Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
BIANCA
“This is wild,” Emily says. “Absolutely bonkers.”
We just brought Luanne back to The Rotten Apple after I corralled a couple of the pot-loving teens to take over at the pumpkin patch.
It’s obviously not ideal. I meant what I told Giovanni earlier—a Murphy should be there today. All the research I’ve done about how to help Theo with the farm indicated a personal touch was important. But we’re in crisis mode, and desperate times call for desperate measures.
If the videos and comments that Emily, Luanne, and I binged in the pumpkin tent are any indication, we’re about to get a lot of visitors at the farm—all of them in search of Giovanni.
Luanne wasn’t too keen on going back to The Rotten Apple—she made a lot of noise about “seeing this through to the end,” although I don’t know what or when the end will be.
So we brought her out for a late lunch before returning her to her room so she could watch more episodes of The Shirtless Chef on her TV.
It’ll probably freeze every so often since the Wi-Fi sucks, but she’ll have something good to look at either way.
As advertised, Giovanni is very shirtless in all the videos.
Shirtless, delicious, and magnetic.
Now Em and I are walking up to Gallagher Park, our favorite thinking spot. There’s something about sitting on that hill, looking out over the leaves and rolling mountains, that puts everything into better focus.
I steal a glance at her as we step through the park’s filigreed gates. There’s something I need to say, but I don’t feel great about it.
Knowing Emily, she can probably tell, but she doesn’t push me. She doesn’t say anything at all as we ascend the hill. When we reach the top, we discover a couple of teenagers are making out aggressively on the bench. I recognize the boy as one of the “weed kids” from the pumpkin patch.
“We could get them to leave,” Emily comments in an undertone. “But there’s something sweet about young love, don’t you think?”
I clap my hands loudly. “All right, enough of that. BJ, I’m going to tell your mother.”
He gets up so abruptly, the poor girl he’s with nearly tumbles off the side of the bench. Well, best she finds out what he’s like now.
“Miss Bianca,” he says, his tone whiny. “We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I won’t tell on you, just this once, if you go on home.”
They take off so quickly, they nearly raise dust in their wake.
Emily gives me a chiding look. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“But now we get to sit down and talk privately.”
When we reach the bench, Emily brushes it off with her hand, making me laugh.
“What? You think you’ll catch a stray sperm?”
“Gross,” she says, laughing with me.
After we sit down, we’re both quiet for a moment, watching the trees, which are a good bit oranger today than they were a week and a half ago, when I made my wish. I glance down reflexively, and a gasp gusts from me when I see them—dozens upon dozens of little green zinnia shoots.
Emily looks down too, her attention reeled in by mine, and her gasp is ten times louder.
“Holy shit, it actually worked!”
My heart trips in my chest as I gape at the shoots and try to think of an alternative explanation. But they’re a bit of an anomaly, those brave little shoots pushing out of the ground in the fall. Zinnias do grow in the fall, but usually they’re teenagers or adults by then, not fresh shoots.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I mutter.
But there’s a small part of me that would like it to. Could Giovanni be the “something good” I wished for? I have to admit, it’s occurred to me that he could be the answer to the farm’s problems.
I knit my hands together in my lap. “Emily…I don’t think Miles sent Giovanni here to take his place. He had a different reason.”
“You think he was trying to set you two up?” she asks excitedly. “I thought I sensed something between you two earlier. He seemed really put out when you said it was a bad kiss.”
I brush a finger over my lips on reflex, then bury my hand in my dress pocket. “Any man would be put out by that, and no, that’s not what I meant. I was talking about the farm.”
“Oh.”
“I think Miles knows…. Look, I don’t know how much longer Theo can keep it going unless something major happens. This is something major. If Giovanni agrees to stay, it could be a total game-changer for us. I have to begrudgingly admit that Miles might have known what he was doing.”
“So he has to stay,” she says without hesitation.
“But how do I convince him to stick around after my temper tantrum earlier?”
She looks like I just handed her a winning lottery ticket. “Well… you could kiss him.”
