“You already are the face of La Musa,” Don says. He scrolls through his phone and shows me another mock-up. It’s my face, again, but this time it says:La Musa, better than sexting.
The rage I feel is too overwhelming for me to find words but too paralyzing to punch Don square in his piggish nose, so I sit and silently fume, counting the seconds as I breathe. This is even more insulting than having my texts leaked in the first place. This is using the most embarrassing moment of my entire life to bulldoze the town I love. This is making me the face of the development that would drive half the town out of business. “What makes you think I’d ever agree to this?” I ask, using every muscle in my body to keep my voice even and without any shake.
Don lets out an exhale that sounds like a laugh. “It’s good PR for you, Izzy. You’d be paid famously, of course. Think about it. You own the scandal; it makes it look like you are above it.”
Sutton, perhaps noticing the rage building inside of me, reaches her hand out in front of me. “Again, the deck goes more thoroughly into the cross-functional benefit analysis.” She reaches for her phone. “What’s your email? I’ll send it to you.”
“I don’t want to see the deck!” I yell. “And I don’t want to be the face of this PR scheme. It makes itlook like I am proud of it. That it’s what I want people to remember me by.”
“Was this your idea?” I turn to see Benito staring down Sutton.
She shakes her head. “It was Don’s idea, but I said I’d make the proposal to at least see if she’d say yes.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Benito says, and Sutton’s eyes widen in response.
“Son,” Raffaello bellows, “you are the one responsible if La Musa fails. If I were you, I’d listen to Don. He knows what he is doing.”
Benito turns to his father. “It is my responsibility. Not Izzy’s. She should not be pulled into this.” My heart warms hearing him defend me. If I weren’t so pissed off, I’d reach across the table and grab his hand.
“She brought herself into this!” Don yells, obviously frustrated by the hostility. “You think it’s a coincidence that her location is outed and all of a sudden every major U.S.-based publication is talking about La Musa?”
Benito turns to me. I take a deep breath. “My former campaign manager made a few calls,” I say. “But I only did that to redirect the attention away from me and to La Musa. If this offensive ad campaign goes forward, my face will be associated with my failure forever.”
Don huffs. “But at least we’d all be slightly richer.”
Benito inhales sharply but I gesture for him to back off. I can handle this. “And that’s the problem with people like you,” I say. “You can’t imagine doing anything if it’s not in service of making yourselvesricher. Well, unlike you, I didn’t get into my field of work for the money. I did it for the people. I did it because I looked around my community and saw that members of it were suffering. I looked around the world and saw the inequality that prevails no matter how many times people in your class claim to be charitable.
“When I see struggle, my first thought is not how I can profit off of it. When my entire life went to shit, I didn’t say yes to exclusive articles or book deals because I did not want the world to spend another ounce of energy on something so inconsequential. Unlike you, I am not a sellout. I am not an opportunist. I do not take advantage of the poor, or the weak, or the sick so I come out looking like Daddy Warbucks. There are good people in this world who fight for what’s right, who fight for humanity, for the environment, for the world, who are truly selfless in their pursuit of a better society and while you might not be one of those people, I still have hope that I can be.” I take a long sip of wine. The table is completely silent. I look across to Benito, who’s smiling at me.
“Now, hang on—” Don starts.
“That’s enough,” Raffaello says calmly. “I think we can all agree that we’ve talked enough business tonight,” he says. “Why don’t we enjoy this lovely meal and excellent view for the remainder of dinner?”
“Hear! Hear!” Sutton says, raising her glass. The rest of the party follows suit. Benito points his glass toward me and gives me a slight nod. I wink back at him.
Conversation for the duration of dinner stays surface level. I excuse myself after dessert, when the men split off for cigars and the women retire to the parlor inside foramarowhile the waitstaff cleans up outside—it’s all becoming a little tooDownton Abbeyfor me.
I retreat to my room and collapse onto the bed, exhausted from the day. My head is spinning but I’m content to lie like this all night even if it’s a sleepless one. A knock on the door forces me up. My heart picks up a beat with the hope that I’ll find Benito on the other side of it, but it’s Lucia.
“Hi,” she says, in a whisper that almost makes it seem like she shouldn’t be talking to me. “I thought you might need an extra blanket. It gets chilly up here at night.” She hands me a stack of soft, plush throws.
“Grazie,” I say. She smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her tired eyes. I take a deep breath, “I’m sorry for making dinner contentious. Don was the invited guest, and I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”
“Donèun coglione,” Lucia says without skipping a beat. If I remember correctly,coglioneis akin to calling someone an idiot, and I can’t help but grin knowing Lucia sees him the same way I do. “You’re our guest too, and he pushed you too far.Papàwould never flinch in front of company, but even he is embarrassed.”
“Really? I didn’t know he was capable of shame,” I say, and I immediately regret it when Lucia looks to me with surprise.
But then she laughs. “Benito has told you some things, no?” She sighs heavily. “It should tell you a lot that even our father feels bad.”
She turns to leave but a pressing need to know her take on everything jumps out of me. “Hey, wait,” I say. “Can I ask you a question?”
Lucia turns back to me quickly, almost like she was waiting for the opportunity to gossip. “Do I think my father still has his ‘friend’ in Milan? Yes, I do.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
I let out a short laugh. “No, although I wouldn’t be surprised,” I say. “But what do you think about Sutton?” She presses her lips together and looks up at the ceiling, like she’s trying to decide if now is the right time to air out a long-held opinion. I try to help her along. “I mean, Benito and I have become friends, I guess, and I don’t know. . . she seems a little. . .” Phony, harsh, vindictive, critical. . . there are endless ways to end that sentence, but I wait for Lucia to fill in the blanks.
“She’s not what I pictured for him,” she says. The diplomatic answer. “She’s too much like my father, and honestly, Benito is so much like him too. He needs someone less intense, someone to ground him, someone to remind him there’s more to life than work.”Someone who ditched all of her dreams for the specific purpose of doing nothing in Italy?She continues, “Someone like—”
My heart flutters. I’d never expose Benito’s secret breakup to his family, but it would be so nice to hear someone declare themselves as Team Benizzy.
