by C. L. Donley
“Yes, I’m feeling very inspired right now by…what is word? Stilizatsiya?
“Si, pastiche,” Dario said.
“Your interpreter is very good,” he said. Lark blushed as she interpreted the words, but kept her delivery forceful and bold to match his.
“We like to hire the best,” Dario doted on her, without breaking his gaze with Sergei.
“I am wondering if she is from Moscow,” he said, then turned his face toward her, as if expecting her to answer.
“We were taught broadest accent possible, sir,” she said in Russian.
“Which is Moscow?”
“Which is Moscow.”
“Is your boss lying to us?” he suddenly asked her.
Lark looked at Dario, who was already looking at her.
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Sergei said to her in Russian.
It took a moment for Lark to gain her bearings.
“Nyet. This is Di Rossi’s son. He is in charge now. His father is retired. Rubs shoulders. Nothing more,” she said.
“This you have seen?”
“Da.”
“His son. He is boss?”
“Da,” she said again. Dario once again watched her adopt the posture of a potted plant in the room. Sergei turned to him.
“Forgive my rudeness, Signore Di Rossi, it’s just that we postponed our travel plans in order to coordinate this meeting. We want to make sure Di Rossi Textiles is taking us seriously.”
“I hope my interpreter has convinced you that is the case.”
“She has.”
“Very good.”
“I would like for you to meet my distributor, who is also here in town for one day only. Tomorrow. Do you think Signore Di Rossi will be able to attend?”
“It is short notice, but I will try my best to make it happen.”
“Please do. My distributor is a great admirer. My assistant will give you the details.”
The pair of them were wordless until they were in a cab and on their way back to the hotel. Lark was the first to break the silence, with raised eyebrows.
“So…that was weird,” she stated the obvious.
“What did he say?” he asked, betraying no sense of urgency. He didn’t seem to be worried, so she didn’t know how to feel.
“He just wanted to know if you were lying to him,” she said.
“And?”
“Of course, I told him ‘no.’”
“'Nyet,’ yes I that part I heard. What else did you say?”
“I… may have had to throw your father under the bus a bit. I used a little of our prior conversation to convince him that you were the brains behind it all. I’m sorry, Mr. Di Rossi, he caught me off guard.”
“No need. You did the right thing.”
“So, what the hell’s going on?” Lark insisted.
Dario figured she earned the right to know.
“I think… he might be in the counterfeit business,” he divulged.
“Why on Earth are you meeting with criminals?” she asked, sounding galled.
“I am only speculating,” he answered, guardedly. “Obviously he would not tell me such a thing outright, which I appreciate. He spends a lot of money on fabrics. Much of that is heavily taxed. He could spend a fortune with us, and also make a fortune.”
“And you want his business.”
“I do. But, for now, it is only a suspicion.”
Lark was quiet for the moment, looking out the window. This cab ride was much smoother.
“Could you be implicated? Legally?” she asked.
“We would not, but it would obviously blemish the Di Rossi name, somewhat,” he answered truthfully.
“And if he is truly a designer?”
“Then it would bring De Rossi into the 21st century. Youth combined with tradition, trendy combined with quality.”
“This is your vision.”
“Si.”
“But it’s not your father’s,” Lark guessed.
“My father has no vision, except ‘do not be the one that tanks the Di Rossi fortune.’”
“Has he succeeded?”
“Barely. But he is in no way cut out for this. So in that sense, I hold a deep respect for him.”
In a much shorter span of time, they were back in front of the hotel.
“So what’s next?” Lark asked as they made their way back inside.
“Next, we meet with this ‘distributor’ of his. We will see what happens.”
That evening, Signore Di Rossi invited the two of them to dinner in the hotel’s steakhouse, where he ordered a massive steak.
“Belissimo,” he said when it arrived, “It’s not Italy but it will do. The Korean food did not agree with me.”
“May I try a piece, Signore?” Lark asked, sitting next to him.
“Please, Signora Chambers, take my meat,” the elder Di Rossi pointedly insisted. Lark laughed with a shake of her head, cutting herself a carmelized section of meat. The two men exchanged looks.
“I love a woman who eats red meat.”
“Miss Chambers will never work for us again, papa.”
“Roberto, let me have my fun. When you are an old man you will understand.”
“The two of you are adorable,” she said. Dario’s father reached over and grabbed him by the neck, kissing his forehead while Dario looked unamused.
“We are near your old stomping grounds, Allodola, no?”
Dario’s jaw clenched. His father’s use of the nickname was even more annoying now that he was barred from using it.
“Si,” she replied, “within walking distance, in fact.”
“This is my seventh trip to Nuova York, and I have never stayed at the Waldorf.”
“You should’ve ordered the salad, signore.”
“Would you like one?”
“I’ve had it, signore,” she grinned.
“Have you tasted the Italian food here?”
“You mean… in New York?”
“Certo.”
“Yes, signore,” Lark giggled.
“So heavy! We must eat before we leave.”
“Couldn’t agree more, signore.”
