Chapter 11
Despite a momentary panic, she could see through a sliver in the privacy shutters that it was only Beatrice.
“Buongiorno,” said Beatrice as Lora opened the door.
“Ti servono piú asciugamani?” She smiled, holding up a small stack of towels.
Lora recognized the word for towels, “asciugamani,” which was sort of a portmanteau, it turned out, since “asciuga” meant “dry” and “mani” meant “hands.” Then there was “servono” which came from the verb “servire” as in “to serve.” Do towels serve me?
Beatrice was asking if she needed more towels.
“Sì, grazie,” she said, thrilled that her response back essentially proved that she’d had her first conversation in Italian. She reached out to take the towels from Beatrice, but flinched and grabbed her neck.
“Colpo d’aria,” said Beatrice, shaking her head. “Dormi troppo vicino all’aria condizionata.”
Lora had no idea what any of that meant, but decided that replying “OK, grazie, ciao!” was still acceptable.
Take that, Mr. You-Should-Learn-Italian, she thought.
Her neck tensed as she set the towels on the end of the bed.
She had a vision of Andrea, his hair windblown and skin tinged with salt as he reached his hand out to help her back into the kayak.
He was so, so beautiful and so, so infuriating.
She had wanted to kiss him yesterday. If she was honest, she had to admit that she had wanted to kiss him at some point every single day since seeing him dangling off his house.
And being with him out there on the water nearly sent her over the edge.
She had been grateful that he’d been behind her or she’d have been so distracted by his sculpted arms that she’d have paddled them in circles, and when he pulled the kayak onto the shore, she had to try to keep her eyes from dipping down to where the waistband of his shorts met a small patch of dark brown hair.
But despite that kiss, getting involved with the mayor was not on her to-do list this summer, no matter what he looked like without a shirt or how delicious the smooth curve in his upper lip was.
The fact that he’d taken her farther up the coast to see Ivo’s property was exactly what she needed to shut down whatever she’d started to feel once his lips were on hers.
It made it so much easier to back away from something that was over before it started anyway.
She should be thanking him really: Thank you, Andrea, for trying to get me to know more about my father again so that I can remind myself why getting involved with you for a couple of weeks is a terrible idea.
She needed to get up and get moving to really shift her mood.
Even on days that she wasn’t trying to avoid airline disasters, she found that waiting for news about her immigration status was harder than she’d thought.
Since there were no kickboxing gyms in town where she could punch her frenetic energy into the side of a heavy bag while listening to Héctor Lavoe’s greatest salsa hits, she’d been doing a lot of walking up and down the steep hills that rolled down to the sea.
If she slathered herself in SPF 50 and plopped on a sun hat, she found that she could stay out long enough to use up some of the day.
With no plan in mind, she brushed her teeth, threw on a pair of shorts, and descended the 146 stairs while a question popped in her head: Am I hoping to avoid Andrea or run right into him?
She stepped out onto the piazza, empty now as the midday heat settled onto the stones, except for the one shop that always seemed to be open—Ottavio’s hair salon.
She thought for a moment, pulling at the ends of her ponytail.
They felt dry, and she probably should have tried to get a trim before she left New York.
She could feel the familiar spark in her synapses that seemed to fire up whenever she was thinking about doing something spontaneous.
It wasn’t a workout, but there could still be enough adrenaline to keep her thoughts from wandering too far toward city hall.
Peeking in the salon windows, she could see that Ottavio was standing by a counter while an older woman with a fire-engine-red coiffure pulled out a credit card.
Was she daring enough to ask for a cut? How bad could it be?
To her surprise, fifteen minutes later, Lora had been shampooed and gently dried by a certified master and was being regaled with some of the best celebrity gossip she had ever heard in her entire life.
“So, I am telling Karl Lagerfeld, I don’t care how beautiful you think she is, Choupette is a cat, and I can’t work if my allergies make me sneeze on Joan Smalls!” Ottavio stood behind Lora waving his shears and a comb as if conducting a follicular orchestra. “Of course this was many years ago.”
