After a few more paragraphs, I felt more grounded and much more American. This journal could work out all right after all. I lay back on the bed and, closing my eyes, drifted off to sleep.
I woke up to the sounds of arguing in the next room.
“I have to email my friends!” Carrie protested. “Come on! I can’t text anyone, you know.”
“You’ve already sent at least a dozen,” Phil said. “It’s time to stop. Why don’t you write in your journal or read one of the guidebooks? You’re in Italy now, not the U.S., so make the most of where you are.”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and walked into the living room. Maybe I could help Phil and Nicole and get my emailing done too.
“Hey,” I said, “Carrie, if you’re done, can I check my email?” I smiled innocently.
Carrie’s lip formed its familiar pout. “Fine!” she snapped. She tossed her head and stormed past me into our room, slamming the door behind her.
Phil shrugged and Nicole managed a queasy smile. “Teenagers,” Phil said wryly, obviously forgetting that I was one and Carrie was not.
“All right if I look?” I asked.
“Sure,” Nicole said, motioning me to the chair. “You emailed your parents yesterday that you’d arrived, right?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I checked my email while Phil and Nicole pored through guidebooks on the couch. One email was from Mom and Dad, asking me all sorts of questions. Answering those would take a while. Dad signed off with: “No worries. You’re safe. Just keep quiet and have fun.” Was he having second thoughts about my being safe? I spent some time answering their questions about what we were doing, how the apartment was, and generally reassuring them that everything was fine. Well, it was fine, except for missing out on Tahoe and my friends.
My friends… I frowned at the screen. Emailing Morgan was something I knew I should do, but I couldn’t, just yet. What I wrote had to be exactly right, and I needed more time to think about what I would say. After all, I’d disappointed her when I dropped out of the Tahoe trip and made a mess of her carefully-made plans for the horseback riding. With a sigh, I emailed Caterina, Maria, and Giuseppa, telling them what I was doing and how I wished we could get together. Then, I wondered if my Italian friends would think that I was different too, now that I’d lived in the U.S.? What if I didn’t fit in with them either now? I closed my email and looked at my watch.
“Yes,” Phil said, as he caught my glance. “It’s about time to get ready for dinner. We’ll eat at the Café Positano tonight, and we’ll take you to Café LoPresti afterwards. How does that sound?”
“Great,” I answered, glancing at the still-closed door to my room.
“Just go on in,” Nicole suggested. “It’s your room, too.”
“Thanks,” I said. I knocked before opening the door. Carrie was curling her hair in front of the small mirror. She’d put on makeup and was obviously getting ready for a night out on the town, but the only place she was going was Café Positano with her parents.
“Who do you think will be at the party?” Carrie asked, looking at my reflection in the mirror.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Giovanni said friends of his from the university and from Positano, I guess.”
“How about Carlo, the limoncello guy?” Carrie asked, turning to face me. She never quit, I thought.
“Probably. Why?” I countered.
Carrie’s face reddened. “Well, I was thinking you could ask him to take us on a tour of his factory,” she said.
“Since when are you interested in limoncello production?” I asked with a grin.
Carrie set the curling iron down on a tile on the dresser. “I just thought it would be fun,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
I didn’t have the heart to follow up with a tease, so I just answered, “Uh-huh,” in a noncommittal tone and began to change into another outfit.
“So, you’ll ask him, right?” she persisted.
“If he’s there, I’ll try to remember,” I promised halfheartedly, brushing my hair.
“Maybe I can come, too?” Carrie said, looking into the mirror next to me.
Great. What did I say now?
“Well, maybe another time, if there’s another party,” I said, thinking quickly. “Giovanni didn’t include you this time, I’m afraid.”
Carrie’s face darkened. “You ask him,” she said. “And ask the limoncello guy for a tour too.”
Just what I wanted to do—ask for a factory tour from a guy who’d completely ignored us. With any luck, Carlo wouldn’t be at the party tonight, so I wouldn’t be able to ask him.
