Page 84 of The English Bookstore in Bologna

He sat down and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Geez. I don’t like seeing you like this. What can I do?”

A headshake. “I need a nap. Two glasses of wine at lunch.”

“How long was lunch?”

“Two hours.”

“Two hours! What is she even doing hanging out with you? She’s leading you on.”

“I think she was being friendly, paying me back for helping around the store.”

Bianca shifted to protective mode. No one messed with her father. “Whatever it is, screw her. She doesn’t deserve you.”

He stood slowly, patted her shoulder. “Nap time. It’ll be okay. Not the first time I’ve been rejected in my life.”

She touched his hand, feeling so much love for him. It was so easy to put him into some sort of box, to label him. The father figure, the parental unit. A support figure. But that wasn’t all he was. Why did she keep treating him this way? He might not show or talk about his emotions, but he had them.

“Get some rest, then we’ll do something fun tonight.”

He trudged down the hall. Her heart ached as he closed his door.

“You know what ASAP means?” Bianca asked, charging into George’s room later.

He turned the volume down on the news. “What’s that?”

“Aperol spritz and pasta.”

“Yeah. I can do that.”

They sat on the balcony. George still couldn’t get used to both of their underwear hanging on a line out there. A silly thought passed by. Sandy had mentioned the bookstore had a courtyard out back that she never used. Maybe she could put some dryers out there. Expats could shop for books while they waited for their clothes to dry.

Sandy would have enjoyed that one. Not anymore, though. What a shit show the whole thing was. Love, love, love. What was it anyway? A doorway to pain, really. As if he didn’t have enough problems to drown in. There was this . . . this ache in his chest, a longing that could now never be satisfied. He’d almost found a reason to keep going. He’d almost felt young again.

“I want to kill Sandy,” Bianca said, pulling him back to the present.

“No, don’t do that. You two have a lot in common, as far as having lived here when you were younger, coming back later in life. She’s a good person. Afraid of getting hurt, I think.”

“When’s the last time you kissed a girl?”

“Nineteen fifties,” George replied nonchalantly. There’d been a few dates, nothing that had lasted longer than a few months.

“Seriously. It wasn’t Mom, was it? You’ve had girlfriends since . . . No, I don’t want to know.”

He scratched his arm. “Let me put it this way. I haven’t felt like this since your mom. I guess I read the signals wrong.”

“Which is understandable, considering Sandy’s cuckoo. God, she can be mean.”

“But boy, when she lights up, it’s something to behold. You get her away from that bookstore, she comes alive. Did you know she’s been dancing the tango most her life? And she drives a Vespa. I think maybe not seeing her son enough is what breaks her up. And I can empathize with that.”

Bianca’s ears perked up when George casually mentioned that he’d read her book a few minutes later. “I know you told me not to, but I did,” he said.

Maybe she should have been mad, considering she’d asked him not to, but in this moment, it felt like the sweetest gesture in the world. “I . . . You didn’t have to.”

“I should have read it a long time ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I like Peggy Meh, and there’s so much wisdom inside. Sometimes you’re still my little girl, and to read all the advice you have, all the beautiful wisdom, it gives me shivers, even now.”

“Really?”