“We can take care of ourselves!” Eva Maria went on. “We want to talk girl talk! Go! Get the bags!”
Despite the chaos and Eva Maria’s energetic gait, I was able to appreciate the dramatic proportions of the kitchen on my way through. I had never seen pots and pans that big before, nor had I ever seen a fireplace with the square footage of my college dorm room; it was the kind of rustic country cuisine most people claim they dream about, but-when the rubber hit the road-would have no clue how to use.
From the kitchen we came out into a grand hall that was clearly the official entrance to Castello Salimbeni. It was a square, ostentatious space with a fifty-foot ceiling and a first-floor loggia going all the way around, not unlike, in fact, the Library of Congress in Washington where Aunt Rose had once taken me and Janice-for educational purposes and to avoid cooking-while Umberto was away on his annual vacation.
“This is where we will have our party tonight!” said Eva Maria, pausing briefly to make sure I was impressed.
“It is… breathtaking,” was all I could think of saying, my words disappearing under the high ceiling.
The guest rooms were upstairs, off the loggia, and my hostess had very kindly put me in a room with a balcony overlooking a swimming pool, an orchard, and, beyond the orchard wall, Val d’Orcia bathed in gold. It looked like happy hour in Paradise.
“No apple trees?” I joked, leaning out from the balcony and admiring the old vines growing on the wall. “Or snakes?”
“In all my years,” said Eva Maria, taking me seriously, “I have never seen a snake here. And I walk in the orchard every night. But if I saw one, I would crush it with a rock, like this.” She showed me.
“Yup, he’s toast,” I said.
“But if you’re afraid, Sandro is right in there-” She nodded at the French door next to mine. “Your rooms share this balcony.” She elbowed me conspiratorially. “I thought I would make it easy for you two.”
Somewhat stunned, I followed her back into my room. It was dominated by a colossal four-poster bed made up with white linen, and when she noticed my awe, Eva Maria wiggled her eyebrows exactly the way Janice would have done. “Nice bed, no?… Homeric!”
“You know,” I said, my cheeks heating up, “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me and… your godson.”
She looked at me with something that looked an awful lot like disappointment. “No?”
“No. I’m not that kind of person.” Seeing that I had failed to impress her with my chastity, I added, “I’ve only known him for a week. Or so.”
Now at last, Eva Maria smiled and patted me on the cheek.
“You’re a good girl. I like that. Come, now I will demonstrate to you the bathroom-”
When Eva Maria finally left me alone-after pointing out that there was a bikini my size in the bedside drawer and a kimono in the wardrobe-I collapsed, spread-eagled, on the bed. There was something wonderfully relaxing about her lavish hospitality; if I wanted to, I could undoubtedly stay on for the rest of my life, living the picture-perfect seasons of a Tuscany wall calendar, dressed to fit right in. But at the same time, the whole scenario was mildly troubling. It seemed to me there was something terribly important I had to grasp about Eva Maria-not the Mafia thing, but something else-and it didn’t help that the clues I needed were somehow bobbing around aloft, like newborn balloons trapped by a ceiling high, high over my head. Nor did it help my focus, I had to admit, that I had consumed half a bottle of Prosecco on an empty stomach, and that I, too, was bobbing around in seventh heaven from my afternoon with Alessandro.
Just as I was drifting off, I heard a loud splash of water from somewhere outside and, seconds later, a voice calling me. After peeling my limbs off the bed one by one, I staggered out onto the balcony to find Alessandro waving at me from the swimming pool below, looking exceptionally frisky.
“What are you doing up there?” he yelled. “The water is perfect!”
“Why,” I yelled back, “does it always have to be water with you?”
He looked perplexed, but it only added to his charms. “What’s wrong with water?”
ALESSANDRO BURST INTO laughter when I joined him by the swimming pool, wrapped in Eva Maria’s kimono. “I thought you were hot,” he said, sitting on the edge with his feet in the water, enjoying the last bright rays of sun.
“I was,” I said, standing around awkwardly, playing with the kimono belt, “but I’m feeling better. And, to be honest, I’m not a great swimmer.”
“You don’t have to swim,” he pointed out. “The pool is not very deep. And besides”-he gave me the eye-“I am here to protect you.”
I looked around at everything but him. He was wearing one of those skimpy European bathing suits, but that was the only skimpy thing about him. Sitting there in the light of late afternoon, he looked as if he was made of bronze; his body was practically glowing, and had clearly been sculpted by someone intimately familiar with the ideal proportions of the human physique.
“Come on!” he said, sliding back into the water as if it was his true element. “I promise, you’ll love it.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said, staying where I was, “I’m not good with water.”
Not quite believing me, Alessandro swam over to where I was standing, resting his arms on the edge of the pool. “What does that mean? Do you dissolve?”
“I tend to drown,” I replied, perhaps more sharply than necessary, “and panic. In reverse order.” Seeing his disbelief, I sighed and added, “When I was ten, my sister pushed me off a dock to impress her friends. I hit my head on a mooring line and nearly drowned. Even now, I can’t be in deep water without panicking. So, there you have it. Giulietta is a wimp.”
“This sister of yours-” Alessandro shook his head.
“Actually,” I said, “she’s okay. I tried to push her off the dock first.”
He laughed. “So, you got what you deserved. Come on. You’re too far away.” He patted the gray slate. “Sit here.”
Now at last, I reluctantly shed the kimono to reveal Eva Maria’s minuscule bikini, and walked over to sit down next to him, my feet in the water. “Ow, the stone is hot!”
“Then come down here!” he urged me. “Put your arms around my neck. I’ll hold you.”
I shook my head. “No. Sorry.”
“Yes, come on. We can’t live like this, you up there, me down here.” He reached out and grabbed me by the waist. “How am I going to teach our children to swim, when they see that you are afraid of the water?”
“Oh, you are priceless!” I sneered, putting my hands on his shoulders. “If I drown, I’m gonna sue you!”
“Yes, sue me,” he said, lifting me off the edge and into the water. “Whatever you do, don’t take responsibility for anything.”
It was probably fortunate that I was too irritated by his remark to pay much attention to the water. Before I knew it, I was in up to my chest, my legs wrapped around his naked waist. And I felt fine.
“See?” He smiled triumphantly. “Not as bad as you think.”
I glanced down at the water and saw my own distorted reflection. “Don’t even think about letting go of me!”
He took a firm grip of Eva Maria’s bikini bottoms. “I’m never letting go of you. You are stuck with me, in this pool, forever.”
As my nerves about the water slowly subsided, I began to appreciate the feeling of his body against mine, and, judging by the look in his eyes among other things, the sentiment was mutual. “‘Though his face,’” I said, “‘be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot and a body, though they are not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb.’”
Alessandro was clearly trying hard to ignore the engineering feat of my bikini top. “See, that is where Shakespeare is right about Romeo-for a change.”