Midway through a subtitled episode of Friends, Harper went upstairs to her shopping bags from the day and dug out a box of incense. She lit a stick of Nag Champa on the loft’s ledge and headed back to the couch.
Harper was halfway down the spiral staircase when the first bolt hit. Crack boom. Lightning struck nearby—so close there was no time to prepare for the thunderous explosion—knocking out electricity.
“My God,” Grace said from somewhere in the darkness.
Grace and Harper met in the suite’s foyer where the tall windows towered over the river. In the dark, they watched the storm rip through Amsterdam, the town covered in an electric blanket.
Shoulder to shoulder, with only lightning illuminating the night, they looked at each other.
Grace lit a sconce in the bathroom so a soft light flickered against the porcelain sink while they got ready for bed. In the distant sparks of energy, Harper could see Grace step into her
pajamas, an old Gamma shirt, while she brushed her teeth.
Her panties, pink paisleys, peeked from the back of Grace’s shirt as she pulled back the bedding, which was already partially turned-down, a truffle on each pillow.
Harper took a moment, told herself to relax. What the hell was wrong with her?
After they slid into bed, incense layered the ceiling with smoke as Grace began tickling Harper’s back, predictable and perpetual, her soothing way of putting them both to sleep.
Only it was different this time. And they both knew it.
As she carefully scratched Harper’s back, their breaths deepened and the room heated as years of kindling went up in flames. It blistered Harper’s skin and forced her, abruptly, to the sitting position.
“Do you want a glass of water?” Harper asked.
Grace rolled away.
“No. Thanks.”
Harper shot from bed and headed downstairs. At the sink, she drank a full glass of water, wiped the sweat from her forehead and sucked on an ice cube before returning to bed.
In the light, Harper could see Grace’s outline under the sheets as she approached, her curvaceous hips, her hair feathered on the sheets. Harper flashed on fantasies she’d had, her hand under the covers, Grace coming to her in the night, rocking Harper awake. In her dreams, Grace whispering, “I can’t sleep.”
Then Grace holding out her hand and leading Harper from the sorority sleeping porch to her room. Grace locking the door, sliding her nightgown off, it falling to the ground.
This wasn’t a fantasy.
Instead, a pivotal moment of truth.
Back in bed, Grace started scratching again, softer, slower.
Harper tried helplessly to concentrate on other things—the new semester, the highlights of summer, the following week’s sorority rush, anything but what was going on.
Harper imagined herself leaving the room. Barefooted, she ran out of the lobby and down the uneven cobbled streets. When she got to a payphone, there wasn’t a receiver, just a dangling chord with jagged metal spewing from its mouth.
Crack boom.
Harper didn’t see it coming. Grace slid her hand under the back of Harper’s silk nightgown. With nothing between them, Grace’s fingertips sent a frosty chill up and down Harper’s spine; Grace hadn’t gone under before, only over the pajamas. Harper didn’t move, wholly focused on the burning incense, hoping to survive.
When the walls around them ignited, Harper refocused on the glowing speck across the room as Grace scratched careful circles. She lay still, pretending to sleep—it had worked in the past, when Grace’s touch made her nervous. Harper tried to calm her body and fool Grace again; she closed her eyes and feigned sleeping noises.
But it didn’t work. When Harper felt Grace’s hot breath on her neck, she realized the only fool was her—climbing up the high dive stairs—unsure if she really could jump.
Dampness again beaded Harper’s hairline, and she shivered.
In her mind, or maybe out loud, she said her name.
Grace.
In their quiet space, Grace’s brave fingers swooped near Harper’s breast. An accident? Harper breathed deeply, bracing herself, as Grace moved closer with each pass. Harper couldn’t run any longer.
Through the years—as they’d taken each step up the ladder—not a single word had been spoken, only the songs, only the words, the looks, arrows through the smoky bars.
Grace was ready.
She grazed Harper’s breast.
