“That was strange.”
“It wasn’t strange.”
“You talk to parking meters when they steal from you. You asked the peach man about his childhood. Kovár spends five minutes being funny and you stand there like a passport photo.”
“I don’t perform on command.”
“No, usually you perform without command. That’s why it was strange.”
“I don’t know him.”
Davide gives me a look.
“Not like that,” I say.
“Everybody in Serie A knows Kovár like that. He’s easy.”
“Kovár is easy the way a locked door is easy because it has a handle.”
Davide slows down one step. “That was almost interesting.”
“It was accurate.”
“I invited him to dinner.”
“Nobody is coming to dinner, Davide.”
“There it is,” he says, glancing over at me.
“There is nothing.”
“The voice. Press conference Enzo. You use it on journalists, referees, and that one physio you hate because he called it ‘prosciutto ham.’”
“He did call it ‘prosciutto ham.’”
“And you forgave him never.”
“Film at eleven,” I say. “What do you want for dinner tonight?”
Davide watches me for a second too long.
He has known me since we were seventeen, which means he knows exactly what a locked door sounds like when it has decided to pretend it’s a wall. He lets it stand anyway. He always does.
“Something with the peaches,” he says. “Two of them are mine.”
“None of them are yours. You can have one.”
When we arrive at the apartment, Davide heads to his room for a shower as I put the peaches on the sill with the tomatoes. The sill is starting to look like my mother’s, and normally that thought would hold me for an entire minute.
My phone buzzes on the counter. Gianna. A voice note, fifty-two seconds, which from her is a telegram. “You never answered the real question. Mamma says the cat took the second planter and honestly she sounded proud of the cat. Carlo’s limp moved to the other leg, which everyone agrees is a miracle. Also the sports channel keeps showing your bracket. Enzo. Voice note me after film or I’m telling Mamma you’re sad.”
I record mine leaning against the counter. “Tell Mamma the cat is a squatter and I’m not sad. The real question doesn’t exist until we beat Austria.” I look at the peaches on the sill. “It’s possible I ran into him this morning. It’s possible he’s exactly the same. Don’t tell Mamma either thing.”
I send it before I can improve it. She’d only hear the improving.
I take the knife out. I look at the peaches.
I put the knife down. The kitchen isn’t going to fix this one, and I refuse to waste peaches on a lie.