Apricot Kisses Read Free Page A

recuperated.”
    “Don’t I?”
    Her eyes narrow. Claire, my French colleague, is less than five feet tall and as slender as a deer, yet she completely unnerves me.
    “It doesn’t have anything to do with the circles under your eyes, does it?” She waves a magazine at me, which I guess is the newest issue, with apricots on the cover. It gets me going. Just thinking about that horrible trattoria makes me livid. How long do you have to cook vegetables to make them gray like that? I needed a whole glass of wine to rid my mouth of the taste of MSG in the ribollita. Claire sets the magazine on the table with raised eyebrows. The headline jumps out at me: “Tre Camini Spoils la Dolce Vita !”
    “Believe me,” I say, “it was high time someone spoke openly. I know what good Italian food is supposed to taste like. And at that place”—I stab at the red-shingle roof in the photo—“they definitely don’t serve good food. The chef should count himself lucky he only had to deal with me. My mother would have skinned him alive.”
    But Claire isn’t listening. Her pine-green eyes drilling into me, she lowers her voice. “ Bon sang. Give me a break. You were in Italy! The country of gorgeous art and savoir vivre , the country that also happens to be your birthplace. You’re supposed to come back tanned and happy with at least four more pounds on your tushy. Instead, you wrote five articles, e-mailed every three hours, and wrote thirty letters to the editor. And your behind is as skinny as it has always been.”
    “I happen to love my job,” I say. “Italy might be your dream destination, but my only connection to it is my mother’s last name. Besides, it’s not savoir vivre . It’s la dolce vita .”
    “I see. Still, I’d like to know why you can’t live without your laptop for a couple of days.”
    “Stop bugging me, Claire,” I say. “It was a bummer of a vacation. It rained ten days out of fourteen, I wasn’t relaxed for a second, and I definitely had no nostalgic feelings for the place. I combed through village after village, surrounded by stupid Italians who drove like they all won their driver’s licenses in a lottery—not to mention chefs who should have been delivering newspapers instead. Of course I work during vacation.” I shrug. Claire wouldn’t understand anyway—being a food journalist is all that has survived of my dream of being a serious writer. I worked night and day, typing till my fingers were raw, all just to get a column of my own. And my column, and the influence it gives me in the food world, means everything to me. Even if it isn’t always pleasant.
    Claire’s expression softens. “How bad was it really?” she asks. I rummage in my purse and come up with an ashtray, two dessert spoons, a soap dish, and a sugar shaker. Claire sighs. “Do you have the addresses so I can send these back?”
    “Of course I have the addresses.” I fish in my handbag some more. On each restaurant’s brochure, I meticulously marked down what I swiped from the place. Embarrassed, I add a tampon case to the loot—souvenirs of six gastronomic bombs within two weeks. Greetings from la dolce vita .
    “Wow, what a cute sugar shaker!” Sasha sneaks in, and a few brown drops fall on my papers.
    “My god! Look at you.” Claire adjusts her glasses and assesses Sasha’s raincoat. “Why are you wearing a kid’s coat? And such an awful hat. Did you crochet it yourself?”
    “I just like this coat. And I like my hat, too.” Sasha shrugs and leans against my desk. “Why do we always have to return the trophies you take from the places you tear to pieces in print? Why don’t you keep the stuff? It’s not worth anything anyway.”
    “But that would be theft.” I shake my head.
    “It would be . . . Hanna, I think you’ve lost your mind.”
    “Shut up, Sasha. That’s not true.” Claire points to the clock on the wall. “And you were late today.”
    “Hanna was late, too,” Sasha says, her