“I don’t believe you.”
“Maybe it’s because there are so many buildings, and we live so closely together, but we appreciate nature more. Every tree is fascinating. Flowers are treasured. City people love flowers so much they’re sold in bunches on street corners year-round.”
“I prefer a field of flowers.”
“Well, you can have that, too, if you take a train ride up to the botanical gardens in the Bronx. You notice the sky more, too. Of course, I don’t think you can beat the colors of the Italian sky, but what we have is also very beautiful. The pollution makes for some gorgeous purple sunsets over New Jersey.”
He laughs. “Just don’t breathe it.”
“Best of all, our building looks out over the Hudson River. The river is wide and deep and flows out past Staten Island to the Atlantic Ocean in a grand sweep. When winter comes, the river freezes and creates a great expanse of silver ice. It never freezes all the way across, like a lake—where you could skate on it—instead it breaks into big gray puzzle pieces of ice that bob in the water until the sun melts them. But for days, when it’s freezing, you can see these gray blocks of ice bumping up against each other where they used to fit together. And at night, if you walk by the river’s edge, the only sound you’ll hear is the soft tapping of the pieces of ice as they float on the surface as water rushes underneath.”
“That quiet?”
“Almost silent. During the winter, the parks and the walkway are empty. I take walks over there, and it’s all mine. I wonder, how can this view be free? But it is.”
“It belongs to you.”
“I pretend it does. I was walking alone on a pier one morning last winter. The river was frozen, but something new caught my eye. It was a flash of ruby red bobbing on a slab of ice. So I walked out to the end of the pier. Three seagulls had caught a fish, a big one. They had gored it and were eating. The red I saw at a distance was the blood of the fish. I turned away at first. But then I had to look back. There was something so compelling about the palette of the black river, the silver ice, and the maroon blood of the fish. It was horrible, and yet beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”
Gianluca listens intently to every word I say.
I continue, “I learned something about myself that morning.”
“What did you learn?” Gianluca leans toward me, waiting for my answer.
“I can find art in the worst moments. I used to believe my art had to be about the things that brought me joy and gave me hope. But I learned that art can be found in all of life, even in pain.”
As Gianluca drives us back to Arezzo, I flip through the swatches of the fabrics we selected at the silk mill. My favorite is a double-sided silk with a repeating pattern of hand-painted calla lilies. I imagine using the fabric to make an elegant slip-on mule with black velvet piping. There are just a few of our old standard choices among the swatches. I hope Gram approves. I took a big step and went ahead and placed the orders. I had a moment of complete exhilaration as I signed my name for the first time on the line on the order form marked DESIGNER.
The sun doesn’t so much set here as plunge behind the hills. Twilight seems to last for a few moments, and then the moon appears in the purple sky like a rosette of whipped cream. It’s a romantic moon, and it’s no wonder my grandmother is under its spell. “You know, your father and my grandmother—”
Gianluca takes his eyes off the road and looks at me.
I make the international hand signal for sex.
He laughs. “For many years. Since your grandfather died.”
“That long?” How do you like that? I thought I knew all the family secrets.
“They were good friends. Now, there’s something more.”
“A lot more.”
“My father was good friends with your grandfather also. Very intelligent. Big personality. Like you,” Gianluca says as he takes a turn off the autostrada onto a small side road.
“Another lake?” I ask.
“No. Dinner.” He smiles.
Gianluca takes another quick turn onto another side road. In the clearing ahead, there’s a charming stone farmhouse lit with torches at the entrance. A few cars are parked outside.
“This is Montemurlo,” he says. “We’re halfway home.”
After we park, he places his hand on the small of my back to guide me into the restaurant. I find myself quickening my step, but he just takes longer strides to keep up with me. Once we reach the door, Gianluca motions for me to go through the empty dining room and outside to the back.
A dozen tables are set up on the veranda, hemmed in by a low wall of stacked fieldstone. Votive candles light the crisp white linens on the tables. A line of blazing torches beyond the wall throw streams of light onto a field. I hear the sound of rushing water.
