Chapter 20
Despite the fact that Andrea had spent the whole month of June doing his very best to nail down absolutely every detail for the sagra, the next two weeks passed in a blur of repairs, regulations, and rodents.
And while he’d texted Lora to apologize for being very busy and very unavailable, a small part of him was relieved.
Having a small break from the pressing reality of her finite stay was kind of perfect, actually.
Especially when two days before the Sagra del Vino della Collina, which was the major generator of both revenue and promotion for the town’s local businesses, there almost was no sagra at all.
Andrea was focused on rebuilding part of the stage since a family of porcupines had been sharpening their teeth on the beams, ordering a new plastic tent because the old one had frozen in the winter and thawed into a giant ball of goo, plus rewiring the outlets in the piazza that were connected to Giada’s café—a fact they discovered when she fired up the new Vitamix and blew out the breaker that powered all the extra lights.
Due to all of these distractions, he’d neglected to do a final check of the proof for the ad going into the newspaper because the email was buried under fifteen other urgent messages about the wild boars in the hills being tested for African swine flu.
Unfortunately, he did not notice that the sagra was listed as taking place three months after the actual date it was going to be held.
It was, of course, Franca who saw the mistake first.
“Have you decided to make it a fall festival?” Franca asked, walking toward him with the latest copy of the Levante News in her hands.
He had been out on the piazza directing the crane workers who were hanging the giant lighting arrangements that were shaped like wineglasses and grape clusters.
Just looking at the twisted expression on her face, Andrea knew he was in trouble.
Grabbing the newspaper, he felt his synapses pop as he read the very large, very expensive ad promoting the hell out of an event on the wrong weekend.
He marched into his office and spent a half hour convincing the newspaper to at least change it in their digital editions and issue a correction.
They almost balked completely at blasting it out on social media, but luckily the advertising manager was Luciano’s niece, and she laughed when Andrea referred to him as “your uncle the pirate.” She lightened up after that and said she would put something together to post. He then made the rounds to all of the businesses in town to ask them to promote the sagra with the correct dates on their social media as well.
Word traveled fast in the tiny town, and by the time he got to Aurelia at the bakery, she had already heard from Luigi at the hardware store.
One by one, their posts went live, and Andrea tried to keep his nerves steady.
He saw Lora from time to time, crossing the piazza as she carried a shopping bag or sitting at Giada’s practicing Italian, but he didn’t have to do much more than wave until a delivery person showed up at city hall one morning with a huge box.
“We didn’t order anything,” he’d said to the courier.
“Are you Andrea Garibaldi?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone ordered it for you,” the guy in the DHL T-shirt said, scanning a barcode on the box and ducking out through the foyer.
When he opened the box and saw the new scanner, he was confused for a moment until he remembered Lora’s question about how to help with the files.
Picking up his phone to text Lora, he felt a squeeze in his chest. His fingers hovered over the screen as he realized that he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to reply or to not reply.
He finally settled on thanking her on behalf of the whole town, adding a smile emoji, and getting back to work.
“‘Had a bad lunch at the café back in 2010, so we weren’t so sure about trying it again. Decided to take the train somewhere else to eat, but maybe we’ll be back next summer.
Umbrellas were a nice upgrade. Two stars.
’” Lora sat at the bar inside the café reading out loud to Giada from her computer screen.
“Are the two stars for the upgraded umbrellas for the other place they had lunch? How ridiculous is this? They didn’t even eat here in this decade! ”
“That’s nothing. People write crazy things in those reviews. They blame us if it rains, if a bird steals a piece of bread from the table, if we don’t have their favorite tea.” Giada held a wineglass over a hot kettle, let the steam fill the glass, then began polishing it with a cotton cloth.
“They don’t even realize that these are people’s businesses that they are writing about. Look at this, ‘Lemons are not organic.’”
“Well, they are right about that. They come from the tree in my garden,” Giada said, pointing to the thinly sliced fruit in a chilled container behind the bar.
“Ugh” was the only thing that Lora could utter. Her phone lit up with a call coming in from a +39 phone number. Who would be calling her from Italy? She tapped the phone to answer.
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice began a tirade in Italian. She could not understand anything but a few words, of course, and pulled her head away from the phone. Wait, was it Franca?
“Giada, I don’t understand one word. Can you help?”
“Sì, sì,” she said, reaching for the phone. “Pronto. Io sono Giada, amica di la Loretta—ah, ciao, Franca. It’s Franca.” She listened as Franca went on and on, occasionally repeating “Sì, sì” until she finally said “Ciao” and ended the call.
“And so?”
