Basil, Parsley and Rosemary

di somethingtobelievein
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Disclaimer: Questo testo proprietà del suo autore e degli aventi diritto. La stampa o il salvataggio del testo dà diritto ad un usufrutto personale a scopo di lettura ed esclude ogni forma di sfruttamento commerciale o altri usi improri.

Lista capitoli:
Capitolo 1: *** The flying pink pot ***
Capitolo 2: *** Of how wind became my enemy ***

Capitolo 1
*** The flying pink pot ***

Chapter 1-The flying pink pot

My whole life I had dreamed of living in New York City.
There was nothing easier for me than to imagine myself sitting on the couch, reading, in a little apartment in Brooklyn. A flat barely big enough for two, with flowers on every window except for one, which would have basil, parsley and rosemary.
But now… now that this seemingly impossible fantasy of mine was about to come true, there was no way for me to picture it in my head. Where had that beautiful image gone?
I kept chasing it, while restlessly moving in my uncomfortable economy class seat. The fact that I was squeezed in between an old lady who was sleeping with her head on my shoulder and a man who wasn’t exactly average weight didn’t help.
Then I noticed that the sweet looking granny was drooling on my shoulder. Gross.
While considering my escape options (Would anyone notice if I spent the rest of the flight in the bathroom? Pretty much everyone was sleeping anyway… That was probably doable!), a stewardess made her way past. I tried to look as miserable as possible, sending a pleading glance her way. She smiled politely and kept walking. I wondered if my SOS was any good at all…
I scrounged for a tissue in my handbag as I began to wonder exactly why young ladies were seated next to handsome men only in love comedies…
Was it possible that I didn’t have a damn handkerchief?! Come on! Was that it? No, that was my customs and immigration form… Oh , there it was! The little bas—
“Excuse me…”
I looked up in surprise.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you seem quite uncomfortable here. Would you like to change your seat?”
“Yes, thank you,” I answered the hostess immediately, rather surprised that she had come to my rescue. “Thank you so much,” I added for good measure once we were on our way.
A few minutes later, I was sitting in heaven—also known as first class—and had a whole three seat row completely to myself. It took me about five seconds to fall asleep. At some point, somewhere in between when I was chasing a man sitting on a flying pink pot and when basil started growing on my head instead of hair, I thought I felt someone plopping into the seat next to me, but I was so far away in dreamland that I wouldn’t have bet a dead fish on it.
I woke with a start when the airplane jerked suddenly, to find that the sky outside my window was of a stunning bright blue, flooded with sun. As I slowly started to take in the rest of my surroundings, I noticed that the seat next to mine was actually occupied. I tried to cast a surrepticious glance and have a look at who was sitting there, only to realize that the ‘who’ in question was staring at me amusedly, trying (rather unsuccessfully) to hold back a smile.
Ahem…
I stared back at him (yes, ‘who’ was a man).
Awkward.
Should I say something...?
“Good morning,” I finally said, my voice cracking slightly at the end.
“Good morning to you,” he answered, now a full smile on his face. I couldn’t help but smile a bit myself.
“What is it? Do I have something on my face?” I raised a questioning eyebrow.
“No, no, it’s just that… this is the best flight I’ve had in a long while.” Ok, but why was he staring at me? “Oh, and who exactly is doing what with a flying pink pot?”
I thought about it, trying to remember the details of my dream. “The baker’s brother is sitting on it. He hates stepping on the lines that divide the stones that make up streets in his village, you see, but those stones are so small that there are too many lines for the poor man to actually walk; so he has to fly.” ‘Who’ was now looking at me quite seriously. “On the pot,” I finished.
Wait a second.
That’s when he burst into laughter and I started to realize...
That was my dream! How did he know about my dream?!
“How…?! I mean, that was MY dream…!”
“You talk in your sleep.” He somehow managed to say in between the laughter. “On a pot?!”
Oh no.

