“That might be the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me in my life,” she said, her eyes bright as the twinkle lights.
“Ciao, Sindaco, cosa posso servirvi?” Marzia, the owner of the beach bar, asked.
“Ciao, Marzia, vogliamo una coppetta di fior di latte e una di—” Andrea turned to Lora. “What’s option two?”
“Chocolate chip, of course.” She smiled.
“OK, how about you sit at that table there and I will handle dinner.”
“Perfect.” She smiled and headed toward the empty table.
He paid, promising Marzia that he would approve her petition to post a sign in the piazza to draw people down the hill and to the beach. As he walked toward Lora, he swore the sky turned a deeper navy blue when she turned her gaze from the sea and smiled at him.
“I hope I like it,” she said, taking the small cup of pure white ice cream that was already going soft around its folds. She leaned across the table squinting at his cup ofstracciatella. “I may need a bite of that too.”
“Of course,” he said. “Try it, though.”
She dipped her spoon into the ice cream and licked the side of it, then took a bite, her eyebrows going up as she ate.
“That’s so good!”
“Told you.” He nodded, spooning into his own cup.
“And it’s beautiful here,” she said, looking around.
“It’s beautiful even when it’s not summer.”
“I’m sure,” she said, taking another bite and gazing out where the moon spilled light over the dark sea. “Do you think you will stay here even after you complete the two terms?”
“That’s hard to answer. It would be weird to have worked on building this place up for ten years, at that point, and then go live somewhere else because in the end I decided there weren’t opportunities for me personally.”
“I guess that would feel hypocritical. But maybe you’ll create an opportunity—find a way to be self-employed? You said you own some buildings, right? Maybe you’ll get more into real estate. Become a consultant or do something else fancy and financial?” Lora asked. She hovered her spoon over his cup. “Can I?”
“Here,” he said, offering his own spoon, already packed with a mouthful of chocolate chip. She leaned in and licked the whole bite clean off.
“Ohh, that’s good too,” she said.
“Want to switch?”
“No, no. Keep going,” she said.
“I’ve thought about different things that might be possible, of course, in the right circumstance. But it’s difficult to predict without knowing what the rest of my life is going to look like. It’s easy to make decisions for myself, but I’d like to think that maybe I won’t be making them alone,” he said, grabbing a napkin from the container on the table to catch a drip on the side of the cup. “I mean, theoretically.”
“Oh. Right.” She nodded, chewing. “So, you’re leaving the door open, in a way.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I am not overly focused on…” He trailed off, suddenly wishing he had not gone down this road.
“Finding someone,” she added for him.
“Right. It’s not a main concern of mine. I could totally not think about it, at all.” He shook his head, leaning back from the table. “Or I could. It’s not a big deal.”
“Andrea.” She smiled. “I’m not so utterly biased by my work to think it’s not OK to want to be with someone.”
“Right. It’s just something in the back of my mind.”
“Of course.”
“What about you? No other plans after Zurich?”
