Invitation to Italian

by Tracy Kelleher

  Julie’s heart sank. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse… She stepped close, expecting all eyes to turn to her, but when she saw the letters on the cake she blinked.

  The birthday being honored wasn’t hers. It was Nonna’s.

  Julie’s father came over to her and put his arm around her. “I know it was your birthday yesterday, but Nonna’s is next week, and she is turning seventy-five. That works for you, right?” Lou asked, giving her a squeeze.

  “It works for me just fine. Thanks, Dad, as always.” She was worried she might start crying. She sniffed and shook her head in a quick recovery. Then she waded through the family, especially the kids, who were hanging around the table and choosing which frosting flower was theirs, and stooped next to her grandmother.

  Julie kissed her on her dry cheek. For the occasion, she noticed that Nonna wore her best little drop-diamond earrings. The pierced holes in her ears were now more a thin line than distinct points. “Buon compleanno, Nonna. Happy birthday, Nonna.”

  The older woman smiled and patted her hand, then turned her full attention to the cake. She blew out her candles with the help of all the great-grandchildren. Then she herded them around her and started telling Julie’s mom how to cut the cake, designating who got which piece and how big. Somehow they all got ginormous portions with flowers.

  There was a loud ping on a crystal wine glass. “Attenzione!” Lou tapped his wineglass again. He picked up a large envelope from the white lace tablecloth.

  “Nonna,” Lou began, speaking his mother’s title with respect and love, “in honor of your birthday, we, the family, have decided to give you a special present.” He rocked on the heels of his slippers and milked the moment. “Angela and I are taking you to Italy, back to your village in the Abruzzi. We know you haven’t been back since you came to America, but we have been in touch with some of the family still there, and they are anxious to see you. And then afterward, all three of us are going on a Mediterranean cruise for ten days, along the Amalfi coast, to Sicilia, Sardenia, over to the French Riviera. Not bad, eh?” He gave her the envelope and a big hug.

  Nonna stared blindly at the envelope, tears welling in her eyes. She pulled a white hankie from the sleeve of her black sweater and dotted her eyes. She passed the envelope back to her son, asking him to open it. “My arthritis,” she complained in Italian, to mask the fact that her hands were shaking with emotion.

  Lou opened the envelope, read aloud the card—it had gilt-edge flowers, Julie saw—and removed the tickets and a brochure from the cruise-ship line. He handed them to his mother, and she studied them carefully, rubbing her nose with the handkerchief.

  “Scusa. Partiamo la prossima settimana? Excuse me, we leave next week?” she asked her son.

  “We have to be there for your birthday,” he reassured her. “The whole family in Italy has already begun cooking. And now that your heart has checked out fine, there’s no excuse. Not even passports. You remember how I insisted you get one over the summer so that you would have a picture ID since you didn’t have a driver’s license?” Lou tapped his temple. “I was already planning, thinking ahead.”

  Nonna nodded, clutching the tickets. “Che bravo figlio mio! My terrific son!” She examined the tickets closely, then looked up. “What deck are we on the boat?” she asked in Italian. “I want a window to see out.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Nonna,” Angela spoke up. “For you, we all got the best. A suite!” She bustled off to the kitchen to put on the coffee.

  Julie leaned toward her brother Dom. “So how come nobody told me? My money’s not good enough suddenly?”

  Dom shrugged. “Mom and Dad didn’t tell anybody but me. They probably thought you guys wouldn’t be able to keep a secret from Nonna.”

  “That’s true. She can read me like a book. But still, you’re so good at holding your tongue? I don’t think so,” she teased him.

  “Don’t take it personally. The only reason they told me was because I could get them a good deal through the sister of the guy I work for. She owns a travel agency….”

  Julie tuned out the rest. Dom was an insurance agent. He already handled her malpractice insurance, but was constantly angling for Julie to get term life insurance or an annuity or some other “financial instrument.” There were times when Julie knew just where she’d like to put some of her instruments. But she was sure he’d get a good deal, come what may. She glanced over at her grandmother to smile and saw her talking to Sebastiano. For a minute there, she had almost forgotten about him. Actually, less than half a minute, more like a quarter. Okay, ten seconds.

  She peered at her watch, wondering if it was too early to leave. She could always make an excuse, claim that one of her patients was going into labor.

  She made a beeline to the living room window and tried to remember when she’d last used the same lie. She looked out the rectangular panes of the bow window and saw her fragmented reflection in the glass. The image was too appropriate to be accidental. If she weren’t careful, she’d start believing in superstitious powers like her grandmother.

  She switched her view to the family photos lovingly displayed along the windowsill, a pictorial journey through the years of children and grandchildren—births, weddings and graduations. There used to be one of her in a U Conn basketball uniform. After the car crash, it had quietly been removed.

  Julie wet her lips. Would she ever be able to get away from her past, be able to put it safely away in an emotional drawer? Last night, her conversation with Sebastiano had seemed to help. His advice had hit a chord. But what about him?

  The man was full of secrets, secrets that he selectively divulged—first his alcoholism, now that he was married. In her book, there were two nonnegotiable rules when it came to relationships between consenting adults. Number One was the use of contraception, and Number Two was that both parties were single. Failure on either account was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned. She couldn’t fault him on the first, but it appeared that he’d failed miserably on the second.

