Chapter 6 Cosimo #2
‘Rafaella!’ he said more loudly now, and Gina flinched, seeing some of the customers’ heads turn. As had been his intention.
‘Hush!’ she hissed again. ‘This isn’t the time or the place—’
But a shadow fell across the doorframe, and Rafaella emerged. She was holding a crate of lemonade bottles, the sinews in her skinny arms straining. He wanted to take the load from her, but to do so would require releasing his grip on his sister, and he still couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t bolt.
‘Ciao,’ he said dumbly as he took in the sight of her.
As a girl, she had always been pretty, but over the course of this year her features had grown bolder and stronger upon slight bones, so that now she could be said to be beautiful: appled cheekbones, thick eyebrows, pale, full lips …
She was taller, too, and very gently curved, just an italic shadow to Valentina’s bombshell silhouette.
She looked at them both, wary as a doe in the woods – he didn’t blame her – and he tightened his fingers around his sister’s bicep. ‘Romy has something she’d like to say to you.’
Rafaella looked away as if just his words had hurt her, but her feet didn’t stir. Gina walked over, took the crate from her and set it down on the floor.
‘Well, spit it out, then,’ Gina snapped, planting her hands on her hips as Romola’s hesitation turned into a pause.
‘I know I don’t deserve your m-mercy,’ Romola began. ‘What I did last night was … It was unforgivable.’
‘Yes, it was,’ Gina agreed.
‘I’ll never forgive myself.’
‘Good.’
‘But—’
‘But?’ Gina queried, a note of outrage ringing through the word. ‘You mean you have a justification?’
‘No! I …’ Romola looked at Cosimo in panic but his eyes were squarely on Rafaella. She was still looking away, so tense he could see the pulse beating in her neck. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. ‘I didn’t plan it.’
‘Are we supposed to be grateful for that?’
‘No!’
‘No? So, you were just so overcome with passion, then?’
Romola shook her head desperately at the sarcasm. ‘No … It just … happened. I was upset, and suddenly he was there, in the hall, and—’
‘Spare us the lurid details.’ Gina rolled her eyes.
Cosimo could feel the muscles in his sister’s arm twitching, her entire body primed to get away from here. He redoubled his grip.
‘Look … I know an apology can’t take away what I’ve done, but I need you to know I’ve never regretted anything more in my life.
If I had been in my right mind …’ Romola leaned forward on the bar suddenly, trying to engage Rafaella’s attention, but she was looking far out to sea.
‘Rafa, you’re a sister to me,’ she pleaded.
‘You both are,’ she said, looking to Gina now too.
‘Words are cheap,’ Gina sneered.
‘I hate myself!’
‘Good. That makes three of us, then.’
‘Gina,’ Cosimo said. ‘You can see she’s trying.’
But Gina’s eyes flashed. ‘You’ve had to drag her here, Cosi. You’re literally holding her against her will, making her do this! Do you think we believe she’d even be out of her bed if it wasn’t for you?’
Cosimo sighed, unable to deny it. ‘Look, it isn’t an excuse, but …’
‘But, again.’ Gina rolled her eyes once more.
‘… We’ve had a difficult year, OK? As a family, I mean.’ His voice was low now.
‘Oh, really? Did you run out of Petrus?’
Cosimo flinched at the cruel sarcasm. ‘Difficult in other ways,’ he said finally. ‘And it’s not an excuse, just … an explanation. We all have different ways of coping.’
‘So for Romy it’s by opening her legs?’
Romola gave a cry, turning away from the crude response, but Gina wasn’t standing for any displays of delicacy now. ‘Oh, you can do it but we can’t say it?’
‘Excuse me!’ a pithy voice intruded, and they all looked over. A customer had his arm in the air to attract attention. ‘Our order?’
‘Dammit,’ Gina muttered as she jumped into action, setting glasses on a tray and reaching for ice. ‘… See what you made me do?’
They watched as she hurried over to the table, and Cosimo felt Romola sense her chance.
‘Rafa,’ she pleaded, leaning on the bar again now that Gina, guard dog and de facto leader of their unit of two, had been removed. ‘I know I can’t take back what I’ve done, but won’t you let me make this right? Tell me how I can make it up to you. I’ll do anything. Anything you ask.’
Rafaella gave a shrug that was agonizing in its helplessness. ‘What is there to do?’ she asked dully. ‘It can’t be undone.’
‘But … if I talk to Fon …’ Romola said desperately.
‘What good would that do? This isn’t about him. It’s about us … I thought you were my friend.’
‘I am! Oh, Rafa, you’re my best friend in the entire world!’
‘Then I wouldn’t want to be your enemy.’
For all Gina’s rage, it was the simplicity of Rafaella’s words that stung like vinegar on a knife wound. Romola fell back, seeing it was hopeless.
Cosimo stared at Rafaella, seeing the breach open up between them all – because something had shifted between the two of them as well, he could feel it.
If he was honest, he knew things hadn’t been the same since they’d arrived; not even yesterday, during the brief reprieve in the pool, playing like electric eels and shocking each other with every touch in the water.
That one secret kiss had changed everything.
He saw that now, as they stood here opposite one another –
Not as lovers.
Not as friends.
But as freshly minted strangers.