Italian for Beginners

by Kristin Harmel

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

Thirty-four-year-old Manhattan accountant Cat Connelly has always lived life on the safe side. But after her little sister gets married, Cat wonders if she has condemned herself to a life of boredom by playing by the rules. She decides to take a chance for once, accepting an invitation to spend a month with an old flame in Italy. But her reunion with the slick and gorgeous Francesco is short-lived, and she finds herself suddenly alone in Rome. Now, she must see if she has the courage to live outside the lines for the first time - and to face a past she never understood. It will take an unexpected friendship with a fiery Italian waitress, a whirlwind Vespa tour of the Eternal City with a handsome stranger, and a surprise encounter with an old acquaintance to show Cat that life doesn't always work out the way you expect, but sometimes you have to have fall in order to fly.

Release date: July 25, 2009

Publisher: 5 Spot

Print pages: 386

Sample

The Art of

FRENCH KISSING

“Overflowing with bubbly fun, filled with delicious romance and madcap adventures, and, toujours, intoxicating with the magic
of Paris… Like a bottle of champagne… You’ll drink it down in one glamorous gulp.”


—Julia Holden, author of One Dance in Paris

“A sweet, funny tale about losing love and finding yourself. Set against the backdrop of the most romantic city on earth,
The Art of French Kissing takes us on an exciting whirlwind of glitz, glamour, and celebrity scandals—with a side order of reinvention.”


—Johanna Edwards, author of The Next Big Thing

“I’m a big fan of Kristin Harmel, and The Art of French Kissing is my favorite of her novels.”


—Melissa Senate, author of See Jane Date and Love You to Death

“Très magnifique! I loved this book and you will, too!… A sweet and adorable page-turner that will make you long for the City
of Light.” —Brenda Janowitz, author of Scot on the Rocks

“A fun, lively story that made me fall in love with Paris all over again.” —Lynda Curyn, author of Bombshell

“Harmel’s novel is a fun, high-spirited piece of chick lit.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

“A sweet, surprisingly gentle story… I enjoyed it.”

—MrMedia.com

THE BLONDE THEORY

“Entertaining.”                                                          —London Free Press

“Rush out and pick this one up. You’ll be glad you did. So entertaining that I won’t be surprised if this one ends up on the
big screen.” —NightsandWeekends.com


“With a smart heroine willing to date as a bona fide ditz, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments… the true joy comes
when Harper drops the silly blonde act and gives the shallow men she meets a piece of her mind.”


—Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine


HOW TO SLEEP WITH A MOVIE STAR

“Hilarious.”                                                                        —Cosmopolitan

“We recommend How to Sleep with a Movie Star.”


—New York Daily News

“Hilarious… deliciously entertaining.”

—Sarah Mlynowski, author of Milkrun and Monkey Business

“Kristin Harmel dishes with disarming honesty and delivers a sparkling, delightful story about the push and pull between being
average and being a celebrity.”


—Laura Caldwell, author of The Year of Living Famously and The Night I Got Lucky

“Forget the movie star! For a really good time, take this hilarious book to bed instead.”

—Jennifer O’Connell, author of Dress Rehearsal and Insider Dating

I feel like my life gets better and better each year because of all of the wonderful people in it. I’m so lucky to have so
many great friends and loved ones.


A special thank-you to Amy Tangerine, whose creativity and kindness inspire me; Gillian Zucker, who keeps me grounded; Lauren
Elkin, who broadens my world; Kara Brown, for all the smiles (and for being my Rome traveling partner); and Kristen Milan
Bost, who can complete my sentences and whose wedding I was so honored to be a part of (congratulations!). Thanks also to
my amazing mother, who gave me a solid foundation and continues to surround me with love; to my sister, Karen, and brother,
David, who are two of my favorite people in the world; and to my dad, who I am glad to be getting to know better. I’m also
fortunate to have a great extended family—especially my wonderful grandparents, Donna, Steve, Anne, Pat, Fred, Merri, Derek,
Jessica, Gregory, and Janet.


