“Asa, nisi, masa,” she whispered as he slid a hand between her thighs.
“Open sesame,” he countered, brushing gently against her with his fingertips as he continued to kiss her mouth. She groaned as he caressed the whole of her with his palm in a firm circular motion, and then briefly dipped a finger inside her. Her pelvis rose to meet him, but then fell back in a shudder of ecstasy as he traced his way up.
She rubbed against him with her legs and bucked gently under his circling fingers. He built into a steady rhythm as he squeezed one nipple roughly and gave the other a gentle nibble. She gasped as he continued his descent, eventually completing with his mouth the job his hand had started. After much teasing and build-up, he finally settled into an insistent swirl that sent her over the top, legs locking and then buckling as she unleashed a long, low moan and then collapsed, a loose-limbed jellyfish washed up on the beach of passion.
When he pulled himself up next to her again, she stroked his hair and looked into his eyes with wonder.
“No one has ever done that for me,” she breathed. “I never imagined…”
He was surprised. “No one?”
She shook her head. “But I am glad you are the first.” She laughed. “Very glad, I think.”
He kissed her forehead and she snuggled against him again, one hand sliding down to stroke him. Then she rolled on top of him and he relished the tickle of her long hair as it danced across his face. She stared into his eyes as she reached down and guided him home. He tensed with delight, and soon their undulations mimicked a serpentine magic carpet ride through the night sky of Verona. He held her hips and kissed the tops of her swaying breasts, feeling the heat rise within him as they continued to forge their elemental union. In the moments before the world exploded, Nick realized he could get lost forever in Lia’s deep brown eyes. He was thrilled by the thought.
Chapter Sixty
They parted shortly before dawn. After walking Lia back to the apartment, Nick stopped by the Internet café for a shot of caffeine and to make reservations for that evening in Venice. In whispered conversation under the covers of Juliet’s bed, they’d decided to spend the day in the city of canals. He found a nice, reasonably priced double room—una camera doppia—available on the Lido just a short ride by water taxi from Venice proper.
After taking a quick shower under the maddeningly cool water pumped out by the hotel’s overtaxed heater, Nick dressed and packed an overnight backpack from his dwindling supply of clean clothes. After a night in Venice, he’d have only two more in Verona. Decision time was looming.
He stashed the small bag into the Renault’s boot and returned to the hotel for a light breakfast—toast and preserves, strawberry yogurt and enough rich, black coffee to fortify him for the drive to the coast. Then he checked out for one day. The manager was nice enough to let him store his larger bag in the office until his return Thursday afternoon.
With an hour to kill before picking Lia up, he sat in the lobby and paged through his Italian visual language guide. He’d studied some Spanish in high school, and thought it would be relatively easy for him to master a similar Romance language. The section on constructing basic sentences included some examples that would have served him well at breakfast: Are there any oranges? translated to Ha delle arance? I would rather have bananas was Preferirei delle banane. The last phrase rolled off his tongue so pleasantly that he repeated it to himself loud enough for a passing couple to shoot him an odd glance.
He flipped to a page detailing “the 33 most important verbs.” Lavorare was at the top of the list, but work was the last thing he wanted to think about now. Paging ahead, he came to a section called “At the Doctor’s.” Prendo la pillola, one entry read. I’m on the pill. Nick let out a low whistle. Many of the cultural assumptions he made about women his age back in the States probably didn’t apply here, he realized. He skipped down a few lines to the inevitable: Penso di essere incinta. I think I am pregnant.
Not that he was opposed to having children with Lia—he already knew he wanted to be with her in some fashion, and he liked the idea of starting a family with her. But with everything so up in the air, the last thing they needed to deal with was an unplanned pregnancy. Shit, he thought. Why didn’t he buy condoms before they went to the movie? Why didn’t he ask her if she was taking birth control? It had been such a magical night, but now he was starting to feel nervous.
He’d just have to ask her, of course. That wouldn’t be at all awkward: I’m falling in love with you and may want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I’m worried I may have knocked you up. Maybe he’d just keep quiet and see if she said anything.
Walking to the car, he spotted one of the sidewalk condom machines that had surprised him so much when he’d arrived. After looking around self-consciously to make sure no old ladies were toddling up the street, he quickly purchased a couple of packets. He’d pull one out tonight and start the conversation that way, if the evening went well. Nick made one last stop at a corner flower stand and then tooled over to pick up his lovely Lia.
“Look closely,” he said when she accepted the small bouquet of roses with a wide smile.
Lia peered down into the long stems and saw the tiny mp3 player nestled among them.
“What is this?” she asked, looking up at him with delight.
“I’ll get it for you,” he said, leaning in close. “I don’t want you to prick a finger at the start of such a beautiful day.”
He fished out the device and presented it to her on an outstretched palm.
“It is too much, Nick,” she said.
Finally, she took the music player and held it up to the light.
“So tiny,” she marveled.
“I’m glad you didn’t say that last night.”
Blushing, she started to reply, but just then her father emerged from the bathroom ready to take on another day of the festival in his natty summer suit.
