Chapter 15
Hey Andre,
Hope things are great in Italy! I’ve been wanting to call you, but I figured I’d email first to gauge interest. We’ve reconfigured some of the C-suite now that old man Mortimer retired, and it has turned out to be a major restructure.
Long story short, Mortimer Jr is out as CFO because he had a little problem with board members (I can get into detail if we speak live).
They want to go out of house for candidates tbh, but your name came up as an option.
I didn’t know how to answer questions about what you’re up to with the political career, but I said I would reach out.
There are a lot of reasons why this is an epic position, but again, I can’t go into detail over email. Let me know if/when you can talk.
Ciao,
Jason
Andrea read the email at least three times before clicking reply, but then sat watching the cursor blink at the top of a white rectangular window.
Jason was chief information officer at his previous job and the only Black man in the C-suite.
A cybersecurity wunderkind turned head of all technology, Jason was among his closest friends in the city once upon a time.
He was one of the good guys, as likely to be found working through the night alongside his team to solve a storage problem as holed up in the custom-designed gaming lair in his apartment until dawn.
Reading Jason’s email felt like looking down into a wormhole at another life he might still be having somewhere else.
Even though he wasn’t spelling it out, Andrea could pretty much fill in the blanks on what was happening.
He also knew that there would likely be a massive salary, use of a vacation house in someplace like Nantucket, a membership to some social club, and on and on.
It was exactly the right thing for someone with a résumé like his, no family, and forty looming only three years away.
He should have felt good knowing that somewhere down that wormhole, someone thought that he was capable and wanted to reach up to pull him back in.
He held his hands over the keyboard and tried to decide whether to use a friendly tone or conjure up his best corporate English. He decided to split the difference.
Ciao Jason,
Great to hear from you. Hope things are going well. Thanks for thinking of me. Let’s chat live when you’re able. As a reminder, I’m six hours ahead of EST, so maybe your morning would be best.
Be well,
Andre
He read it through and decided it didn’t sound American enough, so he added an exclamation point after the first sentence before pressing send.
It couldn’t hurt to hear Jason out. Who knew what could come of this conversation?
Something could change here in Italy, and he might have to explore other options.
An amazing candidate could show up to take his place.
Maybe he’d lose the election. He could simply change his mind.
Maybe Lora would decide to do a postdoc in New York instead of Zurich and—wait, what?
“Are you going to remind her about residency?” Franca stood in the doorway to his office, a fresh frown gracing her face.
Andrea almost jumped out of his seat. Franca’s diligence with work was only rivaled by her ability to appear when he least expected it, hovering like a stealth bomber.
“By law, she must declare her residency within seventy-two hours.”
Maybe she could hear his thoughts too. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d developed some kind of administrative ESP—after working for every mayor since 1989—and was now able to hear his thoughts as they pertained to town inhabitants.
“Yes, I plan to take her to Luca tomorrow morning to help her fill everything out, first thing.”
“She should learn Italian,” she sniffed, turned on her heel, and walked out.
Andrea:
Good morning
How was your first night sleeping at the house?
Lora:
Buongiorno
Not great
Maybe up too late with G and V
Andrea:
Can you meet 9am at polizia?
For residency papers
Lora:
Coffee
Andrea:
Does coffee mean Sì?
Lora:
Coffee
When Andrea left for the US, Chief of Police Luca Zingaretti was four.
And while Andrea wasn’t technically old enough to be his father, he was old enough to have a very difficult time separating the uniformed police officer from the fleshy toddler he’d last seen smashing an ice cream cone onto his own head.
Also, despite this initial enthusiasm for comedy involving desserts, Luca seemed to have grown into an adult entirely without a sense of humor.
Nevertheless, he was an important part of the community, and Andrea was glad to have someone so dedicated.
He just had to remember to keep his conversations direct and only laugh if Luca did—which was never.
“I would feel much more comfortable if we waited for the applicant before proceeding,” Luca said, his hands clasped on top of his desk.
The stazione dei carabinieri was a relatively nondescript, rectangular building painted a sobering greige color with two rather destitute-looking oleanders flanking the entrance.
Despite the aim of upholding civil order, nothing about the space would make it seem imposing aside from a counter wrapped in bulletproof glass at the entrance.
It would, however, be difficult to imagine a scenario in which bulletproof glass would be needed unless someone had taken a very wrong turn while quail hunting.
There were three offices, but one was currently being used to store the booth for the upcoming annual summer festival where the ex-police chief would be frying off hundreds of mini beignet-like frittelle to raise money for charity.
The other two were for Luca and some of the other recent graduates from the police academy who might tour through Baia Santa before heading on to bigger cities like Chiavari, a practically bustling metropolis with 27,000 inhabitants thirty minutes away.
There was a cell in the back, though the only time it had been used in the last fifteen years was when two wayfaring Cavalier King Charles spaniels wandered into town without leashes and no one was available to dog-sit while they found the owners.
“She’s on her way. It’s just that she doesn’t know some details, like the address. I could save us some time,” said Andrea.
“How do we know that information is not being added fraudulently by a third party?”
“Because I am sitting here in front of you, Luca. Who else would it be?”
“It’s my name and stamp on the document in the end, so we have to be sure,” Luca said, pressing his index finger into the desk for emphasis.
Andrea looked around his shoulder to the left and then to the right.
“I don’t see anyone else in here, so I think we’re safe.”
“Buongiorno!” Lora finally called from the entrance.
“We’re back here,” Andrea answered, leaning out of the doorway so that she could see him.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, entering the office. She smiled at Luca and sat in the chair next to Andrea.
“It’s OK,” he said quietly as he turned to her. “We haven’t gotten anywhere yet.”
“Couldn’t figure out the hot water this morning,” she whispered back.