We had a delicious dinner at the Café Positano, after walking up the narrow streets to find the restaurant, which was perched on the cliffside, overlooking the bay—as were so many places in Positano. After dinner, we wandered slowly through the soft Italian night toward Café LoPresti and Giovanni’s party, and my heart began to thud, jarring against the lilting cadences of Italian that swirled around us through the air. What was I getting myself into? I must be pazza—oops, crazy, I told myself, a little annoyed that I’d lapsed into thinking in Italian.
I was American, I reminded myself, and I wasn’t going to forget it. I sincerely hoped Carlo was not going to be at the party, because not only did I not want to beg him for a tour, which I was quite sure was impolite and pushy, but also because he’d been cold to me twice.
Music, loud conversation, and the tinkling of glasses and china met our ears as we arrived at the door of the LoPrestis’ restaurant. I could see several groups of young Italians laughing and Giovanni at the center talking with a beautiful, tall girl. I swallowed hard. Maybe I should just say I didn’t feel well?
“I’ll come and get you at midnight,” Phil said. “Will that give you enough time?”
“Enough time for what?” Carrie snapped.
“Enough already,” Phil said curtly.
“Sure,” I answered. “Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, I walked into the restaurant.
I was on my own, alone, and back in Italy.
Chapter Five
Ciao, Alex,” Giovanni called across the room as he spotted me walking toward him.
“Hi,” I said. Instead of echoing his ”ciao,” I had decided that I would stay American as long as I could.
A flurry of Italian introductions later, I realized that there was no way I was going to be speaking English at all, unless someone wanted to practice, which no one did. It was scary how quickly my brain had already adjusted to Italian, which was a good thing, since my head swam with names and details of everyone’s various university studies. They all seemed really friendly, though; many made comments about my “wonderful” Italian accent, which made me feel good. My vocabulary wasn’t too up with some of the latest slang, but Giovanni’s friends were really nice and laughed about it.
Guys flirted with girls, and vice versa—it was a typical group of young people, just like back in the U.S. One of the girls, Valentina, who was wearing a red top and had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wasn’t as friendly as the others. After greeting me coldly, she tried to cuddle up to Giovanni and proceeded to pointedly ignore me, even while I was having a conversation with Giovanni. It wasn’t too hard to figure out why she wasn’t so thrilled to meet me.
I was talking with a red-headed guy, Nicola, from Milano, when, from the corner of my eye, I saw Carlo walk in the door and scan the room. His eyes rested on me momentarily, and his mouth tightened a bit. Wonderful, I thought. What had I done now? He looked really great, of course, with his broad shoulders, and his shirt with the cuffs rolled up, but the look he gave me was positively chilling.
Giovanni disentangled himself from Valentina and brought me a glass of wine. He looked into my eyes. What was it about warm brown eyes that got me every time?
“So, Alex. Why ‘Alex’ and not ‘Al
essandra’?”
He got right to the point. I sighed. “It’s shorter,” I lied.
“But, Alessandra is such a beautiful name,” he said, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “And it is Italian, after all.”
“I know,” I said. I took a sip of the wine, hoping it would make me feel better about this conversation.
“You know,” he went on, still looking deep into my eyes, “it would help you fit in better here with everyone. Besides,” he added, “it suits you.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled. The wine wasn’t helping. Fit in, I repeated silently. But where?
“There’s Carlo,” Giovanni said, raising his glass to him.
“Yes, I saw him come in,” I said. Carlo’s scowling face reminded me of something. “There was something I wanted to ask you about. I saw a little street accident today and someone threatened someone else about ‘The System.’ What is that?” I asked.
Giovanni’s smile disappeared and he glanced around quickly. Then he shrugged and gestured with his free hand. “Ah, The System,” he said, smiling again. “It’s only what we call the Camorra and their business arrangements. Here, on the Amalfi Coast, we have the Sacra Lista, who are sort of like the Camorra. They are also part of The System. You understand?”
