The Very First Words 🤫

(A little bonus for the curious.)

Right… since you’re here, and clearly the nosy sort (I mean that as the highest compliment 😏), let me show you something almost no one has seen…

Long before Loveandpizza.it became the book it is now – before the new cover, before the Italian and Portuguese editions, before I’d even packed my bags for Napoli for the first time – there was a creative writing class in Cardiff, and a very green, very hopeful me, writing the very first words of a story I didn’t yet know would take over my life.

And they were… different.

Back then, the book opened in a completely different way. Carolina wasn’t even a Lombardi yet – she had an entirely different surname (I’ll let you spot it 👀). Her heartbreak arrived by email rather than in a letter to herself. The whole thing was rawer, wobblier, a little over-the-top in places -exactly what you’d expect from a writer right at the start of her journey.

Reading it back now is like finding a photo of yourself from fifteen years ago: equal parts “oh bless” and “…did I really wear that?” 😅 But I’ve grown rather fond of this baby version. It’s where everything started. It’s the spark (there’s that word again) before the fire.

So here it is – the original opening of Loveandpizza.it, exactly as I first wrote it, wobbles and all. I’ve only tidied the most obvious little slips; the rest is pure, unfiltered, brand-new-writer me. Be kind. 💛

(Completely spoiler-free, by the way – it’s only the very beginning. Your secret’s safe, and so is the ending.)

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~ Brazil, 2008 ~

In the beginning was the word. And it was spoken in hundreds, maybe thousands of different ways. There weren’t written letters or documents with signatures, and if you said something and ‘gave your word’, it was more valuable than your own mother!

Trust; where has it gone, I wonder. In a world where not even ‘I love yous’ can be taken totally seriously. There will always be a sweet naïve girl crying somewhere because just the words weren’t enough! And isn’t that ironic that this same girl can understand the same ‘I love you’ in at least five different word-ways?

Well, maybe if she could understand the German words for saying ‘Eu te amo’, instead of the snob French, she would have been with a better man now. Or she should have heard them call her ‘bela ragazza’, or ‘mia principessa’. Italian men are so romantic!

This is the story of a real bella ragazza, who was tired of having her life shaped for her, and decided to embrace the world (more specifically the map of the città of Napoli and the geography around Mount Vesuvius) to find out who she really was.

So, our “once upon a time” begins now, as she is sitting at her desk; her medicine books on one side, her mobile on the other. She looks at their picture, right in front of her, but at the same time she looks at nowhere. Only tears filling her eyes. ‘What did I do wrong?’ she thinks. ‘I thought we were so in love. Why did he have to move so far?’ She wipes her eyes and stands up, trying to regain courage to go back to her books: ‘Oh, come on now, Miss Carolina! You have a horrible test tomorrow and it’s already past midnight! Let’s quit the self-pity thing and let’s get to work!’ She goes to the bathroom, washes her face, looks at the mirror and sticks her tongue out: ‘Jean, you are such a jerk! Blahhhh!’ Her anger drags her to the kitchen to grab something to eat and a cup of coffee to keep her awake for some time more.

On the way back to the bedroom, she is tempted. ‘Er… another quick check in my emails won’t hurt, will it?’ And to her surprise, there actually is an email:

‘Argh! And he says he misses me? If you can call THIS an email’, she thinks, wishing he was within reach of her hand, so she could punch him in the face really hard.

She snaps her laptop shut, and takes another trip to the kitchen.

‘I DEFINITELY deserve another chocolate bar!’

Watching her go back to her bedroom, and this time seriously thinking of giving her best at her studies, Clara, her big sister, wishes she had chosen an Italian version of ‘Eu te amo’. At least the Italians are more handsome! ‘She is so pretty, so young,’ Clara thinks. ‘How can she be so blindly in love?’

And that is something for you, readers, to find out. It might be crazy to think, but totally possible. What if for this poor little girl there was never a ‘in the beginning there was the word’? Not written, or spoken or heard. Just the eyes talking, or just a loving, tender touch of a hand. No ‘I love yous’ could ever be misunderstood!

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~ Carolina ~

Studies say that Italian men are the most romantic and passionate men in the world. Definitely a good catch. Well, not according to my sister, Clara, who couldn’t be happier marrying her ‘Welsh prince’, after they ‘found’ each other on the Internet! Or Beth, who visits her Pakistani boyfriend twice a year, no matter how troubled things are in that country. My middle sister, Laura, and her “very Brazilian” husband are so happy together with their beautiful baby boy, and one of my best friends wouldn’t trade her ‘Japanese cutie’ – as she calls him – for any Latin lover in the world.

As for me, well… that seems a totally different story. I’d always been a hopeless romantic; I’d always dreamed of fairy tales and princes with white horses. I thought love had come to me. Once. Twice. Third time is a charm? No, not for me. I guess my Prince Charming’s white horse always got distracted by something – or someone – else on the way.

So, here I am. Doutora Carolina Cappucci. “Hopeful-Dreamer” could be my middle name. Twenty-six years old. Single (recently dumped, to be more specific. He was a jerk. Is a jerk? Ah, whatever). Just graduated from Med school. Probably doing the craziest thing in my life – as my father keeps on saying. After six years in university, endless nights surrounded by books, dead bodies and wounded people. I just need a break. I AM GOING TO ITALY!!!!!

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And there she is: Carolina, version one.

Funny, isn’t it, how much changes and how much stays exactly the same? The surname went, the opening was completely reimagined, that heartbreak-by-email became something quieter and sadder… but the heart of her – the hopeless romantic, the chocolate, the “I AM GOING TO ITALY!!!!!” – she was there from the very first day.

Thank you for being nosy enough to find this. 🤗 Now you know a little secret hardly anyone else does.

Dani. x

P.S. The grown-up, all-new version of 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. 🍕

P.P.S. When you’re ready to get back on track to follow the regular posts, just click here. 🍕