  She sensed footsteps coming up behind her but didn’t bother to look to see who it was. She knew.

  How come after less than a week, she could recognize the sound of his walk, identify his subtle scent and just know? Why wasn’t life as logical and rational as a medical textbook? She shook her head. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Do you think we can safely sneak out now?” he asked, his voice caressing the side of her head.

  She swirled around, her arms crossed. “You think I have any intention of leaving with you?”

  “I’m sorry. I thought from across the room that you looked tired. I was merely thinking of you, trying to help out.”

  She frowned.

  “I’ve done something wrong?” Sebastiano asked. “I don’t understand, especially when we have hardly talked the whole evening.”

  “Oh, I think you said it all when you told my grandmother that you were married.” She strummed the fingers of both hands on her upper arms.

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, ‘oh, that.’”

  “I should have said something, I know, but it’s really something out of my past, that was over a long time ago. We both wanted the divorce, very amicable, but unfortunately, according to Italian law, it still takes three years of separation for it to be legal. The whole thing should be finalized in less than a month. So you see, there’s really nothing to talk about.” He went to touch her arm.

  She pulled back. “Why do I get the feeling there is more to this than meets the eye? You say it’s just the past, but we both know the past just doesn’t go away—even for people not as crazy as me. If it were simply a matter of legal procedure, why wouldn’t you have told me about it already? And what about the child you mentioned? Huh? That’s more than a legal procedure.”

  She saw him glance away. It was the first cowardly thing she had ever seen him do. And beyond his shoulder she noticed from the other room th
at Nonna was staring at them. All she needed now was for Caruso to start singing ominously, and the scene would be complete.

  She steeled her resolve. “No, there’s something else. Something you’re hiding. And you’re going to tell me, you are. Because, trust me, I didn’t grow up in a household of three brothers without knowing how to get them to talk.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  KATARINA HUNG UP the phone on the nightstand next to her side of the bed and rolled over, snuggling close to her husband, her stomach spooning against his broad back. No matter what the temperature, Ben insisted on sleeping in the nude. She shifted the duvet over her shoulders and wrapped her arm around his waist, grateful for his furnace-like body temperature on the chilly night.

  “Who was that?” Ben grumbled, half-asleep. He reached down and squeezed her hand. With a baby in the house, they had learned not to stay up late, because as sure as the sun came up the next morning, baby Rad would be up at the crack of dawn, chirping more insistently than the cardinals that had taken up residence in the Norway maples outside their bedroom window.

  “It was Zora.” Katarina rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

  Ben shifted his weight and turned around. “You’re kidding me? Your mother? The only woman in the world who told her daughter when she was barely out of diapers to call her by her first name because ‘only insipid bourgeois families insisted on such traditional paradigms.’ Hell, I had to look up the meaning of ‘insipid,’ and I’m forty. So, tell me. What did Zora the Great want now? To let you know she was rushing out of your life yet again?”

  “Oh, don’t be so hard on her. She didn’t have it easy raising a kid and trying to finish school and build a career.”

  “I’m tired of feeling sorry for her. And as far as raising a kid, it seems to me that any credit for that belongs to Babika and yourself.”

  Katarina touched him lovingly on the cheek with the pad of her thumb. “My hero. Whatever happened, it’s in the past.”

  “Well, you know my opinion on that. Your past is never that far away—look how it still makes me such a weird misanthrope,” he replied.

  “You’re not weird and you’re not the lone wolf you pretend to be. Two children and a wife, plus regular attendance at high school orchestra concerts. Seems to me you’ve become a functioning member of society. And I think that makes you pretty special.”

  Ben frowned. “So what did she want?”

  Katarina bit down on her lower lip in thought. “It was the strangest thing. She wanted to get together to talk about Matt applying to college, of all things. She never even got involved when I was applying.”

  “See, I told you she can still get to you.” He rubbed his hand up and down the side of her hip, somehow managing to raise her nightgown to her waist.

  Katarina smiled, keenly aware of his touch on her skin. “Whatever. I told her I’d meet her tomorrow morning at Babika’s. Knowing Zora, she’ll probably lose interest after one sip of coffee.”

  He snaked his hand around to fondle her breast. “Well, as long as that’s settled, about your level of interest…now?”

  Katarina’s breath caught in her throat as he toyed with her nipple. “As tempting as that sounds, do you realize the baby’s going to wake up in—” she stretched to read the alarm clock next to his side of the bed “—less than seven hours?”

  Ben stilled his hand. “Is it that late? I’ve got to catch the seven-oh-five train into the city in the morning to try to interest investors in Outdoor Family Initiative. I’d like more funding to help me with new ways to reach out to multigenerational families with disabled members.”

  The past was never far away, Katarina realized. Ben, who had grown up an unwanted orphan, shunted from one foster home to the next, now put all his professional energies into his nonprofit organization that brought families together on outdoor adventures. She wiggled closer, her nose close to his. “Rain check, then?”

  “Rain check,” he concurred. “But at least, let me give you a cuddle.”

