Notoriously Beautiful

13

A Town Called San Saba

(Friday morning at 9:00AM)
I get ready and I hear a loud car honk from outside the house. I saw Samuele from my front door, and walk out with my purse and sunglasses. I am so excited to go to the town called San Saba. Marco and Samuele made it sound so wonderful the other night.
I step inside Samuele's car, it's beautiful. It is white with green stripes. Inside, Marco was sitting in the passenger seat with Samuele in the driver's seat. Marco gets out of the car and comes to sit in the back with me.
"Hello Samuele, hello Marco," I say, getting myself comfortable.
"Ciao Katerina,"Samuele says.
"Ciao bella," Marco says.
I look to the front of the car and I realize Samuele is driving a stick shift car. Then I look to my window and I realize it is a roll down-roll up window. The difference from Italy and New York, in terms of cars, is in New York they would pay twice the amount for Samulele's old stick shift. Everyone likes vintage, vintage this and that, I'll pay $500,000 for an old piece of junk. Like NO, I want the newest version and I want it for half price because everyone wants the old ones. Theypray one day it will be worth more because it's even older, does that make any sense at all? In Sicily they have the old cars because that's what they can afford. Not speaking for everyone for course.
In Sicily, you pay less for the old stuff, and more for the new stuff. See, that makes sense to me.
It feels like it's 100 degrees in the car. My flesh is burning so I roll down my little window and stick my head out the window. There are only three cars that I can see in front of us. I look back, there is only one in sight. Then I look to the horizon, as far as the eye can see mountains dominate the sky. Above, blue sky dominants, it is so clear, there aren't many clouds, I see straight through all that is in between me and the mountains, which is not THAT much. Finally I tilt my head downwards and realize we have already driven up a tiny hill because I can see a beach from where we were down below.
I don't talk much on the ride to San Saba, I prefer to observe in the car. Especially when the views are so much different than what I'm used to. I've said the word beautiful so many times since I've been living here. I feel so lucky that I got to make my own choice. I chose to move here, I didn't have an adult make the decision for me, because I am an adult, and I'm responsible. So many good things about moving. I can count ten right now, but there's a thousand more stored up in my brain. They are simply hiding.
In a way I owe all this to my Nonna. If she hadn't done everything as she did, I could have never been here now. I could have never met Marco, or Simona, and all my new friends.
After all my looking and thinking we get to the town.
We pass the sign that says SanSaba. I can already tell it was a beautiful town. It was a strip that was very long and thin. I realize the town was elevated because I still saw a clear but rocky beach below us. It wasn't too far down, so the town was on a little hill. It was just as Samuele said, the houses and buildings of the town are wonderful, they are also very old. When we drive into the town's center I see that the floors are made of cobblestone. It is such a charming, little town.
When we get to Samuele's parent's house, I get out of the car and stare in awe. It's magnificent. It was built with beige and brown stones. It is tall, and it's width was small. It didn't look like an apartment, but it was.
The door is unlocked, Samuele just opens the door without a key. He gets out of the way so I could go in first. So as I walk in I hear a loud noise. I wonder what it was but then as I look around I saw at least five, maybe six fans spinning. I chuckle a little. They were just circling hot air around the room. Then I feel someone pull my arm a little.
"Can I talk to you," Marco asks me.
"Of course, what's wrong?" I say, confused.
I see Samuele walking around looking for his mom. I want to go help him look but when I see how concerned Marco looks I get worried.
"Well, I wanted to know what's wrong," Marco says.
For a second I completely ignore what he was saying and focused on his adorable accent.
"Wait, what do you mean. Nothings wrong," I say.
"Bella, something has to be wrong, you barely said a word to me in the car ride," Marco says.
I put my hand on the back of his neck. I run my hand through his curly brown hair.
"I promise, nothing is wrong. You're so sweet, I just like looking at things when I'm in the car. I always have, I don't know why," I say, laughing a little.
I see his face get so red, he looks like the tomatoes we are about to make into sauce.
"Alright, that's good news," he says, his voice cracking, he looks like a dog when they get a really nice belly rub.
He just smiles at me but then Samuele calls us over to him. He had found his mom upstairs in his aunt's apartment.
"There are three floors, my parents live on this floor, my aunt and uncle live on the second floor, and their kids live on the third," Samuele says.
"That's so nice that they can see each other whenever they want," I say. Family, how powerful.
"It really is nice, they are going to help us make the sauce today," Samuele says.
I hear footsteps walking down from above, and Samuele's parents come inside this floor of the house to greet me and Marco. At the same time I hear someone knocking on the door. I go to open it and when I do six or seven people rush through. I am practically pushed into the wall.
They all apologize, almost immediately. When they realize what happened. "Scusa" is the word for sorry in Italian. In fact the whole time I'm going to talk to everyone in Italian. I don't want to be rude because Samuele's parents don't speak English.
I take a look at all of them. They're all tall and slightly overweight. I look over and I automatically can tell which one of them is Samuele's mom. Samuele's mother reminds me of my Nonna Katerina. She was so sweet and so wise. All of Samuele's family seem really kind, and humble.
Making sauce is a process, I'm not sure if I should expect something like when we helped Tomasso's grandpa harvest the olives? Maybe it would be much harder. I don't have to make so much every time.
First Marco and Samuele's first cousin Giovanni put all the tomatoes in two large buckets and hose them down with water. Then all of us cut the vines off of them. Then Samuele, me and Francesca, another one of Samuele's first cousins, put all the tomatoes into a gigantic pot that is set on top of a flame, like an extra big Bunsen burner. Half of us mix with large wooden spoons, and half of us crush the tomatoes with the bottom part of large wooden ladles.
When the water in the tomatoes evaporate, the sauce is left in the pot. Then we put it through a large strainer type machine to filter out the seeds.
Finally we put the sauce in jars and that's it, finished! The hardest part was the mixing over the flame. It was already hot to begin with, on top of that natural heat was heat from that flame. We made enough to last through the winter, at least that's what Samuele's dad said. I thought it would last for another hundred years but I guess they eat a lot of pasta with sauce!
We managed though. Samuele's family thanks Marco and I for coming to help.
"I bet it tastes so much better than a store bought one. Now that I know how to make it I want to make it more often," I say.
The whole process took about 3 hours. I check my watch, it's 3:00pm. It's still not late. Samuele offers to take Marco and I around the town.
"it's even more beautiful after sunset," Marco says.
"Another time, I'm really tired, but really thank you so much," I say.
"No thank you, you're right I have to get back too. My wife didn't want to come today to make the sauce because she wasn't feeling that good. It's her back, I should get back to her," Samuele says.
So I wave goodbye to Samuele's family and get back in the car. His mother gives me two jars, two big jars of sauce.
"Grazie, signora," I say.
Samuele drives us back to Nizza, and drops me off first. When I get out of the car and thank him for the ride, What will Marco talk about with Samuele when I leave? There's no way to know for sure, I guess.