Suddenly, Harper was standing at the top, her toes hanging over the edge of the high dive.
Crack boom. Lightning filled the room with a dangerous current as Grace came back for more, moving in a small circle around Harper’s nipple. Grace’s fingertips filled her body with a violent fever, causing sweat to seep from her skin.
Completely exposed, Harper turned her head— crack boom—
and saw Grace’s face.
The weakness in her eyes made Harper want her even more.
0
On the precipice, Harper bent her knees.
And then jumped.
Without committing to a kiss, their lips brushed in the darkness.
The moment was suspended as they each cautiously waited for body cues to bring them together again. Grace’s lips, like the truffles, melted in Harper’s mouth when they finally kissed. And when their tongues met, they fell into each other completely.
It was everything Harper never knew she wanted, a softness, a sweetness she’d never known before.
As they pushed, their breathing escalated—an unknown animal was waking from hibernation, renewed and alive.
Hungry.
Crack boom.
Thunder shuddered the old building, and Harper pulled away to see her. All she saw were shadows, but it was enough. It was real. It was happening. It was Grace.
Crack boom. Their eyes locked in the white light.
Harper hardly got the words out. “What are we doing?” In her veiled subconscious, she’d rehearsed them.
With an unfamiliar lilt, Grace whispered, “Don’t think about it.” She drew their bodies even closer together.
They giggled as Harper, slow and bashful, slid her hand under Grace’s shirt. In her cupped palm, Grace’s breasts were warm, erect, succulent.
Her whole life, she’d been starving for Grace. Her whole life, Harper had been underfed, emaciated without even realizing.
Ravenous now, Harper wanted to put Grace’s breasts in her mouth one by one, like the melons she ate in Mykonos, Grace’s juice spilling down her face, her neck.
Crack boom.
“Let’s Get It On”
Marvin Gaye
The piano woke Harper the next morning.
When she first opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure that what she remembered from the night before was real.
Had it been another fantasy, an alcohol-induced illusion?
They hadn’t had sex—even though Harper didn’t really know what that meant between two women—but it seemed they’d gotten dangerously close.
Not until Harper sat up and saw her nightie hanging from the lampshade did she realize the real weight of what had happened.
She covered her mouth.
“My God,” she whispered. “What have I done?”
For several minutes, she stared at the ceiling replaying their night.
With each note from Lakme, everything moved through her body again: the lightning, the way their lips came together. The grinding.
Like the storm, like the memory, the piano was thunderous, moving through the suite with counterpoint. The two of them had seen the tragic opera the year before with Grace’s parents in New York, not realizing that less than a year later, lying alone
in a foreign country thousands of miles from home, everything between them would take a sharp turn.
Before getting up, Harper watched the dancing drape still flirting with the wind, wondering what it would be like when she went downstairs.
In only panties, Harper wrapp
ed the sheet around her body and walked to the stairs. From the top, she could see Grace at the piano; she was in Harper’s robe, half of which had fallen off her shoulder.
As the song crescendoed, Harper made her way down the stairs and stood behind Grace as she hit the final keys.
“Bravo,” Harper said, clapping before touching Grace’s bare shoulder.
Grace grabbed Harper’s fingers and brought them to her lips.
“Good morning,” Grace said, turning around.
When she did, Harper felt, deep down inside, another bolt of lightning strike. It didn’t rattle the building or knock out the power, but it filled the room again with desire as Grace ran her pinky down Harper’s cleavage.
“How did you sleep?” Harper asked.
Grace brought Harper’s hands to her face again and took in a full breath. “Did we sleep?”
For the next two days, the girls gallivanted around Amsterdam, taking in art, stopping at coffee shops and enjoying walks along the canals. Time passed like a snapshot.
At the end of the week, they hopped a flight to Rome, off to see Harper’s aunt and uncle.
