2. Alessia
— ? —
Alessia
Then - The Summer We Were Sixteen
I’m sixteen the first time I see Anthony Stallone.
He’s standing in the middle of my father’s vineyard at golden hour, looking lost the way only rich American boys can - expensive shoes sinking into the dirt, expensive white shirt held away from the vines like the grapes might stain him, expensive watch glinting on his wrist as he shades his eyes against the setting sun.
Papa sent me down the hill to find the guests from the States.
His business associates, their families, someone’s nephew who’s supposed to be learning the trade.
I don’t know what business, and I learned a long time ago not to ask.
I stop at the end of the row and cup my hands around my mouth.
“You’re trespassing,” I call out. “This is private property.”
He turns around, and I stop walking.
He has green eyes. That’s the first thing I notice - the kind of green you only see in old paintings, the kind that looks fake until you get close enough to realize it’s not.
His jaw hasn’t finished deciding what it wants to be, still hovering somewhere between boyish and sharp, and his hair is too long, curling against his forehead like he forgot to cut it before he came.
He’s tall and lean and he moves like he hasn’t quite grown into his body yet, all angles and uncertainty, and when he smiles at me-
When he smiles at me, it’s like I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to smile at me exactly like that.
“I know,” he says. His voice is deeper than I expected, a little rough at the edges. “I was looking for the prettiest girl in Tuscany. Someone told me she’d be here.”
My heart does something complicated in my chest. I ignore it.
“That’s a terrible line.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
It might be working.
I can feel it in the heat climbing my neck, in the way I’ve completely forgotten why I came down the hill, in the way I’m suddenly, painfully aware of every single thing about myself - the dirt on my sandals, the messy braid I threw together this morning, the fact that I’m wearing my oldest dress because I didn’t know there would be anyone worth looking good for.
I should turn around. I should march back up to the house and tell Papa I couldn’t find his stupid American guests.
I should not be standing here in the fading light with my pulse racing like I’ve just run a marathon.
“I’m Anthony,” he says, taking a step toward me.
Then another. His shoes squelch in the soft earth, and he winces, and I have to press my lips together to keep from laughing.
“Anthony Stallone. My uncle’s up at the house for business.
I’m supposed to be learning about wine, but honestly, I think I’m just in the way. ”
“You are in the way,” I tell him. “You’re standing on the roots.”
He looks down. “Shit. Sorry.” He shuffles backward, almost trips on a stake, and catches himself with a hand on the nearest vine. Grape leaves crumple under his palm. He stares at them in horror.
I do laugh then - I can’t help it. It bubbles out of me, bright and sudden, and his head snaps up like he’s never heard anything so interesting.
“You’re destroying my father’s livelihood,” I manage, still giggling. “Stop touching things.”
“Tell me your name and I might stop.”
“No.”
“Come on.” He’s grinning now, wide and delighted, and something about the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like I’m glowing. “Please? I just want to know who to ask about when I get home.”
I shouldn’t. I absolutely shouldn’t. Papa would kill me if he knew I was flirting with some American boy in the vineyard instead of doing what he asked.
But Anthony Stallone is looking at me like I’m the first interesting thing that’s happened to him all summer, and I’m sixteen and reckless and maybe a little lonely, and I want him to know my name. I want him to remember it.
“Alessia,” I say, like it costs nothing. “Alessia Sartori.”
He repeats it back to me slowly. Alessia. The syllables roll off his tongue like he’s tasting them, like he’s testing whether they fit in his mouth, and the heat in my cheeks spreads down my neck and across my chest.
“That’s a beautiful name,” he says softly.
“It was my grandmother’s.”
“It suits you.”
We stand there looking at each other while the light turns amber and the shadows grow long between the rows.
I should take him back to the house. That’s what I came down here to do - collect the stray Americans and deliver them to Papa like lost packages.
But Anthony is smiling at me, and I don’t want to move.
“Walk with me?” I hear myself ask.
His smile widens. “Lead the way.”
We walk up between the rows together, and he asks me about the grapes - what kind they are, when they’re harvested, whether he’s allowed to eat one - and I explain that these are Sangiovese, that harvest is still weeks away, that if he touches another vine my father will probably have him shot.
“Dramatic,” he says.
“Italian,” I correct.
He laughs. It’s a good laugh, full and warm, and I want to hear it again immediately.
So I tell him about the time my cousin ate so many grapes he threw up in the cellar, and about the summer the birds got into the north field and Papa declared war on the entire local sparrow population, and about the legend that says if you kiss someone in the vineyard at sunset, you’ll be connected forever.
I don’t know why I tell him that last one. It just comes out.
Anthony stops walking. We’re halfway up the hill now, close enough to see the terrace lights flickering on above us, and the sun is painting everything gold - the leaves, the dirt, the fine dust on his ridiculous white shirt.
“Is that true?” he asks.
“Probably not.” My voice comes out smaller than I meant it to. “It’s just something the old women say.”
“The old women are usually right about these things.”
He’s looking at me like he’s thinking about testing the legend, and I’m suddenly terrified that he will, and equally terrified that he won’t, and I don’t know what’s happening to me.
I’ve had crushes before - on movie stars, on the boy who works at the gelato shop in town, on my literature teacher’s assistant last semester - but nothing has ever felt like this.
Like I’m standing at the edge of something I can’t see the bottom of.
“We should go,” I say quickly. “My father will be wondering where I am.”
“Right.” He blinks, shakes his head like he’s clearing it. “Right, of course. Lead the way.”
I’m laughing so hard I don’t notice we’ve reached the house until I hear the terrace door open above us.
My father is standing at the railing with a glass of wine in his hand, watching us.
He isn’t smiling.
“Alessia.” His voice carries down the hill, calm and cool. “Bring our guest inside. Dinner is nearly ready.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Anthony waves up at him, cheerful and oblivious. “Mr. Sartori! Beautiful vineyard you have here. Your daughter was just-”
“I know what she was doing.” Papa takes a slow sip of his wine, his eyes never leaving Anthony’s face. “Come. Both of you. The lamb is getting cold.”
The walk up to the terrace feels longer than it should. Anthony is chattering beside me about the wine and the light and how different everything is from home, and I’m nodding and making agreeable sounds, but all I can feel is my father’s gaze on the back of my neck like a hand pressing down.
Papa doesn’t say anything to me as we pass. He just reaches out and touches my shoulder, a light brush of his fingers, and something about it makes my stomach clench.
I look back at Anthony as we step through the terrace doors. He’s still looking at the vineyard, at the rows and rows of vines stretching down to the valley, and the sunset is turning his hair to copper and gold.
Remember him like this, I think suddenly. In case this is all you get.
I don’t know where the thought comes from. But I can’t shake it loose.