In the middle distance, there’s a magnificent waterfall pouring down the mountainside and into a small lake. The moonlight on the water looks like ruffles of white lace on black taffeta. “If the food is anything like the view, we’ve got a winner,” I tell him.
Gianluca pulls my chair from the table. He seats me facing the waterfall. Then he turns his chair toward me, sits, and crosses his long legs. The last time I saw a man sit in this fashion, it was Roman, at Gram’s counter after he made me dinner.
The waiter comes over and they converse in rapid Italian and in a Tuscan dialect that is beginning to sound familiar to me. The waiter opens a bottle of wine and places it on the table. He is balding, wears glasses, and looks me up and down, like he’s buying stew meat, before he returns to the kitchen.
I close the menu. “You know what? Order for me.”
“What do you like?” he asks.
“Everything.”
He laughs. “Everything?”
“Sad but true. I’m in that lonely category of woman called Actual Eater. I have no aversions, allergies, or dislikes.”
“You’re the only woman in the world like this.”
“Oh, I’m one of a kind, Gianluca.”
The waiter brings a plate of crisp Italian toast topped with thin slices of Italian prosciutto drizzled with blackberry honey. I taste it.
“You like it?”
“Love it. Told you. I love all food. Get me a jar of that honey.”
As the meal is prepared, we talk about our day at the mill, and the fine art of embossing leather. Eventually, the waiter brings a large serving bowl of pasta, drizzled in olive oil. Then from his vest pocket, the waiter takes a small jar. He opens the lid and removes a truffle (which looks like a lumpy beige turnip) from a small, white cotton cloth. Then, with a sleek silver knife, he makes long, smooth strokes on the truffle, which falls onto the pasta in filmy slices, until the hot pasta is covered.
“Do you like truffles?”
“Yes,” I say through a mouth full of buttery pasta and woodsy, sweet truffle. I feel odd having the truffles, like I’m cheating on Roman.
“You love to eat. Women always say they love to eat, but then they pick at their meal like birds.”
“Not me,” I tell him. “Eating is in my top three.”
“What are the other two?”
“A four-speed bicycle on a hot summer day and a John Galliano ball gown on a cold winter night.” I sip my wine. “What are your top three?”
Gianluca takes a moment to think. “Sex, wine, and a good night’s sleep.”
The good-night’s-sleep category highlights our eighteen-year age difference. My parents spend lots of time talking about sleep. However, I won’t point this out to Gianluca nor will I mention that the only older men I have ever spent time with were my grandfather and my dad. May-December romances have never been for me. When it comes to love, I like my four seasons, individually savored and spread out. I certainly don’t want to skip summer through fall and go right to winter, but spending time with Gianluca has helped me see the value of a friendship with an older man. They have a lot to offer, especially when romance is safely out of the equation. I learned a lot
from him today—his advice on sewing repeat patterns alone was worth the trip. He also listens, as though whatever I have to say matters. Young men often pretend to listen, their minds on where the evening is going, and not where it actually is.
The waiter offers to bring us espresso. Gianluca tells him to wait.
“I want to show you something. Come with me.”
There is a series of stone steps off the portico that leads down to the vast field in front of the waterfall. He skips down the stairs, making it clear he’s been here many times before. I follow him.
The grass is already wet with night dew, so I slip off my sandals to walk barefoot. Gianluca reaches out and takes my sandals from me, holding them in one hand while taking my hand with the other. I find this more than slightly intimate, but I can’t figure out how to let go without being rude. Plus, there’s the wine factor. I had two glasses. I hardly ate today, so I’m floating on that wonderful cloud called double-cocktail buzz while we cross the field.
We arrive at a deep pool of water, the color of blue ink, at the base of the waterfall. He turns to me. The rush of the water is so loud, we can’t talk. I slip my hand from his and put it in my pocket. He might be older, but he’s still a man, and if I’m going to be holding on to anything, it’s going to be to Roman Falconi back home.
