As in all fairy tales, the road leads to a castle, known on this lake as the Cardinal’s Palace. The Queen’s Pavilion, a burnt-umber-faced villa with a boat launch at its base, faces the main building, where Battista has booked us. Jack says nothing, as he has never seen anything like this either. Only the most glamorous and elegantly dressed, coiffed, and perfumed belong here. No wonder Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra honeymooned here; Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, was kept in exile here; Clark Gable roamed these grounds; and Ginger Rogers swam in the pool that floats on the lake. This is heavenly, and stars belong here. Jack and me? We’ll do our best not to gape our two days away in awe of all we see.
“I am so happy that you decided to come,” Battista, my cousin who looks like an elegant duke, says as he leads us to our room. We banter in Italian, and Jack turns and looks at the architecture. The high ceilings are shades of yellow, and the marble staircases with their flecks of silver reflect light in every direction. Battista takes a large key from an envelope (even the key has a tassel on it) and opens Room 218, a suite with a view of the lake. He opens the windows and lets the lake breeze play through the draperies, which are boldly striped in shades of dusky blue. The living room has a gray velvet couch and blue-and-gray-striped chairs; there is a bowl of fresh yellow roses on the glass-topped table. The bedroom is set off by more draperies and boasts a walk-in closet, and French doors lead out to our own private balcony overlooking the lake. Battista can see that I am overwhelmed. “But you haven’t eaten a meal here yet. The cuisine is what we are famous for!”
He leaves us to our unpacking. Jack and I keep looking at each other as though we have landed on another planet.
“We only have two days!” I wail. “Let’s stay right here on the lake and see everything we can.”
As soon as we have unpacked and made plans for the morning, like visiting the statuary and going to the floating pool, we want to start for the lake. But before we get out the door, Jack turns to me and sweeps me into his arms and kisses me like the first time he ever kissed me in Iva Lou’s trailer park so long ago. He takes the camera out of my hands and the sunglasses off my face and we tumble onto the bed. As we make love, I can hear the gentle waves of the lake and smell the jasmine that coils around the balcony. I feel young again, utterly connected to Jack, not just by our vows but in this moment. My husband, I know, feels the same. He looks at me and understands what I am thinking (one of the pluses, or minuses, of being married for so long). We laugh at our urgency and our passion—where is this coming from? I learn something very important today: environment matters! When a country girl is in a castle, she behaves like a princess and expects as much from her man.
There is a formal dinner dance each evening on the veranda. Thank God I brought my mother’s vintage dress, a simple pale blue silk off-the-shoulder sheath with a ballerina-length skirt. Jack looks handsome in his navy suit and red tie. Battista promises something special tonight, and we can’t wait to see what awaits us. (Fine dining and cuisine has become a theme in our family; in New York it was Max, in Florence, Renzo, and now the Villa d’Este!)
The waiter seats us at the water’s edge and tells us that Battista has ordered for us. As soon as our drinks arrive, Jack points out over the lake. “Look, Ave!” By the Queen’s Pavilion, two hot-air balloons, one with the face of the moon and the other with the sun, float over us, with two trapeze artists twirling from their baskets. The dinner guests erupt into applause, and I hear a woman at the next table tell her husband that this night is called “A Midsummer Night’s Party.” No wonder Papa wanted us to come right away. We won’t have to dream tonight—what could be more fantastic than this?
Later, as Jack and I prepare for bed, we keep looking up at each other and laughing. This tops our honeymoon, or maybe we’re just old enough to appreciate a night like this, to savor it.
“You know what I love about you?” Jack wraps his arms around me as we lie in bed. I am studying the trompe l’oeil doors on the closet, depicting a scene of a picnic on Lake Como.
“What?”
“You have a sense of wonder.”
“Who wouldn’t have a sense of wonder in a place like this?”
“I know lots of people who wouldn’t.” He pulls me closer still. “You know I never loved anyone like I love you.”
