Chapter 8
Eight
Mark
Holding onto my cousin’s little legs so he doesn’t fall from my shoulders, I hug and double-cheek kiss my aunt and uncle.
My extended family’s exuberant love makes the jet lag and Boston goodbyes less painful.
They are . . . loud. And every time I come back to Rome, it’s next level, like they were worried I wouldn’t return.
I can’t blame them for thinking that. It’s what Dad did. But I would never walk out like that.
I set Danilo down and hug our other cousin, Mariella. She and her twin brother Luca are closer to my age. Since he’s not only my cousin but my best friend in Rome, Luca offers a handshake, which is the equivalent of a bear hug and six-course homemade meal from anyone else.
Speaking of bears, his beard and hair are longer than when I left. But he can pull off anything with his roll-with-the-punches attitude and wry charm.
“Good to see you, man. Welcome back. You cut it a little close for tonight’s thing, huh?”
“I wasn’t planning on a twenty-hour layover from a canceled flight. But yeah, I figured if I had jet lag, no one would expect me to stay late.”
I would skip tonight’s fancy reception, but it was some bozo’s idea to make it mandatory for all participating festival artists. Mingle all evening with strangers? The thought gives me hives.
Luca smirks. “No luggage?”
I pat my messenger bag. “This is all. They lost my suitcase.”
He nods. Unlike the rest of them, Luca never says much.
He’s also the only one not in the family construction and restoration business.
There are a lot of things that solidified our friendship from the beginning, but I wonder if his outsider status, though unintended, is the secret sauce that makes our bond unbreakable.
I have a lot of catching up to do in Italy after an American upbringing, and it might never be possible to assimilate.
I follow them to the multilevel parking lot. Mariella, Luca, and I squeeze into the back seat of my orange Fiat Panda that my uncle’s been borrowing, and my aunt plops Danilo onto my lap.
Uncle Beppe slides behind the wheel and we take off, windows down, out of the parking garage into the full heat of an Italian afternoon. “I meant to get the air conditioning fixed for you, but the mechanic went to the sea. You know how it is in the summer. Nothing gets done.”
My phone dings with the fourth text from a family member as we speed up on the highway. When I wrote Uncle Beppe from Frankfurt about the canceled flight, I mentioned that the heritage society is considering investing in the palace restoration. My uncle must have called everyone with the good news.
A tinted-windowed white van starts to merge into our lane. Uncle Beppe slams on the brakes, and my aunt thrusts the Mom Seat-belt Arm into the gap.
“Ao’! Attento!” my aunt shouts.
Exactly how Lexington said it ten minutes ago. Speaking an Italian dialect is kilometers away from cursory tours and cheesy souvenirs. Who is that girl?
It doesn’t matter, I remind myself for the twentieth time. We’re worlds apart. Being back in Italy will screw my head on straight. The sealed bid envelopes are due a week from Monday. I won’t have a spare second to puzzle over a stranger from the airport.
Nor will I have a moment of silence. On the drive into the city, the family catches me up on news, talking over one another, interrupting, and arguing in jest.
An hour later, Beppe trolls the street in front of my boxy apartment building for a parking spot. Stalling at an intersection, he half-turns and asks Mariella, “Did you tell him yet?”
My aunt whacks his construction-worker bicep, and Mariella frowns at him in the rearview mirror with a tiny shake of her head.
“Tell me what?”
“There’s no parking.” Beppe’s yell is the world’s most obvious attempt to distract me. He pushes the emergency flashers on, the universal signal for I know this is illegal, but I’ll just be a sec. “This is close enough.”
Luca jumps out, and I slide Danilo off my lap into Luca’s vacated seat. I step onto the street, gripping the open door. “Tell me what?”
My uncle shakes his raised arms. “Quick, there’s a car behind me.”
I barely have the squeaking trunk shut before he’s pulling away from the curb. With a quick, friendly honk, the car disappears around the corner. I’m lending my sweet junker to family friends this week, so my uncle is dropping it off at their place.
Luca leads the way up the three flights of stairs to my flat with an apologetic smile. “I have to come in for a second. Nonna told me to make sure it didn’t stink.”
“What?” I slide my key into the lock and give him a sideways glance.
