“I’m going to church?”
“Yes, we go to midnight mass and you will come with us. I won’t have it any other way.” He read her mind again. “You don’t need to be Catholic or even any kind of believer. It is just a matter of showing regard for my mother.”
“I wasn’t complaining. It’s just back home I only go to church for weddings and funerals.”
“Not even on Christmas Eve or Good Friday?”
“Not even for those, no. I had a sort of typical Anglo, Canadian, urban, secular humanistic upbringing. But it’s fine. I wasn’t complaining. And I love singing carols, or attempting to sing them, since I don’t know many Italian carols.”
“You will have the words in front of you. And then, you can wear your other nice outfit for family lunches and for Christmas morning. But most of the rest of your time here will be fine for casual clothes. I want to show you our vineyard and my father wants to show you all his animals. Speaking of…micio, micio…ah, here she is!”
A small black cat with the tiniest bit of white on her nose came running toward Sandro. He lifted her up and gave her a kiss on the head. “Sigrid, this is Maximillia.”
“Well, hello there, Maximillia. Oh goodness, what happened to the poor thing?”
Maximillia’s right eye was missing.
“Well, when my father first saw her, she was a ratty little thing outdoors, hungry, with ear mites, and quite sick. So he started feeding her to gain her trust and brought her to the vet, after he was finally able to trap her, of course. At that point, her right eye had become infected—probably as the result of a fight with another animal or, sadly, perhaps as the result of someone being deliberately cruel to her—to the point that the only solution was to remove it. But as you can see, she is fine now. She is even a little plump in the belly.”
“Yes, but she deserves it.”
“And she’s Maximillia because my father thought she was a boy and called her ‘Max’ until the vet had a look at her.”
“I hope she doesn’t have any gender identity issues,” laughed Sigrid.
“None at all. She’s spayed now and spoiled and happy and has no need for all that sexual nonsense and being abandoned by her man, stuck to raise kittens alone in the cruel world.”
Lucky girl, thought Sigrid. No broken heart in her future.
“You will meet our other cat later, I’m sure. He is Boris. He is large and orange and not that friendly—I mean, you can pet him but you cannot pick him up—and was also rescued by my father. Part of his tail is missing because someone was very cruel to him long ago and tried to cut it off. We are sure of that.”
“Oh goodness! That is horrible!”
“I know. Unfortunately, this person was never punished by the law, but my father made sure everyone in our area knew who it was so they would keep an eye on him and keep animals away from him as much as they could. Anyway, Boris showed up in our vineyard three years ago with half his tail missing, bleeding and crying. Again, my father took him in. He’s happy as can be now and I hope has no memory of his past.”
“I would seriously marry your father if he weren’t already married,” said Sigrid.
Sandro felt an odd pang of jealousy. “I care for animals, too, you know. I’m not as active as you and my father, but I care very much for animals. I’m more aware of animals I see around me in the city, since knowing you.”
“I’m glad.”
There was an awkward pause when Sigrid wondered if Sandro were actually jealous of her obvious admiration for his father.
“Um, maybe I should get settled?”
“Yes, of course. Let me take you to your room. Then I’ll go find mamma. I suspect she’s over in the vineyard, looking over some details.”
Sandro led Sigrid to a suite complete with large bathroom, small sitting room and a window that looked out on the Totti family land. Her bed was a four-poster canopy, something she would have loved to have had as a little girl.
“This is gorgeous, perfect. Thank you.”
“Not at all. Make yourself at home, have a bath if you wish. Everything you need is there. It’s about 4 p.m. now, so you have plenty of time to unwind, even have a nap. We start pre-dinner drinks at about 7, down in the same room as the Christmas tree.”
“Okay. Is there Wi-Fi, by the way? I’ve brought my laptop and I wouldn’t mind checking my messages. My mother will probably send some pictures from the family get-together in Toronto.”
“Of course, if you have wireless capability on your laptop you should be able to access the estate’s Wi-Fi without a password—it should automatically connect. Do you?”
