The Italian Step : Luca (A Romance)

by Talia Day

  “Jesus,” Robert said pensively. I could picture him closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he did when he was really exasperated. “Are you worried at all about Amelia? What do you think he'll do to her?”

  “No. He wouldn’t do something like that, not with Amelia. And Amelia is such a good girl, she wouldn't allow it. That’s why I want her to help Luca with his English. Robert," her voice lowered an octave with concern, “I don’t know if they will let him back into Italy. He has just made so much scandal.”

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” he growled.

  “Thank you, Robert,” Victoria said, and I heard them kiss.

  We pay for a whole year of lessons, and the whole time they were fucking instead, so now his English is still bad. I tried not to laugh. Victoria made Luca out to be really naughty. And I guess in a way he was; he was probably devastated to find out I was such a goody-two-shoes.

  I felt a thrill crawl up my spine. Was he really as bad as he sounded? Not being able to return to Italy made him seem like an outright criminal. He didn’t seem that bad when I talked to him. So what if his English teacher was dumb enough to fall for one of her students?

  ****

  I closed the door of the library study room behind me. I was twenty minutes late, and Luca had been waiting for me patiently since school let out at 3pm.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I will just have terrible English now.”

  “You’re English is actually pretty good.”

  “I think it’s pretty bad. Everyone here talks with a funny accent, too. I’m not used to it.”

  “We’re in Texas, honey,” I drawled. Luca put his English homework on the table, along with a copy of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I looked at it blankly.

  “You’re reading that?!”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I actually read English pretty good. I don’t understand everything, but it’s okay. I like literature, it’s what I want to study.”

  “Okay. That’s a really good book.”

  “Why you sound so surprised?” he asked with an edge of anger in voice that took me by surprise. “Everybody thinks I am so shallow, that I just fuck girls and make scandals. Even my mother this way. Then I meet Elizabeth, my English teacher in Bergamo. Do you think we just fuck? We like each other--we like the same things--I had someone to talk with literature about. This is her book that she gave to me. I still think about her every day, and this is the only thing I have from her.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. Just teach me English, so I don’t talk so bad.”

  “Okay,” I said, chagrined. I plopped the heavy grammar book I had ordered from Amazon on the table. "Let’s get started.”

  A couple hours flew by. Luca wasn’t anything like I expected him to be from our flirtations over the internet. He was a great student and he didn’t seem to have any trouble concentrating.

  After wrapping up the lesson we walked out to my car. “Thank you, Amelia,” Luca said.

  “Sure, no problem,” I said. “I’m sorry about what happened at your school in Montebelluna.”

  “Montebelluna,” he stressed, correcting my pronunciation. “Someday I will teach you Italian.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the Texas accent."

  “Don’t. It sounds nice."

  We arrived at my car. “You’re a lot different than you seemed at first,” I said.

  “You are, too,” Luca said. “I saw you around school a little today. You and Julia.”

  “Oh.”

  “America is weird,” he continued. “Some of the kids act really mean. It is different in Italy.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think everything in America is kind of a popularity contest. Maybe it’s different in other parts of the country, I don’t know. But that’s how it is here, take it or leave it.”

  “Yes, that is what it seems. Everything here is about status.”

  “Yeah. Back when my mom was still alive we were kind of poor and we lived in a really small town. It was totally different. No one cared about how much money you made, or how cool you were, or what kind of vehicle you drove, or whatever. It was totally different back then.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” he asked offhandedly. I shifted with embarrassment.

  “No,” I said, pulling my hair out of my face and starting the car. I was glad it was dark, because I could feel my face getting hot.

  “No?” Luca sounded genuinely surprised. “Why not? You are really beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying it.”

  I could feel myself getting really red now.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Boys don’t ask me out.”

  “Well, I am sure you will have boyfriends soon, in university.”

  “That’s what everyone tells me,”

  “You can’t just be serious all the time, Amelia,” Luca said, with a serious edge to his voice, “You need to have some fun, too.”

  “Easy for you to say. You have all the girls you want. I heard your mom and my dad talking about you. You sound like you’ve been around.”

  “I don’t have all the girls I want. The girl I want is in England somewhere. I am never going to see her again.”

  ****

  “How is your tutoring of Luca going?” Robert asked me one morning as we sat in the Starbucks drive-thru, just the two of us.

  “It’s going well,” I replied. “He’s smart, so he’s easy to teach.”

