Pipe dream

She was the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of mine. When I first met her she was shy and afraid to talk English, she said she didn’t remember the words.
She offered me a place to stay and a walking tour around the city, whit the promise of talk to me in English, but we ended up speaking Italian, Spanish and English mixing up our accents until we didn’t even recognize them in our words. She took me to every singular and outstanding place she knew in Firenze; the nudity of David, the smell of leather on the street markets, the soft and flavored gelato, the little stories around the city that comes from little holes and faces in the walls, the hidden spaces that only locals can find; paradise.
She showed me her own version of Italian food, the way she mixed ingredients I barely knew, every step followed by a family tradition, by a mix of condiments and olive oil, song after song, topic after topic, a couple of cigarettes and an Italian wine; I felt it could go on forever but we ended up with an espresso. I still don’t know if it was the espresso or all the things that were going through my mind that night, what makes me dream in a city with no name, where I can put those special moments that only last for a minute, that incredible sunset, the smell of a new dish, the sound of opening a bottle of wine, the cold in my face while riding a bicycle, that photo that doesn’t say enough about one memory in my head. And I put her there, wishing I could live that moment once again.