16. Matteo
MATTEO
Claire leaves the photograph open on her laptop when I walk into Casa Ginestra.
She is standing beside the table with one hand hooked into the back pocket of her shorts. The other rests near the trackpad but does not touch it.
“Before you say anything,” she says, “I took one frame.”
The photograph fills the screen.
Luca is half cut off on the left. Nico’s shoulder blocks part of the table. The bowl in front of me is crooked because the table is crooked because apparently fifteen years is not enough time for five adults to replace one piece of furniture.
I am laughing, not posing for a camera.
My head is back slightly. One hand is around the water glass. The other is moving toward Luca, blurred at the fingertips.
I remember the story.
I never noticed Claire lift the camera.
She watches me instead of the photograph.
“If you want it gone, it’s gone.”
I say nothing.
Her fingers move once against the seam of her shorts.
“I kept it private. It hasn’t been exported or sent anywhere.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. That’s why I’m telling you.”
I look at her.
She waits with one hand still hooked in her back pocket.
I turn back to the photograph.
Most photographs of me are useful.
Hotel openings. Foundation dinners. Groundbreakings. Magazine profiles. A table, a room, a building, another man in a suit. I know what happens when a camera comes up. Shoulders back. Face toward the lens. Give them three frames and move on.
Even photographs taken by friends usually involve Sebastian ruining them before they become serious.
This one is not useful to anyone.
Luca is laughing.
Nico looks tired of both of us.
My shirt sleeve is wrinkled at the elbow.
I am happy in it.
Claire says, “Matteo?”
I sit in the chair beside the laptop.
She stays standing.
“Did I cross the line?”
“No.”
The answer comes easily.
Her shoulders drop by a fraction.
I enlarge the photograph.
“You didn’t crop Luca.”
“I tried.”
My eyes go to her.
She smiles. “For four seconds.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because then the picture stopped making sense.”
I look at it again.
Luca’s hand is barely visible at the edge.
Nico’s shoulder is in the way.
The table leans despite the napkin under one leg.
Claire could have cleaned all of it and didn’t.
“Is that how you see me?”
I hear myself ask before I decide whether I want the answer.
Claire goes still.
Then she leans one hip against the table.
“Sometimes.”
She folds her arms loosely.
“You look disappointed.”
“I am considering the percentage.”
“Of course you are.”
“Sometimes could mean six percent.”
“It could.”
“Or eighty.”
“Also possible.”
I say nothing.
Claire smiles. “You asked how I see you, not for a quarterly report.”
I turn back to the photograph.
“You were laughing,” she says.
“I can see that.”
“You forgot I was there.”
That is true.
I had forgotten she was there. The screen dims before I move.
Claire taps the trackpad to wake it again.
“Do you want a copy?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows lift.
The answer surprises me too.
“Okay.”
She opens a folder, types something, then pauses.
“Email?”
“Message it.”
“You want a photograph from me compressed by a messaging app?”
“I withdraw the request.”
“Good.”
She reaches for a cable.
“Later,” I say before she can stand.
Claire pauses with one hand near the cable.
Then she looks at me.
“Later,” she agrees.
I kiss her.
Her hand closes in my shirt and she kisses me back.
Neither of us mentions the photograph again before I leave.
I think about it for two days.
Two mornings later, Sebastian has apparently become an attendance officer.
“You missed breakfast again.”
I put my coffee on the Casa Bellamare terrace table.
“I did not know attendance was mandatory.”
“It is not. That is why the pattern is interesting.”
Nico lowers the newspaper.
“Do not encourage him.”
“I’m collecting data,” Sebastian says.
“You do not collect data.”
“I have numbers.”
“That is worse,” I tell him.
Luca brings out a bowl of fruit. “How many?”
Sebastian checks his phone.
I set my coffee down. “You wrote it down?”
“Four breakfasts in eleven days.”
“That is not meaningful.”
“It is to me.”
Adrian walks onto the terrace with his laptop bag.