I hold my hand out for my shoes. He gives them to me. I skip ahead and back to our table where the waiter has left a caffè latte for me, an espresso for him, and a bowl of ripe peaches.
I climb into bed and open my cell phone. I dial Gabriel.
“How’s Italy?”
“It’s dangerous,” I tell him.
“What happened?”
“Gram has a lover.”
“Oh, that kind of danger. Let me get this straight. Gram has a lover and I’m single? Go figure.”
“Hey, I don’t like how that sounds.”
“You know what I mean. She’s eighty! Evidently a spry eighty,” Gabriel admits.
“It gets worse. Her boyfriend’s son put the moves on me.”
“Go for it.”
“I will not! I would never cheat on Roman.”
“Then why are you telling me this? Hey, no ring no thing.” Gabriel’s philosophy: there is no such thing as cheating unless there’s an engagement ring. “How old is Marmaduke?”
“Gianluca. He’s fifty-two.”
“Good fifty-two or bad fifty-two?”
“Good fifty-two.” At least I’m honest. “He’s gray though.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Forget I said a word. I’m in love with Roman.”
“I’m glad, because that’s the only way I can get a table at Ca’ d’Oro. And I want a table at Ca’ d’Oro as often as I can get it. Your boyfriend is the bomb.”
“He treated you well?”
“Roman pulled out all the stops. You would have thought I was the food critic for the New York Times when I barely know a pork shoulder from a lamb shank.”
“Good for you. Hey, did you check out Roman’s sous-chef?”
“Yes, I did. Her name is Caitlin Granzella. I met her on my tour of the kitchen.”
“And?”
“You’re far from home. You don’t need a mental image.”
“Gabriel!”
“All right, all right. I have to be honest. Think Nigella Lawson. Face and body. Trim but curvy. She’s built like a bottle of Prell.”
I don’t say a word. I can’t. My boyfriend has a gorgeous sous-chef and I’ve been gone for weeks.
“Valentine? Breathe. And don’t worry. I think Mr. Falconi has permanent plans for you.”
“You think so?”
“All he could talk about was Capri, and how he was going to show you everything, and how for the first time in his life he was going to take a real vacation because there was only one girl in the world he wanted to be stranded on an Italian island with—and that’s you. So don’t worry about Miss Slice and Dice in the Ca’ d’Oro kitchen. He doesn’t dream about her. He’s crazy about you.”
As we say good night, I lean back on the pillows and dream of Roman Falconi. I imagine him, the blue sea, the pink clouds, and the hot sun over Capri. As I sink into a deep and satisfying sleep, I imagine my lover’s arms around me in warm sand.
12
The Isle of Capri
GRAM, DOMINIC, GIANLUCA, AND I did the cobbler’s tour of Italy in the week before our last day in Arezzo. We drove up to Milan and went through the Mondiale factory, buying enough buckles, clips, and fasteners to supply our shop for another ten thousand pairs of shoes.
While we were in Milan, we met with Bret’s international business connection, a group of Italian financiers who work with designers who coventure in Italy and America. They reinforced Bret’s idea that we develop a line secondary to our custom shoes. I explained to them that we were in development on that front. I mentioned the possibility of the Bergdorf windows, which was an exciting notion to them, as they have done a lot of business with the venerable Neiman Marcus Company that now owns Bergdorf Goodman.
We also went to Naples to meet with Elisabetta and Carolina D’Amico, the embellishment experts. I got lost in their shop, a playground for any designer, rooms of jeweled straps and laces, beaded links, clips and bows. The women have a sense of humor, so their work can be whimsical, shell ornaments on a sea of dyed rice, glued to look like grains of sand on a beach; or miniature jeweled crowns on cameo faces; or my favorite, the Wedding Cake, cushion-cut rhinestones in the shape of a cake across the vamp, with gold charms of a bride and groom at the top of the ankle, affixed with matching straps. Brilliant.
