I met Federico on a gray day between October and November in a small town in northern Puglia. A friend had recommended a restaurant 150 km away from my city, and despite the drab weather, I hauled my family to the spot for Sunday lunch. We were the only guests there: strange considering how pleasant the place was. The historic 17th-century building featured a courtyard decorated with pumpkins and wrought-iron tables, and an interior frescoed with stone barrel vaults.
Federico was the owner, and I liked him at first glance. He led us to the table, wearing a white shirt and a classic navy blue sweater, but without being predictable. I didn’t know his name yet, the name that would later become so familiar to me.
After the antipasti, he served us primi and brought us a red wine from a local winery: he clearly had good taste in more than just clothes. Between the primi and the secondi, I got up from the table and began to head outside for a smoke before Federico stopped me, saying, “Stay here in front of the fireplace, it’s very cold outside.” He moved my chair closer to the hearth to make me comfortable. I smoked my cigarette in warmth, without speaking, but feeling his gaze fixed on me. I felt observed, but in a discreet and complicit way.
The lunch, like all Pugliese lunches, lasted at least three hours. I didn’t feel like leaving that place with its warmth and its classic tunes of Rino Gaetano and Vinicio Capossela. When Federico said goodbye to me, he shook my hand lightly and politely, simply saying thank you. On the way back, my uncle was driving, and I looked out the window, watching the olive groves fly by, before searching for his contact on social media. I had never looked for a stranger online before, but I couldn’t help myself.
At 8:00 pm, I was at home on the couch, and I still remember receiving his first message: “What a pleasure to find you again.” That moment was the first of many–many messages and dinners and glasses of red wine. Gradually we became family, and that restaurant became home. But not all homes are forever, and after a few years, we parted ways.
Years later, as I was randomly looking through family photos of birthdays, beach vacations, anniversaries and weddings; faces that I no longer recognized and forgotten places, I paused on a photo of my mother’s birthday: her 60th, celebrated in one of our favorite restaurants near our house. Among the diners, captured by chance in the background of our celebration, I saw a face I knew well: Federico, six years before what I thought was our first meeting. He was there, sitting exactly at the table behind ours, unknowingly a part of our family celebration already.
And you, do you believe in fate?
