27
GAbrIELA DUARTE
The following Sunday, I went down to breakfast with no meetings or urgent deadlines on my schedule. We’d been sleeping together again since our conversation in the studio. Luca still fell silent whenever I mentioned the specialists' numbers. That morning, I decided to leave them alone.
The free day, however, seemed suspicious.
“You canceled something,” I said, finding him in the small kitchen in the private apartments.
He stood at the stove in dark pants and a linen shirt. Smoke rose from a frying pan.
“I didn’t.”
“Then you forgot.”
“Not that either.”
“Why are you cooking?”
He looked at the pan.
“I’m not sure I’d call it that yet.”
I opened a window before the fire alarm could weigh in.
“What were you trying to make?”
“Eggs.”
“Did they do something to you?”
He turned off the burner.
“We can order breakfast.”
“No. Now it’s a matter of honor.”
I tied back my hair, scraped out the burned remains, and got fresh ingredients. Luca stood beside me, resisting instructions with a stubbornness that would have gotten him fired by any chef.
“You don’t have to stir constantly,” I explained.
“They’ll burn if I stop.”
“They burned because the heat was too high.”
“Cooking over low heat seems like a waste of time.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t apply business strategies to eggs.”
He caught me around the waist as I reached for the salt.
“Is this part of the recipe?”
“Operational interference.”
He kissed my neck. I laughed and fended him off with the spatula.
“Sit down. It’s safer for everyone.”
We ate by the window, sharing passable eggs and fresh bread. We didn’t talk about infertility, the board, or the opening. Luca read a news story on his phone; I stole some of his fruit. For an hour, we seemed like two ordinary people on an ordinary Sunday.
The cook came in looking for a serving dish and stopped at the sight of Luca washing the pan while I dried plates. She apologized and hastily retreated. A minute later, we heard her whispering to another employee in the hall. I laughed.
“By lunch, the whole palace will know you wash dishes.”
“That’ll do more damage to the stock than our relationship.”
“You should issue a statement.”
“‘The Bellandi Group confirms that its president used dish soap under technical supervision.’”
I handed him the serving dish I’d just dried. He put it in the wrong cabinet; I pointed to the other one, and we stood arguing over where the cook would look for things in the morning.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
“Another studio?”
“No.”
“A room that’ll give me more work?”
He dried his hands on the towel before answering.
“There’s no contract waiting, Gabriela.”
“Good. Today my fee is lunch.”
He took the keys. We followed a trail uphill behind the garden. The Palazzo grounds ended near a chestnut grove. Beyond an old gate, we came to an abandoned property on a hill.
Two stone walls remained, part of a low tower, and the outline of foundations overgrown with weeds. The lake showed between the trees.
“What was it?” I asked.
“A house for one of the family’s estate managers. It burned before I was born.”
“Does it belong to the group?”
“To me.”
I stopped outside the walls. The stone looked well preserved on that side, but I wouldn’t go in without examining the supports and what remained of the tower. A fig tree had grown where Luca said the kitchen used to be. Even from there, I could imagine light moving through the house.
“Are you planning to restore it?”
“I’ve never thought about it.”
“Liar. No one brings an architect to a ruin without wondering what she’d do with it.”
He stopped beside me, looking at the fig tree.
“What would you do?”
I opened the small bag I’d brought and took out a notebook.
“If the survey confirms we can keep these walls, I’d start with them. The entrance facing the woods. The living room near the old tower, with windows overlooking the lake.”
I sat on a rock beside the trail and began to sketch. Luca watched over my shoulder.
“What about the fig tree?”
“It stays.”
“In the middle of the kitchen?”
“The kitchen moves. We could build an inner courtyard around the tree.”
“That would cost more.”
“Naturally, that was your first concern.”
“Merely an observation.”
I drew a staircase, three bedrooms upstairs, and a north-facing studio. Near the entrance, I added five quick figures, just to give the sketch a sense of scale.
“Three bedrooms?” he asked.
I looked up. He was pointing to the rectangles.
“I was thinking of a couple who had guests.”
“With a room to spare?”
“Different guests, Bellandi. I’m not putting Sofia and Paola in the same room.”
He almost smiled but kept looking at the paper.
I lowered my pencil.
“What is it?”
“What if they were children’s rooms?”
I didn’t pretend not to understand.
“They could be.”
