Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Thank you.” Charlie hiccups. “Will you two be okay for another week?”
“Who, us?” Grandpa asks. “We have been A-okay for eighty-plus years. We plan to stay that way. Don’t you worry ’bout us.”
“I do worry about you guys, though,” Charlie says. He would’ve never gone through all this if he didn’t. And despite his dad’s dismissal, he still thinks he was right to be reckless this once. If he hadn’t been, he’d have never met Dario Cotogna, and that would’ve been a tragedy.
“Don’t let worry get in the way of living your life,” Grandma says. Her eyes beam a million hugs through the phone screen.
“Que sera, sera,” Grandpa says.
“Huh?” Charlie reaches for a tissue from the box on Dario’s bedside table.
Grandma starts to sing in her shaky, sweet voice the Doris Day song she taught him a long time ago. They’d sing it every time they did the dishes together. Standing at the kitchen sink as she washed and he dried, their voices floated higher than the soap bubbles.
He wipes away the last of his tears, joins in for the last line and internalizes the lyrics about accepting the future, whatever it may hold.
DARIO
At the front gate of Villa Meraviglia, the town car idles. The last of Dario’s guests are fumbling about behind him, making sure nothing is forgotten. Zippers rise and wheels rattle.
Dario takes a moment to open the last letter from his grandfather.
Caro Tesorino,
I have no more stories to tell, advice to share, or lessons to impart.
As with all good mentorships, eventually, the student becomes the teacher. It seems as if I blinked one day, and you surpassed me in knowledge and skill.
Each one of these letters has been a reminder for your head of something you already knew in your heart.
You have a good heart. It won’t steer you wrong.
Ti amo, tesorino.
Until we meet again.
Con affetto,
Nonno
Dario turns the paper over again in his hands.
That’s it?
There has to be more. This can’t be the last—
His guests pile through the door behind him—except Craig who hangs back, still recording. As if Dario’s life weren’t already an embarrassing display. He withers, wondering how he’ll be portrayed in whatever heinous edit comes out of this footage.
Before it got that far, would Violetta help him sue Emilio even though she’s also his lawyer? No, that’s too messy and too time-consuming. Time is a commodity he swears not to waste anymore.
Emilio slides inside the car without a glance back at Dario, which is fine for now. Theirs is not the kind of strain that can be healed in an afternoon.
Before Michelle can pass, though, Dario stops her to say, “I am deeply sorry for my behavior earlier. It has been a privilege getting to know you. I hope you will take only fond memories with you as you go.”
Michelle nods, not quite meeting his eyes. “I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. It was not my intention. Your brother, he is—”
“I know,” Dario says, hurt feelings nowhere to be found. His brother is charming. He is sweet when he wants to be. He is winning. He always has been. Facts are facts are facts. “Apology accepted. Safe travels.”
“Before I go…” She rips a page out of her design book. It is the one with the nontraditional wedding outfit she was showing him yesterday over breakfast with the tuxedo detailing. “I want you to have this.”
“Are you sure?” Dario asks, taken aback and somewhat confused. She added beading to the vest and a veil to match the train.
“Sometimes, when I am designing, I put myself in the shoes of the woman who would wear that dress. I pretend I am her. I think like she would think and do like she would do to create the most perfect dress I can come up with that will make her feel beautiful.” She brushes stray hair from her face.
“I think, this week, while I was drawing this, I was walking around as ‘woman you would marry.’ It was not until I finished the illustration this morning that I realized, she is not me. Maybe ‘she’ is a ‘he’ or a ‘they.’ Maybe you can use parts of it. Maybe you should throw it away. J’sais pas. It is a gift, to you.”
Dario holds the paper to his chest, understanding flitting between them. “Thank you.”
“Au revoir.” She rolls her purple suitcase down the front walk.
Dario’s mom steps out with a bag on her arm. “That Charlie is not at all what I expected.”
“How do you mean?” Dario asks.
“The tattoos and the hair and the optimism in his eyes like your father had,” she says, a happy-sad smile on her face. “He surprised me.”
“He surprised me, too,” Dario says. “In a good way.” He smiles to himself, thinking about his blue-haired boy back in the barn house talking to his family about their inevitable engagement.
“Absolutely, in a good way.” She takes his face in her hands. “Now remember, the world is never as cruel as our minds convince us it is. Be kind to yourself and don’t forget to be yourself.”
“I’ll take the note,” Dario says, borrowing the language they use in the opera world when the director gives a fix.
“When you need me, please call. You’re never too old to need your mother. No role is more important than you, sweet Dario. Always know that. Ti amo.”