About five minutes later, when the whole flying baker’s brother thing had finally stopped amusing him so much, we were brought breakfast. I was way too embarrassed to say anything, while he seemed to be still thinking about the pink pot, judging from the half smile still lingering on his lips.
While drinking my orange juice, I started noticing things about him—the height, the dark beetle eyebrows, the broad forehead, the nose—and a weird feeling started rising in the pit of my stomach. It was like I knew him, like I’d seen him before, it was… déjà vu. He caught me staring and I shifted my eyes, concentrating on my sandwich.
“I’m Zachary, by the way,” he said, offering me his hand.
I shook it firmly. “Elena. Nice to meet you.”
“So Elena, why are you staring at me?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just that… Do I know you? I mean, is it possible for us to have met before?”
He laughed, looking at me in a way I couldn’t decode.
“Is that your cliché way of trying to hook up with me? `Cause I mean, after that dream of yours, I would’ve given you credit for a more fertile imagination.”
“No, I’m serious. I have seen you somewhere…” I furrowed my eyebrows in concentration.
“Does it matter? We’re here now, right? For the first time in ages I’m enjoying an eight hour flight, we’re having a good laugh! Stop trying so hard to remember and just relax. Let it go.”
He was right. And he was incredibly attractive. Not exactly your typical good looking man, someone you would call beauty given human features, but there was something about the way he looked at you, the way he moved, about his unshaved beard and shaggy black hair. Something about his eyes.
“Last time I checked, you were the one laughing and I was the embarrassed one,” I pointed out, taking a bite out of my blueberry muffin.
“Well, that’s exactly my idea of having a great time,” he smirked.

The rest of the flight went by in a blur.
We talked about all the strangest things, things you would never just tell to a stranger like we were doing. But then again—this must sound like such a cliché—I felt like Zachary was an old friend. We were tuned on the same wavelength.
I didn’t even realize a whole hour had gone by until we were told to fasten our seatbelts and get ready for landing. Before I knew it we were waiting for our luggage at baggage carrousel 5 of JFK, and I was feeling extremely uncomfortable. Why were so many people staring at us?
“Oh! That’s my bag,” he said, putting it on the floor. “Let’s hope your gets here soon. I don’t like how things are turning out.” He was already wearing sun glasses and now he put on a hat too, looking around nervously.
“You don’t have to wait here with me, you know? You’ve been nice enough already.” I immediately regretted those words. If he left now, we would never met again. I didn’t have his phone number, address, email or anything. Nor was I bold enough to ask for them—the last thing I wanted was to force him to keep in touch with me.
“What if I want to?” I was glad I wasn’t facing him—it was already hard enough not to blush while staring at the bags on the carrousel.
“Thank you,” I muttered. An awkward silence fell between us, and I was happy to break it with a relieved “Finally!” when my suitcase showed up.
“Can we leave now?”
“I have one more to wait for, I’m sorry. But, like I said, you…”
“Stop it, or I’ll start thinking you actually…” He froze.
“What’s wrong?” He was looking really worried.
“Forgive me, but I must go now.” He shoved his hand in his pocket and handed me a small card. “Bye.”
He walked quickly towards the other side of the huge room.
“Mr. Quinto!” screamed a woman, followed by a camera man and a photographer. Could it be… paparazzi?! Zach turned his head for a second and then quickened his steps. “Please wait! Mr. Quinto!”
He disappeared behind the sliding doors.
Goodbye Zachary Quinto.
Zachary… Quinto? The name definitely rang a bell.
“Wasn’t that Sylar?!” I heard someone say.
No way…

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Capitolo 2
*** Of how wind became my enemy ***

When I was little, my mother used to let me fall asleep next to her in the double bed. She would pick a book and read it to me, make me dream even though I wasn’t yet asleep. When my father came home, she’d carry me to my room and carefully put me to bed and tuck my sheets, trying not to wake me up. But no matter how hard she tried, I would still wake up sometimes, just for a few seconds, just long enough to see her kiss me on the forehead and hear her whisper into my ear that “We're not given dreams without the means to make them come true.”
I couldn’t help but remember that as I stepped inside my new home, 412 W 44^th Street NY.

The apartment was tiny indeed, but big enough for me and at a reasonable price, for sale! But finding it had been a lucky strike; I’d scanned the internet for two months before I’d found it, and now it was mine. I looked at the keys in my hand and millions of butterflies started fluttering in my stomach.
I placed my bags in a corner and pulled out my camera. This moment I would remember for the rest of my life.
As I walked around, things to do started to sprout like mushrooms in my head, and I realized it was time to do one of the things I most hated: make a list. I sat on the dusty parquet, near the huge window that opened onto the emergency stairway, pen and paper in hand.

