Down, down, down, he descends into an ancient water reservoir. The steps are narrow, and the walls are close. He presses his hands into the cool, rough stone to keep from losing his balance. When he reaches the rectangular window that looks down upon the well, he surges with a sense of adventure, feeling like a poor man’s Indiana Jones.
Leaning over the ledge, the darkness seems to go on and on. His breath gets taken away by how much history can be hidden in a place like this. He only wishes he were sharing this experience with someone. Dario’s face bounces through his mind.
A little farther down, a plexiglass bridge connects one side of the well to the other. There are signs posted written in red lettering. He can’t read the Italian words, so he shrugs and steps out.
On the bridge, he records a video on his phone. Awe and gratitude catch in his chest.
What he doesn’t catch, however, is his phone slipping out from between his oily, sweaty fingers. The iPhone bangs on the side of the plexiglass, hits the stone wall of the well and—plop!—falls into the water burbling way down below.
“Fuck!” Charlie cries. “No, no, no. What am I supposed to do now?”
The question echoes back at him like several slaps to the face.
There goes a thousand dollars and any chance of getting back to the villa. His digital train ticket was on there. Dario’s phone number was on there. Any sort of translator app he might need to communicate what just happened is on there.
For the first and only time since arriving, he wishes he’d never left the dreary safety of Slatington.
DARIO
Dario’s temper cools off with the summer day.
As the sun sinks, so too does Dario’s ire toward his imposing brother. While he can choose a spouse, he has no choice in his blood relations. Emilio is and always has been a pebble stuck in his proverbial shoe.
His mother appears while he sits in solitude out on the veranda, watching the full reflection of the moon shimmering on the still lake water.
“You didn’t eat dinner,” April says. She holds a small plate out to him.
His stomach, which has been in knots all day, lurches toward the meal, so he accepts it. Forkful by forkful, Paola’s cooking revives him. Pollo alla diavola, an herbaceous dish that brings back memories of long family dinners filled with laughter and spilt sauce on his shirt, satiates his stalled-out appetite.
Between bites, he finally says, “I should probably go and apologize to Michelle for being such a bad host today.”
“I would say you should probably apologize to your brother, too,” she begins, “but he’s been a bit too good of a host to Michelle today, so I’m still debating on that one.”
Dario groans and his voice boomerangs against the side of the barn house.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” his mother says, kicking her bare feet up on the low-standing coffee table.
“Three-fifths of my suitors are gone. One was married and only wanted a free vacation, one only wanted the challenge of winning me over, one thought I was not passionate or adventurous enough, and one is inside doing who knows whatwith my brother,” he details. “The common failing denominator must be me.”
His mother sighs. “I miss your softness. I miss the boy who threw himself headfirst into the lake and drew mustaches on his face with chocolate just to make me laugh. Where is that Dario?”
“CEOs of major chocolate empires don’t get to be soft,” he says while picking a peppercorn out of his teeth.
“Truffles have hard shells and soft centers.” Her eyebrows lift as if daring him to contradict her. “That Dario wouldn’t be yelling and shoving his brother, no matter his intrusions. You were the calm one, like your father.”
Dario knows his calm is a mask for his anxiety. A way to wall off the storm inside from breaking out. He wonders if his father experienced something similar. He saddens with the weight of never getting to ask.
When Preston rebuffed him at the chocolate festival over a year ago and his mother found him mid-panic attack, he had a chance to tell her what he was feeling and struggling with, but it was impossible when he didn’t understand it fully himself.
Dario goes to sayhe started it about Emiliobut stops himself. As a man of nearly thirty-two, he knows it’s time to put petty excuses behind him. “You’re right. This whole punishment has been making me angsty and keeping me on edge.”
“Come over here.”
He squishes onto the couch beside her. She pats her lap. He lays his head there like he did as a boy. She strokes his hair and asks a hard question, “Why do you call it a punishment? I admit, your nonno’s ways are extremely unconventional, but there are worse fates than hosting five beautiful, international guests at your home with an eye for marrying one of them.”
She massages his scalp, and he closes his eyes. He would be in heaven if he were not so hell-bent. “Nonno has forced me into a corner!”
“Nobody has forced you into anything. You can easily rescind,” his mother says with an air of knowing full well there would be nothing easy about that.