“It’s like the Camorra?” I blurted out. Was the Vespa rider that I had seen in the street that morning a member of the Camorra, or the Sacra Lista? They were here in Positano? A chill ran down my back, in spite of the warm room. Was this Sacra Lista going to force its way into my life here in Positano? But they couldn’t possibly know what Dad was trying to do, nor would they ever know I was his daughter, I reassured myself.
“Well, of course I know about the Camorra and the Mafia,” I said, quickly. “I lived here almost my whole life, remember? But, was the Vespa rider threatening to send The System, the Sacra Lista, after the other driver?”
Giovanni snorted. “It was just an empty threat. The Sacra Lista is more of a business organization. They don’t kill people.”
Remembering the way Mom and Dad had talked about the Mafia and the Camorra, I had my doubts. If the Sacra Lista was anything like the Camorra, killing people was exactly what they did. Besides, if Sacra Lista was only a business organization, why would the Vespa rider threaten the other man with it, and why would everyone go completely silent when he did? I had seen the fear on their faces.
“What do you mean, ‘business organization,’?” I asked, my nerves suddenly on hyper-alert. While I didn’t want to pester Giovanni with more questions, I felt that I needed more information in case I ran into the Sacra Lista on the streets again.
Maybe I should let Dad know that the Sacra Lista was active in Positano, after all. If anyone in Positano discovered that Dad was trying to thwart organized crime, they wouldn’t think twice about kidnapping me and forcing Dad to shut everything down. A chill ran through me. I’d read stories of kidnappings in the newspapers and seen them happen on the Italian news on TV. It was life here. It was real. And it could happen to me, if anyone found out about what Dad was doing.
“You know how it is here in Italy,” Giovanni said, with a shrug. “Business is business and you find the way to make things happen. The bribes are a way of life. Everybody needs something and if you can help them get it, it is better for you.”
I nodded my head slowly. Giovanni wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know. Bribes and connections were an important part of doing business in Italy, but no one thought much about it. And it wasn’t just Italy—the U.S. had its fair share of bribery and corruption, as did other countries in the world. Still, I needed to be careful. Life in Italy was not always what it seemed to be on the surface. The ugliness spilled out only when people were threatened or when wineries were forced to sell out to organized crime because their wine stores had been destroyed. Dad was trying to make sure that didn’t happen to Ralf’s winery and to other U.S. wineries, too. Surely those things didn’t happen to ordinary people, right? My mouth suddenly felt dry. Was I ordinary enough?
“But does the Sacra Lista bribe people, then?” I pressed Giovanni, trying to sound only casually interested. “Like for what? How does it work?” I needed to know just how much danger I could be in.
Just then, I recognized Carlo’s back, his broad shoulders and curly hair. He was chatting with one of the girls. Giovanni noticed him too.
“Carlo!” Giovanni said, reaching out and clapping Carlo on the back.
Carlo turned around, forcing a smile when he saw me standing next to Giovanni. “Well, look who’s here,” he said. “The American.”
“She may be American, but she is a real guagliona,” Giovanni said, using the slang term for Neapolitan girl, which I hoped was a compliment.
Carlo raised his eyebrows and gave a half-smile. I could hardly meet his gaze, it was so intense. “Really?” he said. “And why do you favor us Italians with your presence now, since you already left us once?”
Attitude! I thought. But now I thought I understood. He must be one of those Italians who thought that leaving Italy was a betrayal, and that anyone who chose to do so was pazzo, crazy. If I was honest with myself, I could understand that feeling. I used to think the same way. Before I could think of the right thing to say, Giovanni saved me.
“Carlo,” Giovanni exclaimed, elbowing his friend. “Enough!” Grinning, Giovanni glanced at me. “Carlo is what you call si lascia prendere nell’ingranaggio.”
