“From Venice.”
She chews on her lip and looks back at me.
“Okay?”
She lets out a frustrated breath and then goes on.
“Soooo, I was thinking, instead of her hiring a driver like she did to get here, we could drive her to the airport and then you could show me around Venice.”
Wow. This is way better than my dinner at the botanical gardens plan.
“You want me to take you to Venice?” I clarify.
She flushes and nods.
“Can I come?” Maso asks.
All four of the adults say no at the same time. Maso shrugs.
“I’d love to show you Venice, Ava,” I tell her seriously, and her smile splits me right down the middle. I need some fresh air. Inside.
“I’ll clean up,” I say, grabbing the empty trays and heading for the kitchen, Verga right on my heels.
Venice. Bella Venezia. Better than that—Bella Ava in Bella Venezia.
Imagining an evening spent with her getting lost in shadowy, narrow alleys makes me want the week to fast forward to Friday. But then I remember that we have eight days left together and I want to hit pause here and now so I can watch her shaking with laughter from this kitchen window forever.
Forever.
It’s a ridiculous thought—a pipe dream—the same silly delusion that had me sending my portfolio to the owner of UK’s top magazine when I was younger. The same pathetic hope that had Nonna and me setting the table for my mother every night, just to put the plates and cutlery right back where we found them hours later. Forever isn’t real. Especially not for Ava and me, with her life and future across the Atlantic and mine here—with her departure approaching like a freight train. No one gets forever.
We get here.
We get now.
Everything else is a gift.
TRENTOTTO
Ava
It’s not that I’m not ecstatic that Tammy is here. Because I am. Ecstatic. Sitting beside her in the piazza, sipping aperitivi after class, watching the college students mingle with the locals and tourists—it’s like having a missing piece of me here to soak up any moments I may have missed. Sharing this with her is everything. But the timing—well, the timing is not stellar.
I spend hours with James every day, listening to him speak, studying the way his eyes light up when he discusses some small piece of unknown art that is housed in Urbino. Unfortunately, these hours with him are shared with seventy-some college kids who also get to hang on his every word and study his impeccable bone structure. And I’m tired of sharing.
Even the evenings have proven impossible. I can’t complain about being surrounded with friends and family at the dinner table every night, but stolen kisses in the hall beside the bathroom are notcutting it—even if they were mind-blowing, spectacular kisses. I’d like a kiss that isn’t interrupted by the voyeur, Maso, or an unlucky passerby.
James did try to sneak out to the pool house on Monday night, but Verga went nuts, barking and growling like Cujo until he realized who it was tapping on the glass door. And by that time every light in the villa had turned on, and Nina’s smiling face had popped out of the upstairs window. Ultimate cockblock.
Friday cannot come soon enough.
I have fantasized about Venice since my mother and I readThe Thief Lordtogether in fourth grade. The magic of the city—the secret pathways, the endless bridges—the romance of it all pulled me in so wholly that I’m sometimes convinced I’ve been there before.
Imagining James beside me in that setting sends so many signals through my body that I have to shut down the thoughts or I’ll melt beneath this bistro chair.
The Piazza della Repubblica is bustling with the afternoon rush. It’s as if everyone in Urbino has showed up for the Italian equivalent of happy hour. Luckily, James and Aldo are tight with the bar owner, who has been kind enough to save us a table by the fountain for the past three days.
“Have you told James that you stalked your mom’s old lover?” Tammy asks from behind the rim of her Aperol Spritz. She’s channeling a Hepburn today—Audrey, I believe—with a silk scarf, a shift dress, and a pair of Jimmy Choos that even the Italian women are admiring.
