Chapter 1 Michael
Michael
“This had better be important, making me run here from the office like it’s a national emergency.” That’s how I greet Charles, my best friend, as I join him on the treadmills at the gym.
“It’s Saturday, for the love of God. Do you ever relax?”
“It’s Saturday?” I ask, stunned.
“See? You’re so strung out on work, you don’t even know what day it is.”
I’d been sure it was Friday. So that’s why my assistant, Penny, was so annoyed when I dragged her out of bed at seven this morning with a barrage of urgent messages.
“I have a new client, and this morning was the only time I could meet him.” This is only half true—I’ve been courting Ernest Havisham for months, and yesterday he officially hired Saxton George and I lived with the Bingleys until we were adults.
Charles’s mother was from Florence, at home they spoke Italian, we went to a bilingual high school, and we spent all our summers in Italy at Charles’s great-uncle’s villa.
“His son just died with no heirs,” he says, “so the estate goes to my sister and me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yesterday a notary from Belvedere served me all the heirship documents.”
“Are you going to accept?”
Charles shrugs. That’s another thing he hates: to make decisions. “I don’t know.” The expected response.
I’d bet my right arm he’s going to ask what I would do in his place. Three . . . two . . . one . . .
“What would you do in my place?”
I’m no psychic. I just know him like the back of my own hand. “I should have known you’d put the ball in my court, Bingley-Boggley!”
“Don’t call me that. We’re not at school anymore.”
Bingley-Boggley, the wavering Bingley, was the nickname our PE teacher had given him because he was always the last to join the line for anything that involved jumping, running, climbing, or diving.
“How should I know what I’d do? I guess I’d be weighing the pros and cons, wouldn’t I?”
Cornered, my friend snorts. “It would be a nice property, and I have a lot of happy memories there. The issue is I wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Now that my dad is retired, I have to represent the company: Today I’m here; tomorrow it’s New York or LA .
. . It would be a big expense for a place I’d never have time to visit.
” Charles stops the treadmill and rests his right hand on his hip.
“My spleen hurts. Let’s do some weights. ”
The fact that I didn’t share my opinion may be among the chief causes of his aching spleen.
We position ourselves on the benches, lifting our barbells in sync.
“I told the notary I’d think about it; if I refuse, I have to send him a formal renunciation,” he says in the break between sets.
“Who would own the property if not you?” I ask.
“Some cousins seventeen times removed from Pontassieve, who I think would be more interested than I am.”
“More interested than I am, that’s for sure,” a woman’s voice interjects.
I look up from my supine position to see Caroline, Charles’s twin sister, towering over us.
“Hi, Carol,” says her brother between huffs. “I was just asking Michael his opinion about the estate in Tuscany.”
“Good,” she says, loosening her bun and letting her long copper hair cascade down her back. “Michael, convince him to let it go.”
“Charles, let it go,” I parrot.
“There’s nothing more boring than the countryside,” she goes on. “If only it were a penthouse in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais! A casino, a vibrant social life, and with the Mediterranean climate, we could enjoy it all year round. Don’t you think, Michael?” she asks me.
“I prefer Spain,” I shoot back between lifts.
“Of course you do,” she says. “Too many French people in France, plus all that butter in everything. Spain is the new Costa Azzurra: Benalmádena, Marbella, Estepona. Perfect for spending your days by the sea.”
“I’d rather visit the backcountry,” I reply, sitting up and dabbing my sweat.
“Oh, um, yeah . . . the backcountry.” She nods. “Wow, Michael, that barbell is heavy; you must be quite strong to lift it.”
“It’s only forty kilos, the same as Charles’s,” I point out.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t train like you do.”
“We’re on the exact same program,” I reply.
“I appreciate your respect for me, Carol,” Charles replies. “You also seem rather knackered from your training . . . Wait, no! You’ve just come from the spa, judging by your robe.”
“I did water aerobics before that.”
“Yes, quite the workout.”
Charles and Caroline have a love-hate relationship. More hate than love, really.
“Hey, Charles! Ciao, Michael.” One of the female trainers stops to greet us.
“Oh, hi, Zoe.” Caroline’s acid tone betrays her annoyance at having been ignored.
“Sorry, Carrie. Didn’t see you there,” Zoe shoots back. She who lives by acid dies by acid. “Next Friday, we’re doing yoga under the stars, followed by hot oil massages, vegan finger food, and an herbal tea tasting,” she says, extending a flyer to Charles and me. “Will you join us?”
“Am I not invited?” says Caroline.
“Sorry,” says Zoe, with a cutting smile. “Limited capacity on the terrace.”
“As if.”
“Very interesting,” says Charles.
“Interesting,” I mimic. I don’t want to be rude, but it’s not my kind of evening. “Afraid I have plans.”
“What a pity.” Zoe seems disappointed. “No chance of changing them?”
I can’t change something that doesn’t exist. “Work dinner.”
Zoe lights up, and I realize I’ve just scored a goal.
“On a Saturday night? How stressful! You know what you need to relax? Hot yoga.” She leans down to my level to write something on the invite she just handed me, revealing her breasts squeezed into her top.