“Yes, thanks so much.”
“You can call your mother, of course, from our landline. My parents won’t mind. Italians take both Christmas and family quite seriously.”
“That’s very generous, but if I do call mom it will be from my cell. I may even see if I can get her to Skype, although she doesn’t like it.”
“Please do as you prefer, cara.”
Sandro left Sigrid’s suite quickly. He had to. He knew that if he stayed he would pin her to the bed and make love to her right then and there. He had promised his father that he would respect his mother’s views on such matters. He also knew that if he stayed he would demand to know to whom in the hell she was sending email messages. Doug? She had said she wanted to see if her mother had sent her anything, but Sandro couldn’t stop thinking there was more to it. If not Doug, then maybe some other man, some other Italian she had met. I am not blind. She was tall and blonde and he could see how men stared at her in Rome, as if she were a piece of tiramisu they wanted to savour and feel melt on their tongue, or a chocolate they wanted to unwrap and enjoy. I am the only one who will be unwrapping Sigrid.
And if he ever got his hands on that idiot Doug he would let him know what he thought of how he had treated Sigrid, not appreciating the work she did, making fun of her love of animals and, worst of all, not devoting himself to her pleasure in the bedroom. Canadian men must all be stupid, he thought. Sigrid was so…Stop it, Sandro, stop it. This is just a fling, a relationship with an agreed-to expiry date. She is leaving January thirty-first and I will probably get bored with her before then. Until he met Flavia, he had found most women unable to hold his attention and when she revealed herself as nothing more than a gold digger, he knew that he would never again allow himself to be so vulnerable.
Why would Sigrid be any different? Sandro was determined that she could not be and that she would not be.
A few hours later, Sigrid had put on her one good dress: a classic little black dress, clingy in all the right places but not too much so, mid-calf length and sleeveless so that it could be worn year-round. She was pleased that she had remembered to pack a red shawl, at least, and she wore it draped over her arms to make the look both more festive and more modest.
“Buona sera,” she said, feeling shy as she entered the glorious room with the glorious Christmas tree in it, the room filled with mostly strangers.
“Buona sera,” said Sandro’s father, rushing over to kiss Sigrid and take her around the room to meet everyone. Sandro’s cousins—demure Maria and elegant, swarthier-than-Sandro Alessio—were there and, of course, Sandro. It was funny. They had been as intimate with each other as could be, and yet Sigrid blushed each time she saw Sandro anew, each time she saw him seeing her.
And finally, there was Signora Totti.
“I am Sandro’s mother. Call me Francesca,” she said, extending a hand to Sigrid.
“Piacere. Call me Sigrid.”
“Lei e belissima.”
“Grazie. Anche Lei.”
Francesca laughed. “I am old. Not so beautiful anymore. But you, on the other hand, are young and lovely and also the first woman my son has brought here in a long time.” She smiled as Maria tittered and Alessio winked in Sigrid’s direction.
“Mamma! It was papà who invited her, not me.”
Gee thanks, thought Sigrid.
Feelin
g awkward and wanting to put an end to that particular conversation, she looked around the room for a distraction and noticed a cat that must have been Boris sitting on a windowsill. Sadly—as per Sandro’s accounting of Boris’ early life—half his tail was missing, but other than that he looked healthy, with a glossy orange coat and a muscular body.
“Oh, the other kitty,” said Sigrid, rushing over to him. She was poised to pick him up when virtually the whole Totti family shouted, “No, no, Seegreed!”
Sigrid had forgotten Sandro’s warning that Boris did not like to be picked up, but the cries of the Tottis came too late, for Sigrid had already lifted the cat off the windowsill and folded him into her. “Hi, baby,” she cooed.
The whole room went silent until it became clear that Boris was willing not only to tolerate behind held by Sigrid, but actually liked it. Sigrid continued talking baby talk to him, and giving him chin and throat rubs and he purred and bumped his head against her in the universal cat-sign of happiness and friendship.
