“No.” He put his hand on my knee, squeezing gently. “Ani, no. I want to be your friend, regardless of what happens with Cristofano.”
But I felt like I’d been taken for a ride, nonetheless. I bit my lip to keep from filling the silence with my disillusionment. Finally, he stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, then turned as though to leave. I felt a rush a disappointment so acute it took a few tries before I could catch my breath to speak.
“Fine,” I capitulated. “We can talk about Cristofano. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to see him.” As much as Paulo rubbed me the wrong way, it was a rub I was becoming accustomed to. A rub I found myself not really hating after all.
“Will you walk with me?” he asked, not directly acknowledging my acquiescence. When I nodded, he skirted my chair, and bent down on either side of me to release the brakes. I drew in air through my nose, my nostrils flaring. Oh, mercy me. Yep, he still smelled amazing.
What was it about me and smells in this place? It was like my olfactory senses had gone into hyperdrive. Paulo glanced over at me, his face close to mine, but didn’t say anything. I looked the other way, not acknowledging that he’d caught me sniffing him again. Maybe he’d think he imagined it. Again.
As he wheeled me past the little table with its tray of goodies, he grabbed the bottle of San Pellegrino and handed it to me. “For the road.”
Gripping the handles of my chair, he commanded, “Lean back.” Then he tipped me back onto two wheels, chuckled over my alarmed squeak, and gently bumped me down the three steps to the cobbled path. “You must learn to trust me, Ani.”
“You must learn to give me more warning, Paulo,” I retorted as he eased me back onto all four wheels.
“Or you can simply learn to trust me,” he repeated. I couldn’t see his face, but his tone told me he might not be teasing anymore.
“Maybe you’re not the only one with trust issues, Paulo. Maybe you’ll have to prove yourself worthy of my trust first,” I said, not turning to look at him. I was serious, too, my thoughts drifting against my will to Jacob.
He was silent for so long I thought he hadn’t heard me. I wasn’t going to repeat myself, but I made a concerted effort to relax and just enjoy the ride. He did seem to know what he was doing as he expertly maneuvered the wheelchair, swerving around jutting stones and loose gravel, his movements smooth and careful. But as we came to the end of the house where the path met the driveway, he leaned down and spoke close to my ear.
“I will prove it to you, Ani, if you will let me. You can trust me.”
There it was again, that spiraling warmth inside me, evoked by his quiet, deliberate words. His voice wasn’t smooth and cultured like Cosimo’s, but every word rang with authenticity, something I couldn’t say for sure about the good doctor. And I suddenly realized that the thing stirring in me was trust. I did trust him.
And that’s why I’d felt so let down by the idea that he’d withheld information from me, purposefully or not.
We made our way down the driveway, past his little blue pick-up parked up against the row of Italian Cypress trees, going the same way we’d walked on Sunday. He knew what he was getting himself into—the push back up the hill was not going to be fun for him if we went much farther. I glanced back at the house and pointed, gesturing for him to see what I was seeing. The afternoon sunshine on the stonework glowed softly, almost as though the house was made of gold ingots with only a thin veneer of aging stones. He made an appreciative noise in his throat and brought us to a stop.
“What are we doing? Are you having second thoughts?” I teased. “I don’t blame you.”
We were facing down the driveway toward the row upon row of olive trees skirting the hill on which we stood. He came around to stand beside me and looked down at me, a teasing glint in his eyes, then back out over the scene before us. “Patience, cucciola. You ask so many questions. I cannot think so quickly out here in the country.” I knew what cucciola meant, thanks to Margarite, and I decided I didn’t mind him calling me that, even if he was just teasing me.
He lifted his face to the sun, took a deep breath in, and held it for several seconds. When he let it out, I remembered to breathe, too.
“It is beautiful here, yes, Ani? I think perhaps I can taste the way the air smells.”