“What didn’t you say last night?” Salvatore asked. “Did you two go out, then? I go to bed so early these days, I just assume Lia stays in and reads,” he added, giving Nick a wink.
“Signore Cattaneo, good morning,” Nick said, patting the old man on the back. “You’re looking well.”
“The festival is going off without a hitch,” he said. “It does my heart well to see so many people enjoying themselves on the streets of Verona. I hope you two come back from Venice in time to enjoy the fireworks Friday night.”
“We will be back by tomorrow evening,” Lia said, giving him a goodbye kiss. “I do not think we have plans for Friday.”
“Yet,” Nick added. “But festival fireworks sound good to me.”
“Va benne,” Salvatore said. “We will see you then.”
Lia was uncharacteristically quiet as they sped along the Autostrade, following the signs to Venezia. She rubbed the chrome back of the black music player like a worry stone.
“Was I wrong to accept your father’s invitation without discussing it with you?” he asked, reaching out to touch her knee. “If I was presumptuous, please accept my apology.”
“What?” she asked distractedly before giving him a brief smile. “No, no. That’s fine. My father likes you, Nick. It is nice to see. He tried with Antonio, but…”
“He didn’t want to see you mistreated.”
“No, he didn’t. But he let me figure the situation out for myself. I am glad to see him treating you so warmly. It makes me feel more comfortable, I guess. There is still so much we haven’t talked about, Nick…”
“We have all the time in the world.” He offered his best reassuring smile as they eased into the left lane to pass a slow-moving fruit truck.
“Not if you leave in three days,” she whispered.
Nick started to speak, but he didn’t know what to say. After a few awkward seconds, Lia turned and stared out at the countryside.
“I don’t necessarily have to leave,” he said finally. “I don’t want to leave.”
Sh
e looked at him again, wiping a tear from her eye. “I do not want you to go either, Nick. But I am not sure yet if I want you to stay forever, either. You know?”
He nodded, a knot forming in his gut.
“I think I do want you to stay,” Lia continued. “But what if things go sour after a few months… after you have turned your life upside-down for me? I would feel trapped and you would be angry.”
“I understand,” Nick said. “I’ve been worrying about some of the same things.”
“Perhaps you can go back and we can write each other and talk on the phone for a while, get to know each other that way,” she said. “Maybe I could visit you for a week in Oregon or wherever you get a job.”
“And then what?”
“I am not sure. But if we still feel the same way about each other, then we can figure out a plan that makes sense for both of us.”
“I’d hate to leave you and maybe never see you again.”
“I would hate that, too, Nick.”
“I’ve been thinking about your letter.”
“Yes?”
“I admire your loyalty to your father,” he said as a grain truck rumbled past. “I want to feel that intense bond with someone, too. So when you say you can’t leave Verona, I understand. But I hope a brief adventure in America, maybe for a year, might be in the cards.”
Lia shook her head. “For a week or two, yes. But he is too old for me to leave for much longer than that. If anything happened…”
Nick took her left hand in his right while keeping an eye on the road. “Family is everything in the end,” he said. “I want to be the kind of father that my children want to keep close at hand. But I’ll encourage them to spread their wings, too. I guess it’s different for us because you’re following such a strong role model and I’m trying not to repeat the mistakes I’ve lived through.”
“How so?” Lia asked.
“It was hard losing my mother,” he said, tearing up a little at the thought of it. “Terrible for her, unfair for me… But losing my father was worse in a way, because he chose to leave.”
“I am sorry, Nick.”
“As you get older, situations in retrospect take on complexity,” he said as the scenery whipped by. “You find yourself less judgmental of your parents’ choices as an adult. You can see both sides, even put yourself into their shoes. But that sad, disappointed kid is always in there, too, reminding you that, no matter how hard it is, you can’t walk down the same selfish path.”
Lia looked at Nick as they drove in silence. She realized how foreign this all was for him—not the country or the language, but her close bond to her father.
He is unmoored in the world, she thought. That’s why he has come all this way. Emotionally orphaned, he was like two loose wires buzzing with warm current, waiting for someone to complete the circuit.
“What about your mother?” Lia asked. “Did you have that closeness with her before…”
Nick nodded. “We were survivors together, poor and unloved. That’s one thing you said in your letter that I disagreed with, to a point.”
“Which part?”
“Where you said you didn’t care about money. I don’t care about getting rich, but I’ll never forget running water through an empty shampoo bottle to get one more wash out of it, or figuring out what grocery items were covered by food stamps, and having the clerk shake her head when my mom bought me a candy bar for a treat. Being broke matures you quick. I don’t want you or our children to go through anything like that.”
“Our children?” she said with surprise.
“Sorry,” he said, letting go of her hand. “I guess we’d have to get over that whole America-vs.-Italy issue first, right?”
Lia took his hand back and squeezed it. “Let’s just have a nice time in Venice today, eh?” she said. “I have not been there since I was 15. It is a crazy, beautiful city. I can’t wait to show it to you.”
He was glad to feel himself being caught back up in the moment. They could put off deciding the next step for another day or two at least.
“That sounds good,” he said. “It’s all been good so far.”
