Invitation to Italian

by Tracy Kelleher

  He gassed and primed the motor, and after a few good yanks, the pump roared to life and went to work big-time. The water spilled out over the grass, down toward the street and into the storm drains.

  “My God, look at it go!” Julie exclaimed. “It’s like pumping out bilge water from a ship. Where did you get it anyway?” She and Sebastiano stood side by side next to the pump in the backyard. The rain had finally stopped falling, but her clothes—the ones she’d scrounged up from the house—were damp and clammy. Sebastiano’s white shirt was still soaked, too, only now with more sweat than rain. Streaks of mud crisscrossed his trousers. His dark hair was randomly going in every direction, and one of his fingernails was torn and bloody.

  He didn’t care. In fact, he was exhilarated. “Rufus let me borrow it. Remember him telling us about the stuff he was cleaning up in the basement at his club? Anyway, sure enough, he had the pump just like he said, and he didn’t need it. The power was out on his side of town, too, but he was using a backup generator to keep the sump pump and his refrigerator going.” Grinning from ear to ear, Sebastiano turned to Julie. “I have to ask you, does everyone have a sump pump in Grantham?”

  “Unless you’re on higher elevation, just about. The soil is nothing but shale and clay, and the water table’s pretty high, though I’m sure Zora could give a much better technical explanation,” Julie answered.

  “I think you did just fine.” Julie had been tough, levelheaded—more than fine—in a difficult situation, Sebastiano thought.

  She ducked down and shone the flashlight through the window. “It looks like the water’s going down.”

  “I think you’re right. Why don’t we go back to the garage and take a look from there,” he suggested.

  “I know. We can set up some of the beach chairs and watch the water recede, kind of like the tide going out,” Julie said as she walked next to him.

  Laughing, he gazed down at her. “Oh, no.”

  “What? What is it? Are you hurt?” She immediately lifted one of his arms and started patting his ribs.

  “I hate to say no if that means you’ll stop.”

  She dropped her hand and gave him a look.

  “I was concerned because I just noticed that you’re bare foot.”

  She glanced down. “You’re right. I hadn’t even realized it. I was in too much of a shock, I guess.”

  “Then it’s definitely time for you to sit down while I locate a glass of brandy.”

  “For once I’m inclined to agree with you. You’ll find something—I’m not sure whether it’ll be brandy or not—in the sideboard in the dining room. There’re glasses there, too.” Julie reached for a canvas-covered folding chair hanging from the wall of the garage and opened it up to get a prime view of the cellar.

  Sebastiano took down another. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  When he returned a few minutes later, Julie was sitting under the glow of a camp light. She was bent over a sagging box. He held out a glass. “Limoncello was the closest thing I could find. I hope that will do,” he said.

  “It sounds heavenly,” Julie said with a sigh. She sat up and glanced at a water-soaked stack of paper in her hand. “All these pictures—drawings from the grandkids that my mom was saving.” She pushed to the bottom of the box. “There might even be some of mine from grade school. They’re all stuck together, and I think most of them are ruined.” She let them fall on her lap and looked down in dismay. “All these memories. Ruined.”

  “I think most of it will dry and the papers can be pressed flat. Some things might not make it, but you managed to save a lot. Think of all the things you put up on higher shelves. I’m sure they’re fine.”

  “But the furnace, the hot water heater? Who knows if they’re totally ruined? And if you hadn’t come when you did, then the circuit breakers…” She stopped and swallowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to ramble.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Here…” He put the glasses on the ground, removed the pictures from her lap and helped her up by the elbow. “I tell you what, why don’t you go lie down for now? You look exhausted. There’s nothing to be done anymore anyway. I can keep an eye on the pump, to make sure the water’s still going down.”

  “You sure?” she asked wearily.

  “Of course.” He passed her the drink.

  “I don’t want to impose on you.”

  Sebastiano turned her around and pushed her gently toward the door to the kitchen. “It’s no imposition.”

  “You’re really generous, you know that?”

  “It’s not generosity, trust me.”

  Julie stopped and turned around. She looked at him, her mouth open and her eyes unblinking. “It’s not?” Her voice was small, hesitant.

  Sebastiano raised the flashlight to take a better look at her. Her hair was bedraggled, her expression haggard, her clothes wet and shapeless. None of that mattered. She had never looked more beautiful.

  And then she changed. Suddenly, she became more alive. More defined.

  Simultaneously, he and Julie lifted their heads to behold the naked bulb in the ceiling.

  “The electricity? It’s on?” she asked in disbelief.

  Thank you, Public Service Gas and Utility, he wanted to shout and rejoice. No, he really wanted to lift her up and then carry her to the nearest bed to ravish her in ways only movie directors and adolescent boys could imagine. And then he looked closer and saw the deeply etched purple circles under her eyes and her drooping eyelids. The time for fun would have to wait. It was tough, really tough, being noble.

  He compromised by brushing her forehead with a chaste kiss. How handy not to have to lean over when kissing somebody, he thought. Not just somebody, he reminded himself with a conspiratorial grin.

  She staggered back. “Did you just kiss me?”

