“I assume that once I am done with this project, I will have enough material for a book. I’ve never written one before, but I’m naive enough to want to try. I think the findings are going to be something that people should know about. That’s assuming someone will want to pay me to write about how we can all better manage the disintegration of social structures in the future. As you pointed out, most people do not find it the most positive of topics,” she said, licking a bit of ice cream off her spoon. “Aside from that, I haven’t really thought about it.”
“At all?”
“Not beyond the next three years,” she said. “I know it probably sounds like I’m being careless, but I want to leave options open. I don’t have any family. At this point, I don’t have any specific geographic location that I feel a connection to. And I don’t have any other context to set myself in. For me, this postdoc is a goal, and when that’s done, there will hopefully be some other amazing opportunity that I can’t say no to,” she said, scooping up the last bite.
“So, you are keeping the door open too, though in a different way.”
“I’m not saying that I am against the idea of settling down somewhere. With someone. At some point. It’s just not a priority yet.” She looked down as she said the last part, which somehow made him feel like he’d avoided a direct hit.
“Do you want to go down to the beach? We may as well since we’re here,” he said, standing up. He’d lost interest in the rest of the ice cream and threw the cup in the trash.
“Andrea—” She stopped him with her fingers resting on his arm. “Don’t think I take this lightly—whatever this is between us. This has been really special. I didn’t expect that anything like this would happen.”
“Neither did I,” he said. Her hand landed in his, and he led her over to the stairway.
“If things were different,” she said, pulling slightly on his hand to lead him away from the stairway. Her eyes flicked up to his, the look sending up flares in his gut.
“Lora, we both know what this is,” he said, still holding her hand. “And that’s going to have to be OK.” It wasn’t a lie, but out there on a summer night with the feeling of her body still on his skin, it was getting pretty close to one.
She nodded.
“After you, again,” he said, gesturing down the stairs.
“I feel like we’re descending into the center of the earth,” she said, stepping down ahead of him.
“It does feel like that.” They stepped down and down again, until they finally reached the base of the stairway. The “beach” was a pebbled cove surrounded on three sides by the cliff face and walls of stone. Looking back up, it did feel like being at the bottom of a well. They walked toward the shoreline, where the tranquil water rolled over the pebbles and formed bubbles as it pulled back out to the sea. The sound was hypnotizing. The moon reflected white light across the water, drawing a line directly to them. She turned to face him, reached out, linking their little fingers, then touched her lips to his. Her mouth was stillfior di latteand he was melting into it. Andrea knew that no matter how many times he had come here on his own, from now on, he would always think of being here with her.
“I think we should get back,” he said, pulling away. He glanced up at the stairway. “We’ve got a long climb out of here.”
“OK.” She nodded, a crease between her eyebrows.
It would be so easy to assure her that there was nothing wrong. He could tell her that it was totally fine to spend casual time together while she waited out the weeks here. He could smile and talk about the moonlight and joke with her about noodle soup. But he’d made a promise to himself to never lie to her and therefore kept his mouth shut, ascending the stairs steadily, not pausing once, eager to get back to the top.
Chapter 20
Despite the fact that Andrea had spent the whole month of June doing his very best to nail down absolutely every detail for thesagra, the next two weeks passed in a blur of repairs, regulations, and rodents. And while he’d texted Lora to apologize for being very busy and very unavailable, a small part of him was relieved. Having a small break from the pressing reality of her finite stay was kind of perfect, actually. Especially when two days before theSagra del Vino della Collina, which wasthemajor generator of both revenue and promotion for the town’s local businesses, there almost was nosagraat all. Andrea was focused on rebuilding part of the stage since a family of porcupines had been sharpening their teeth on the beams, ordering a new plastic tent because the old one had frozen in the winter and thawed into a giant ball of goo, plus rewiring the outlets in the piazza that were connected to Giada’s café—a fact they discovered when she fired up the new Vitamix and blew out the breaker that powered all the extra lights. Due to all of these distractions, he’d neglected todo a final check of the proof for the ad going into the newspaper because the email was buried under fifteen other urgent messages about the wild boars in the hills being tested for African swine flu. Unfortunately, he did not notice that thesagrawas listed as taking place three months after the actual date it was going to be held. It was, of course, Franca who saw the mistake first.
“Have you decided to make it a fall festival?” Franca asked, walking toward him with the latest copy of theLevante Newsin her hands. He had been out on the piazza directing the crane workers who were hanging the giant lighting arrangements that were shaped like wineglasses and grape clusters. Just looking at the twisted expression on her face, Andrea knew he was in trouble. Grabbing the newspaper, he felt his synapses pop as he read the very large, very expensive ad promoting the hell out of an event on the wrong weekend. He marched into his office and spent a half hour convincing the newspaper to at least change it in their digital editions and issue a correction. They almost balked completely at blasting it out on social media, but luckily the advertising manager was Luciano’s niece, and she laughed when Andrea referred to him as “your uncle the pirate.” She lightened up after that and said she would put something together to post. He then made the rounds to all of the businesses in town to ask them to promote thesagrawith the correct dates on their social media as well. Word traveled fast in the tiny town, and by the time he got to Aurelia at the bakery, she had already heard from Luigi at the hardware store. One by one, their posts went live, and Andrea tried to keep his nerves steady.
He saw Lora from time to time, crossing the piazza as shecarried a shopping bag or sitting at Giada’s practicing Italian, but he didn’t have to do much more than wave until a delivery person showed up at city hall one morning with a huge box.
“We didn’t order anything,” he’d said to the courier.
“Are you Andrea Garibaldi?”
“Yes.”
“Then someone ordered it for you,” the guy in the DHL T-shirt said, scanning a barcode on the box and ducking out through the foyer.
When he opened the box and saw the new scanner, he was confused for a moment until he remembered Lora’s question about how to help with the files. Picking up his phone to text Lora, he felt a squeeze in his chest. His fingers hovered over the screen as he realized that he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to reply or tonotreply. He finally settled on thanking her on behalf of the whole town, adding a smile emoji, and getting back to work.
“‘Had a bad lunch at the café back in 2010, so we weren’t so sure about trying it again. Decided to take the train somewhere else to eat, but maybe we’ll be back next summer. Umbrellas were a nice upgrade. Two stars.’” Lora sat at the bar inside the café reading out loud to Giada from her computer screen. “Are the two stars for the upgraded umbrellas for the other place they had lunch? How ridiculous is this? They didn’t even eat here in this decade!”
“That’s nothing. People write crazy things in those reviews. They blame us if it rains, if a bird steals a piece of bread from the table, if we don’t have their favorite tea.” Giada helda wineglass over a hot kettle, let the steam fill the glass, then began polishing it with a cotton cloth.
“They don’t even realize that these are people’s businesses that they are writing about. Look at this, ‘Lemons are not organic.’”
“Well, they are right about that. They come from the tree in my garden,” Giada said, pointing to the thinly sliced fruit in a chilled container behind the bar.
