Chapter 36 Elisa
Elisa
“Charles has texted maybe five times in the last ten days. Does that sound normal to you?” Giada asks me.
We’re at the harvest festival, the major fall event in the village.
Now that Lucia is at Forte dei Marmi with Elmo, we’re down one bartender, so my sister is helping with the drinks.
Intemerata is up on stage singing “Sorry, Jesus, if I’m Being Rude,” which is pretty much the Italian version of “Oh Happy Day.” It’s going to be a long night.
“Five messages in ten days? That doesn’t seem like very many, but he’s probably busy with work.”
“Probably,” she replies, unconvinced.
“Did you message him?”
“Well, I don’t want to seem needy or freak him out, so I don’t message him unless he messages me.”
“When will you see each other again?”
“After New York and before Hong Kong. He’s coming back here for a week and then leaving for Asia from Milan, so we’ll have some time together.”
“Well, don’t worry; sometimes a long-distance relationship just requires some patience and flexibility.”
“Maybe nostalgia makes the separation feel more dramatic than it normally would,” she concludes with a sigh.
“Hey. Smile,” I say, patting her on the cheek. “You’re the most beautiful woman at the party, even with your charcuterie apron, and you’ve landed the most coveted bachelor around. You’re the envy of Belvedere.”
“Speaking of catches,” she says, pointing to the far side of the little square. “Is that Linda I see talking to a boy? Our shy little Linda?”
“Where? What boy?” I ask in a panic, craning over the counter.
“Next to the candy truck. They’re eating gummy bears from the same bag. How sweet.”
I spot my daughter standing apart from the crowd around the stage, but it takes me a while to recognize her. “What happened to her sweatshirt with the cat-ear hood? She certainly didn’t leave the house looking like that!”
“Oops,” Giada chirps in a fake innocent tone.
“Oops, what? What have you done?” I ask her.
“She didn’t think you’d let her out in that top.”
“She thought right!” I exclaim, ready to go cover her up. “Now she can hear it straight from me.”
“Where are you going? Get back here.” My sister grabs me by an apron tie. “If you want to blame someone, blame me. I bought her the top in Florence.”
Pink glitter—I should have known Giada was behind this.
“Giada, are you insane? She’s thirteen! What will you do when she’s sixteen? Buy her condoms?”
“So what if I do?”
“Well, I was pregnant at sixteen.”
“Sounds like you could have used some condoms.”
“Very funny. Put yourself in my place, having to play both mom and dad. If I mess up, there’s no one else to make up for it.”
“There’s Mamma and me,” she replies.
“You and Mamma are her accomplices. You never tell her no; she wins every battle.”
“Okay, maybe so.”
“Well then, please don’t fuel her emancipation any further. So who is this little Casanova?” I ask, nodding toward the boy with Linda.
“Tommaso Ghirardi.”
“Oh, he’s one of the boys who came to our house.”
“Cute, huh? Seems like a heartthrob.”
“People who know they’re beautiful always leave a trail of destruction behind them.” I know this firsthand, because someone like that screwed me over too. “I have to go over there.”
“Come on, let her have a little fun tonight. Linda’s always hunched over her books.
Don’t interfere now that she’s acting like a thirteen-year-old for once, or she’ll forever be known as the girl who got scolded by her mother at a party.
Her social life is already tumbleweeds; she doesn’t need to be officially branded as a loser. ”
I point my finger at her threateningly. “If anything happens, it’s on you, just so you know.”
“Good evening, ladies,” Michael greets us, gliding up to the counter with an annoyingly jovial smile. “Might I trouble you for a glass of wine?”
“I’m doing the nonalcoholic drinks,” explains my sister. “Elisa’s doing the wines and spirits.”
“Tell Michael he has to get a receipt from the register first,” I tell Giada, even though he can hear me very well. We haven’t spoken since the morning I caught him with his two fuck buddies.
“Brilliant,” he replies triumphantly. “Giada, could you tell Elisa I already have a receipt?” And for emphasis he waves the small piece of paper in the air. “A glass of Vernaccia, please.”
“Giada,” I call to her again. “Tell Michael we’re out of Vernaccia.”
She looks at me, confused. “But . . . but you’re two meters away from him.”
He cuts me off. “Giada, tell Elisa I’m fine with any white she has left. I trust her taste.”
“Giada, tell him he shouldn’t trust me, and he’s lucky if he gets a glass of dish soap.”
“Oh, guys, cool it! I don’t know what I ended up in the middle of, but I want no part of it. Sort it out for yourselves,” Giada blurts out, moving out of our line of fire.
“Not serving me wine won’t make me go away. I could stand here all night,” he exclaims, crossing his arms resolutely.
I rudely fill a plastic cup with hot, flat pignoletto, which has been open since six, and slam it down in front of him. “Here.”
Instead of telling me it’s disgusting, he sips it as if it were nectar from the gods. “Delicious,” he says defiantly.
We stare at each other in silence as Pompilia, dressed in a purple leopard-print Lycra dress, takes the stage for her performance.
“I’m singing ‘Kobra,’ by Donatella Rettore. Michael? Is Michael here? Does anyone know where Michael is?”
With feline reflexes, he leaps over the counter and crouches under it. “Michael? I saw you earlier. Where are you?”
The opportunity is too good to pass up, so I stick my fingers in my mouth and let out a whistle that silences the square. “He’s here, Pompilia,” I shout. Michael has no escape and is forced to reveal himself as he throws me a vindictive look. But for now, we are one-nil.
“Michael, I dedicate this song to you!” She struts over to the counter like a femme fatale, stands on it, and starts singing, imitating the singer’s moves in one of history’s cringiest performances.
She seizes Michael by his shirt collar and rubs herself against him as if he were a stripper’s pole. Stiff with embarrassment, he mouths to me: “You’ll pay for this.”
“Thank you, Belvedere!” Pompilia shouts when the song ends, like a consummate pop star. The audience applauds more out of duty than pleasure, and Michael, more relaxed now, puts his mouth close to my ear.
“I hope you had your fun, because now I’m going to have mine.”
“Next up,” announces Vanni, in his black sequin jacket, “is our English friend, Michael D’Arcy, singing ‘Fiumi di Parole,’ by Jalisse!”
Huh? “Did you seriously sign yourself up for karaoke?”
He shakes his head. “No, dear, I didn’t just sign myself up . . .”
“With Elisa Benetti!” adds Vanni.
A devilish smile spreads across Michael’s face. “I signed us both up.”
Oh shit.