The Totti clan let out a collective breath of relief.
“Incredibile!” said Giuseppe.
“She’s a gattara, a real cat lady with a real gift,” said Sandro, beaming and sounding awfully proud.
“Yes, but one who drives a Vespa, I see,” said Francesca, gesturing toward the large window that gave out onto the back of the house and a vast stretch of land. Sigrid looked and saw her Vespa and Sandro’s as-yet-unnamed Vespone, side by side.
“They were delivered this afternoon. I have heard that you and my son have plans to go riding out in the Tuscan countryside. I hope you will be careful.”
“Yes, mamma, we do have such plans and we will be careful. But not till tomorrow. Tonight, let us enjoy a good dinner among family and new friends and apparently, a brand new Boris!”
Chapter Eight
Christmas Eve found Sandro and Sigrid off on their bikes, Sandro leading the way on a tour of his family’s estate and vineyard. He had a picnic basket attached to the back of his Vespone, and Sigrid and Guido la Vespa followed behind until they reached what looked like a farmhouse in the middle of the vineyard.
“We can park here,” Sandro said. “And leave our things inside. Then we can go for a walk through the vineyard, although it is turning to real winter here in Tuscany, so maybe not a long walk. It is not like Canada—we don’t always get real winter here.”
“Count your blessings—real winter means minus thirty degrees and bundling up in an utterly inelegant manner that would make you Italians cringe in horror. This is not real winter in other words. All I see is a light dusting of snow that probably won’t last twenty-four hours. This is child’s play. So a long walk sounds great.”
They walked for about twenty-five minutes as Sandro explained the difference between the grapes used for Pinot Grigio as opposed to other types of wine. He talked about the very fine red wine his family produced, a wine which unfortunately Sigrid would not be able to drink.
“Your migraines are really a bother, are they not?”
“Let me put it this way: it is like having a little gremlin inside my head, stabbing my right temple and my right eyeball with an ice-pick.”
“And doctors cannot help you?”
“Well, some prescription drugs alleviate the pain, but it can incapacitate me for days, literally. Things like red wine and dark chocolate—all that good stuff—are triggers, but the root cause is my crazy wallop of hormones, supposedly.”
“Wallop?”
“Wallop is like ‘bunch’ or a lot, my crazy bunch of hormones. I have a whole lot of crazy hormones.”
Sandro laughed. “You do have some crazy hormones and really a wallop of them.”
“Don’t I just?”
“I hear that in Canada you make some nice dessert wines, called ice wines, I believe. Are you able to drink those?”
“Yes, we do and yes I am. I’m surprised you know about ice wines, to tell you the truth.”
“Why? To run a successful business, you have to know what other products are out there, what competition and so forth. I’ve tasted ice wine and very much liked it, but I don’t think we have the weather necessary in Italy to produce it with any regularity. But I think this country’s other wines and, of course Prosecco, more than make up for it.”
“I suppose, yes, that Italians might give Canadians a bit of a run for our money where any wine other than ice wine is concerned,” she teased. Sigrid slipped her hand into Sandro’s and to her delight and astonishment, he allowed it. Hand-holding was definitely not his thing, she realized. He probably deems it too romantic, too sappy, too naïve, too…too…too much something he did with Flavia. Ugh, Flavia. She hated that woman and she hadn’t even met her. She also hated the name. What sort of pretentious parents did this woman have, naming their kid as though it were still the era of the Roman Empire?
“What are you thinking about, Sigrid?”
“Nothing, nothing, just that it is getting chilly and I don’t have my Canadian winter coat here.”
“Let’s head back and have our lunch.”
Inside the farmhouse, Sigrid realized that it wasn’t so much that as it was storage space for a lot of equipment used in the wine-making business. It also had a basement with many bottles of Totti family wines in racks and a small kitchen and bedroom area where staff could cook and sleep if they were working long hours.
“Ah, so this is what you wanted,” said Sigrid, when she saw the bedroom.
