My Italian Summer (On hold indefinitely)

My Italian Summer [2]

I sighed quietly as we hummed along in Nona’s ancient Holden burina and I let my head rest on the back of the chair. I could feel her gaze burning into the side of my head so I opened my eyes slightly and looked over at her with a small smile on my lips.

“It’s rude to stare you know,” I teased and she gave me one of her adorable Nona smiles before turning back to the road.

“I just very proud of you,” she announced in her slightly faulty English with her strong accent and I laughed quietly at the statement, only Nona would find a way to be proud of such a fuck up.

“Why? What have I done to be proud of Nona?” I asked her earnestly, turning my whole body to her as we stopped at a traffic light. She turned to me briefly with a surprised look on her face before retuning her attention to the road ahead of her.

“What have you not done? You finish all school and you going to more school. You the most educated Ronaldi woman ever,” she told me with another one of her trademark smiles and I couldn’t help but join in with my own little grin. There was no doubt about the fact that my Nona was the most caring and kind woman on the planet, no matter what I do she always finds a reason to still love me, or be proud of me. My Nona keeps me going on rough days.

Suddenly she swerved off an exit that we had almost passed and pulled into the restaurant of one of her closest friends; Giovanni’s. Giovanni is honestly the best cook in the world-apart from Nona. He can make better Italian food than any restaurant in all of Australia, bar none. As she parked in the special ‘reserved parking’ he had for all of his favourite customers she checked her appearance in the mirror quickly.

“Time for celebrate. Not every day my Ada graduates big school,” she announced with finality before stepping out and waiting patiently for me to follow. I looked in the mirror quickly and tugged down my short skirt before doing up the top few buttons of my shirt and adjusting my tie.

Now I know what your thinking- this chick is on crack! She’ll gladly look like a slut at school but when it comes to being in public with her Nona she goes soft?! Well you’re wrong. And if you call me soft again I can guarantee you’ll get a black eye out of it. The only reason I try to look respectable when I’m with Nona is I want her to have a reason to be proud of me, I love my Nona so much and I want her to be able to show me off to her friends without being ashamed.

She smiled approvingly at my outfit adjustment before taking my hand-yeah I hold my Nona’s hand still, you gotta problem?- and leading me into Giovanni’s.

“Uh Nona it’s really dark in there, are you sure it’s not clo-”

“-SURPRISE!”  Screamed the small group of Italian people that were standing in the shadows as someone flipped on a light switch. I jumped backwards quickly and turned to Nona in astonishment. Standing before me was her group of friends with a banner that said ‘Congratulations Ada!’ they all began screaming congratulations and other things at me in Italian and I felt a little overwhelmed by it all.

“Complimenti [congratulations] Ada!”

“Buon lavoror! [Good Job!] Ada!”

“Siamo cosi orgogliosi di vio! [We are so proud of you!]”

I felt myself beginning to tear up at the way they were all treating me. It warms my heart to know that they all bother to make such an effort even though attending my graduation was too much of an effort for my own mother. I turned to Nona once more and threw my arms around her, letting some tears slip out of my eyes before wiping them away and turning to the small group and giving them all hugs as well. Once again, call me soft and I will show you how soft your internal organs are after I rip them out.