I first met Nicola in Toronto through one of my childhood friends. It was a very brief encounter, less than a few minutes, but I remembered his tall, lean silhouette of a fine Roman figure. That’s when my childhood friend’s love affair with Nicola was still very blurred to me.
A few years later, I brought my 3-person family to stay in their flat for a few days while we went to London for our daughter’s spring break week. That flat was on the same street where the fiction “My Fair Lady” lived. Nicola accompanied our daughter to watch the VHS video of that movie. In the end, we all merrily hummed the “I could have danced all night” together with the lovely Hepburn.
Nicola planted a jar of mint by the kitchen window. We two shared our love of all sorts of herbal aromas and drank together the British Gray Earl tea mixed with the freshly minced mint, while the rest three members made faces to us.
That’s when I learned Nicola was a C-level executive of a rising star pharmaceutical company that just was acquired by a gulag pharma giant. Hence, he was on the way to plan his exit strategy.
“I am going to retire off the corporate world. Forever! Very soon!” My husband and I looked at him with awe. We were still too young to know better and unconditionally envied anyone throwing towels at the office and being gone for good and forever.
Another few years passed by. I ran into him again a couple of times in New York, where he followed my childhood friend’s new job and bought an apartment in mid-town. He was fully retired then and registered at Columbia University for an art history-related master's degree program.
Nicola very tastefully decorated their apartment. It was always a social gathering place whenever I was in town so my childhood friend could call up all our friends and had a good time.
Our daughter was graduating high school, and her wish was to travel to Europe as her high school senior year trip.
Being a child in a house with her first-generation immigrant Asian parents, a senior year trip was equivalent to a family trip at the destination decided by the most authoritative house member. Worse yet, it might also be pushed off one year as the most authoritative member of the house felt it was a better idea to have two BFF daughters go together with their BFF parents.
That’s what happened to our daughter’s senior year trip. Her then-already-Berkely-freshman-BFF and her parents and baby brother waited one year to join us on this trip.
The most authoritative member in my house felt like a drive-through-Italy senior year trip, so that was it for the rest of the six members of two very close families.
I accidentally mentioned this to my childhood friend, who was on the way to be transferred to Hong Kong. I asked to send my regards to Nicola at the end of the conversation.
“We broke up, but good news for you is that Nicola just bought a big apartment in Rome and almost done renovation. You folks should stay there when you get to Rome.”
So there went our most fondly remembered stay in that very grand marble-floored high ceiling more than a hundred years old apartment.
That’s also Nicola’s first time settling back to his hometown after decades of working and living in foreign lands. He was in good spirits and enjoyed tremendously being a professional tour guide to a bunch of wide-eyed semi-friends, semi-tourists like us.
We stayed in his apartment for three days, and he stopped us from renting a car at the first moment meeting us.
“You need to walk in Rome to appreciate her beauty. Let me guide you!”
So we walked, like locals, and we took buses along with him to venture into the much less known places of his favorites since his childhood.
We went to his favorite cafe to start the day with a small cup of powerful espresso. Then we walked to the Spanish Stairs, where he demonstrated how to drink directly from the running fountain built back in Roman time. In the afternoon, he brought us to one of his most favorite ice cream places.
Too many fond memories we left in Rome.
Yesterday, while I was searching for the souvenirs we bought back from our Italy trip, I came crossed the photos of the fruits Nicola brought us to buy after our ice cream treats.
I recalled he said, “Now let’s go buy some fruits for the rest of your stay.”
We followed him zig-zagged through a few alleys and stopped at a tiny grocery store where all kinds of fruits were displayed in the boxes.
Being the good Chinese friends’ type, I hurried one step ahead of the rest of us, signaling that I would be the person who was in charge of spending money to buy the produce for the rest of us.
I noticed Nicola slowed and stepped aside a bit, looking at me and my other already elbow to elbow fighting mom friend with an almost hidden amused smile.
I thought it was because he’s been very familiar with the Chinese moms' culture of fighting for paying for everyone until I put my hands on the apple trying to pick it up.
It was cold and heavy, and it was a stone!
The shock on my face was so authentic, almost as good as Hepburn’s when she thought the mouth of truth ate Peck’s arm in that movie of Roman Holiday.
Nicola burst into a hearty good laugh.
Then the rest of us were all exclaiming and laughing at these fake-as-real apples, pears, plums, and grapes in that small store.
That was a wonderful moment of ours.
Nicola is among a very few people I personally know who really understand how to create and enjoy a life of tiny moments like this.
