Daniel stood up and loomed over Sadie. "Sing?"
"Sorry?"
"Do.You.Want.To.Sing.With.Me?"
For a count of five, nothing happened. Then,a thousand sad wallflowers at a thousand loud dances were redeemed in that moment. Sadie positively lit up. "Yes," she said, sitting up straight. "I do."
"Okay." He started for the stage. "Lose the jacket."
She paused halfway out of her seat. "What?"
"The jacket," he said over his shoudler. "It's freaking ugly."
I watched as Sadie froze.
"C'mon, Sadie. I'm aging here."
Sadie slid the jacket off her shoulders. It caught at her elbows for a second, then she let it drop to the chair. Underneath, she was wearing jeans and a red cashmere sweater. She looked terrified, mortified, and really good.
"Excellent," Daniel said. "Let's go.
He got her out of her jacket. In less than ten seconds." Frankie shook his head. "God help her if he tries to get her out of something else."
"Oh,no.He wouldn't...You wouldn't let him..."
"For the record, I was kidding. But try to give them both just a little credit, if you would,please.
If they sing 'Endless Love' or 'No Air,' I'm disowning them both.
Melissa JensenThe Fall Ball," I told her. "Our Halloween dance."
"Ah.You have a boy to go with?"
"Absolutely.Frankie."
She sighed, and perched on the edge of my bed.Her feet dangled a good six inches off the floor. "I like your Frankie, but he's not going to make pretty bambini with you."
"Nonna!"
"Well,is he?No." She leaned forward. "Now, that boy with the nice voice and bony mother.He might do."
I sighed. "He might do a lot of things, Nonna." I'm not one of them. "Dancing with me is not one of them."
"He liked my pane."
"Yup.He did."
"And you.He likes you."
"Nope.That he does not."
"Hmph.You with all the answers about boys."
That made me smile. "Apparently, I don't even know the right questions."
"Who does? Even kings don't know te right questions.Eh,did you know there is a love story between a king and a queen in your history? Here." She patted the bed. "Get in, cucciola. I will tell you.
This,bellissima," Nonna began, "is true love story...
"The Costas, we were born to the sea and proud, very proud. Son after father after son build their boats and follow the fish.My bisnonno, father of my nonno, is proudest of all. He is the only son of a widowed mother-king of the sea.But he is...ppffftt..." Nonna blew out a breath and fluttered her fingers maybe an inch or two above her own head. "Basso. Piccolo. When he was young, his uncles and cousins at first fear to take him on board.They think the smallest of waves or biggest of tono...tono...What is it?"
"Tuna," I said.
"Si. Silly word. A tuna would flip him from the boat. But no one looks down on him. Ah, you laugh, you. Go on, laugh. They are not much bigger than he. So he is little, but he is proud, because his boat sails highest on the waves and soon brings in the most fish. Like gold, it makes him rich. And when a man becomes rich, he must think of marriage, or the village mamas will think of it for him. Capisci?"
I smiled. "Yeah, I get it. 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
"Ah,si!" Nonna nodded, delighted. "Austen.So smart."
"You know Pride and Prejudice?" I asked. She flicked my ear. "Ow!
And she says..."
I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea.'I'm in love with someone else'?"
Nonna snorted hard enough to shake the mattress. "With who? There is no one else like Michelangelo. He is king of the sea! In love with someone else. Pah."
"Okay.Fine.Tell me what she said."
"Nonna leaned toward me, eyes bright. "She says, 'You do not see me.' And my bisnonno, he says, 'Of course I see you! Every day I see you by the seawall. I see you in my mind, too, in pearls and furs and silks. So, here,here I offer you these things.' And she says..."
"Thank you?"
"Per carita!"
"'No,thank you?'"
"Ah,Fiorella. I think you are not the child of my child! Rifletti. Use that good brain."
"Nonna..."
"She says, 'You do not see me!' And she sends him away."
I wasn't sure I was getting the point. Here's an ordinary girl in ratty clothes who's going to end up a nun if she doesn't get married. Along comes a decent guy with money, promising to take her away from it all...Wasn't that where is usually faded to Happily Ever After?
My bisnonno is such a man...Fine, you laugh again. Not so handsome,I think,but just as proud. He struts through the square with his new shoes. He buys a carriage. But he gives to the poor,too, to the Church.He is kind to his siters; he is a friend to many.He is raffinato, a gentleman. And the girl he chooses? Hmm? Hmm?"
"I don't know, Nonna. Elizabeth Benedetto?"