I don’t know what to say. My husband never talks like this. Well, not until recently, anyway; maybe it was the champagne. Or the Courvoisier after dinner. I don’t care. I like it. And frankly, I’m going to pump him for more. “Why’s that?” I ask demurely.
“I just never have, and I don’t think I ever will.” Jack kisses me good night and turns over. The soft warm breeze off the lake and the smell of gardenias take me back seven years to the summer in Schilpario when I left Jack to bring Etta to Italy. I think of him alone, back home, and his friendship with Karen Bell. It seems long ago, almost as though it happened to someone else. Instead of yanking at the picks in the fabric of our past, I leave it alone. We survived our problems, I remind myself. Love or something else saved us. Maybe it was just the timing, but we made it through. I know I was meant to take care of my husband, and I’ve seen him grow contented with our life together. I must remember to always be tender with him, because he always has been with me. I cover my husband with the duvet, centering the embroidered crest on his backside like a label. This makes me giggle.
“What’s funny?”
“Honey, you have a royal ass. You are actually stamped and certified.”
Jack and I want never to leave the Villa d’Este, but we also can’t wait to go back to Schilpario to tell everyone what we saw. We decide to tour the quaint village of Cernobbio on the way back and to have lunch in Bellagio, which we saw from our boat tour of Lake Como. Our captain, Sergio, would speed down the center of the lake until he saw the home of a celebrity, and then he would turn off the motor and tell us about the owner as we bobbed on the water. The homes often matched their owners. The house of Fiorucci (the madcap shoe designer) was lime green with forest-green shutters; Catherine Deneuve (the regal French film star), a tasteful three-story beige villa with brown shutters; the Versace family (fashion designers), an old Hollywood-style white castle trimmed in gold and black. At the Ratti silk outlet, I buy six yards of silk wool in a multicolor bouclé to have a coat made for Etta. I hope she likes it. My mother would swoon at the quality of this fabric. Jack picks up some wine and cheese in Saronno on our drive back. I call ahead and tell Papa that we won’t make it for dinner, we’ll probably roll in around midnight.
There is a single lamp on in the front window at Papa’s house when we pull into the driveway. We load ourselves down with the parcels so we only have to make one trip and enter the house through the garage. I take the perishables to the kitchen.
“What’s that racket?” Jack asks as he drops a bag on the table.
“What racket?”
“That.” Jack points to the street. We go to the window. Four figures come down the narrow street singing. And it’s a song we know. It’s the theme of the Outdoor Drama, “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.”
“Jesus, it’s Iva Lou. She’s drunk,” I tell Jack as he follows me to the door.
The volume of the singing escalates. “Etta?” Jack asks, obviously hoping it’s not her.
“Daaaa-dee,” she says, one arm slung over pie-eyed Iva Lou and the other over Chiara, whose mascara has smeared into two black triangles under her eyes. A man, holding Iva Lou upright, emerges from the shadows.
“Stefano? Is that you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“What is going on here?” I sound like everyone’s mother now, including Iva Lou’s.
“We went to the disco up there!” Iva Lou points to the hill above us and attempts to do a couple of dance moves that look slightly dangerous. Jack stops her before she topples over.
“And had bell-eeeeee-knees.” Etta throws her head back and laughs. My daughter is dead drunk.
“Get in
the house,” I say sternly; even in her inebriated state, Etta can tell I mean business. “Now.”
Jack helps Etta and Iva Lou into the house. Chiara, also tipsy, follows. “You stay here tonight, Chiara,” I tell her.
“Va bene,” she says. Evidently, she loses her ability to speak English when she’s wasted.
“Bye-bye, Stefano!” The trio of lushes waves good night to him as Jack pushes them through the door.
“Are you drunk too?” I turn and face Stefano.
“No.”
“How could you let this happen?”
“I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t think. Etta is only fifteen years old.”
“I know how old she is, Mrs. Mac,” he says evenly.