Sebastian points at him. “Matteo has missed four breakfasts.”
Adrian puts the bag beside his chair.
“Okay.”
Sebastian frowns. “That is your contribution?”
“Yes.”
Adrian sits.
He gives me one glance.
That is enough.
I reach for a peach before Luca can start feeding people by force.
Nico folds the newspaper.
“One woman moves in next door and Sebastian starts keeping attendance.”
“I am documenting change.”
“You are documenting breakfast.”
“Which is where change happens.”
Luca points at Sebastian with a serving spoon. “That was almost philosophical.”
“It was an accident.”
I cut the peach with the small knife beside the bowl.
Luca asks, “Did Claire finish the photographs from the other day?”
“Yes.”
The answer comes too quickly.
Sebastian’s attention snaps toward me.
I continue cutting the peach.
Luca says, “Any good ones?”
“One.”
Nico lowers his coffee.
All four men are listening.
“It was a photograph,” I say.
“That clears up everything,” Adrian says.
I glance at Adrian.
He opens his laptop.
Sebastian leans forward. “Of what?”
“Nothing you need to see.”
“Oh, excellent.”
“There is no excellent.”
“There is clearly excellent.”
Nico turns to Luca. “You caused this.”
“I made lunch.”
“You told the table story.”
“It is a good story.”
“It was not a good story when it happened.”
Luca turns to me. “Did she crop out the table?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“She could not. It would change the frame.”
Silence.
Too late.
Luca grins.
Sebastian is openly delighted.
Nico closes his eyes.
Adrian types something.
I take a bite of peach.
Luca says, very carefully, “Change the frame.”
“Yes.”
“You just said that.”
“I am aware.”
“Last week you knew depth of field.”
“I knew what it meant.”
“You learned what it meant.”
“That is how knowledge works.”
Sebastian leans back in his chair. “I would like the record to show that Matteo Bellandi is now using photography language at breakfast he does not attend.”
“You do not have a record.”
Sebastian holds up his phone.
Nico points at all of us.
“One woman moves in next door and you’ve all become idiots.”
“Why are you included?” Luca asks.
“I am sitting here.”
“That is enough.”
Nico looks disgusted.
Adrian keeps typing.
I ask, “Are you going to say anything?”
He glances up.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You already know.”
I dislike that answer more than anything Sebastian has said.
Adrian returns to his screen.
Adrian’s silence manages to be smug anyway.
Breakfast continues.
Sebastian loses interest when his phone rings. Luca starts arguing with Nico about lunch. Adrian leaves before anyone notices he has finished eating.
I stay at the table.
The photograph is on my phone now.
Claire sent the full-resolution file last night after making me promise not to save it from a compressed message “like an animal.”
I open the file.
Luca at the edge.
Nico in the foreground.
Me in the middle, not looking at anyone who might publish it.
Sometimes.
That is how she sees me.
I think about her laughing in the boathouse while I move rusted metal out of the way, and standing in the rain with mud on her calf while the camera strap tries to strangle her.
I think about the single nod across a crowded room when I touched two fingers to my wrist, the way she said yes to Japan before checking my face, and Claire asleep against my shoulder in a cottage built for smaller furniture and people with shorter knees.
I am in love with Claire Bennett.
I have known the end date of her stay since the first afternoon.
Eight weeks was easy to understand because it had a beginning and an end.
Now I know Japan starts five days later.
I do not want her to turn it down.
I want to know when she comes back from Japan.
I want the assignment after that, and the flight after that, and whatever badly scaled kitchen she is working from when Bellamare is no longer next door.
There is no useful next step.
I put my phone down.
Nico comes back for the newspaper he forgot.
He stops in the doorway.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is Adrian’s line.”
“He uses it better.”
Nico takes the newspaper.
His eyes move from my face to the phone and back.
He does not ask.
I am grateful enough not to tell him.
At my house, work occupies the next three hours and fails to improve anything.
At two sixteen, I finish a call about Milan.
At two twenty, I open Notes.
