by C. L. Donley
“Non lo so. She was afraid you would talk her out of it, I think. She says she is going home and to tell you goodbye.”
He felt a punch to his gut but he recovered.
“Did you say anything to her?”
“I told her we will all miss her.”
“Bastardo!”
“Che cosa!”
“She is an orphan, and you send her away!”
“Ma dai, shall I ask her to let me leccare la sua figa before I go to the grave?”
“Papa, e abbastanza!”
“A fanabla, what excuse do you have for letting her get away?”
“…None,” he sighed.
“If I were in your shoes I would have already had my honeymoon. You have a light in your eyes for the first time since you were young. Marry the girl.”
“I am. I was,” he sighed.
“‘Was’? Why have you not asked her?”
“I did not want to scare her away.”
“Va bene, bravo, Roberto. Allora, go get her, before some other man makes love to her on sight.”
“Who told you about that?”
“Told me about what?”
“Never mind.”
“You disgrace all Di Rossi men letting a woman like that get away. She left because she thinks you are insane,” he said, giving him the Italian gesture for complete and utter dementia over the phone.
“No, papa. She left because I was afraid to tell her how much I wanted her to stay. And she left anyway. But you are half right. I should have asked her to marry me. The result would have been the same.”
“So now what will you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“She will come back to me. As she did the first time.”
“Roberto, you don’t make sense.”
“The first time we met was not that day in the factory. We met before. And I let her get away then too.”
* * *
Lark arrived in London in a few hours, trying to ignore the growing turmoil with each mile she put between herself and Dario.
As bad as it felt that bittersweet night of the dinner— the words of Dario’s mother staining the evening like a pile of shit— the attempt to return to her pre-Di Rossi life so far felt the worst.
What the hell was she doing here? As long as she kept her bags packed, she couldn’t be disappointed.
She didn’t want to call him, because she didn’t want to hear his persuasive words. Or perhaps, his angry words, for the way she left. Or worst of all… his apathetic ones.
She should at least let him know that she was okay. In case he was worrying. But what if he tried to come after her? What if he didn’t?
The night she arrived, she and Channing went to a pub. Lark changed into the leopard print dress he’d bought her, which she regretted almost instantly. She spent the night paranoid she would see Dario while out in the dress. In his dress. It broke her heart to even imagine it. What was she doing?
“Don’t worry girl,” Channing picked up on her mood, “going to a bar cannot, in any way, be considered cheating.”
Lark hadn’t yet disclosed that she wasn’t planning on going back.
“I know, I’m just…”
“It’s all over your face, girl. I get it.”
“Get what.”
“My partner in crime is retired.”
Lark gave her a smirk, but couldn’t think of the words to say.
“It’s just as well. I think this is my last year here.”
“Nooo, Chan. I just got here!”
“I know! You took too long. Anyway, London is just cold, and crowded… and you can’t get a decent plate of biscuits and gravy. I mean, it’s just like New York. I love being here, but I wanna go home more. You know?”
Lark’s mood worsened. Home. It’s all anyone ever talked about. Home was wherever her friends were. The people that weren’t paid to take care of her. She didn’t miss America, because it wasn’t home to her. Only in the way that it was a place to run away from.
“I just managed to get close to you guys and you’re leaving me already.”
“I didn’t say ‘today,’ you silly. My gosh.”
“You can make biscuits at home, Chan Chan.”
“Says the girl who doesn’t cook. I take it you’re extending your work Visa? Or you think you can get this guy to marry you?”
Lark winced.
“Not thinking that far ahead, I’m afraid.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You and Teresa,” Lark shook her head, thinking about their tag team advice.
“You promised, that if you ever ran into him again—”
“That I would consider marrying him, I know. I was joking,” Lark admitted as the waiter brought them another round of drinks. “You should see what the two of you look like suggesting marriage,” Lark scoffed. “Teresa was in a damn polyamorous relationship.”
“It’s just ‘cause he’s filthy rich and we want to plan very expensive vacations to Lake Como every year, duh.”
“Of course! How did I not see that,” Lark laughed.
“Besides, this isn’t about Teresa, this is about you.”
“Yeah, well I can’t do traditional marriage either, let alone Italian tradition,” Lark twirled the stem of her Grey Goose and cranberry. “If you met his mother, you would’ve felt like you were in the Godfather.”
“If he’s attracted to you at all, it’s because he doesn’t want that either.”
“I don’t know what he wants. We never talk about the future.”
“Isn’t that what you say you want?”
“Yes. It’s just… with him, it’s different. I want to know when it’s over. I want to know how much time we have left.”
“Sounds like you’re in love.”
“You’re right,” she sighed. “And you know what? I simply can’t stomach it. It’s glorious, but it’s so hard. I’ve gone so long without any kind of love… too long. And now it’s just… making me crazy.”
