I gulped. Now he was going to think I’d been snooping. Which technically I guess I had been.
    He just smiled. “My sister sent those as a gift a few years ago. She has two boys, ten and twelve. They live in Denver and they usually come out every other summer or so.”
    Did they know about me?
    Howard must have had a similar thought, because there was a moment of silence, and then we both suddenly got superinterested in our menus.
    â€œWhat do you want to order? I always get a prosciutto pizza, but everything here is good. We could get a few appetizers or—”
    â€œHow about just a plain pizza. Cheese.” Simple and quick. I wanted to get back