“Michael? Michael?!” Charles calls me back to reality.
“What is it?”
“Are you possessed? You’ve been in a trance for five minutes.”
“Who, me?”
“Do you see any other Michaels here?”
“Ah, um, no ...” It’s true, dammit. I was lost in my head. “I was resting. What?”
“What do you think I should do? Accept or decline?”
Accept or decline? Five minutes ago, the answer was crystal clear. “I ... I don’t know,” I say.
2
Elisa
Evenings at Le Giuggiole are always the same. Mamma tidies up the kitchen, polishing the copper pots that hang from the ceiling beams, and Donatella, the housekeeper, sips her jasmine tea laced with rum. She suffers from an irritable throat, or so she says. “I have delicate vocal cords. I was a mezzo-soprano. Have I ever told you about the time I sang at the Paris Opera?” Yes, at least twenty times.
Next to her is my older sister, Giada. She’s Belvedere’s beautician-hairdresser-mani-pedicurist, and at the moment she’s hard at work on Donatella’s nails.
Linda, the youngest in the house, does her summer-break homework sitting at one end of the long oak table. It’s homework that she invented for herself because, unlike her friends who wait until the last minute, Linda finished all her assigned summer homework by August.
We observe in amazement as she tacklesrosa-rosae-rosaefrom her Latin textbook. She’s studying on her own to give herself a head start on the year after this one, when she’ll go to high school.
She’s the only thirteen-year-old who sulks when school ends in June.
I’m in charge of the vineyard. Donatella and Mamma manage the interiors. I do the exteriors, and with the harvest approaching, I’m completely preoccupied with harvesting times, grape ripening, grading, andbottling. I check the weather for the next few weeks, the humidity levels, the soil mineralization analyses, and the temperature forecasts, day and night.
Now that the days are getting busier, by evening I’m exhausted and struggle to keep my eyes open and focused on my laptop. This armchair is so comfortable ...
“Eyes a little heavy, dear?” Donatella sings. She always addresses me with names like “joy,” “dear,” or “star,” because she insists it adds emphasis.
“What? No, not at all,” I say, jolting out of my thoughts.
“You were staring at a blank screen,” Linda points out. She never misses a beat even though she never takes her eyes off her books.
“I’m just a little dazed from the sun ...” I say, picking at my cuticles. I hate showing that I’m tired: Mamma always used to tell me how demanding my job is, how I should pursue something less tiring, how this is no occupation for a woman.
“Want a manicure?” my sister asks me.
“I’m good, thanks,” I reply.
“What do you mean, you’re good?” She seems to disagree with me. “Look at those nails! Are you still biting them?” Her tone is severe.
“No, I stopped,” I lie. Actually, I’m trying to stop, but old habits die hard.
“What about a nice gel polish? Which do you like best?” she asks, waving two bottles under my nose. “You can choose between London by Night blue and Thames petrol.” Giada has a minor obsession with London. When she was nineteen, instead of taking the train to Rosignano, where she was supposed to work in a hotel, she secretly went to London, where she took a beautician course, paying for it with the money she’d earned harvesting grapes right here at Le Giuggiole.
“Neither, Giada. What’s the point? I work in a vineyard, not in fashion.” Solid argument, I think.
“Nail polish doesn’t have apoint.” She stands behind me, massaging my neck and shoulders. “It’s a way to pamper yourself and relax.”
“In the meantime, how about finishing my left hand, treasure?” Donatella calls to her.
“Itisfinished,” Giada objects.
