Chapter Eleven
The following morning, as Livia’s family descended on the Tremezzo, Patrick and Greg took the kids to the town of Bellagio across the lake. The nearest pier where they could catch the ferry was little more than a stone’s throw from the hotel’s entrance, and they walked single file along the narrow roadway to catch the battello. The ferry served Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio—all the romantic villages of the central lake that were nestled into the shore. Lake Como was shaped like an inverted Y and Bellagio sat right at the promontory that divided the body of water in two.
“What did the water say to the boat?” Grant asked as they reached the pier.
Greg put his hands on his son’s shoulders as they walked up to the little shack that appeared to sell tickets. “I don’t know. What did the water say to the boat?”
Grant beamed. “Nothing. It just waved.”
Maisie pinched her brother’s arm. “There are no waves on a lake.” Now that she had been reunited with her books, it was never clear exactly when she was listening and when she wasn’t. Even though Patrick had taken them to a maze of a used-book store in Venice that had stairs made entirely of books and allowed them to pick out anything they liked, for today’s outing she had selected a book from home: Stephen King’s Misery. Perhaps she thought it was a subtle campaign she was waging with her reading choices on this trip, but Patrick had come to admire it for its brazenness.
Grant squirmed. “It’s just a joke!”
“You’re a joke,” she replied, and she hit him with her book.
“DAAAAD!”
In a fluid move that couldn’t have been choreographed more gracefully, Greg pulled both kids from the line. As Patrick stood at the window with his open wallet, he commended how effortlessly Greg skated right over the brewing squabble—and left Patrick to foot the bill. That was some serious talent. “Don’t worry,” he said to no one. “I’ll get the tickets.”
“Did you hear about the Bluetooth iceberg?” Greg asked, and he immediately had Grant’s rapt attention.
“Any boat that goes near it will sync.”
Grant squealed with delight, but Patrick turned away from them in shame. Guncle jokes were way better than dad jokes.
The battello was a two-story boat, with open-air seating in the bow. It was not even eleven and the sun already felt like it was at its full height in the sky, so Patrick ushered them to the ship’s upper deck, where they could be seated under a canopy; sunburn was not a cute look for a wedding.
“Hazy today,” Greg observed.
Patrick looked out from under the canopy and up at the overcast sky. “Livia mentioned something about rain.”
“Is that why she didn’t come?” Maisie asked. “Because I invited her.”
Greg looked nervously at the cloud cover, ever the anxious groom. “Relax,” Patrick instructed. “I’m sure it will pass through long before the wedding.” He then leaned down to his niece and whispered, “That was nice of you to invite her. I’m proud of you.”
Maisie sneered. “I was hoping she’d walk the plank.”
Patrick sighed. They were raising Wednesday Addams.
Once the boat was underway, Greg took Grant to find the bathroom, leaving Maisie and Patrick alone. While Maisie read, they enjoyed the silence and the boat’s smooth ride and the people watching, which was always a fun way to pass silent judgment. Maisie caught Patrick staring at her.
“What, you expect me to read Little Women?”
Patrick laughed and tapped the cover of her book. “Annie Wilkes is cocaine. Stephen King said as much himself.” It was a daring bid to bond with her, but since her father had successfully been through rehab she was certainly old enough to understand addiction.
“Well then, he must have had a different draft, because in this copy she’s a human woman.”
Patrick said nothing, deciding to leave it at that. Instead he gestured toward an elderly lady whose sundress he was certain was on backward; without hesitating Maisie jutted her chin in the direction of a man who had tightened the chin strap on his hat so tightly his jowls swallowed the tie. She didn’t miss a thing, even with her nose in a book. She waited until the boat reached the lake’s center before asking, “Are you going to talk to him?”
“Are you?” Patrick retorted, certain he had more than upheld his end of the bargain.
Maisie said nothing and returned to reading. Patrick elbowed her to look up and gestured around them; the view was out there and the Italian Alps were not to be missed. “Livia said that on a clear day you can see Austria and Slovenia.”
Maisie didn’t stir. “Weren’t we just in Austria?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then, let’s not wait for a clear day.” She eventually sneaked a look at the scenery, but denied Patrick satisfaction by pulling her hair down over her eyes. “Do you think Dad would let me get highlights?”
“Maybe you should ask Livia. That’s the kind of thing stepmothers are for. She wouldn’t dare say no.”
