And with that, I went back to hoeing . . .
* * *
“MAMMA, CAN WE HELP YOU?” Marcello asked, setting the dinner plates on the marble countertop.
“No, take a walk before the sun sets,” she insisted, shooing him out of the door, me following behind.
He kissed her on top of her head and led us outside.
We followed the stone pathway to the stairs that led down to the olive groves. They were deep, old wooden planks that should have looked out of place given that they were built into the hillside. Colorful wildflowers lined the sides and the grass popped up through the cracks, making them appear more of the earth than of the men who built them.
“How long have these been here?” I asked as we descended the steep steps.
“My great-grandfather put them in to make it easier to get to the trees. Before that they went all around the property with the horses and down the lower hills.”
When we got to the bottom, I inhaled deeply. I wasn’t sure what the scent of an olive grove would be. Walking through oranges, strawberries, or apples was an assault on the senses. Sweet, fruity, and vibrant. This was more of a musky, earthy smell that snuck up on you and settled into your skin.
We walked the length of the center dirt path that split the property right down the middle. It was still, quiet, and with the sun beginning to set on the rise behind the house, a bit spooky.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were leading me out here to take advantage of me.”
He hummed in response. “No one would bother us out here now.”
I tamped down the flutters thinking about making love to him out here in the wide open. The car was wild, frenzied, but this could be an experience under the stars.
Taking my hand, he wove us in and out of the trees, around the different cutting and netting stations that were spread throughout the property, but no machines. I figured with this many trees, there would be some sort of steel contraption to make it easier on his family.
“You do all of this by hand?”
“Olives and grapes don’t do well with mechanization, so it is a simple, modest process.”
“Where do you squish them?” I asked, looking around for I Love Lucy–style barrels. “Is this like grapes where you stomp?”
He laughed, rich and deep echoing in the open fields. “No, we have a mill up there,” he told me, motioning to a giant stone barn at the top of another hill. “We will come back when it’s harvest time. If you want.”
“I want,” I said without hesitation.
He was quiet as he led us to a large juniper tree. I saw why he was taking us so far out into the vineyard; the house was merely a speck on the hillside. For the quiet.
Set up at the base of the tree was a blanket, oil lanterns hanging from the branches flickering circles onto the ground. At the corner sat a pad and pastels.
“Marcello, what did you do?” I breathed, looking at everything he had thought to set out ahead of time.
“I know sunset is one of your favorite times to work. I thought maybe we could sit out here together while you sketch.”
I broke apart from him, moving to sit in the center of the blanket. “What will you be doing while I’m hard at work?”
“Trying not to kiss you.”
He pulled out a bottle of wine and two glasses from a bag at the base of the tree. After setting them down on the blanket, he grabbed get some fruit and cheese that were in a cooler.
“How’d you get all this out here?”
“Allegra helped me,” he said, getting to work on the cork. “She told me she talked to you at the fair today—I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” I said, reaching over to hold his hand. “She was just watching out for her brother. It makes sense.” I waited, picking at the skinny olive leaves that had fallen onto the blanket. “Maybe I wasn’t ready for you then, but I want you to know that I am now. I want to stay here, with you.”
“It means a lot that you are here with me, tesoro, here with my family, in this place. It’s not where I live anymore, but it’s still my home. It’s everything I love.”
My eyes widened, tears gathering when he repeated it. “You hear me say, yes? I love you.”
I nodded, smiling and burrowing my head into his chest. I squeezed my arms around his waist. “I love you, too. So much.”
Happy tears spilled, but I was too busy being kissed silly to care. With his hands on my cheeks, he peppered kisses and whispered I love yous all over my face. “I don’t think I ever stopped loving you.”
Pouring two glasses, he handed me one, kissing my shoulder and taking a seat. With his back resting against the tree trunk, he watched me set up the pencils, pastels, and paper.
“Do you remember the wine?”
Like a flash fire coursing through dry brush, the memory charged back.
We were wrapped in each other’s arms, a bottle of wine that we bought in town resting at the foot of the bed. I was young and knew nothing of wine. It tasted like pepper and plums.
“Y-yes,” I stuttered, the green pastel scratching across the page haphazardly. I smudged it with my finger to fix it but only made it worse.
“What do you remember? Tell me, tesoro.”
“Everything,” I admitted, touching my chest with a shaky hand, my chalky fingers transferring the dust to the light-colored dress.
“You said, ‘Don’t mind me, I like to watch you work,’ but you weren’t just watching, you were tormenting me, rubbing the wine across your lips with your finger. Sitting with your shirt off, casually leaning against the bed, you looked like heaven and hell sent to torture me.”
“I felt the same about you. I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
I slid the pastel across the page with a scratch. “You said you wanted to paint me.”
He shifted and stretched his legs out. I settled between them, pushing back until I rested against his chest. The lanterns hanging from the trees above swayed in the breeze, making the light dance across the page.
“I saved one, you know.”
I stopped, setting the chalk down on the blanket beside us. “Saved what?”