  She turned on her side, her back to him, and let him envelop her in his strength. Within a minute she could hear his faint snoring.

  Oh, how quickly new love fades, she thought, smiling as she fell asleep.

  “MOM, A LARGE Tupperware container of leftovers is a bit overkill. I think a small one will probably last me more than long enough,” Julie protested as she tried to head out the door. She had not needed the patient-in-labor excuse because the party had broken up anyway—right after the children had eaten too much cake and started bouncing off the walls, cranky from their sugar highs.

  Now she was just trying to extricate herself from her parents’ place without having to carry her weight in lasagna. Somehow Frank and Mary Beth had managed to escape without being loaded down with food—it helped having a sleeping baby slung over your shoulder, Julie thought. Joey and family had slipped out the backdoor. Totally unfair. At least Dom had agreed to take cake for the office tomorrow.

  Actually, Julie wouldn’t mind gorging herself on sugary frosting right now, but somehow her mother had neglected to include that in her haul.

  “Nonsense,” Angela protested, handing Sebastiano an equally large container.

  “You’re too kind,” he said, taking the food.

  With cake! Julie couldn’t help noticing. There was no justice.

  “I’m sure you’ve seen the way she eats,” Angela said to Sebastiano as if Julie weren’t standing right there. “A candy bar here, a soda there. Some day it will catch up to her and she’ll gain weight and lose all her teeth.”

  “On that happy note, thanks for the evening, Mom. And I’ll stop by at the garage tomorrow and give you a check for my share of Nonna’s birthday gift.”

  Angela offered up her cheek as Julie bent to kiss her. “Good. Then I can give you a copy of our itinerary. You have a key to the house, right? For when we’re away.”

  Julie rolled her eyes. “Is the Pope Catholic?” Then she saw her mother’s horrified look. “Sorry, just a figure of speech.”

  Angela shook her head. “Always quick with the wise-crack.” She shot a knowing glance at Sebastiano.

  “Why am I not surprised?” he responded with a smile.

  Great, her boyfriend—no, she couldn’t call him that now, and, frankly, had they ever really established that kind of a relationship?—was siding with her mother. “Mom, about the key and keeping an eye on the house while you’re gone. You know my schedule. I’m always working.”

  “And your brothers aren’t? Besides they have families to take care of, children.”

  Julie looked away. There was no way she could trump that double whammy.

  “Anyway, it’s not like you’ll have a lot to do. I’ve already stopped the newspaper while we’re gone. And I told the postman. Still, you might check that there’re no packages or that no branches have fallen from the maples on the lawn. You know how your father is about the branches.”

  It was true, if Julie’s father could have vacuumed the grass he would have. His favorite thing in the world was his gas-powered leaf blower.

  “Okay, Mom, no problem. I’ll make sure the lawn is clean enough to eat off. But we really have to go now. I’ve got to make rounds first thing in the morning.”

  “You always have rounds first thing in the morning,” Angela pointed out.

  “And Sebastiano has an early meeting,” Julie added.

  “Well, in that case.” Angela shooed them to the door.

  Sebastiano waited for her on the path, his food tucked under her arm. “I suppose you still want to talk?”

  “You think you can delay this any longer?” She shot him a look. “I don’t think so.”

  “Your place then?”

  She hesitated. She didn’t want to be sidetracked. Actually, tempted was more accurate. And despite her fury, she still found him oh, so tempting. “No, definitely not my place.” And before he could offer the obvious, she added, “And not yours. As much as I’m curious what kind of
décor a hospital CEO chooses for his abode—”

  “Abode?”

  She scowled. “Don’t try to get cute. I think neutral territory is called for. Bean World.”

  “You think it’ll be open at this time of night?” He glanced at his watch.

  Rolex, Julie noticed with a sneer. Well, who was she to talk about name brands when she was carrying a Prada bag? She pulled back her sleeve and looked at her illuminated watch face. “No problem. It’s only ten-thirty now.”

  “I just hope we don’t run into anyone we know,” he said.

  “Well, my friends are new moms, and for Sarah and Katarina, late night gab sessions went out the window as soon as diapers came into the picture.”

  “Did you ever think that I might also have some friends?”

  She fished her car keys out of her pocket and opened the back door of her car to put in the leftovers. She turned back. “So, I guess since you brought your car, too, we might as well just meet there. And frankly, I’m not so concerned about friends. It’s the rest of Grantham that can be a real pain.”

  SEBASTIANO GOT TO the coffee shop first. That’s what happens when you don’t drive the speed limit. Julie, he knew, would make sure to go two miles under.

  He stood next to the glass case containing cookies and sandwiches. In front was a small seating area that was exposed to the street. He glanced over his shoulder to survey the raised seating area at the rear of the store. There was only one guy hunched over a laptop, a woolen knit hat pulled low on his brow. The coast appeared pretty clear then. Good. He wanted as much discretion as possible.

  A whoosh of cool nighttime air sharply invaded the cramped space. Only one person Sebastiano knew could disrupt heaven and earth so quickly. Julie. Only someone with that much force of personality could have corralled him into talking about his past. The question was, was he ready? Would he ever be ready?