His words, so similar to my own thoughts earlier, wove tiny gossamer threads around my heart, and even though I resisted the pull of him, I could feel the ground slipping beneath me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“After I talked with you on the phone, I could not rest knowing I had upset you.” He began pushing again, slowly, and he spoke in that languid lilt of his, as though his vocal cords were dipped in honey. My curiosity made me want to tell him to spit it out, but I felt myself practically leaning into the flow of his voice, like a cat being scratched behind the ears. Or a cucciola. As the driveway became a road that wound its way along the top level of the terraced olive grove, he veered off onto a path that disappeared among the trees.
“Claudia had approved my visit already, so I took a chance to come. I hoped you would at least speak with me, even if you were still angry.” He had to tip the chair on its two back wheels to get me over a good-sized root that crossed the path and this time, I didn’t let out a sound.
“Well, I’m glad you took the chance,” I said shyly. “Oh! I should call Isa to let her know. She’ll be glad she doesn’t have to take me to the consulate tomorrow.”
“Yes. I called her already. I told her I would take care of you tomorrow, that she is not to worry about you.” he said from somewhere above my head.
“Oh. Good. Thanks.”
“So you will spend the day with me, Ani? I want to show you some of my favorite places. Prove to you that I am not such a bad guy. Perhaps we can even be friends.” He paused, but even without looking at him, I could tell there was more. “And I was hoping you would reconsider….”
“Right. Cristofano.” My shoulders drooped.
“Yes. Maybe you might agree to meet with Cristofano.”
“Why are you forcing him to come talk to me, Paulo? Can’t we just put it behind us and move on? He kind of screwed things up for me, you know.”
“I am not forcing him.” Paulo sounded a little taken aback. “He wants to take responsibility for his actions. It is his decision, not mine.”
“Oh.” Well. It appeared my hands were tied, unless I wanted to just be mean. If the kid was brave enough to come to me, then I’d have to find it in me to receive him. And to be honest, now that Paulo and I had reached some kind of truce, it didn’t seem quite so insurmountable. Still, I hesitated. What would I say to him? What would he say to me?
We ambled along for a few minutes in silence. “Where are we going?” I finally asked. I didn’t think Paulo had spent any time on the Lazzaro property before last weekend.
“I do not know. But I thought perhaps we might find an adventure, no?” I narrowed my eyes and glanced up at him.
“Have you and Madalina been talking about me?”
“Of course, Ani. You are the hot topic in our small world.” His voice hitched with humor as he said, “All of Lucca is whispering about the crazy American girl who crashed into poor little Simone Ricci and—”
“A funny guy you are not, Paulo.”
Although still clearly marked, the path had narrowed considerably, making it more difficult to traverse with my wheelchair. “Maybe we should turn back,” I suggested after he’d had to hoist me over yet another gnarled root across the path.
He chuckled as he leaned forward over my shoulder again, this time to duck under a low-hanging branch. A few more feet and he slowed us to a stop. Bending close to my ear, he said, “Look up, Ani.”
I lifted my head to peer up through the silvery sage leaves of the ancient trees above us. They seemed to all be waving with great enthusiasm, Ciao, Ani! Ciao, Paulo! Welcome to our party!
“Look at the olives. Do you see them?”
I
did, but something didn’t look right to me. “They’re green. Aren’t they supposed to be black? Or is this a different kind?”
“Do you know the word invaiatura? It is the changing of the color of the fruit from green to all the shades of red and purple, even black. Here in Lucca, the olive oil is famous for its sharp, spicy flavor and yellow green color. Instead of waiting for the olives to ripen to the fullest and get the largest quantity of oil from the fruit, in this region, the olives are harvested when invaiatura begins. The quantity is less, but the quality is unsurpassed. And it lasts much longer on the shelf and is better for you.”
“How do you know so much about olives?” I asked, pleasantly surprised by his knowledge.
“Last year, I arrived just in time for the olive harvest. Part of my social integration I told you about. Or as some of us called it, social humiliation. The school placed us in real-life situations to make us use our Italian. Since I had a better grip on the language than most, I was able to enjoy myself a little more. I was fascinated by the process and learned everything I could about growing olives from the farmer. I think he was happy to see me leave so he could have his peace and quiet back again.”
