A Place in the Sun

  The bed and breakfast consisted of three floors, each a little more worn down than the last. Gianluca look me on a tour, leading me through the first common room with the check-in desk, living room, and dining room. There was a kitchen tucked in the back across the hallway from a bedroom and bathroom. Gianluca informed me that was where the manager usually stayed when the place was operating.

  On the second story, there were two more bedrooms and a bathroom, and then one large penthouse and bathroom on the top level. In all, the place was small, but it needed a lot of work.

  That first day, we began by clearing things out. We couldn’t even really assess the damage until the place was empty, and though I’d assumed it would be a fairly simple task—throw out the bits of trash until the place was clean—we’d been at it for three days and were still no closer to being finished. Gianluca’s grandmother had collected quite a lot of stuff over the years. Furniture aside, there were enough trinkets, books, and knickknacks to fill a normal house three times over.

  And of course, Gianluca didn’t trust me to toss things out on my own. I had to show him every single item I picked up so he could decide if it was trash or not.

  “We ought to save that.”

  “But it’s just an empty peanut tin.”

  “Nonna loved peanuts.”

  “Right.” I rattled the empty tin as if to prove to him how silly he was being. “But we should toss it. It’s useless.”

  “She might have liked it.”

  “It’s rubbish, Gianluca.”

  He yanked it out of my hand and dropped it in the “save” pile.

  “Bloody hell.”

  It continued on like that for the first week. No real conversation, no fun banter or silly joking. We worked tirelessly in awkward silence. I’d pick up something that ought to be tossed, and Gianluca would insist that it had some sort of value. The bloke was a full-on hoarder. It got to be so bad that I would sneak stuff into the trash when he turned his back. I appreciated the value of family heirlooms and sentimental keepsakes, but he was being mental.

  “What will you do with the top half of that music box?”

  “Keep an eye out for the other part and glue them back together.”

  “’Course. Seems logical that Nonna would break a treasured box in half then hide the pieces…”

  “You know, I can do this myself if you’re bored.”

  “No! No. It’s fine. I can tell you’ve got a real vision for that pile of lemon candy wrappers you’ve got going over there.”

  Conversation—or lack thereof—aside, Gianluca seemed to also have a distaste for breaks. Each day, we skipped right over lunch. I’d ask him if he was hungry, and he’d insist he’d rather just keep working. I’d try to hang on as long as I could, but by 1:30 PM I usually caved and went out into the square to find a quick bite by myself. The first few days, I brought a treat back for him: pizza fresh from the oven, fresh strawberries, chocolate gelato—but after each thing had gone untouched, I stopped bothering.

  On Friday, I spent a good deal of the day working up the courage to ask him to have dinner with me. I’d prepared a speech and planned it down to every word.

  “You’ll pass out if you don’t eat something soon. Come on, come have a bite to eat with me.”

  I thought I sounded very cool and casual, like I didn’t really care if he continued his hunger strike, but he shook his head without even looking up.

  “I’ll get something on my way back home later.”

  Right. Wonderful.

  In the week we’d spent together, I’d wrestled a handful of words out of him and little else. We were no closer to becoming friends and though I tried to ignore it, with him there, the bed and breakfast had taken on a sort of gloomy energy.

  I was moping in my room on Friday night, nursing my bruised ego, when Katerina turned up with some fresh cheese, crusty bread, and more Sciacchetrà.

  “You’re a heavenly angel…of booze!” I said, ripping the bottle out of her hand so I could get to work uncorking it.

  “I figured after the week you’ve had, you might need some wine.”

  “Please say you’ve crushed up some drugs and slipped them in here as well?”

  She barked out a laugh. “Was it that bad?”

  “Nearly intolerable,” I said, pulling the door open wide so she could come in. “Gianluca is definitely a gloomy sod. There’s no going around it. Drink from the bottle okay?”

  “It’s a tradition.” She grinned.

