Roman Crazy (34 page)

“Messy, Mamma, messy!”

“Yes, you are messy, too!” came the reply.

I pushed my way through the plants, surrounded by the smell of green growing things, in a place that was once covered in blackened ruin.

“Fertile, huh?” I asked, leaning up on my tiptoes to kiss his
disordinato
face.

“We have many tomatoes.”

“And you have many siblings.”

Now his eyes twinkled. “Big families are good, yes?”

I kissed him then, getting his messy all over me. “I think a big family could be very good.”

And with that, I went back to hoeing . . .

“MAMMA, CAN WE HELP YOU?”
Marcello asked, setting the dinner plates on the marble countertop.

“No, take a walk before the sun sets,” she insisted, shooing him out of the door, me following behind.

He kissed her on top of her head and led us outside.

We followed the stone pathway to the stairs that led down to the olive groves. They were deep, old wooden planks that should have looked out of place given that they were built into the hillside. Colorful wildflowers lined the sides and the grass popped up through the cracks, making them appear more of the earth than of the men who built them.

“How long have these been here?” I asked as we descended the steep steps.

“My great-grandfather put them in to make it easier to get to the trees. Before that they went all around the property with the horses and down the lower hills.”

When we got to the bottom, I inhaled deeply. I wasn't sure what the scent of an olive grove would be. Walking through oranges, strawberries, or apples was an assault on the senses. Sweet, fruity, and vibrant. This was more of a musky, earthy smell that snuck up on you and settled into your skin.

We walked the length of the center dirt path that split the property right down the middle. It was still, quiet, and with the sun beginning to set on the rise behind the house, a bit spooky.

“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were leading me out here to take advantage of me.”

He hummed in response. “No one would bother us out here now.”

I tamped down the flutters thinking about making love to him out here in the wide open. The car was wild, frenzied, but this could be an experience under the stars.

Taking my hand, he wove us in and out of the trees, around
the different cutting and netting stations that were spread throughout the property, but no machines. I figured with this many trees, there would be some sort of steel contraption to make it easier on his family.

“You do all of this by hand?”

“Olives and grapes don't do well with mechanization, so it is a simple, modest process.”

“Where do you squish them?” I asked, looking around for
I Love Lucy–
style barrels. “Is this like grapes where you stomp?”

He laughed, rich and deep echoing in the open fields. “No, we have a mill up there,” he told me, motioning to a giant stone barn at the top of another hill. “We will come back when it's harvest time. If you want.”

“I want,” I said without hesitation.

He was quiet as he led us to a large juniper tree. I saw why he was taking us so far out into the vineyard; the house was merely a speck on the hillside.
For the quiet.

Set up at the base of the tree was a blanket, oil lanterns hanging from the branches flickering circles onto the ground. At the corner sat a pad and pastels.

“Marcello, what did you do?” I breathed, looking at everything he had thought to set out ahead of time.

“I know sunset is one of your favorite times to work. I thought maybe we could sit out here together while you sketch.”

I broke apart from him, moving to sit in the center of the blanket. “What will you be doing while I'm hard at work?”

“Trying not to kiss you.”

He pulled out a bottle of wine and two glasses from a bag at the base of the tree. After setting them down on the blanket, he grabbed get some fruit and cheese that were in a cooler.

“How'd you get all this out here?”

“Allegra helped me,” he said, getting to work on the cork. “She told me she talked to you at the fair today—I'm sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” I said, reaching over to hold his hand. “She was just watching out for her brother. It makes sense.” I waited, picking at the skinny olive leaves that had fallen onto the blanket. “Maybe I wasn't ready for you then, but I want you to know that I am now. I want to stay here, with you.”

“It means a lot that you are here with me,
tesoro,
here with my family, in this place. It's not where I live anymore, but it's still my home. It's everything I love.”

My eyes widened, tears gathering when he repeated it. “You hear me say, yes? I love you.”

I nodded, smiling and burrowing my head into his chest. I squeezed my arms around his waist. “I love you, too. So much.”

Happy tears spilled, but I was too busy being kissed silly to care. With his hands on my cheeks, he peppered kisses and whispered
I love you
s all over my face. “I don't think I ever stopped loving you.”

Pouring two glasses, he handed me one, kissing my shoulder and taking a seat. With his back resting against the tree trunk, he watched me set up the pencils, pastels, and paper.

“Do you remember the wine?”

Like a flash fire coursing through dry brush, the memory charged back.

We were wrapped in each other's arms, a bottle of wine that we bought in town resting at the foot of the bed. I was young and knew nothing of wine. It tasted like pepper and plums.

“Y-yes,” I stuttered, the green pastel scratching across the page haphazardly. I smudged it with my finger to fix it but only made it worse.

“What do you remember? Tell me,
tesoro
.”

“Everything,” I admitted, touching my chest with a shaky hand, my chalky fingers transferring the dust to the light-colored dress.

“You said,
‘Don't mind me, I like to watch you work,'
but you weren't just watching, you were tormenting me, rubbing the wine across your lips with your finger. Sitting with your shirt off, casually leaning against the bed, you looked like heaven and hell sent to torture me.”

“I felt the same about you. I couldn't keep my hands off you.”

I slid the pastel across the page with a scratch. “You said you wanted to paint me.”

