“Friday,” he says. Not a question.
I blink. “Friday works if I can find a flight on short notice.”
“No need. We’ll take my plane,” he says. He checks his watch. “If that’s all.”
He turns and starts for the doorway.
My brain catches up just as he’s turning the corner.
“Wait. We?” I call out.
But he doesn’t turn back.
Then he’s gone, the soft sound of his steps disappearing out the door, and I’m left in the perfect kitchen with my backup knives and notebook, holding a pen loosely between my fingers.
We?
Chapter Sixteen
Giovanni
The penthouse sits dark around me long after the elevator doors have sealed for the last time tonight. I don’t turn on more than one lamp over by the shelves. The city pushes enough light through the glass that I can see where everything is.
I don’t pour anything. I don’t want the easy answer. I walk to the piano and lift the fallboard with both hands, carefully, reverently. The keys are cool under my fingers. I press middle C and hold it until the string stops ringing on its own. Then I start the one tune I know I won’t ruin.
My mother used to hum it when we were kids, and the apartment had more people than beds to sleep in. Simple stepwise thing. No flourishes. Right hand carries the line. Left hand marks time. It works the same way every time you do it, which is what I need at 1:00 in the morning.
Obligation on one side, choice on the other. That’s what the day was. What the week will be.
Obligation: keep the machine moving. The business is running steady for now, things are quiet. But quiet only means you can hear the small sounds: the hinge that needs oil, the vent that rattles before a storm. Luca leads, Roberto keeps us out of trouble, Antonio works the connections. My part is everything else. Pay the right people. Push the right projects. Don’t invite mess.
Choice: agree to Italy on Friday because Bianca asked for time and didn’t beat around the bush. Didn’t make excuses or apologies. Just a simple request. She wants her knives, her clothes, to end a job the right way. She wants to speak to Sorrentino in person, not vanish. That earns a yes and respect.
The melody keeps going. Thumb under, third above, step down, hold. I don’t dress it up in any way. It doesn’t need me to show off.
Dinner last week was a win. Lucia stood in our house with her husband and her girls and spoke to Luca without anyone breaking. That’s enough for a first attempt.
Caterina didn’t light a match. Antonio talked too much and then not enough. Nico’s face stayed calm and told me nothing. Vito wore a groove in the floor and then made the girls laugh with silly faces. Obligations fulfilled. Choices made. Alive to try again. Good.
I feel the pull to think about the kitchen and what happened in it, and I send my hand to the low octave instead. No. No rewinding. Not tonight. I’m not a boy. I’m a man who has to walk into a meeting in five hours and look like I actually slept.
The tune finds its end on the bench like it always does. I let the last note die on its own and put the fallboard down. Palms flat on the wood.
I’m letting her go to Italy, have the time off. But why the hell am I going with her? It’s a mistake.
I know it already. I could barely be in the kitchen with my family in the next room without putting my hands on her. Now I’m supposed to behave in another country, alone with her?
I move to the kitchen and get a glass out of the cabinet by feel. Cold water from the tap. I drink half of it leaning on the counter, smelling the lingering spices of dinner in the air.
It’s not like I have the free time to be going to Italy for a week. I have meetings here as well.
Monday: bankers at 9:00, contractor at 10:30, councilman’s aide at 1:00.
Tuesday: port lunch, then the real lunch away from the port where the numbers get tossed around.
Wednesday: site visit north, paperwork in the car there and back, dinner with a developer who likes to play small talk for thirty minutes before he gets to the point.
Thursday: shave down the docket, push everything that can be pushed.