“Ha. Yeah, right. I think you’re more one of those strong, silent types.”
Paulo said nothing, so I turned to peer up at him over my shoulder. He’d struck a strong and silent pose, his chin up, shoulders back, his chest puffed out. I snorted, enjoying his silly response. “Well, you’ve got the silent part down, anyway,” I teased. But the way he filled out his shirt didn’t go unnoticed by me.
He let out his breath and rolled his eyes. “Do not forget I am pushing you around on your throne, Princess Grace. I believe I have the strong part down, too.”
I stuck out my tongue at him and turned back, not at all offended by his teasing. “So the green olives aren’t yet ripe?”
“It is a technicality. At the beginning of invaiatura, they are what is called ‘green ripe’ because they are already full grown and begin to produce the oil.” He plucked one from a limb overhead and squeezed the fruit between his thumb and finger. A tiny pearl of oil formed in the divot left by the stem. “The dark olive will not even hold its shape if you squeeze it like this, but it will give you much more oil.” He tossed the green olive over his shoulder, rubbing the tips of thumb and forefinger together. “The only problem with waiting until the end is that much of the fruit has already begun to break down and ferment, so even if you get more oil, the taste is lacking, the unique qualities of the oil are missing, and the health benefits are almost obsolete. You could use cheap vegetable oil and it would be no different.” He reached up to pluck another olive. This one was a pastel mauve color, just beginning to lose the green tint. “So the olive growers choose better taste and quality over quantity.”
“Okay. Is there some kind of life lesson you’re trying to teach me, Counselor Paulo?” He was standing in front of me now, leaning against the olive tree whose branches we were under and I studied his generous features as he spoke. It was so obvious to anyone watching that he thought about his words, that he said nothing without thinking first. I knew there had to be a motive for telling me about invaiatura. It seemed like a perfect object lesson, but I couldn’t figure out how he intended to apply it to me.
“Not you, Ani.” He was grinning, but his tone was serious. “Cristofano.”
“Oh.” Of course. I’d forgotten that everything wasn’t about me again.
Paulo reached down and pulled a long stem of grass from the weeds at his feet and began wrapping and unwrapping it around his index fingers like dental floss. “Cristofano is beginning his invaiatura. He is almost fifteen and will be finished with secondary school in only two more years. He is in the transition time between being a boy and a man.”
“Look at this.” He bent to pick up a darker olive that lay in the weeds near his feet. They were everywhere, now that I looked for them. The ground was covered with fallen fruit. Stepping close, he leaned down a little so I could see what he was doing. With his thumb, he dug out a chunk of the mushy olive to reveal blackened slimy flesh. “See the worm?” He pointed at a tiny white larva busily eating its way through the fruit.
“Ew! Gross.” I pulled back, disgusted.
“This is the olive fly larva. Look around us, Ani.” He tossed the infested olive behind him and swept his arm out to his side. “Thousands of pounds of fruit lost to these worms because the weather did not kill them off the way it usually does.”
“Right.”
“Cristofano knows he is being pressured by the wrong people. He also knows that if he makes good choices now, or at least makes choices with the right motives in his heart, even if it is not easy, he will have much to be proud of, a quality life.” He lowered himself to sit on a tree root that extended out from the tree he’d been leaning against. His knees were bent up in front him and he rested his arms on them. He held out the blushing healthy olive to me.
I took it and let it roll into my palm. Even after the worst year the farmers could remember, they were willing to pour themselves into these trees and then come together to celebrate whatever harvest they could manage to bring in. Like Franco had said, it was what they knew and loved. It was their passion. This little piece of flesh weighing less than half an ounce, seed and all, the olive I held in the palm of my hand, was a symbol of life to these people, this whole country even, both the history of it and the future of it. And Franco and his fellow growers believed the groves, the family businesses, the very way of life was worth the investment, the effort.