  “I know I probably don’t have to tell you this, but be careful with him. He’s got a reputation.”

  “I know all about his reputation. I don't think anything of it. He's a nice boy and I don’t want to hear his 'bad reputation' mentioned again,” I said testily.

  “Okay, that's fine. I just want to protect you, that’s all. You and Luca are spending a lot of time together.”

  “I know, because he wants to learn better English. That’s the only reason.”

  “Just be careful. I know you don’t--”

  I was irritated now. “Do you really think I would fuck my stepbrother?” I bristled.

  “Amelia!” Robert looked at me with surprise. “Language.”

  “What? I’m not twelve anymore. He’s serious about learning, and I want to teach. I’m not doing anything wrong, and you’re lecturing me.”

  “I just care about you, sweetheart. You’re all I have of your mother.”

  “All I do is study anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I spend a bunch of time tutoring some Italian kid.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. I just want you to be careful.”

  “Boys don’t ask me out anyway. So you have nothing to worry about.”

  Chapter 3

  It was one week before the end of the semester. Luca and I had just finished up a studying session and were walking back to my car in the dark.

  “Can you drop me off at the Walgreens on the way home,” Luca asked. “I have to buy something. I can walk home from there.”

  “Sure,” I said. I enjoyed the time I spent with him, but the rush I’d felt when I first met him was gone. And he seemed totally hung up over the English girl, anyway. “Your English is getting a lot better.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “So we leave for Aspen next week--are you excited?”

  “Yeah."

  “You don’t sound very excited.” The truth was, I wasn’t. I just wished there was something more going on in my life. Like a boyfriend, maybe. Luca, sadly, turned out to be a goody-two-shoes like me.

  “Oh!” Luca said excitedly. “I forgot to tell you: I can’t study together tomorrow. I’m going out with a girl.”

  “Great. Who is it?” I asked, trying not to show the obvious distress inside me.

  “Carrie St. Simone.”

  Carrie St. Simone. One of the most popular girls in school. Go figure. She’d been dating the starting quarterback on the f
ootball team until last week, when she unceremoniously dumped him in a move that had left everyone tittering about it in the hallways since it occurred. Her father owned a company that made pipefitting tools used in the oil industry, and was even richer than Robert.

  I gritted my teeth and tried to fight the emotion welling inside of me. Just like I had feared, he was being adopted by the popular kids. I realized at that moment that I had been holding on to a fantasy about getting with Luca, and now it was evaporating in front of my eyes.

  “Well,” I said, “I hope it all goes well for you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Amelia. And thanks for taking the time to tutor me. I really appreciate it. Not many people would do that.”

  Chapter 4

  Aspen, Colorado. Home of billionaires, trust-fund ski bums and scary cougars with fake boobs. We came every year, and every year the place was just as gloriously obnoxious as it was the previous year.

  Our charter plane touched down on the runway of the tiny airport, in the middle of a dramatic snowscape, with 14,000 foot mountains rising into the sky in every direction.

  “Bellissima,” Luca whispered to himself as he looked out the window.

  I turned sourly back to my phone. I was texting Julia, telling her how much I hated Luca for going out with Carrie. She was commiserating, as usual. The one upshot of having miserable friends was having someone to complain with.

  At least I wasn’t stuck in Pittsburgh like Julia was. The moment I stepped out of our chartered jet and into the snowy paradise that awaited us I was guaranteed to forget my disappointments; at least for a little while.

  “Amelia, you are coming here for every winter?”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking up for only a second. Luca kept trying to talk to me but I was having none of it. I got up impatiently as soon as the plane taxied to a halt and grabbed my bags.

  “I was thinking you would have the black people to carry your bags, because you are so rich,” Luca said, poking fun at the history of the American south which was the last subject he studied in his history class.

  I giggled, despite the fact that I was trying to stay angry. I remained silent.

  “Okay,” Luca said. “Whatever. And you know, the black man has a long...” he made a motion near his crotch indicating the penis. I rolled my eyes.

  “I think a little of the cazzo could make you happier, no? You have been acting angry towards me lately.” I decided to ignore him and walked off the plane carrying my stuff. If Luca had been more of a gentleman, and less of a player, he would have helped me with my things.

  ****

  We hit the slopes at nine the next morning. Actually, Luca and I hit the slopes while Victoria and Robert slept in. Victoria had a typical European attitude towards alcohol, which is to say she found American attitudes towards drinking overly-restrictive, and we had stayed up late polishing off a few bottles of Italian wine which Luca had brought with him in his luggage, duty free. It still hadn’t been enough to loosen me up, however, and I had gone to bed early, claiming I felt sick.