“Then you know that she’s too young to be at a club drinking.”
“I understand.” He turns to get into his car. “I’m sorry.”
Iva Lou is snoring by the time I check on her. Chiara is facedown and sound asleep on the trundle in Etta’s room. Etta is throwing up in the bathroom, and I decide it’s better for her long-term health to let her father hold her head while she hurls, as I might kill her.
“She washed her face and got into bed,” Jack reports when he comes to our room.
“Do you believe this?”
“She’s a teenager.”
“Jack, she was drinking!”
“We let her drink wine on this trip.”
“This is different. This is going-out-partying drinking!”
“We’re on vacation.”
“That is no excuse.”
“Iva Lou was a wreck too.”
“Iva Lou can get drunk. She’s over twenty . . . fifty-one!” I bellow.
“What happened to Stefano?”
“He went home. I yelled at him.”
“Iva Lou gave me the whole story before she passed out.”
“Didn’t you see how he looked at Etta down in Bergamo? She’s a pretty young thing, and he’s Italian and he was giving her That Look. I don’t like it.”
“Honey, I think we’ll all be better off if we don’t make a big deal out of it. Okay?”
“She should be punished!”
“And ruin the vacation?” Jack says sensibly.
“Here we go again. Mr. Loose, Mr. Let Her Do What She Wants, thinks all of this is just fine, a natural part of growing up. ‘Go on back to the still and git you some hooch!’ Well, I don’t go for it. I never came home drunk, and I don’t want a daughter who is underage and drinks. Call me a fanatic, call me too strict, I don’t like it!”
“Ave, I can’t do this tonight. I’m beat. Can we table this till the morning?” Jack sounds genuinely weary. Besides, I don’t want my yelling to wake Nonna, Papa, and Giacomina, so I let it go for now.
This is a recurring pattern, I think, as I lie down in bed with my husband: he goes right off to sleep, and I spend my time stewing. There is a pattern with Etta too. We have a coast period when we get along great and she follows the rules, and then suddenly, she does something completely out of character and ruins whatever good behavior points she has built up. I am speaking of her as a prisoner, and I know it. I’m not proud of that. But I don’t know how else to mother her. When I’m lenient, she takes advantage, and when I press the discipline, she sulks. She knows she is not to drink, and she knows that wine with dinner is not the same thing as champagne cocktails while partying. No, she figured we wouldn’t be back tonight, and she was going to test the rules. And what a chaperone Iva Lou turned out to be. What was she thinking?
Jack, Giacomina, Papa, and I are the only ones at breakfast. Not much is said as Papa reads the paper, and the cuckoo clock behind him ticks loudly. Jack and I drink our caffe lattes and Giacomina fills the sugar bowl. We look at one another when we hear the Less Than Holy Trinity come down the stairs.
“Keep your cool,” Jack says to me quietly.
Iva Lou, in sunglasses, Chiara, looking far younger than eighteen with her disco war paint washed off, and Etta, still a bit green, sit down quietly at the table.
“Well, y’all look like a pack of river rats,” Jack says as he surveys the damage of the night before.
“Don’t rub it in,” Iva Lou says.
I can contain myself no longer. “What happened last night?” Giacomina offers the girls bread, and in unison they slowly shake their heads. Instead of the usual large mugs of steaming milk, Giacomina serves them espresso, black, in tiny cups (good hangover cure).
“We was dancin’ at the club. And we all started with OJ and ice. Right, girls?” They nod in agreement. “And then we thought we’d try the bitters, ’cause I ain’t never had bitters. So we chugged them back. And then there were these broad-shouldered alpine hunks at the next table, and they bought us a round of drinks. Now, Stefano put out a warning that maybe we shouldn’t take the offer, but I figgered why not. So you see, all of this is my fault.” Iva Lou adjusts her sunglasses and continues, “Well, I tasted the bellini first, and it was delicious. I told Etta she could have a sip. And the rest is, well, the rest is a hangover.”