Thanks to all those whom I have the pleasure of working with, especially my talented, insightful editor, Karen Kosztolnyik;
my wonderful agent, Jenny Bent; the publicity team of Elly Weisenberg and Melissa Bullock; and the 360 Media team of Tara
Murphy and Ashley Hesseltine. Thanks also to Michelle Rowell of Piper-Heidsieck, Katarina Maloney of Pierce Mattie, and Jessica
Eule, Shauna Maher, and Mara Piazza of Mediabistro.com. Thanks to my film manager, Andy Cohen, who becomes a better and better
friend each year (I owe you a burger at Barney’s!); my People magazine editors Nancy Jeffrey and Moira Bailey; my UK editors Cat Cobain and Sara Porter; and of course Caryn Karmatz Rudy,
Celia Johnson, and Mari Okuda at Grand Central. And a huge thanks to the writers who have become my dear friends, especially
Megan Crane, Liza Palmer, Jane Porter, Alison Pace, Sarah Mlynowski, Lynda Curnyn, Melissa Senate, Brenda Janowitz, Laura
Caldwell, Lauren Myracle, E. Lockhart, Robin Palmer, William McKeen, and Lisa Daily.


Thanks to my many wonderful, amazing, talented, kind friends, including: Scott Moore, Lisa Wilkes, Courtney Spanjers, Ryan
Newell, Kendra Williams, Wendy Jo Moyer, Elizabeth Rivera, Chris Loomis, Leonard Holman, Megan Combs, Amber Draus, Willow
Shambeck, Melixa Carbonell, Julie Walbroel, Sanjeev “Jeeves” Sirpal, Trish Stefonek, Krista Mettler, Don Clemence, Michelle
Tauber, Christina Sivrich, Zena Polin, Wendy Chioji, Courtney Jaye, Ryan Dean, Ben Bledsoe, Lana Cabrera, Pat Cash, Courtney
Harmel, Janine Harmel, Megan McDermott Lewis, Ryan Moore, the real Marco Cassan, Evan Lowenstein, Kate Atwood, Samantha Phillips,
Steve Tran, the Rock Boat Girls (Maite, Amanda, Gail, and Michelle), Barry Cleveland, Michael Ghegan, Denny Hamlin, Steve
Helling, Vanessa Parise, Amy Green, Ashley Tedder, and the Pearson family: Susan, Carleigh, Cole, and Luke.


To Amy, Courtney, and Gillian: May our TIC-TAC adventures continue as we raise a Harmtini, a Tangerinetini, a Courtini, and
a Gilli-tini to our friendship at Katsuya! And of course to the Kristin Convention.


A “woof” and “meow” to some of my favorite four-legged friends: Duke Harmel, Bailey Harmel, Ty Cleveland, Buster and Bamboo
Tan, Emma Carbonell, Tater Tot and Annie Shambeck, Chloe Ghegan, Josie Atwood, Carlie Pace, and Parker and Miles Newell.


And to all of you whose belief in love has been tested: hold tight to the belief that things work out the way they’re supposed
to in the long run, even when life gets in the way. So just be you, treat others the way you’d want to be treated, and enjoy
all the adventures along the way to your happily ever after.




It all began with a wedding.


My little sister, Becky, and I, along with a few cousins and friends, had been brushed, buffed, and polished to perfection
that morning at our favorite salon on the Upper East Side. Vows had been written and rehearsed, something blue had been borrowed,
and as I stood on the altar, watching my baby sister prepare to promise forever to a man she’d known for a year, I couldn’t
help feeling a bit like I was the something old to her something new.


“Rebecca, do you take Jay to be your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for
richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do you part?” asked the priest, gazing down at my sister.


“I do,” she said softly.

Her fiancé, Jay, echoed her vows as he looked at my redheaded sister, whose pale, freckled skin looked perfect swathed in
the silk of her ivory Carolina Herrera dress.


Just as the priest was moving on to his next line, something serious about the vow of forever, I heard a low mumbling from
the front row of the church. I tried to tune it out, knowing full well what it was. Not now, I thought. Please, not now.

But the mumbling got louder.