“I do private lessons too. Here’s my number. Call me anytime.”
She says bye to all of us and gives me a look.
“Shameless,” says Caroline. “I can’t stand women like that.”
“What do you mean, women like that?” asks Charles. Sometimes I can’t tell if he’s really that clueless or if he does it on purpose.
“Vulgar,” his sister retorts. “God, Michael! She practically hurled herself at you. And the way she dresses! I bet she’s not even wearing underwear under those microscopic shorts.”
“Want me to go check?” I can’t resist the joke.
“Michael!” Caroline looks scandalized. “She’s not your type, is she?”
Charles laughs through his teeth. “Michael has a lot of types.”
“You know what? I’ve had enough of you both. Ciao,” she says, turning to leave.
“Here.” I extend Zoe’s invite. “Take mine.”
She snatches it and turns on her heels, then tosses it into the trash bin on her way out.
“Is your sister still in anger-management therapy?” I ask Charles.
“She never started.”
“Hence the lack of progress.”
We change stations and proceed to work our shoulders and backs.
“Anyway, Zoe’s fit. You could take her to dinner, Michael,” Charles suggests.
Christ! “Charles, you’re the last of the romantics. Zoe isn’t looking for dinner.”
“Maybe she’d appreciate an appetizer and a glass of wine beforehand,” he emphasizes. “Oh, sorry, I forgot you’re not into courtship, foreplay, or anything else that could make a date resemble the beginning of a relationship.”
“A relationship isn’t among my priorities at the moment.”
“Is that why you’re seeing two different women?” he shoots back. “Sheila and . . . Denise?”
“Danielle,” I say. “Eyes for everyone, heart for no one.” That’s my motto, and it’s worked well up to now: Sheila is a masseuse at a spa in Maida Vale.
She’s sweet and attentive, with absurdly long shifts that prevent a social life, and I see her whenever I need a cuddle.
Danielle is a copilot for British Airways who I see on her two days off every week for forty-eight hours of practically uninterrupted sex.
I’ve never stepped out in public with either of them.
Neither of them has been to my place. And they know nothing about my private life.
“I, on the other hand, am starting to feel ready for the old ‘May death do us part.’”
I almost drop my weight. “Huh?”
“You heard me. Marriage, children . . .” Charles insists.
“A Labrador retriever, full pension plan, and a Volvo,” I laugh. “Come on!”
“You’ll wake up one day wanting the same thing, and then it will be my turn to tolerate you, Michael,” says Charles.
“I can’t bear to be in a relationship with someone who can’t keep up with me.
I don’t want to spend my life with a woman who indulges me all day long just to keep me happy and whose whole world revolves around me.
If it’s going to be forever, I want it to be with someone who isn’t afraid to push back against me; I want someone who can put up a good fight instead of just agreeing with me all the time, someone who makes me want to wake up every morning just to hear what they have to say. ”
“You wouldn’t last a week with someone like that.” Charles looks at me skeptically. “You’re too proud to apologize after an argument. You’d break up before you even got together.”
“Better than the generational anxiety you have. Mister ‘All my friends from uni are getting married and having children, and I’m still cutting the crusts off my toast.’”
“Sebastian, Duke, and Ashford all seem rather happy with their married lives. Harring is getting married too! And in any case, that doesn’t mean I don’t feel ready of my own accord.”
“Whatever makes you happy.” I dismiss the topic.
“What do you think happened to all those kids we spent the summers with in Tuscany?” he asks me out of the blue.
“Why?”
“They’re more or less our age. It would be nice to know how they’ve landed. Giada, for example.”
So that’s where he’s going with this. One point for Charles. “You’re really desperate if you’re fantasizing about your childhood crush,” I say.
“I’m not fantasizing. I just remembered our summers in Chianti, and she was part of them. The end.” At the estate, in addition to the four of us, there were also the children of the count’s employees, and all together, we were a little gang of terrors.
“I won’t believe it even if you swear on your life.”
“In spite of your cynicism, you must admit we had fun. Do you remember Elisa, her younger sister?”
Click.
Charles unlocks a memory for me. “Elisa!” I exclaim, with a little too much excitement.
She and I were complicit in every Machiavellian plan, like Chip and Dale, like the cat and the fox.
At night, we went to the neighbor’s farm to steal watermelons, we took showers under the jet of the garden sprinklers, we played vet with the chickens and rabbits on the estate, we opened roadside kiosks to sell slimy mud pies, and we played hide-and-seek in the barn.
When one of us had a thought, the other said it, and vice versa . . .
“Michael? Michael?!” Charles calls me back to reality.
“What is it?”
“Are you possessed? You’ve been in a trance for five minutes.”
“Who, me?”
“Do you see any other Michaels here?”
“Ah, um, no . . .” It’s true, dammit. I was lost in my head. “I was resting. What?”
“What do you think I should do? Accept or decline?”
Accept or decline? Five minutes ago, the answer was crystal clear. “I . . . I don’t know,” I say.