A heron soars through their line of sight.
“There is the problem. My grandpa would say that it’s not just sky. It’s wide-open sky. It’s possibility. He once told me, ‘The sky’s the limit? We went to the moon! There is no limit.’ This church, you’re seeing rubble. I’m seeing possibility. Without a roof, this could be rebuilt into the tallest building in the world. It could become a sanctuary, a resort, a haven, a monument,” Charlie says. “Just because something once was great, doesn’t mean it can’t be again.”
Charlie doesn’t realize how hard he’s squeezing Dario’s hand until Dario squeezes it back. And any jealousy he felt over Selina and Beau slides away.
DARIO
Sometime later, they’ve circled back to the beach, which means it is lunchtime.
They return to the boat to grab their spread. Dario leads them to the special spot he’s picked out for them. Charlie nabs the picnic basket with the cheese and bread. Michelle carries thebag with the blankets and towels. Beau grabs the cooler. Selina claims she did her nails last night and can’t risk her manicure, which, in fairness, looks spectacular, so nobody complains.
Dario takes them to the garden of aquatic plants, which is lush and secluded. They spread out the soft, colorful blankets and the ample provisions among them.
Selina is the first to shed her layers and dip into the plunge pool. Her movement makes the water lilies and lotuses dance around her. As if she needed their help to look any more like a garden nymph—lithe and graceful.
Earlier, she stole him away for a private chat about how much she enjoys Villa Meraviglia and how handsome he is. She laid it on thick, but he sensed some sincerity behind the smoke-and-mirrors of her well-practiced flirtation.
“Who tailors your clothes?” she’d asked.
“My dear friend Gabriele Vitale. He is the best,” said Dario. Gabriele was the only person he trusted to make him look dapper and professional. Too often, people mistook his lack of height for a lack of power. Gabriele made sure that with the right lift of his shoes and the perfect hem of his trousers, Dario could conquer the world.
“I simply must meet him. I look divine in menswear,” she said with a bat of her long, natural lashes. “Imagine the looks we could pull out together. We could show up to galas and awards dinners all suave and elegant.” She stroked her stylish nails down his lapel.
“Indeed, we would make quite the pair,” he said through a thick swallow. Her beauty made him nervous and excited.
“I have to admit when I caught you and Charlie kissing last night, I got very jealous,” she said, coming in so close that her breath wisped across his mouth like a tease for what was to come. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I arrived.”
“Is that so?” he asked, feeling sweat start to dew above his upper lip. Nothing about her attitude when she arrived made her seem hot-and-bothered from the jump, but he was just a man after all. How could he resist her?
“It is so,” she said, wiping away his feeble worry. “So?”
He nodded his assent. With the travertine wall pressed to his back, she kissed him with more tongue than he was expecting. She was an expert at passion, and that’s what worried him most. Passion was a torch in the woods, liable to blow out with a bad gust of wind. Companionship, however, was a limitlessly fueled lantern in the dark forest, always ready to guide you home.
Head still reeling from the confident kiss, he rejoined the group and saw Charlie, which only complicated matters further. He is supposed to be entertaining all connections, but how is that possible when some are growing faster than others?
Charlie sits on a rock not far from the group. A violet baseball hat is tugged down over his head, obscuring his eyes. In his hand, a pencil scratches away on a fresh page of his sketchbook. It is clear the native plants with their interesting shapes and colors have inspired him.
An hour passes, the sandwiches disappear, and everyone dries off by baking themselves in the sun. Once they’ve all crisped up, they head back to the beach where they pack the boat for their return voyage.
Selina points out the time. “The day is still young. Can we swing up to Isola Maggiore?”
All the bliss and relaxation Dario gathered over the hours seeps out the soles of his boat shoes. Maggiore is the last place he wants to be today. The island is smaller despite its name and, in the summer months, always crawling with tourists eager to visit the locally famous lace museum, quirky shops and fine restaurants.
Beau pulls up an image search. They all gather around, except Dario who has been there, seen it, suffereda panic attackoutside its historic church. But he can’t very well announce that to the group.
When he first started dating as a teenager, his mother sat him down and handed him several pages of sheet music for a Handel aria. “Dating is like reading music. Once you know the basics, you can only get better from there.”
Dario squinted at the sheet and read aloud, “Da tempeste il legno infranto—”
“No.” She stopped him, covering the text with her hand. “Not the lyrics. The music. Look at the way it’s written. This—” she pointed to the top “—is the A section. That is the melody, and the part of the aria where the singer sets forth the subject and mood. Think of this like the ‘who are you’ phase,” she said. “The basics. The beauty of you.
“Then comes the B section, in a minor key, with contrast and different text. This is where your mess comes out. The prickly bits.” She tapped her finger to a phrase above the staff farther in the song. “What’s this say?”
“Da capo,” he said. “From the head?” Blow jobs were the first thing that sprang to mind—weren’t they always at that age?—so he laughed a little to himself.
“From thebeginning.From thetop. Con piacere.With pleasure. Now that we’ve gone through the emotional turn of part B, we can return to part A and find new shades of meaning and understanding,” she said, sounding as worldly as a well-traveled scholar. “If you started with part B, you might scare off the listener. Invite them in with the melody in your heart, then share with them the minor key of your soul. If they stick around for the da capo, then they are a true match.”
This week is part A. It is about riding the beautiful melody, the same way his boat rides the wind toward Isola Maggiore.His anxiety flaps in his gut like the sail overhead. He is hit with motion sickness like never before. It grows rowdier and rougher the closer they get to the docking point.
