Chapter 19
Ava
Everyone is being too kind. I suspect it has to do with the Mom conversation at dinner the other night. Or maybe I’ve grown unaccustomed to random acts of nurturing.
Nina keeps sneaking extra baked goods and fresh fruit into my purse.
Leo has interrupted class twice in the last two days to steal me away, once for a tour of campus that was long overdue, and once to show me a photograph he found of my mother and her art history professor sitting at a picnic table with a bottle of wine between them. The man looked vaguely familiar to me, but Leo assured me he was no longer residing in Urbino.
Even Massimo has been on his best behavior, barely leering when five of his tweeny buds came over for some pool soccer yesterday afternoon. He even swatted one of them when the little bro said something under his breath in Italian as I walked by. I will definitely bring head swatting back to America. Best souvenir ever.
And then there’s James, who is pointedly ignoring me in all ways possible. If I catch him watching me in class, his eyes are narrowed and he looks like he wants to throw the projector remote at me. If I could flip him off in a professional manner, I would. But I refuse to add to his arsenal.
He’s also been absent from family dinners. Nina hides it well, but I know she’s pissed about it. Apparently, James never misses dinners, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s working hard on the apartment so he can get me the hell out of his family life. All of this in mind, you can imagine my surprise when his MacBook Air appeared on my desk with a note saying: Until you get a new phone. But maybe Leo forced him to play nice. Or maybe James was kicked in the head by a sheep and forgot he despises me.
I turn my focus from the paper I’m supposed to be grading and run my fingers over the keyboard of his Mac, pulling up the email Tammy wrote to me yesterday to reread it for the thousandth time.
Aves-
I’m not speaking to him. He swears up and down that he’s not seeing her and I wish I could tell you I believe him, but I feel like I don’t even know him right now.
It’s time for you to stop thinking about him and focus on you. Go. Get. Yours. If you haven’t already …
Lost without you,
T
She knows full well I’m not getting mine. I scroll down to my reply email—a screenshot of flights from Philly to Bologna in the hope that one will somehow fit into Tammy’s crazy schedule. Between photo shoots and galas for Olivia and her volunteering at the children’s literacy camp, it’s a miracle she even has time to email me.
A huge glob of drool lands on the essay to the left of the keyboard. After checking my own lip, I look up to find Verga reading over my shoulder. I’ve been grading these godforsaken papers for eight hours, lying on the floor on my stomach picking at the bread and cheese I brought home from town. I’ve gone through two of my favorite ballpoint pens. Still I have at least thirty left to go.
I remind myself that this is nothing compared to the endless hours I’ll put in at Grant and Stanley when I start there in September. Of course, I’ll be getting paid for that. Handsomely. I’ll have told my dad by then and he will accept the fact that I’m not working at his firm. And I’m sure Ethan will have worked whatever this is out of his system by the time I get home, and life will be moving onward according to the original plan. I just have to get through these next few weeks without losing any more of the little dignity I have left.
I picture James’s narrowed eyes as he asked me what I loved—as he accused me of caring only about veneers. It’s not a crime to be ambitious. And wanting finer things doesn’t make me greedy. Why am I thinking about this again?
I roll onto my back and look up at my canine companion.
“Could you tell your dogdad that he’s a pompous prick, Beasty?”
Verga tilts his head, then lies down on the stack of papers.
“Maybe you could bite him!”
I scratch his ears the way he likes and he immediately lolls backward to give me access to his belly. Verga has slept with me every night this week. I’m thinking of booking him a flight back to Philly with me. In a seat. As my comfort animal.
“Bite who?”
James is watching me from the porch like I’ve conjured him. He steps inside, and I almost pull out the vampire rules and tell him he can’t since he’s uninvited, but it’s too late. Ugh. This is why you don’t leave doors open. But the weather has been too gorgeous to shut out. Maybe I should make a pros and cons list. Crisp air vs. threat of James.
“Am I ever going to get my dog back?” he asks.
“Verga prefers to avoid possessive pronouns. ‘My’ is objectifying to him,” I say, using my nails along the dog’s barrel-sized rib cage.
“Well, since I used to clean up puppy Verga’s shit in the house so Nina didn’t make him sleep in the barn with the sheep, he’s going to have to deal with some objectification,” James says.
He’s standing over me. I know because his shadow from my desk lamp is stretching all the way across the hardwood floor and then disappearing into the glass that spans the back wall. I don’t look up.
“Are you done ignoring me now?” I ask, pretending to read.
“No. This is work related.” His foot nudges Verga off of the stack of papers. “How many do you have left?” he asks.
“Not many. A few. Thirtyish,” I murmur, pulling Verga back over the stack by his legs.
“Christ, Ava. Are you rewriting them? You’ve been holed up in here for two nights—”
“Missed me?” I finally smile up at him and immediately regret it. He’s freshly showered and shaved. His shirt sticks to his pecs in a way that’s bordering on sinful, and I imagine touching his jaw. It probably feels like velvet or—
“Just give me the rest,” he says, bending over to grab them.
I smack his hand, probably harder than necessary, and Verga stands up too fast, alarmed by the sound, knocking his hindquarters right into my face. Now I’m as acquainted with the dog’s ass as he is with mine.
