by Liska Jacobs
But then something catches my eye, sends a shock right through me. “And this.” I place the vaginal lube on the counter. I can feel Donato looking at me.
On the drive back, he pulls onto a dirt road and I slip off my underwear thinking about those ocean tombs. At Egnazia, Paul had wanted us to see the part of the city that had sunk into the Adriatic. We’ve come all this way, he reasoned. We trekked a bit farther, to the nearby beach club, and hiked past the rows of white umbrellas and recliners where men and women were lying out, their skin oily and shining. Then down on the rocks the air suddenly turned rank. What is that smell? I asked. And he pointed to long rectangular holes cut into the rock, filled with dark water, a yellowish film on the surface. Tombs, he said. This used to be the burial ground.
“Come here,” I tell Donato, and climb into the backseat.
Standing at the base of those watery graves, listening to the crowd at the beach club—when the wind shifted, I could smell their sunscreen and cigarettes. If we had snorkeling equipment, Tonio had said, we could see it better. I wondered what it would look like beneath the choppy waves, if it would feel different swimming there than in any other ocean.
The car is compact, but we make it work, and it’s not until we’re back at the masseria and I see Paul’s bewildered face, and Tonio frowning, asking his son, “Why does Hannah think you’re her boyfriend?”—that I feel Donato’s semen leak out of me and seep down my leg.
* * *
Glasses of wine sit untouched on the courtyard table next to half-eaten focaccia. Tonio and Paul are silent, not looking at each other, while Marie continues to fuss over her son. I’m watching moths bump into the lanterns, a pair of bats flit above us in the night sky.
It keeps replaying in my head. Tonio’s scowl, Paul and Marie standing behind him, waiting for an explanation. I haven’t done anything, Donato had said, looking at me for confirmation. I looked away because I could feel that wetness drying between my legs. You kissed? Donato’s guilty half smile, his flustered laugh. Who would not kiss a pretty girl? It was nothing. I excused myself to take the medications to Agostina, who was watching over Hannah as she slept. She’s doing much better, she assured me. Amore, amore, Marie was saying to her son when I came back out. Trying to soothe his embarrassment and guilt.
I keep my eyes on the moths, watch how they throw themselves at the light. The sound is loud, like a tennis ball hitting a wall.
Paul shakes his head. “What else don’t I know?”
“Hannah’s never had a boyfriend,” I blurt out. “And she still doesn’t have one.” My voice is sharper and louder than it needs to be. I clear my throat. “Donato is a flirt. He flirts with everyone, even me. And Hannah is at an impressionable age. I think it’s just a misunderstanding.”
This is the best I can do, I reason. I’m tired. I wish I’d been the one with food poisoning. Although no one fusses over adult women when they have temporary illnesses.
Donato is still chewing at his nails. When he finally meets my eyes he gives me a sheepish grin, a childish shrug. It’s the first time that I think maybe I dislike him.
“My poor little girl,” Paul says, rubbing his face. “She’s going to be heartbroken.”
Marie clicks her tongue. “Donato, do you like her, cuore mio? You must if you kissed her.”
“Hannah is a lovely girl, but we were just having fun.”
“This isn’t some girl you won’t see again,” Tonio lectures. “She is Paul’s daughter.”
Per favore, per favore, Marie attempts to placate them both. The three of them speaking in Italian.
What I want is to be in the backseat of the rental car, occupying that moment—parked off a dirt road, windows rolled down, smelling the sea and the just-tilled fields. Could that have been with this same Donato, whose mother licks her finger to wipe a smudge from his cheek? Some other life, maybe, an absurd fever dream.
Marie is the only one talking now, her Italian even-keeled and soothing. The other three have their arms crossed but I can tell they are considering whatever it is she is proposing. When she’s done speaking she waves her hand as if it were settled.
“I’m so tired,” I tell them. “I have to get some sleep.”
Marie is the only one to wish me buonanotte.
