Summer in Tuscany (10 page)

Nonna

Nonna was sitting at one of the long wooden trestle tables covered with red, white, and blue paper cloths, in the shade of a massive old chestnut tree whose branches spread almost to the ground. Buntings fluttered in the breeze along with the festive little flags; the familiar aroma of burgers blended with the sugary scent of young red wine being poured straight from the wooden cask, and with the hot sweet aroma of fresh-picked tomatoes tossed with olive oil and basil, slathered on slabs of hard crusty bread. Birds twittered hopefully in the trees, surveying for crumbs, and somebody was playing old tunes on an accordion, while those with sufficient wine in them sang along.

It was, thought Nonna, a perfect mixture of the familiar from home—meaning America—and the familiar from her old home—meaning here in Italy. At least she thought that was what she meant, but maybe the wine had gone to her head just a little.

She stared around the table at the weather-beaten faces of men she had known when they were boys, men not much older than she was herself, but whose lives had been lived outdoors, in the vineyards and orchards and fields. They were farmers’ faces, lined by the strong sun of summer and the harsh, icy winds of winter, and from worrying about crops and the vagaries of the weather and the need to harvest the grapes before the frosts came. Yet look how they enjoyed life. Just look at them now, singing along with gusto, raising their glasses, eating good food, drinking good wine, enjoying each other’s company. Here everybody knew everyone else, they looked out for each other—apart from a few family feuds, of course, but those had been going on for maybe a century and didn’t count. The fact that her father had jumped into a freezing winter torrent to save a boy’s life did not surprise Nonna. Any other man here, she thought, would have done the same, though at home she could not imagine anyone jumping into the Hudson to save anybody.

And she felt quite different here. Just look at her, a woman who had not worn anything but sensible black for years. Now here she was, in bright green silk from the Rinascente department store in Florence and even a push-up bra the saleswoman had told her she absolutely had to wear with this neckline. And she had to admit the neckline set off the string of pearls rather well; and though the panty hose with the tummy support were killing her, they made her figure look good. She’d always had good legs, she just hadn’t thought about them in years. Now, in strappy three-inch heels, they looked, well…almost glamorous.

It was true. She did look glamorous. Livvie had told her so, and so had the saleswomen who’d put her outfit together. They had even chosen her lipstick, “Begonia” it was called, as well as a rosy blusher. She had never worn such a thing in her life as blusher, but she had to admit it added a certain youthful glow. In fact, she hadn’t felt as young as this in years, despite that lurching heart of hers.

She put all thoughts of rickety hearts out of her mind as she excused herself from the table and walked toward the house. She would take a look at her villa.
Their
villa, because what was hers was also Gemma’s and Livvie’s.

She stood looking up at all the many windows with the tall silver-blue shutters; at the peeling golden-apricot walls and the shiny terra-cotta tiles of the terrace. A sense of wonderment brought tears to her eyes.
This
was
hers
?

Rocco

Rocco Cesani parked his rusting white pickup truck at the edge of what once had been a lawn and waited until the cloud of dust settled before climbing out. He dusted off his black suit coat, pulled it on over his short-sleeved blue shirt, pushed up the knot on his blue silk tie, bought specially for the occasion, and whistled for his dog, a white bull terrier with a long pink nose, pink ears, and pink-rimmed eyes, who was known as the best truffle dog in the area. Balancing on one leg, Rocco cleaned first one shoe against the back of his pants leg, then the other. He smoothed back his thick gray hair that bristled like a Brillo pad, put on his old camouflage-green rain hat, ran a finger over his mustache to make sure every whisker was in place, and he was ready.

The dog, Fido, trotted obediently at his heels, glancing neither right nor left. Wherever Rocco went, that was where Fido would go, and hopefully it would be on a truffle hunt, or maybe after rabbits.

“Not today, old fellow,” Rocco said over his shoulder. “Today you will eat American.
Hamburgers
.” He rolled his eyes in despair. “Though why they eat hamburgers when they could eat a good steak
fiorentina
I do not know.”

He stopped to survey the scene, and the dog sat exactly half a pace behind him. Rocco knew everyone there, except for the English, whom nobody knew because they only came for two weeks at a time in the summer. You never saw them much, though you could hear them all right: the women’s high-pitched voices in the
alimentaria
and their kids arguing in the
gelateria
and the men, hot and red-faced from the sun, uncomfortable in the perpetually smoky Bar Galileo, drinking a cold beer with a grappa chaser, waiting for their wives and children.

He knew the
americano
well, though. Ben Raphael came every year. He stayed for a month, sometimes more. Sometimes he even came in the winter, when snow threatened and the Villa Piacere needed cords of firewood to keep the hot water and the fireplaces going. Rocco always brought him a truffle, and the
americano
brought him a bottle of good champagne to drink on Christmas Eve with the traditional Italian supper of fish and mussels and clams.