And then it took on the distinctively raspy Irish brogue of my grandmother.

“What’s this?” she asked loudly as my dad tried in vain to shush her. “Is that little Rebecca getting married?”

Another mumble ran through the church as my grandmother’s voice rose and floated through the congregation. Becky turned around,
glanced at Grandma, and then looked at me in horror. I shrugged, helpless. What could I do? I was standing at the altar, several
long yards away from the front row of pews. And clearly, Dad wasn’t having much luck shushing her.


“Mum!” I heard my father whisper desperately. “Shhhh! It’s Rebecca’s wedding!”

“Rebecca, you say?” demanded my grandmother loudly, her Irish brogue sharpened around the edges by a lifetime of smoking addiction.
She coughed to punctuate her question. “Rebecca? But Rebecca’s the younger one! What about Cat?”


I closed my eyes briefly, hoping that perhaps my father would have the good sense to drag his mother from the church. But
of course this was an Irish Catholic wedding—a wedding in our large Connelly clan, no less—and what good would it be without
a little disruption from my grandmother?


“Yes, Mum, Rebecca’s the younger one,” Dad whispered soothingly. “You know that. Let’s talk about it after the ceremony, okay?”

There was silence for a second, and I thought with a little slice of hope that Grandma had agreed to delay their little chat.
Slowly, I let out my breath, and I could hear a small swoosh of others throughout the church doing the same. Becky shot me a look of tentative relief and turned back to Jay.


The priest had just opened his mouth to speak when Grandma piped up again, her loud, raspy voice punctuating the still, musty
air of the church.


“But where’s Cat?” she asked. I glanced around nervously, wondering if I should respond. “Where’s Cat?” she repeated, more loudly this time.


“She’s just there, Mum,” my father said. I could hear the weariness in his voice.

“Where?” Grandma demanded. “Not the one in the white dress, then?”

“No, Mum, that’s Rebecca,” Dad said as Grandma continued to scan the church wildly.

I looked from side to side nervously. Perhaps if I ignored her, she’d just disappear. I held my breath and tried counting
backward from ten, a trick that had often worked to calm me down when I was a little girl. Please God, I prayed, please make Grandma stop talking. After all, this was a church. He had to listen to me here, didn’t He?


But instead of quieting down, Grandma began insistently repeating my name. “Cat?” she asked raspily, her voice rising. “Cat?
Where’s Cat? Cat, dear?”


Gradually, her words drowned out Dad’s protests. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing for the deluge of words to stop. When I
cracked them open a few seconds later, Becky was staring down at me, her cheeks flushed with color.


“Do something!” she whispered urgently. “Please?”

I braced myself, took a deep breath, and turned around.

“I’m here, Grandma,” I croaked. My voice seemed to echo off the cold stone of the altar.

“Cat, dear!” Grandma exclaimed, her face lighting up. “I hardly recognized you, love! You’re wearing a dress! And you’ve done
your hair!”


A small ripple of laughter ran through the church.

“Er, yes,” I said. “Listen, do you think we could discuss this later, possibly? Rebecca’s in the middle of getting married,
and we’re causing a bit of a disruption.”


“But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, dear!” Grandma exclaimed, coughing once again to punctuate her words. One
slim, bony hand flew to cover her mouth, and the other smoothed down her kelly green dress, the one she wore to every family
wedding, despite the fact that it had gone out of style approximately fifty years ago.


I glanced at my father. Dad, towering over his mother at six foot one, was staring at me helplessly with eyes full of apology.

“Everything’s fine, Grandma,” I soothed. “Let’s talk later.”

“But, Cat!” Grandma exclaimed. She paused to cough violently while Dad rapped on her back. “Cat, dear!” she resumed, after
the coughing fit. “Your sister is much younger than you! And now she’s getting married? What about that nice young man you
were dating, dear? Keith was it? Did you screw it up?”


A fresh wave of snickers ran through the church. I felt my mouth dry out, as if someone had filled it with a handful of cotton
balls. The room began to swirl around me—just a little, not as if I was about to pass out, but the way it does sometimes when
you’re dreaming.