  I had hoped the booze and the late night would put him out of commission until later in the day, but no such luck--he was up as soon as he heard me clattering around downstairs, and raving to go ski.

  The lift finally reached the top of the run, and I pushed away vigorously as Luca swore and called for me to wait. I turned my head just long enough to see him skiing thirty feet behind me, bent over so he could close his boot buckles on the fly.

  I flew into the tight trees between two of the harder runs that dropped directly from the top of the main lift. The slope plunged downwards at a 50 degree angle, and there were only a few lines through the trees, and since it hadn’t snowed in over a week, it was guaranteed to be icy and terrifying. I’d been skiing here for six years, and I knew the shape of every mogul and exposed branch sticking out from the snow. There was no way Luca could follow me down; at least not without killing himself.

  I exploded through a secret pocket of powder near the bottom, then turned quickly in the heavy chop that followed, finding the little gap between two trees that marked the end of the trees...and the top of the cliff. It was a heart-pounding fifteen-foot drop from there to the groomed run underneath. I flew between the trees, my poles clicking against them, before sailing off the edge and into the air above the groomer.

  I touched down, hitting the compacted snow with a loud 'slap,' then carved my way between two gaping tourists with inches to spare.

  Sick, I thought smiling. Sorry about that cliff, Luca. Hope you didn’t break your neck.

  I skied fast all the way back to the base, pushing my new skis to the limit so I could get a feel for them.

  Finally, after ten leg-burning minutes, I pulled up to the mess of tourists at the base of the run, throwing my skis sideways and coming to a stop in a cloud of cold snow. I leaned on my poles, almost collapsing into the snow as I caught my breath.

  “You ski so fast.”

  I looked up in surprise. Luca was standing in front of me, his mouth plastered with a huge grin.

  I’d been skiing fast mainly to get away from him, but of course, he didn’t get the hint.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just poled away into the lift line with Luca right at my heels. We stood under the lift together, waiting for the chair to come around, when two fat tourists scooted in beside us.

  “Y’all don’t mind if we jump on with ya'?” one of them asked in a heavy Texas accent that sounded just like mine.

  “Not at all,” I replied, trying not to groan. The four-person lift came around and Luca and I sat down, mashed up against each other.

  “It’s like my airplane ride from Italy to America,” Luca chortled. I ignored him and reached down to flip open the buckles of my new, painfully tight boots. Luca did the same as I tried to think of a run I could possibly lose him on. If he could follow me through the trees there wasn’t much on the mountain I could use to get rid of him.

  “I will just follow, you, okay?” Luca shouted as we began another run down. I found another opening in the trees, one that led to another double-black-diamond run and scary enough to still have some relatively untouched powder left on it.

  Ugh, I thought, as I maneuvered into a steep, horrifyingly narrow chute full of nasty rocks. All of this was probably just making him like me more. I made it to the bottom miraculously in one piece, and watched with annoyance as Luca bounced off a mogul and landed in the powder next to me.

  “Madonna mia,” Luca gushed. “That was awesome!” He held his hand out for a high-five, which I grimly accepted. “You know all the best runs on the mountain! Like a local! This is fantastic.”

  ****

  The day ended in a corner booth at the local bakery. We had skied a few runs with Victoria and Robert, but they both skied so much slower than us they had let us go after only a couple of runs. My legs felt like Jell-O and my head was spinning with exhaustion. Luca was an inexhaustible skier, but I didn’t wanted to admit that I was tired so I pushed until I could barely stand.

  The bakery had espresso, which Luca was thrilled about. He arrived grinning with two cups and slid into the booth next to me.

  Then he leaned over and kissed me, taking me totally by surprise. I kissed him back before I could stop myself. Our lips moved together for what seemed like an eternity before I pulled away.

  Luca pulled me close again. “I wanted to, ever since I see you in the airport,” he said. It felt so good being pressed against him, feeling the heat of his body. I forced myself to pull away.

  “We can’t,” I finally said.

  “Why not?” Luca asked. His hand was still resting on my waist, making a forest of tingles bloom through my skin.

  “Because,” I said, pushing his arm down. “We’re brother and sister now. So we can’t.”

  “Amelia,” he said. “You try to control everything, but you can’t live that way. It’s like you don’t even let yourself like me.”