Chapter Text
“What are you doing?”
He looks up from where he sits with a screwdriver. Neatly arranged pieces of metal and plastic are lined up in rows around him. He’d been sick of sitting in a chair, stuffed into a scratchy-feeling suit, at a wedding reception he didn’t care about. When he disappeared, no one came looking for him, so he wandered around until he found an unused drinks bar in the corner of the venue. There were a lot of closed cabinets, but one of them had a blender in it. He wanted to figure out how it worked, why it was able to spin, and what the inside of the chunky base held.
But now…there’s a girl with bright green eyes staring at him in curiosity. She’d also dressed in children’s formalwear, a bright orange puffy dress, that with her brown hair makes her look kind of like an orange.
“I’m taking apart a blender,” He answers honestly.
“Blender? I don’t know that word.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know English. I’m really good at it! But I don’t know that word.”
The boy squints at her, wanting to know who she is, and why she doesn’t know the word for blender.
“Why’re you at the wedding?”
“My Zia–My aunt is getting married to her boyfriend. You saw, you were the ring boy.”
“Ring-bearer... and that was my mom. We’re cousins.”
“Like… Cugino? Cousins?”
“Yeah.”
The girl sits across from his as continues to work on the base of the blender. There are a surprising amount of wires hidden beneath the smooth plastic surface.
“Was she getting married to your dad?”
“No! That guy’s not my dad. He died a long time ago, so I don’t have one.”
The girl looks at him again, considering.
“I don’t have one either. No one knows where he is. Mama says he might come back one day though.”
“Probably won’t.”
She frowns at his words, “Yeah. Probably won’t.”
“Uh huh,” He looks away from the wires of the blender for a moment, “What’s your name?”
“Patrizia. You?”
“Narciso. I don’t really like it though.”
Patrizia hums, “Mine’s too long. I might shorten it. I like ‘Triz.’”
The way she says it is emphasized, like a real declaration.
“You say it like you’re a moviestar.”
“Well, I’m going to be a rockstar one day. I’m taking voice lessons at home. In Italy.”
He rolls his eyes, “Good for you.”
“So why do you take things apart?” She says, reaching out to touch one of the smoother, plastic pieces.
“Don’t touch that!” He snapped, and she jerked her hand back.
“What’s going to happen if I do–?”
“I… Don’t know,” He looked at the straight, organized lines of blender pieces was creating. If she touched one of them… who knows what might happen. He thinks something bad would happen, no he just knows something bad would happen. Something not-nice.
“Just. Don’t touch them. Not until I’m done.”
“...Okay.”
They sit there for a while. It’s not unpleasant, as he can continue to screw apart the base of the blender in piece. He’s almost done when Triz speaks again.
“Frullatore. It makes things into little pieces, with little knives.”
“Yeah. A blender is a frullatore,” He sets down the final pieces, and the feeling he had earlier, that something bad might happen, leaves.
“You can touch it now.”
She does so hesitantly, but inspects the wires.
“Bello!”
“What does that mean?”
“Oh. It means like… Good! But better than… good.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah! That-!”
She smiles, and he matches it. She points at his hair next, “Your hair is bella though.”
“Is that different?”
“Bello is cool. Bella is…pretty!”
“Thanks!” He thinks that this cousin of his isn’t that bad. She’s pretty bello even.
“Can I tell you a secret?” Trish asks, leaning in.
“Yes!” Secrets can be pretty fun, and he wants to know hers. She leans forward and parts her hair so that he can see the roots of it, and it’s pink like his.
“It’s turning pink?”
“Yeah! It used to be all brown, but I think in a couple of years, I’ll have pink hair like yours and Zia’s.”
“Cool… Can I tell you a secret?”
Her eyes light up, and she nods, “I won’t tell anyone!”
“My neighbors’ are on vacation, but they left their garage door unlocked. I’ve been taking their car apart.”
Trish looks down at the pieces of the blender, “Just like that?”
“Uh huh!”
“How long’s it going to take?”
“Dunno.”
“Oooh…”
From somewhere in the distance, he hears a voice calling out.
“Patrizia? Patrizia?”
Trish stands up, and waves her mom over. Narciso shrinks in on himself, but stands up too.
“Oh there you are! And Narciso, hello hello! But we must be going!” Zia Donatella gracefully ignores the bits and bobs of machinery as she scoops up her daughter.
“Say buonanotte, Patrizia!”
“Goodbye!” Trish says, and waves with a cupped hand, like a princess.
Narciso shrugs and tries to think of a proper goodbye, and decides to repeat what he just heard.
“Buonanotte!”
Trish smiles, and he smiles back. His aunt and his cousin leave, but he stays behind the bar until much later. He thinks about his cousin a lot that night. And Italy, and if the pieces of a ‘frullatore’ are the same as other blenders. But then his mom gets a call from the neighbors, and he doesn’t have time to think about those things anymore.