That’s it! Perhaps this was all a dream. Of course it was! I mean, in what kind of twisted world did a thirty-four-year-old
woman attend her twenty-nine-year-old sister’s wedding and have her grandmother ridicule her in front of 120 friends and family
members? Obviously, this was some sort of devious trick on the part of my overactive imagination.


Just to be sure, I pinched myself. Hard.

Ouch.

Right. Well. Evidently, this was a deep sort of dream, the kind in which a pinch didn’t always work. So I pinched harder. Still nothing. I turned to glance at Rebecca.


“This isn’t really happening, is it?” I whispered. “I mean, this is obviously some kind of nightmare brought on by my subconscious
reaction to you getting married before me, which, by the way, I’m very happy about. Right?”


Becky looked at me strangely. “Noooo,” she said slowly. “We’re all very much awake. Now, please, Cat! Do something!”

“Right,” I muttered, horror finally beginning to set in. “Um, Grandma,” I said gently. “Let’s talk after the ceremony, okay?
I promise we can have a full discussion about just how grandly I’ve screwed up my life. Okay?”


My father was bent toward Grandma, trying to shush her, but it was clearly too late. She had something to say, and she was
going to say it.


“I just don’t understand, dear!” she said loudly, pushing my father away with surprising strength. “You’re not ugly.”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing around at the faces of the congregation, some amused, some horrified.

“You’re not a dimwit,” Grandma continued.

“Thanks,” I repeated through clenched teeth.

“I’m sure you’ve held on to your virtue, if you know what I mean,” she said quite seriously. She winked and added in a theatrical
whisper, “I’m talking about the sex.”


“Errrr,” I said, my face turning bright red. The snickers in the church seemed to get even louder, and Father Murphy cleared
his throat. I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering about the odds of spontaneous combustion, which sounded like a lovely
plan at the moment.


“So what’s the problem?” Grandma demanded after I had not, in fact, burst into flames on the spot. I glanced from side to
side, seeking some escape, but of course there was none.


“Um,” I began again.

“You’re nearly an old maid, dear!” Grandma chirped as I contemplated how nice it would be to simply die on the spot at that
very moment. She paused. “You’re running out of time!” she shrieked, flapping her arms suddenly above her head like a demented
bird. And then, just as quickly, she sat down in the pew, smiled sweetly at me, and waved, as if we hadn’t just had a lengthy,
revealing exchange in front of all my sister’s wedding guests. “Hello, dear!” she said brightly after a moment. “When did
you get here?”


The congregation sat in stunned silence for a moment until Father Murphy cleared his throat.

“Um, right, then,” he said awkwardly. “That was, um, enlightening. Now if we could just return to the wedding?”

Becky glanced down at me with concern in her eyes and mouthed, “Are you okay?”

I nodded and forced a smile. “Of course!”

But the truth was that I was mortified, disgraced, and humiliated. But I’d felt that way before Grandma even opened her mouth.
After all, when you’re six weeks away from turning thirty-five and your little sister has found the man of her dreams while
you’re remaining steadfastly single after yet another emotionless breakup, it’s difficult not to feel like a failure. Even
when you’re so happy for her that you could burst, there’s always a little voice in the back of your head that sounds suspiciously
like your grandmother, asking, “What’s wrong with you? Why doesn’t anyone love you?”




That was a silly question to ask, of course. When you got right down to it, I had plenty of people who loved me. My dad did,
and Grandma. And since Dad was a first-generation Irish American, I had the requisite seven uncles, five aunts, and several
billion (okay, twenty-five) cousins on his side alone. And then there was my only sister, Becky, my best friend in the world.


I suppose our close relationship was unusual, especially given our five-year age gap. But our mother—a fiery, temperamental
Italian woman—had left us without so much as a note just a week and a half before my twelfth birthday, and major events like
that have the effect of bringing people together. Dad had fallen apart for that first year or so, and it had been up to me
to keep things together.


