My Summer Romance

by Bella Donnis

  Our lips pressed together, softly and I wrapped my arms tight around her shoulders. Her hands clasped hard on my ribcage as her tongue entered my mouth. Small sighs came from within her as I pulled harder against her back, our lips pushing harder together. My tongue connected with hers as they danced together in rhythm. Her hands ran up my chest, thumbs grazing my breasts before entangling in hair behind my head. I ran a hand down her arm, across to her belly then slowly up to where I cupped a breast in my grip, the heavy and full globes filling my hand.

  Then she pulled away with a hand against her lips.

  “Alessia? What’s wrong?” My heart pounded against my chest.

  “Nothing, Dayna, nothing.” She looked at me and smiled. “I just think it’d be better if we took things slow.”

  Of course she made perfect sense. Jumping into sex immediately would not be the right thing to do. There were still other things to take into consideration. I had a boyfriend, I was a guest at her father’s house, I was only remaining in Italy a little under two months. How deep did I want to get into this when taking into consideration the small matter that I lived in a different country. Then there was the other small question of whether or not I was a lesbian – Not that the final point mattered to me much in this moment, yet at the same time it meant absolutely everything. “Of course, we can take things slow.” I told her. “I’d like nothing more than to get to know you better.”

  She held out her hand and I took it. We stood for a few minutes, listening to the gentle drift of the stream. Then we walked together back to the Villa di Giordano. As we neared the door, we let go of each other’s hand and returned to our rooms.

  *

  At five in the morning, I awoke when feet scrunched on the gravel that surrounded the villa. I shot out of bed and darted to the window; the first of the morning’s light revealing Alessia as she threw a bag in her car and drove away.

  Discovery

  The first day was the worst. Getting over the shock of her leaving like that. Not knowing why or for how long she’d be gone. Would she ever come back? For how much was I to blame?

  “That’s Alessia. That’s my daughter.” Alberto said, not looking up from an ancient bottle corking device he was fixing when I asked him if he knew where she’d disappeared to.

  “Well, did she leave any indication of when she’d return?”

  “No, she tends to float from one idea to the next. She’ll come back when she feels like it.” Obviously he was well used to Alessia’s errant ways. “Most likely she’s in Milano, but who’s to say?”

  I thought about asking for her cell number but what was the point? She’d made the decision to leave and so chasing after her wouldn’t do any good.

  We’d only shared a kiss, a wonderful, sweet and passionate kiss but nonetheless, it still felt like I’d been dumped. And it wasn’t as if I’d been dumped by any old person, but by somebody who’d breezed in and out of my life and literally tipped it upside-down. And she was still having an effect on me, even without being here.

  A couple of days ago I was preparing to return to England and I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind again. But important decisions made in times of emotional upheaval will rarely turn out to be the right decisions. This work experience still remained an important part of my degree course and so I decided to grit my teeth and get on with the job.

  The problem with monotonous jobs such as cutting grapes from branches all day is that you have all day to think. All you can do is think things through as your mind runs away during such tedious occupations. And so I was happy on the third day when Alberto offered to show me a different side of the wine making process.

  “At this stage, we separate the white wine making process from the red wine making process.” Alberto said, turning a lever connected to a wheel which crushed the grapes in a giant oak cask. The juice flowed from a spout at the bottom and into another tub. “Because we’re making white wine, all the skins must be separated. It’s the skins that give the juice its red colour.”

  When the oak cask was empty, its contents taken from an entire cart that took two hours to fill with harvested grapes, Alberto wheeled over the tub filled with juice and pumped the contents into a steel silo.

  “From here, we add yeast and allow the juice to ferment for two weeks, which will turn the sugar from the grapes into alcohol. The carbon dioxide in the juice also disappears which will enable the wine to lose its fizz.” Alberto said. “This part is the most time consuming of the entire process.”

  Considering the size of the winery and the dozen or so giant silos, once the grapes had been harvested, the rest of the process wasn’t anywhere near as labour intensive. It just required lots of waiting for the wine to mature. Consequently, only Alberto and another employee, a local man from Poggibonsi named Francesco, worked in the winery. Francesco, grey haired and experienced, often insisted on showing me photos of his grandkids.

  I watched Francesco discarding odd grapes he didn’t approve of before scooping up giant bunches with a shovel and chucking them into the juicer. “We make premium wine here.” He said. “The overall grape quality is the primary factor in the finished quality of our product.”

  Spending hours in a day turning a wheel to crush grapes would give me a different training effect than pushing huge carts of grapes up a pathway and I knew I’d be sore the next day, only to begin the process again.

  There was a lot for my mind to take in and I was thankful for the mental respite. Brief moments where Alessia was not in my thoughts did happen by, but then she’d always pop right back in there and a melancholy would fill my head until something came along to distract me. And then the evenings would inevitably arrive and I’d find myself becoming depressed just as I had before Alessia had breezed in and out of my life. Only this time, it felt different. I was not unhappy through boredom as I was before. I was unhappy for a completely different reason and this reason was accompanied with a near constant feeling of nausea in my stomach. What’s more, the Scalextric was broken and playing Ikari Warriors would only remind me of her.

