I smile at the thought of her reading the note I stuck to her face.
“Wonderful. The couple rented out Villa Grenata for the ceremony—the lighting was perfect—”
“A wedding! You do weddings?” Her entire face lights up.
I nod. “I do all sorts of events—anything that involves people and emotions.” I could add that the pay is great as well, but that’s never been the reason why I do it. There’s nothing as satisfying as capturing pure, untethered joy.
“Where’s your camera now?” she asks. Her voice has dropped an octave as she gives her full focus to the courtyard for the first time.
“No photographs allowed,” I tell her.
Though right now I hate that rule.
She’s spinning slowly in the center of the Cortile d’Onore. Her eyes sweeping over the carved Corinthian capitals, the Latin inscription that runs along the top of the arches along every wall, the pale stone coupled with the bricks in perfect harmony. I can almost imagine the men of the court unable to take their eyes off of her as they walk along the arcade or stare down from the oversized windows of the first floor above us.
Then her voice, low and breathless, stirs the air as she begins to translate the inscription, “Federico Duke of Urbino something something of the Holy Roman Church—”
“Standard bearer,” I supply.
She wrinkles her nose, the same expression my students give me when I’ve clarified them into confusion. She shakes it off with one finger in the air as she follows the inscription around the arcade,strolling contemplatively as if she were part of the duke’s court. As if this courtyard were designed for her.
“And head of the Italian League,” she continues, pausing to look over at me. “Is that like our Justice League? Was the duke a superhero like us?”
“Something like that. A Renaissance superhero,” I say. “A merciful warrior, unmatched in kindness and knowledge alike. Basically the whole package.”
“I guess he doesn’t fit inside my American single box,” she quotes me.
“I guess you don’t either, since you can translate a dead language but have no ability to ask for a bathroom in Italian. Why did you study Latin?”
She shrugs as if to saywhy not. “I was obsessed with mythology. Loved Homer and Virgil—read theOdysseyin English before I could even understand it. So Latin seemed like a good fit. My dad gave it the okay since it helped with a lot of lawyer-ese.”
She rarely speaks of her dad, but something in the sudden stiffness of her shoulders tells me to veer left. I think of her pushing my buttons on purpose the other night and put my foot on the gas and stay straight.
“Is your dad a lawyer too?” I ask.
She lets out a long breath and narrows her eyes on me.
“Yup,” she says, popping the P.
“What’s with the one word answers?”
“Don’t even start, hypocrite,” she says, lifting her chin at me. “You don’t get to dig around in my shit, then get all touchy and aggressive when I stick the shovel in yours.”
“Really nice imagery, Ava,” I say with a smile. She’s right. I have no right to dig, but watching her chest rise and fall when she gets fired up makes something wake up inside me.
She slowly returns my smile and asks with a southern drawl, “Did I offend your delicate sensibilities, James?”
I wave her off and try a new tack.
“How did your mom feel about the Latin?”
She lights up, smile doubling in perimeter, and suddenly she doesn’t care that I’m digging.
“My mom loved languages and words, said they opened the world to you. She said that about literature too. And art. She supported me no matter what electives I chose,” she says, her eyes unfocused as she looks up at the sky overhead. “She probably loved this courtyard. Walked just like this a hundred times.”
She moves toward a column beside the well in the northeast corner, runs her finger over the curves of the carved stone. I know she’s thinking that her mother touched that marble because her eyes have glazed over, filling up in that way they do when she talks about her.
“She sounds like an amazing woman,” I say softly as I approach her.
