23. Claire
CLAIRE
Matteo informs me he has planned an unplanned Sunday.
I stop editing.
“That sentence is offensive in at least two ways.”
He is stretched out on the other end of his sofa, one ankle over the opposite knee, phone in one hand and my paperback in the other.
“I did not say unplanned.”
“You said we have no obligations Sunday and then opened a map.”
“That is information.”
“That is how plans begin.”
“We could ignore the map.”
“You have already zoomed in.”
“The road is badly marked.”
I point at him with my pencil.
“Inspector.”
“No.”
He almost smiles.
It has been a good afternoon.
Not a dramatic one. I came over after lunch with my laptop and contact sheets.
Matteo finished a call with Milan while I worked, then appeared with two peaches Luca apparently forced on him.
We argued about whether a photograph of an empty chair needed a person in the background and moved to the sofa when my back started complaining about his kitchen table.
Now he is showing me a small cove west of Amalfi that can only be reached by a path he claims is easy.
“How easy?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“For you or for normal people?”
“For people wearing appropriate shoes.”
I glance at my sandals.
Matteo follows my gaze.
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to ask whether you own shoes with backs.”
“Hostile.”
He turns the phone toward me.
The satellite image shows a thin path, dark green trees, and a strip of water between rocks.
“There is a place here,” he says. “Very small. They make lunch if you call that morning.”
“You have called.”
“No.”
“You want me to believe that?”
“I have the number.”
“That is a yes wearing a fake mustache.”
“I found the number.”
“Where?”
“In a note.”
“Of course.”
He taps out of the map.
I lean over his arm while he opens Notes.
His screen is close enough that I can see a list of titles.
Milan opening.
Bellamare east wall.
Fabbri.
C.B. / Impossible Ten.
My eyes stop.
Matteo’s thumb stops too.
For half a second neither of us moves.
“What is that?”
He does not ask what.
He does not lock the phone.
He glances at the screen, then at me.
“The list.”
Something cold slides into the good afternoon.
“My list?”
“Yes.”
I sit back.
Something shifts in Matteo’s face.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
“How do you have my list in your phone?”
“I wrote it down.”
“When?”
“The day after you told me.”
I stare at him.
The day after I told him.
The day after I stood on the path explaining why ten ordinary things had once mattered enough to write down and embarrassing myself with the exact shape of what I had stopped expecting.
Matteo turns the phone in his hand.
“Claire.”
“Let me see it.”
He gives me the phone without hesitation.
The note opens under my thumb.
C.B. / Impossible Ten
The title alone makes my stomach drop.
Below it are the ten items.
My ten items. My words, not summaries.
Remember something small without being reminded.
Plan something because it would make me happy, not because he wants credit.
Dance with me when nobody is watching.
I scroll.
All ten.
Exact enough that number eight still says against me, not for me.
Number ten includes a line beneath it.
bad day is not a test. Leave means leave.
I remember standing by the wall while Matteo corrected my wording about dancing. I remember telling him that staying did not mean ignoring me if I actually asked someone to go.
I did not know he had gone home and typed it down.
There are marks beside some items: a check beside number one, small typed dates beside several notes, short lines that make sense too quickly.
double espresso + water. before noon. no saving her from herself.
Under number two:
Ravello before sunrise. No audience. Breakfast after.
driver
lower road.
I stop scrolling.
“Ravello.”
“Yes.”
“You planned that because of this.”
“I planned it because you said you wanted to see it.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Matteo’s jaw tightens.
“Yes. The list was part of why I thought of it.”
I scroll again.
Under number three:
nobody watching is not the same as alone.
Nothing else. Somehow that does not help.
Instead I see his kitchen after the first time we slept together. Flour still in the corner. Music playing. Matteo holding out his hand while I stood barefoot on the tile.
Dance with me when nobody is watching.
I have never seen the sentence sitting underneath that memory before.
“Did you plan the dance?”
“No.”
“You had this written.”
“The reminder was already there. The dance was not.”
I keep going.
Number four.
crowds: ask, do not decide.
wrist signal?
My thumb stops.
The event comes back.
The room that got too loud. Matteo’s fingers touching his wrist from across the crowd.
Want out?
The relief of not having to ask.
I raise my eyes.
“That signal.”
“I wrote the idea down after we talked about crowded rooms.”
“You designed it.”
“We came up with it together.”
“Did we?”
“Yes.”
The answer is immediate.
I hate how badly I want to believe him.
My eyes go back to the phone.
Number five has less beneath it.
off-guard is not a problem.
do not make her perform being okay.
I read the two lines again.
I see myself at Casa Ginestra with wet hair and no makeup, furious about being photographed like I had become public property.
I see Matteo sitting beside me and asking before touching anything.
Number six:
waiting / usefulness.
tell the real story if she asks why.
My finger freezes on the screen.
I read it again.
“Your story about the wedding.”
Matteo sits forward.
“That was not planned.”
“It is in here.”
“I wrote that after.”
“When?”
“After I told you.”
I search for a date.
There is one.
I cannot tell whether it proves anything because I do not remember the date of the conversation.
I could work it out.
I hate myself for even thinking that.
“Why did you write it down after?”
