Today I came out onto the piazza at lunchtime to have an aperitivo with Fabrizio. He was leaving for his house in Florence and he wanted to say goodbye. Last night we were up late talking and walking through town, and this morning I was exhausted. I figured I could check a few things online while we were at the bar—my internet connection at my apartment is frustratingly haphazard—so I grabbed my laptop as I headed out the door. Bars here are not like American bars, though in the evening it can become somewhat similar; it is a café`, really. The Bar Sport, a fixture in the piazza of Cetona, has been recently restored, it’s clean, it has nice light, good pastries, comfortable round marble tables, and a really nice staff, including Paola, with whom I grew up, though she is a few years younger than me.

Buongiorno, Paola, I say, taking off my sunglasses. Buongiorno, Sibilla, Paola says. Come va? How are you?

She sees my laptop under my arm.

Apri l’ufficio? Are you opening your office? she teases. I come nearly every day to check my email and write at the bar, again, due to my irregular internet connection. I smile, nodding.

So’ stanca morta, I say, to no one in particular. I am dead tired.

I open my laptop and ask Paola for a hot tea. After I pour my tea I realize I need a piece of paper from my other purse, which is in my apartment. I pull my jacket back on and I say, Paola, torno subito. I’ll be right back. I leave my purse and my computer sitting on my table, as one does in Cetona (once I left my purse on an outdoor table at the bar all night, and found it in the morning!).

Non ti preoccupare, l’ufficio lo guardo io!! Paola yells after me, laughing. Don’t worry! I will look after the office!

I come back and settle in to read a few things online, check my bank account, which is dangerously low, and then settle on The New Yorker homepage. I miss The New Yorker. And NPR.

Nilo comes through the common door between the Bar Sport and his restaurant, next door, Ristorante Da Nilo. He runs both the bar and the restaurant; on the floor above is a B&B, La Locanda. He smiles and stops to chat.

Ciao bella, he says, pinching me on the cheek. Nilo is tall, with a dark moustache and rectangular dark-rimmed glasses. He looks a bit like an owl. He is a real Cetonese, born and raised, and he talks Cetonese fast and in a low monotone except when he’s angry; then he sputters and curses and raises his voice, like most Cetonesi do. He has run a bar or a restaurant in Cetona ever since my family started coming here in 1972, when I was seven. He was married to Pia, then, with long, long dark hair and skin the color of porcelain, and their son, Cristiano, was a baby.

Ti ho visto crescere. M’avrai anche pisciato addosso quando t’ho preso in braccio, he says. I saw you grow up. You probably even peed on me sometime when I picked you up. He likes to tell me this; it seems to give him some kind of honor. Seniority, perhaps.

Nilo’s restaurant has always attracted a group of fairly prominent customers, including the president of Italy, other politicians, news people, and some business tycoons who own houses in the area. Hence, Nilo often wears nice dress pants and a sharp button-down shirt under his chef’s apron. Today it’s pale lavender.

Dove sei stata che non t’ho visto questi giorni, he inquires with the curiosity one comes to expect in Cetona. Where have you been that I haven’t seen you the past couple of days? He likes to keep tabs on me, and he is a bit distrusting. The other day I told him I was going to Milan for a few days to meet someone for some potential work. Sei sicura, per lavoro? Eh, ma si, per lavoro. Are you sure you’re going for work? Right, for work.

Nilo sits down at my table for a moment, I ask if he has reservations this weekend, if he is going to be busy. There are no people in Cetona, he says. He says it every day. We talk about how to bring more people to Cetona. Everyone needs more business. We talk about the idea of me bringing small group tours here, an idea I have considered in the past.

It’s one o’clock and I mention that I am tired today, that I feel like I am not eating properly, I feel depleted. He scolds me for my vegetarian diet.

Mica puoi mangia’ solo le verdure Sibilla. Devi mangia’ un po’ di proteine. Sibilla, you cannot eat only vegetables. You have to eat some protein, too.