  A week after Alessia left and she still filled my every waking thought. It hit me – You don’t fall in love with a person when they’re there with you. You fall in love when they’re away and you’re still thinking of them, always. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder, even if it was futile. I would have to live with the very real possibility that I’d never see her again.

  After crushing an entire batch of grapes, I waited for the last remnants of juice to trickle down into the tub. I grabbed the trolley lever and began to manoeuvre it toward the silos. That was when I became aware of a tall figure, leaning against the doorway, staring inside at me.

  I turned round to see who it was. “Oh my God!” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Hello gorgeous. I’ve missed you.” Patrick said, smile beaming from ear to ear. His muscular figure filled out his white shirt. He brought a single red rose from behind his back and presented it to me.

  I ran toward him, throwing my arms over his broad shoulders. “Patrick? It’s really you.” I planted a giant kiss on his lips and felt the crush from his arms as he picked me up in an embrace.

  “I missed you so much, babe.” He said softly in my ear.

  And in that moment, I realised, I’d missed him too.

  *

  “I arrived last night. I’m staying in Poggibonsi, just a couple more days. I didn’t want to turn up, surprise you and then find I couldn’t stay in your villa.” Patrick said as we strolled along through the vines. “This place is stunning.”

  “Why did you think you wouldn’t be allowed to stay?” I really didn’t think there’d be any problem with it, Alberto was cool enough.

  “Don’t know – Maybe your boss has the hots for you himself.” Patrick chuckled and I punched him in the arm.

  “Ouch! Your punches have gotten harder.”

  “That’s what manual labour does to a girl.”

&nb
sp; We were headed in the direction of the stream at the end of the path and so I pulled his hand over to the left and away from it, now heading for an orange tree that would present us some shade. The sun was burning down, Patrick would be as exposed to the heat as I was when I first arrived.

  We sat down under the tree and I gathered up an orange which had dropped to the ground.

  “Everyone says hi.” Patrick said as he plucked up a blade of grass. “We all miss you. I for one can’t wait to have you back home.”

  “I have about another six weeks here.”

  “I know, it’s just going so slow.” He planted another kiss on my lips, which I returned in a passionate embrace. He stroked my hair as our tongues connected. Then he pulled away, confused. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “It’s just that…”

  “It’s just what?” I asked as I began peeling the orange.

  “Nothing.” His eyes lowered, distracted by the orange.

  I tore off a segment and handed it to Patrick. He was a good man, I respected him and loved his company. But it just didn’t feel right anymore, if indeed it ever had.

  At seven in the evening we met in a restaurant in Poggibonsi. Leonardo’s was a traditional family restaurant decked out in an old world style, something I just couldn’t escape from on this trip. I ordered a Margarita pizza, while Patrick had a sausage topping on his. Despite ordering spring water, I still found myself checking the menu for Vino di Giordano, which the restaurant did have on offer.

  “When I got your email, I kind of panicked a bit.” Patrick admitted. “I didn’t want you to throw your future away just because you were bored.”

  “You know how I can get.” I said, not hiding the smile. He really did know me just as Marco had known Alessia.

  “I came to give you a sort of peak during your many plateaus and hopefully make the rest of your stay a little more bearable.”

  It wasn’t as though it was unbearable. Just boring – Or at least it had been before it became extremely interesting. Now, it was painful and I didn’t think returning to England would nullify the pain.

  “And give you a little something to look forward to when you return.” He said, though I didn’t know what he meant by that.

  “How so?”

  “Dayna, you know how much I love you. And all this time apart has reinforced my feelings for you.” He reached across the table and took my hand. “Today is our one year anniversary.”

  It took a moment for me to connect the dots, but he was correct. “You’re right.” How and why had that slipped me by?

  “But I’d still have come to see you anyway.” He looked at me, his eyes transfixed on mine.

  It hurt that I didn’t feel the same way about Patrick because I knew I’d have to break his heart. I’d have to do the exact same thing to Patrick as Alessia had done to Marco. The one difference being that we had been in a relationship for a year and I still didn’t love him – So why had I strung the whole thing along? Why had I mislead a good man and made him believe that there may have been a future for us, when the truth is that I knew within weeks of meeting him that there wasn’t. I’d wasted my time. But even worse – I’d wasted the time of a person I cared for. It was time to let him go, just as Alessia had done for Marco. He’d hate me, but I’d be setting him free to get on with the rest of his life.

  “Dayna, I think it’s time we moved our relationship onto the next level.”

  “Patrick, I…”

  “Dayna, I want you in my room tonight!” He gave my hand a hard squeeze and then I slipped my fingers out from his grasp.

  “Patrick…” There would be no easy way of saying it, no matter what words left my mouth. “This just isn’t right. I just don’t feel the same way.” I watched as the anguish crept into his face.

  “Dayna, what are you saying?”

