Invitation to Italian

by Tracy Kelleher

  Rad had a slight fever and was cranky. She’d kept him up until her mother had arrived late—something about having to check the tire pressure on the pickup truck she’d rented and not being able to find a gas station with a free air pump. Who rented a pickup truck anyway? Katarina had wondered. In the end, then, her mother barely managed a pat on the baby’s bald head before Katarina put him to bed.

  Perhaps Matt should have gone to bed early, too. He’d been a monosyllabic teenager over the dinner of lamb stew while Zora grilled him about a physics course. What could you expect of a teenager, overstressed from waiting to hear about college acceptances? Katarina asked herself.

  But thank God for Ben. For a man who professed not to be a people person, he’d had the inspired idea to ask Zora about her work—something she had no trouble discussing, especially since Ben made sure the wineglasses were full.

  Katarina wiped down the tile countertop and put away the dishcloth. She had tried to create a “normal” family with Ben and Matt and Rad, and of course, Babika, and her life really was good. She had nothing to complain about, she told herself regularly. But still, that hadn’t prevented her from feeling an emotional hole in her being.

  Julie sometimes complained about her mother and father—and her scary grandmother—micromanaging her life. Katarina often wished she could voice the same complaint. She had never even known her father, nor had anyone else. Sometimes, she wasn’t even sure if her mother knew, having led what she referred to as “a liberated existence.” And except for the summers in Grantham with Babika, she had never called any place home. They had moved incessantly, as her mother pursued college, then graduate school in geology, then field studies, post-docs, and appointments at a government lab here, a university there. When Katarina had broken her elbow horsing around on the high dive board at Grantham Community Swimming Pool, Babika was the one she had called. When she’d broken up with her boyfriend in college, she’d known not to bother her mother but to call Babika, who had consoled her, telling her there were bigger fish to broil—she never could get her American sayings straight.

  But tonight when she needed her most, where was her grandmother?

  “Wanda and I are catching a quick bite at the Chinese restaurant around the corner before we go to our tai chi class at the Adult School,” she had said, begging off. “We can’t possibly be late to the first class. Besides, you two have a lot of catching up to do. You don’t need me.”

  Katarina was thirty-three years old, and she wasn’t too proud to say she needed her grandmother, especially when it came to dealing with the mother she never really knew and certainly didn’t understand.

  She heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

  “Oh, there you are,” her mother said blithely as she entered the room. “I didn’t expect to find you here—the little woman in the kitchen.”

  Katarina tried not to be riled by her mother’s barb. She affixed a smile. “You’re going so soon, Mom?” She saw her mother scowl. “Sorry, I mean, Zora. You’re leaving already?” Zora had on a windbreaker. A small knapsack was slung over one shoulder.

  “Yes, well, the dinner was lovely.”

  “I’m sorry the potatoes were a little undercooked.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never even mastered making scrambled eggs. You can imagine my mother’s dismay.” Zora paused. “Anyway, I decided as long as I was back in Grantham for a while that I’d keep myself busy. I saw a pamphlet on the sideboard from the Adult School and noticed an entry for an Italian conversation class. It’s been years since I did field work at Vesuvius, and it’s time for a language refresher, especially since I’ll be giving a lecture at the University of Naples later this fall. I think I may have mentioned my plans to you?”

  Katarina picked up the dishrag again and began wiping down the counter tiles that were perfectly clean already. “I can’t say that I remember you doing that.”

  Zora awkwardly patted her daughter’s upper arm. “We’ll have other evenings, and the first class meets tonight. Luckily when I called, they still had a spot.” She fished her keys out of a side pocket of her backpack. The toggle from the rental agency hung from her hand. “I don’t want to be late then.”

  Katarina realized her mother had small, almost childlike hands. But then, she was small in stature, a good three or four inches shorter than she. Strange. She had this memory of her mother being taller.

  Katarina sighed. “Yes, it wouldn’t be good to be late to class. I’ll let Ben know you had to leave.” He had left earlier to take Matt back to school to work on editing the school newspaper.

