by Donna Ball
She retrieved her phone. “Let’s skip the lesson for today.”
He scattered the last of the crumbs for the birds and watched them peck around at his feet as he asked her, “Do you ever mention anything to your mom about us?”
She glanced at him cautiously, but was unable to read anything on his face. His eyes were shuttered by sunglasses. “Do you? To your mom?”
“I couldn’t even tell her I lost my job.”
Her brows drew together in a mixture of hurt and puzzlement. “Is it the same thing? Are you ashamed of me?”
He looked at her swiftly. “No! God, no.” He turned away for a moment, gazing across the square. “I don’t know what to say to her.” He glanced at her. “Do you?”
She shook her head mutely.
Both were quiet for a moment. Then Kevin said, “Why do you suppose that is?”
Lori looped her pinky finger around his, her expression thoughtful, her tone soft. “I think … I don’t know, I think for now I want it to be just us. All our lives everything has been about family, and now I want some time to figure out what it means to be us. Does that sound stupid?”
“I think it sounds pretty smart.” Smiling, he turned her face to his and kissed her. Fountains in Italy seemed to be made for kissing. As did street corners and cafés, taxicabs and castle ruins; in fact, almost anywhere when you were in love. In Italy, everyone smiled at lovers.
When they parted, Kevin stroked her cheek. His tone was gentle, but serious. “We can’t stay here forever,” he said. “You know that.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I know I talk about home too much.” She laced her fingers through his. “I also know I can’t go on bumming off you—”
“Hey,” he protested.
“Or your credit cards,” she went on determinedly, “forever.”
“As long as your dad keeps you in Prada, I’m okay,” he said, but he couldn’t get her to smile.
Lori said, “You probably won’t believe this, but I’m pretty insecure. I think it has to do with growing up a fatherless daughter.”
He could tell she was serious, so he nodded soberly.
“I mean, my mom was great, and so was my dad—long distance. But I worry about things, probably more than I let on.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Baby, I know.”
She sighed a little. “Yeah. I guess you do. It’s just that … I don’t want to take any chances with this, with us. I want to keep it safe as long as I can, just like this. I know we can’t stay here forever,” she said, searching his face, “but what if we go home and—there’s no ‘us’ there? Oh Kevin, can’t we stay for just a little while longer?”
He said, “Mia amore, we can stay as long as you want to.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “So,” she said, “if you did chase me down at the airport, and if I did agree to live with you in a shack on an island in the South Pacific … what do you suppose would happen next?”
He smiled and drew her close, entwining one of her curls around his finger. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “There would definitely be belly dancers.”
~*~
Chapter Eight
A Woman’s Place
Lori grinned as she checked her messages. “Hey, Mom says they bottled the crush. They only broke six bottles, which is pretty good considering this is the first time they’ve used the machine, except for a few bottles we experimented with over the summer.” But her delight faded as she added, “She also says Dominic wants to offer me a job as soon as my apprenticeship is over.”
Kevin glanced up from his own phone. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
Lori’s expression was glum. “It would be if there was an apprenticeship.”
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave.” Kevin did not look too happy himself as he pocketed his phone and picked up his coffee. “My mom wants to know what I’ve heard about the interview. It’s only the fifth time she’s asked.”
They were having breakfast at a café a few streets down from the hotel, which was a favorite place of theirs not only because of the flakey spicy panforte that had quickly become one of Lori’s addictions, but because of the free Wi-Fi. The proprietor, a plump, rosy-faced woman who wore a different colored flowered apron every day, had become so accustomed to seeing them that she brought their order now without asking. Kevin always said something sweet to her in Italian that made her blush and shoo him away with her apron, which was no doubt why she always took a little extra care to make sure his coffee was always prepared exactly the way he liked it.
Lori sighed. “What happened to the good old days when news from home was supposed to make you smile?”
“Finish up,” Kevin said, standing. “I think I have an idea that will make you smile.”
She watched him skeptically as he went to pay the bill, lingering as he always did to pass a few words with the lady behind the counter. He returned looking very pleased with himself, and extended his hand to her. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
She gulped down the last of her cappuccino and let him tug her out of the bakery and around the corner toward the narrow alley between buildings. “Whoa,” she said, pulling back. “I thought we were going to a museum today.”
“Life is more than museums and train rides, kiddo, even in Italy,” he said. “Keep an open mind.”
He started up a set of metal stairs, and Lori, mindful of her open-toed shoes and looking around warily for rats, followed a little less enthusiastically. At the top of the stairs there was a door with peeling pink paint, and he surprised her by taking out a key and opening it. With a flourish, he gestured her inside. Lori entered cautiously.
It was a big open room with dusty marble floors and two tall palladium windows, coated with grime, on the longest wall. Half moon clerestory windows dotted the room at ceiling level, which was so high that Lori had to tilt her head back to make out the very faintest impression of a faded fresco there. The floors were scattered with crumpled newspaper, and there was a cardboard box filled with what looked like mechanical parts, but otherwise the room was empty save for a tiny electric stove and an even tinier icebox at one end of the room. At the opposite side of the room was a giant claw-foot tub. A single threadbare dishtowel hung on a bar beside a galvanized sink. Lori peeked into a small closet and found a toilet. The whole room smelled like sugared cinnamon.
