Chapter 9
James
I don’t knock before barging into Zio’s office after class.
“You are completely out of line—”
He holds up one elegant finger and removes his reading glasses.
“Professor Massini, remember who we are here—in this place,” he says softly, gesturing to the tome-lined walls and the expansive window that overlooks the dorm-spattered hills.
I take a breath and turn to shut the door behind me. He’s right, of course. As always. It’s entirely unprofessional of me to attack the dean of academics about his choices. I should wait, attack my uncle upon arriving home, instead. But there’s no way in hell I can sit with this for another minute.
“She knows nothing about art,” I say, sinking into the leather chair across from him.
He tilts his head, questioning.
“Who? A student? Surely that is why she is taking your course.”
Mio Dio. Is this really how this is going to go?
“Signorina Graham. She’s studying law,” I explain for the benefit of the act my uncle is staging.
“I see.” He steeples his fingers. “So she who studies law cannot also study art? That’s very narrow-minded of you, Professore.”
Zio has dabbled in so many fields of study that we have a filing cabinet filled with diplomas and certifications. I’m barking in the wrong forest and this suddenly feels a lot like my conversation with Ava last night about fitting people into boxes.
“She has no interest in art,” I amend.
“Did you ask her that?” he muses.
I don’t move.
He turns his lips down.
“Then don’t be absurd, James. Everyone is interested in art.” He smiles, and I’m suddenly twelve again, my feet dangling from this same chair as I watch my uncle work on his thousandth dissertation.
I let out a breath and try to find the right words to explain why I cannot have Ava Graham in my amphitheater all summer, glaring at me from behind the students’ heads, distracting me from my lectures with—whatever the hell it is that makes me need to grab the camera. She’s infuriating.
“She challenges you,” my uncle says, leaning across the desk. “And it has been some time since I’ve seen that.”
“Ha! I don’t know if I’d use the word challenge, Zio,” I say.
Vexes. Enrages. Maybe even confuses.
“It is done, Gi. There were no other courses on such short notice,” he says, then pats the papers in front of him twice and then swirls his hand in the air. “Forse, she will help you ‘mix it up’ a bit.”
What the hell does that mean?
“Mix it up?” I repeat, mimicking the twirling hand gesture.
“Sì. Your syllabus has gotten a bit—what’s the right word?”
“Solid? Refined? Watertight?”
He pulls his lips to his nose and then puts a finger in the air.
“Stale.”
I lean back in my chair, gripping the handles made of ornately carved mahogany. Stale. Like the leftover bread Nina leaves on the counter in a basket to make crostini. I watch my uncle for some sort of remorse, some acknowledgment of the insult, and he just lifts his hands and shrugs his shoulders.
“Yet another reason why you might consider accepting Signore Davenport’s offer in London. Think of the lectures you could write while passing the time in the Victoria and Albert or Kensington Palace, all while pursuing what you love—”
I put up a hand to stop him before he gains momentum.
“I should really get to work on my stale lectures.”
I stand.
“Thank you for this meeting, Dean Russo. As always, your feedback and expertise are invaluable to me,” I say, glancing at him over my shoulder as I reach for the door.
“Certo, Professore. Any time.”
Oh man, I cannot wait to tell Nina this. Maybe she’ll make him sleep with the sheep.
“Gi,” he says just as my hand lands on the handle.
I knew he’d break first. Apology time. I meet his steady gaze.
“Please send Signorina Graham in when she’s ready.”
He gives me one last shit-eating grin and I choose not to throw his stapler at him. The moment the door to his office is shut behind me, my eyes find her, ankles crossed demurely as she stares up at me.
She pushes up off the divan slowly, eyes on mine. “You know I can fulfill this role with my eyes closed?”
Part of me wants to open the door so Zio can witness this. Part of me knows it will only further confirm his decision.
“Great. You can start by heading into town and getting to know the subject matter since you’ll be grading the seventy-four assignments they’ll be bringing to class tomorrow,” I tell her.
The students were released after introductions and syllabus questions to capture their favorite “artistic moment” in Urbino and write a thousand words explaining why it resonated.
“I think I can handle seventy-four thousand words. That’s the length of the romcom I just finished on the plane,” she says, looking bored.
I step toward her so that she has to tilt her chin up to meet my eyes and I see her chest still. But she doesn’t step back.
“Do you know anything about Renaissance art?” I ask.
Her lips turn up in a tight smile. “I know that if they allow you to teach it here, it can’t be too difficult to master.”
I bite my lip. Nod. I notice her gaze dip down to my mouth. I remember the way her eyes closed as I leaned toward her last night before she nearly stepped off that cliff. I need to get away. Fast.
“The dean is waiting for you,” I tell her, turning my body and gesturing toward the door.
She lifts a haughty brow and pushes past me.
“I’ll see you at dinner. Unless, of course, you’ll be hiding in the woods again behind your camera.” She tosses the words over her shoulder without looking at me before she knocks lightly on the dean’s door and lets herself in.
I breathe in deeply—try to clear my head, but the smell of the lavender shampoo I put in the guest house is lingering in my uncle’s waiting room. I walk outside and lean against the brick wall. Take a deep, not-so-cleansing breath.
This woman is a menace.
There are lectures to be written, a new batch of art to be catalogued and inspected at the museum, and a thousand photographs to be sorted through. My career. My art. My family. Yet, somehow, she’s made her way into all three and she’s been here for a little over twenty-four hours.
I push off of the brick wall and hope to God that Nina will distract me from this spiral. And for the first time in years, I start the daily walk home without my uncle.