“Like a car that’s never had an oil change?”
Lark laughed at the memory.
“Your dad is a car salesman,” Lark chuckled.
“Not a mechanic, we’ve been over this,” Channing took a sip of her drink.
“How did you not know that your car needs oil changes?” Lark shook her head.
“You’re not a car. You’re a human. And humans adapt.”
“I was just so scared, all the time,” Lark sighed. “I couldn’t enjoy the moments.”
“It’s like that for everybody.”
“Bullshit.”
“Lark, I hate to break it you, but you don’t have some huge missing piece that other people don’t. And even if you did, it doesn’t matter because no one does it exactly right. You’re going to fuck up a lot, actually.”
“It doesn’t matter now. The agency said he’d called and asked for me again, so he likely knows where I am. I ignored his calls, and now they’ve stopped. So it looks like I’ve fucked up already.”
Channing knew that Lark was in some strange place of denial. She saw the way “Bob” had devoured her with his eyes that night, all Italian and whatnot. These men don’t just give up. Especially the rich ones.
But she knew Lark well enough now to treat her like the animal shelter kitten she was. Put out a bowl of milk and let her be.
“Then there’s only one thing left to do, which is get fucked up,” Channing concluded.
“I’m halfway there,” Lark admitted.
“To fuck-ups,” Channing toasted.
The two raised their glasses before taking a drink.
* * *
After several weeks of waiting, Dario began to lose hope. He drowned himself in work, both at the factory and at home. He spent every available moment of free time working in his studio. He could’ve done without the heartache, but at least he was inspired again.
“Dario. Eat. You must,” Signora Benetto said. His son Gino was away at
his college orientation, but Dario’s mother was still coming to his house every week. She had been particularly helicopter-esque since Lark’s sudden disappearance.
“I’m full,” he answered.
“Nonsense. You push the food around your plate.”
“Va bene, stay if you like,” he ignored her. “I’ll be in my studio.”
Violetta felt a deep dread in the pit of her stomach. Dario didn’t eat or sleep. He was unbearably distant, even after these many weeks. Her son was in love with the young woman.
Her years of reprieve were over. There was another woman in his life. Her words came vomiting out as he turned towards the stairs.
“Roberto, you mustn’t be so sad. She left you without warning. So impulsive. Foolish. You do not deserve such a woman!”
“'Sad,’ mama?”
“Certo, you think a mother doesn’t know when her bambino is sad?”
“You presume to know the source of it?” Dario turned to confront her.
“…There is only one thing it could be,” she pretended to deduce.
“Is it your guilty conscience that tells you this?”
“What guilty conscience?” she feigned further ignorance.
“What did you say to her?” asked Dario pointedly.
His mother just stared, a deer in headlights.
“The night of the party. I saw the two of you speaking.”
“Nothing!” she lied. “We talked about you. About her intentions toward you.”
“And?”
“And… she said she did not intend to marry you.”
Dario’s jaw clenched as he turned to go back downstairs.
“Roberto, wait—”
“You are a snob, mama.”
“Che cosa ho detto?”
“You know what you said. You made her promise not to. You threatened her. She told me.”
“I did no such thing! I was worried she would break your heart and I was right!”
“Mama—”
“She has no mother Dario! Madonna, how can she ever be one if she has never seen it?”
“What do you know of her mother?”
“She told me she spent her life trying to win her mother’s love and she did not want me in the role.”
Dario was as stunned as he was amused.
Dario continued his descent down the dining room stairs, when he doubled back.
“Allora, when she comes back, you will apologize. And when she becomes your daughter, you will love her with everything you have. Or else we will move to the States. Capsice?”
“Why her, Dario?”
“Mama this would be your question no matter who I chose.”
“But why this one? The American?”
“Why do you hate her?”
“Look what she is doing to us!”
“Va bene, which woman would you prefer? What will you do when Gino marries?”
“God forbid!” She said in Italian.
“Mama, I know how hard it was to have my father as a husband. And I know Mario has not been much better. But you cannot take this out on Lark. You know what it is like to be accused of breaking up a family, mama. Why would you do the same to someone else?”
Violetta began crying.
“Il mio piccolino!” My little boy, she said. “You used to pick me weeds from the garden. Not flowers only weeds, because you thought they were the most beautiful and interesting. Only the best for your mama, no matter who said ‘you must pick the flowers.’”
“Mama, this story…”
“You are the only one I have left in the world who loves me!”
“I’m getting married, mama, not dying.”
“Why should she be loved? By you? Hm? She is beautiful. Smart. Some other man will want her.”
“I am not marrying her out of charity, mama. You sound ridiculous.”
“She sleeps with men she just met! And insults their mothers!”
“Is that what this is about? You are angry that I will marry someone I actually like? Someone I select and not the Di Rossis? Or the Bertellos or the Bennettos, and that she will be happy? When she has done all the wrong things?”