“Emily. I’m not going to try honey-trapping the man. Besides, you saw what that woman was like. He’s probably going to have hundreds of women throwing themselves at him after it all comes out.”
“He’s already got Luanne, and no doubt she’ll have every woman in that retirement home watching those videos before dusk.”
When she’s right, she’s right. It’s funny to think about Giovanni being chased down by a bunch of older ladies with canes and walkers.
Emily’s mouth puckers as she studies those shoots in the ground. “Now, I already know you’re going to say I’m going too far, but hear me out.”
“I’m all ears.”
“You could try being nice to the man.”
I sputter laughter. “Now, you’re really being crazy.”
She gestures toward the rolling mountains in the distance, then back at the valley behind us. “The fall festivities are kicking off this weekend. Bring him around. Introduce him to people. Show him the farm he’ll be helping you save.”
“Theo’s been doing that.”
“And Theo’s a great guy, but he’s not personable with strangers. You know he’s probably spoken all of five words to him.”
I sigh, leaning back on the bench. “You’re not wrong. But there’s something else we haven’t taken into account.”
“Oh?”
“The nonnas. God only knows how they’re going to react when they find out. It sounds like Nonna Francesca all but dragged Giovanni out of Maine to get away from the attention. What’s she going to do here?”
“I wish we’d brought more seeds,” Emily says.
When I get home, Giovanni’s car is parked in the driveway, but there’s no sign of Theo’s truck.
Jesus Christ, he and the nonnas have been gone a while. What happened with this wagon they were supposed to buy, anyway? Was my brother taken in by hucksters who clubbed him and the nonnas over the head and buried their bodies in a shallow field?
Or maybe they got into a car accident at Nutgap Curve, the same place where Miles’s life changed forever, and ours along with him.
My brother wasn’t driving that day. But out of the three people in that car, he was the only one who came out alive.
There’s a special kind of grief that comes from being the only survivor.
I’ve seen it more times than I can count, especially when I worked in hospice.
There’s no fairness in who lives and dies, impossible as that is to accept.
I pull out my phone and text my big brother:
Where ARE you? Don’t make me worry. You know what I’m like when I worry.
Then I send yet another text to Miles, which he’ll surely ignore. If he even has his phone.
CALL ME.
That done, I get out and approach my home, feeling strangely apprehensive about entering the House That Never Changes. But I’ve never let fear slow me down. If I did, it would never stop.
So I open the front door with more confidence than I feel, then nearly swoon at the scent in the air. It’s full of tomato and cheesy goodness. I’ve barely eaten anything today, and only just this moment remembered.
There’s a rustling sound in the kitchen, and I half expect Giovanni to come out the way he would in one of his videos—his chiseled chest revealed for the camera or perhaps hidden, barely, behind a half apron.
The thought makes my mouth dry.
I tried to act completely unaffected when I watched those videos with Emily and Luanne, but I’m only human. Giovanni has a beautiful body and a seductive way of talking about cooking.
I shake the thought away, instantly annoyed at myself, as the man himself steps into the foyer—fully clothed, which I try to convince myself is a good thing.
“Come in, please,” he says. “I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”
There’s an earnestness in his gaze, a need to please, so I bite back the retort that it’s my house, and I don’t need an invitation and follow him into the kitchen.
“Have you heard from your grandmother?” I ask as I peer through the window on the oven, trying to figure out what he’s baking without seeming too interested. “I’m getting worried. They should have gotten home by now.”
A furrow appears in his brow. “Should we go after them? Nonna likes to eat dinner right at five thirty. It’s not like her to be out this late.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I hold up a finger, signaling for him to wait as I fish it out.
“It’s Theo,” I announce, glancing at the screen.
Busted tire.
Nonna Francesca is standing over my shoulder while I change it, telling me what I’m doing wrong.
They didn’t sell the wagon to us.
The guy said the nonnas insulted him. I figured it could end with a brawl or I could take the loss and leave, so that’s what I did.
I think Nonna Francesca called me a half man, but I only know half a dozen words in Italian.
Do you have any good whiskey in the house?
Relief engulfs me. No disasters today, then, just an unusual amount of mayhem.
