“You’re so harsh,” says Mamma, who has always had a soft spot for Michael. “You’ve changed a lot over the years, and he has too. If Carlo hadn’t introduced me to him, I wouldn’t have recognized him either.”
“But he didn’t give you the cold shoulder,” I reply.
“The cold is great for anti-aging, dear. If the boiler at the villa actually worked, maybe we wouldn’t look so fabulous,” comments Donatella.
“I came looking for some female solidarity, but I see you’re all Team Michael, so I’m turning to my only source of consolation,” I announce, plucking a carton of ice cream from the freezer. “Good night, everyone.”
I go up to my room and throw myself on the bed to start shoveling mystracciatella. I don’t generally use food as an outlet, but tonight I need it. Plus it’s soy, and soy doesn’t count.
As a child I had weight problems. I liked to eat, especially junk food and especially between meals. I’d have seconds for every course, and I never left the house without sweets in my pocket. My fat rolls may have inspired tenderness, but I wasn’t doing myself any favors. I had to straighten out and lose weight, if for nothing else than for my health.
Saying goodbye to bad habits was hard, but I’m proud of every pound I lost, of every inch I lost, of being able to run for more than a minute without collapsing on the ground panting, of living in a body that finally gives me one hundred percent.
I know I haven’t exactly become a top model—it was hardly the goal—my size 4 jeans are a tad too snug before my period, but when I look in the mirror, I can say I like myself.
I’ve learned to love myself, if not in the same way every day. I feel affection for that clumsy, chubby teenager because she managed to discipline herself, and I don’t tolerate anyone making fun of her. Not even Michael. Especially not Michael, because as kids he never, ever dared to comment on my appearance.
So what’s changed? How did he forget about me?
Instinctively, I grab my phone from the bedside table, and just like Giada, I start wandering around the room, looking for a signal. Nothing, as if we were in a submarine.
I go up to the dormer in the attic, which seems to be the only place blessed by Saint Telecom, and sit on the wooden windowsill with the phone pointed to the sky.
I type “Michael D’Arcy” in the search bar and click on the first result. It’s the About Us page of a London company, Saxton & D’Arcy, investment stuff, and under Michael’s photo, there’s the wordpartner. The bio summarizes his brilliant academic and work achievements, but I focus on his image.
He’s not disheveled like he was in tonight’s heat. He’s dazzling, with his brown hair artfully cascading over his forehead like he just got out of bed, the half smile of someone who knows he’s in the right place at the right time, and a tailored suit.
I find myself struggling to see my childhood friend’s face in his chiseled features, his sharp jaw, and his sculpted cheekbones, which are decidedly masculine and have nothing to do with Michael’s innocence as a child.
I focus on his eyes, on his changing irises that are still blue or green, depending on the light, always lit by a funny little spark, as if he were devising another prank to pull or holding a secret that, back then, he would have shared only with me.
This man has the same eyes as my Michael, but I wonder how much of him is left beyond that.
One thing is certain: A man like Michael hasn’t set foot in Belvedere for years, and in t-minus twenty-four hours, every mother and daughter in the village is certain to have him in their crosshairs.
9
Michael
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
Cock-a-doodle-doo.
I wake with a start, dazed from my interrupted REM cycle.
What the . . .
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Through the window, the piercing crow of the rooster is amplified as it reverberates off my bedroom walls.
I rub my eyes and grope around for my watch on the bedside table. Five a.m.?
No chance. I refuse to get up at five. I don’t wake up that early for work, let alone when I’m on holiday.
I flop back down again, but as soon as my head hits the pillow, the bird is back at it.
