I stood and extended my hand. ‘I’m Hannah Ives. Naddie and I go way back.’
Izzy beamed. ‘I’m Ysabelle Milanesi, but everyone calls me Izzy.’
‘Hannah and I are having lunch at the hall today,’ Naddie said. ‘Would you like to join us?’
‘I’d be delighted. The only thing in my refrigerator right now is half a tuna salad sandwich left over from yesterday.’
Although Naddie’s golf cart could accommodate four, we decided to walk the short distance back to Blackwalnut Hall. Izzy, I learned along the way, had moved to Annapolis from Pottstown, Pennsylvania, after the death of her husband so that she could be closer to her daughter’s family. When the daughter and her navy husband got posted to Hawaii, she decided not to join them. Calvert Colony was ready to open, her house in Pennsylvania had just sold, so she decided it was a sign from God that she should buy in. ‘I decided to get rid of all the men in my life,’ Izzy told me with a laugh. ‘The pool man, the plumber, the lawn guy and the exterminator. I want no maintenance issues. I have a town home in the block that backs up on the golf course,’ Izzy continued after Filomena had shown us to a table near the bar and supplied us with menus. ‘Or what will be the golf course once the permits go through.’
‘Do you play golf, Izzy?’
‘Never. To me, it’s about as exciting as watching bread rise. My late husband did, though. That’s one of the reasons we were attracted to Pottstown. After my husband retired from the army he taught history at Valley Forge Military Academy. When he retired for the second time…’ She shrugged. ‘We just liked the area, I guess.’
A server appeared at my elbow. She wore a laminated name badge embossed with her name: Susanna. ‘Are you ready to order?’
I took another quick look at the menu. I’d been so engrossed in our conversation that I hadn’t made any selections. ‘The crab salad, I think, Susanna. And iced tea, unsweetened, with extra lemon.’
We were enjoying our entrées when a murmur of excitement washed over the diners. Something was happening at the other end of the room. My tablemates were staring past me, so I swiveled around in my chair.
One of the most beautiful young men I’d ever seen stood chatting with the diners at a table for four near the French doors. He was Tab Hunter in The Burning Hills; Michael York in The Three Musketeers; Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. Tall and tanned, his neatly trimmed blond hair curling out just so from under the brim of his white pleated toque. He wore a white chef’s jacket, spotless, with a double row of buttons marching up the front and black-and-white houndstooth pants. As he talked he gestured with his hands so gracefully that he might well have been conducting a symphony orchestra.
His jacket was embroidered in red script: Raniero Buccho, Chef.
‘“Tall and tan and young and lovely, the boy from Ipanema goes walking…”’ I sang sotto voce.
‘Behave yourself, Hannah!’ Naddie swatted me playfully with her napkin.
Izzy looked up from her minestrone and smiled indulgently. ‘I used to be in love with Frank Sinatra, back in the day. Whenever he sang, “All the Things That You Are” I melted into a little pool of tiger butter puddled around his feet.’
‘I felt the same way about Anthony Andrews when I first saw him in Danger UXB, Izzy.’ I fanned my face with my hand. ‘Sorry, I lost control there for a moment.’
‘Ipanema is in Brazil, not Argentina,’ Naddie scolded.
I set my fork down on my plate and sighed dramatically. ‘But he is absolutely gorgeous, isn’t he?’
The beautiful boy was making the rounds, working the crowd. Smiling here, bowing modestly there, gradually heading our way. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. When he reached our table he rested a hand on the back of Izzy’s chair and drawled, Buenos días, ladies. Everything is to your satisfaction, yes?’
‘I’m looking forward to the crème brulée,’ I stammered.
He turned his neon-blue eyes on me. ‘Ah, madame, it will be delicioso! My pastry chef, Michelle, I have chosen her myself. She is magic with the dolce.’
Izzy had just polished off her calamari vinagreta. She kissed the tips of her fingers and saluted the chef. ‘You are a genius!’
Beneath his tan Raniero flushed becomingly, then turned to me. ‘You are new here?’
‘Just a guest,’ I told him.
‘Ah. Well, you tell Mrs Milanesi…’ a big wink in Izzy’s direction, ‘to invite you for dinner tomorrow night. We have Pasta e Fagioli. Ossobucco. Polipo alla Luciana. Melanzane.’
He paused to let the awesomeness of the menu sink in, which in my case – French major! – wasn’t very far. ‘Polipo?’ I asked.
‘Octopus,’ Izzy replied, ‘in a tomato sauce with olives and garlic.’
Yuck, I thought. ‘Yummy,’ I said, smiling toothily.
Raniero picked up Izzy’s hand and touched it to his lips. ‘A domani, nonna.’ Then, in a wave of aftershave mingled with garlic, he moved on.
‘He’s flirting with you!’ I teased after Raniero had returned to his kitchen.
Izzy flushed and slipped the tip of her spoon into the tiramisu that Susanna had just placed in front of her. ‘Nonsense. He’s just happy to have somebody he can speak Italian with, other than his sister.’
I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. ‘Duh. With a name like Ysabelle Milanesi, how could you be anything but Italian! Is Milanesi your maiden name?’
‘My husband was Italian, too, but he came from the North End of Boston. Second generation. His parents owned a market on Salem Street.’
‘Izzy was a war bride,’ Naddie explained.
Izzy polished off the last of her tiramisu, shoved the dish toward the center of the table, then rested her forearms on the tablecloth. ‘That’s true, Hannah, but I spent most of the Second World War in a convent outside of Rome.’
‘You were a nun?’ I asked.
Izzy shook her head. ‘No, I was a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl.’
I sat in stunned silence for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds as I struggled to form the words to the questions that were ricocheting around my brain.
Izzy came to my rescue. ‘It is a long story, and a sad one.’
Was she dismissing me, or did she really want to talk about it? ‘If it’s not too difficult for you,’ I encouraged, ‘I’d really like to hear it.’
Residents at the tables around us had finished their meals and begun to trickle out of the dining room. I stole a quick look at Naddie, who nodded almost imperceptibly, then raised a hand, summoning Susanna over from a table she’d been busily clearing nearby.
‘Coffee all around, I think, Susanna.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘Do you mind if we sit here chatting for a while? We’re finished with these dishes so you can clear them away.’
‘No trouble at all, Mrs Gray. I’ll be back in a minute with your coffee.’
Izzy took a deep breath then let it out slowly. ‘So, where do I begin?’
SIX
‘The Italians are extremely lax in their treatment of Jews. They protect Italian Jews both in Tunis and in occupied France and won’t permit their being drafted for work or compelled to wear the Star of David.’
Joseph Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries,
December 13, 1942.
‘In the years before the war, my family and I lived comfortably in Rome, in Trastavere,’ Izzy began, stirring a generous portion of cream into her coffee.