He thought the
americano
was a good man, though now there were rumors about requests for planning permission and an idea to turn the villa into a hotel. This could not be good. And anyhow, who would want to come to Bella Piacere?

He searched the crowd for a once-familiar figure. And then he saw her, standing alone, gazing up at the villa. He took a deep breath in, then let it out in a soft
aah
of pleasure.

Sophia Maria had changed little since she was thirteen. She had always been taller than the other village girls, and always with that shiny black hair curling around her shoulders. Now, though, it was swept up in a smart hairdo, and she was elegant in green silk and pearls. Of course he remembered she had always had good legs—and those certainly had not changed. Yet she was somehow different. Was it that she looked American now? That she looked like a rich woman who lived in New York in a fancy house? A woman who might not have time anymore for an old friend? An old suitor, he might have been, had she stayed in Bella Piacere long enough.

There was only one way to find out. “Fido.” The dog snapped to attention at his heels.
“Avanti,”
he said, and together they marched forward to where Sophia Maria was standing, all alone.

Nonna and Rocco

“Sophia Maria.”

“Rocco Cesani!” Nonna stood with her hands on her hips, staring at him. The boy she remembered as a scruffy urchin in hand-me-downs that were always too small for his sturdy frame was now a stocky, bristle-haired, mustached man, hat in hand, smart in a dark suit. He even wore a tie. A silk one. He looked like a prosperous businessman.

“Rocco Cesani,” she said again in a softer tone, watching him taking her in, just the way she had him.

“Sophia Maria Lorenza Corsini.” Her names rolled off Rocco’s tongue, smooth as liquid gold, as he thought how beautiful she was still, and how elegant she looked, and how glamorous. He told himself quickly that Sophia Maria was obviously a rich woman, too rich for his blood anyhow. But her dark hair still had those silky curls, and the touch of gray only softened the olive tones of her skin, and her eyes still flashed that dark fire at him, the way they had in the schoolyard when he’d tugged at her pigtails.
And
she was still head and shoulders taller than he was.

Nonna stepped forward and swept him into her arms, giving him a faceful of perfumed, lace-covered bosom.

Rocco allowed himself the luxury of being there for a second or two before he pushed himself away. Then he took her by the shoulders and planted a kiss on either cheek.

“Sophia Maria,” he said again. “Look what America has done for you. You look like a fashion model.”

“And you, Rocco, you look like a man from Wall Street.”

They stood at arm’s length, he still with his hands on her shoulders, beaming. Each had got the wrong impression of the other. The truth was that Rocco was usually to be found working in his olive groves, and the suit was the only one he possessed, used for weddings and funerals and the annual party at the villa. And Sophia Maria was just Nonna, the suburban Italian-American widow, always in her basic black, who rarely left her little town—except for a Macy’s sale—and who was usually to be found slaving over a hot stove preparing that Sunday lunch.

Though he now owned many olive groves and his own
frantoio,
his olive mill, Rocco still lived in the same small farmhouse he always had; he still wore a workman’s overalls and boots and still drank with the same cronies every night in the same bar he had been patronizing for over forty years. He had never traveled farther than Florence in his life. Ask him why, and he’d shrug. “There’s no need. I have everything I want here,” he’d say. And he meant it.

“Sophia, now you are a rich American princess,” he marveled.

Nonna blinked. Maybe she should tell him that wasn’t quite true, though of course she was an heiress; but anyhow, right now it didn’t seem to matter.

“And you, Rocco,” she said admiringly, “are the very picture of the successful businessman.”

Rocco shuffled his feet; what could he say when a woman he admired paid him such a compliment, even though it wasn’t quite true? He couldn’t think of anything, so instead he called his dog. “This is Fido,” he said, “the best truffle dog in all of Tuscany.”

Nonna raised a skeptical eyebrow. She remembered Rocco had always been prone to exaggeration. “In all of Tuscany?”

“
Sì, sì
…well, in the village certainly, maybe in the whole area. But he is the best, no doubt about that. Fido, say hello to Sophia Maria.”

The odd-looking pink-and-white dog trotted toward her. Nonna gazed down at him a little nervously, but the dog gazed benignly back up at her, extended his right paw, waited patiently for her to take it, then gave an impatient little
wuff
.
“Ciao, Fido,”
she said, hastily shaking the paw.
“Come stai?”

Rocco called his dog back, smiling proudly. “He is like my child,” he said softly. “Almost as good as the son I never had.”

Nonna slipped her arm through his, and they walked together up the steps onto the terrace. “Then you never married, Rocco?”

“Yes, I married. You would not know her. She was from around Montepulciano, a farmer’s daughter, a lovely girl. But she never bore a child, and she died ten years ago and left me a widower, alone to mourn her memory.”

Rocco crossed himself, and so did Nonna, and then she told Rocco about her own late husband, and that she had a daughter who was a physician in Manhattan, and also a granddaughter, Olivia.

“A physician,” Rocco said, impressed. “And you named your granddaughter for the olive groves of Tuscany.”