She leaned across the seat, kissed his ear and whispered, “Maybe all we have in life is ‘so far.’”
Chapter Sixty-one
Fortunata carefully scanned the crowd during her half-baked Romeo’s soliloquies just as she had done at every performance since she’d seen Nick and Lia together. They hadn’t shown up yet to parade their ridiculous romance beneath her balcony, but if they ever dared she swore she’d rip off her long black wig and fling it at them. That would give the audience something to cheer.
She’d found the linens on Juliet’s bed mysteriously rumpled when she’d come in to dress for the morning show, and now, midway through the afternoon performance, she had grown so furious she almost missed one of her cues. Damn them both, she thought. Between her anger and the elation she felt to be at the center of the latest adoring crowd’s attention, Fortunata thought she might well burst.
What she needed was some tension release of the banging-headboard variety. Fortunata smiled at the notion of picking up another handsome tourist and giving him an unforgettable evening of passion with none other than Juliet herself. While r-r-Romeo finished stammering through his l-l-lines, she started looking for a likely target.
That’s when she saw Lia’s estranged husband, Antonio, standing at the back of the crowd. How delicious that would be, she thought as she took in the slick leather jacket, the cigarette, the dark stubble and the aggressive stance. He’d enjoy a real woman after so many years with that prissy missy, and she’d enjoy showing him what he’d been missing.
She felt herself pierced by Antonio’s cruel, smoldering stare as he caught the scent of her. It didn’t hurt that he was such an attractive beast, Fortunata thought as she leaned far enough over the balcony to give him a good look at what she had in store for him. The rest of the audience seemed to appreciate the view almost as much as he did.
Antonio waited under an awning across from Casa di Giulietta. As Fortunata emerged, he stayed in his pose, leaning back, one foot braced against the wall.
When she saw him, she grinned and came right over. “My groupie,” Fortunata said.
“I did watch your performance,” he said as they exchanged greeting kisses. “You were good, but I think I prefer you as a redhead.”
“Yes?” she asked.
“But keep the wig,” Antonio added. “Variety is always good.”
“I knew you were a bad boy,” she said as he draped an arm over her shoulder.
“You should be in movies,” he said, walking her toward the street where he’d parked.
“I know,” she replied, squeezing against him. “Have you ever been to America?”
“No,” he said. “Do you want to go?”
Chapter Sixty-two
Nick and Lia rocked in the chop of heavy traffic on the excursion across the short expanse of Adriatic Sea that separated the Lido from Venice. After checking into the faded old hotel, they’d grabbed a late lunch of ham sandwiches and cups of gelato and hopped aboard one of the city’s floating buses.
The signs were in Italian, but many of the conversations were in English, reminding Nick that the end of high season was still a few weeks away. He hoped they wouldn’t be caught in a moving rugby scrum through the city’s famously narrow streets.
They disembarked at St. Mark’s Square, and Nick couldn’t tell if it was packed more tightly with pigeons or people. The flying rats might have had a slight edge. The tourists certainly delighted in throwing them bread and running up on the gathering flocks so that they would explode back into the sky in a flurry of black-and-white feathers. For a city that had dwindled to only 70,000 full-time residents, the densely packed square was a wonder.
Nick took Lia’s picture in front of the stunning St. Mark’s cathedral, catching her in a full-face squint as her fashionable black sunglasses did battle with the sinking afterno
on sun. They wandered the square for another hour, following the mini-orchestras as they began to play in front of this restaurant and then that one, throwing out aural crumbs for the human pigeons sipping their Diet Cokes and toting huge bags stuffed with Venetian masks and hand-blown glassware.
Venturing further into the city, they eventually stumbled into some quieter residential areas where they held hands and took in the proudly decaying architecture and the murky canals that constantly ate away at their foundations.
It was a claustrophobic city, Nick concluded, and one that was exceedingly easy to get lost in. Once in a while, they would look up and see a hand-painted arrow pointing in some indeterminate direction below a scrawled “San Marco.” But they didn’t have any appointments to keep, so they wandered about like happy mice in a maze, stopping here and there to kiss or take pictures in front of picturesque fountains or bridges.
At the center of the city, they emerged onto the bustling bridge over the Grand Canal. Nick half-heartedly haggled with a gondola driver, but finally decided against throwing away $175 on a half-hour run up the fetid lane with recorded love songs for accompaniment.
“It’s a romantic grotesquerie,” Lia whispered.
Nick agreed, but later they saw a few ornate gondolas—one in particular, with black lacquered wood inlays, was a breathtaking example of nautical craftsmanship—that gave them an idea of how magical such rides might have been for young lovers in the old days.
“Is the city as you remember it?” Nick asked as they rested for a moment on a bench.
She nodded. “Still packed with odd surprises around every corner. I love the mystery of Venice. They dish out the worst food in Italy here—along with terrible service—but I could wander around these cramped little campos for days.”
After stopping for some barely passable fast-food pasta, they left the Grand Canal area and penetrated further into the city. By mid-evening, they’d made it all the way across to where tour buses had crossed the bridge to wait on the mainland side of Venice.
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