I rack my brain trying to remember the conversation where we discussed this. “Did I tell you that?”
She avoids answering and I decide I don’t want to know the details. Reasonable doubt and all that. “You claim to have left it all behind and yet end up banging the one guy in your Podunk Umbrian town with similar aspirations to your old ones.”
“It’s not like that.”
“How did you leave things?” Marisol asks, breezing past my denial. I don’t know how to answer in a way that will satisfy her. We didn’t leave things in any particular way. An alarm goes off on her phone and startles us both. “Shit, I have to go. I’m makingbirriafor Jenny’s parents.”
“While you’re in the pool?” I ask. Marisol shrugs and hangs up. I exhale relief that I don’t have to explain where Benito and I stand. I don’t even know. He and the rest of his family aren’t returning to La Musa until later this week. It seems like there will be more of last night in our future, but how does that work, exactly, with the fissure in his family? Maybe Benito’s right, and it’s not for me to worry about. Until then, I’ll count down the minutes until his body is on mine again.
*
I’m approached three more times by Wednesday. The first is an older couple from Vermont. They’re doing a wine tour of Italy and stopped in La Musa to try the localrosso. They remind me of my parents: retired, laid back, inexplicably proud of me—they offer to buy me dinner, but I politely decline.
The next is a group of three women in their 20s from New York. They’re renting a villa outside Florence and made a trip to La Musa for the day specifically because of me. I take a photo with them outside La Musa’sduomo.
The third is while I’m having coffee with Valeria. She’s thanking me for my help, as groups of tourists have already been stopping in the wine shop. She tells me she feels confident the turnaround will be enough to deter Raffaello, but the pit in my stomach tells me it’s not.
A kid who can’t be more than 13 runs up to our table at Caffè del Duomo. “Isabella Rhodes, you’re my idol,” she says, grinning with a mouthful of braces.
I sit up a little straighter. “You’re so sweet.”
“I want to be a politician just like you,” she beams.
A prickle runs down my spine. “Well, I wouldn’t say I’m a politician anymore, but thank you.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re still my favorite—” She pauses and scrunches her nose, causing her glasses to push farther up her face. “What would you call yourself now?”
I take a moment. How do I define myself? Wine drinker? Pasta eater? The girl who’s banging the mayor? “Nowadays I’m just Izzy.”
She looks off up at the sky as she contemplates. “I lost my election to be student council president,” she says. “So I guess I’m just Daisy.”
My insides warm. She’s adorable. “Being Daisy is the best thing you can be. Any label you put in front of your name is just an extra set of letters.” Daisy beams but I feel a strike of guilt rush through me. If someone had told me that when I was Daisy’s age, I would’ve thought they were insane. All my life, I never thought I’d settle for anything less than the ultimate dream.
Daisy poses for a photo with me and walks back to her parents. We finish up our coffee and I head home. It’s hot today, and my room has been baking in the afternoon sun. I fling a window open to let in the evening breeze. The light drips through and it’s that deep orangish yellow that only happens on the clearest of days, and the smell of blooming olive trees wafts through. It’s peaceful here, even with the threat of recognition at every corner. It’s beautiful.
I collapse onto my bed and thumb through my phone. I still have hundreds of unread texts and I’ve gotten so used to the little red number at the bottom of the screen that I don’t even see it. There’s a news alert about a bill that’s just been passed in the House. I’ve avoided current events for months, but it piques my interest and I open it:Congress Passes Tax Breaks for Top 1% of Earners. I sigh. Damn it. This was a campaign promise the other side ran on and now it’s headed to the Senate, where our party holds only a slim lead.
I can’t help but think that I somehow could’ve put a stop to it. Levi, to his credit, was a “no” vote, but maybe if I’d won it would’ve set off a chain of events that didn’t allow for this to happen. Or Marisol and I would team up and do a double press on our most amenable opponents. I was good at using words to get what I wanted, whether it was an impassioned speech on the floor or a Sunday morning talk show—the famous Rhodes Rhetoric won me a lot of favors.
When I was a kid, I could talk my way out of trouble or into anything I wanted. It was a skill so powerful my father eventually sat me down one day and explained how I should only use my mastery of language for good. There were two paths well suited for me career-wise, politician or scam artist, he told me. He said I could end up in jail or president, and the paths to either were narrowly split. An odd thing to tell a nine-year-old but still, I heeded his advice and doggedly pursued the White House, never once looking back until now.
How different life would be if he’d told me I’d make a good accountant.
I hear the creak of the front gate and run to my window. Benito’s back. The anticipation energizes me. I snake out of my clothes and throw on the red lingerie set. By the time I tie my robe across my waist, there’s a light knock on my door. I basically sprint to open it and grin when I see Benito on the other side, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Hi, you,” he says.
I bite the inside of my cheeks to keep my smile from taking over my entire face. “Hi.”
It’s only a moment or two more before we collide into each other, falling into bed and picking right back up where we left.
A frantic knock at my door frightens me out of a dreamy nap. It takes me a second to readjust to the waking world and realize my pillow is Benito’s bare chest. I groan. “Who could that be?”
Benito strokes my hair. “It’s probably my mother.”
We both look at each other and then sit up straight. “Shit,” I say, jumping out of bed and throwing my robe back on. “She knows.” I pace around my room, looking for my underwear. “She’s going to think I’m some kind of American tart.”
“No, she won’t,” Benito says. “Because it’s not 1956.” This doesn’t stop him from also getting up and pulling on his khakis.