After going through customs, they met their driver on the curb. Giovanni, his nametag said. He wore a small hat and carried a sign that said “Alessi Party.” It was fitting, Harper thought, the sign suggesting they were headed to a party. Every time she’d visited Uncle Alvaro and Aunt Amelia at the vineyard, it was just that: a party. Her memories—many from childhood, but some from adulthood—included endless pitchers of wine and balmy nights of laughter.
As they drove through the Tuscan hillside, the rise and fall of the sun-drenched mountains were another page from Harper’s memory book. The serene countryside scattered with spears of ancient cypress and gently rolling hills of quiet farmhouses. The solitary monasteries and picturesque villages set as if time stood still. After passing through Cortona and Carraia, the car pulled up to the familiar Alessi gates—an iron “A” at its center—leading into the vineyard. The property was just outside Bologna, a town in northern Italy, about an hour inland from the east.
Uncle Alvaro was first to blow through the worn stable door.
The bottom swung open and hit the side of the farmhouse with a thud as he yelled Harper’s name. He wrapped his chunky arms around her and picked her up off the ground. Aunt Amelia, who was right behind him, did the same.
With her hands to the sky, she said “Ringrazio Dio!”
They both lifted Grace, too, even before Harper had the chance to introduce them.
“Come kitchen,” Alvaro said, leading the girls inside. Amelia clapped with joy.
As they stepped into the house, the kitchen timer went off for the ciabatta browning in the stove. Their home was full of childhood scents. A wave of bread, freshly-picked olives, the homemade lavender candle lit on the counter.
“Auntie!” Harper rubbed her belly for Amelia, who didn’t speak English. “Decadente.”
Spread on the linen-covered table were cheeses, thinly sliced prosciutto and olives, along with a bottle of their signature vintage, Alessi Glorioso, and one of their reserve, Angel Parti, or Angel Share. On both bottles, a black and white sketched image of their dog—Muffa, short for Muffa Nobile, which meant noble rot—was on the front.
“These are the best olives I’ve ever tasted,” Grace said, reaching for another handful.
“Later tonight,” Harper said, “I’ll take you out to the olive grove.”
“It where Harper play as bambina,” Alvaro said, his gray hair receding, his stubby fingers calloused from years of grape
picking. “She catch luccioles.” His aquamarine eyes sparkled like the Caribbean on his leathered face.
“Luccioles?”
“Lightning bugs,” Harper said, setting her glass down. She put her arms around a giggling Amelia and squeezed tight. “I used to chase them when I was little.”
Grace seemed suddenly lost in Harper’s story, enamored by it. “I’ve never seen a lightning bug.”
“More wine,” Alvaro offered, filling each cup.
“How long has the vineyard been in the family?” Grace asked.
“1843,” Alvaro said proudly, his hand on his chest.
“Grandpoppy. Those barrels”—he pointed to the cellar doors across the cobbled driveway—“he maked wine in same.”
Even though the kitchen was bursting with bread, as Alvaro spoke, Harper could smell the mustard milled deep in the stone grinder on the counter. Bound by yarn in an urn, seed-packed mustard twigs were choked by a mass of dried leaves behind it.
Harper lifted the grinder. “Smell this.”
Grace took a hefty whiff and her eyes widened. “Wow.”
Amelia giggled. A well-built, sturdy woman in her late fifties, Amelia was wearing an apron that said Kiss the Cook. Harper had given it to her as a gift and even though Amelia hardly spoke a lick of English, she wore it with pride. Amelia’s hair, the color of sudsy dishwater, was partially pulled back with a simple gold barrette.
“Secret”—Alvaro held up the Angel Parti bottle—“old oak.
Same barrels grandpoppy first maked chianti. On dis land.” He stuck his flat Italian nose into the glass. “Mmmm.”
“Really?” Grace inquired.
“Gooder every year.” Alvaro swore on it.
Harper and Grace both knew a thing or two about wine.