“She said she tried to contact Andrea, but he is not answering his phone, so she called you directly. She mentioned that you should learn Italian.” She rolled her eyes, then shook her head.
“There’s something wrong with your citizenship papers?
She said to call Andrea and get him to call her back immediately. ”
Lora was already dialing Andrea as she walked out of the café.
“Hi, I’ve been meaning to thank you for the scanner in person, but I’ve been so busy—” he said upon answering.
“Are you in town?” She cut him off. “Franca just called me. Giada helped with translation. There’s a problem with the documents. I don’t know what.”
“I’m here. I’m near the piazza,” he said, his voice unsteady as though he were walking fast. In a moment, he appeared at the north end of the square and locked eyes with her where she stood.
He wore carpenter’s pants and one of those T-shirts that had made her stutter the first time she saw him.
“I’m calling her now,” he said, tapping the call to end.
Lora watched him connect the next call as he came closer to her.
His voice strained as he paced around an ancient bronze hitching post. Finally he finished and took the few remaining steps to reach Lora.
“You have a middle name.”
“I do.”
“Which is written on your birth certificate and passport, but when you filled out the application for citizenship here, you did not specify the middle name. Or at least not all of it. You wrote ‘Loretta E. Giordano.’ Your birth name is—”
“Loretta Elaine Giordano.”
“Why didn’t you write it out?” he asked.
“I usually only write ‘E’ in the US.”
“This is not the US.”
“I understand that now,” she said, reaching up to straighten her bangs. She started to sweat.
“They plan to reject the documents, and you can apply again in sixty days, but…” he said. She felt her blood pressure rise to its limit. She clutched her chest, but he covered her hand with his own. “I am going to make a phone call that I probably shouldn’t.”
“What should you not be doing? Don’t do something you shouldn’t be doing!” She was fully panicking now.
“Lora,” he began. He dropped her hand and pointed to his phone. “It’s either this or you’re not making it to Zurich. We don’t have a lot of choices. Just give me a minute.”
“But you have so much to do! Isn’t there any way I can manage this on my own?”
“No,” he said, his eyes burning hers. “There isn’t.”
She watched him walk away from her again to the center of the piazza, tap his phone, and wait for the call to connect.
She backed up into the café instinctively, as if trying to get away from a blast, and slumped back onto her stool.
Even if she was right next to him, she wouldn’t understand what he was saying.
He paced, and she could see him trying to restrain the tone of his voice, gesticulating with his hands into the air.
She and Giada exchanged an alarmed look while his voice raised and the movements of his arms became wider, his strides longer as he crossed and recrossed the stones.
“No, no, no, assolutamente, no,” he said.
It was the only phrase she understood. Her stomach was in knots watching him and knowing that this was all about her.
After what seemed like a half hour, it appeared that he was winding down the conversation.
All of the “No, no, no” turned into “Sì, sì, OK” and the veins in his neck started to hide again.
He finally stood still, raised his eyes to hers, and tapped the phone ending the call.
He walked back toward the café, looking like he’d run a 1500-meter sprint.
“I spoke directly to the office of the prefetto in Genova and asked him to intervene. I tried to impart to him the urgency of the situation. He will speak directly to the immigration officer, which is something that is”—he paused, took in a deep breath—“unexpected. It will be taken care of. Crisis averted.”
“How do I—” she stammered. “How do I thank you?”
“You have to stop thanking me. I only want you to get where you want to go.”
“No one has ever done the things for me that you have. Why are you so kind to me?” she asked, but the question sounded odd even to her ears.
It wasn’t so difficult to understand why Andrea might go out of his way to help her if they were friends.
But they weren’t friends anymore. They were something else now.
And all of this was helping her but also taking her away from here.
This, she realized, staring at Andrea as he reached into his pocket for one of those damned Biochetasi tablets, was a mess. Officially.
“I don’t have to think too hard about why I want to be kind to you, Lora. I just do.”
She squinted at him, the low sun shining into the windows behind his head, and felt that stone-sinking feeling again.
“Thank you anyway,” she said, looking down. Later she’d tell herself that it was the sun that caused the stinging in her eyes.
Giada placed a hand on her arm as Andrea walked out of the café. Lora closed her laptop and slid it into her bag, suddenly too exhausted to sit and be social.
“It’s going to be OK,” said Giada.
“He said he made a phone call that he shouldn’t. What did he mean?” Lora asked, not expecting an answer.
“Oh. The prefetto does not like him. He thinks he’s too young and too American. He didn’t want to accept him when he submit his documents to become mayor,” she said. Lora’s face fell. “Don’t worry. He’ll fix it. He always does.”