In Hannah’s room, Agostina has changed the sheets and left the window open to air out the smell, but the pillows still reek of her hair, her toiletries are scattered about the bathroom. Shampoo and conditioner and face wash in the shower; a toothbrush and facial creams and a bag of makeup on the sink. Her suitcase is open on a chair, her orange bikini is drying on the window ledge. My niece has been with me every day and yet this is the first time I’m truly afraid she might find out about Donato and me. In a room filled with her things and her scent but empty of her. It was the same after Dad died. I sat in his office surrounded by his collection of colored glass, the late afternoon light making the room glitter. Majolica and transferware pottery, Vaseline and carnival glass. It wasn’t his absence, but the impression he left behind. For a moment I had a sense of what I had lost.
I shower and try to sleep, but it’s hopeless. The bed is narrow and the mattress is lumpy, and every time I close my eyes I remember the faint sounds Donato made in the car, between a grunt and a moan—and my own cries, or when Donato tried to cover my mouth and I tasted the palm of his hand.
I rinse a second time. When I’m drying off, I hear faint knocking. The door sticks and I have to force it from the frame.
“Donato,” I whisper. “What are you doing?” The night air blows open the bottom of my robe. There are cicadas and an owl calling. I look down the passageway at the other closed doors.
“They’ve all gone to bed. Let me in.”
He’s shirtless, wearing only cutoff jeans. When he pushes past he lights a cigarette and goes to the window. “You did not answer my texts.”
“Shh, keep your voice down. If anyone hears you…” I tie my robe tighter, which he notices.
“Suddenly you are shy?” He tries to pull me closer, but I move away.
I keep telling myself no one is awake, but every sound I think might be Agostina walking with Matteo because he can’t sleep. Or maybe Hannah is sick again and needs me, or Paul saw Donato come into my room and wants to know why.
“I’m tired,” I whisper. He tries to kiss me. “Donato, no.”
“Why no?” He rubs his face. In the faint light coming from the window I can make out the fine blond hairs above his lip. He is trying to grow a mustache.
“You must have realized that Hannah liked you.”
He shrugs his shoulders, that same guilty half smile on his face.
“Then why did you go on flirting with her—why did you buy her a necklace chain?”
He makes a motion with his hand. “That trinket? It was from one of those street vendors in San Lorenzo.”
He lies down on the bed, pretending to inspect it. “Bigger than the back of the car.” He grins.
“Your parents are one room over,” I remind him. “And Paul is right next door.”
“That has not stopped us before.” He stretches out, putting his arms behind his head. His naked torso distresses me. The scarce dark hairs at the center, his broad shoulders and narrow waist—all signs of youth in bloom. I’m remembering the sound of his teeth grinding, and how, when he comes, he holds his breath as if he were jumping into water. A puff of air when he surfaces.
“You’re deleting our text messages, right?”
“Of course,” he says. “Vieni qui.” Come here. His hand disappears beneath his shorts.
“Did you hear that?” I go to the window. The table and chairs where we sat hours earlier are pale in the moonlight. A gust of wind pulls at the pines, shaking their spindly branches; needles scurry across the stone bricks.
“You have to go,” I tell him, pulling him from the bed. He wants a kiss, refuses to leave until I’ve given in. It’s short and sloppy, and tastes of something far more noxious than
cigarettes.
* * *
“Buongiorno!” Hannah cries, bounding down the stairs and into the breakfast room, where the rest of us are eating.
Marie stops chattering with her son and Tonio. Paul puts down his fork. The only movement is from the steam on my Americano. All eyes are on Donato as he stands to pull out her chair.
“Brava!” Marie says to me, pressing her hands together.
I have to look away. It’s entirely too much. The mother urging it along, the two fathers watching from afar, one unsure and nervous, the other aloof. If this were on television I would change the goddamn channel.
Papa overreacted, Hannah had told me. I only said that a good boyfriend would check on his girlfriend—he pressed me about it and I was so sick at the time, everything came tumbling out. I had tried to explain to her, Your parents are good friends and colleagues, there is a lot at stake. But she only wanted to hear Donato’s reaction. What did he say? And when I repeated his words my niece stretched out in bed, kicking her feet and arms. He said I was lovely? And giggled and giggled. If you keep acting like this, I threatened, you’re well enough to get out of bed.