  We set up shop on my bed, unfolding the brown butcher paper from around the cheese and then using it as a makeshift table. We ripped off big chunks of bread and guzzled wine, all while I delighted her with stories of Gianluca from the last five days.

  “Why wouldn’t he just keep one or two of the wrappers?”

  “I know. I’m not making this up.”

  “Maybe he’ll toss them out later? You know, once you’ve gone?”

  “Fat chance. I’m actually forming a backup plan of turning the place into the Museo di Nonna in case the B&B doesn’t work out.”

  “So then do you think you’ll start actually repairing and painting stuff next week?”

  I laughed. “We spent all week clearing out ONE room, Katerina! ONE! We won’t be doing any actual work for months—YEARS if Gianluca has it his way.”

  She wiped a hand down her face. “Wow.”

  “I know I’m supposed to be gentle with him because of what he’s gone through and everything, but something about him makes me want to push back harder, to really trip him out of whatever funk he’s in.”

  “I think that funk is called ‘mourning’.”

  I cringed. “Okay, right, but if five years of everyone bubble-wrapping Gianluca hasn’t helped, maybe it’s time for some tough love?”

  She glanced past my bedroom window, out toward the square, and for a while we didn’t speak.

  The shutters were open to let in the sea breeze. The scent of Italian cuisine spilled out from the restaurants below, and the chatter and clinking dishes served as a welcome backdrop to our silence.

  “I understand I hardly know him,” I finally continued, “and I never saw him with Allie, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that he really loved her. I have no clue what’s going on with him, and if he really is truly depressed, I know it’s naïve to think I can just shake him out of it. Do you think I should back off? Give him some space?”

  “Absolutely not,” she replied quickly, turning back to face me. “For years Massimo and I have been too scared to rock the boat. Sometimes Massimo will get the courage to push him a bit, but not really, never to a point where they’d have a real go at it. But you…” She smiled. “You’re just what we’ve been waiting for. Don’t give up.”

  MONDAY MORNING, I arrived at the bed and breakfast even more prepared than I’d been the week before. I had a list of talking points going in my head, simple things that would keep the conversation flowing all day. I brought another sack of pastries and two cups of tea from The Blue Marlin.

  Gianluca was already there when I arrived, hard at work clearing out the first-floor bedroom. He hardly glanced up when I popped my head in and said hello.

  “I’ve brought you some tea.”

  “No need,” he replied, shaking out another black bin bag and getting to work tossing out things from the wardrobe in the corner.

  “How about a pastry? They put out these fresh croissants right when I got there and I brought some for us.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take it home.”

  It wasn’t just what he said, it was the way he said it. To him, I was the most annoying git on the planet.

  “All right then!” I said, my voice a tad too shrill. “I’ll be clearing out the front room if you need me.”

  That finally got his attention. “No, no. I don’t want you clearing things when I’m not there.”

  I tried hard to keep the lid on it then. It was his family’s building and I had to respect that. br />
  “Oookay, well you just tell me what you want me to do.”

  He put me to work holding the bin bag while he continued to clear out the wardrobe. It was the closest we’d ever been. He was wearing a white t-shirt, tight around his muscular arms and then a bit looser around his slim waist. He was in good shape for someone who lived nowhere near a gym. I figured his muscles were built from manual labor, which for some reason seemed even more attractive to me. He caught me staring a few times, but I always pasted on a big smile and acted as though I was doing nothing wrong.

  I even tried to strike up a conversation a few times.

  “Do you enjoy reading, Gianluca?”

  “Yes.”

  “What sorts of books?”

  “Fiction. Will you try to hold the bag open wider so I can stuff this in there?”

  Two more days passed like this and then finally, on Thursday I couldn’t take it.

  “Put the bag down, Gianluca. We’re going to dinner.”

  He protested, of course. Well, first he turned his back to ignore me, so I had to sort of cut across to stand in front of him and repeat myself twice, and then when he couldn’t pretend like he hadn’t heard me anymore, he protested.

