Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [83]
“What do you think?” Pete asks.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I tell him. I wish I were alone here. I would take off all my clothes and lie in the pool and let the minerals and salts soak through my skin and replenish my soul. I can smell the salt as it bubbles in the water. Quickly, I shake off the picture of myself in this pool (just in case Pete Rutledge is a mind reader).
Pete takes his shoes and socks off and rolls up his pants legs. He wades out into the pool.
“Come here,” he says.
At first I don’t move. I look at him out in the mist. I like the idea of him in the mist, like a mirage, something unreal that I can’t touch.
“Come here,” he says again.
I roll my pants legs up, then I stand up in the water and slowly wade out to him. The bottom of the pool is filled with sand, and every once in a while something sharp, like a shell, jabs at me. Pete holds his arms out to me. Just as I’m about to reach him, my foot slides into a hole where the bottom of the pool has given way. Pete reaches out and catches me, scooping me out of the water and into his arms.
“What was that?” I look down at the water.
Pete doesn’t answer me. He holds me. He looks at me. With my arms around his neck, I put my head on his shoulder, just for a second. I feel his heart beating fast; and now I know how it feels to be in his arms. I would stay here forever if I could, with the mist rising off the warm water and surrounding us. Beads of water run down my calf and onto his sleeve. He looks down at my legs; I take my hand and roll my pants legs down. When I look down, he nuzzles his nose into my neck.
I hear my daughter’s distant laughter, and it brings me back to the present.
“Um, maybe, put me down,” I tell him. Pete doesn’t listen; he carries me back to the edge of the pool and sets me down on the ledge.
“Let’s go home,” he says softly.
Pete Rutledge folds into our lives in Schilpario as though he was a part of the vacation plan all along. He eats meals with us; he tours Alta Città and rides the train with us to see the Villa d’Este, the great hotel on Lake Como where the movie stars go. Since the day at the Assunta Mountain, Pete has not said or done anything flirty, and I’m relieved. Maybe fifteen years of spinsterhood taught me how to shut down suitors. I hope so.
Gala sent a telegram inviting us down to Florence. She’s conducting a tour of the Big Three—Rome, Florence, and Venice—and wants us to meet her for the weekend. I wire back that we’ll meet her, but I don’t send details. At the last minute, Pete decides to join us because he has business in Florence. The girls are thrilled (of course). The train ride is so much fun. Mafalda packed a lunch. The girls whisper and giggle the entire trip, when they’re not begging Pete to play cards or explain what they see outside the window as we speed past.
“Have you ever been to Florence?” Pete asks me.
“On my honeymoon.”
Pete smiles. “Ah,” he says.
When we pull into Florence, I understand why artists must come here. Everywhere you turn you see art—a painting in the way the sun hits a wall of terra-cotta tile, or a sculpture in the pattern of the cobblestone, or a poem in the way an old man with white hair feeds a flock of doves.
“Mama, can we go on the bridge?” Etta points to the Ponte Vecchio, over the Arno River. The simple bridge, a sturdy U-shaped construction of ancient brick the color of ripe peaches, waits for us in the distance.
“Absolutely. But first we have to meet Gala.”
We leave the train station and find our spot in the Piazza della Signoria, where we are surrounded by rows of ornate town houses, connected but painted different shades of gray, pale blue, and beige. Only the shutters in shiny black and the touches of gold in the trim offer any glitz, but it is not necessary; the architecture is artistry enough. We stand on the corner of San Marco Street and wait for Gala.
Etta points across the cobblestone square. “Look! There she is!” Etta has never met Gala but knows her from the videotape. Boy, does she know how to make an entrance. Gala Nuccio emerges from the