Clean windows
Mop floors
Buy mattress + pillows
Buy fridge

I stopped writing and checked my cell-phone for the time. 11.37. It was still quite early; much could be done. I scribbled one more thing in my list and left.

5. Buy wall clock

Two weeks later, my list had pretty much become a book, and even though I’d done more than half of the things I was supposed to, the road ahead was still long.
Little by little, I had bought most of the furniture I needed, filling up my square meters, and ten boxes of my stuff had been delivered to my new address from my homeland, Italy. Each one came with a letter from my mom that would both cheer me up and depress me. She wrote about her life in Florence, my old life, about my younger brother and my grumpy old father. She wrote about how much she missed me, about how beautiful her vegetable garden was, and about how much nicer it was to take care of when we did it together.
All I could do was write back and be a little angry both at mother and myself. My dream was slowly turning into reality. How could I feel the slightest bit of sadness in such a time of joy in my life?! And why did my mother tell me of things she knew would make my heart ache?
But it wasn’t her fault, I knew that. All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves.
We must die to one life before we can enter another. And I could actually feel that other life slipping away from me.
Unfortunately, that was not the only thing leaving me. Money, it seemed, had decided I was not worthy of its company anymore, and my poor wallet had become discouragingly thin, my bank account dangerously empty.
I was definitely ready to start my new job as a small but renowned Italian restaurant’s Chef de Partie.
To be honest, I couldn’t wait to pick up cooking again. A crazy idea popped into my head, and before I could think twice I grabbed my jacket. Why wait until Monday? I would head to “Il Cantuccio” right away! Even if they didn’t pay me these three days, it wouldn’t matter.

While walking I noticed something in my pocket—a card.
Zachary Quinto.
First, remembering the wonderful time we shared, a wide smile crept on my lips.
Second, I realized what a complete idiot I was. The most wonderful guy had given me his number and I hadn’t called him. Someone, please, slap me!
Third, realizing that the two weeks Zach had mentioned as his staying time in New York had gone, I stopped in my tracks (causing an extremely angry and expensively clothed middle aged business woman to almost run me over).
Fourth, the most unlikely strong gust of wind stole the precious business card from me. And shoved it into a manhole before I could even process what had happened and look ridiculous and clumsy while trying to catch it.

To say that the owner of the ristorante was surprised to see me was an understatement. And the Chef de Cuisine was at least as glad to have me there as Pamela (that’s how she told me to call her) was surprised. It was definitely a busy evening, and the kitchen could use as many hands as it could possibly get.
I tied my hair, pinning every rebellious tuft of it to my head with my good old hairgrip friends, wore the new blindingly white apron I’d been given, changed my shoes into a more comfortable pair, took a deep breath in, and stepped out of the chef’s office into the bull ring. Let the show begin.
The spot I had been engaged to fill was that of the pâtissier, the pastry chef, and I must confess, I had my head spinning with how fast I had to work.
I mixed, broke, cut, mashed, diced, added, floured, poured, baked, boiled, milled, sprinkled, grated, shaped, tasted, steamed, frosted, washed, and cleaned, stopping only to pour down my dry throat some water once in a while.

Once peak time was over, I had my forehead covered in sweat and was in urgent need for something that was not sweet, so I chewed up one of the grissini I’d just taken out of the oven. Hmm… perfectly crispy, but a little more salt could do no harm.
I peeked through the fire doors to see how many customers were still waiting to be served dessert and, to my great relief, no one was. I sat on one of the many counter tops and watched as everyone cleaned their stations. The camaraderie of that kitchen was amazing—even as a novice, I could feel how everyone tried to help each other out. As soon as someone had noticed I couldn’t find something or couldn’t make it in time with an order, they had come to my rescue.

I got back home quite late that night and crashed on my bed, exhausted. As soon as my body hit the soft latex mattress that I’d temporarily placed on the floor, I fell asleep, fully dressed and all, hugging the contents of the eleventh box I’d received, my favorite pillow Dean.

Yes, I named it. So what?

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