“Ti amo, Mamma.” He kisses both of her cheeks before closing the car door behind her.
As soon as the black car rolls away, a swelling sense of relief hits Dario, which only escalates when he turns back and discovers Charlie standing barefoot at the gate.
Dario rushes to his blue-haired American and poorly attempts to lift him up and spin him around. “All went well?” he asks, setting Charlie down before they tumble into the garden and ruin their clothes in the mud.
“All went, but I’m not sure I would say well.” Charlie nervously toys with Dario’s tie.
“What happened?” He stills Charlie’s hands with his own. They shake slightly.
Charlie sighs out the weight of the world. “My dad wasn’t very receptive. I think, after everything that went down with my uncle, he is leery when it comes to windfalls and people with money. He won’t accept it. At least not right now.”
“Why don’t I get him on the phone? I would be happy to talk with him and make my intentions known.
” Dario is undeterred. In the boardroom, he learned by example from his grandfather how to crack even the toughest nut.
Whether through flattery or mastery, everybody could be charmed.
Maybe he wasn’t all that dissimilar from Emilio in that way.
Charlie bites his lip, shakes his head. “That’s just it. He does want to meet you. He just wants to meet you…in person. On their turf.”
The sandcastle of Dario’s hopes and dreams gets swept away by the rising tide. “My birthday is in three months,” he says.
They should be ring shopping and setting a date and figuring out how to turn the Amorina museum into a ceremony space, the Tasting Room into a banquet hall.
“I know, but my dad said he’d have no part in our marriage if he didn’t meet you in person.
” Charlie’s gaze falls to the grass. “My family means the world to me. I can’t go through with this without their blessing, and I can’t get married without them present.
” In the light, Charlie’s hair almost takes on a deeper, sadder shade of blue, an ocean that Dario could drown himself in.
“I would never ask you to.” Dario imagines a frowning Charlie on their wedding day, looking to his side of seats and not seeing anyone there. He knows how he would feel if his mom missed his big day.
Aside from his mother, Paola, Gabriele and, begrudgingly, Emilio, who else would he invite?
Violetta and her family, of course, but he wouldn’t say they were close.
There are business associates and press people who will attend at the behest of Amorina executives, but he doesn’t count them among his own.
The Moores may be his key to more. More loved ones, more family, more people to entrust and care for and look after.
The way Charlie has described them, he will take to them easily, just as he’s taken to Charlie.
He shivers to think of what impression he has already made on them given this elaborate ruse to find him a spouse.
“Did you tell them about my agoraphobia?” Dario asks.
“Of course not,” Charlie says. “I wouldn’t tell something that personal without your permission first. And I would never ask you to fly an ocean away when I know you’re not feeling up to it.”
“Right.” The impasse sizzles hot between them. Was this week all for nothing?
“I still have my ticket home for tomorrow. I can go. It’s no trouble,” Charlie says with leaden voice, “I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”
Dario reaches out for him, imploring. “No time with you will ever be wasted, Charlie Moore.”
Charlie, teary-eyed, kisses him. In that kiss, he scrounges up the strength to rebuild the sandcastle. His great-great-grandmother never gave up on Amorina despite all the many setbacks. He refuses to give in, to back down. He will fight this. Even if the thing he is fighting is himself.
“I will find a way to get there,” he says, determined. “After this week, I’ve been reminded that the world is big, and if I continue to let my life get small, I will fail Amorina and I will fail myself. I’ve been meaning to get to America sooner rather than later anyway.”
“Dario.” His name from Charlie’s mouth is loaded beyond belief. A projectile soaring through the air that he deflects.
“Charlie,” he says, letting Charlie’s name morph into a butterfly flitting on the breeze.
“I am going to go to Pennsylvania and meet your family. I don’t know how, but I know when—before my birthday—and I know why—because…
” He hovers over the words that sit sugar-cube-sweet on his tongue before ultimately deciding to trust himself.
“I’m falling for you, Charlie, and I want this to work. ”
“You do?” Charlie asks, mouth agape, eyes alight.
“Si.” He tugs Charlie closer. “Without the noise of the others around, I hear a future with you so clearly.”
“You’re amazing, Dario.” Charlie kisses him again. Is it possible that this one is even fiercer than the last? It nearly knocks Dario sideways from a headrush of hormones and hope.
“You think so?” Dario asks.
“I know so. And my family is going to think so, too, once they get to know you. The real you.”
Wasn’t that what his mother had told him his father had said to her? Wasn’t that her advice right before she left Villa Meraviglia?
She had to have been at least partially right. The world could not be as cruel as he imagined, because the world had brought him Charlie Moore, and Charlie Moore is a miracle.