salt water musk

1. before you.

Crema, Lombardy, Italia
September 23rd ,1981

It was a Sunday afternoon when Chiara's mother, Imelda, woke her to collect the recipe for the next nights dinner. Her mother would spend the whole night preparing for the next evening so it was extremely important Chiara had got the supplies today.

Tomorrow was her father's university dinner, something he held every year. Their large home that only housed three would soon fit forty or more professors, alums, the chancellor, members of the board and students.

Daniel, Chiara's father, was a professor and not very secretly a favourite by all. With tightly coiled hair and beautiful dark skin her father was the only black person at the university. He was originally from California but after studying in Lombardy and meeting Chiara's mother, he had made the permanent move.

As a child Yara, a name only those closest called her, could remember some of the looks her and her father would get from some of the more small minded locals. However the individuals around their village and at the university saw her father as an equal and as the extremely intelligent man he was.

Yara's laces on her unkempt converses split as she tightened them, her socks sitting just right above. She grabbed her mothers list and a lemoncella candy, setting it in her mouth.

Her legs semi skipped to her old bicycle. Anchoring her feet around it she caught her balance before barrelling down the hill their house sat on.

La piazza was fairly empty, her friends sat in a cafe across the road but decided to do her mother's shopping first before deciding on if she even wanted to see them anyway. Not that Chiara didn't like her friends, she just liked time to herself a little more.

Her friends called her a social butterfly not because she thrived in social settings but rather the opposite. She was never in a room long enough to fully engage with others and she had a tendency to leave arbitrarily, if she was no longer in the mood to act.
A quality her parents or friends did not understand.

But to Chiara, the conversations that usually occurred between acquaintances were not very interesting to her, to be honest she found them quite boring.

The bell chimed as Yara stepped foot through the modern supermarket building. Compared to all the other buildings of the quaint town, it stuck out like a sore thumb with architecture she had only seen in American films.

Her mother was making tagliatelle ai funghi . Her mother always insisted on making everything from scratch so unlucky for Chiara that meant more to carry, although Yara didn't mind that much as her mothers cooking was better that any market brand.

It was fairly easy for Chiara to find the ingredients as the mushroom dish was one of her father's favourites so Imelda made it often.

The sun was now comforting and soft as she left the shop. Her bags sat on the handles of her bike as she wrapped her hands over to secure her mothers goods.

The colder weather lead Yara to peddle faster meaning she got home quicker than usual. Her old bike was flung across the miniature forest, that surrounded her whole house, as she practically ran up the small steps that led to her back garden.

As if at perfect timing her mother was seen putting her novel down before placing her coffee back in the saucer and the spoon inside the empty cup.