One Summer in Italy. Sue Moorcroft

Il Giardino towards reception.

      Most of the tourist family agreed on lasagna but one little girl stuck out her bottom lip. ‘I want pizza with pineapple on.’

      The mum looked embarrassed. ‘You only want that because someone at the hotel in Orvieto told you that Italian restaurants never serve it. It’s an American concoction.’

      The lip went out further. ‘I want it. I want Hawaiian.’

      ‘No problem,’ Sofia assured her cheerfully. ‘I can ask the chef.’

      The teenage boy of the party snorted with lofty amusement. ‘It’s tourist pizza. They probably import it frozen from Tesco.’

      The girl glared at him and threw down her menu. ‘I like it from Tesco!’

      ‘Ours is even better,’ Sofia assured the youngster with a wink as she scribbled on her pad. Then she caught sight of the man from table eight emerging from the hotel foyer looking pleased with himself. Though she’d given way to the urge to make things awkward for Levi, now her efforts looked as they were paying off, she felt sudden compunction. Had she overstepped the mark in her wish to support Amy?

      Putting in table fourteen’s order a minute later, Sofia was afforded a grandstand view of Aurora approaching Levi with an apologetic air.

      ‘I’m so sorry.’ Aurora flashed a white smile from between immaculately made-up lips. ‘A customer has complained that you’re taking photos. I’m afraid it’s not possible for you to paint in Il Giardino any longer.’

      Levi hurriedly stuffed his phone into his pocket. ‘Sorry! I won’t get my phone out until I leave.’

      But Aurora just smiled more determinedly and repeated more firmly that he could no longer paint here. ‘Perhaps the terrace?’ she suggested. ‘The view, rather than the people.’

      Looking disgruntled as Aurora made her way back towards reception, heels tip-tapping on the concrete, Levi laid down his pad. Feeling a shiver of guilt about his obvious embarrassment, Sofia offered him a tentative smile as she turned to whisk off with a new order. When he paused in packing away his things to send her a baleful look she speeded her already brisk pace, pretty sure he’d like to ask her whether she’d somehow arranged his ignominious ejection. She’d prefer not to have to say yes.

      When the shift ended at six o’clock, Sofia was about to follow Amy in the direction of the staff quarters when Benedetta intercepted her to discuss the possibility of giving her a few shifts in the residents’ dining room and terrace. Liking the idea of working with such a fantastic view across the valley, Sofia happily followed Benedetta down the staircase to the lower level at the back of the hotel to prove that she knew how to lay a table and was willing to learn the menu system.

      Benedetta ushered her into a workstation behind the dining room. ‘For dinner, a choice from three starters, five mains, three desserts. Seven set menus, one for each day of the week. For lunch the same menu as Il Giardino offers. It makes it easy in the kitchen.’ She showed Sofia where the menus were kept in clear plastic pockets on the wall along with a file of laminated sheets detailing the ingredients of each dish so serving staff could reassure diners with dietary requirements. ‘Now I’ll show you the terrace.’

      Sofia suppressed the urge to say, ‘A member of staff allowed on the terrace when not strictly on duty? Isn’t there a rule about that?’ She followed Benedetta out into the slanting evening sunlight, nodding along to her boss’s recitation of what she needed to know about the terrace’s snacks and drinks menu. She noticed Levi Gunn was seated at one corner, facing the gardens and valley below and painting again.

      ‘And guests can eat from the Il Giardino menu out here at any time?’ she said as she saw him look from the view to his page and back again.

      ‘Correct!’ Benedetta gazed around with satisfaction at the beautiful terrace of stone pavers and wrought iron, flower tubs frothing in every direction. ‘Good. I’ll change your shifts around tomorrow and email your new roster to you.’ Benedetta began to turn away.

      ‘Thank you.’ Sofia hesitated before adding hopefully, ‘Amy’s learning quickly in Il Giardino.’

      Benedetta gave a decisive shake of her head. ‘She’s not experienced enough to come down into the dining room yet.’ She ended the interview with ‘Ciao’, which told Sofia she was now on slightly less formal terms with her boss.

      ‘Ciao.’ Sofia responded. She trained her gaze on the movements of a nearby waiter as if keen to learn, but as soon as Benedetta had bustled back into the hotel she drifted closer to where Levi was making tiny movements of a fine brush, drawn to this handsome biker who also painted Italian landscapes, even if she couldn’t shake her doubts about the attention he paid Amy.

      Her breath rushed into her lungs. His painting was charming – a couple of wispy white clouds against a blue sky, paler where the sky met the horizon. The furthest peak was mistily dark and flat, whereas the woodland on those closer was brought to impressive 3-D life with cunning brushstrokes picking out a row of tall, thin conifers like punctuation marks. Between the trees tiny details brought groups of terracotta rectangles into focus as hamlets and villages. In the foreground a stem of pearly white petunias from one of the pots that punctuated the railing around the terrace gave perspective to the rest.

      As if feeling the weight of her gaze, Levi skewed around in his chair. ‘Oh,’ he said when he saw her.

      Sofia stepped closer, setting aside any antipathy as she gazed on his work. ‘That’s truly beautiful. I feel as if I could step into your painting.’

      ‘It’s a watercolour sketch,’ he said. ‘I’m getting a feel for my subject before I attempt anything on canvas at home.’

      ‘Right.’ She nodded as if she understood the intricacies of watercolour painting. ‘Is this how you make your living?’

      ‘No. My day job is in website development. Painting’s an escape from spending all day poring over pages of code.’ He stuck the brush he’d been using into the darker of the two jars of khaki water beside him, turning on her a challenging gaze. ‘And at least nobody here gets me chucked out, making me feel two inches tall in the process.’

      Though her face heated up Sofia pinned on her most serene smile as she replied lamely, ‘I can’t help it if customers don’t want to be in your photos.’

      ‘You can help pointing out to them what I’m doing.’ Evidently he hadn’t been as oblivious to what Sofia had been up to as she’d hoped.

      ‘True,’ she acknowledged guiltily, wondering why she couldn’t quite get a grip on what kind of man Levi was. Then her eye was drawn to where the early-evening breeze flipped the pages of his pad as if with giant lazy fingers and she caught sight of the view of Il Giardino he must have been working earlier. Centre stage in front of the colourful and busy tables was a slender figure with blonde hair twisted up behind her head and a black dress covered by a white apron. Levi had painted Amy in the act of swooping a tray of drinks down from her shoulder and onto a table. Along with the movement he’d somehow portrayed youth and even Amy’s air of reserve.

      Though a part of the scene, the figure stood out, as if he’d focused hard on getting it just right. It made Sofia feel something – not jealousy, surely? No, more like envy, because there seemed to be something like affection in the careful brushstrokes.

      Gazing at his painting in silence she struggled with herself. She’d been downright rude to Levi last night and then deliberately caused mischief for him today. It couldn’t be because her nose had been put out of joint that even as Levi had been asking Sofia out he’d so blatantly ‘noticed’ Amy? Could it? She knew herself to be naïve when it came to men. Maybe, if he knew her thoughts, Levi would be incredulous that Sofia would mind?

      She cast around for an olive branch to extend, one that might even explain her pissy attitude last night. ‘You know, I feel a bit like Amy’s big sister. If I had a little sister alone in a foreign country I’d want someone to look out for her.’