Even though they were barely twenty-one, they’d been to Napa twice together with the Dunlops. Usually the girls spent the days soaking up sun and chlorine at the pool while Cilla and Benson tasted, but occasionally they tagged along, especially on their most recent trip during their sophomore year in college.
It was at the Beaulieu Vineyards that they learned the older
the barrel, the poorer the wine. It might explain why the Alessi wine hadn’t won any awards. Oak didn’t age like the juice; instead, the quality of wine actually declined with each vintage.
That’s why most wineries bought new barrels every year. Alvaro knew this, but still tried to justify it when he took the girls to the cave for a tasting.
You’d never know the Alessi wine cellar was actually a cave until you walked through the rustic entrance, Harper thought.
You’d certainly know it once inside by the slick moss on the cave walls and the stairs leading down. Drops of condensation trickled on their heads.
“This barrel,” Alvaro said, popping the portly, wine-stained cork, “signature vintage. It aged two year. Taste.”
He dipped the wine thief into the barrel. Despite his best effort, red wine dribbled down the sides of each glass and onto the earthen floor when he filled the glasses.
While they tasted and toured the rows of barrels—catching a buzz quickly—the girls got increasingly affectionate in the cave. They kept their arms around each other; Harper’s hand was in Grace’s back pocket.
After an hour of trying every barrel, Alvaro finally hung up the thief and said: “You go bassetto. I show.”
The sun exploded into the cave as he opened the doors, blinding them as they exited.
With a whistle from Alvaro, Amelia, in the kitchen working on dinner, flew from the stable doors. She was carrying fresh towels they’d seen flapping in the wind on a line when they arrived.
The bunkhouse, or “bassetto”—the name hand-painted on the archway leading to the spiral staircase—was hidden in the vineyard about an acre from the central estate. Like the main house, the bassetto had blue window shingles, weathered from the strong sun rays, and wrought iron details. The stucco finish was painted the same washed amber with fingers of ivy climbing its walls.
Getting to the top of the stairs, Alvaro stepped into the first guest room, the junior suite with two double beds. Through the open window, the view below was the side patio where a fountain
with cherubs back to back, wing to wing, spouted water. Grace started to put her bag down until Alvaro said, “Attendi!” He then led them to the second room, the master suite, down the hall.
<
br /> “Perhaps more comfortable here.”
The grand room had a plush, sprawling king bed on one wall and an open, private, expansive balcony overlooking the vineyard and the quietly sloping hills beyond it. The ceilings, high and coved, came to a point in the center of the room, where an ornamental chandelier hung.
“Grazie, Uncle Al.” Harper put her arms around Grace from behind. “Merci Auntie, questo farà.”
An awkward moment followed when Grace stepped away from Harper.
“Dinner at seven,” Alvaro said, closing the door behind him.When they were finally alone, Grace turned to Harper.
“What were you doing?” She paused. “Shouldn’t we, you know, be a little more careful.”
“Careful?”
“Discreet.”
“Oh.” The thought hadn’t occurred to Harper. “Don’t worry.
They don’t care.”
“Well,” Grace said, stopping again, “what about your parents?”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Aren’t you worried they’ll talk to your dad about it? Us. This thing. What’s happening.”
“What is happening?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know.” Grace smiled. “You tell me.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry. My dad only talks to Uncle Al a couple times a year. They wouldn’t talk about stuff like this anyway.
It’s usually about the weather. Or the grapes. Or their sister in Sicily.”
Grace was tentative again before dinner, but as the evening progressed she got more and more comfortable, especially after she saw the red rose placed in between them when they sat down at the old farmhouse table.
Dinner was served on the back deck, where grapevines sagged from the trellis. A swanlike decanter was filled at the center of the table, which was lit by a simple iron candelabra above and wide pillars amidst the steaming bowls of food. Amelia had made her famous Bolognese with crispy polenta, an heirloom caprese salad, blanched haricot verts and pesto pizzette.
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