Find you II

On the other side, there he stood again. Entrance 22nd, again. For six days he had been standing there under the ledge of the roof. How strange? He was slim, medium height, mid-twenty. His long black hair was woven into a braid at the back of his neck. The jeans hung loosely around his waist, maybe a bit too large, just like the black hoodie. Concealed only poorly the athletic stature underneath. The only disturbing thing was this gaze. Always directed at us. Piercing. I shook my head. No, I was reading too much in it. But that expression, somehow lurking and, that feeling, that queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach...

He stood some distance away from us. Just far enough that I felt safe, enough distance to run away, enough exits to escape. I tried to nip my paranoia in the bud. Too many unfounded worries had settled in my head since meeting him. This man. Alexandre de Valois. Near whom I didn't want to be trapped. Maybe because he reminded me too much of him... No! I never wanted to experience that again. To be stuck. No way out. Desperate. Fear that pressed slowly on the chest, the heart suffocating under weights, only gradually, until everything was numb.

I forced myself to keep walking, to look away, again facing the street out of steps. Stairs which had worn out towards their middle. The one in front of the old pink house even had a crack. A long, fine crack, and at the end of it the corner was missing.

Step by step we climbed down the sandstone steps to the marketplace, as we did every morning, and like every morning there was just us and Mr. 22 with a cigarette between his puffy lips. The place was empty. Ghostly abandoned. The long shadows of the houses stretched across the stairs. Most of them painted in pastel colours. Pink, yellow, orange. All warm shades, faded by the sun. In this very, very sleepy place, the colourful houses grew over the rocks and mountain slopes down to the harbour, to the sea. Only accessible by narrow alleys and steep stairways, sometimes almost a little adventurous with a toddler at hand.

Obviously! The man could only be a neighbour smoking his cigarette in peace in the fresh air, and we were the only interesting thing he saw in this alley. That was all! He seemed very interested, but he never tried to approach. We were the newcomers here. Unusual for a small town like this. Interesting enough that we dominated the village gossip for weeks. Nothing more.

I didn't believe that my annoying relatives tracked us down to here, nor my strange acquaintanceship with the brothers, of whom one had to be Eddy's father. How did I know that? Well... Eddy looked like a mini-copy of these brothers and one of them was (to 100%) our wanted ML. Only he didn't know about his luck yet.

I counted the houses, five more, then around the corner from the blue house, two houses further on, right along the natural stone wall to the last house at the end of the alley. Here was the little insider tip with the best coffee and pastries which could cause addiction. There it was, the inconspicuous café on the hillside with a view over the sea. Right above the cliff.

The bright ringing of a bell buzzed as I pushed the wooden door open. The sweet scent of pastry bounced directly into my face.

"Buongiorno." Signora Paula winked at him. Immediately the tip of Addy's nose stuck to the glazed counter display, behind which all kinds of pastry delicacies were building up. Cannoli, pasticciotto, sfogliatella, chiacchiere, Bauletti piled up on plates and platters. Baskets filled with Mandorlini, Amaretti morbidi and Cantuccini and behind them a petite woman was smiling at us, around the corners of her mouth were innumerable fine wrinkles that gave her something grandmotherly. But she was not yet the age. A mother suited her better. Paula had no children. Only a husband who was a master in creating these treats.

"Same as always?"

I nodded longingly. "One coffee. Please."

"And what does my little Bandito want?" asked Paulo and stepped out of the counter with a cantuccini in her hand.

"This," Addy pointed to the source of his desires.

Paula's smile became even brighter. "Will you give your Zia a kiss?", she asked and crouched down in front of him.

"Yes!" Obediently, Addy leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek before he reached out his hand again, demanding. Paula laughingly threw her head back. Before she slipped her hands under his armpits and lifted him up to kiss him gently on the cheek. But Addy's eyes only stuck to the said Cantuccini. Forgetting everything else around him. I pinched his cheeks. "What do you say?"

"Thank you," it slipped out between bites.

I looked apologetically at Paula. However, she was completely infatuated with her little Bandito and was already handing him the next Cantuccini. I didn't know what to say. Elodie would certainly have something to say. Her son who only thought about food and forgot everything else... I sighed and admitted defeat. Addy had settled down pretty well in this little village on the Italian Riviera. Maybe a little too well. He had already grown real hamster cheeks and his baby fat was sticking out of his waistband. But like Paula, very few ladies in this village could refuse this little prince with puppy eyes.

And Elodie, the only one who could, spent her day serving tourists in a small souvenir shop, among pottery and key rings.

As I trotted behind them and stared over my shoulder at the pastries behind the display case, I wanted so much to have that feeling of home, of trust and security, to finally have arrived - to feel at home... But everything around me was...new. Even after four months. I would probably never feel safe. Could I ever? Abandoned. Yes. But never home.

But this, all this... Elodie, Addy, the smell of fresh pastry from the oven, neighbours with a smile on their lips when they saw me, people who knew my name. Not just from magazines and posters. People who knew the person behind the name. Warm... that was my new life in the sun. Everyday life. I should have been happy. If there wasn't always this feeling, this gnawing in the pit of my stomach. This constant restlessness. But judging me was not fair. I was just confused. Scared. This was all new to me. My first time.

I just didn't want to admit it. That I'd finally found a place that kept me safe...

I pulled Adrien along beside me. The narrow street seemed calm and peaceful. Only a young woman walking in front of us, hardly older than me, with an ankle-length dress and a basket in her hand. And a man strolled across, his steps looking gangly, as if he had just come out of a harbour bar. Now and then he stumbled over the humpbacked pavement, his cigarette almost slipping from his thin lips. He cursed, but mainly because he couldn't light the stick, since with every attempt a breeze of fresh sea air was playing pranks on him and extinguished the flame in the blink of an eye. It was a sleepy morning like any other. Like always. The small village in the Italian Rivera with crooked and bumpy streets, colourful houses and noisy neighbours. The warmth that gently tingling on the skin. The air that smelled of the sea and herbs, like a plate of pasta ai frutti di mare from this nice little Ristorante Moretto, which was hiding behind nested alleys in pleasant seclusion. The house with cracks in its yellow walls, where weeds and ivy grew. Inconspicuous, weathered. The red shutters needed more than just a new coat of paint. Even the tiled roof does not look as if it would survive the next gust of wind. But it did survive. Survived, like a bastion of good taste. Only very few tourists strayed this far. But the locals knew where the sea had to caress the tongue. If not there, then at the farmers' market at the harbour, among fragrant cheese, crunchy vegetables and still wriggling fish and everything the sea offered, the locals gathered in the early morning to roar about the price, almost like at a Turkish bazaar. Parmesan, seafood, fresh tomatoes... what had Elodie said to buy. Eggs? Or ricotta?