And then, as they strolled the terrace of the Villa Piacere together, Nonna also told him the story of how her father had saved the old count’s life when he was a boy, and that now she had inherited the Villa Piacere.

“Can you believe it, Rocco?” she said, smiling. “This wonderful villa now belongs to me?”

He gave her an odd sideways look, then after a moment he said, “But Sophia Maria, didn’t you know that the villa belongs to the
americano
? The very one whose party we are attending? He bought it last year. Signed, sealed, and delivered. So how
can
you be an heiress?”

Livvie

Livvie was bored. She drifted around the gardens seeking company her own age, but the boys and girls gyrating in the gazebo to Italian pop music stared at her as though she were something from another planet. The girls giggled behind their hands, and the boys grinned and shouted something that sounded like
ciao bella
. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she got the feeling they were laughing at her.

Disgruntled, she drifted back into the villa, swiftly inspecting room after room, stopping to look more closely at the charming murals of the animals and almost jumping out of her skin when the ancient parrot she had thought must be stuffed squawked at her.

She could swear he’d said, “Poppy.” “Poppy
cara
.” There, he’d said it again. Livvie knew that
cara
meant “dear” in Italian. She reached out to touch his scruffy molting feathers, but he skittered back along his golden perch and she had to lean closer to get a better look at the emerald, ruby, and diamond rings around his legs.

“Wow,” she said, awed. “Oh, wow! Poppy
cara
must surely have loved you, little parrot.” And then she saw his name on the plaque. “Luchay,” she said. The bird batted a beady golden eye at her, then crouched lower, watching her carefully.

“Bye, Luchay,” she called as she left. “I hope Poppy
cara
comes back for you soon.”

Out on the terrace again, she looked for her mom and saw her talking to a man. It was the guy from the Hassler, the one her mom had called the Michelangelo from Long Island. She wondered what he was doing here. But since he was here, that meant that prissy little kid in velvet would be with him.

She walked to the edge of the terrace, scanning the grounds. Yup. There she was. On the swing, staring into space, all dressed in white and all alone. Great, Livvie thought, grinning wickedly.

She sprang down the terrace steps, then strolled nonchalantly across the lawn. The kid stopped swinging as she approached, and they eyed each other warily. The kid was wearing white shorts, a sweet white top with little ribbon straps, and white sandals. Fresh as a daisy, Livvie thought scornfully.

“Hi,” the kid said finally.

“Hi.” Livvie walked in back of the swing, and the kid twisted around, following her nervously with her eyes.

“What’s your name?” Livvie asked, circling back in front of her again.

“Muffie.”

Livvie rolled her eyes. What else would it be!

“So…what’s
your
name?”

“Olivia.”

Muffie said nothing, her eyes on the ground. “I have a golden Lab named Veronica,” she offered at last, and Livvie sighed.

“So what? I have a ginger cat that weighs nineteen pounds.”

Muffie lifted her eyes to meet Livvie’s. “What’s his name?”

“Sinbad. But usually he’s just called Bad.”

Muffie stared at the grass again. “I have a pony too.”

Livvie swung herself up onto a branch of the ancient chestnut tree and straddled it. “You
would
.”

Muffie bit her lip; she swung a toe through the grass, carving a little semicircle under the tree. Suddenly she slid off the swing. She stepped closer, gazing up at Livvie. “I like your hair. The colors, I mean.”

Livvie ran a nonchalant hand through her mostly yellow crop with just a touch of lime at the front. “This is nothing. Usually I have three or even four colors, but Mom said no.” She shrugged. “You know moms.”

“Oh yes, I
do,
” Muffie said fervently. “Believe me, I do.”

“I saw you in Rome, at the Hassler.” Livvie dangled by her hands from a branch over Muffie’s head. “You here on vacation?”

“Yes, with my dad. Mom was getting married again. She said Daddy had to take me with him. I don’t think he wanted to. This is his time when he likes to be alone, you see. Just to paint, he says, and to think.”

“Why can’t he think at home?”

“He says it’s too noisy in SoHo, and besides, he’s always working.”

“Is he rich?”

“Yes, I think so. But Mom is richer, or at least that’s what she tells me.”

Despite herself, Livvie was impressed. “I never met my dad,” she said.

“Oh.” Muffie sounded surprised. She retraced the arc in the grass with her toe. “I’m sorry,” she added politely.

Livvie shrugged it away. “Anyhow, we’re kind of rich now, I guess,” she said. “Count Piacere left my grandmother this villa, y’know, when he died. It belongs to us now.” She jumped lightly to the ground. “In fact, you might be trespassing. In future you’ll have to ask my permission to come here.”

Muffie’s jaw dropped. “
This
villa? The
Villa Piacere
? But it belongs to Daddy. He bought it last year. He’s converting it into a hotel. Everybody knows that.”

Livvie stood for a long moment. She glared at Muffie, shocked. “Liar,” she said finally. And throwing one last glare over her shoulder, she marched off to find her mother.