“'Signore, signore.’ We are not in the military Miss Chambers. E in Italiano, per favore. I want to hear more of my language out of your beautiful mouth as I eat,” he said, inhaling a bloody piece of his porterhouse.
“Very well, but it will cost you double,” she complied, smiling. The senior Mr. Di Rossi laughed.
“You speak Italian like you were born to it. Are you Italian at heart?” he asked in Italian.
“Si,” she laughed.
“Talk to me,” he pleaded.
“What shall I say?” she replied, her intonation so precise that it elicited a snicker from Dario.
“Answer the question. Honestly,” Signore Di Rossi, insisted.
She assessed that he was probably quite the Casanova back in the day. He didn’t have the commanding presence of his son, but he had a way of talking that made women want to tell him whatever he asked. She could only imagine his powers in his youth. She had to be careful around a Di Rossi.
“Why do you talk to me in English?” she asked.
“Because I want to speak your language,” he replied cryptically.
“Even though I can speak yours?”
“Americans are lazy,” he said. She chuckled, thinking about his earlier comparison of Dario working like a poor American.
“It’s hard for me to say what I feel,” Lark admitted as she twirled her wine glass, full of ice water. Dario in his pinstripe shirt glanced across the table in her direction, a single arm draped over the empty chair next to him. He returned his eyes to the table. His father eyed them both conspicuously.
“So I’ve noticed,” he smiled.
“It’s easier to say it in another language. Then it’s like I’m working. Like I’m interpreting for myself,” she continued.
“You interpret so much more than just language when you spe
ak,” Signore Di Rossi continued to compliment her. Dario came by it honestly, it seemed. Lark smiled again.
“Perhaps because language is more than just language.”
“It sounds so beautiful when you speak Italian.”
“It sounds beautiful when anyone speaks it,” she argued, amused.
“I must disagree.”
“Italian is the most beautiful language there is,” she admitted, taking a drink. Meanwhile, Dario simply kept his eyes on her as the two conversed.
“Si, but it can be butchered. Like English.”
“English is best when it’s butchered,” Lark insisted.
“Basta! You surprise me, Allodolah. There is beauty in English,” his father said.
“Said no one, ever,” she replied.
“Email. Cinnabon,” he said in his thick accent, chewing.
Lark laughed and Dario shamelessly drank in her expression, the professional mask slipping for a moment as she kept them company.
“Everything you named were products,” she said. “English is the language of commerce, business. Anyone who speaks it has been forced to. If they want to get anything in this life. It is an empirical language.”
“It is merely fancy Greek,” his father said with a wave of his fat, wrinkled hand.
“Or unfancy German,” she laughed.
“Is this what drives you? You hate your own language?” he pointedly asked.
She shook her head. “No, I love all languages. I just like having the choice.”
“Italian is your favorite,” he rattled off.
“Si.”
“What is your second favorite?”
“French.”
“You crave romance,” he replied, the word “crave” rolling out of his mouth so easily sent a tingle up her spine. Holy hell, gramps, she thought.
“Oui,” she giggled with her hand resting under her chin. She looked over at Dario then, her defenses lowered by his hornball father.
She studied the two of them, the resemblance suddenly very strong, suddenly more than a resemblance. They were the copies of some other man in varying stages. Some other man from long ago. They both wanted to sleep with her, which she found hilarious. She shook her head as she locked eyes with Dario who couldn’t stifle his smile.
“What do you think of marriage, Allodolah?” his father suddenly said.
Shoulda saw that one coming, Lark thought.
“Piantala, papa,” Dario scolded him in a low rumble.
“I don’t think of marriage, signore,” she replied anyway with a scoff. Dario tried to remain neutral through her answer, flagging down a waiter for the check.
“No? You don’t want a family someday?” his father asked, forlorn.
“If this is going to turn into a conversation about me wasting my best years, then you can save your breath,” Lark returned to the Italian he requested. He let out a hearty guffaw.
“Of course not. You are brilliant and accomplished.”
“That’s a surprisingly modern mindset for a man like you, signore,” she said.
“But eventually, you will want more. Trust an old man.”
“Italian men want a woman who will stay home, cook, make babies. Raise them. I don’t cook. I can make coffee at most. I haven’t stayed home since the minute I turned 18 years old. Perhaps I could grow a baby, but unless it can live on coffee, I would be useless,” she confessed, her icy assessment made flowery by its Italian delivery. She switched to English for her diplomatic conclusion.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t do motherhood very much justice. Or marriage,” she said, taking another leisurely sip of water.
“Allodola, if you can master seven languages you can manage a household,” Signore Di Rossi gave her a sincere look as he chewed.
“Perhaps,” she conceded, shrugging a shoulder and suddenly not in the mood to talk.
“I think I’m going to turn in gentlemen,” she excused herself politely. “Tomorrow?” she directed at Dario.
“Tomorrow,” he replied. “Buona sera.”
“Buona sera,” she lightly answered with a warm smile as she left the table.
“Tomorrow? Cosa succedera tomorrow?” his father asked when Lark was out of earshot.
“Niente. A meeting.”
“How can a meeting be nothing?”