Maisie pushed her hair back from her face and frowned, disappointed to hear him pinch-hit for traditional gender roles. “Shouldn’t that be what guncles are for? Or maybe I should ask my new launt.”
Patrick relented. He had yet to meet Palmina, but he wasn’t about to let her have this one. “We can try some lemon juice when we get back to the hotel.”
“Lemon juice?” Maisie’s face was now sour as citrus itself.
“People rub lemon juice in their hair to lighten it. And then they sit in the sun. We can do that later and lie on the beach.”
“People? What people?”
“I don’t know. People.”
Maisie looked at him skeptically, but wasn’t ready to put her foot down. This was the farthest she’d ever been from New England and maybe people did things differently here.
“Your mom and I, okay? We did it. Or maybe we used this ghastly product called Sun-In, but it’s made with lemon juice, so we might as well go right to the source.” If Patrick recalled, their hair turned an unsavory shade of orange and they went straight to the drugstore wearing ridiculous rain bonnets to procure color to dye it back. They’d laughed when they caught sight of themselves in the store window looking like frightened Mennonites. But lemon juice on its own would hopefully have a more subtle effect, especially if Patrick applied it to his niece’s hair evenly, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t require an emergency run to a farmacia. “You know, I had dinner with Livia.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Traitor,” Maisie mumbled, and Patrick recognized his own perfect comedic delivery; he then melted when she nuzzled against him.
“She does have a thing, doesn’t she? A quality that’s difficult to read. It made me wonder how your dad did it.”
“Did what?”
Patrick almost said penetrate her demeanor, but what he meant was fall in love. “Get to know her, beneath the surface. It will be interesting to meet her family and see if they’re the same.”
“Even Palmina?” Maisie cajoled.
Patrick shuddered.
“It really bothers you, doesn’t it? The idea of us having a launt.”
“Everything bothers me,” Patrick clarified as he pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “But I’m being very brave.”
“So who’s coming to this wedding?” Patrick asked as they disembarked in Bellagio in front of the town’s lakeshore hotels and older patrician houses; since it was the high season, the village was a beehive buzzing with life. Normally Patrick preferred to know the guest list before committing to any social event and the seemingly haphazard nature of this wedding was starting to unnerve him. “No fascists, I hope.”
“No fascists,” Greg confirmed. “Livia’s parents, her sister, Palmina. Clara, of course, is arriving tonight.”
“Oh, so one fascist,” Patrick joked, and it was funny because their sister, Clara, while a little too serious for Patrick’s tastes at times, was really anything but. And their relationship had thawed since his summer in Palm Springs with the kids, when she had tried to take custody from him in the final weeks of Greg’s stint in rehab. Now she seemed more or less ashamed of the whole episode and Patrick honored her by never bringing it up.
“That’s it. A few assorted friends.”
“Of yours?”
“Livia’s mostly.”
“You know I’m actually excited to see Clara?”
“I am, too,” Greg admitted. “I need someone else to stand on my side.”
“Well, I’m famous, so I count as at least two.”
“Actually, I was hoping you would be my best man.”
Patrick was touched; Greg hadn’t mentioned anything, so Patrick assumed he’d asked Grant, even though he was half a man at best. “A little last minute to be asking.”
“You have other plans?”
He pretended to check his calendar. “I was maybe going to drop in on the Amal Clooneys.” Greg snatched Patrick’s phone and ran ahead. “Wait,” Patrick called after him. “Who is Livia’s maid of dishonor?”
“Her sister, Palmina.” Patrick felt a jealousy weighing him down as Greg encouraged the kids to pick up their pace. How could he feel in such competition with a woman he had not yet even met? “You’ll like her.”
“Are Grandma and Grandpa coming?” Grant asked, too distracted by their surroundings to wait for an answer. He apparently had fewer concerns about knowing the guest list up front.
“Who?” Patrick joked once he caught up.
“Your parents,” Grant clarified.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We were raised by wolves.”
They were in fact not coming, but Greg mentioned they sent their regards. If there were two people even less thrilled than Maisie and Grant about these impending nuptials Patrick had to imagine it was his parents, who seemed more distrustful of foreigners as they aged. It was one thing if they took American jobs; it was quite another if they swooped in to claim American grandchildren, promising summers away in an enchanted land.
