“Oh, she’s not trying to immigrate.” Vilmari leaned forward. “She’s trying to pass through here, not settle in.”
“I am sure it’s perfectly lovely here when everything is open and all, but yes, in a way, I am really trying to make this happen as quickly as possible so that I can get to my postdoctoral program in Switzerland and, you know what they say, ‘live happily ever after.’” She smiled.
“Well, yes. I understand. However, this process can take some time. First you have to—”
“Yes, I know. I’ve done all the research, so do not worry at all. I know that I need his birth certificate first so that I can prove he existed. I already have my birth certificate here, and I’ve had it translated and stamped with the official apostille.” Lora pulled a red folder out of her bag and leafed through, taking out the documents and placing them on the desk. Andrea spun the pages around to face him. He scanned the top page quickly, noticing that there was no “Lora Brooks” listed on the certificate anywhere. There was, however, another name.
“Loretta?” He looked up, meeting her eyes.
“That’s my birth name, yes. However, I prefer ‘Lora.’” She nodded, looking down at the papers. Businesslike.
“Your name is Loretta Giordano.”
“Lora Brooks, actually,” she said, a tense rise to her shoulders. She still would not look at him. “I legally changed to my mother’s last name. And I just prefer Lora.”
“All of the documents will have to be filed here in Italy with your birth name.”
“That’s fine,” she said, a set to her jaw. “I will do whatever is necessary. Which leads me to asking you for a slight favor.” Finally she met his gaze. “As I mentioned, I tried to email someone who works here to get confirmation that my dad’s birth certificate is actually on file, but I think we had some communication issues. I knew I would have to come here personally anyway, but I am still not one hundred percent sure that the document is here.”
“The person who wrote back wasn’t exactly friendly,” Vilmari added. “Not complaining or anything—just if there’s some, like, interpersonal-skills training you might be able to—”
“That will be Franca,” he broke in. A fixture in thecomunesince before he was born, Franca was technically his secretary. She was also finance director, planning director, officer of public records, parks and recreation manager, and, yes, responsible for handling the general email in-box. Her interpersonal skills were limited to serving up a death glare so fierce it would melt glass any time someone asked her a question. “She’s often very busy. No worries. We do have almost everything digitized at this point. There is only one decade that we have not been able to finish converting yet. What year was he born?”
“In 1956? I am pretty sure.”
He winced. “The years 1950 to 1959 are the only ones still on paper. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a filing problem,” he said, standing.
Of course the “filing problem” had been that he and his friend Nico had toppled the entire cabinet trying to move it aside so that he could repaint the office in his first week as mayor. Documents had spilled out everywhere, covering the floor out to the hallway in thin sheets of paper dating back to the 1800s. He opened the armoire and gestured to the shelves inside.
“As of right now, we do not have a way of digitizing the files, so unfortunately, this task has not been a top priority. But everything is here,” he said, looking over the mess. Every inch of shelf space was laden with papers, folders, booklets, and ledgers. Some files were stacked horizontally, but most of what could be seen past the doors that would not close was stacks and stacks of paper with no discernible organization whatsoever.
“How long do you think it will take you to find it?” Vilmari asked, her forehead scrunched.
“As you probably guessed, we are quite short-staffed. There’s no telling when we would be able to get to it.” He paused, noticing Vilmari winding up a very New York protestation. “But I am happy to let you come and look for yourself.”
“But not today or tomorrow,” Lora said, her tone steady. She cast her gaze from the bursting cabinet to him and back. She could be getting impatient with him right now, he knew. Most foreigners struggled when faced with the myriad bureaucratic rules and regulations in Italy—in truth, most Italians struggled too. But she was calm. And maybe a little bit sad? It was almost like she didn’t want tobe here. Maybe he was reading into her too much. Why was he reading into her so much?
“Look, today is impossible. We have a big event tonight at the yacht club in town, and there really isn’t anyone who can stay back here and supervise you.”
“Afraid we’ll steal the furniture?” Vilmari tapped the polyester-covered armrest of her chair.
“No. However, I have some work to do and won’t mind coming in tomorrow morning if you’d like to get started then.”
“Really? That would be amazing!” Lora squeezed Vilmari’s arm. “Isn’t that amazing? Thank you, truly.” Lora gazed up at him. Those eyes—beautiful, but not only that. There was some story there that was already pulling him in.
“Andre, cosa stai facendo qui? Ti stavo aspettando giù al porto.” As usual, Nico didn’t so much enter a room as storm it—this time to ask him what the hell he was still doing in his office. A former internationally ranked tennis player, Nico was now the reigning pro at the posh tennis club one town over. Since he usually received tips from clients in proportion to his level of bravado, he typically led every interaction with concert-venue-level swagger. He was a good guy, though, and someone Andrea could count on to have a healthy back in a town where the age of the average resident put them far, far beyond the point of hauling anything heavier than a bakery bag of focaccia. He’d asked Nico to help with the setup for the annual beginning-of-summer party at the yacht club, like he did every year. One of the few traditions still in place, the party had lasted through economic ups and downs, storms, and all manner of civic glitches. They had only skipped 2020, for obvious reasons, but when Andreabecame mayor in 2022, he did everything possible to make the party happen again. Nico was usually in charge of table setup and wine delivery—when he wasn’t persuading his tennis clients to show up on a vague promise of a dance with the pro himself. Last summer, so many women showed up, he should have posted a deli ticket machine and started calling out numbers.
“Yes, I’m sorry I left you waiting,” Andrea replied in English. “Ladies, this is Nico Raggi. Nico, this is Lora Brooks and Vilmari Colón. They are here from New York on some business.”
“Piacere,” replied Nico, shaking Lora’s hand. He extended his hand to Vilmari, who stood, looking up at him like she was in the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze studying theDavid.
“Un placer,” she replied in Spanish, squeezing his hand back with a grin.
“Nico is the pro at Moneglia Tennis Club,” Andrea added. “Do either of you play?”
“I play,” said Vilmari, lifting her chin and pulling her shoulders back. “A little.” Her lips curved at Nico.
“Perhaps you can find a free hour then. He’s really very good. We’re finished here, though, yes? I will see you tomorrow morning around nine?” He turned to Lora.
