Meet Lisa

(Day 6 of 30 – story crumbs from the world of Loveandpizza.it 🍕)

In the previous post you met Carolina. Today, you meet the woman who keeps her (mostly) sane: Lisa.

Every heroine needs a Lisa. You know the type, because if you’re very lucky, you’ve got one of your own.

The friend Carolina inherited

Here’s a lovely little detail: Carolina didn’t so much make Lisa as inherit her. Lisa was originally her big sister Clara’s friend, and before anyone quite noticed, she’d become Carolina’s too. When Clara married and moved abroad, the two of them simply… kept each other. They’re the sort of friends who travel together, overthink together, and can say more with a single raised eyebrow across a room than most people manage in a paragraph.

And – crucially, for a story that’s about to whisk Carolina off to Naples – Lisa isn’t just in Carolina’s life. She’s the reason Carolina’s whole adventure happens at all. (More on that troublemaker in a second.)

A citizen of the world

Lisa is a small, bright, impossibly likeable woman, a couple of years older than Carolina, and she has one of those backgrounds that makes your own passport feel painfully under-used. Her father is Thai; her mother, American. She was born in El Salvador, has lived in the US and Spain, and now calls São Paulo home. She’s a primary school teacher, which tells you a lot about her: patient, warm, and completely unflappable in the face of chaos (useful, when your best friend is Carolina).

She is sweet. And she is fun. God, she is fun. She’s the adventurous one; the one who says “let’s just do it” while Carolina is still drafting a pros-and-cons list. In fact, it’s Lisa who spots the ad for English teachers in Naples, applies for the both of them without a word of warning, and then cheerfully talks Carolina round. Without Lisa, Carolina never gets on that plane. Every good thing that follows? You’ve partly got Lisa to thank.

The one who tells you the truth

Here’s the heart of her, though. Lisa will always tell you the truth. Whether or not you asked. Whether or not you’re quite ready for it. She has an answer for everything, an opinion on most things, and the faintly maddening habit of being right about nearly all of them.

She’s also the one person on earth allowed to tell Carolina to get to the point when she launches into one of her “guess what?!” routines. (Bless. We talked about that in Carolina’s post. Lisa has Views. 😏)

Nobody’s sidekick

Here’s why I loved writing her. It would have been so easy to make Lisa The Best Friend™: the sidekick who exists purely to hand the heroine a cup of tea and a plot-relevant pep talk. But Lisa is nobody’s sidekick. She’s got her own life, her own opinions, and her own way of seeing straight through people; Carolina included. She’s the one holding up the mirror when Carolina would much rather look away.

And isn’t that exactly what the good ones do? The friends who really matter aren’t the ones who nod along to everything we say. They’re the ones brave enough (and who love us enough) to look you in the eye and ask: “Right, my love… are we being honest with ourselves here?” . The ones who laugh with us until we cry, and then tell us the truth we’ve been dodging. Those friendships are their own kind of love story. (There’s a reason Carolina and Lisa get a whole post to themselves later this month. But… I’m getting ahead of myself. Not yet, Gentle Reader. 😉)

A little confession

I’ll let you in on something: Lisa isn’t made up out of thin air. She’s inspired by one of my own real-life friends; one of those friends, the ones who make you braver just by being around. So if reading about her makes you think of a particular person in your life… hold onto them. They’re rarer than they should be. 💛

So here’s to the Lisas. The truth-tellers. The ones who turn up when it matters, snacks and zero judgement in hand – and then, once you’ve calmed down, tell you the thing you already knew.

Tomorrow, things get a little more complicated. Because it’s time to meet the first of the two men who turn Carolina’s tidy little year in Napoli completely upside down. 😏

But today belongs to Lisa. So tell me in the comments: who’s your Lisa – the friend who laughs with you and tells you the truth? Tag her, if you’re brave. She’s earned it. 💛

Dani. x

P.S. Loveandpizza.it is coming back in English, Italian and Portuguese. Save your slice and you’ll be first to know the moment your edition’s ready. 🍕