Chapter 19
Matteo
ORDINE DI SFRATTO
I read the sign posted on Isabella’s front door. “Is everything okay?”
She shrugged. “The landlord is a jerk. He’s always coming by and bothering my dad.”
Izzy spoke pretty good Italian after a year of living here, so I wasn’t sure if she really didn’t know the paper taped to her front door read Order of Eviction or if maybe she was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about it.
Either way, I let it go and followed her into the house.
I’d been to her place—or places, since she’d moved twice so far—dozens of times over the last year, as my mom always made me walk her home when she stayed past dark hanging out with Luciana.
But this was my first time going inside.
This year we had history class together, and we’d had to pick someone to do a group project with.
I’d practically jumped out of my chair to ask Izzy to work with me before anyone else could.
Inside her house, the entryway was crammed with boxes and piles of books. I had to turn sideways to squeeze through. The living room was more of the same. “You are moving again?”
She nodded. “My dad wants to be closer to his land so he can spend more time hunting.”
“Hunting? I thought your dad gave tours in Florence?”
“It was hard for him to compete since he wasn’t born here. Tourists like to see things with a local.” She shrugged. “There’s more money and less government interference in truffle hunting anyway.”
It sounded like she was repeating some excuse her father had given, but I kept that thought to myself. “Will you still go to da same school?”
She nodded and moved a couple of stacks of papers from the kitchen table to the top of the stove. Most of it looked like bills, and the top one was marked overdue. “The new place is closer to school.”
This would be the third time Izzy had moved in the little over a year she’d been here. The first time she’d said her dad had found a better place, but now I wondered if that was true.
“Where is everyone?” I looked around. “Your mom and brother?”
“My mom is on a mission trip.”
“What is a mission trip?”
“She goes with her church to different countries that need help and does things like build houses and install water-filtration systems.”
“How long is she gone?”
Izzy shrugged. “A month. Sometimes longer.”
Her family seemed stranger and stranger by the minute. I looked around for a surface that wasn’t covered in boxes and papers, but the choices were limited. “You want to work on our project on da couch?”
“I’m not really in the mood to work on history yet. Why don’t we go sketch the clouds into drawings?”
“Huh?”
“Draw the clouds. It’s fun. Come on.” Izzy grabbed my hand, which I liked a lot, and pulled me out the back door into the yard. A sun-faded blanket was already spread over the lawn. “You can get comfortable. I’ll get two pads from the garage.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to be doing, but I took a seat on the blanket anyway.
Izzy came back a minute later, carrying two sketch pads and a couple of pencils tucked behind her ear.
She dropped down beside me, flat on her back with her hair fanning wildly around her head.
She bent her knees and propped one of the pads up against them like a makeshift easel.
“Lie down,” she said. “Your neck will hurt if you try to draw sitting up. Trust me, I’ve done it.”
I followed her lead, enjoying the chance to stretch out next to her, even if I had no desire to draw clouds.
“Okay.” She handed me a pencil and pad. “Don’t think too hard. Look up, pick a cloud, and draw it. Then turn it into whatever you see.”
I watched her as she stared up at the sky. Her little nose scrunched and her eyes crinkled while she studied the clouds, and after a minute, her tongue peeked out from the corner of her mouth. I caught myself smiling as she put her pencil to the paper and started drawing.
“You’re watching me again,” she said without looking up.
“Again? When was I watching you before?”
“During history class. At your house when you sit at the kitchen table and leave the living room door cracked open just enough so you can see in. From your bedroom window whenever Luciana and I are outside.”
Busted. I ran a hand through my hair, trying not to look as embarrassed as I felt. “Maybe I like looking at you.”
She glanced at me, eyes narrowed, and her pencil paused mid-stroke. “Why?”
I swallowed but made myself stop being a coward.
“Because you’re pretty.” I paused. “And you’re…
interesting to watch. You do things other girls don’t—like clean up garbage you find on da walk home and leave random poems on sticky notes on desks in school.
And you stick your tongue out the side of your mouth when you’re concentrating. ”
She stared at me for a heartbeat, then smiled faintly and turned back to her sketch pad. “That’s kind of creepy.”
“Yeah.” I laughed nervously. “I guess it is.”
Izzy shaded her cloud quietly for a few minutes while I stared up, pretending to find one to sketch. I was actually busy thinking about whether I should apologize for watching her so much. Before I could come to a decision, her pencil stopped.
“Do you watch other people, too?” she asked.
“No. Just you.”
“I guess that makes you creepy and kind of sweet.”
My heart sped up, and my lips curved to a smile. “Yeah? You think it’s sweet?”
“I do.” Her eyes flicked to mine. “I think you’re sweet, Matteo.”
Suddenly I wasn’t shy anymore. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
It felt like I’d swallowed my heart and it got stuck in my throat. “Oh. Okay.” I shrugged, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. “That’s cool.”
She looked over and smiled. “My dad says I can’t date until I’m sixteen.”
“Oh.” I was fifteen, turning sixteen next month. “When’s your birthday?”
“Four months from tomorrow.”
I looked at the clouds, then at her. “I can wait.”
She blinked. “You’ll wait for me to turn sixteen?”
“Yeah,” I said as our eyes met. “I’ve waited a year to get da courage to ask at all. What’s another four months?”