43. Rose
ROSE
“Would you like some dessert?” Dante offers as he begins to gather the plates and discarded take-out containers.
“Oh my god, I’m absolutely stuffed! I don’t think I could fit another thing in my mouth.
Food! I mean, I don’t think I could eat another thing.
Because I ate so much food.” God, Ro, could you make things more uncomfortable?
I swear, as soon as my guard comes down around Dante, the word vomit begins.
My cheeks must be the color of cherry tomatoes.
“How about a nightcap, then? You can show me the sitting room.”
“Yes! I am so sorry I didn’t offer earlier! I can clean up the kitchen since you grabbed dinner and meet you there? I promise not to break anything this time.”
“I got it.” Dante’s smile feels like he might be thinking about the last time I helped clean up, or at least now that’s what I’m thinking about.
“Why don’t you pick out a record for us to listen to?
I actually have The Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl if you’re interested,” Dante responds, gesturing to my vintage band tee with Pink Floyd on it.
“Okay, if you’re sure. I really don’t mind.”
“Rose, go. Now.” Oh yes, Daddy. I mean Dante! God, Ro, luckily, for once, you keep an inside thought inside your head. I like stern Dante. He was being so weird earlier before dinner, but now he seems to be back to his confident and commanding self.
I select a Billy Joel album instead, and just as I am dropping the pin on the shiny black vinyl, Dante comes into the room and brushes past me, heading for the bar cart.
God, he smells good. How has he been out in the city all day in his car and still smells so delicious?
I usually smell like a wet rat after a long day running around the city.
“Where did you get your taste in music? Did your family listen to it growing up?” Dante asks as he pours us both two fingers of whiskey in crystal tumblers, and luckily, he isn’t looking at me because I couldn’t stop the flinch of pain when he delivered that question.
“Oh, no, nothing like that. When I was a kid, I would spend most of my free time in an old record store in one of the neighborhoods I lived in. The owner was a really kind older man and would tell me stories about his Woodstock days and following bands on tour in his van with his friends. He is the one who shaped my love for the classics.” Thinking about Bill brings a soft smile to my face.
He was probably my first and only friend.
Before Luc, that is. And now, I don’t have either of them anymore.
Bill passed away when I was just starting high school, and Luc, well, he is still alive at least, even if our friendship died all those years ago.
“Speaking of the classics, you have an impressive collection. I haven’t seen many of these records in person before. I’m almost afraid to touch them.”
“Nonsense, they are made to be listened to. You have open access to any of them you want to play.” Dante’s casual response either means he doesn’t realize the value of some of these records or really doesn’t care. Regardless, I am too excited not to take him up on that offer.
“Then consider me your personal DJ while I’m staying here! Do you have any favorites I can play next?”
“Hmm, my favorite might not fit the mood currently.”
“Tell me! I promise I won’t judge you. I support all music genres, well except EDM. I just can’t get behind that noise.”
“I’m more of a classical music person. One of my favorites is Nessun Dorma, which is an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera, Turandot. Puccini is an Italian composer, and growing up in an Italian neighborhood, all the nonnas played music like that, and you never asked a nonna to change the music if you knew what was best for you. But we don’t need to listen to that right now. ”
“Ooooh sounds fancy! I’m in! You’ll have to tell me what it means, though. I don’t speak Italian.”
“Sit, I’ll find it and put it on.”
“Yes sir,” I add with a mock salute and find a place on the plush velvet sofa.
Curling my legs up under me, I take a sip of the whiskey Dante handed me and watch as he gently removes the Billy Joel album I had been playing, places it back in its dust sleeve, and slides the new album out to place on the record player.
All the while, I am transfixed watching his forearms flex and shift as he places the needle and turns up the volume.
With a flick of the switch to lower the needle, my ears are filled with the initial scratch and pop of the record spinning into place, and then the smooth tenor of a male voice permeates the air around us as Dante takes a seat in the leather chair across from my position on the sofa.
Music has always been my happy place and a way to escape the world, and even though I don’t speak the language or understand the words, I can feel the emotion in the music.
We both sit silently listening to the elegant but powerful voice of Luciano Pavarotti filling the space between us.
I watch as Dante’s face transforms before me, truly feeling the message behind the music.
It looks like a mixture of love and pain, which are really just two sides of the same coin.
His masculine beauty entrances me at this moment, and as the song finishes and the next one begins, I feel a single tear fall down my cheek.
I didn’t even realize I was crying. It takes several moments before I speak and break the thick silence in the room.
“Wow. That was mesmerizing. What is the song about? It sounds almost sad.” The crazy part is, I don’t know if I am mesmerized by the song or by Dante at this point, or both.