Page 30 of Fight Me Little Pearl
My eyebrows rise. “Nice.”
I stay by Isabella and Serena’s side as more people pour in. Over the course of the evening, they introduce me to dozens of people whose names I no longer remember. Eventually, I arrive at the point when I start to feel suffocated. I need to take a break. I haven’t seen Valentino since he left the party with Roberto half an hour ago.
I spot my chance to slip away while Isabella is busily engaged in conversation with a haughty, middle-aged woman. In the distance, I can see a woman dressed in a soft-blue dress with snow-white hair sitting on the grass. There is a squirrel eating something directly from her palm.
“That’s Nonna Fabiola. She is the oldest member of our family. She is a hundred and two years old.”
“Wow,” I gasp. “I’ve never met anyone that old.” She is five times older than me and has lived for more than a century!
“Yes, she is very, very old, but she insists on living alone at the edge of Lake Garda. She is a bit mad, but the animals seem to like her well enough.”
“I think I’ll go and pay my respects to her.”
“All right, but don’t be long. Eros Ramazzotti will be arriving soon and you don’t want to miss that.”
As I approach, the bushy-tailed squirrel scurries off in a flash of grey fur, and she turns her head to look at me. The low sun is in her pale blue eyes and, I swear, there is something almost magical or otherworldly about them. Her face is wrinkled, but her cheeks are rosy. She is exactly how, as a child, I imagined Cinderella’s fairy godmother would have looked.
“Ah, the new bride. How impossibly beautiful you are,” she exclaims softly.
I blush at the extravagant compliment. Under no circumstances am I impossibly beautiful. I’m a five and a half, or six at best, definitely not an eleven.
I sit on the grass opposite her and look into her enchanted eyes. “What’s the secret? How did you get the squirrel to eat from your hand?”
“It’s a two-part process. One part is easy and the other part is a little harder.”
I smile. “Will you share your secret with me?”
She smiles back, her eyes glowing with joy. “Of course. Keep homemade hazelnut cookies in your pocket, and never ever give any harmful thoughts a chance to fester in your mind.”
I frown. No wonder the squirrel dashed away at my arrival. I have no cookies and I’m literally brimming over with harmful thoughts. “I’m afraid I’d find it impossible to accomplish the second part.”
She laughs, a carefree sound. “But that’s the easy part.”
I join her in laughter. I like this lovely, kind-hearted old woman, and I wish I could spend more time with her, but I can already hear Isabella calling out to me.
“Coming,” I shout before I turn back to the wonderful soul sitting in front of me. “Tell me what you have learned after 102 years of living on this earth.”
There is a far-away look in her eyes. “That every second of life is beautiful, immeasurably, stupendously so.”
I stare at her with astonishment. “How can you say that when you belong to a family where violence and ugliness is second nature?”
She smiles softly. “Ah, you want to change the world. Fill it with light and goodness.”
“Yes,” I admit. That is what drew me to Thomas in the first place because it is what he too wants to do.
She shakes her head. “In that case, my dear child, you will never be happy. Everything is already perfect, you just can’t see it, because you think it should be different.”
“Are all the wars raging around the world perfect?” I challenge.
“Humanity has always waged wars on itself. I have lived through two world wars, and it’s true they were terrible times, but some of the most beautiful moments in my life happened while my stomach rumbled for food and bombs rained down upon us.”
I hear my name called again and when I turn my head, I see Isabella standing at the edge of the party beckoning me with her hand.
“You must go. You are the guest of honor,” Nonna Fabiola says.
“I’m coming,” I shout and wave at Isabella, before turning back to look at Nonna Fabiola’s gentle face.
“A friend of mine is in an impossible situation. Can you please give her some words of wisdom, please?”