  I took a deep breath. “This just isn’t working out. I have to be honest here - I don’t think you’re the right person for me.”

  “Dayna? Don’t do this, please.” He reached over and grabbed my hand again, his arm shaking. “Dayna, I’ve come all this way to see you, you can’t do this to me, please.”

  “I’m so sorry. You deserve better. You deserve happiness. But it’s not going to be with me.” I squeezed his hand as hard as I could. I needed him to know I cared, because I truly did. This was the single worst moment of my entire life.

  He wiped tears from his eyes. “I thought there was something not quite there when we were under that orange tree before. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve changed.”

  “That’s probably the truth, Patrick. I realise how wrong it was of me to stay with you all this time, making you believe we had a future. But I was confused myself. Not that I’m making excuses.” I don’t know how I managed to keep the tears flowing from my own eyes, but I knew I’d be crying tonight.

  “Of course, you have to do what you think is best.” He stood and placed some money down on the table. “I wish you all the best. But I can never see you again.”

  *

  The break up with Patrick had served to provide another distraction from Alessia. That distraction lasted more than a week, even though the underlying misery caused by that girl still simmered below the surface. I was sure I wasn’t suffering in the same way that Patrick was from the break up, since the greater part of my suffering was due to that girl and not Patrick. But I still felt pretty bad.

  Patrick and I shared many mutual friends – Friends which would now be out of bounds for me. Deep down I knew that one of the reasons I’d stayed with him was because I’d miss those friends if we broke up. On top of that, I guess it was just nice to be able to say that I had a boyfriend. I’d stayed with him for all the wrong reasons and I endeavoured never to make that same mistake again. A small part of me wondered if what had happened to me in Italy was some sort of karma.

  I had only five weeks remaining at the Villa di Giordano; they would not be easy, but neither did I think returning home would solve my problems. It was two weeks ago when Alessia, that girl, entered my life and changed it. In less than two days she’d altered the entire course of my life, then left. Two weeks after leaving, I still found myself counting the days she hadn’t been here. She was like a sickness in my heart, a sickness that couldn’t be cured. The not knowing where she was, what she was doing and who she was doing it with was killing me and no matter how busy I kept myself, Alessia was always in my mind.

  Every few days I would ask Alberto if he’d heard anything, but the answer was always the same. What’s more, he seemed amused by my constant questions about his daughter. “I had no idea you two had gotten along so well.” He said. If only he knew the truth.

  I finished crushing a batch of grapes and siphoned the juice into one of the silos. When I went to collect the next cart load of harvested grapes, the cart bay was empty. “Honestly, I could run this place by myself.” I said to nobody in particular. Was I working too fast or was everybody else taking a break?

  I went outside and looked down toward the vines. Nothing was amiss; people were working, only nobody had bothered bringing up one of the carts after filling it. I walked down to where three carts were parked and sure enough, they were full of harvested grapes, ready to be crushed. “Fine, I’ll do it myself!” The nearest person I could see was Mario, who was well out of earshot.

  I took the brake off the wheel, absorbed the slow roll down the uneven ground with my body and began pushing the cart uphill toward the winery. It was heavy and I realised this was the first time I’d attempted this task on my own, but slow and steady progress I made by using the power in my legs to heave the grape laden cart along the path, my cheek pressed against the side of one grape container for support. After a minute, lactic acid began burning away in my thighs. It was no wonder Mario and everybody else had put this task off, though surely a gentleman would run to help a lady struggling with a job like this on her own. Then it became easier as I
hit level ground so I took my face off the side of the container and looked down. Only, this was not level ground. I was still on the steep slope. Then I saw a figure in my peripheral vision. Mario must have seen me struggling and ran to help.

  “Thank you Mario.” I said, straining with the effort of pushing, my words barely comprehensible.

  “Do I really look like Mario to you?” Came a snappy feminine voice to my right.

  My legs gave way and I’d have fallen underneath the cart wheels if it wasn’t for a desperate push against the cart with my arms that sent me tumbling to the side. I fell on my back, into the soil of the adjacent vines. Alessia stepped away in the opposite direction, in hysterics, just as the cart began its fast descent downhill. I scrambled to my feet in time to watch Mario jump out of the path of the wayward cart.

  “Serves him right for not helping!” Alessia said through laughter.

  I stared at her as I shook earth, leaves and God only knew what else off my clothes and out of my hair. “You’re back!”

  “I’m back!”

  *

  “You didn’t have to sneak up on me like that.” I turned my back on her and began the walk back down the path.

  Mario strained, repositioning the cart for round two. It really was a miracle the thing hadn’t tipped over, crushing several hours work in the process.

  The patter of Alessia’s footsteps grew louder behind as she followed me down the slope. “Well you’re happy to see me aren’t you.” She said with sarcasm.

  “No, you should have stayed in Milano.” I said without turning round.

  “I wasn’t just in Milano.”

  “I really don’t care!” I pointed at Mario and then to the cart. “You wouldn’t mind helping me this time would you?” The words came out a little curter than I’d intended.