It’s about eight-thirty on a Thursday morning in mid-July when Donato Poggi comes into my cafè. Madame Barbieri is seated on her usual stool, a little to the left, and Andrea, a lot earlier than Nic, is sitting next to her because I’m at the counter today. We are chatting about this and that while I dry the glasses with a dishtowel. I smile, relaxed, at peace with the world, until I look up and see him enter, looking around for a moment before joining us. Ten years have gone by, but I recognize him immediately. Maybe my subconscious or my body recognized him before my brain did. In any case, when he leans on the counter and looks at me with his brown eyes, I feel my heart in my throat and am afraid I’m having a panic attack. “Can a person get a cappuccino?” He asks me in an indifferent tone. I’m not able to breathe for a couple of seconds, then I set down the glasses and the dishtowel, I untie my apron and, as I take it off, I turn towards Andrea. Looking him straight in the eyes I tell him icily, “You and I are finished.”
