The Italian I Was Never Supposed to Understand novel · Chapter 30 of 32
Chapter 30: Pina's Kitchen
"You can't quit," I said.
"I can do anything. I'm fifty-four."
"Pina, who runs this place without you?"
"Read it first. Then yell."
She pushed the envelope across the desk.
Tommaso and I looked at each other.
I opened it.
It wasn't a letter.
It was a drawing, on graph paper, in pencil, with a lot of erasing.
A long room. A kitchen along the back wall. Eight tables. A counter with stools.
Across the top, in her round handwriting: DA PINA.
"The old garage," Pina said. "Next to the dock. Where the roof fell in, in 1977."
"It's full of broken pallets," said Tommaso.
"It's full of nothing. Broken pallets are nothing." She tapped the drawing. "Lunch for the warehouse. Lunch for the whole street. My mother's food from Bari. The eggplant. The orecchiette. Friday, fish."
She took her glasses off.
"Twenty-six years I carried trays on the subway from Bensonhurst. I want a stove that's mine."
I looked at the drawing for a long time.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Italian I Was Never Supposed to Understand are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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