“Because it mattered.”
“To which item?”
His face goes very still.
“That is not how I meant it.”
“But it is under six.”
“Yes.”
I scroll.
Number seven.
choose her when inconvenient. no credit.
Below it:
Fabbri movable?
do not tell her cost.
The gallery door flashes in my head: green paint, folding chairs, Matteo in the back row.
I wanted him there so much that seeing him had changed the whole room.
My hand starts to shake.
I put the phone on my knee.
“Did you move the dinner because it was number seven?”
“No.”
“Then why is Fabbri in here?”
“I opened the note after you told me about the gallery.”
“To remind yourself?”
“No. Claire, listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“It was already what I wanted to do.”
“But you checked.”
“I looked at the list.”
“That is checking.”
“Yes.”
He says it because it is true, which hurts more than a technical answer would.
I pick up the phone again.
Number eight has the line I already heard once, in another form.
do not turn support into control.
There is a second note below it.
ask what support looks like.
I remember our fight over the article.
The water glass by my memory cards.
Can I move that?
My yes.
Number nine has only the item itself. No check, date, or note beneath it.
Know me well enough that the gesture does not need explanation.
At the bottom of the note, after the list, there are other lines.
Photo at the table. She kept Luca and Nico in the frame.
I read it twice.
The candid photograph.
Matteo laughing at lunch.
Sometimes.
I had given him that picture because it was how I saw him when nobody was asking him to be Bellandi.
He put it in the note.
The room around me becomes too sharp.
My black lens case on the floor.
His shoes beside the door.
The white shirt I stole from him folded over the back of a chair because I wore it here yesterday and did not bother taking it home.
His coffee cup beside my editing notebook.
The portable battery he charged because he knew I would come home too tired to manage one more thing.
For the last two weeks, those objects have looked like a life happening around us.
Now the shirt looks like an entry I have not found yet.
The coffee cup looks like number one.
The charged battery looks like number nine.
I hate that.
I hate the thought as soon as I have it.
He did not fake the battery.
I know he did not consult the note that night. He was sitting beside me. He knew.
Except I did not know this note existed either.
“Did anybody else know?”
Matteo answers immediately.
“No.”
“Your friends?”
“No.”
“Was there a bet?”
“No. Never.”
I nod.
There is no group chat beneath the note, no score, no joke about me. Just Matteo, alone, writing things down.
My eyes return to the title.
Impossible Ten.
“Why did you call it that?”
“You told me I could not survive three.”
“So you were proving me wrong.”
“At first.”
He says it quietly.
I stop moving.
“At first.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Claire.”
“How long was I a challenge?”
He rubs one hand over the back of his neck.
“I do not know exactly.”
“You keep dates.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Of course you keep dates.”
I do not raise my voice.
Somehow that makes the room worse.
Matteo shifts closer, then stops before touching me.
“Some of it was planned,” he says. “The sunrise. The dance wasn’t. The boathouse wasn’t.”
“You’re already sorting them.”
He stops.
I put the phone on the sofa between us with both hands because they are shaking.
I stand.
The peach pit is still on the plate. My contact sheets are still spread over the coffee table. Matteo’s paperback is still open facedown.
I walk to the kitchen for water because walking somewhere is easier than sitting still.
Matteo does not follow me.
I fill a glass.
The sound is too loud.
He says my name from the sofa.
I drink half the water.
“Was the coffee the first one?”
“What?”
“The first morning you remembered my order. You checked number one after.”
“Yes.”
“So when you brought me decaf at six because you knew I would not sleep otherwise, was that still the list?”
“No.”
“How do I know?”
He gets up.
I turn.
He stops several feet away.
“You know me.”
The answer hurts because yesterday I would have said yes.
I put the glass down.
Matteo takes one step toward me.
I take one back.
He stops immediately.
The line under number eight comes back: do not turn support into control.
Last night he knew I needed quiet.
He knew what food I could eat with one hand.
He knew not to ask about the shoot until I was ready.
There is still nothing under number nine.
I saw that empty space.
I still do not know what to do with it.
I laugh once, and it sounds awful.
“Was any of this just us?”
Matteo takes too long to answer.
His eyes close for a second.
“Yes.”
I shake my head.
“That was not a yes-or-no question.”
“I know.”
“I need to go home.”
Matteo’s mouth opens, then closes.
“Okay.”
I pick up my camera bag even though I do not need it. My cottage is only a short path and a gate away, but I put the strap over my shoulder because my hands need a job.
“Claire, please.”
“I cannot do this right now.”
“I can explain.”
“That is exactly what you are doing.”
He stops.
I walk out through the open doors.
The path toward Ginestra is still warm from the day. Somewhere below us, somebody is laughing near the water. A scooter moves along the road above the trees.
Ordinary sounds.
I make it to the gate before Matteo says my name again.
He has followed only as far as the low wall, leaving the path clear.
“Will you talk to me?”
I keep one hand on the gate.
“Yes.”
His shoulders move with a breath.
“Now?”
I face him.
At the man who remembered my coffee.
The man who got lost on the way to sunrise.
The man who danced with me in his kitchen.
The man who wrote all of it down.
“Not yet.”
I open the gate and go through.