“Etta?” I look at my daughter, who looks contrite, but that could be due to the fact that she’s on the verge of vomiting.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
Jack nudges me under the table.
“Apology accepted,” I say in a tone that implies it’s not. “Let’s not ruin the rest of our trip.”
The remainder of our vacation goes smoothly (Iva Lou became a teetotaler after Bellini Night). We make our way through the Milan airport, hauling more bags than we brought (boy, did we shop). When we reach the gate, Etta asks if she can go and buy magazines. There’s a bit of a line to check in, so I let her.
“Mrs. Mac?” I hear from behind me.
“Stefano! What are you doing here?” Jack and Iva Lou greet him.
“I wanted to apologize again for the disco,” he begins.
“It’s all been settled,” Jack tells him politely.
Stefano looks around; he must be wondering where Etta is. “Etta went for magazines,” I tell him.
“Could you give her this for me?” He gives me a small parcel.
“What is it?”
“A lens for her telescope. This one is high-definition.”
“I’m sure she’ll love it. Thank you.”
Etta rejoins us in the line and lights up to see Stefano.
“Stefano brought you a present,” Iva Lou announces.
Etta rips into the package and pulls out a small lens. “Thank you.” She looks up at Stefano, and there’s that heat again. “I can’t wait to try it out!” I thank God when they announce that it is time to board. Jack looks relieved too. Maybe now he sees what I see.
“Good-bye, Stefano.” I give him a hug, and Iva Lou and Jack Mac say their farewells. The three of us turn away, though I nudge Iva Lou to keep watching. She leans down to pick up one of her carry-ons and whispers, “Kiss on the cheek. That’s all.”
Iva Lou eats everything the flight attendants offer on the trip home, including the mixed nuts (hers and mine). “I was too excited on the way over,” she says, apologizing.
“No, no, eat.”
“It-lee triggered my appetite. For food. For shoes. For jewelry. And Lyle Makin better watch it. My sex drive increased in the land of love.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled about that. And, of course, the crocodile loafers you bought him.”
Jack Mac stands and stretches in the aisle. He is sitting with Etta, who is reading a novel in Italian. Jack motions for me to meet him in the back of the plane, and when I do, he says, “Okay, she’s suffered enough.”
“Jack, I am not torturing her.”
“You’ve hardly talked to her since the incident.”
“I have a problem with teenage drinking, okay?”
“Ave, it wasn’t a typical thing. She’s on vacation in a foreign country, with your girlfriend, her cousin, and a young man I respect. It got out of hand, she told you how. She d
rank bellinis and—”
“I’m not interested in the ‘how’ of all of this. I only know that she got drunk. If we act like it’s okay, you’re going to find her on High Knob with the Alsup brothers drinking Night Train.”
Jack laughs.
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
“You know what? I am sick and tired of being the referee in my own family. You put me in the middle, and I don’t want to be there. You work it out with your daughter however you want to. I’m out of it.” Jack turns to walk up the aisle.
“I’ll talk to her,” I say.
“Good. I told Iva Lou I’d help her with her customs form, anyway.”
We go back up the aisle and Jack sits with Iva Lou, while I take his seat next to Etta.
“Etta?”
“Yeah?” She answers without taking her eyes off the book.
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“I really don’t want to talk right now.”
I look over at Jack, who is chatting with Iva Lou. He completely set me up. Etta is furious at me, probably more angry than I am at her.
“I don’t want to end our vacation not speaking to each other.”
“Too late for that.”
“Wait a second. You’re the fifteen-year-old who came home drunk.”
“How many times a day are you going to remind me how old I am or that I drank too much at that stupid disco?”
“Till it sinks in that you’re not twenty-one.”
“I’m well aware that I’m your prisoner till I go to college.”
“I resent that.”
“I resent that you treat me like I’m a kid.”
Milk Glass Moon Page 18