Greg pointed to what looked like a set of stairs. “Should we head up this way?” The town was cleaved in two, the grander buildings right on the lakefront, and everything that sat behind them, smaller but still charming dwellings and businesses which needed to be accessed by cobbled streets and staircases. All in all, Bellagio looked like it wouldn’t take more than two hours to explore, which made it the perfect outing for the day. “We could look for gelato. It’s a lot like ice cream.”
“We know what gelato is,” Maisie groaned. She turned to Patrick while pointing at her father as if to say, Get a load of this boor.
“Yeah,” Grant concurred. “We had it in Venice.”
“Oh,” Greg said, and led them toward the stairs. “Well, if that’s not of interest, we could stroll through some gardens. The grounds of Villa Melzi, I read something about. They’re known to have lots of shrubs.”
“No!” Grant protested. “Gelato!”
“Suit yourselves. Say, I was thinking, along the way we could shop for a little something for you to give Livia at the wedding.”
“We’re expected to give her a gift?” Maisie asked, appalled. This was getting worse by the minute. “She’s getting two kids out of this marriage. Isn’t that present enough?”
“You’re a real gift all right,” Patrick joked, and Greg elbowed him for not helping. “Let’s hope you can be returned for more than store credit.”
“It would be a nice gesture,” Greg explained, already a few steps up Salita Serbelloni, which appeared to be the main drag.
Patrick glanced up at the sky before following; it looked more than ever like rain.
The center of town was quaint and charming and everything you’d want a stroll through a European town to be. The buildings were pale pinks and yellows and oranges, the colors of sherbet more than gelato, and the windows were framed with green shutters that hung endearingly just shy of vertical. Striped awnings hung over doors and the occasional flower box sat under windows, adding to Bellagio’s delightful aesthetic. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine the whole place was expertly created in a lab or at Epcot’s World Showcase, except there wasn’t a whiff of anything plastic or even a percentage artificial. Even locals seemed to mix in with the tourists, as if Bellagio was the place for luxury goods if you lived anywhere east of Milan.
“What about a scarf?” Greg asked as they entered their third shop. Como seemed to be known for its silks, and one of the shop owners had even informed them that silk production in the fifteenth century is what originally drew prominent people to the area, contributing to development around the lake. Silk scarves were plentiful and seemed to be in every shop; Patrick couldn’t deny they suited Livia, as they would the Baroness.
“GUP?” Maisie asked, as if she couldn’t possibly be counted on to answer such a question.
“I think it’s a grand idea,” Patrick said. Then, when Greg was deep in conversation with the store clerk, he added, “Perfect to strangle her with.” He made a gagging sound, even though he wasn’t sure why, other than to curry cheap favor with an Agatha Christie fanatic. To make up for his crass remark, he dove into a display of local designers and unearthed a Mantero scarf in blues and pinks. Instead of florals, the silk’s pattern looked more like rare mushrooms. “This is the one.” He held it up for Greg’s approval.
“This one? Really?” He held it up to the window and then turned it around to make sure he wasn’t viewing it from the wrong side. The shopkeeper “oohed” with approval, but Greg wasn’t quite sold. “The pattern looks like fungus.”
Maisie and Grant snickered.
“Not fungus,” Patrick countered. “Mushrooms. Think, champignons. Like truffles, morels, and chanterelles.” He said it with great confidence, even though he wasn’t sure if he was listing mushrooms or sixties girl groups.
Greg squinted a last time at the scarf, reconsidering; some mushrooms were considered delicacies. “If you say so,” he said, knowing if nothing else, gay men knew how to shop.
“I do.” Patrick then turned to the kids and mouthed, Fungus, which made them laugh. Greg paid with his credit card and had the scarf gift wrapped as Patrick stumbled upon another display and announced to them all, “I think I’m going to get into ascots.”
They reached a neighboring doorway just as the skies opened; one minute it was dry, and then sparse, splattering drops exploded on cobblestones. Then claps of thunder echoed through the streets and it was pouring buckets from the sky. Men who’d had the foresight to bring umbrellas struggled to open them, chivalrously providing cover for their anxious women. The awning was just large enough to shield the four of them, Patrick and Greg pressed shoulder to shoulder with the kids standing with their backs right up against them, which kept them dry for a time, but the wind soon picked up and rain fell sideways as much as it did from the sky.
