Chapter 8

Our guests thoroughly enjoyed eating at Papa’s. Tom and Noah discussed the menu and, wanting to try everything, and seemed to be at an impasse until Dani stepped into the discussion. “Tom,” he said, “why don’t you order one combination platter and Noah can order the other one? That way, you’ll have at least five different dishes between you and you can share them.”

“Works for me,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” Tom said, “let’s go for it.”

Over our meal, we learned that Gianni was from Buenos Aires, his grandparents having emigrated from Italy to Argentina just before World War II. “I’d never have guessed it,” I said. “You speak Italian like a native.”

“We lived in a neighborhood that was mostly Italian,” he said, “and it was my cradle language. I didn’t actually learn a lot of Spanish until I started school.”