  “I haven’t got the time.”

  “Oh, busy night planned at the villa? Going to read some fiction?”

  He eyes cut to me, and I leveled a stare at him and didn’t budge. Not an inch. God, it was difficult. My spine nearly buckled under the sheer amount of disdain he focused on me. I fought against my better judgement and arched a brow as if to say, Your powers don’t work on me.

  “There’s a place just outside. I’m sure they’ll give us a table and we can eat really quickly. I won’t even chew and you don’t have to bother talking. These last few days with you have shown me how adept I am at one-sided conversation.”

  He dropped the bin bag he’d been holding and clapped the dirt off his hands.

  “Fine. We’ll go up to Massimo’s restaurant.”

  I didn’t quite believe it. I mean, my mouth was hanging open. I had an argument prepared on my tongue, but he’d agreed.

  Holy hell!

  I grinned, quite pleased with myself for talking him into a meal with me.

  He told me to give him a few minutes to finish up and I promised I’d meet him outside. I stopped in the bathroom on my way to the front door to fix my hair and make sure my boobs were settled correctly in my bra. It wasn’t a date, exactly. I mean Gianluca had literally shouted This isn’t a date! through the bathroom door enough times that it was now burned in my brain, but I still wanted to look nice if I had to sit across a table from the man.

  I’d picked a light sundress that morning and was glad for it as we walked outside. Gianluca locked up. The sun was still high in the sky, burning bright orange. The cool breeze felt good on my bare arms and legs after being stuck in the musty building all day. I twisted my hair into a bun at the base of my neck and smiled over at Gianluca as we set off along the main road. He didn’t notice. People waved at him as we passed and he was always polite, but distant. I got the feeling they would have enjoyed a long conversation with him, but he kept us moving along.

  “I figured you must be hungry,” he said, holding the door open for me once we arrived at Massimo’s restaurant.

  “Oh! Well, thank you. I am pretty starved after all the work we’ve done today.”

  He grunted in response and I knew he wanted to mention that I hadn’t done much, but that’s because it took nearly half my energy just to stand in a room with him, enduring the weight of his grumpiness. It was doing a number on my knees.

  A waiter directed us to a small table in the corner, set up right near the kitchen. Massimo came out to greet us, a bit shocked to see us sitting there at first, but he played it off.

  “Only the best vino for my two favorite customers,” he joked right before flitting off and returning with a dusty bottle of red wine. It looked ancient and the moment it hit my lips, I had to stop myself from guzzling down the entire glass in one go.

  “It’s so good,” I moaned, sipping slowly and watching to see if Gianluca was enjoying it as well.

  He hesitated for one long, excruciating moment before offering a reply.

  “It’s from his family’s vineyard, up near the farm.”

  My brows nearly hit my hairline. “Are you serious? They produce wine there too?”

  “It’s common here in Vernazza. Most families own a piece of the terraced hills. They build their homes in the center and then they grow grapes and olives, whatever they want, really. Massimo has a massive plot of land so he grows all sorts of things.”

  I could tell my eyes were wide with wonder, because Gianluca was watching me with a curious little expression—not really the way a woman hopes to be looked at by an attractive man. It was more like he was looking at an alien from another planet.

  “It’s just so different than London. Sure, we have an estate with gardens, but it’s all flowers for show, no food. It’s all very…two dimensional.”

  He nodded, understanding what I meant. “It’s different here.”

  Either they’d laced the wine, or we were having a normal conversation wherein I said words, Gianluca seemed to hear them, and then responded in kind. It was a bloody miracle. Gianluca didn’t do small talk and the fact that he was even sitting there with me at a restaurant was an unbelievable amount of progress. I wanted to see how far I could push it before he closed up again and told me to bugger off.

  “How is it different?” I asked, keeping my gaze on my wine glass. I felt like I’d been tossed into the bear cage at the zoo and any sudden movement might spook the beast.

