Francesco suddenly joined the chorus of concern. ‘Lucia, think long and hard about this. Yes, it’syourstory, but do you really want to tell it?’ He reached across and caught her bouncing knees in his hands. ‘Or, are you too scarednotto, as you need money for the school?’
Their eyes locked. ‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘When does she want an answer?’ Mariella nodded in the card’s direction.
‘I already told herno. But she didn’t want to hear it. There’s no deadline. The offer is just there.’
A long heavy sigh trickled from Francesco’s lips. ‘It’s your decision, Lucia. We will support you, either way. Just . . . please think on it. Once your story is out there, there’s no taking it back.’
‘My life, my face . . . I’ve always been out there. I can’t go for a drink with someone without the media writing me up as married or “on the market again”.’
‘Please, Lucia.’ Lucia recognised a familiar darkening of Mariella’s eyes.
There was so much truth to what Mariella and Francesco had said. Of course there was. But she also felt a terrifying temptation to accept Benedetta’s offer. Lucia could feel it simmering away just under her skin. It prickled and teased her as being the swiftest way out of Edoardo’s mess – and, a tiny voice inside her whispered, a way to regain control of her own story. Control she’d lost decades ago.
‘I will think about it,’ Lucia promised, but even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.
Lucia returned Benedetta’s card to Edoardo’s papers and stood tall, stretching. Taking her coffee with her, she paced the length of the second floor, hoping to find some clarity in the stillness and quiet of the usually lively open classroom space.
‘We just need to devise something here. A plan. Or program. Something at the school to help boost the funds. And we need to pray that the ball turned a profit for Tiziano. Otherwise . . .’ Lucia’s fingernails tapped away at the porcelain espresso cup, keeping time with her frenzied thoughts.
Tip. Tip. Tip.
Foscari joined her and pawed his way along the centuries-old floorboards. He turned in time with Lucia at the window facing Calle del Leone, then trotted back to the chairs. His little head tilted sideways, checking for her next move, before he returned to his previous position in her shadow.
Drinking the last of her coffee, Lucia sighed and came to a stop in front of an old vintage tourism poster from the 1960s. It was framed and mounted to the wall between two pink hand-blown glass sconces. The image of agondoliereatop his black vessel, in a navy blue and white–striped top, cruising under the Ponte di Rialto, filled her heart with a melancholic sediment of worries. It was a mix of failure and desperation, of letting her parents down, of losing them all over again. The poster had once hung in their apartment on the third floor, on the wall right by where Lucia’s childhood bed had sat by the Grand Canal–facing window. She recalled how it had often been the last thing she would see before she closed her eyes at night, and those boldly defined words,Venezia per tutti!, used to fill her with hope.
As a young child she used to reason that if Venice really were for everyone, then surely everyone would come to La Scuola Rosa. She used to fall asleep to the sound of coins and notes being counted at the kitchen table after hours, plus the rustle of carbon pages in the old click-clack machine and the quiet voices of her parents chatting.
The little open-plan apartment had provided little privacy, but it had taught Lucia some of her greatest life lessons. She absorbed her parents’ words, their conversations. She grew to learn their processes by listening in from the comfort of her warm cocooning bed. And with the beauty had come the beasts of burden, too: one name had cropped up again and again in her patchwork of memories – Vittorio Gatti.
Her mind returned to the challenge before her now. Had Foscari sensed the tension in her at the thought of Gatti? It felt probable, as he drew closer to her, stepping over her feet a number of times as if marking his territory.
Lucia dropped her open palm to his crown and gave him a loving caress. ‘Piccolino, mi segui ovunque io vada, no?’
He gave a delighted yap of agreement.
Ovunque . . .
Her eyes returned to that vintage poster, an image she could recreate detail for detail with her eyes closed. The collection of tourists piled high in the back of the gondola, limbs jutting over its sides as each scrambled for a better view ofLa Serenissima.Venezia per tutti. But this time, the wordovunqueescaped her lips.Ovunque.
‘Venezia, ovunque!’ she announced across the room, and the increased pitch and passion behind her statement caused both Mariella and Francesco’s heads to turn towards her. ‘Ovunque. Everywhere.’
‘Cioè?’ Francesco looked perplexed.
Lucia hurried to the arched stained-glass windows facing the Grand Canal behind them. She pulled the maroon drapes to the side and peered out over the water, now dotted with a fresh burst of rain. ‘Venezia, ovunque. Venezia, everywhere. Wherever you are in the world, come join us. Venice knows no bounds. Venice is everywhere.’
She could feel the worry and anxiety ebb away. What replaced it was a chemical mess of excitement and enthusiasm. Lucia bobbed down and collected Foscari under her right arm, and the two looked back out over the water. ‘That’s it. It’s so perfect.’
‘What is?’ Mariella had half turned in her chair and was now resting on a propped elbow.
‘You’re not thinking of online lessons, are you?’ Francesco asked warily. ‘Because I think the world is done with pandemic-style screen-delivered learning.’
‘Better than online lessons.’ Lucia sucked in a deep, bolstering breath. ‘People will walk thecalliwith us. As if by our side. Venice will literally be everywhere.’ She returned to her chair and propped Foscari down in her lap. ‘How many Instagram friends do we have?’
Francesco’s mouth curled into a grin. ‘Followers?’
‘Sì. The people who connect with us.’