First, she hadn’t expected to be able to communicate well with Ottavio, and second, she never thought that he would have a spot for her so last-minute.
Little did she know that after a lifelong career in fashion, where he lived and worked internationally, Ottavio not only spoke English perfectly, but also French, Spanish, and a little bit of German.
He also had a cancellation that morning and happily accommodated the “beautiful American ingenue” whom he’d seen walking around all summer.
“It’s amazing. You must have met so many people. And you were in Milan for how many years?”
“Maybe thirty. I was also in New York, London, Paris. So many stories, so many parties, so much craziness.”
“You should write them down. My goodness, I would read every line, and I know I’m not the only one. How many people can say that they worked with Iman, Cindy Crawford, and Doja Cat in the same lifetime?”
“Maybe I will someday,” he mused, combing down a section of hair and chopping in with his scissors. “You know, you have something in common with all of those women.”
“I can’t imagine anything except that we all happen to breathe oxygen.”
“No, amore.” He tipped her chin up, then swiveled her chair back and forth so she could see her reflection in the mirror. “You are absolutely gorgeous—like the Diana of Versailles. Look at this bone structure. Your parents must be deities.”
“You’re too sweet—ouch,” she said, the pain in her neck lighting up. “I kind of hurt my neck sleeping, I think.”
“Ah, we call that colpo d’aria. It means that you got hit with air. You probably slept too close to the air conditioning.”
“I definitely got hit with something,” she said, rubbing the top of the trapezius muscle. “My mother was an actress—not a famous one. You wouldn’t have known her. But she was very beautiful.”
“And your father? I’m sure he was some kind of actor too. Or a rock star? Let me guess, they met on tour and created you in a camellia-scented penthouse at the Chateau Marmont.”
“Well, actually—” she started, but paused. Ottavio smiled as he trimmed up the last section of hair. It was beginning to seem like this topic was inescapable. It didn’t have to be a big deal. Just answer. She drew in a breath. “My father was from here. His name was Ivo Giordano.”
Ottavio stopped, his mouth dropping open. He stared at her in the mirror and placed both of his hands on her shoulders.
“Santo cielo. You look like him, now that you say it,” he said, tipping his head to one side as though he were trying to see Ivo in her face.
“I knew your father, of course. From here, but he was older than me, so I didn’t know him well.
But then I saw him on location. I didn’t love working in the movies, you know?
I only did a few very early on in my career.
Too much stop and start, and the days are too long.
But I remember the time I saw him. He was magnificent; should have been an actor himself.
In fact, the director was always trying to get him in front of the camera, pushing him into the frame.
Wherever he walked, people watched him go by.
And he was kind. I remember on one shoot, he had patience with this one young actor who was terrified of the horses.
The rest of the crew was mean to this kid, but not Ivo.
He stood right there making sure he felt comfortable.
Movies are high-stress. Not many people would do that.
But I am sure you know all of this,” he said, waving his shears again.
He combed out her bangs, checking the length.
“No, actually. I don’t know anything. We weren’t a family. My mom died also, and she didn’t talk much about him, to be honest.”
“You are on your own, then.”
She nodded.
“I was too for a long time, for different reasons,” said Ottavio, still staring at her in the mirror.
“But I will share with you something I learned a long time ago. There are many kinds of family. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s just good to have one.
Shorter?” he asked, his fingers pulling on the fringe.
“No, that’s perfect. You don’t think that it’s good to be independent? You’ve had so much success by yourself.”
“Amore, I’ve never been by myself, not even when I seemed to be. Without our friends, our community, the family we make, we are nothing. That’s why I moved back here. I could have gone anywhere. Isn’t that why you are here too?”
“No. I came here to become a citizen so that I would be able to go somewhere else. I suppose that sounds a little odd.”
“I don’t judge. But remember one thing. At some point, we don’t want to keep packing suitcases, yes?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” he said, placing his scissors and comb down on the counter by the mirror.
“What made you stop packing suitcases?”
“The only reason anyone does—love.” He grinned, fluffing up her damp hair with his fingers.
“But only after you had your career, right? I am sure that it was easier to settle down once you had accomplished as much as you had.”