“OK, è importante che tu compili le informazioni con molta attenzione. Le informazioni devono essere complete e accurate,” said Luca, his forehead creasing as much as a twenty-three-year-old forehead could.
“The information has to be complete and accurate,” said Andrea, translating.
“I can do that,” she said.
“Nome,” Luca said, staring down at the form.
“Name, OK, Lora—I mean Loretta Giordano,” she replied.
“Qual é, signora?” Luca’s eyes flicked up to hers.
Her eyes widened, and she looked to Andrea in confusion.
“He’s asking which is it. Se chiama Loretta Giordano,” said Andrea.
“Yes, Loretta.” She nodded.
“Siamo sicuri?”
“Are we sure? Yes—sí.”Andrea frowned. Luca looked back to the paper and finally wrote her name. “Indirizzo attuale.”
“Current address. Via dei Glicini, ventisei,” said Andrea.
“Baia Santa?” Luca looked up at Andrea.
“Sì, Baia Santa, Luca.”
“Per sicurezza, eh?”
“He’s trying to be very precise,” said Andrea, feeling his teeth clench together.
“Ah,” said Lora. “I’m glad I didn’t make any plans today.”
Luca went on asking the basics: date of birth, place of birth, previous address. He wrote every letter so carefully that it seemed like he wasn’t going to file her paperwork, but have it engraved into a tablet.
“Motivo per il cambio di residenza?”
“Reason for the change of residence status.” Andrea looked at Lora.
“Well, it’s not really a change, is it?” She turned to him again, adding in a low voice, “More of a temporary move.”
“Legally, you can’t say that,” Andrea explained, trying not to whisper so that Luca wouldn’t suspect that they were engaging in collusion.
Which was, of course, exactly what they were doing.
“You can’t say that you’re declaring residency so that you can get out of here.
Remember that the idea of residency is to make the citizenship go faster, but they don’t need to know that.
So, you have to say something like ‘family reasons.’”
“But do I really want to say that? I’m not here for family reasons, I’m here for me reasons.”
Andrea shifted more toward her in his chair, starting to feel heat prickle up his back in the tiny room.
“This is a nuance that may seem important, but at the moment, you have to answer the question in a way that will allow us all to go ahead and do our jobs, right?” Andrea plastered on a rigid smile and drew his chin down. He hoped like hell she would get the message.
“OK, then I am here for family reasons.” She returned the tight smile and turned to Luca.
“Motivi familiari,” Andrea repeated, then turned to Lora. “This is almost over. We let him finish the last couple of questions and we’re done, OK?”
After scrutinizing every line in the document for a couple of minutes, Luca finally signed and stamped it with his official seal.
He reminded them that “a member of the police force”—which they knew could only be him—would be required to perform a residency check in which the officer would physically come to the house to see that the resident in question was actually there, residing.
Lora nodded, indicating she understood the seriousness of the protocol.
Then they thanked him, shook hands, and Andrea said something about seeing him soon at the festival.
Luca, of course, shook his head and lamented crowd-size restrictions.
Andrea picked up the folder, and they exited the building. It was, it seemed, a success.
“I’m going to walk with you back to city hall so you can give this to Franca,” he said as they stepped into the sunshine. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I told you I was up late with the girls and there was wine. It was fizzy,” she said, wincing slightly.
“Isn’t there any other reason why someone would choose to move to a different place in this country?
I can’t understand why this is so complex and strict.
You can move anywhere you want in the US and never have to let anyone know about it—much less let them know why. ”
“It’s a formality, Lora. It’s what we do here. When anybody moves, even if it’s one town over, we have to declare residency. We go and fill out the paperwork and then forget about it. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“Except that it does mean that with all of these formalities, everything is taking so long. My timeline is useless now. I feel like there’s no end to this.”
“I get the frustration, believe me,” he said. “Maybe you need to get some rest. If you can take a nap, I know you will feel better.”
“Nap? Oh my god, no. I haven’t taken a nap since I was like ten years old, and I think that was because I had mono.”
“Hmm, well, maybe you can just relax,” he tried, guessing that she found the idea of relaxing as repellant as the idea of napping.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not defer another semester while I’m at it?”
“Here’s a better idea,” he said, officially losing his patience.
“Why don’t you think really hard about all the terrible things that can happen and add it to the list of terrible things that already happened so that you can make a careful, research-based prediction of how irritated you should be for the next few weeks? ”
“I’m sorry! I don’t understand the way things are done here. I knew it was going to be a process, but this is ridiculous. I had to lease a house, declare residency, explain my ‘family motives’ for being here. How long do we think this is going to take?”
“It’s going to take,” he said, stopping in the middle of the piazza and opening his arms to the sky, “as long as it takes!”
“Excellent,” she said, taking the folder back from him. “That makes everything clear. And also, I don’t want to come with you to the farm, stables, whatever it is that used to belong to Ivo.”
“That’s fine. You know what? You don’t need to come to city hall to file this either. I will do it for you.” He tapped the edge of the folder, trying not to look at her eyes.
“I—I can do it,” she said, handing him the documents. Her lower lip looked like it was about to start shaking.
“Go, Lora. Go home and—” He broke off, taking the paper from her. “Do whatever you want. I know you’re upset, but we all have our shit. Even me.”
“I didn’t mean to yell. At you, I mean. I was trying to be in a bad mood on my own.”
“But you’re not on your own. If you want to be alone, go ahead and live in a cave somewhere and be miserable to the stones. If you want to be around people, you have to be careful with them. Being close to someone means you get all of them and they get all of you. That’s supposed to be a benefit.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve never had to think that way.”
“Well, start thinking that way, Lora. Because look around you. Alone is the last thing you are. Whether you want to believe it or not.”