It’s our last morning in Arezzo, and while I’ll miss Signora Guarasci’s soup and my bed with the open windows to let in the night air, I’m anxious to drive to the airport to drop off Gram and to pick up Roman. I try not to show my anticipation because, as happy as I am to go, Gram is equally sad.
She waits for me in the hallway outside our rooms. “I’m ready,” she says quietly.
“I’ll get your luggage.” I go into her room for the suitcase. I’ve already loaded my bags into the car, along with a new duffel filled with fabric swatches. The leather and fabric I ordered are being shipped and should be at the shop by the time I get home.
Signora Guarasci is waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. She’s made us box lunches for the trip, prosciutto and cheese panini, with two cold bottles of Orangina to wash them down. She gives us each a hug and a kiss and thanks us for our patronage.
Gram goes out the front door, takes the banister, and goes down the stairs. Dominic waits for her on the last step. I quickly skip around Gram to give them a private moment.
I go to the car, which is parked at the side of the inn, load her suitcase into the trunk, and wait. Through the thick boxwood hedge, I can see the two of them embrace. Then he dips her, gives her a kiss, backbend style, the likes of which I have not seen since Clark Gable kissed Vivien Leigh, in the commemorative DVD of Gone With the Wind.
“Papa is very sad,” Gianluca says from behind me.
I’m embarrassed to be caught spying. “So is Gram.” I turn to him. “Thank you for everything you did for us on this trip.”
“I enjoyed our talks,” he says.
“Me, too.”
“I hope you visit again sometime.”
“I will.” I look at Gianluca who, after weeks of traveling around with us, has become a friend. When I first met him, I was judgmental, all I could see was the gray hair, the big car, and a daughter nearly my age. Now, I can appreciate his maturity. He is elegant without being vain, and he has excellent manners without being grand. Gianluca is also generous, he put Gram and me first throughout our stay. “I’ll bet you’re happy to see us go.”
“Why would you say that?”
“We’ve taken up so much of your time.”
“I enjoyed it.” He gives me a slip of paper. “This is my friend Costanzo’s number in Capri. Please stop and see him. He’s the finest shoemaker I
know. Besides you of course,” Gianluca says and grins. “You must watch him work.”
“I will,” I lie. I don’t plan to look at shoes much less wear them while I’m in Capri. I want to make love, eat spaghetti, and sit by the pool, in that order.
“Well, thank you.” I extend my hand. Gianluca takes my hand and kisses it. Then, he leans forward and kisses me on both cheeks. When his lips brush against my face, his skin smells like cedar and lemon, very cool and clean, reminding me of the first time I climbed in his car, the day we went to Prato. I check my watch. “We’d better be going.”
Gianluca and I walk to the foot of the stairs below the entrance of the Spolti Inn. Gram and Dominic are laughing, doing their best to make their good-bye a happy one. I touch Gram’s arm, but they keep talking as they walk to our car. Dominic helps Gram into the car, while Gianluca holds my door open. I climb in, and he closes the door, checking the handle just as he did when we went to Prato.
Gram sinks into the front seat as I start the car. She’s moving in slow motion, when all I want to do is blow this Tuscan pop stand (my father’s words) and get to the airport, drop off Gram, and pick up Roman, and at long last, let the fun begin.
I peel down the hill to the main street of Arezzo, check the signs, and head for the edge of town to take us to the autostrada.
I look over at Gram, who seemed like a peppy teenager during our stay and now shows every day of her eighty years. The white roots peek through her brown hair, while her hands, folded over her lap, seem frail. “I’m sorry,” I say, trying not to sound too chipper while she is so sad.
“It’s all right,” she says.
I pick up speed on the autostrada and we sail along at a good clip. The highway is ours today, and I take full advantage. When Gram nods off to sleep, I think that it’s better this way. The more she naps, the less she’ll miss Dominic.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out and open it.
“Honey?” Roman says.
“You landed?”