“A painting that you had left behind,” he said, pulling my dress strap down.
“Marcello, I—”
“At first I kept it for you for when you returned. Then you didn’t come back and I kept it for me. But you are here now.” He paused, turning me in his arms so that I straddled him.
“I’m here now,” I said before I hugged him, slipping my fingers through his hair. “I’m not leaving.”
Laying me back onto the blanket, he covered my body with his and propped himself up on his elbows. The papers crumbled beneath us, pastels cracked against my back and under his hands.
The lantern was shining next to him, making the pain in his eyes pronounced. Palpable.
Marcello looked every bit like my greatest love and my biggest regret.
He lifted his hand, smiling at the sage-green dust on his palm and smoothed it across my forehead, brushing my hair back.
I felt a pastel near my right hand. Clutching it, I rubbed it into my palm. Bringing my hand up to his face, I cupped his cheek, leaving a slight pink imprint there.
He pulled off his shirt, tossing it to the side. Unbuttoning my dress, he opened it like a gift, laying the sides on the blanket.
“Belissima.”
We took turns, each taking the broken pieces and painting the other with them. A stripe of cobalt across his stomach. A streak of yellow on the inside of my thigh. An abstract green heart over my breasts and the word love in purple across his chest.
“You promised me a kiss under the stars,” I whispered, my hands slipping to his belt.
I WAS BACK IN ROME after a weekend in Pienza. With my Italian. Who loves me!
And his family. Who also loves me!
I didn’t have a class today, I didn’t have to work today, so I was taking myself shopping.
Via Condot
ti. Like Bond Street in London, or Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, every major city had a street with all the best stores: Gucci, Ferragamo, Zegna, Bulgari, Prada of course, but also Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton, La Perla, the best. At the foot of the Spanish Steps, the Via Condotti could be hopelessly touristy unless you shopped early, before the crowds arrived.
Huh. Look at that. I’m avoiding tourists.
Normally I’d also have avoided the area entirely, preferring the trendier stores in the Monti district, but today I wanted to revel a little bit, I suppose. There was one store in particular that I wanted to visit. I felt like celebrating.
An email from Daniel’s attorney this morning had confirmed the news I’d been waiting for. Daniel wasn’t contesting the divorce, and not only that, he wasn’t contesting my settlement requests. I’d had mixed feelings all along about alimony. What it represented, whether or not I agreed with the concept, but the bottom line was that I’d given up my career to make his career possible. I’d supported him 100 percent. I made the home and hearth habitable, I kept the schedules and catered the parties and bolstered the connections and played my part so that he could soar. A high-delivering lawyer in an established law firm was compensated fairly, and all I wanted was the same.
I’d waived the option of requesting to be paid until I’d married again, as if the only way I’d be okay was if I found another husband to take care of me. Five years was all I’d asked for. Half the proceeds from the house (neither of us wanted to live there again), the title to my car (especially since the brand-new Mercedes was probably a penis gift), and five years of a monthly stipend. I could have asked for more, and he could have fought harder to provide less, but in the end he agreed that the sooner this was over, the better.
His family was furious. My family was concerned.
He was moving on. I was blissful.
Since coming home from Pienza, the wonderful words that Marcello had said still filled my heart with puffy white clouds of happiness, and things had been truly blissful.
And I was treating myself to some bliss today. I wandered past all the stores, gazing into the window displays, stopping a bit longer outside the La Perla store and making some mental notes for another day, until I found the store I’d been looking for.
Hermès.
I’d been dying for a fix. Not normally someone who goes in for labels, I justified my Hermès scarf addition as not so much buying into fashion as it was honoring a fashionable history. Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly—all iconic women who wore these iconic scarves.
I sailed past the Birkin bags on display. I had very specific feelings about the Birkin. My mother-in-law had two. Daniel had tried to buy me one, had in fact purchased it from the store on Boylston Street. I kissed him, thanked him, then sent him back to return it. I felt it was ridiculous to spend fifteen thousand on something you carry your phone and tampons in.
But an Hermès scarf? Maybe it’s because my mother gave me my first when I graduated from high school. Maybe it’s because she wore them to church every Sunday, color coordinated with her purse and shoes. Maybe it’s because my grandmother had dozens, collected over the years as she traveled the world with my grandfather, each scarf commemorating a different adventure.
I had my eye on a particularly fetching cashmere scarf, beautiful pink and red shot through with swirls of orange.
I was on an adventure, in a different country, and about to successfully divorce my husband amicably. A trifecta!
Thirty minutes later I was gazing down at the red, pink, and orange swirled around my neck, and bumped into someone coming in as I was coming out of Hermès.
“Merde,” a feminine voice cursed, and I fought to keep my balance.
“I’m so sorry, mi scusa,” I said, grabbing on to the door handle, steadying her as well. I saw beautiful jet-black hair smoothed into a fashionable ponytail, big green almond-shaped eyes, granite-sharp cheekbones, and a beautiful mouth turned down in a frown.
She looked familiar. Why did she look so familiar?