She said, a little stunned, “Wow.”
“It’s half the price of the hotel room,” he pointed out. Looking around, he added, “But I think I can negotiate it down to a third. And it has free Wi-Fi.”
Her footsteps echoed as she walked over to the window and saw a small balcony with another set of stairs leading up. “What’s this?”
“It leads to the roof. It would be like having our own deck looking over the city. All you do is walk out the window.” He twisted a metal handle on the window and pushed. Then pulled. He twisted the handle the other way. He pushed harder. Nothing happened. “Maybe I’ll work on that,” he said.
She thrust her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and turned full circle. She said again, “Wow.”
Kevin said, “The language school is always looking for people to teach English. It’s not much, but it’s enough to live on.”
Lori said hopefully, “I could work in the café.”
He took her shoulders, his expression gentle but stern. “Honey, you’re in one of the richest winemaking regions in the world. You have a college degree, references from two wineries, and you work cheap. You’re going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and go out and get a job at a winery, just like you came here to do. Vacation is over.”
She scowled and pulled away. “I don’t need you to save me, Kevin.”
To which he replied, “Somebody has to.”
“Yeah, well what about you? You think teaching English part time to people who barely even read and write their own language is a proper use of your talents?”
“I think,” he replied coolly, “it pays the bills. Eventually I’ll get a better job. In a university, maybe, or with an American company in Rome or Milan.”
“So why don’t you do that now?” she shot back.
He said, “Because you’re here.”
She had already drawn a breath for a retort before he finished speaking, but now she let it out wordlessly. She looked at him for another moment with a mixture of disgruntlement and tenderness, then she walked back over to the window that wouldn’t open, twisting her head to look out and up. “We could put some pots up there and grow flowers,” she said noncommittally. “Maybe even tomatoes. That would be fun. Assuming you could get the window open, of course.”
“I’ll buy a screwdriver.”
She turned and looked around the room again, trying to appear thoughtful. “I don’t know, Kev. Moving in together is a big step. I hardly know you.”
He came up behind her and looped his arms around her waist, resting his chin atop her head. “It’ll make a great story to tell our grandchildren. How we lived above a bakery in Italy and slept on a mattress scavenged from the trash …”
She looked up at him in alarm and he assured her, “We won’t get it from the trash.”
She leaned back against him and he went on, “And watched the sun set over the Tuscan hills from our roof, drinking wine and eating bread and cheese for supper.”
“Men are such romantics,” she observed indulgently, caressing his crossed wrists with her fingers. “And just where are we when we’re telling this story to our grandchildren?”
“We are …” He thought about that for a brief moment. “Sitting in front of our fireplace in Sonoma, in a big Tudor-style house in the middle of fifty acres of vines, owners and operators of our own multi-million dollar winery called …” He tilted his head toward her inquiringly.
“Heart of the Vine,” she supplied.
“That’ll do for now,” he allowed. “A little sappy, but we’ll work on it. I’m in my big leather chair, the one you’re always wanting to throw out because it’s so old, and the leather is starting to crack in places, but I like it because it’s just now getting broken in. I’m looking good, if I do say so—white hair, neat beard, a really sharp dresser—not all shrunken up and slumped over like a lot of old dudes. And you are hot, for a sixty-year-old grandmother of eight.”
“Eight?” She nodded in satisfaction. “That’s impressive.”
“Damn right. Our kids are heirs to a dynasty. They know how to do their duty. But …” He took her in his arms and turned her to face him, dropping a kiss on her nose. “That dynasty is never going to happen if you don’t get off your butt and get a job.”
“I’ve got news for you, lover,” she said, draping her arms around his neck. “You don’t get kids, or grandkids, by making wine. Drinking it, maybe.”
He kissed her, and she murmured, “That’s a start.” And then, as he bent his head toward hers again, she said, “What if I can’t get a job in a winery? What if no one wants me?”
“I want you,” he assured her.
“Oh, good. That’s a relief. I can just hang out here and stay busy making curtains while you’re out making a living.”
“This place could definitely use some curtains,” he agreed. “And you know what they say. A woman’s place is in the home.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Oh yeah? And just where is your place?”
Kevin caught her hair in his fingers and pushed it gently back from her face. He looked into her eyes. He said, “By your side.”
She said softly, “I love you, Kevin.”
He said, “I love you, Lori.”
She searched his eyes. “Is this what we’re going to do, then?”
“For now … Yes. I think so. If you want to.”
She sighed, “I want to. I really do.” And she melted into him as though there had never been another place where she belonged.
~*~
“I wish I knew,” Bridget said, frowning as she used a biscuit round to cut pastry dough into two-circles, “what it is about Italy that makes children forget how to use a phone. Kevin hasn’t answered a single one of my e-mails.”