  “Thank you. He’s a lovely man. You’ve done quite well for yourself. Ben, Matt, the baby. This house. I’m glad to see you’re settled so nicely.” She squeezed out a smile.

  “Settled so nicely. That’s a funny expression coming from you,” Katarina said. Then because she didn’t want to pick a fight, she leaned in and gave her mother a quick hug. For a moment, she felt the other woman melt into her embrace. The moment passed. Katarina stepped back.

  So much for trying to create the happy “normal” family. Maybe she’d give Julie a call and find out just who in her family was bugging her now?

  ZORA DROVE THE DARK winding road from Katarina’s house back to town. She gripped the wheel tightly. She’d driven a pickup before, but this rental model was far larger than she was used to, and she hadn’t been able to resist the appeal of its outdoorsy, independent image. She sank her teeth into her upper lip and squinted.

  Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn’t the driving that had her on edge. She was anxious about coming back to Grantham, to her mother. To her daughter.

  So why had she come home?

  Guilt for one. How long had it been? About a year? Not that bad, really. No, it was a different kind of guilt that gnawed at her. Despite all her university appointments, prestigious research grants, the accolades from her colleagues, Zora felt restless, unsettled. She found herself searching for a sense of inner peace in her life that she had never really needed before.

  Okay, so she was having a midlife crisis. Somehow, she had hoped coming back to Grantham would provide a certain ease that came with the familiar. Yet despite the outpouring of love from her mother, Zora couldn’t help noticing the ever-present vertical crease that bisected her brow. Then there was Katarina, her daughter. She never said a critical word, but Zora could feel the resentment bubbling beneath the surface. And she could also see the strong bond between Katarina and Lena. If anything, they seemed to share what would be a classic mother-daughter relationship, which of course, meant Zora was the odd man—or woman in this case—left out of the equation. That hurt. Not that she’d ever admit it. Or should she?

  But then she could imagine their retort.

  “What do you expect if you spend more time with rocks than with your own daughter, not that I am not proud of you,” her mother would say, damning her with faint praise.

  “It’s not personal,” Katarina, ever the pragmatic survivor would reply. “It’s just that she was there and you weren’t.”

  They needed to have a heart-to-heart even if Zora didn’t do heart-to-hearts. Too much emphasis on past decisions that couldn’t be changed anyway. Too many recriminations for old offences that were best forgotten. Still, she should talk to her mom. Her daughter. And she would. She really would. Just…just…not right now.

  Now she just wanted to take it easy. Find pleasure in just being. Regain that sense of confidence that had always come so naturally, but now seemed to have given way to doubts and unnamed desires.

  Zora parked the truck on the street near the high school and grabbed her knapsack. She hiked the short distance to the school, passing along the familiar tree-lined sidewalk, the football field and tennis courts. The building had changed since her day. Heck, a lot had changed. Her daughter was married and had a son. And a stepson. God, that made her a grandmother twice over. No wonder she was depressed. Then her mother had gone and gotten a roommate—he
r old high school math teacher Wanda Garrity, no less. When she came down late to breakfast in the morning, Zora had almost expected to find a detention notice.

  She headed toward the main entrance of the original brick building with its Gothic tower. The course listing gave a second-floor room number, and Zora honed in on a stairway down the hall and to the left. The hallways were teeming with adults, some chatting, some seemingly lost. A few officials from the program and what looked to be students from the high school were there to give directions. She spotted the familiar face of an imperious older woman at the central crossroads. It had to be Iris Phox. Great! Another person from her past she’d just as soon forget. She had always felt the woman looked at Grantham as her personal fiefdom.

  “I can’t stand her. She’s such an elitist snob,” Zora had announced one day when she’d stopped by her mother’s hardware store after high school. She had just witnessed Iris Phox lecturing Lena on the inferior quality of the hot water bottles she was now carrying.

  Zora would have gladly told the woman where she could put her water bottle, if Lena hadn’t shot her a warning glance. She waited until Iris had glided out the door like the Queen Mother—she even carried a pocketbook over her wrist the same way—before turning to her mother. “I can’t stand her. The way she treats you like a peasant.”