C.B. / Impossible Ten
I stare at the title longer than I used to.
The list is still there.
Ten items.
A check beside the first. Small reminders beneath others. Exact wording because exact wording matters.
I scroll to the bottom.
My thumb stays above the keyboard.
Then I type:
Photo at the table. She kept Luca and Nico in the frame.
I read the line once.
It has turned the photograph into information.
I lock the phone.
Nothing gets crossed off.
At six fifteen, Sebastian sends the group a restaurant address in Amalfi.
Sebastian: 8:00. Do not be old.
Luca: We were going somewhere else.
Sebastian: I improved it.
Nico: You changed it.
Sebastian: Correct.
Adrian: I’ll be late.
Of course he will.
I glance at the reservation, then toward the eastern windows.
Casa Ginestra has one shutter open. Music comes through it, low enough that I can hear only the rhythm.
I type:
Me: Not coming.
Sebastian replies before I put the phone down.
Sebastian: FIFTH brEAKFAST ADJACENT INCIDENT
I mute the conversation.
On the way to Ginestra, I stop at the small bar above the road.
I order a black coffee for myself.
For Claire, I ask for a double decaf espresso and water.
The woman behind the counter knows me well enough not to comment.
Her eyes go to the second cup.
She smiles and hands me the tray.
By the time I reach Casa Ginestra, the coffee has survived the steps and my patience has survived two tourists walking side by side on a path built for single-file traffic.
Claire’s gate is open.
I knock anyway.
Two taps, a pause, one.
“Come in.”
She is at the kitchen table with her laptop open, a pencil in her hair, one bare foot on the chair, and a plate holding something that might once have been bread.
She notices the tray.
“What are we doing?”
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You brought coffee for nothing.”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Decaf.”
She checks the wall clock.
“It is after six.”
“I know.”
“That was a test.”
“It was a question.”
“Suspicious.”
I put the water beside her cup.
Her gaze drops to the water.
Then lifts to me.
“Did you have plans?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I changed them.”
Claire takes the espresso.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
She glances at the plate.
“That bread is not for sharing.”
“Then I have made an error.”
“You can survive.”
“I have survived worse.”
“Ravioli?”
“Do not ruin the evening.”
She laughs and gets up.
There is food eventually, none of it impressive.
Tomatoes, cheese, and bread that turns out to have a second half hidden in a cupboard because Claire is a liar. Luca sent over olives earlier. She puts them in a bowl only after I ask whether we are eating directly from the container.
“Your standards are exhausting.”
“My standards include bowls.”
“Luxury.”
Music plays from her speaker.
Claire edits while we eat.
She is working through the new Return sequence she started yesterday. I recognize the old couple with folding chairs and the repaired stool from the bakery. The empty Bellamare terrace flashes onto the screen, then disappears when she advances.
“Too pretty?” I ask.
Claire glances at me. “Too easy.”
“Pretty and easy are different problems.”
“I know.”
She goes back one frame, studies it, then moves forward again.
I do not ask which version wins.
I answer two emails, then close the laptop because neither requires me.
At some point she moves to the sofa and stretches her legs across my lap without asking.
My hand settles around her ankle.
She keeps working.
“Too tight?” I ask.
“No.”
Five minutes later, she gives me a memory card case to hold while she changes cards.
Ten minutes after that, the case is still in my hand.
“Do I have a function?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Do not lose that.”
“This is not a function.”
“It is now.”
Her foot shifts beneath my palm.
The music changes.
Outside, somebody on the lower path laughs. A scooter passes on the road above us. My coffee goes cold.
Claire leans closer to her screen.
“Come look at this.”
I do.
At ten eleven, her feet are still in my lap, there are olive pits in a bowl on the floor, and Sebastian has sent seven messages I have not read.
Claire steals my cold coffee, tastes it, grimaces, and puts it back in my hand.
“Terrible.”
“It was mine.”
“Still terrible.”
She returns to the screen.
I do not check the time again.