I had quit the soccer team, my ballet classes, and my dream of playing the trumpet in the high school band, and I’d become,
in effect, an adult before I was even a teenager. I’d taken Becky to all her lessons and classes, cooked meals for the three
of us every night, and even kept the apartment clean when Dad worked overtime. I hadn’t minded; I had always figured it was
my job.


Then our mother came back, a few months after I turned seventeen. And she’d expected to pick up just where she left off.

She’d been there for my senior year of high school and for Becky’s seventh-grade year. She had lived in an apartment just
down the street at first, and she and Dad went out on dates with each other and seemed to be falling in love again. Becky,
who had been too young to truly feel abandoned the first time around, had been thrilled when she came home. I’d felt the opposite;
in the five years she’d been gone, I’d grown to hate her for leaving us.


So when she returned, I kept waiting for her to break our hearts again. I wanted to strangle my father every time he’d shrug
helplessly and say in that fading brogue of his, “But, Cat, girl, she’s my one true love. And she’s your mum. Can’t you give
her another chance?”


She moved back in with us three months after coming back. And every day, I waited for her to leave again. I knew she would.
I knew it in the core of my soul.


And then, one day, she did. But not the way I thought.

She died. A massive heart attack at the age of forty-nine.

For the second time in my life, I’d been left by my mother. But this time, it was for good. And it wasn’t her fault, which
was the hardest part of it to wrap my mind around. I couldn’t hate her for leaving this time. But I could hate myself a little
for failing to let her back in when I still had the chance.


Dad sank into depression. Becky locked herself in her room and refused to talk to anyone. And I quietly changed my plans to
go off to UCLA for college and instead stayed home to go to NYU. When I’d graduated with my degree in accounting, I’d taken
a job at a tax firm in the city. I’d been there ever since, old reliable Cat Connelly.


It was better that way. I could take care of Dad and Rebecca. And that’s what I did. It was in those next several years that
the three of us grew inseparable. We had all been changed by Mom’s leaving. Dad had learned that sometimes you have to let
go of the people you love the most. Becky had learned that there would always be people there to take care of you.


And me? I learned to trust my instincts and to know that even the people who are supposed to love you can leave you one day
for no reason at all.


“I miss Mom,” Becky whispered to me a few minutes after we’d sat down for dinner at her reception at Adriano’s Ristorante
on the Upper West Side.


“Yeah?” I asked noncommittally.

Becky made a face at me. “Don’t do this, Cat,” she said. “Not today.”

“Do what?” I asked innocently.

“The Mom thing,” she said.

Becky remembered all the good things and revered our mother. It was the one thing in our lives we’d never been able to see
eye to eye on.


“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I won’t.”

Becky looked at me for a moment and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. She took a deep breath. “It would have been nice for her
to be here. I think she would have been proud.” She paused again and added, “She would have liked this.”


“Yes,” I agreed after a moment. “I think she would have.”

I meant it. The reception was beautiful. Not that I’d expected it to be any other way.

The Roma Ballroom at Adriano’s, Becky’s favorite Italian restaurant, was packed to capacity with Becky and Jay’s family and
friends. Exposed brick walls gave a warm, intimate feel to a room dotted with high-backed chairs covered in clover green,
and the fireplace in the corner crackled brightly, lending a glow to one end of the room as crystal chandeliers bathed everything
else in soft light.


While most of the wedding guests continued to eat and chat, I got up and walked to the back of the room, where I’d left my
tote bag tucked under the gift table. I pulled out my camera, one of my most prized possessions. It was a Panasonic Lumix
DMC-FZ50S, the only major purchase I’d made in the past five years, a thirty-fourth birthday present to myself, and I’d meant
to use it more. In fact, I’d spent many mornings wandering my neighborhood, photographing people in their normal environments,
sitting on their brownstone stoops, walking their dogs, taking out the trash. I’d caught couples arguing down the block, mothers
fixing the collars of their young children’s jackets, grandchildren helping elderly grandparents out for a stroll. I somehow
felt most in my element when I could capture the world inside my lens, anonymous, unobserved, blending into the scenery while
life happened around me.