  He sipped his wine and stared off over my shoulder. “Everyone is growing and producing, fishing or harvesting things so that if they wanted to, they’d never have to leave. Have you been shopping in the local markets?”

  “Yes, but my hotel room doesn’t have a kitchen or anything, so I’ve been sticking to fruit.”

  “Shame. You really ought to try the vegetables they sell at the market on Tuesday mornings.”

  “I’ve seen that market! Katerina sells her clothes there too, right?”

  A waiter dropped off a fresh loaf of focaccia bread and then dropped down some oil and vinegar. Gianluca mixed them up on a small plate and we got to work tearing off pieces of warm goodness to dip into the mixture.

  “Yeah. Katerina has sold there for a few years now. I try to stop in every now and then to buy produce, but I don’t get down there as often as I should.”

  “If I lived in your villa, I’d hardly go down into the square either.”

  He offered up a half smile. (I think I peed a little.)

  “It is a nice place to live.”

  “More than nice, Gianluca! It’s massive, right up at the top of the hill. I swear it’s the best piece of property in the whole village.”

  “It’s been in my family for ages. When my nonna passed away, she gave Massimo the farm and land, and I got the villa.”

  “So that’s why you moved back to Vernazza?”

  Katerina had told me Gianluca had grown up in London, which was why he had a bit of an English accent.

  His half smile flattened then, hardly at all, but I noticed. “No.”

  There was a long silence after that and it didn’t take a genius to realize I’d completely ruined the meal with my line of questioning. Whatever progress I’d made with him was wiped clean. Back to level one. Eventually, Massimo turned up to take our order with another bottle of wine for us. He wouldn’t hear of me eating anything but the seafood pasta. According to him, it was a life-changing meal.

  “Make it two,” Gianluca said, handing off his menu.

  When he left, I took another sip of wine and decided to try to repair the damage I’d caused. “Listen, I know it’s normal to keep private things private, but I’ve never quite operated like that. I could see that you became sad when I asked about why you moved to Vernazza. To be very blunt,
I can guess it had something to do with Allie, and it just won’t work if you keep closing yourself off like that.”

  “What won’t work? What are you trying to get at?”

  His brows were furrowed in an accusatory way, like he assumed I thought this was a date or something. Believe me, no one would get that idea. It was more of a public execution by this point. Death by disdain.

  “Well, it seems we’ll be fixing up this bed and breakfast for a while, and after that, I plan on staying and working as the manager. I know if you had it your way, I’d come to work with my mouth taped shut and never even look at you, but I don’t operate like that. I’d rather we become friends, and friends don’t tiptoe around touchy subjects.”

  He looked away then, out past the door of the restaurant. I leaned back in my chair and sipped my wine, more than happy to give him the time he needed.

  Eventually, he turned back to me, rolling the stem of the wine glass between his fingers.

  “I moved back to Vernazza with Allie when her cancer was deemed terminal.”

  There was no lead-in, no argument about becoming friends.

  I nodded, trying to keep my emotions from my face. Gianluca didn’t want my pity. “Right.”

  He glanced away again, tugged a hand through his adorably tousled hair, and then turned back to me with a bit more determination behind his eyes. “I’ve gone on so long without talking about her in normal conversation. Most people are desperate to bring up any other subject, and I’m happy to oblige them.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time for a change then, huh?”

  Massimo swooped back over with two heaping platefuls of seafood pasta. There were prawns and shrimp and clams all floating in creamy sauce over hand-rolled penne pasta. I took a hesitant bite, never one to go for shrimpy-looking food, but then I swear I did a little dance in my chair because of how good it tasted.

  “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven,” I said, using a bit of the focaccia bread to sop up the sauce.

  Gianluca glanced up, presumably because he was hoping I had actually died. Then he just shook his head and went back to eating.

  Joke’s on you, pal. Bread only makes me stronger.