“I am sure everyone on Elba knows as well,” she adds.
“Right. But there are two people who don’t. One is Jana.”
Now it’s time for her to go stiff. “She is not part of the family.”
“Not to you, but she is to Vanni. And Vanni is the other person. We haven’t told either of them. We’ve been putting it off because it’s just so new and, until now, it was just a vacation romance. We didn’t know if we would have a future together. But now we have to tell them. I just don’t think either of them are going to like it.”
Maria starts to laugh. Her laugh is a lot like Claudio’s, loud and boisterous and taking up space. If I wasn’t so confused, I’d probably find it infectious.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just picturing Jana’s reaction. Okay. Let us just get some drinks first, shall we?”
To my surprise, she doesn’t take me to the walled city of Lucca, but to the space just beyond it, parking beside a restaurant that overlooks the Serchio River. We get a table outside overlooking the water, and the buildings of the walled city, including the famed Guinigi Tower, with its oak tree on top.
“This is lovely,” I tell her as the waiter drops off some olives.
“I prefer it,” she says. “Claudio is always dragging me to the gallery and to places in the city walls, but it’s too much for me, too busy, too many tourists. Too hot.” For emphasis, she picks up a menu and fans herself with it. “But here, it is peaceful. And I promise you, the wine is excellent.”
I trust her on that, so when the waiter comes back, I let her do the ordering.
“You sure?” she asks.
“Please, I’m an author. I’ll take whatever you got.”
She laughs and gets us a bottle of white from Sicily.
“Allora,” she says. “You were saying. You haven’t told Jana or Vanni.”
“No. I have been meaning to talk to Vanni…”
“That is Claudio’s role, no?”
“It is. Definitely. But I just wanted to put my f-…I wanted to get a feel for things. I know that he’s had issues with his father’s girlfriends in the past, enough so that Claudio broke up with them.”
“Ah yes, Marika. She was a nice girl but…Claudio didn’t look at her the way that he looks at you. He is crazy for you, Grace. I know this seems so big and hard to understand when you’re looking into a family from the outside, but even though Claudio will always do what’s best for his son, that doesn’t mean he can’t do what’s best for himself.”
I nod, popping an olive in my mouth.
“Do you love him?”
I nearly choke on the olive, the brine tickling my throat.
“So you haven’t told him, I take it,” she comments.
I carefully chew the olive and then swallow it, buying time. “He told me he loves me.”
“That much anyone can see. But what about you?”
I want to be honest with her. It strikes me right now, after all this time, that I haven’t had a female friend to talk to since Robyn died. Everything I’ve been going through regarding Claudio, I’ve been going through alone. Thank god I’ve been channeling into my writing, otherwise I’d go insane.
But can I trust her? She is his sister, after all.
“I am close with Claudio,” she says, reading my expression. “But I am not that close.”
I nod, taking in a deep breath. “Well, I don’t know. I think … I think I’m falling in love with him. I just don’t know how to separate it from infatuation. I’ve never been in love before … or at least, I don’t think.”
“If you don’t know, then you haven’t,” she says.
“So how will I?”
She just gives me a knowing smile. “When you know, you know. What they say is true. Perhaps you haven’t let yourself fall yet. When you are so worried about the future and what other people will say, perhaps you are still protecting yourself. Once you move past all of that, once you feel safe and confident in your future, maybe then…”
Maybe then.
“Either way, this is Claudio’s son and he knows what is best for him. Vanni, no matter how he feels, will come around eventually.”
I exhale, sinking back in my chair. “I hope so. I understand exactly how Vanni feels, too. When my parents divorced, I wanted nothing more than for them to get back together. They didn’t, and then my dad went and married someone else. And honestly, it made me feel like dirt. Like I was unwanted and forgotten.”
“Well, was your father dirt?”
I laugh at the sincerity of her question. “We have a complicated relationship. I love him still, but he could have handled that a lot better.”
Understatement of the year.
“But you turned out fine,” she says.
“Did I? I’m a writer.”
She chuckles. “Okay, so it was good for that. But I don’t think Claudio is like your father, and as much as I don’t like Jana, Vanni’s relationship with her is very different. It does seem to work for them. I think, no matter what happens, let Vanni be Vanni. He’s a smart kid. He’ll want his father to be happy and you can’t deny that he is, now that he’s found you.”
The waiter takes the opportunity to drop off the bottle of wine, pouring us each a glass. They take their jobs so seriously here, back in Edinburgh they’d plunk it on the table and leave.
We pick up our glasses and raise them to each other.
“And when it comes to Jana,” Maria says to me, swirling the wine around in the glass. “You have to ask yourself, what it matters? If you can’t hide it from her forever and it doesn’t change how you feel about Claudio, then who cares? She can be mad if she wants, and maybe your career will hurt. But can you imagine caring so much that you leave Claudio behind? Can you imagine coming into success and having no one to share it with? Because that’s what will happen and you’ll end up feeling empty.”
She raises the glass to her nose. “You are putting all your stock into the wrong person. Jana is just an agent. If you are a good writer, and I know you are, then you will find success no matter what happens. You will get another agent. But Claudio? There is no other Claudio. Capisci?”
There is no other Claudio.
He’s one in a billion.
As am I.
“Capisco,” I answer.
I understand.
She closes her eyes and breathes in the wine. “Perfetto.”
I do the same, the notes of lemon and apples and hay wafting in my nose. Then I sip. The wine tastes like gold.
In fact, the whole moment is golden.
Because what Maria said is the truth.
I have nothing to be afraid of anymore.
After a moment I say, “I will talk to Vanni later tonight.”
“Good,” she says. “And then tell Jana, and get it all over with so you can be with my brother. And maybe, somewhere along the way, you’ll fall in love with him.”
I give her a shy smile at that, because, I know I’m starting to fall.
It’s after dinner when Maria and Sofia drive off back home, and all the digestifs have been finished, that I decide to follow through with her advice and find Vanni.