Dolce

"Caffe? Dolce?" the waiter stops by to ask, leaning over the people at the end of the table in order to be heard.

"Cosa avete di bello stasera?" asks someone towards the middle.

The waiter puts one hand contemplatively on the shoulder of the man over whom he is standing and begins to reel off the options. The men order things with chocolate, cream, and sauce flavored with frutti di bosco. The women order sorbetti, causing a lively discussion to erupt. The theme of it appears to be that they should go ahead and indulge, have a real dessert, stop watching their figures.

Italian, Italianized English, and two varieties of dialect fly up and down the table, along with a lot of gesticulating and some of the idioms I have come to love so much. I can detect at least three different conversations occurring simultaneously, with people occasionally crossing over from one to the other as their opinion is requested - often by someone shouting down the length of the table. The guy sitting next to me is so animated he bumps me in the shoulder.

"Scusa!" he interrupts himself, touching my back briefly in apology before reaching around me to smack the guy on the other side of me, ostensibly to reinforce whatever point he was originally making. The waiter, in the meantime, has surreptitiously gone around the table and managed to confirm everyone's choices.

"Ah-oh!" the first guy finishes off decisively with something that is between a sound and an actual expression, as far as I can tell. I look around and take a deep breath, absorbing the smell of pizza and coffee, the jovial attitude, and the deep sense of contentment that my dinner companions, longtime friends who have taken me temporarily into their group, derive from each other's company. I'll miss this when I leave.