Wish You Weren't Here

Chapter 4

James

The American might have a better command of profanity than Zia Nina. And that is quite the achievement.

“What kind of asshole—”

“Stronzo,” Nina provides in Italian.

“Stronzo”—she accepts the provision—“let’s a woman they just met go on and on about the humiliating details of her love life—”

I lose track of the rant when Ava goes to drop the F-bomb and stops herself. Nina is assuring her that her restraint is unnecessary—that the four-letter word is her favorite in the English language. But their voices fade away and I catch myself wondering what filters would capture the coloring on the American’s cheeks in this light.

“Nipote, do you have anything to say to our guest?” Nina asks.

“Hmm?” I pull my attention away from full lips and red-streaked skin and focus on the poorly hidden amusement on my aunt’s face. Her tongue is about to poke a hole through her cheek.

“La donna è un’ospite di tuo zio, Gigi,” Nina says. She’s glaring at me for Ava’s sake, but I can already hear the throaty laugh that will fill the air when she tells my uncle this story.

“I apologize for your misunderstanding and I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here—”

“I’m not staying here,” the American says. Her glare is real, burning my forehead like the midafternoon sun.

I shrug and open my hand toward Zia, who is obviously in charge in her long linen dress and apron.

“No offense, ma’am. But there’s been a mistake,” Ava says, more softly this time as she addresses Nina while reaching into her oversized purse. What is with this woman’s bags? They could fit Verga inside. Where is that dog anyway? I want to give him a treat for the enthusiastic greeting he gave our guest’s ass.

She pulls out a planner as thick as the Bible, with about thirteen colored tabs poking out from the side like rainbow bike spokes, then slides a folded piece of paper from the pages. “This is the apartment I rented. On Via Ma-zzi-ni.”

Her Italian is shit. Who comes to study here with no command of the local language? She shoves the paper toward me and rattles on, her tone tight and angry again since she’s looking my way.

“Modern. In the city center. No goats.”

I take the paper without looking and slip it into my pocket.

“Nothing in Urbino is modern, dolcezza. And those animals over there”—I gesture toward the fields that slide down the hill where the sheep are grazing happily—“those are sheep.”

Nina purses her lips and wipes one hand over the other—the Italian gesture for “it’s nothing.”

Ava blinks twice.

“The apartment is—how should I say—in disrepair, no?” Nina asks, then looks to me like I have all the answers. I didn’t even know who I was driving until this morning when Nina handed me the sign, so there’s no surprise that Nina’s rented out the apartment without my knowledge. My aunt shrugs her shoulders and I shake my head and focus on Angry Smurf who is back on her phone for the thousandth time since we met. I’d love to take it out of her hand and throw it over the hill.

“If we are talking about the studio on Via Mazzini, then yes. Air-conditioner is broken and there’s a leak in the roof,” I add, then turn to Zia and lift my chin. “Which I could have handled had someone told me the apartment was being rented this summer.”

I was under the impression that I was living here to fix up the guest house and help with the farm during tourist season. But this wouldn’t be the first time my impressions were mistaken with Zia Nina. She and my Zio are the conductors, and I’m lucky if they hand me sheet music.

Nina makes a dismissive sound and the American looks to the sky. I hear her whisper something that sounds like “Why, Mom?” then she settles her gaze back on me.

“Can’t I just put a bucket under the drip or get a fan with some ice …”

All of the fight has leaked from her voice. Her bare shoulders drop an inch and her words trail off. I have the sudden urge to tip her chin up. Just like I had in the car when she overshared her secrets.

“Don’t be silly, carina. My husband and I will host you until James can fix it up.” Nina steps up and puts an arm around the girl. “It is nothing. Dottore Pastore is an old friend.”

“You know my advisor?” Ava asks, leaning into my Aunt’s touch. Nina has that effect on everyone. Born nurturer. Keeper of lost souls like mine.

“Certo. How do you think you ended up here? He studied with my husband, Leonardo. Leo is the dean of the university here, but this can all wait. You must be tired, carina.” Nina makes a dismissive hand wave and points up the gravel path then turns to me. “Gi, show her to the guest house.”

I open my mouth to object and Nina widens her eyes and tips up her chin at me. I close my mouth. Nina turns and leaves, murmuring something patently false about a pregnant sheep and kicking up a poof of dust in her wake.

“Right. To the guest house,” I murmur, tugging the ridiculously large luggage to my side before I set off again for the house.

“Could you fix my apartment tonight?”

I laugh.

“Right on top of that, principessa.”

