That night, in his pristine white and gray bedroom, where no bright colors were admitted, he couldn’t fall asleep. How long had Carlos been having that idea? he wondered. But now Carlos had planted a seed in his mind that had begun to sprout, and quickly became too big to get out of his head.
* * *
Because her affair with Gabriel was so new, Clara had been hesitant to discuss a summer plan with him. She didn’t want to scare him away (what if by July he had become disillusioned or had already broken up with her?), so she came up with a strategy. She persuaded Carlos and Jacopo to share a house in Greece with her, and said she “might” ask Gabriel to come along. Would they mind? Of course not, they said; actually, they would be thrilled to meet him at last.
“This is the place I’ve rented for three weeks with a couple of friends,” she said with studied nonchalance one night, as she showed the villa to Gabriel on her laptop screen. Only when Gabriel said he was surprised she’d never mentioned this plan to him did she ask whether he’d like to join them, as if the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. When he smiled and said he would be happy to, she felt victorious. The idea of having her best friends there reassured her. She wasn’t ready yet to be completely alone with a man who made her feel so insecure, and moreover she knew that Gabriel wouldn’t feel threatened by Carlos and Jacopo because they would do their best to make him feel welcome.
* * *
Carlos and Jacopo had insisted that Clara and Gabriel take the master bedroom, with its small, private patio and the view of the sea.
Clara watched Gabriel as he carefully unpacked his bag. On the plane and on the ferry he’d made polite conversation, but most of the time he’d been absorbed in his book. Yet he seemed more tired now that the two of them were alone, as if he had exhausted his reserve of energy.
“Which side of the bed do you prefer?” Clara asked him.
“You pick. I don’t have a favorite one,” he said without looking at her.
Clara sat on the left side and then lay back, as if testing the mattress.
“It’s just the right firmness, at least for me,” she said with a hopeful intonation. But Gabriel wasn’t paying attention, busy as he was, piling his books on the night table on the opposite side. He had told her he was strongly opposed to e-readers and that’s why his suitcase was so heavy: he was planning to read a lot. Apparently, his all-consuming job as a reporter at a financial newspaper didn’t allow much time for reading novels. Clara glanced at the pile of books. It seemed more like a barrier or a wall that he was building on his side of the bed. But then again, she told herself, she should follow Carlos and Jacopo’s advice and stop worrying.
This was the first time she and Gabriel would live as a couple under the same roof. In Rome, whenever they’d sleep together, usually at his place, they would part early in the morning because Gabriel had to be at the office by nine. There was just enough time to rush into the shower and then grab their cappuccinos and croissants at the counter in the café across the street. It was too early still in their relationship for Clara to feel comfortable enough to leave a change of clothes at his place, or ask him for the keys. What she observed now was that, instead of making her feel closer to him, their new proximity in Hera’s house made her feel more estranged, as it heightened how little they still knew about each other.
Now she wished she could just lie down in her underwear and close her eyes. But Gabriel’s presence made her too tense; she couldn’t possibly fall asleep in front of him, just like that. She might snore, or breathe with her mouth half open in an unsightly manner. Daylight naps could look ungraceful somehow, unlike night sleep, which was more composed and aesthetically acceptable. She pulled her toiletry bag out of her suitcase and walked to the outdoor bathroom they had so admired, where an abundance of plants prospered in the damp air. The gray cement sink was surrounded by vigorous ferns. She pulled out her day cream, anti-aging serum, deodorant, feminine intimate wash and the drops to treat her toenail fungus and placed them on the wooden shelf at a safe distance from where Gabriel’s shaving cream, toothpaste and razor formed a neat line. She put her brand-new electric toothbrush in a glass next to his and realized she’d bought one of the same make and color. Clara stood for a moment looking at the two identical toothbrushes facing each other inside the glass and wondered if that image had some hidden meaning. Then, as if on an impulse, she reached for the intimate feminine wash and the anti-fungal drops, and quickly returned them to the toiletries bag and zipped it closed.
* * *
—
Carlos and Jacopo had taken the smaller room, the one with the twin beds. They didn’t care about the view or the space, as they didn’t plan to be inside the bedroom much. They intended to spend long hours swimming and taking hikes in the evenings on the dirt trails that spiraled over on the hills behind the house. By now they had been on vacation together so often that they had become impeccable travel companions. Yet this time it was different. Something kept hovering above their heads whenever they were alone. The short conversation they had had after the dinner with Clara was still tormenting Jacopo. In the days that had passed since then, he’d felt more and more annoyed, as though Carlos had set in motion something that was impossible to ignore, and now he felt he was the one expected to break the silence.
One afternoon, while Clara and Gabriel were out food shopping, the two men were lying on a large daybed out in the courtyard under the shade of the giant oak, half dozing, with books open across their chests, when Jacopo, exasperated, blurted out, “Were you serious when you said you were considering having a child?”
Carlos immediately opened his eyes. “Yes.”
“How serious?”
“Dead serious. I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time.” Carlos was smiling, like someone who had finally gotten what he had been waiting for. But Jacopo was silent, his lightly tanned face held neutral.
Carlos prodded. “Have you had any thoughts regarding this?”
Jacopo needed to think before saying anything. He never thought he’d have this conversation with anybody, let alone Carlos. Had he ever considered becoming a father? No, simply because he never felt he had the right to. Sure, he often saw how he might end up being alone once he got older, and it was something to think about, maybe even worry about, but he always consoled himself by thinking that he’d be aging surrounded by a group of dear friends—gay men, mostly—and he would have Carlos, of course, who would be the closest. His childless, but close, loving family.
“Why me, though?” he said finally.
“I told you. Because you’re my best friend, you’re the most responsible person I know, because you would make a great father and—well, because I love you.”