“Yeah, but they didn’t cut off your thumb, I can see it folded there.”
“The bent thumb doesn’t count; it’s four.”
“Then turn your hand around so I can’t see it. Are you Italians always so careless?”
“Are you English always so particular? You don’t have any cranial trauma, I can assure you. Let’s go get some ice; otherwise, you’ll have a big bump tomorrow morning.”
Two figures appear behind Elisa, who is still leaning over me. “Michael? Mom? What were you doing in the hut?!”
40
Elisa
Getting caught by your daughter making out in a public park has redefined my notion of embarrassment.
She didn’t catch us in the act, true, but she didn’t need the Parma investigative bureau to know that we were the horny couple in the hut.
I dismiss her question with a very fake smile. “It’s getting late, darling. It’s time to go home!” I feel like a worm for the whole journey, squeezed into the back seat of the Punto between her and Michael. The cordless vacuum cleaner is resting across our legs as Giada and Mamma comment on the evening’s performances.
Back at the estate, Michael and I say goodbye in the “I want to but I can’t” style, with a silent promise to resume where we’d stopped in our eyes.
Linda, sulking, flies into her room, and Giada, sitting next to me on the hammock, asks me why she’s so grumpy.
“She saw Michael and me doing things,” I admit.
“Define ‘doing things.’”
“More than a kiss, less than sex.”
“Oh, obscene acts in public? You’re getting adventurous!”
“In the hut on the playground.”
She shakes her head and giggles. “Typical.”
“What do you mean, ‘typical’?”
“That hut is one of the three classic places in Belvedere where people go to mess around.”
“What are the other two, so I can avoid them?”
“The booth for passport photos and the locker rooms at the parish soccer pitch.”
“You answer with the confidence of someone who has frequented all three,” I observe.
“So have you and Michael made up?”
“Yeah, too bad Linda had to witness it. And I saw her, but she doesn’t know it ... Do you know the boy she spent the whole evening with?”
“Tommaso Ghirardi.”
“The two of them were kissing on the swings.”
“Awww”—Giada claps her hands happily—“my niece is growing up.”
“Not quite the reaction I needed, but yeah, she’s growing up before my eyes.”
“You should talk to her,” she suggests.