  “Go to sleep,” he said, pushing her through the door. “And dream of me,” he murmured to her back.

  JULIE WOKE UP the next morning with sunlight streaming through the windows. It took a few minutes to realize that she was sleeping in her old bedroom in her parents’ house, only now it had been turned into her mother’s crafts project room. She was surrounded by piles of quilting fabric, wool and scrapbook material.

  She felt something affixed to her cheek and peeled off a cellophane packet of stickers. She dropped it on the bed, and then stared out the windows, squinting into the sun. “It’s not raining,” she announced. “And it’s morning,” she said. Clearly, her brain was not functioning at top speed. There was something else, she kept thinking. Something? Someone?

  Sebastiano.

  Julie leaped off the bed. “Sebastiano?” she called out. She raced down the hallway and stumbled down the carpeted stairs. She hopped the bottom two steps in one bound, nearly spraining an ankle in the process, and swerved into the kitchen. “Sebastiano?” she called again, reaching the door to the garage.

  She didn’t see him. She craned her neck around the storage cabinet that blocked her view, and holding on to the doorjamb, took a tentative step into the garage.

  She heard the sound of muffled footsteps and nearly jumped. “Sebastiano?” she called out.

  The footsteps stopped. She heard a box thump to the floor. Sebastiano came around. “You’re awake.”

  “More or less.” She exhaled through her mouth. “I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

  “You were expecting someone else?” he asked, a crooked smile on his face.

  But it wasn’t his face she was staring at. He had taken off his shirt and was bare-chested.

  She cleared her voice. “I just didn’t expect you to still be here. I’m so sorry to have collapsed like that, leaving you to do all this work.” She stepped farther into the garage. He’d set up a couple of bridge tables and brought in the picnic table from the patio. Rows of glasses, old LPs out of their cardboard jackets, trays, tools and suitcases were sprawled atop. She slowly fingered a juice glass here, a punch bowl there.

  He joined
her. “You wouldn’t believe it. I opened these wet cardboard boxes of wineglasses, and inside, each goblet was filled to the brim with water, as if someone had carefully poured each one. It was surreal. Almost as strange was the way the wine bottles had floated away from their racks and were nestled peacefully around a box of Christmas ornaments. It was as if they were sleeping.”

  Julie glanced up, stricken. “Oh, no, not the Christmas ornaments?”

  “Don’t worry. The lid was on the plastic container and everything was perfectly watertight. A miracle of modern technology.”

  She watched as Sebastiano turned over a row of screwdrivers to dry them on the other side. “You did so much. You must have been up all night,” she said.

  “There’s still a lot left to do,” he joked wearily. “But I must tell you. What you did before I got here, I think it prevented a real crisis—all your father’s power equipment, the rest of the Christmas decorations, some tax records.” He rubbed his chin. The dark shadow of his beard emphasized the sharp angle of his jaw and cheekbones.

  “Probably a lot of the financial stuff should have been shredded a long time ago,” she said. “I don’t think my father’s ever thrown out a single sheet of paper.”

  “I need to confess, though, I was also worried about the boiler and the hot water heater being submerged, so I shut off their circuit breakers,” he went on. “Luckily, the plumber had left maintenance charts atop the boiler, so I called him. He’ll be here early tomorrow morning, and then we’ll find out if they made it or if they need to be repaired or replaced.”

  “Oh, God. I hate to think they’re ruined, especially because I’m pretty sure the insurance won’t cover it.” Then she saw a box of photos sitting on the ground next to the picnic table. She knelt down and grabbed a few. The old Polaroid snapshots stuck to each other as if glued. “Oh, no, the pictures of the family vacationing on Long Beach Island.” She dropped them back in the disintegrating cardboard box and picked up another handful. “And the time we drove across the country to the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley and Bryce Canyon. I remember that my brothers and I fought the whole time in the backseat. Dom pinched me mercilessly. The bruises lasted for weeks. But it was something, beyond anything I could have imagined. I never knew anything could be so big or that places looked like that outside of cowboy movies.”

  She dropped that pile back, too. “And now it’s all gone. God, I don’t know how I’m going to tell my parents.”

  Sebastiano crouched down next to her. “You still have all the memories even without the pictures. And as for telling your parents? There’s no rush. Why worry them? What are they going to do about it in Italy? You can let them know just before they come home. Anyway, by that time, all of this will be cleaned up and the drama will be over.” He squeezed her shoulders reassuringly.

  She turned to him. “I understand what you’re saying, but I still feel like I failed them. Things are broken, some gone forever.”

  Sebastiano brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “Don’t be silly. They know that the most important thing is that you’re all right. Trust me, they won’t believe all that you’ve done for them, especially when they start hearing stories from other people. This is far from the only basement to be flooded.”

  “I guess so.” She sniffed, not fully convinced.

  He lowered his hand and lightly kissed the same spot on her cheek. “Besides, I haven’t seen any of your brothers calling or rushing to help out.”

  “That’s because they have places of their own and work and—”

  “And you don’t have your own place and work?”

  And then it hit her. “Oh, my God, work! I’ve got patients scheduled this morning!” She started to stand up.