But wasn’t the youth of this country, the Cristofanos and the kids he hung out with, an even more important symbol of both the history and future of this country? Weren’t they worth the trouble, the investment, and the effort poured into them by people like Paulo?
“Okay. I’ll talk to him.” I curled my fingers over the olive in a protective gesture. Was it a gesture protecting my own heart from Cristofano, or Cristofano from the world that would crush his spirit if not for men like Paulo? Men and women who chose daily to heed the call to act on the passion in their hearts. “When?”
“He has school during the day, but perhaps tomorrow evening? After you and I see the sights? I am bringing him to the groves Friday afternoon to help with picking, but I wanted you to speak with him first so it is not uncomfortable.”
“You’re coming to help with picking?”
“Yes. When I spoke to Isa, she told me about the harvest beginning and asked if I though some of the kids from my program would like to help,” he explained. “They would each earn a bottle of oil to take home to their families in exchange for their young arms and nimble fingers.”
“Oh, right. Sure. Tomorrow sounds fine to me.” Now that the decision was made, I actually felt better about the whole thing. “But you’ll stay with us, right? You’re not going to put us in a tiny room together and leave us alone?”
Paulo laughed out loud. “No, Ani. This is not an inquisition. Simply a boy who wants—no, who needs—your forgiveness.”
I pulled a long-stemmed weed topped by a bristly seed head and tickled Paulo’s ear with it. “Are you happy now?”
He snatched the piece of grass from my hand, dropped it, and stood, brushing off his backside. “You have made me very happy. For Cristofano, yes, and for me, as well.” He stepped closer to me, braced both hands on the armrests of my chair and leaned down so he could look me in the eye. “For Cristofano, because tomorrow, he has a date with peace, and for me, because tomorrow, I have a date with the crazy American girl everyone in Lucca is gossiping about. They will pay me good money for the scoop on you.” In a sudden move, he surged forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Thank you for saying yes, Ani.”
I couldn’t speak. And it was all I could do not to bring my hands up to my face, to cover the heat I knew was flushing my cheeks. I couldn’t tell if he was thanking me for saying yes to meeting with Cristofano or yes to spending the day with him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
On our way back out of the grove, a protruding root caught Paulo by surprise, the dark leather loafers he wore not offering any protection, and he stubbed his toe badly. I tried not to giggle while he stomped around behind me for several minutes, muttering nonsensical sounds that reminded me of old-school cartoons where the cursing was all in gibberish or punctuation symbols. This was a g-rated boy I was hanging with. It was kind of nice.
He finally sat down on the offending root and removed his shoe and sock. We both grimaced at the site of his big toe, surprisingly well-groomed, I noticed, and the toenail broken well below the quick. Blood was welling around the cuticle and I thought I felt a twinge of sympathy pain in my ankle.
“Do you think we can trade places for a while?” he asked. I thought perhaps he might be only half joking.
I handed him the bottle of water we’d been sharing and he took a long swig. “You can use it to wash the toe if you need to. I don’t need any more,” I offered.
“You only want to see me cry like a baby, yes?” He shook his head and made clucking noises as he gingerly prodded at the joint behind the toenail. It looked a little swollen.
“Do you think it’s broken?” I asked. Then I did start to giggle. Weren’t we a pair, sitting out here in the middle of the olive grove with our busted up feet.
“No. I only kicked it very hard.” He stretched his legs out in front of him and sighed in frustration. He ran a hand over his hair and down to the back of his neck, shaking his head as he eyed his foot.
I hoped he was right. The toe looked awful and it had to be hurting something fierce. Stubbed toes were the worst.
We sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in thoughts of our own. He had his eyes closed and face lifted to the drops of sunlight splashing to the ground through the silver leaves overhead. I studied his profile, his nose a little too long for his face, his full mouth, and deep-set eyes. His hair looked like one side wanted to curl but the other resisted the urge. I decided he must have a couple of cowlicks under that mop. Maybe that’s why he left it a little long.
All the Way to Heaven Page 20