“Well, I also just wanted to spend time alone with you, but yes, it did occur to me that we could make love out here, away from my mother’s house, and therefore not breaking any of her rules. I am Italian, you know. We never want to insult our mammas.”
“I know. And I think it is nice. I can’t imagine my brothers being so respectful, or rather, so respectful without complaining about it ad infinitum.”
“Here, let me get you something to eat. Many of our employees are taking this week off for Christmas and Capodanno, New Year’s, so I thought we could have a picnic here. I changed the sheets on the bed here yesterday when you were getting settled.” He grinned.
“You think of everything.”
“I do.”
And he had thought of everything: a clean tablecloth, paper plates, plastic cups, bread, cheese, cold pasta pesto left over from the night before, biscotti and a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio. “In honour”—Sandro winked—“of the little fellow who brought us together.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think Guido really brought us together: if I hadn’t been out on him that night I never would have seen poor Pinot. And because of his ability to wind through narrow straights and weave around cars, I was able to follow Pinot. On foot I couldn’t have and in a taxi it would have been nearly impossible.”
“I think your hormones are making you a bit crazy. An inanimate object brought us together? I know you have named it, but your Vespa does not have a soul or heart.”
“I guess not, but he has soulful little headlights.”
“You’re a very funny woman.”
“Yep, I’m a regular Phyllis Diller.”
“Who is this person?”
“She was a very funny woman who was not so beautiful but used her looks as a way to make people laugh. And actually, she was very attractive. She just played up her oddness with wild hair and wacky clothes, and…”
“Enough! I did not need a run-down of this Diller person’s entire life. You are beautiful and also funny. That’s what matters to me, right now.”
“Well, thank you.” Sigrid surveyed the feast and the table. “Gosh, Sandro—if I didn’t know better I would say this was a very romantic move on your part. But we’re not about romance, are we?”
“No, we are not. Who needs romance?”
Sigrid felt her stomach lurch at the comment but she thought of Doug and of her pact with Sandro. Pride was the route to choose. “Not me. It never gets you anywhere.”
They drank and ate and kissed and kissed
and kissed until they navigated their way, all the while kissing, to the bedroom. For once, Sandro’s lovemaking was not frantic or aggressive or bossy, but sweet and slow and warm with so much kissing that Sigrid thought her lips would be raw for the rest of her life.
Sandro was still virile, still dominant, but there was just something different, gentleness, stillness even, as he moved inside her and continued to do so until he sent her into a dizzying orgasm. Not once did he seem to take his eyes off her eyes. Not once did he let go of her. Not once did she sense he had pulled away emotionally, as she was certain he had the other times they were together, even as he remained inside of her physically and keen to start the next round.
And today they had held hands.
“You are always,” he said, in almost a whisper, still holding her, “so wet and tight and welcoming for me. Tell me it is only for me.”
“I’m always only for you.” Ugh, so much for my pride, she thought.
Sigrid wondered if she could tell him what she had been wanting as a Christmas gift: to be able to tell him that she was falling in love with him without having him scoff or laugh or reject her or pontificate about the hopelessness of relationships and the inevitability of disillusionment. She wanted to be able to tell him she was falling in love with him and have him say it back to her. Those were pretty tall orders for a Christmas gift.
“Seegreed,” he said, deliberately exaggerating his mispronunciation of her name. “Of what are you thinking right now?” His arms were still wound around her tight and he was still inside her, though he was soft.
“Just thinking this is a nice Christmas so far.”
“Just nice?”
“The nicest of my life?”
That did it. He withdrew from her, sat up and ruffled her hair as if she were his little buddy. “Like I said, you are a funny girl. Let’s clean up here, get dressed and get back to the house. I know a nice detour we can take on our bikes—it’s along a riverbank and there are lots of birds and rabbits around. You’ll like it. You’ll see some of the natural beauty of Tuscany.”
Amore and Pinot Grigio - a Guido la Vespa Christmas Tale [Guido la Vespa] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream) Page 8