“We do not marry our whores, Roberto!”
“Basta,” he said in response, waving his hand as though she were a fly. “She makes me happy and I will marry her, which will make me happier. And if you love her, I will be almost too happy to live. Would you like to see that?”
Bastard. She couldn’t deny that she would.
“Si.”
Dario slowly made his way over to his mother, once a singular beauty, married off to a powerful family. Her elegance still faint underneath her slightly hunched frame. He towered over her as he gave her a kiss on the head and an embrace.
“Va bene. You are wealthy beyond measure,” he began, swaying and hugging. “I will not talk you out of your own feelings. But Lark will be my wife. And when you are with her, you will be an adult. Capisce?”
Violetta sniffed, melting under the light of her oldest son’s love.
“For you, Roberto. I will. I promise.”
Fourteen
Chapter 14
It was a sweltering day in New York, despite the fact that it was September.
Lark was staying with Yumi, the wife of the grocery store owner down the block from her childhood home. Yumi sold the store for a tidy sum after her husband died. Now she lived in a lovely apartment in Koreatown on Long Island. She didn’t speak English very often, or very well.
Lark was in the living room staring at a blinking cursor on her laptop. She was trying to write an e-mail. Trying and failing.
She was in-between jobs, attempting to go into work for herself. She wondered if more flexibility would give her the freedom she craved. She began to contact previous clients and tactfully find out how willing they would be to have her as an exclusive client.
“My sister asked about you again,” Yumi projected from the kitchen to Lark.
“You should move your sister and her family here, Emo,” Lark responded in her near-native Korean.
“It’s no use. My sister loves Korea. Her children are there. My children are here.”
“Then you should visit.”
“It’s not so easy when you are old like me.”
“Send her my regards.”
“I did.”
There was one client on the list that she’d yet to contact. And that was the one she was trying to e-mail: Dario Di Rossi.
Fashion week was coming up, and she would bet money that he would be in town. Soon she would have the opportunity to face her fear. She wanted to see him. More than anything. But all correspondence had dried up.
She thought about him every day. Where he was, what he was doing.
You’re being ridiculous, she scolded herself as she looked at her blank email. Not only did she need to reach out to him, but he also deserved an explanation. Every day that went by it only got worse.
She decided to simply copy and paste the form emails that she’d already sent out to her other clients. She inserted his name at the top and sent it quickly before she could change her mind.
It was distant and potentially passive aggressive. But it counted. She’d drawn first blood.
Minutes later there was a reply in bold in her inbox. Her heart flooded her body with adrenaline.
A brief reply from Dario.
“I will be in your neck of the woods for fashion week. Sergei will be showing on Thursday. He would love to see you. He has a surprise for you,” it read.
Thursday.
Sergei would love to see her? What about him?
She hit reply, staring at the blank screen, the blinking cursor.
She got up from her place on the couch, exhausted from second-guessing herself.
She would send a reply. Soon. But not now.
* * *
Dario flew to New York in high spirits.
As Lark had done ever since he’d known her, she popped up again, out of the blue.
Right when he was about to give up. Right when he was going to give in and scour the planet to find her, shake her and bring her back home.
He had received Lark’s tepid email the week before. He could barely send a reply for the shake in his hands. He had to wait another tortuous day to read her answer:
“I’m pleased to hear from you and would love to see Sergei as well. Unfortunately, I don’t know if my schedule will permit on such short notice. I’ll do my best, but please send Sergei my regards in either case.”
She wasn’t making it easy, but she was reaching for him. Like a child afraid to identify her captor.
There was a chance that Lark could play this game forever, though she didn’t seem like the type. But what if he was wrong? What if she never tired of running?
He could at least console himself with her butterscotch skin and shining eyes. They could reunite for one evening. He could speak tenderly to her about the turmoil she had put his soul and body through these last few months.
The show was an hour away when Dario walked past the white tents filled with Press and into the venue, where the runway had been built. The show was being held in an old stately building, that had once been a post office apparently, but you could hardly tell. He went backstage where Sergei was wringing his hands, checking the look of his garments on the models, occasionally making them switch accessories.
“Thank you for coming, signore.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Did you tell Miss Chambers?”
“I did.”
“Is she coming?”
“She wasn’t able to commit. But she said she would do her best to be here.”
“That’s good. It’s better for me to not know either way. She may be offended.”
“Nonsense. She will be flattered. In bocca al lupo.”
“What does this mean?”
“It means good luck, more or less.”
“I will be lucky to make it through this show without dying.”
Dario laughed. “That is essentially how the saying goes.”
Dario returned to the arena where the chairs on either side of the runway were starting to fill up. Most everyone else was in clusters, chatting either to themselves or to media, standing in front of cameramen and backlit with large portable contraptions.
Suddenly he saw her.