“My book!” Maisie cried, crouching over it like she was protecting a child from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Three young women ran in front of them shrieking, their hair plastered to their skulls, and their white summer dresses clinging to them like bedsheets, their flat sandals thwacking against the wet ground. People scattered like cockroaches in sudden light, and the streets quickly emptied; where people disappeared to was anyone’s guess, but one had to imagine all the little shops were suddenly full. Those who were drenched and didn’t see much point in seeking refuge as the damage was already done, continued to slip and stumble across the slick cobblestone; a few threw their arms in the air like the most carefree of spirits in the mud puddles at Woodstock. A river of rain ran down the hill toward the waterfront and there was a loud clap of thunder that rattled the entire small town. Greg tucked Livia’s gift-wrapped scarf under his shirt to keep it dry and Patrick did the same with his new ascots.
“Do you think the shopkeeper thought we were gay?” Greg shouted over the storm.
“We are gay,” Patrick replied.
“You mean you are.”
Patrick begged to differ. “You’re marrying a marchesa. That’s gayer than anything I’ve ever done.” He watched as water streamed past them and felt grateful they were at the top of the hill and not at the bottom. “Does that make you a marquis?”
“What’s a marquee?” Grant asked.
“I think in Italian it’s pronounced marchese.”
“What’s a marchese?” Grant asked again, this time tugging on Patrick’s shirt with urgency while Maisie tapped away into her app.
“It’s a game like Parcheesi.”
“You’re cheesy,” Greg replied.
Patrick made a face at his brother’s childish comeback. “I’m just teasing you. A marquee is a large sign over the entrance to a theater.”
“Don’t listen to your uncle,” Greg interjected, before Patrick threw his arms in the air in protest. These kids would be so much worse off without his wisdom and bons mots.
“Don’t listen to your father. I’m trying to give you a mnemonic device to remember. It can be a very helpful tool.” Patrick then turned to his brother. “Greg, you know what a tool is, don’t you?”
Greg laughed in spite of himself. “A marquis is a noble title, like princess or duke or earl. Unlike court jester or clown, which is simply a job.” Greg pushed Patrick out from under the awning; the rain was surprisingly cold and he shrieked and hopped back underneath.
“Do we get titles?” Maisie asked. It was the most interested she’d been in this wedding to date.
“Do you want titles?” Greg seemed skeptical that they would. “They’re not really something Americans have.”
“Meghan Markle is the Duchess of Sussex,” Patrick corrected, and then flinched when Greg glared, like he might push Patrick again. “Although, I think she’s Canadian.” To make up for it he told the kids, “You don’t want titles. Not as Americans. It really would make you look like such tools.”
Just as the rain threatened to soak through the heavy cloth canopy above and drench them beyond all hope, it slowed to a drizzle, then stopped.
“I guess Livia was right about the rain,” Greg said, extending his arm out in the open air to see if it might pick up again. Maisie shuddered, either from the sudden break in humidity brought on by the downpour or the very idea of Livia being right about anything.
The cool air became thick and muggy again. “I guess that’s that,” Patrick said.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen during the wedding.” Greg peered up at the sky and scratched his chin the way he did when he was stressed. Maisie and Grant exchanged looks; they kind of hoped it would.
They emerged from the canopy as tourists retook the streets and the kids wandered ahead, on the lookout for gelato, undeterred by puddles, as Patrick and Greg pulled their packages from under their shirts.
“You’re not wearing one of those to the wedding,” Greg informed him, pointing to his brother’s purchase.
“An ascot? Why not? They’re my new thing!” In Palm Springs he’d had a closet full of caftans and often said Mrs. Roper was his style icon. Now he was fashioning himself after another Three’s Company character: Don Knotts’s Mr. Furley.
Greg exhaled his frustration, and they watched Maisie and Grant stomp in puddles, each trying to splash the other.
“We haven’t done such a bad job with them,” Patrick said, thinking for a moment, perhaps like the shopkeeper, that the kids were indeed his and Greg’s. While they were certainly not a couple in the traditional sense, they had been a pretty solid team, and Patrick was feeling proud of what they’d accomplished over the past five years. He no longer just tolerated these kids, to his surprise he genuinely liked them.
“We?” Greg protested, as he’d done the lion’s share of their raising, but it was a gentle chiding at best. It did, after all, take a village.
“Maybe they don’t even need Livia,” Patrick gently suggested, in case Greg was marrying her for them.
“I need Livia,” Greg replied, and for the moment, at least, that was that, and they didn’t say another word on the subject as they scoured the town for gelato.