Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [80]
By the time I put the girls to bed, Mafalda has done the dishes, straightened the kitchen, and set the table for breakfast. (That’s a good time-saver. I’ll remember it once I’m home.)
Papa and Giacomina sit on the couch in the living room, cuddling and reading the paper. I sit down at the kitchen table, in Pete Rutledge’s chair; okay, now I’m naming chairs after him, what is that all about? He left nearly an hour ago, though the girls begged him not to.
“How about a cup of coffee?” Giacomina says, touching my shoulder in a way that reminds me of my mother.
“Mafalda prepared the pot for breakfast already.”
“I will put it back the way I found it. Don’t worry.” Giacomina smiles and turns on the stove. The clean mountain water makes a hissing sound in the blue-and-white-enameled pot.
“So, you met Pete at the disco last night?”
“Yeah. He asked me to dance. I wish I wouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“I’m married.” Saying this aloud absolutely kills the temptation. (I must remember that.)
“Dancing with a man isn’t a bad thing.”
I look at Giacomina. Is she kidding? The thought of falling into the arms of another man on an Alpine cliff while music plays through the trees is a terrible thing. Giacomina doesn’t know me very well. I am an all-or-nothing woman. I married Jack MacChesney the first night I made love to him. Not on paper, but in my mind, the commitment began right there. Later, when we went to the priest and said our vows, it was just a validation of what I already knew. I can’t have a tall American man with a killer smile and great legs pull me away from the promises I made. What am I saying? What am I thinking? In twenty-four hours, I’m imagining a romance with someone besides my husband? Italy is a dangerous place.
“It’s very complicated, no?” she says.
“What?”
“Men and women.”
“No, not really. It’s easy. You make promises and you keep them. That’s all.”
“Easy to say.”
“No, it’s easy to do,” I insist. “I can appreciate a nice-looking man who—” why am I struggling to describe Pete? “—reads poetry and tells funny stories. But that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just admiration of some sort or another, I guess.” I never admired any man, really and truly, until Jack MacChesney. So why I am using that word now to describe Pete Rutledge from New Jersey? “Well, I don’t mean admiration. I don’t know him well enough, nor will I, to use such a strong word. Let’s just say I get a kick out of him.”
“Who?”
“Pete.”
“Oh, I thought you might be talking about your husband.”
“No, I meant Pete.”
As Giacomina pours our coffee, the way she holds the pot with the yellow-and-white-striped pot holder, and how her simple gold wristwatch twists down to the inside of her wrist and dangles there, face out, and how she moves the cup toward me—scooting it on the table, not lifting it, just like Mama used to do—all make me want to confide in her. I could never lie to my mother. She would ask me questions, like Giacomina just did, and lead me gently toward the truth, so I would never have to lie. I could admit the worst things about myself to my mother, and she would never judge me.
“Okay. All right. Okay. I’m a little attracted to him,” I confess out loud.
Giacomina smiles. “We all were. You can’t be a woman and not be attracted to him. Did you see the girls?” I nod. “There are men like that out there. They sparkle. Your father is one.”
I look into the living room. Papa has fallen asleep, his head lying against the back of the couch like a throw pillow. For the first time, he looks older to