Kissing in Italian (10 page)

I swallow hard. My palms are already sweaty. I’m trying to make my mind as calm as possible, to keep my breathing even. By the time the jeep bumps up the hill to the castello, however, I can’t even swallow anymore; my throat has locked up. There’s a huge lump at the back of it. I can’t speak: my mouth is completely dry. As I climb down from the Range Rover, my legs are actually wobbling. Kelly notices and quickly winds her arm through mine. It looks as if she’s just being girly and friendly; actually, she’s helping me stand up, helping me walk across the gravel parking area,
past the other cars that signal that plenty of guests have arrived already, through the high arched gateway, and up the sloping path to the huge wooden carved double doors.

Immediately, I see the difference from my last visits. Before, we gained access through a smaller door set into the left-hand one, creaking like something out of a haunted house when it eventually swung open. Now, both doors are open wide, propped back with a matching pair of huge wrought-iron lions, and light spills from the entrance, as warm and inviting as it was bleak and forbidding before. Candles burn in sconces set along the hallway, their light flickering prettily, and a smiling waiter stands just outside the front door, carrying a silver tray laden with Prosecco.

We all gasp. From a haunted house, the castello has turned into a setting for a fairy tale. Even Paige and Kendra, who’ve been sulky at having their plans for the evening curtailed, perk up, stepping to take a glass each from the waiter; he’s slim and elegant, his dark hair slicked back, and Paige looks him up and down with barely concealed appreciation.

“I don’t know which she’s leering at more—the Prosecco or the waiter,” Kelly comments to me. Paige, overhearing this, flashes a smile at us, tossing her blond curls in a way that makes the waiter swivel to watch her sashay into the castello.

“Both!” she says over her shoulder, winking at him and us. Clearly, she’s got over her sulks about the last-minute change to her evening plans.

“That girl could win an international flirting competition,” Kendra says dryly.

“International? She’d win a
galactic
flirting competition!”
Kelly adds, one-upping Kendra, and even Catia allows herself a quick snicker of amusement as we follow Paige’s swaying hips into the great hall of the castello.

Another waiter is stationed at the foot of the carved staircase, with a tray of canapés in one hand and linen napkins in the other. He directs us into the Gold Salon, where we had drinks before with the principessa. It’s a beautiful sitting room with gold brocade walls and pale-yellow-silk-upholstered furniture, everything trimmed with reams of gold braid and dangling tassels. There’s a harpsichord made of inlaid wood against the wall, and a lady is playing tasteful, soft music, the ivory keys tinkling gently, the kind of background music that’s perfect for a grown-up drinks party, filling in any conversational gaps.

The room is impressive in itself, but at one glance I know the guests are real Italian high society. The women are in tailored linen dresses and Hermès silk scarves, their jewelry glistening, their tans even. The men are in light summer suits, their leather shoes as gleaming as their hair. They’re mostly older, Catia and the principessa’s age, and the sheen of wealth and status gives them the confidence that money really can buy.

Beside me, Kelly comes to a dead halt. I know this is incredibly intimidating for her, and the need to reassure her helps me. Now it’s me who tightens my arm through hers, me who gives her the courage to start walking again, to cross the room behind Catia and be officially introduced to our host.

It helps too that everyone’s looking at Paige and Kendra. As always in Italy, they’re the ones who draw attention,
and we can follow comparatively unnoticed in their wake. Knowing that my resemblance to the di Vesperi family might be commented on, I did the best I could to change my usual style; I straightened my curly hair, which is exactly the same as the hair of all the women in the family portraits, parted it in the middle, and pulled it back into a smooth ponytail. I don’t think it’s a very flattering look for me, but it’s definitely different. I look more fashionable, older, but mainly conventional. Less likely to call attention to myself.

“Che bella nera,”
I hear someone comment, which means “what a beautiful black girl”; it sounds distinctly odd, but we’ve learned here that it isn’t meant badly, just a statement of fact in this country. Kendra doesn’t bristle as she hears it.

We come to a halt by the fireplace. Catia is embracing the principessa, lightly holding her upper arms while airkissing each of her cheeks. And the principe, seeing us file up and stop in front of him, removes his arm from where it was nonchalantly resting along the wide marble mantelpiece and holds out both hands to greet us all.