She ignores the sarcasm and keeps at it, though. Persistent little thing.

“I feel like that’s the least you could do after—”

“Driving six hours to escort you from the airport?” I can feel her right behind me, her breathing growing heavier as I pick up the pace.

“I was going to tip you on top of whatever you got paid for that, but with the delay and then the lies.” She sighs. “I’ll double whatever they are paying you to fix my apartment.”

I stop short and she runs right into my back. The American thinks I’m some sort of hired help. A butler, maybe? Family chauffeur? How entitled is this woman? I think back to my exchange with Nina. She only used the word nipote when addressing me, and for all the Italian the American knows she could be translating that word as manservant.

Our collision makes me drop the handle of her overpacked suitcase, and it wobbles then falls to the gravel at her feet with a thump, sending dust and dirt onto her toes. She stares at her luggage, shuts her eyes, and takes in a deep breath that makes her chest rise so it’s nearly touching mine.

“Listen, Signorina Graham,” I start.

She clears her throat and I find her staring at my jaw. I start again.

“I’m not sure who or what you think I am—”

I stop. Her eyes are darker than they were at the airport, more like the needles on the cypress trees that line the path up to my Zia’s. Her brows pull together, forming two little indents above her nose. My fingers go to my chest where my camera usually hangs, but I find only fabric.

Ava must think I’m finished because she takes over. “I think you were my driver who was over an hour late. Who then lied about speaking English and sat soaking up all of my personal information like some sort of villainous sponge. And who finally just manhandled my belongings like a gorilla,” she says, pointing to her fallen luggage.

Villainous sponge? I’m biting hard on my lip so I don’t smile and piss her off further, but come on. I know I should apologize. She’s Zio’s guest—and my uncle is the best man I know. But the clipped tone. The privilege that oozes out of her like the chocolate from the center of Zia’s lava cakes.

“Fine. I’ll fix the apartment tonight for five hundred euro,” I tell her, surprising myself with the obvious lie. I lift my brows and hold out my palm. “Deal?”

She makes a sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh, puts her hand in mine without meeting my eyes, and then reaches down and lifts her handle.

“I’ll show myself to my room,” she says.

“You can pay me tomorrow,” I tell her back as she takes off in the direction of the house murmuring the word stronzo over and over again. There’s a wet mark on her ass from where Verga drooled all over her, and I know I’m smiling like a lunatic as I look after her. But that exchange was the most fun I’ve had since—

“What did you do to her, Gi?”

Zio Leo steps out from between the trees, a bouquet of sunflowers in one hand and pruning shears in the other. My favorite camera, a gift from Nonna, hangs around his neck. He’s smiling so wide I can see the gold tooth in the back of his top row of teeth. His thick dark brows are lifted to that hairline that refuses to budge. Sneaky, handsome old bastard.

I shrug and he puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Women, no?” he offers, following my gaze to where Ava disappears around the final curve of the path, stumbling a little when Verga goes down into playful puppy pose like he’s about to pounce.

“Did you take any pictures, Zio?” I ask, nodding toward his chest.

“Certo,” he chuckles. “There was much to capture during the arrival of our guest.”

My uncle presses the flowers against my chest. “Forse, these will help?” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out an envelope. “Another note from London.”

I take the sunflowers even though I know they won’t help, and then shove the envelope in my back pocket to be filed away with the others.

“You know, Gi. You might consider what the man has to say. A sabbatical could be good for you.”

He runs a hand through his thick gray hair then removes my camera strap from behind his neck and lifts it up and over mine, patting my sweaty chest once as I look him over. The man is always impeccably dressed, even at home on the farm, a mix of Professor Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon, but with an Armani twist. Always dressed the part. Three-piece suits are apparently the uniform of a dean of a five-hundred-year-old university.

“I always consider it,” I lie. “But my family is here.”

We start to walk, our strides matching despite the five inches I have on him. It’s muscle memory—this pace we keep—ingrained in us from two decades of walking together side by side to and from the city proper and campus. When I was a boy, he never left me behind. And now I return the favor.

“And we will be here when you return. That is what family does,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

But we both know that the second part of that statement isn’t always true. It’s time to change the topic.

“How long is she here?” I ask, keeping my tone as even as I can while lifting the camera to cover my face as Zio studies me.

But Zio speaks seven languages fluently. He is a master of communication. Has degrees in words that I don’t even know the meaning of. So whatever I’m trying to keep out of my voice, I have little chance of hiding.

He lets out a throaty chuckle and pats my back twice before letting out his signature sigh.

“Long enough, Gi. Long enough.”