Free Eating With the Angels by Sarah-Kate Lynch

to the restaurants I wrote about; I didn’t care if they thought my writing was too flowery or not flowery enough or lowbrow or high-falutin’. I just wanted them to know what it felt like to taste some heavenly morsel cooked absolutely perfectly by just the right person at the exact moment you couldn’t think of anything you would rather be doing than eating it. Because that to me was good as it got. Period.
    Snapping to, I realised with a start that Marco was no longer atmy side. I hadn’t even noticed him go anywhere. What was it with empty spaces where my menfolk should have been? I stood there, looking casually around the bar, then wiped my own chin, oily fingers lighting tracing the path of Marco’s long brown ones. His absence made me feel confused and sort of worried, my stomach churning for reasons that had nothing to do with Do’ Mori’s delectable fare, so I sought refuge in the motherly features of Signora Marinello. She was watching me intently and I couldn’t quite pick the look in her eyes — but the gist of it seemed to be concern.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I found myself telling her. ‘Really, I’m fine.’ At this, she leaned over, picked up one of my hands and held it in her own two warm, worn ones. Emotion inexplicably overwhelmed me. I fought the urge to jump across the counter and bury my head in her ample bosom.
    ‘You should try our
spaghetti con le seppie nere,
’ she said earnestly, her brown eyes boring into mine, her grip getting firmer. ‘It’s the best this side of the Rialto.’
    I nodded, dumbly, my insides lurching. I was battling the oddest compulsion to tell her my whole life story. It was insane.
    ‘I have a husband,’ I could not keep myself from blurting out. ‘But he didn’t come with me. I mean, he was supposed to …’ but Signora Marinello was already shaking her head.
    ‘Don’t worry about nothing, Constanzia,’ she said in her loud, comforting voice. ‘Just let Marco take care of you.’
    At this, Marco appeared at my side again. ‘Have you had enough?’ he asked.
    Seriously, I could have listened to his voice all day. It purred without trace of an accent, his English faultless, the muscles in his jaw grinding beneath his tanned cheeks. Actually, I hadn’t had enough, we’d tasted a lot of things, but they were all snack-sized. There was room for more. Yet that same tinny flavour I’d tasted after my breakfast porridge was batting at my taste buds again, throwing what should have been the aftershocks of Do’ Mori’s enchantingtreats out of kilter. I shrugged in a non-committal fashion and smiled at him.
    ‘Okay,’ Marco said briskly. ‘Let’s go.’
    I waved goodbye to Signora Marinello, fending off an absurd desire to take her with me, but she merely waved fondly back and turned to the thirsty septuagenarian again. We retraced our steps through the lanes and alleyways towards the Rialto Bridge and I’m ashamed to say I was afraid to ask Marco where we were going or what we were doing in case he said: ‘What do you mean, we?’ I liked being a ‘we’ with Marco. The idea of being just a me for the rest of the day, the week, the month, my life held little or no appeal. But was that really me, alone in a foreign country, trit-trotting around, my tongue hanging out, behind a handsome stranger who for all I knew chopped vulnerable women like me into tiny pieces and spread them on Signora Marinello’s bread as a light mid-morning snack? I wasn’t sure.
    I slowed down, letting the gap between myself and Marco grow. The sun was too hot. Where it once felt warm and comforting it now scalded and suffocated. I could feel the wine that had tasted so crisp at Do’ Mori drawing the moisture out of my body, making my temples throb, my mouth dry as sandpaper. I came to a standstill but could feel myself swaying. I was on the steps near the top of the bridge, tourists jostling me, shoving me out of their way. The back of Marco’s head disappeared into the