“Ma che bellezze!”
he exclaims, smiling widely. “What beauties!” he’s saying, and he has such an air about him that even Paige and Kendra, who are by now utterly accustomed to hearing lavish compliments in Italian, preen and giggle as he places his hands on their shoulders and kisses their cheeks. And then they fall back, and I have my first proper look at the principe.

I saw photographs of Luca’s father on my first visit here. He barely looks any older, even though those were taken years and years ago; his frame hasn’t bulked out at all, his navy silk suit fitting him sleekly. His tight dark curly hair
has silver laced through it, but it looks distinguished, and his brown eyes are bright and sparkling with life. His tan is deep mahogany, his teeth white as an American’s, and charm rolls off him in waves.

What a contrast to Luca
, I find myself thinking as the principe’s warm hands close briefly on my shoulders and his lips touch my cheeks. He smells of tobacco and very expensive aftershave.
It’s as if Luca doesn’t want to be anything like his father—easy, charming, friendly. As if he’s deliberately chosen to be difficult, grumpy, offish so that no one can possibly say he’s like his dad
.

To my enormous relief, the Principe di Vesperi doesn’t pay me any more attention than he does to the other girls; we all get a quick up-and-down flick of his bright eyes, a frank assessment of our looks, before we politely greet the principessa. You have to kiss everyone twice every time you meet them; I suppose I’ll eventually get used to it, but it still feels strange.

“The young people are on the terrace,” the principe says to us. “You will want to join them, not stay here with the boring old ones, eh?”

I glance at the principessa, whose face is a polite mask. I can’t read how she feels about me returning to her home, about her husband greeting me, kissing me on both cheeks. She’s far too well bred to show emotion. She seems very pale, but she’s always pale. Luca gets his looks from her, his white skin, his slanting blue eyes, his high cheekbones. But her skin feels paper-thin as I brush it with my lips, fragile as tissue.

I back away as swiftly as I can. I don’t want to stay with
them, but I don’t want to go outside either and see Luca: I feel like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. The other girls swirl around me, sweeping me along with them, moving outside. Paige exclaims happily as she sees Leonardo and Andrea, who are both dressed in suits and ties and look, I have to say, absolutely gorgeous.

“Suits make boys look so grown up,” I observe to Kelly, trying to sound nonchalant, as if I’m completely okay with the introduction to the prince; I’m impressed that my voice comes out relatively normal, though I have to clear my throat first.

The group of young people outside is just as smart and shiny and scary as the adults in the Gold Salon. Thank goodness Kelly and I have each other. We stand a little back as Paige plows happily toward the boys she knows; I glance at Kelly and see that she’s staring longingly at Andrea.

“Did you ever text back Giacomo?” I ask her, trying to jolt her thoughts to a boy who’s shown interest in her, away from one who hasn’t.

“Who?” She hasn’t taken her eyes off Andrea, who’s fiddling with his silk tie, fashionably loose around his tanned throat, as he fixes his gaze on Kendra.

“The guy at the party who took you outside to see the stars!” I remind her, a bit crossly, because I do think she’s being silly, crushing on Andrea like this when there are plenty more fish in the sea. Nothing like pointing out mistakes someone else is making to help you ignore your own.

“He was cute,” I continue. “He had very curly hair—
you
know! He definitely texted you the day after. Did you ever get back to him?”

She shakes her head.

“You should,” I say firmly. “He seemed really nice. You know, sometimes it can really help to go out with one boy if you, um, aren’t getting anywhere with another.”

I’ve never been this blunt with her: somehow, it’s a lot easier in the twilight, when we’re standing next to each other, not face to face, to blurt out the truth. And I genuinely want to make sure she has the best time possible in Italy, not waste it mooning over a boy who only has eyes for Kendra. Kelly’s still looking at Andrea, who’s running his fingers through his hair as he looks longingly at Kendra. True to her promise to me to back off Andrea, Kendra is paying him no attention, but in the end, that’s only made him even keener.

“It doesn’t even matter that she’s sneaking out to see Luigi,” Kelly observes quietly. “She doesn’t pay any attention to Andrea at all. Just her being there is enough for him. If she weren’t here … that’s the only thing that would possibly make him notice me. If she just—weren’t here.”

“Kelly,”
I start to say, but just then there’s a flurry of movement in the group, and Evan’s blond head appears. He’s dressed up as best he can, in a shirt and chinos; backpacking around, he didn’t have anything smart, and Leonardo found the idea that he should lend Evan something to wear hilarious, as Evan’s built so much more broadly than he is.

