Chapter 7
Matteo
SHORTS. TANK TOP. Sandals. No hat.
This woman couldn’t be serious.
“Good morning.” Allegra smiled coming up the driveway.
I stood out front and looked at my watch. Ten after six. “You are late.”
“It’s your fault. I couldn’t figure out what to wear.”
“Did you miss da part where I told you long sleeves, pants, comfortable shoes, and a hat?”
“Damn it.” She snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot something.”
“Would that be da other half of the legs of your pants, or the sleeves to your shirt?”
“I meant a hat. The only long-sleeve shirt I brought is dirty. I wore it on the plane.”
“Better dirty than bitten by bugs.”
Her eyes widened. “Bugs? You didn’t mention anything about bugs.”
I swallowed the rest of my coffee and opened the screen door. “Come. I find you something you can cover up with.” Inside, I lifted my chin to the espresso maker. “I made you a caffé, but it’s cold by now.”
“Oh, thanks.” She looked around. “I’ll just warm it up in the microwave.”
“No, you cannot. I do not have one.”
Allegra’s forehead wrinkled. “No microwave?”
“No microwave.”
“But how do you heat up your coffee?”
“I don’t. I drink it.”
“What about warming up leftovers?”
“I have an oven for that.”
“But that takes so long.”
“What? Ten minutes?” I chuckled. “Sit. I make you a new cup.”
After I brewed her a fresh espresso, I went upstairs and grabbed a lightweight linen button-up from my closet.
“Here. Put this on to protect your arms.”
“Okay.” She set her caffé down. “By the way, now I know why you don’t need a microwave to warm up your coffee. It’s too small and too delicious to not finish right away.”
I smiled and gestured to the door. “We must get started.”
“What are we doing?”
“We’re picking grapes.”
“Oh, fun. What do we use to pick them?”
“Our hands.”
She stopped short. “Our hands? But that field is huge.”
“We’re not doing it alone. I have a team that comes in at seven. I like to start when da sun comes up. It is quiet and the most beautiful time of the day in the vines.”
“I’m more of a sleep-past-the-sunrise-and-work-late type of girl.”
I grabbed a baseball cap from the hook as we passed through the entryway and slipped it onto her head. “You need this, too.” I whistled for Lupo, who followed me outside with his tail wagging.
Allegra pushed her hair behind her ears and straightened the cap, while I tried not to notice how cute it looked on her. This woman was way too high-maintenance for me, though I might’ve forgotten that yet again as she walked in front of me to the field with those mile-long legs.
“Rule number one.” I stopped at a row of vines and handed her a pair of clippers before squatting down next to a heavy leaf canopy. “Don’t make the plant pissed off.”
“How would I piss off a plant?”
“By hacking at it.” I picked up the woody vine. “We hold la vite gently, no yanking, and snip.”
She smirked. “I’m not so good at gentle.”
Something in me stirred. I cleared my throat and ignored it. “Rule number two. Pick only da good stuff. We’re harvesting for our reserve blend, so we only want the most special grapes. No rotten or moldy clusters and no sunburned or shriveled fruit.”
“Picky I’m good at.”
“Yes.” I smiled. “I imagine so.”
I gave her a few more instructions and then held out a vine. “You wanta clip just above da cluster. Here.”
She snipped, and a big smile spread across her face. “I did it.”
“Meraviglioso.” Wonderful. I lifted the basket to receive the bunch. “Now, do that a thousand more times. I’ll be across the row if you need anything.”
I headed over to get started, facing east like I did in the mornings so I could watch the sun come up. Allegra had been facing the vine, but I noticed her look up at the view a few times, and a little while later she was turned in the same direction as me. It made me smile.
We picked in silence for most of the morning, even when the workers joined us at seven.
Allegra had been across from me when we started, but now she was four rows away because I was much faster than her.
But I always knew where she was. Every so often, I collected her full basket and exchanged it for an empty one.
On my way back from dropping off the last one, I passed Tomasso, one of my seasonal pickers.
He was nineteen and not the best-looking guy in a room, yet somehow, he was always the one who got the girl.
He sported a shit-eating grin, had piercing blue eyes, and the confidence of a much older man who had never heard the word no. He smirked at me.
“Vuoi svuotare anche il mio secchio, capo?” You going to dump my bucket, too, boss?
“Fatti gli affari tuoi.” Mind your own business.
His smile widened. “Who’s da new girl?”
“She’s a woman, and she’s none of your concern.”
“What? Are you calling dibs on her?”
I walked away, shaking my head. “Dibs. On a woman.”