I had to translate the slang in my head—‘he was caught in the machinery,’ was what I came up with. Giovanni must have caught my bewildered expression, because he laughed and said, “He works too hard—he’s caught in a grind.” Giovanni wagged his finger at Carlo. “No?”
Carlo actually smiled a real smile now. I swallowed hard. Were there any ugly guys here? Any at all?
“I apologize to you, signorina, for my impoliteness.” Carlo bowed his head momentarily, and when he looked back up at me, he grinned again, meeting my eyes with his dark ones. My face tingled and I hoped I wasn’t blushing in front of everyone. “Giovanni thinks I work too hard,” he said. “He is always telling me to ease up and not be so serious. But my family’s business is important. It’s my future,” he added, “after I graduate the university.”
“My family’s business is important too,” Giovanni answered, gesturing around the busy restaurant, “but I can still find time to play.”
Carlo shook his head with a grin. “And talk with the girls, of course.” They both laughed and I tried to smile at the guy talk.
Valentina appeared at Giovanni’s elbow, whispering something in his ear. “Excuse me,” Giovanni said, with a lopsided grin. “I must tend to the family business.” He left Carlo and me staring at each other in a little pool of silence.
“Tell me about your limoncello business,” I said, after realizing I was going to have to be the one to initiate conversation.
“Why talk about work?” Carlo said. “That’s all I’m supposed to be interested in, according to Giovanni, so let’s talk about something else.” He smiled, and his dark brown eyes crinkled at the corners. My heart jumped a little. “Your half-empty wine glass, for example.” He reached out to take it from me and I shook my head.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m fine for now. So, really, how long has your family been making limoncello?” Maybe a serious conversation would distract me from looking in his eyes. And I did enjoy having real conversations with guys—something I had missed in the U.S., for the most part.
“You are really interested?” Carlo asked, his expression softening. “You are not just making conversation?”
I nodded, realizing that I would be seriously interested in anything he wanted to talk about, as long as I could stare into those dark brown eyes while he talked.
“About fifty years ago,” Carlo said, “my grandfather and grandmother began making limoncello in their ki
tchen, and business grew, so my parents built a factory here in Positano. The lemons we grow here on the Amalfi Coast, IGP lemons, are the best, like Feminiello St. Teresa and Sfusato Amalfitana. You can tell the difference if someone uses lousy Sicilian lemons.” He grinned. I smiled back. How different this was from the butcher shop meeting. Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone who was truly interested in what he cared about. “Now, of course, everything is controlled and regulated by the state, so we are in a factory with surprise inspectors and so on.”
“Surprise inspectors?” I asked. “That sounds like restaurants in the U.S.”
Carlo nodded his head. “They can close us if we don’t have our workers wearing the bonnets and gloves and keep the machines clean. Also, they can close us if we are using the lemons that are not IGP, which hurts everyone’s limoncello business. The limoncello will taste bad with the wrong lemons and will give all limoncello a bad name. You understand?” he asked, smiling into my eyes.
I nodded, trying to breathe evenly, though just being this close to Carlo made that almost impossible.
“And of course every limoncello house has its own secret recipe as well. But you must find all this boring,” he said.
“No, not at all,” I said quickly. Carlo’s face lit up while he talked about his family business, which was very appealing. “It’s like the winery my dad works at,” I said impulsively. “Their grapes have to be of the same variety that they claim they are. They are also inspected. And there are special ways in which the grapes must be blended.”
“Your father works in the wine business?” Carlo asked, raising an eyebrow. “He must know a lot about grapes.”
Uh-oh. The wine business. I had been so taken by his eyes and in the excitement of our conversation, I’d forgotten my promise not to mention Dad’s work.
“Well, he doesn’t know much about wine really,” I explained. “He’s not a real vintner, but a marketer and translator for his friend who owns the winery.” There was much, much more to it than that, of course, but there was no way Carlo—or anyone else, for that matter—was going to find that out from me. I could have kicked myself for bringing up the winery.
Secrets in Translation Page 6