“I’m almost done with them, you bossy stronzo,” I say, scurrying onto my knees and pulling the papers back.
James watches me with a crooked grin that I want to knock straight with my fist.
I place the papers behind me and rush to stand the moment I recognize I’m on my knees in front of him, turning my face so he can’t see the flush that image has caused.
“I don’t need your help,” I say, brushing the dog hair off my bare legs.
“I didn’t say you needed it. I just don’t want to get smacked for keeping you from all that Italy has to offer,” he says, pointing to the view. I don’t need to follow his finger. I’ve memorized the way the sky turns from orange to pink to purple at this time of day, the way the hills beneath it slide into darkness with the change like they’re slipping beneath a favorite blanket.
“I think I’ve seen enough of what Italy has to offer,” I murmur, turning back toward my desk that suddenly needs to be tidied up.
James scoffs.
“You’ve barely made it past the piazza. You’re at the tip of the iceberg,” he says.
“Well, when the tip is enough to toss your life into a blender, why would you go looking for the rest?” I am trying to find something to look at because he’s boring a hole in the side of my face. I pick up my mother’s postcard and tuck it into the cover of the Calvino novel I’m reading so that he doesn’t see it. A week in Italy and not a word written. Fill it when the words find you.
Words aren’t finding me, Mom. But a bunch of bad shit found me. One of the bad shits is staring at me right now, making my skin feel too tight.
James takes a step closer in my periphery and I squeeze as close to my desk as I can. The guest house is suddenly far too small. It needs another point of egress. Or one less wall.
“Italy didn’t toss your life into a blender. You can’t blame a country for things going wrong in your life.”
I can smell his goddamned soap. I might as well be in the shower with him. Wrong turn, brain. Reverse. Reverse! The edge of my desk is leaving an indent in the front of my hip bone. I sidestep—smooth as a pothole—toward the built-in shelves.
“Here we go. Are you going to call me ignorant again? Or wait—how ’bout fake? Which insult would you like to launch, James?”
He lifts his brows and pretends to mull it over. I roll my eyes.
“Nothing has gone according to plan. You threw my phone off a cliff. My law seminar died of E. coli. And my rental in town center is probably floating away toward the Adriatic Sea by now since you seem to be in no rush to save it,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady while I restack books that were perfectly stacked. But I can see his reflection in the glass that covers one of his photos hanging on the wall.
He shakes his head, sending a dark, wet curl onto his forehead. “I’m not going to dignify any of those accusations with a response. But questa è la vita, dolcezza. Life has its own plan for you—”
He sounds like my mother. Life does not care about your plan.
“—And don’t worry about the apartment. Besides, if we are pointing fingers, let’s not forget about the man who started this spiral—”
“Can we not do this again?” I ask, turning, my eyes finally settling on his. And now they’re stuck there. Damn it.
He nods and lets out a breath. I breathe right back at him.
“I actually didn’t come in here to fight, dolcezza. I really just came in here to help grade,” he admits, stepping away.
My muscles relax—a snake finally uncoiling after a threat. I watch him run his hand along my perfectly tucked sheets and my abdomen tightens. The sight of his fingers on the thin white cotton. Threat! Threat! What is wrong with my libido tonight?
“With what happened the other night—” He lifts his brows and looks me over. “Just let me grade with you. I swear we don’t have to talk. You’d be saving me from the wrath of Zia. If she finds you in here grading when they get back from date night—” He gives a fake shudder, lifting the stack of papers off the ground and splitting them into two piles.
I look down at the two stacks, each pile still too thick for my liking, then back up at his lifted brow. I don’t want to accept his help. It feels like admitting defeat, and I should send him back into hiding.
But instead I let out a long breath that almost blows the top paper from the pile on the right. I take the smaller stack and try not to smile when he laughs at my choice, then I sit at my desk with my back to him and attempt to settle in. But the truth is, there is no settling when James is around. My body does the opposite of settle. It perks up, wiry and alert and on edge. Even in class, I’ve been hyperaware of every move he makes. Every passionate explanation of Urbino’s art. Every angry look he sends my way. It’s maddening. And I need it to go away.
I pretend to focus on this student’s experience at the botanical gardens. But focus is a pipe dream. The scratch and scrape of his pen on paper. The pensive sounds he makes from the back of his throat. The swoosh of every page turned makes me more aware that he’s here, sharing this tiny space with me, tasting the same air as I am, smelling the same scent of lavender from the open curtain of my glorious shower.
I force myself to reread the paragraph about the composition of the three-tiered landscape. But the words just flit and float over where they need to reach. Because my entire body is humming, like a swarm of monarchs flapping their wings all at once, trying to keep warm.
Maybe I’m just lonely. That’s all this is. Or maybe I do have oats. Obviously, the man is attractive. I’m attracted to him. Ugh. I hate that I’m admitting that—even if it’s just to myself. But it’s not like it means anything. It’s all chemicals. It’s just science.
Or maybe it’s a bit of culture shock coupled with some loneliness. Nothing to write home about on my postcard. My plan is just buried under Italy’s mayhem and madness right now. I’ll dig through the shitheap and dust off the plan when it’s time to go home. Get right down to it. Back in the game.
James lets out a low chuckle at something he’s read. I cross my legs tighter and force myself to work.