  “That’s just her way. Besides, we should all be grateful to her,” Lena had argued. “Most rich people keep all their money to themselves. Iris gives away to people who need. And that makes her feel needed, too.”

  Zora, with the black-and-white perception of the world that only an eighteen-year-old could bring, had shaken her head defiantly. “And if she gives away money, it’s because she likes to control people.”

  “Sometimes that’s the same as being needed,” Lena had said with a shrug of her shoulder before turning to serve the next customer.

  And now Iris Phox was approaching her. Zora tried to pretend she didn’t see her making a beeline in her direction and tucked her chin down into her coat. She swerved to the right toward the stairway.

  “Zora! Zora Zemanova!” Iris called out. Her high brow tones carried above the anxious din of the crowd.

  Zora stopped. There was no point in pretending she hadn’t heard. She turned around and only marginally masked her irritation. “Mrs. Phox, a voice out of my past, a voice that one might say carries an unmistakable quality.”

  Iris pursed her lips. “Yes, my son Hunt once said I sounded like a Boston Brahman foghorn, which I always took as a mixed compliment.”

  Zora smirked. She never really knew Iris’s son, but she had a newly found regard for him.

  “I see you’re taking advanced Italian conversation,” Iris went on.

  Zora raised her eyebrows. “You memorized all the class lists?” She saw the sheaf of papers stacked neatly atop the folder in Iris’s arms.

  “I am the president of the Adult School, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t, but why would I have thought otherwise,” Zora said.

  If Iris had felt the criticism in Zora’s words, she didn’t show it. “I wanted to welcome you back to Grantham and commend you on your choice. It’s been one of the more popular offerings over the years, one we’re quite proud of. In fact, I personally recommended that Julie Antonelli enroll in it. You know Dr. Antonelli, of course? I believe that besides your dear mother, her family practically raised your daughter, Katarina, over the years?”

  She had felt the criticism, Zora realized, feeling the sharp blade of Iris’s words. “I’m forever grateful to them,” Zora responded, knowing when she had been bested.

  “Yes, well, it’s always good to see one of our own return. Here in Grantham, we like to think our little town has much to offer in the way of scholarly stimulation as well as personal guidance.”

  “A little bastion of academic exclusivity to nurture the soul?”

  “I prefer to think of it as intellectual chicken soup for the heart.”

  Zora wasn’t sure if Iris had just made a joke. She wasn’t really sure if Iris Phox even had a sense of humor.

  “But don’t let me keep you from your class,” Iris said before Zora had a chance to make up her mind. “Do you need my help to find where you’re going?”

  Zora shook her head. “No thank you. I’m sure there’re others who need more guidance.”

  Iris studied her. “You’d be surprised.” Then she dismissed Zora with a serene nod and honed in on a lost-looking man.

  Talk about judgmental! Zora fumed. But she pushed thoughts of Iris to the back of her mind as she headed up the stairs to the second floor of the school. She checked out the numbers above the doors, until she found the right one. She pushed open the door and entered a world in which she felt entirely comfortable.

  During the day it must have served as a Spanish classroom because there were posters of Machu Picchu and a map of Spain.

  Zora maneuvered her way down the first aisle, nodding at her fellow students in the front-row seats. They seemed to be mostly women over fifty, casually but well dressed in cashmere turtleneck sweaters. Zora clutched at the open neck of her green anorak. Underneath she wore an oversize men’s button-down Oxford cloth shirt, its sleeves rolled up. It was still wrinkled from her duffel bag, and ironing was something she avoided at all costs.

  Everyone seemed to be talking loudly, mostly in American-accented Italian, though she thought she detected some other native inflections like Spanish and French.

  Then she saw a face that she recognized. Julie Antonelli, Katarina’s old childhood friend whom she’d seen only the day before yesterday at Babika’s. She was slouched down in a seat toward the back of the room and seemed intent on texting or checking email on her phone. Iris may have recommended the class to her, but it didn’t appear that she had embraced the learning experience with much enthusiasm.