“Because I will have to have the meeting to know that it is something.”
“You had a meeting behind my back today,” his father revealed in Italian. Dario sighed.
“You would not approve.”
“I am still the one who runs this company.”
“Do you want me to take over or what?”
“No more meetings without me.”
“I don’t want to waste your time; let me waste mine.”
“Bullshit, Roberto.”
“Fine. I will need you tomorrow anyway. Should this one work out.”
“Di Rossi is a classic brand. Do not tangle us up with some fad of the day, Roberto.”
“Yes, papa.”
“I sent you to very expensive schools, as you wanted. Do not embarrass me.”
“No, papa.”
“Allora, did you make love to Miss Chambers yet?”
“No,” Dario lied with a sigh.
“You are an idiot,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “You know very well we don’t need her services. She is overqualified.”
“She is the best.”
“She is beautiful. Everywhere. Marry her,” his father said after a gulp of wine.
“She is indeed. She has a million options, and she deserves the best.”
“What better choice is there than you, Roberto? This is the reason every man desires to be rich and handsome.”
“I had my time. I was lucky. Besides, she doesn’t want it, you heard it yourself.”
“You long to discuss her. Even with me. Even though you despise me,” his father leaned in with a grin.
“I do not despise you.”
“You admit that you’re in love with her.”
“I hardly know her.”
“You hardly knew Alessia. I’ve seen you this way before.”
Hearing his dead wife’s name out of his father’s mouth was about all the bitter irony he could stand for the night.
“Piantala. I am her boss. She is too young for me, and I am far too old for her.”
“Sciochezza, you don’t know old. You are simply old for a young person.”
“I am also feeling tired,” Dario said, sitting upright and draping his sport coat over his arm.
“'Uomo Italiano.’”
“What are you on about, old man?” Dario asked as he stood.
“I asked her about marriage and she replied with the expectations of Italian men. Why would she do that?”
“That’s fine, detective work, papa,” Dario sighed with a pat on his shoulder. “Buona sera.”
“Do you know where I would be right now? If I was a young man?”
“Chasing some woman who is too polite to tell you to fuck off, while your children wait with their crying mother for you to come home.”
“Roberto—”
“I’m only teasing,” Dario recovered with a kiss to his father’s forehead. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Bah. I do what I want,” his father replied over his shoulder, as his hand did a stereotypical glide across his throat.
Nine
Chapter 9
Dario stayed awake far too long that night, the panoramic view of the city’s electric red and white grid surrounding him like a foggy, blinking fortress. He couldn’t stop thinking about Lark, talking about the expectations of Italian men. Talking about “growing a child.”
He remembered adoring Gino’s baby phase, and nostalgia had only made that adoration grow strong. It was too easy for him to imagine Lark’s swollen belly, her clay-colored breasts engorged with milk.
You’re too old to keep up with a baby, he told himself, the thought making him scoff
.
Gino was a handful, and that when Dario had been a young man. Running and climbing, jumping off of everything. But his nonna was always there, though she wouldn’t always be. And there was more than enough extended family now to help out.
Besides, Gino’s a boy. A girl perhaps would be different…
He sighed, hating his mind. He could barely think of anything else. He was positively weak at the thought, too weak to sleep, somehow. He didn’t know what it meant. But of course, that wasn’t entirely true.
No doubt she was scared, he continued to ruminate. Because she grew up an orphan. She had no mother.
She doesn’t know the process. Going from individual to part of a unit. How could she?
Maybe she would lash out, over some distant trauma come rushing back. Maybe she would panic and run away. For awhile. Then she would come home. Then they could make up. They could make love.
Home.
Dario groaned as he tossed in his bed, his muscles flexing across the broadness of his honey-kissed back as he buried his head in the pillows. The darkest hour of the night shone through the window by the glowing moon.
It didn’t matter. He’d overshot his chauvinist boss routine by a mile. He thought he was doing something noble by keeping his intimate connections as meaningless as possible. He thought the women deserved payment, some form of retribution for the slight. It wasn’t their fault he still loved his wife. Regular women found the exchange insulting. Whenever he was out of the country it was his custom. He felt no shame, but he could not face his son’s innocent eyes if it ever got back to him. His favorite was Amsterdam. A little out of the way, but worth it.
The moment Lark caught him with another woman, her respect for him completely diminished, he felt. She called him “sir” out of obligation now. She questioned his decisions, his judgment. She couldn’t feel safe with him, professionally, emotionally. Hell, probably even physically. She clearly just wanted to get paid and get out of there. And tomorrow would likely make things worse.
Numbing the pain was so much easier sometimes. If he explained it to Lark, she would understand, he was sure. She’d practically done the same the first night they met. He’d felt both sympathy and empathy, among other emotions. They’d shared more than their bodies, they’d shared an understanding. Only… he hadn’t been numbing himself with her. He had been truly alive. And all his subsequent affairs couldn’t drown out the electricity that coursed through his body the first time he’d grabbed her hand and led her to the terrace, and eventually the cellar. And the burning it left behind only intensified, the closer they worked together.
