"My wife is an incredible woman." Dante interrupted my trance with this monumental understatement.
"This is your wife? She's here right now?" I could barely believe it. I was thinking that this was all a collector's homage to some remote, aloof superstar, not a husband's proud display of his wife's talent...
"Yes, she's an opera singer. She's quite well known. Within the opera world that is." Dante added humbly.
"In Italy they are calling her "La Divina" which is what they used to call Callas. It's quite a compliment. I call her "honey" but you can call her Angelica when you meet her."
It was just too much. The power of this woman's voice, the colors in the store, the photos, this man with his hands on my shoulders speaking into my ear... my head began to spin again.
"I want to show you something." he said simply, interrupting my reverie and guiding me back to the front counter. On the counter, where the cash register should have been stood a large, beautiful cake under a crystal dome. Well that would explain the wonderful smell, I thought to myself. From behind the counter he pulled out a large, white pad and a set of oil crayons. He opened the box of crayons, carefully set the box inside the lid, folded the cover of the pad back and set it on the counter all the while looking at me as though he knew a great secret.
"I want you to draw this cake for me Bryan." he said in a manner that was as matter-of-fact as it could possibly be, as though he were asking a child to do his homework...
"I... uh... what?" was the only answer I could manage. All the old fears of public embarrassment suddenly rose to the level of my heart, which began to race quite audibly. My ears began to ring, my palms began to sweat and I suddenly felt the urge to pee. It was the exact same burst of momentary panic I�ve always felt immediately before making an entrance on stage, but of course, by that point, it was always too late to turn back...
Dante's eyes still had not left me and he smiled, placing the blank pad in front of me.
"I know that you think you can't draw," he said, pushing the box of pastels across the counter towards me, "but I think that you are about to be very surprised."
It had already turned out to be a fairly surprising afternoon I thought. Well, there was no one else about and I doubted that this man would be so rude as to make fun of me...
The colors in the box twinkled and shone like tiny jewels, beckoning me to touch them. The cake was covered in a layer of milk chocolate icing so I reached for the brown pastel and gently removed it from the box. Looking up at Dante for encouragement, he gave me a faint nod and a smile. I looked down, took a deep breath, and touched crayon to paper for the first time in almost twenty years.
I would love to tell you about the masterpiece that poured forth from me that afternoon, but unfortunately, I can't. What actually came out was a crude line drawing with some poor attempts at shading that no one would ever decipher in a million years. The moment I stopped to look at it, all the artistic fears and insecurities of my childhood came rushing back to me. Before I could open my mouth to berate myself, Dante interrupted me.
"Hmmm. Just as I expected." He said sounding very much like a doctor making a diagnosis. He took the pad from me, turned the page over exposing a clean sheet, and set it aside. He then produced a large knife which shot chrome colored light beams everywhere and cut a giant slice of cake, setting it before me on a cloth napkin.
"Touch it." He directed simply.
"What? Why?" I asked him. But no sooner had I asked it than I suddenly realized I did want to touch it. I reached a tentative hand forward and gently poked it with my index finger. It immediately sprang back leaving only the slightest indentation. A bead of icing clung to my fingertip and I slowly rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger feeling how it suddenly began to conduct heat. I again pressed my finger into the dark depths of the cake and it yielded to my touch, surrounding my flesh with its moist darkness. It was mud pies, it was cotton candy, wet paint, Play Dough, Silly Putty, marshmallows and that white paste we all ate in grade school all wrapped into one. I had never touched anything so amazingly... tactile, so... sensual.
Suddenly, I realized that there was cake everywhere, all over the counter, the floor, the cash register... but before I could apologize Dante picked up a piece of the cake and proceeded to feed it to me. I leaned over the counter and opened my mouth to receive it. Quite a bit of it remained around my mouth but neither one of us made any move to clean it up. I closed my eyes and savored the texture, the smell, and the incredible flavors of this chocolate nirvana. It was as though my mouth had instantly become a flavor computer. I could immediately taste every single ingredient that was used in its making; the dark Belgian chocolate, the flour, the eggs, (whites only) the butter (unsalted), the rum (dark) and all the other ingredients came to the forefront of my palate one by one. I could see the ingredients, mixing, swirling, pouring, and baking, the ovens' heat caressing and coaxing them into a swollen state...
I swallowed and opened my eyes eager for the next piece. All traces of the cake were gone. In front of me stood the clean drawing pad and the pastels and Dante smiling at me as though he had just discovered a secret he had no intention of sharing with anyone.
"Now, draw the cake again Bry-boy." he said as though he were a childhood friend daring me to touch a garden snake in his backyard...