I took charge of my niece’s care. Motion for my limbs, activity for my brain. Anything to keep me occupied because every time I came out of Hannah’s room there was Donato. Why are you ignoring me? he demanded, but then one of the girls who helps Agostina was coming across the courtyard with the laundry and we had to break apart.
I did not have an answer for him—except that whenever I stop moving, I remember his hands digging into my hips. Those long, knobby fingers, the rough wide flat palms—so misleading when the rest of him is boyish.
Or his delicate clavicle, like a wishbone. The feeling of touching his soft skin. What kind of lotion do you use? I asked once, and he laughed as if it were a ridiculous question. I do not even use sunscreen, he said. I picture him lying down in the backseat of the car, how I could hear sirens somewhere far off, whining—polizia, polizia, polizia. But I did not care.
No matter where I start, it ends with his moans, the string of Italian words he sometimes murmurs. Like a funnel, around and around and then his hands are on my hips, or he’s in my mouth, and I hear him. It is a different kind of haunting.
“Isn’t that a pretty sight?” Marie says, smiling at Hannah and Donato. “They do look nice together.” She might rebuke her son, but even when he’s done something questionable like leading a friend’s young daughter on, there is still a kind of unassailable pride.
“Can Donato and I go to the beach after breakfast?” Hannah asks.
For some reason, everyone looks at me. I concentrate on slicing a kiwi in half, scooping the meat out with my spoon because I don’t want them to see how pissed off I am. Of course, it would fall to me. Never mind that they aren’t my children. I’ll be the moral compass, the arbiter during this ridiculous charade. What outcome do they expect?
“You’re only just feeling better,” I say, gouging the kiwi.
“You are a little pale,” Paul says, throwing a quick glance at Tonio, who does not look up from his book. “And I don’t know if it’s appropriate.”
Donato is chewing on the end of his finger again. “Cilla, you can come with us.”
I scrape the inside of the kiwi with my spoon, hollowing it out. I press so hard I tear its delicate skin.
My niece frowns. “We don’t need a chaperone.”
“What about a walk?” Marie tries. “You could take the path in the olive groves.”
I can tell Donato is frustrated, but he’s obedient, and after he and Hannah are done with breakfast he follows her outside.
Marie leans forward in her chair after they’re gone. “I am not entirely surprised, I even suspected.”
I know what she’s doing. She’s looking for someone to be on her side. The harmonious threesome has been disrupted. I can tell by their body language. A chair between Paul and Tonio, a table separating Marie from them both. The space might as well be infinite. Nothing changes adult relationships quicker than when their children are involved.
I start on a second kiwi. The poor fruit.
Paul is running a hand over his face. “Well it’s taken me completely by surprise.”
He looks tired, there are dark circles under his eyes. Should we take Hannah to a hospital? he had asked. She’ll be okay, I assured him. Emily had food poisoning once, and it was exactly the same. Several hours of being violently ill, then she spent the next day in bed while I made her soup and brought her Vitaminwater. I don’t remember where our parents were, but afterward, our mom apologized to us, saying, It wouldn’t have been a good time to get sick, it’s pilot season, you understand.
“They make a good match,” Marie tries again.
I somehow keep from rolling my eyes. Tonio snaps his book shut and leaves without saying a word.
Paul hesitates, examining his empty mug. “I’m not very comfortable with any of this.”
“Amore, Donato will fix everything. He is taking this seriously,” Marie says, touching his arm. “He has promised to be the perfect gentleman. Let it run its course, it will work out.”
“They shouldn’t be vacationing together, right?”
“She’s in the main house now,” Marie reassures him. “Agostina has switched Cilla’s and Hannah’s things, they’re separated.”
“You’ve done too much, Cilla,” he says, covering my hand with his. It’s shocking to feel the warmth of his skin. It takes the anger right out of me. I’m worried he can see the guilt in my face.