“Well, she told me two weeks ago—after you left for the States, you know—to make sure you hadn’t left any of her porchetta in the fridge. I haven’t gotten to it yet.”
I chuckle. Our grandmother doesn’t trust any single man to stay alive on his own.
I let us into my stuffy apartment, kicking off my leather chukkas on the parquet floor in the tiny entry. Luca shuts the door behind me, sniffing.
“It’s fine, lucky for you.” I squeeze down the hall narrowed by a bookshelf, ski equipment, and my bike.
“Lucky for both of us. By the way, she said you’re supposed to meet Nonno at your usual spot around eleven tomorrow morning. He can’t wait to see you.”
I nod. I don’t understand why my grandfather loves that spot. It’s packed with tourists, loud, and a half hour from his place, but for Nonno, I’ll endure anything.
Luca passes me and rests against the arched opening between the kitchen and living room, watching me pull camera parts out of my messenger bag at the table.
Before I can ask him what Uncle Beppe wasn’t supposed to tell me, Luca says, “It’s a shame you can’t knock out this wall. Then you’d have room in the kitchen for the table instead of having it in the middle of your living room.”
“Spoken like the architect you are.”
He gives me a dark look. After finishing the same master’s program as I did at Sapienza University here in Rome, he swerved 180 degrees and opened a hole-in-the-wall pasta joint near the city center.
No one knows why, though we’ve all asked a million times.
Luca doesn’t have a strongly opinionated bone in his body, except for this streak of stubbornness about that one choice.
“Don’t push me if you want to eat at my restaurant. ”
I grin at his empty threat. He’ll feed anyone, anytime. “I’ll get an explanation out of you at some point. I’m patient.”
“Challenge accepted.” He slaps the wall and turns to the stark white galley kitchen, opening the window wide.
He does have a point about the arrangement of my apartment, but there’s still space for my leather couch and bookshelves, and the extra wall space gives me room for all the framed artwork of my favorite painter.
“So, what’s the big secret everyone is keeping from me?”
Luca returns to the living room, his face twisted in a grimace. “Oh. Work stuff.”
This isn’t going to be good news.
“What did you hear?”
“Hey, this isn’t my thing. Mariella can tell you.”
“Luca, you can’t leave me hanging like that.”
He holds his hands up and moves for the entryway hall. “Then call her. I have to head to my restaurant.” He pauses, and in his way of saying few words but meaning so much more, he adds, “Thanks for coming back.”
And with that, Luca the avoider is gone.
I should be too or I’ll be late for the reception, so I shower, shave, and change into my dreaded suit. Navigating down the stairs to the street, I dial Mariella’s number as soon as I arrange for a ride on the app.
She doesn’t even say hello. “Tell me you’re not calling to bail on tonight.”
Our restoration company is part of an architecture exhibition in the art festival next week. Mariella is counting on me to help woo the guests and garner good publicity at tonight’s reception for word-of-mouth attention during the festival.
“No, I’m on my way.” I rest against the streetlamp and keep an eye out for my Uber. “What is the family not telling me?”
She’s silent for a long time. “I’ll be seeing you in an hour. Ask me then.”
“Mari. I’m already going to this reception. The least you can do is give me an answer.”
She sighs. “Rumors say the biggest bidder for the palazzo is Zoe Richards at Ivy International Group.”
The news hits me like a punch to the stomach. I thought I was done with Zoe for good.
“I’m sorry if your history with her makes that painful. I’ve got to go.” She hangs up.
IIG. The American company that owns a huge hotel chain. I expected interest from the hotel industry thanks to the palazzo’s ideal location and size.
What I never expected was that it would be Zoe making the bid.
I heard she was hired and rose in the company thanks to her “international experience.” Which is a sick, ridiculous joke.
She’ll be quick and careless of Italian culture.
She’ll get what she wants from Rome and jet out without looking back.
Like when we dated, when I followed her to Italy, and when she walked away five months later—a day after I signed a two-year lease on my apartment.
A bright yellow Citroen Ami turns onto my street and buzzes past. Not my ride.
Zoe is how I know what a bad idea it is to get involved with anyone who isn’t a permanent resident in my city and who thinks Italy can be reduced to a few tourist sites and pasta. That mindset is far from harmless.
A black jeep pulls up. This one’s me. I slide into the back seat and slam the door.
I’m not going down that road again.