The Olive Grove [SAMPLE]

Chapter One

The Olive Grove is dedicated to my wonderful husband, who encourages my incorrigibly dirty mind.

"There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenerythat enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations." —Washington Irving

Giovanna had been named after her grandmother, a woman whose pasta puttanesca was said to have ensnared her grandfather Eliseo after just one bite. Her name, long since shortened to Gia, and her predilection for Italian food were the only things truly Italian about her.

As a child, sitting at the dinner table with her sisters, Gia rolled her eyes every time the legendary love story of her grandparents came up. They had met during the olive harvest. He was from Rome and she was from the small hill town of Tivoli—an easy conquest, or so her grandfather thought. Nonna Giovanna saw through Eliseo's rambling ways and gave him the run-around for several years. Desperate, Eliseo would stand in the middle of the piazza, guitar in hand, and sing into the late hours of the night, begging for a chance. His voice was so terrible, the story went, that soon the entire neighborhood was pleading with nonna Giovanna to marry him just to shut him up.

It wasn't until Gia grew up that she could appreciate their story. Whether it was a tall tale or the truth, no one knew for certain, but it was the kind of feel-good yarn that inspired a wistful sigh.

At nearly thirty, Gia had yet to successfully cook pasta al dente or score a relationship that lasted for more than a few months. Striking romantic gold akin to her grandparents was seeming more and more like a fantasy. She whiled away evenings at speed-dating marathons and New Age tantric sex courses for singles. Fifteen accounts on various online dating sites had only yielded a string of men with foot fetishes, mamma's boys or divorcées looking for women half their age. In short, Gia was unlucky.

She had gone to several meditative workshops and had taken up yoga in hopes of unwinding the knot of tension in her belly but nothing had worked. Sex seemed to do the job except Gia despised one-night stands and the awkwardness that followed.