“Can you look at them without thinking about that?”
“I can design a house before I know who’s going to live in it. You don’t have to make that choice now.”
“Or they could stay empty.”
“Or fill up with things you bought without knowing where to put them.”
He ran a finger over the two rectangles.
“When Beatrice said she was pregnant, I went to the house I’d bought outside Milan. I measured a room for the crib. I hadn’t even seen a test result yet. Afterward, I closed the door and never went back.”
“Do you still own the house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Whenever the agent calls, I say I’ll think about it, then never get back to him.”
I covered his hand.
“You could show me someday. If you want.”
He left his hand beneath mine a little longer. Then he asked where the terrace would go. I returned to the drawing and added a small garden and a long kitchen table.
“Why such a big table?” he asked.
“Dinners.”
“How many people are you planning to invite?”
“Sofia’s opinions alone would take up two chairs. Cris would come for long visits. Paola would turn up unannounced.”
“Moreau wouldn’t get the address.”
“Still jealous?”
“It’s structural.”
I smiled and handed him the pencil.
“Add something.”
He hesitated before drawing a line along the property.
“A pool?”
“A wall.”
“Of course.”
“A low one,” he corrected. “Just to protect the garden.”
“The fig tree thanks you.”
He sat beside me, our shoulders touching.
“Where would the library go?”
“Here, near the living room.”
“And your studio?”
“Upstairs.”
“Too far from the kitchen. You’d forget to eat.”
“Someone could remind me.”
Our eyes met. We weren’t talking about some hypothetical house anymore. I felt the words rise. I love you. True, simple, dangerous. If I said them, Luca might hear a burden, a responsibility, or another reason to protect me from himself. I closed the notebook.
“It’s only a drawing.”
“Yes.”
His answer sounded like an escape too. We put the notebook away and walked on through the woods.
We stopped to eat the bread and fruit I’d brought from the kitchen; Luca had to admit his promise of lunch deserved better.
We returned to the Palazzo in the late afternoon.
On the way, he told me he’d broken his arm falling out of a tree and used to hide near the ruins after his father remarried.
The place had been a refuge long before our walk.
In the kitchen, we made pasta. This time, Luca respected the low heat. Sofia arrived uninvited, as predicted in the imaginary drawing, and stayed for dinner. Paola joined us later. For two hours, the room filled with voices, clattering dishes, and laughter.
Sofia criticized the amount of salt, Paola told a story about Augusto, and I spilled wine on the tablecloth. Luca watched the stain spread without calling anyone to change the linen. He simply fetched a cloth and kept listening.
“You’re leaving a domestic emergency to people with no specialist training,” I remarked.
“I’ve assessed the risk.”
“And?”
“The conversation’s worth more than the tablecloth.”
Paola raised her glass. Sofia asked for more bread, and dinner went on. I saw Luca looking around the table. Perhaps he was imagining the house too.
That night, lying together, I asked,
“Why did you never build on that land?”
“I didn’t need another property.”
“I didn’t ask why you hadn’t bought one. I asked why you hadn’t built one.”
He was silent.
“A home needs someone waiting when you come back,” he said at last.
“A home needs you to come back too. Buying walls and imagining someone inside isn’t enough.”
“Are you accusing me of working too much in a house that doesn’t exist yet?”
“I’m setting out preliminary requirements.”
“How many travel days allowed?”
“Negotiable. Phone-free dinners aren’t.”
“What if there’s a crisis?”
“You tell me, I complain a little, and we try again the next day.”
He laughed softly. I heard it against my ear and settled more comfortably on his chest.
“I’d come back,” he said.
“Then maybe it is a home.”
I moved my hand across his chest, smoothing a fold in the sheet.
“Is someone waiting now?”
His hand moved through my hair.
“Now I’m afraid of getting used to it.”
It was as close to a declaration as he’d managed. I reached for the notebook beside the bed. He held the lamp closer while I added a window to the guest room.
“More light?” he asked.
“To wake up whoever comes to visit us.”
“Does Cris sleep late?”
I elbowed him. He nearly dropped the lamp.
The next morning, he asked for the notebook so he could scan the drawing. When I came back from the site, the original was in its place, with a copy beside it.
“I made two,” he said. “May I keep the other one?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t tell him I loved him. I put away the notebook, wondering whether we’d ever live in that house.