A little after noon, I noticed Allegra stretching out her back for the second time in five minutes, so I took that as a sign to call it a day. I normally worked until five, but stores closed early around here.
“You ready to get your tub?”
“Oh, sure.” She bent and lifted the nearly full basket at her feet. “Wow. This thing’s heavy. I had no idea.”
Tomasso leaned out into the row and smirked. I gave him the evil eye and took the basket from Allegra. “You survived working outdoors.”
“I know. I can’t believe it. I actually enjoyed myself, too.”
“Good.”
“Turns out fresh air doesn’t kill you after all.” She shrugged. “Who knew?”
“Are you ready to go to the store now?”
“I just need to run next door and wash up. I’ll pick you up when I’m done.”
I shook my head. “I will drive.”
Her brows knitted. “Why?”
“I saw da way you drive a stick, but also that little Fiat is too small to fit a bathtub.”
“We can leave the trunk open or tie it down or something.” She pointed at my Vespa. “What are we going to do, balance it on our heads on that thing?”
“I have a pickup truck in the garage. How do you think I haul grapes and equipment around?”
“Oh.”
I shook my head again. “I’ll be outside your house in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
I jumped in the shower to wash the vineyard off, got dressed, and still had to wait ten minutes for Allegra.
She came out in a white tank top and a pale blue flowy skirt, with her hair piled on top of her head in a big messy bun.
I was glad I had sunglasses on because my gaze lingered on the delicate curve of her neck for a little too long.
Lupo was sitting next to me on the bench seat. He stood when he heard gravel crunching, and his excited tail swatted me as he watched Allegra walk toward the truck. “Yeah,” I grumbled. “No shit.”
She climbed in and scratched the top of his head. “Hey, buddy. I didn’t know you were coming, too.” Allegra looked over at me. “He followed you around the vineyard like a shadow today. Does he go everywhere with you?”
I shrugged. “He took your grandmother’s passing hard.”
“It was very kind of you to take him in.” Allegra covered her heart with her hand.
She thought I was being sweet, but I’d just answered her by talking to her cleavage. Thank God for sunglasses.
I cleared my throat. “You want a regular tub, yes? Something fiberglass or acrylic?”
“I’d love a cast-iron one like what was in there, to keep true to the house, if that’s not a pain in the neck to find.”
It was, and it also changed installing it from being a one-man job to two or three guys lifting over two hundred kilos.
But I appreciated her respect for the bones of the place, so I’d figure it out.
Though the nearest plumbing-supply store that might stock cast iron was an hour away, so I hit the road.
The windows in the truck were down, and after a little while I noticed the wind was blowing my passenger’s bun loose.
“You want me to put on de air conditioning?” I asked.
“No, this actually feels good.” She reached up and plucked something from her bun, and her hair tumbled down in waves.
I focused on keeping my eyes ahead and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. “How long are you staying in Tuscany?”
She grinned. “Anxious to get rid of me already?”
I smiled. “Nah. Lupo, he likes you.”
“I’m staying three months.”
“You work remote or something?”
“Or something. I’m actually unemployed at the moment.”
I glanced over at her and back to the road. “Sounds like there’s a story there, yes?”
She sighed. “There is. But I’ll spare you the details and give you the abbreviated version. I got passed over for partner, so I quit.”
“Did you deserve to be made partner?”
She lifted her chin. “Of course I did. I’m damn good at my job.”
“Then why you get passed over?”
“Because I neither have a dick, nor suck one, to get ahead.”
“Non tutte le ciambelle escono col buco.” Not all donuts come out with a hole.
She laughed, and I was surprised she’d been able to translate what I’d said. “I think I was eighteen before I realized that meant not everything turns out as expected, and my grandmother didn’t have an obsession with donuts. That was her favorite saying.”
I nodded. “I know. It felt like something she would’ve said right now.”
Allegra was quiet for a moment. “You knew her pretty well, huh?”
“I fix things for her. She make dinner for me. And we drank a lot of wine on the loggia after both.”
“How long have you been next door?”
“Six years.”
Allegra frowned. “I guess that’s why we never met. That’s how long I’ve been a lawyer and too wrapped up in my life to visit the person I loved most.”
I glanced over at her again. “She spoke of you often.”
Allegra smiled but it seemed a little sad. “We FaceTimed every Sunday. I know it’s stupid, because she was eighty-five when she died, but I thought I had more time to visit. Looking back, I don’t know where the last six years even went.”
“Then it’s good you come. Life here is slower.”
“Yeah.” She looked out the window as we passed over rolling hills. “That’s what my grandmother wanted. Me to slow down. She actually left me the shop and all her land in her will, but with the condition that I had to come and stay here for three months.”