  He pressed her down. “Don’t worry. I’ve already called your office and left a message that you won’t be in until the afternoon because of the storm. Your appointments can be rescheduled. And if it makes you feel any better, I’ve heard that many other physicians around town have done the same thing, even canceling the whole day except for emergencies.”

  Julie looked at him in amazement. “Is there anything you haven’t done yet?”

  “Hmm, in case you haven’t noticed, I desperately need a shower.”

  Julie was aware more than ever given how close he was. “You’re right. You do need a shower.”

  “I’m sorry.” He went to pull away.

  She held his arm. “No, I like it. It’s real honest sweat.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Why did you do it? I mean, you’ve got your own place and a job and all these things that are pulling at you left, right and center. Why move heaven and earth to help me?” She lifted her head and peered at him.

  He stared right back at her. “You really need to know?”

  She nodded. “I really need to know.” She felt her pulse quicken in anticipation of…what? What indeed?

  Sebastiano took his time, speaking slowly, his accent a little more marked than usual. “You know, sometimes it takes something like a flood to clear things out. It’s not all destructive. It can also be cleansing.”

  “Are you getting all deep and philosophical on me?”

  He smiled. “No, I’m not being philosophical, merely stating a fact. Sometimes we need something big, something that turns our world upside down, to understand what really is important.”

  “And that something happened to you?” she asked.

  “More like someone. You turned my world upside down and made me look at myself in a whole new light. Forced me to accept that I’m not completely hopeless.”

  Julie scrunched up her face. “Of course you’re not. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  “Yes, but I needed to tell myself. And I never would have without you pushing and needling and bugging me.”

  “I don’t bug.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “All right, I do. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” And then he stopped speaking. He angled his head one way.

  She put hers the other.

  He leaned forward.

  She did, too.

  And their lips met in a long, slow kiss, their breathing as one.

  And when the kiss ended as gently as it had begun, Sebastiano spoke, his mouth inches from hers. “I think it’s time for a shower. Even if it has to be a cold one after the power outage.”

  Julie smiled. “Trust me. My Dad put in a seventy-seven-gallon hot water heater. There’ll be more than enough hot water stored for one long and very steamy shower.”

  “To be shared?” he asked.

  “If you’ve no objections.”

  He took her up in his arms. “And then afterward, perhaps a little nap?” he asked teasingly.

  She shrugged her shoulders, and her sweatshirt raised tantalizingly to reveal bare skin. She noticed how his pupils enlarged. “A nap? I don’t think so.”

  He breathed in quickly and kissed her again. “We may never make it to the shower at this rate,” he said, resting his forehead against hers.

  She clasped her hands behind his neck. “Cleanliness is highly overrated.”

  He laughed. “Come, before I ravage you next to your father’s woodworking tools.”

  She laughed back and kissed him hard and swift.

  It left him speechless. But only for a moment. He ran a fingertip along her hairline, gently smoothing the short strands to the side. “You know, when this is over—and by this I mean getting your parents’ house back in order—”

  “That I should take the time to rethink something you said earlier—about loosening the reins a little and getting a partner in my practice?” she offered.

  He angled his head.

  “I guess the flood has cleared out my brain a bit, too,” she said.

  “Remind me to talk to you about something else along that line, but not now. Definitely, not now. I have other plans.”

  “I know, I know, you’re going to take me to dinner.”

  “There is that. Though I should warn
you, I suppose. It will be a dinner for three.”

  “Three?” Julie frowned.

  “Yes, I’ve invited my mother to Grantham, and I want you to meet her.”

  “Your mother? When? I mean, I want to make sure I haven’t done anything crazy like put green streaks in my hair right before she comes—” She stopped babbling. “Wait a minute. You invited your mother because…?” She stared at him closely, anxiously. She could feel the pressure mounting and she wasn’t sure she was ready for what she thought he might just be getting at….

  “Don’t worry, you have plenty of time. I invited her to come in late November.”

  Okay, calm down. She told herself not to get excited. That was still two months away. “Oh, I get it. Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes, there’s that. But also because I wanted her to be here for an important occasion.”

  Now she was really nervous.

  “I’m becoming an American citizen, and I wanted her to be here for the swearing-in ceremony. It’s very meaningful to me, and I wanted her to share it.”

  “Oh, my gosh, why didn’t you tell me? We have to have a party. This is a big deal. And having your mother here, of course, makes total sense. You’ll be able to show her how you’re making positive steps in your future.” She was happy for him, she really was. But she couldn’t stop wondering how she could have jumped to the conclusion that he had been hinting at something to do with him and her? So she had fallen for him—left, right and center and any other axis on this or any other planet. That didn’t mean he felt that kind of deep emotion for her. Just because he’d moved heaven and earth to help her, sacrificed a night’s sleep, worked till dawn…. Or did it?

  Sebastiano immediately started laughing again.

  “What? What’s so funny?” she asked, miffed.

  “Don’t ever play poker,” he said. “It’s impossible for you to hide your emotions. So, please…please. I’m also inviting her here because I want her to meet you.”

  “Me?” Where was that self-confidence when she needed it?