"Hah!" Nonna slapped her hand hard against her knee. It bounced soundlessly off the leopard plush. "Elisabetta. Elisabetta, daughter of a man who works on another's boat. Elisabetta who has many sisters and who is intended for the Church if she does not marry. I don't remember her family name, if I ever knew. Maybe Benedetto.Why not? It does not matter.What matters is that no one understands why Michelangelo Costa chooses this girl. No one can...oh,the word...to say a picture of: descrivere."
"Describe?"
"Si. Describe.No one can describe her.Small,they think. Brown, maybe. Maybe not so pretty, not so ugly. Just a girl. She sits by the seawall mending nets her family does not own. She is odd,too,her neighbors think.They think it is she who leaves little bit of shell and rock when she is done with the nets, little mosaico on the wall. So why? the piu bella girls ask, the ones with long,long necks, and long black hair, and noses that turn up at the end. Why this odd, nobody girl in her ugly dresses, with her dirty feet?
"Michelangelo sends his cousins to her with gifts. A cameo, silk handkerchiefs, a fine pair of gloves. Again,the laugh.Then, you would not have laughed at a gift of gloves, piccola. Oh,you girls now. You want what? E-mails and ePods?"
"That's iPods,Nonna."
"Whatever. See,that word I know. Now, Elisabetta sends back the little girst. So my bisnonno sends bigger: pearls, meters of silk cloth, a horse. These,too,she will not take. And the people begin to look,and ask: Who is she, this nobody girl,to refuse him? No money,no beauty,no family name.You are a fool,they tell her. Accept. Accept!
"And my proud bisnonno does not understand. He can have any girl in the town.So again,he gathers the gifts, he carries them himself, leads the horse. But Elisabetta is not to be found. She is not at her papa's house or in the square or at the seawall. Michelangelo fears she has gone to the convent. But no. As he stands at the seawall, a seabird,a gull, lands on his shoulder and says-"
"Nonna-"
"Shh! The girl tells him to follow the delfino....delfin? Dolphin! So he looks, and there, a dolphin with its head above the water says, 'Follow!' So he follows,the sack with gifts for Elisabetta on his back,like a peddler, the horse trailing behind.The dolphin leads him around the bay to a beach, and there is Elisabetta, old dress covered in sand,feet bare, just drawing circles in the sand. She starts to run, but Michelangelo calls to her. 'Why,' he asks her. 'Why do you hide? Why will you not take my gifts?' And she says..."
I'd been fighting a losing battle with yawning for a while. I was failing fast. "I have no idea. 'I'm in love with someone else.'?
There aren't many classrooms in the school basement. Most of the space is for storage and utilities. As far as student use goes, the darkroom is down there, along with yearbook and the school paper. Places that either don't require much light or are used by students so happy to be there that they don't care. The only illumination comes from the fluorescents overhead and what filters in from the hallway through the glass upper half of the doors. It usually takes me about ten minutes in French to lose my focus completely.
This time,it took less.We were learning the past imperfect tense, which, as well as being completely incomprehensible in practice, in theory describes a state where every action was either left incomplete, unfulfilled, or repeated over and over.
I was ready to sign over Frankie and my firstborn to get out of this particular hole.
Melissa JensenWhen Sebastian, cearly delighted to be treated like one of the guys, didn't move, Alex bared his teeth. "Depeche-toi!"
Sebastian depeched. Alex turned back, all Cheshire cat smile.
"No," I said.
"No what?"
"No,you are not going to teach me all the cool words so I can go to Chamonix and be conversational."
"Good." He leaned in so I could see the faint dusting of freckles on his nose and smell spearmint gum. "Chamonix is so 1990s. Everyone who is anyone goes to Courchevel these days."
I turned on my heel and started to walk off.
"Jeez. Ella." He loped after me. "What if your problem? Conversational, my ass. Talking to you is like dancing around a fire in paper shoes."
I stopped. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It's an expression my Ukranian babushka likes. I'll explain it at our first turtoring session."
I scowled at his shirt. This one had what looked like a guy riding a dolphin instead of the ubiquitos alligator or polo player. "There isn't going to be a tutoring session."
"Winslow seems to think otherwise."
"Wouldn't be the first thing she's wrong about," I muttered.
He gave an impressive sigh. The dolphin lurched, but the little guy on it held tight. "You don't want to fail French, do you? That would be a serious admission of weakness from an Italian girl."
I almost smiled. Instead, I announced. "Fuhgeddaboudit. I'll buy a 'Teach Your Poodle French in Ten Easy Lessons' online. Problem solved, and Winslow will never be the wiser."
"Yeah. Good luck with that. So how's this Friday? I don't have practice." When I shook my head, he demanded, " What is it? I'm a good tutor. Ask Sebastian. I was just teaching him how to tell the obnoxious French dudes on the slopes that they suck.
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