I reply:
Nope. But I have a pretty good story, and Giovanni has wine.
When I stuff my phone back in my pocket, Giovanni already has a large glass poured for me, and even though he’s obviously trying to butter me up, I take it with gratitude. After all, I’m trying to butter him up too. “Salute”
A wide grin spreads across his face as he clinks his glass to mine. “Salute”
“They didn’t get the wagon,” I announce, leaning back against the counter to sip the wine. He’s only a couple of feet away from me, and he rests his hip against the counter.
“Are they in jail?”
I don’t want to be charmed by this man who clearly has millions in his thrall…but I’m charmed by him, nonetheless. “No, but Theo has a flat tire. As you might imagine, he’s getting lots of unsolicited advice on dealing with it.”
“Poor Theo.”
Giovanni sets his glass down, clearly on the verge of making some kind of statement, so I hurry to say, “You should stay in Apple Ridge.”
He hesitates. “Because Miles wanted me to? You told me that earlier.”
I take a long sip of the wine, savoring the taste.
I have never liked asking for favors. I’m the eldest girl, all of us raised just short of wild on our family farm. I’m used to creating solutions, not asking for them.
It doesn’t help that I’m attracted to Giovanni. Or that he’s the first boy I ever kissed. Or that I remember running through the woods with him and Miles—on the rare occasions that Miles would convince me to get up to some mischief.
But I’ll be damned if I’ll let any of those things silence me.
Clearing my throat, I say, “I want you to stay. You know the farm’s in trouble. We haven’t been getting enough visitors. There’s been some trouble with the mayor.”
“What’d you do to him?” he asks in an attempt at humor.
“Let’s just say he’s not my biggest fan. But things weren’t going great even before he turned on us. The apple barn is old, and it’s not enough for farms to only offer U-Pick options anymore. Now you need to hold festivals. Get musicians to visit. Have pizza ovens.”
“That’s why Theo wanted the wagon,” he says with a nod.
“Why buy a wagon when we have you?” I say bluntly.
It’s like a shutter comes down over his usually lively eyes. “I see.”
“People will show up just for you. They may stay to buy apples, or let their kids play on the bounce pad or pick a pumpkin. If you stay for a little while, just through October, like you were planning to anyway, it would be a big help. I’d really appreciate it.
I think it would be good for the nonnas too. ”
He wipes a hand across his face. “I’ll talk to my grandmother, but I’ve put her through enough over the past month. It’ll be her call. We’ll go wherever she’ll be more comfortable.”
I nod, agreeing. That’s as much as I can ask for.
Quiet descends between us, and I’m the one who breaks it, probably surprising us both.
“But there’s no need for you to stay hidden away in the house. This Eva St. Claire woman knows who you are, and soon it won’t be a secret. You should spend time in town. Get to know people. Have some fun.”
He nods, but I can tell he’s only being polite.
I clear my throat. “There’s a big bonfire in Gallagher Park on Sunday night. I could bring you. Emily will be there too. Everyone will be making s’mores.”
“Thanks,” he says with a tight nod. “We’ll see.”
But he doesn’t mean it. This isn’t the eager Giovanni from this morning, who would have made me a whole buffet breakfast if I’d asked. He’s closed-off, cautious. I’ve done that.
“I know a no when I hear one,” I say, mostly to see how he responds.
His mouth forms a tight smile. “Good, because I don’t like telling people no.”
“You should try it more often.” I take a sip of my wine. “It’s empowering.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” His expression hardens, his jaw turning as hard as granite.
“No, Bianca, I don’t want to be paraded around town like a farm mascot so people will buy more pumpkins.
I don’t even like pumpkins.” He gives a short, dry laugh.
“You know what? That did feel pretty good. You can take the eggplant parmigiana out when it’s ready. I set a timer.”
He walks away without glancing back at me, even when I call his name. I’m desperate enough to call out, “John,” hoping he’ll laugh. But he doesn’t react at all.
I feel like a complete and total asshole, even though he’s wrong about why I invited him to hang out.
Part of the reason I feel so guilty?
Eggplant parmigiana is my favorite Italian dish and has been since I was a child.