He gets up and goes back into his restaurant.

Paola says the staff had penne with zucchini and peppers for lunch. Sounds good, I say. Cristiano, now forty, who runs the restaurant with his father, appears in the door between the bar and the restaurant. He is dapper in his waiter’s outfit.

Cristiano, alla Sibilla gliela fai la pasta come s’e` mangiata noi? Ma vuole mangia’ qui. Cristiano, would you make Sibilla the pasta that we had? But she wants to eat here.

Cristiano is of few words. We are out of peppers, but yes. Si. He smiles slightly and disappears.

Twenty minutes later Cristiano brings me a gorgeous plate of pasta—not in a pasta plate, mind you, but on a very large flat plate. The pasta is almost spilling over the edges. Sliced zucchini sautéed with a little tomato, basil and garlic. The sauce clings perfectly to the pasta, with just the right amount of oil, and there is a mound of parmigiano on top. The pasta is nearly falling out of the plate. It is huge and perfectly cooked.

Nilo comes up to the table and chuckles. He puts his hands together like in prayer and says, Ma ora mangi un piatto di pasta cosi?! You’re going to eat a plate of pasta, like that? he asks. He takes in my face, smiles, and pinches my cheek. Bella, he says.

Eh, tanto va’ a correre, la smaltisce! says Paola from behind the counter. She’ll go running later, she’ll run it off!

I read and write as I eat. Every bite is a source of supreme happiness. Occasionally I glance over at the plate to make sure I still have more left. In addition to the pasta being delicious, I am thrilled, simply and entirely joyous, to be able to eat here by myself, to eat and read here at this little table at the Bar Sport, a place where I have pranced, played, frolicked, sat, drank, smoked, talked, socialized, cried, and laughed since I was a kid. Exactly where I am sitting used to be a jukebox that played sad love songs. The soundtrack of our adolescence—sad love songs.

It is quiet here at lunchtime, except for hushed voices and the clanging of dishes coming from the restaurant. The bar is empty except for an occasional worker stopping in for a coffee. Paola is behind the bar, quietly cleaning up, arranging. I am chagrinned to near the bottom of my plate. I gather the last few penne on my fork, and I finish. I scrape the bottom of the plate and smile to myself.

As I finish eating, Mauro Cardetti, the town’s mechanic, comes in. Actually, I think there is another mechanic in town but who has ever heard of him? In my book there is only one. Mauro sold us and fixed every car my family ever had in Italy; his son Paolo is my age and we went to elementary and middle school together. Mauro has known me for more than forty years. Once I borrowed my mother’s car and literally drove the side of it up a wall. I couldn’t figure out how to back up without damaging the back of the car. I took it to Mauro, crying, and asked if he could fix it so my mother would not notice. He did. He is an angel. Now he is trying to find me a car to drive around here, something cheap. I would trust him with my life, really.

Sibilla, he says, coming up to my table, my plate still sitting there, che ti offro? Prendi qualcosa? Se non prendi niente mi dispiace. What can I offer you? What will you have? If you will have nothing, I will be sorry (literal translation).

The regulars come up from the basement of the restaurant and file into the bar one by one. They are the men, mostly bachelors, who eat at Nilo’s every day, the carabinieri of Cetona, a few local workers who live alone. And Giovannino. As long as I remember, Nilo has always had a solid group of them, mostly older single men. He feeds them well and treats them well, like family. They get a flat price for a primo, a secondo, water and wine. Then they get their espresso at the bar and head back to work.

I consider that maybe I should join them; maybe I should ask Nilo if I can have a special vegetarian deal. At least I would eat properly. And I am so grateful to have this food, to eat here, to be in this place.

Nilo comes through the door from the restaurant. He walks up to my table, leans into me and looks down at my plate.

Ma tutta l’hai mangiata? You ate all of it?

He laughs. And I do, too.

Sybil Fix©2013