I had taken Becky’s engagement photos, and she’d loved them, but she told me not to worry about shooting the wedding. “That’s
why we hired someone to take pictures,” she’d said. “Just relax for once, okay?” I had agreed at the time, but with Becky
fully absorbed in Jay, I couldn’t resist sneaking in a few shots. I knew she’d appreciate them later. Becky loved having her
picture taken, and she looked more beautiful tonight than I’d ever seen her.


“Hey, kiddo,” Dad said, coming up behind me and squeezing my shoulder after I’d shot a few dozen frames. “How you doing?”

I turned around and lowered the camera. He looked so handsome in his dark suit, his crisp white shirt, and his clover green
tie that perfectly matched my maid of honor dress. I smiled. “Good,” I said. “This is beautiful, isn’t it?”


“I thought you were on camera probation for the wedding.” He winked. “Bride’s orders.”

“I couldn’t resist,” I said. “She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?”

He nodded and we both looked at Becky for a moment. “Listen, kiddo,” my dad finally said. “I’m sorry about your grandmother.”

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault,” I said. I swallowed hard. “I just hope Becky’s not too upset.”

My father fixed me with a stern look. “Your grandmother humiliated you in front of more than a hundred people, and you’re
just worried about your sister?”


I glanced away. “Whatever.”

A few minutes later, after I’d put my camera reluctantly away, I headed toward the bathroom to touch up my makeup. I was stopped
by well-intentioned aunts who told me, “Your time is coming, dear,” and, “You look beautiful today. Don’t worry about what
your grandmother said,” and cousins who said things like, “That color is great on you!” and, “When are you getting married?”


I smiled and gave the appropriate responses, issued the proper excuses. I’d almost made it safely to the back of the restaurant
when my cousin Melody, a tall, plump woman with bad hair, stopped me with a firm, icy hand on my arm.


“So where’s Keith?” she asked, her eyes boring into mine. Melody was only a year older than me, but we’d never been close.
She lived just outside Boston, like most of my relatives. She had been married for a decade and was heavily pregnant with
her sixth child.


“He’s not here,” I said, not wanting to get into it. I smiled pleasantly, hoping that could be the end of it, and began to
walk away. But she maintained her death grip on my arm.


“Why not?” she asked with a syrupy smile. Sweat glistened on her brow and threatened to smear her heavy-handed makeup.

I’d thought that the story had already made the rounds of the Boston Connelly clan. But perhaps Melody had somehow missed
it. Or maybe she was just trying to rub it in. “We broke up, Mel,” I said through gritted teeth.


She looked at me for a minute. I could have sworn that there was a little bit of satisfaction in her expression. She always
had been competitive with me. “I’m sorry to hear that, Cat,” she cooed. “That must be tough, to be dumped at your age.”


I took a deep breath. I knew she was trying to get under my skin. I also knew it would be better to walk away. But I responded
anyhow. “I wasn’t dumped,” I said. “I broke up with him.”


Real shock crossed her face this time. Then she laughed. “Oh, come on, Cat,” she said. “You don’t have to say that. It’s all
right to be broken up with. It happens to all of us.” She paused and smiled. She patted her pregnant belly. “Well, not me,
obviously.”


“He didn’t break up with me, Melody,” I said. “He just wasn’t the right person for me.”


“You can’t be serious.” Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head. “You had a man who loved you,” she recapped
slowly. “Who made a good living. And you dumped him because you didn’t think he was right for you?”


“Yes,” I said.

“You’re thirty-five,” she said flatly.

I cleared my throat. “Thirty-four.”

She ignored me. “Don’t you think you’re running out of time? I mean, really!”

I took another deep breath and tried not to react. This had, after all, been the general reaction of everyone I’d told. Apparently,
when you were thirty-four, you were supposed to hang on for dear life to anyone who happened to show you the slightest bit
of interest. It seemed that, in everyone else’s opinion, I’d been damned lucky nine months ago to land Keith Zcenick, a mild-mannered
senior-level accountant who worked at the same firm I did.


“He just wasn’t right for me,” I repeated calmly. I swallowed hard again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.”

I yanked my arm out of her meaty grip and strode qu. . .