Cici came behind her with a pastry bag, squeezing a dollop of Bridget’s top-secret proprietary crab puff mixture onto the center of each circle. “Well, he did e-mail he’d met Sergio’s family. And that Lori looked good. It was nice of him to go all the way out there.”
“He hasn’t said a thing about the job,” Bridget complained. “Or about when he’s coming home. Just that he’d be staying ‘awhile.’ What’s awhile?”
“Must be nice,” said Lindsay, “to be young and rich, without a care in the world, roaming around Italy just because you can.” She came behind Cici with a pastry brush and the egg wash, folding each circle in half, pressing the edges together with the tines of a fork, and brushing them with the egg mixture.
Eight days and counting before the wedding. Dominic had gone into Staunton to review the preliminary paperwork on his house sale with the realtor. He had complained about having to be away from Ladybug Farm for the day when there was so much to be done, but the ladies were secretly glad to have him safely away while they finished up the painting on the master suite, which they planned to reveal over the weekend. Before that could be done, however, there was still a reception for over two hundred people to prepare.
The countertops were covered with baking sheets, and the baking sheets were covered with crab puffs in various states of completion—cooling on racks, waiting to be baked, waiting to be wrapped, waiting to be packed and placed in the freezer until the morning of the reception. So far one hundred fifty of the delicate morsels of delight had been completed—not counting the tray that Lindsay had dropped when she burned her hand taking it out of the oven. The kitchen was redolent with the aroma of warm baking pastry and tart seafood, but now it was Ida Mae who removed the trays from the oven and Lindsay, her bandaged hand protected by a surgical glove, had been assigned less hazardous duty.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Lori,” Bridget said.
“Just a thank you for the bath salts.” Cici paused to transfer more of the rich crabmeat filling from the bowl on the table into the pastry bag. “Which is more than I usually hear from her.”
Ida Mae gave a disapproving “hrrmph” and set a tray a steaming golden crab puffs on the counter with a clatter. “It’s your own fault, if you ask me.” She picked up an unbaked tray and slid it into the oven before closing the door with a squeak. “What do kids know about how to act like a family these days, anyhow?”
“Now, Ida Mae, I don’t think that’s fair,” Cici objected. “Lori and Kevin are good kids, and we raised them to be strong, independent, contributing members of society.”
“And that’s what you got, didn’t you?” returned Ida Mae with a sniff. “They’re over there contributing to some foreigner’s society while you’ve got grapes turning to raisins on the vine—”
“They are not turning to raisins!” cried Bridget, then looked at Cici, worried. “Are they?”
Lindsay said, “Dominic knows when to pick the grapes, Ida Mae.”
“I thought that girl wanted to make wine,” Ida Mae went on, heedless, “and just whose wine is she making now, after we-all put up with her for nigh onto five years? In my day, a family cleaved together, and that’s how you got things done. Why, there was a time when this house held four generations, babies crying, young folks courtin’, women working together in the kitchen, men out in the fields, all of them pulling together for the family, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Cici, Bridget, and Lindsay shared a look, because it seemed unlikely that there had ever been a time when the Blackwells, one of Virginia’s most prominent families, had ever required their men to work in the fields or their women to work in the kitchen—even though the idea of four generations filling up the rooms of the big old house did have an undeniable appeal.
&n
bsp; “Kids aren’t like that anymore, Ida Mae,” Cici said. “They want to go off and make their own mark on the world, and what’s wrong with that? This country might never have been discovered if Christopher Columbus had never left home.”
“Leif Erikson,” Lindsay murmured absently, slathering egg on the edges of the pastry. “Leif Erikson was the first to discover the Americas.”
Ida Mae turned away from the oven to glare at Lindsay. “Where’d you hear a crazy thing like that?”
“It’s true, Ida Mae,” Bridget assured her. “The Vikings were here long before the Spanish.”
Ida Mae gave an entirely skeptical grunt and began removing the pastries to wire racks to cool, muttering, “It’s no wonder them kids ain’t got no more sense than they do, filling their heads with such foolishness.”
“Either way,” said Cici, “Erikson or Columbus, I’m sure their mothers would have appreciated an e-mail now and then. Lindsay, you’re really making a mess there.”
“Oh. Sorry.” The gooey egg wash had slopped over the baking sheets and countertops in Lindsay’s absentminded haste, dripping onto the floor in places. She tried to wipe it up with her fingers, made a bigger mess, and went to the sink to dampen a paper towel.
“I read an article the other day,” Bridget said, “about how social media is actually making us less social.”
“I can believe that,” Cici said. “No one uses the telephone anymore.”
“That’s because nobody cares what the other person has to say,” Bridget said. “And listening to someone else takes up too much time.”
“That’s true,” Cici agreed, thinking about it. “There aren’t that many people outside this room that I’m interested in listening to.”
“It’s just like with Kevin,” Bridget went on. “He lives three hours away but I see him what? A couple of times a year? But he e-mails every week so no one can accuse him of not keeping in touch with his mother. And Katie doesn’t understand why I complain about never seeing the girls when she keeps posting pictures of them on Facebook.”