Still, the Italian girls don’t seem to mind that Evan’s not up to their sartorial standards; in a flash, they’re fluttering around him like pretty butterflies. I don’t see Elisa, and for a moment my heart lifts: but then, as the crowd moves and re-forms, I spot her a few steps down, the thinnest, most
tanned, most made up, chic-est girl in the whole group. The silk layers of her minidress simply emphasize how thin her arms are, brown sticks laden with bangles. And I notice her arms particularly, because they’re gesticulating, waving in the air, using the movement to isolate the person she’s talking to from the rest of the group.

Of course. It’s Luca
.

I take some comfort in the fact that, though Elisa has singled him out like a skinny, starving lioness cornering her prey, he looks bored and irritated. His mouth is set in a straight line: his shoulders, propped against the side of the stone staircase, are like a clothes hanger from which the rest of his body is drooping limply, as if the only reason he isn’t crumbling to the ground is that his bones are stacked one on top of the other. His black hair tumbles thickly forward. I can’t see his eyes at all. The glowing red tip of Elisa’s cigarette traces circles in the air, a force field she’s building to ward off anyone getting close to Luca.

But Luca isn’t smoking himself
, I think suddenly, my heart racing.
He’d always have been smoking before in this kind of situation—

“Hey, Violet!”

I jump, jolted out of my thoughts, to see Evan standing in front of me, holding out his hand.

“Wanna dance?” he’s saying.

I stare at him blankly. Then, around the side of his big frame, I see Kendra being waltzed around the terrace by some boy I don’t know.

“Ev!”
Paige reprimands her brother, giggling. “You say, ‘May I have the pleasure of this waltz?’ ”

Evan goes one better: he bends over in an awkward bow as he repeats the words. I don’t feel remotely like dancing, but how can I possibly say no? So I take his hand and make a sound like “Oof!” as he pulls me toward him. I put my other hand up on his high wide shoulder and do my best to follow him as we trip and stumble at first, trying to get the one-two-three rhythm of the waltz. I’m mainly worried that he’ll tread on my feet, but he doesn’t, by some miracle, and gradually we sort of get it; I look up at him and he’s grinning down at me.

“Paige dared me to ask someone to waltz,” he says confidingly, “and I picked you ’cause you’re such a good dancer.”

“Thank you!” I say, flattered.

“No, thank
you
,” he says, swinging us in a semicircle to make a turn and avoid crashing into the wall of the castello. “You’re actually kinda making me look like I know what I’m doing.”

So all of a sudden, I’m waltzing on the terrace of a castle. Disney Cinderella in her pale-blue dress, dancing with her prince, her skirt belling out. In my ideal picture, it would be Luca I’d be waltzing with, his lean, slim body in my arms, not Evan’s wider frame, his big solid shoulder under my hand.

But Luca didn’t ask you
, I tell myself firmly.
He can’t ask you. He’s probably too bloody cool to dance in public anyway. Remember what you just told Kelly? It doesn’t help to moon after a boy you can’t have when another boy likes you and isn’t afraid to show it
.

Because I’m definitely beginning to get the sense that Evan likes me. And if Luca’s hanging out with Elisa, coming to pick her up from the villa to make the point to me that
she has a date with him, why shouldn’t I dance with Evan, smile up at him, have a good time instead of moping around?

My body lightens, my steps move faster. Evan’s whirling me around enthusiastically, his confidence growing. Out of the corner of my eye I see other couples dancing; who knows how the waltzing started, but now it’s snowballed, reached critical mass, and lots of other twinned shapes spin by us. They’re just shapes because Evan’s bulk blots out almost everything else: I focus on his wide, tanned neck, remembering that in ballet class years ago, the teacher said to look at a fixed point when you do pirouettes to stop yourself from getting too dizzy.

The adults in the Gold Salon notice the dancing outside and cluster at the windows to watch. I’m clinging to Evan for dear life now, a fistful of his shirt in one hand, his big fingers wrapping around the other, and I’m laughing with sheer pleasure and exhilaration at the speed, at the fact that Evan is now physically lifting me off my feet and whirling me every time we do a turn, his arm around my waist picking me up as easily as if it were a lever. When we finally stop, I’m still clinging to him, laughing and laughing, and Evan’s laughing too.