He shifted and stretched his legs out. I settled between them, pushing back until I rested against his chest. The lanterns hanging from the trees above swayed in the breeze, making the light dance across the page.

“I saved one, you know.”

I stopped, setting the chalk down on the blanket beside us. “Saved what?”

“A painting that you had left behind,” he said, pulling my dress strap down.

“Marcello, I—”

“At first I kept it for you for when you returned. Then you didn't come back and I kept it for me. But you are here now.” He paused, turning me in his arms so that I straddled him.

“I'm here now,” I said before I hugged him, slipping my fingers through his hair. “I'm not leaving.”

Laying me back onto the blanket, he covered my body with his and propped himself up on his elbows. The papers crumbled
beneath us, pastels cracked against my back and under his hands.

The lantern was shining next to him, making the pain in his eyes pronounced. Palpable.

Marcello looked every bit like my greatest love and my biggest regret.

He lifted his hand, smiling at the sage-green dust on his palm and smoothed it across my forehead, brushing my hair back.

I felt a pastel near my right hand. Clutching it, I rubbed it into my palm. Bringing my hand up to his face, I cupped his cheek, leaving a slight pink imprint there.

He pulled off his shirt, tossing it to the side. Unbuttoning my dress, he opened it like a gift, laying the sides on the blanket.

“
Belissima
.”

We took turns, each taking the broken pieces and painting the other with them. A stripe of cobalt across his stomach. A streak of yellow on the inside of my thigh. An abstract green heart over my breasts and the word
love
in purple across his chest.

“You promised me a kiss under the stars,” I whispered, my hands slipping to his belt.

I
WAS BACK IN ROME
after a weekend in Pienza. With my Italian. Who loves me!

And his family. Who also loves me!

I didn't have a class today, I didn't have to work today, so I was taking myself shopping.

Via Condotti. Like Bond Street in London, or Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, every major city had a street with all the best stores: Gucci, Ferragamo, Zegna, Bulgari, Prada of course, but also Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton, La Perla, the best. At the foot of the Spanish Steps, the Via Condotti could be hopelessly touristy unless you shopped early, before the crowds arrived.

Huh. Look at that. I'm avoiding tourists.

Normally I'd also have avoided the area entirely, preferring the trendier stores in the Monti district, but today I wanted to revel a little bit, I suppose. There was one store in particular that I wanted to visit. I felt like celebrating.

An email from Daniel's attorney this morning had confirmed the news I'd been waiting for. Daniel wasn't contesting the divorce, and not only that, he wasn't contesting my settlement
requests. I'd had mixed feelings all along about alimony. What it represented, whether or not I agreed with the concept, but the bottom line was that I'd given up my career to make his career possible. I'd supported him 100 percent. I made the home and hearth habitable, I kept the schedules and catered the parties and bolstered the connections and played my part so that he could soar. A high-delivering lawyer in an established law firm was compensated fairly, and all I wanted was the same.

I'd waived the option of requesting to be paid until I'd married again, as if the only way I'd be okay was if I found another husband to take care of me. Five years was all I'd asked for. Half the proceeds from the house (neither of us wanted to live there again), the title to my car (especially since the brand-new Mercedes was probably a penis gift), and five years of a monthly stipend. I could have asked for more, and he could have fought harder to provide less, but in the end he agreed that the sooner this was over, the better.

His family was furious. My family was concerned.

He was moving on. I was blissful.

Since coming home from Pienza, the wonderful words that Marcello had said still filled my heart with puffy white clouds of happiness, and things had been truly blissful.

And I was treating myself to some bliss today. I wandered past all the stores, gazing into the window displays, stopping a bit longer outside the La Perla store and making some mental notes for another day, until I found the store I'd been looking for.

Hermès.

I'd been dying for a fix. Not normally someone who goes in for labels, I justified my Hermès scarf addition as not so much buying into fashion as it was honoring a fashionable history. Audrey
Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly—all iconic women who wore these iconic scarves.

I sailed past the Birkin bags on display. I had very specific feelings about the Birkin. My mother-in-law had two. Daniel had tried to buy me one, had in fact purchased it from the store on Boylston Street. I kissed him, thanked him, then sent him back to return it. I felt it was ridiculous to spend fifteen thousand on something you carry your phone and tampons in.

But an Hermès scarf? Maybe it's because my mother gave me my first when I graduated from high school. Maybe it's because she wore them to church every Sunday, color coordinated with her purse and shoes. Maybe it's because my grandmother had dozens, collected over the years as she traveled the world with my grandfather, each scarf commemorating a different adventure.

I had my eye on a particularly fetching cashmere scarf, beautiful pink and red shot through with swirls of orange.

I was on an adventure, in a different country, and about to successfully divorce my husband amicably. A trifecta!

Thirty minutes later I was gazing down at the red, pink, and orange swirled around my neck, and bumped into someone coming in as I was coming out of Hermès.

“
Merde,
” a feminine voice cursed, and I fought to keep my balance.

“I'm so sorry,
mi scusa,
” I said, grabbing on to the door handle, steadying her as well. I saw beautiful jet-black hair smoothed into a fashionable ponytail, big green almond-shaped eyes, granite-sharp cheekbones, and a beautiful mouth turned down in a frown.

She looked familiar. Why did she look so familiar?

We both played “place the face” for a few seconds, realization dawning on me the same moment it did on her face.

Simone, the woman with Marcello my first night in Rome.