We both played “place the face” for a few seconds, realization dawning on me the same moment it did on her face.
Simone, the woman with Marcello my first night in Rome.
“Simone,” I blurted, wishing I could pull the words back in, but the shock of running into her rankled me.
She stepped in front of me, blocking the path, her Dior shopping bag draped over her bent arm. There was no misjudging her anger. She would have looked like any of the other chic women moving about the fashionable district, were it not for the undiluted hatred pouring off her. I skirted around her, wanting to avoid the confrontation, but she wasn’t having it and managed to side-step me again. Did she know about us? That he was with me now, that I was the girl who—
“Fucked my Italian” she growled with so much disdain.
Oh yes. She knew.
She followed, her eyes laser locked on me, the girl who—
“Fucked my Italian,” she hissed.
Dammit! I had to stop setting her up in my head like that!
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, taking a step back, bumping into a gaggle of tourists. The crowd moved around us like water around a couple of boulders, enjoying the beautiful day, unaware that a Wild West showdown had begun on the poshest street in town.
“I will not. We have to talk, you and I. Woman to woman,” she shouted, drawing the judging eyes from the couples walking past us.
Looking for a way to placate her, I edged over to the side between two palm trees. This all felt very Real Housewives of Rome with the crowd of tourists getting ready to climb the Spanish Steps, or the unassuming families stopping for gelato. The last thing I wanted was unwanted attention from the peanut gallery. “Simone, this really isn’t the place—”
“Don’t you dare say my name after you took him away from me,” she said, her accent thicker than I remembered.
French, maybe? I couldn’t quite place it. Although to be fair, there wasn’t much I was paying attention to other than Marcello and his beautiful face. And as a matter of fact, now that I think about it, were they even together that night? Her demeanor had seemed possessive, but who wouldn’t be around someone as good looking as Marcello, especially if she’d been trying to land him? Ha! This boulder stood a bit taller.
“I don’t know what you think happened, but I can assure you that—”
“You will be quiet. I have heard enough about you, from Cello. I knew something was going on that night. He acted so odd when you showed up out of nowhere, stupid American falling out of her chair—you looked ridiculous. I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t stop staring at you!”
“Marcello and I have known each other a long time. There’s a lot of history there,” I replied, keeping my tone even and cool, though my heart was pounding in my throat. And the fact that we shared a history made it more concrete. Real. I was his tesoro, his treasure. And this French bitch girl wasn’t going to take that away.
“I had history with Marcello,” she asserted, her voice beginning to crack, hurt showing through. “We were something before you—” She broke off.
A prickly cold feeling was creeping up my spine. What was she talking about?
“I didn’t notice it at first. A missed dinner here, a canceled concert there. He was always busy, especially when he was bringing a project in, but he always made the time for me. For my needs. When he said he was too busy to bring me to the opening party for the new bank? I thought maybe . . . but he came back. He could not stay away for long.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. She must have noticed, too, because she was suddenly very pleased with herself, standing a bit taller, her chest pushed out a bit farther. She’d struck a raw nerve and she knew it.
“Wait. Just wait a minute,” I said, shaking my head, trying to understand. “You and Marcello were together? Like, together together?”
She looked confused. “Why do you say it twice?”
“Just
answer my question.”
Color crept into her cheeks. “Yes, of course we were. We were together for months before you showed up. I convinced him that this was not permanent—you being here. Why end things with me in the hopes that you would stay?”
“I meant after I showed up. You were together? In all the ways?” I asked, knowing the answer, but not being able to stop myself from asking anyway.
“Of course in all the ways,” she scoffed, but her tone shifted. She went from disdain to lethal. “Ah,” she sneered, beginning to circle me. “You are wondering if we fucked? It bothers you not knowing what we did. Did you think he would drop everything for you?”
“I . . .” I wanted to say yes, that it was bothering me. Yes, I thought because we didn’t discuss her that she was a nonentity, but I also didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how much her words were tearing me apart.
She huffed in response, but didn’t walk away.
“When was the last time you . . .”
“Oh!” She laughed. “When did he end things with me?” she asked, raising her chin a bit.
“You want to know the last time he fucked me, no?”
I nodded.
“Was it after he fucked you? Does that bother you? Wondering if he left you, not satisfied, and had to seek me out?” Her gaze was calculating, assessing. She looked at me long enough that I reflexively began to wonder if I had something on my shirt. Finally, she smiled. My heart sank. “You ask him.”
I reeled back, the pavement seeming to move beneath my feet. The edges of the world went haywire and out of focus, as though the earth had tilted on its axis and I could fall off a great cliff, with nothing to hold on to.
She leaned close, murmuring, “You be sure to tell him you ran into me, no?”
Oh, I’d be sure.
* * *
WHEN I’D LEFT TO GO shopping, Marcello was at home engrossed in his work. Needing quiet, he opted to skip the office craziness to do some research for a new bid he’d been putting hours and hours of work into. The job was massive in scale and would be an enormous undertaking should his team’s proposal win.