  Maybe she was worried about her language skills? Good, thought Zora, ever the competitor. Julie—and the entire Antonelli family, for that matter—might know more about her daughter’s secrets, but Zora was sure she could surpass her in the classroom. Zora’s Italian might be a little rusty, but she doubted the good doctor had spent a sabbatical stay in Italy like she had. And she marched to the back of the room, no need of anyone’s guidance at all, thank you very much.

  JULIE SLUMPED IN the seat at the back of the class. Rubbing her forehead with her index finger, she glanced without much interest around the room. A dusty-looking piñata hung from the ceiling in one corner.

  Her phone vibrated in the pocket of her jacket and she instantly liberated it, hoping against hope that some emergency needed her attention desperately. She glanced at the message. It was from Katarina, wondering who in her family was bugging her now.

  Julie texted back.

  The family’s at bay, but I’m at an Adult School class. Iris Phox’s idea. Could you have guessed?

  She grinned and wished she’d felt happy instead of irritated at being railroaded into being there—all because of some stupid vase, and…all right…her impetuous behavior. Still, if Sebastiano Fonterra had been a more reasonable person instead of…instead of…frustratingly…ooh! She wanted to scream. How could someone be so pigheaded and so attractive at the same time?

  It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. Why else had she been forced to go back to Grantham High School of all places? Unless you’re the prom queen, who really wanted to go back to high school. She growled, and this time didn’t bother to keep it inside.

  “I’m sorry. Is this seat taken?” a woman asked.

  Julie looked up. Speak of the devil. No, not Sebastiano Fonterra, but Katarina’s mother, of all people. Julie straightened. “Zora, right?” She held her hand out to the empty seat, trying to be friendly, or at least her best imitation of friendliness.

  “That’s right. We saw each other at my mother’s house.” Zora took a stack of three-by-five cards and a pen out of little pockets in her knapsack. She looked ready to attack any and all subjects.

&
nbsp; “Well, it’s nice to recognize a face,” Julie said. “Everyone else seems to know each other, not to mention belong to another world. Take the woman over there.” She nodded toward an older woman dressed in pressed designer jeans. Her frosted hair was set off by mega-carat diamond stud earrings. “She’s been going on about how sad she was to find out that George Clooney sold the villa next to hers on Lake Como. Apparently, I quote, ‘He’s so down-to-earth.’”

  Zora laughed. “I can believe it. Only in Grantham.” She held out a note card. “Can I lend you something to write on?”

  “That’s okay. I’m here under duress. If I really need to make any notes, I’ll enter them into my phone.” She waggled her iPhone in its black case, in keeping with her black crinkly jacket, black tank top and black pants.

  The class door started to open, then stopped.

  “At last, our teacher,” Julie whispered without much enthusiasm. “I gather from all the conversation that they all lo-ove her. Gabriella this. Gabriella that. They even know that she went back to see her family in Modena over the summer.”

  The door opened wide.

  “Unless our teacher’s had a sex change operation, I don’t think that’s Gabriella,” Julie observed. “On the other hand, if it is, it could really liven up the discussion.” She looked over at Zora, who seemed for all the world like she’d just seen a ghost.

  The “regulars” started chattering away again, and Julie figured it was a false alarm. Just a late student. He looked vaguely familiar, like someone she’d seen at the dry cleaners or the supermarket—not that she had the chance to frequent the supermarket all that much.

  So she stared at him, not quite placing the face and certainly not knowing the name. He was middle-aged, thin, like someone who kept himself in shape. His head was shaved, and an outline of stubble showed his red hair was starting to recede. His face was lined, not so much from laughter as from too much time in the sun, too many worries or too dissolute a lifestyle. Still, he looked pretty good for a middle-aged guy, and in his expensive leather bomber jacket—Julie pegged it for Façonnable—and faded designer jeans, he clearly had more than a passing acquaintance with high-end boutiques.