Still barefoot and wearing the little blue dress whose neckline against her pale skin looked like a smile of satisfaction, Alice had gone down to Sol in the kitchen and asked her apprehensively for an opinion. You look wonderful, Sol had said. She kissed her on the forehead and Alice had been worried about smudging her makeup.

In the kitchen Fabio moved with great agility and at the same time with the excessive care of someone who knows he's being watched. Alice sipped the white wine that he had poured and the alcohol produced little explosions in her stomach, which had been empty for at least twenty hours. The heat spread along her arteries, then rose slowly to her head and swept away the thought of Mattia, like the evening tide when it reclaims the beach.

Sitting at the table, Alice carefully assessed Fabio's silhouette, the clear line that separated his chestnut hair from his neck, his pelvis, which was not especially slender, and his shoulders, somewhat inflated under his shirt. She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

She had accepted his invitation because she had told Mattia about him and because-she was sure of it now-what she could find here was more like love than anything else she would ever have.

Fabio opened the fridge and from a stick of butter cut a slice that Alice thought was at least 80 or 90 grams. He threw it into the pan to thicken the risotto and it melted, giving up all its saturated and animal fats. He turned off the flame and stirred the risotto with a wooden spoon for another few minutes.

"Dinner's ready," he said.

He dried his hands on a dishcloth hanging over a chair and turned toward the table, holding the frying pan.

Alice darted a terrified glance at the contents.

"Just a little for me," she said, gesturing a pinch with her fingers, right before he poured a hypercaloric ladleful onto her plate.

"You don't like it?"

"It's not that," lied Alice. "It's just that I'm allergic to mushrooms. But I'll try it."

Fabio looked disappointed and stood there with the frying pan in midair. He actually lost a little color from his face.

"Damn, I'm really sorry. I had no idea."

"It doesn't matter. Really." Alice smiled at him.

"If you want I can-" he went on.

Alice hushed him by taking his hand. Fabio looked at her as a child looks at a present.

"I can try it, though," said Alice.

Fabio resolutely shook his head.

"Absolutely not. What if it makes you ill?"

He took the pan away and Alice couldn't help smiling. For a good half hour they sat talking over the empty plates and Fabio had to open another bottle of white.

Alice had the pleasant sensation of losing part of herself with each sip. She was aware of the insubstantiality of her own body and at the same time of the massive bulk of Fabio's, sitting in front of her with his elbows resting on the table and his shirtsleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. The thought of Mattia, so incessant over the past few weeks, vibrated faintly in the air like a slightly slackened violin string, a dissonant note lost in the middle of an orchestra.

"Well, we can console ourselves with the main course," said Fabio.

Alice thought she was going to faint. She had hoped it was going to end there. Instead Fabio rose from the table and took from the oven a baking dish with two tomatoes, two eggplants, and two yellow peppers, stuffed with something that looked like ground beef mixed with bread crumbs. The composition of colors was cheerful, but Alice immediately thought of the exorbitant dimensions of those vegetables and imagined them, completely whole as they were now, in the middle of her stomach, like rocks at the bottom of a pond.

"You choose," Fabio said invitingly.

Alice bit her lip. Then she timidly pointed at the tomato and he transferred it onto her plate, using a knife and fork as pincers.

"And?"

"That's enough," said Alice.

"Impossible. You haven't eaten a thing. And with all that you've drunk!"

Alice looked at him and for a moment she hated him deeply, as much as she hated her father, her mother, Sol, and anyone else who had ever counted the things on her plate.

"That one," she said, giving in, pointing at the eggplant.

Fabio served himself one of each vegetable, and before attacking them he looked at them with satisfaction. Alice tried the stuffing, barely touching it with the tip of her fork. Apart from the meat she immediately recognized eggs, ricotta, and Parmesan and hastily calculated that a whole day of fasting wouldn't be enough to compensate.

"How is it?" Fabio asked, smiling, with his mouth half full.

"Delicious," she replied.

She summoned up the courage to bite into a mouthful of eggplant. She gulped back her nausea and went on, one bite after another, without saying a word. She finished the whole eggplant, and as soon as she had set her fork down next to her plate, she was assailed by a sudden urge to vomit. Fabio was talking and pouring more wine. Alice nodded and with each movement she felt the eggplant dancing up and down in her stomach.

Fabio had already shoveled everything down, while on Alice's plate there still lay the tomato, red and filled with that nauseating mixture. If she cut it into tiny pieces and hid it in her napkin he would notice immediately because there was nothing to hide her apart from the candles, which had already burned halfway down.

Then, like a blessing, the second bottle of wine was finished and Fabio struggled from the table to get a third. He held his head in his hands and said out loud to her stop, please stop. Alice laughed. Fabio looked in the fridge and opened all the cupboards, but he couldn't find another bottle.

"I think my parents must have finished all the wine," he said. "I'll have to go to the cellar."

He exploded with laughter for no reason and Alice laughed with him, even though it hurt her stomach.

"Don't you move from there," he commanded, pointing a finger at his forehead.

"Okay," Alice replied and the idea came to her straightaway.

As soon as Fabio was gone, she picked up the greasy tomato with two fingers and carried it to the bathroom, holding it at arm's length to avoid the smell. She locked herself in, lifted the seat, and the toilet smiled at her as if saying leave it to me.

Alice studied the tomato. It was big, perhaps it needed to be cut up into little pieces, but it was also soft, and she said to herself who cares and threw it in as it was. It dropped in with a plop, and a splash of water nearly stained her blue dress. The tomato settled on the bottom and disappeared halfway down the drain.

She flushed and the water came down like healing rain, but instead of disappearing down the hole, it started filling the bowl and a less than reassuring gurgle rose from the bottom.

Alice drew back in horror and her bad leg wobbled so much that she almost ended up on the floor. She watched the water level rise and rise and then suddenly stop.

The sound of the siphon kicked in. The bowl was full to the brim. The surface of the transparent water quivered slightly and there at the bottom, motionless, was the tomato, trapped in the same spot as before.

Alice stood and looked at it for at least a minute, frozen with panic and at the same time strangely curious. She was reawakened by the sound of the key turning in the front door. She took the toilet brush and plunged it into the water, her face contorted into a grimace of disgust. The tomato just wouldn't move.

"What do I do now?" she whispered to herself.

Then, almost unconsciously, she flushed again, and this time the water began to spill out and spread over the floor in a thin layer, until it licked at Alice's elegant shoes. She tried to flush again, but the water kept flowing and pouring out, and if Alice hadn't put the rug over it, it would have reached the door and from there the other room.