The Girl of his Dreams - Brunetti 17 by Donna Leon Page A

which to tempt them, when, in fact, Brunetti was sure the Contessa had not been inside the kitchen for decades. Luciana would probably have stopped her at the door, anyway.
    He got to his feet, and she did the same. She walked with him to the door of her study, reminding him to give her love to Paola and the children. He bent to kiss her again.
    'I'll let you know if I hear anything,' she promised, and he went home to lunch.
    6
    When Brunetti reached the landing just below their apartment, the air brought no hint of lunch. If Paola had, for some reason, not had time to prepare it, perhaps they could go out. Antico Panificio, not two minutes away, made pizza at lunch, and even though he usually preferred to eat it in the evening, Brunetti thought he would quite like a pizza today. Perhaps with rucola and speck, or that one with mozzarella di bufala and pomodorini. As he walked up the last steps, he busied himself adding and subtracting toppings from his notional pizza until, as he put his key in the door, he was left with rucola, hot sausage, and mushrooms, though he did not know where those last two had come from.
    All thought of pizza fled when he opened the door to the apartment and caught sight of Paola turning into the living room with an enormous bowl of salad in her hands. That meant one of the children, no doubt in a moment
    of suicidal optimism, had decided they should have lunch on the terrace. Without even closing the door, Brunetti took three steps down the corridor and, sticking his head into the living room, called out to the three of them, now seated outdoors and waiting for him: 'My chair goes in the sun.' By this time of year, the sun appeared on their large terrace for a few hours each day, the period growing longer as the year advanced. But in these first weeks it fell only on the far end of the terrace and then for just two hours, one on either side of true noon. So only one chair could be placed in the sun, and since Brunetti considered it an act of sovereign madness to eat outside this early in the year, he always claimed that seat as his own.
    Having staked his claim once again, he went back and shut the front door. From the terrace, he heard scraping sounds. Here in the living room, the sun had been coming in for much of the morning.
    His place, the sun shining on to the back of the chair, was at the head of the table. He walked towards it, patting Chiara's shoulder as he passed her. Chiara wore a light sweater, Raffi only a cotton shirt, though Paola wore both a sweater and a down vest he thought belonged to Raffi. How was it that parents as cold-blooded as he and Paola had produced these two tropical creatures?
    He was instantly glad of the warmth on his back. Paola reached for Chiara's plate and, from a large bowl in the centre of the table, spooned up fusilli with black olives and mozzarella: it was a bit early in the season for a dish like this, but Brunetti rejoiced in the sight and scent of it. After setting the plate in front of Chiara, she passed her a small dish of whole basil leaves: Chiara took a few and ripped them into small pieces to sprinkle over the top of the pasta.
    Paola then served Raffi and Brunetti, both of whom added torn basil leaves to their pasta, and then she served herself. Before she sat down, she set the spoon aside and covered the bowl of pasta with a plate.
    'Buon appetito ’ Paola said and began to eat. Brunetti took a few bites, letting his whole body remember the taste. The last time they had eaten this dish had been towards the end of the summer, when he had opened one of the last bottles of the Masi rosato to go with it. Was it too early in the year for rosato? he wondered. Then he saw the bottle on the table and recognized the colour and the label.
    'There are calamari ripieni after ’ Paola declared, no doubt hoping to make it easier for them to decide who wanted to finish the pasta. Chiara, who had the day before added fish and seafood to the list of things she,