“It’s really fine,” I tell him, sliding my hand away. I’m remembering when Hannah was tucked in bed, how she was texting her friends and saying, They’re soooo jealous. Trish and Tina can’t believe it, oh I wish I could see Silvia’s face. When I came out of her room there was Donato. He tried to tell me his plan to break it off with her. When we get back to Rome … But I stopped him. It would be an additional betrayal to know.
* * *
Lizards scurry as I approach the recliners by the pool. I lay out my towel, brushing away the large black ants.
Respond to one, I tell myself as I sign into my e-mail. Pick any of them. The cicadas are piercing. It’s sweltering in the shade.
The real estate broker has written to suggest that I replace the fence, which is collapsing under the weight of overgrown honeysuckle. He’s included numbers for several contractors. I can hear our mom’s voice telling us, Something to mark the occasion, of your and your sister’s births. It is actually two plants, grown into one.
I open another e-mail. Where are you? I don’t expect much, but the least my daughter can do is e-mail … I click that closed too. There are messages from Guy; the roofer and exterminator are still waiting for replies. And then there are the junk e-mails: a price alert for fares from Los Angeles to Rome; a backlog of weekly news briefings from The New York Times; Macy’s is having a sale. I shut my laptop and slide it away from me.
My forehead is freckled with sweat. I imagine Donato’s and Hannah’s ice creams are melting before they’ve had a chance to eat them. Paul suggested a trip into town after lunch, Hannah was enthusiastic until she realized he meant to go with them.
If I close my eyes, I can shut it all out. The e-mails, home, that looming return flight. There is only the pealing of the cicadas, the heat pressing into me like a weight—but then there is Donato on the train, in the olive groves, at Egnazia. My chest is tight, I’m about to cry.
“Okay if we join you?” Marie calls from the pool gate. She’s with Matteo and a man I haven’t seen before. He’s maybe my age, with a shaved head and clad in board shorts and a sports jersey.
“Matteo’s papà,” Marie says, laying her towel beside mine. She hands me an arm floatie to inflate. Matteo, Matteo, she sings as she rubs sunscreen into his skin. I’ve forgotten how heady the smell of a baby can be. Especially on a hot day. It overpowers everything.
Matteo’s dad nods as he pulls off his jersey. He’s stocky and muscu
lar and heavily tattooed. A gold chain and pinky ring glint in the sun. He swims to the side of the pool where we are, speaking Italian to Marie. I recognize the word zia.
Now that he’s closer I’m not sure how old he is. He looks as if he’s spent his entire life in the sun, his skin is creased and red. He could be thirty or fifty. When he smiles, I notice a gold eyetooth, polished and shining. He has very bright blue eyes, just like his son.
“How do you like Apulia?” he says in a thick accent. “Different from Malibu?”
Malibu, sounds like malleable.
“Gorgeous,” I tell him. “The beaches here—bellissima.”
He’s making faces at his son, who’s turned toward him.
“You cannot buy beer on Malibu beaches,” he says.
Matteo stands on the edge of the pool, and Marie and I encourage him, clapping and shouting his name. “Bravo!” we cry when he makes the leap into his father’s arms.
“He is a fisherman, and gone a lot,” Marie says. We’re watching them play together in the pool. “But he is very good with Matteo.”
“Where’s Tonio?” I ask.
“Reading in his room. He is worried about Hannah and Donato. I tell him it’s okay, but—” She sighs.
“Uno, due, tre.” Matteo’s dad is tossing the boy into the air and then catching him. Matteo shrieks with delight.
“Did I interrupt your e-mails?” She’s taken off her cover-up and is rubbing sunscreen into her skin in the same slow luxurious movements as when we were at the spa together. I wonder if this is how she applies all lotions, or if this is for show. I catch Matteo’s dad peeking over. She isn’t wearing a bikini, but a black-and-white one-piece that ties across her back like a corset.
“Would you mind?” She hands me the sunscreen and turns away. Her skin is looser than I thought it would be, almost like a sponge. But there are no blemishes, not a freckle or a mole.