AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, obviously, but you could show a bit of discretion, Arlo. It’s not asking that much from a man of your age and stature to be prudent on occasion.”
Knowing that I’d get nowhere with him, I sulked and sipped all the way back to Pindes Hill, the small community where one of our many olive tree farms—and our home—were found here in the States. Pindes Hill sat about forty miles west of Sacramento. The views as we rode along in stilted silence were spectacular. The Klamath Mountains and the Cascades robbed those who visited this area of breath. Mount Shasta sat far off in the distance as we neared the two thousand acres of Bonetti lands in this area. High peaks capped with snow, crystal clear lakes, streams that ran fast and furious in the spring, and cinder cones made up the area until you reached the foot of the mountains where the land began to climb, the trees changed, and the air grew colder.
I’d grown used to the views. Perhaps I was jaded or simply had seen the beauty of this locale too many times. Maybe I equated the rugged nature to a lonely childhood spent with everything a boy could ask for but not getting the one thing he needed the most.
Chewing on the lid of my empty cup, I watched as we passed hundreds of acres of olive trees as we neared the manse behind the stone arches. Workers milled around in the groves, doing what I couldn’t say. Dad had tried for years to get me to show an interest in the family business as it would all come to me upon his death. I had no interest in farming at all. Not even from afar. This house—it had stopped being a home when Mom died—sitting up on a rise to overlook the empire that generations of Bonetti’s had forged, could wash into the sea as far as I was concerned.
Row after row after row of trees, most topping out around thirty feet, every one heavy with varieties of Pendolino, Liccino, and Kalamata olives ready for picking, welcomed me home. Harvest would start soon…it was mid-September. The gathering would run through the middle of November. The crews in my great-grandfather’s day would have used ladders, moving from tree to tree, picking each olive by hand. My father and his father before him had invested in massive machines to do the work, the shakers grasping the trees and then vibrating them, knocking off the olives that would fall into a large tarp. As a kid, I would have a fit if my nanny didn’t take me down to see the ‘dinosaurs’ moving through the groves. The tarps that spread out around the shaker arms to catch the small green fruit reminded me of the frilled dino in Jurassic Park.
Now, seeing the harvesters gathering for the cultivation of a year’s worth of tending did nothing for me other than fill my chest with the resignation that I’d not see my father for weeks on end, if at all. He was always moving, flying from Italy to home, keeping an eye on his kingdom as if all that gold in his dragon horde could replace his wife. I had news for him, it wouldn’t. I knew that firsthand. I’d been fucking trying to fill that void inside me for over fourteen years. And so, if he was never home, why should I be? Our riches allowed me to stay one step ahead of the memories.
“Dawdling won’t help. You might as well go in,” Lowell said, snapping me out of the fog I’d floated into. I blinked, pressed my fingertips into my dry eyes, and nodded dully.
“I drifted off,” I lied, moving out of the car without waiting for Franco to open the door. I was sure my father was at the window of his study, drapes pinned back, a glass of dark Malbec in hand, viewing what was taking place in the driveway. I took a moment to stretch, eyeing the rambling sixty-six thousand square foot Tuscan-styled home, purposefully not looking up at his window. Our home had been renovated the year after the cancer had claimed my mother, my dad’s meager attempt to clear the grounds of her ghost perhaps. My great-aunt Ginerva, the one who kept a dour eye on the Italian businesses from her villa overlooking the Arno, had sent over her own decorators and contractors to ensure the place looked as it should. Should in her opinion, obviously.
A light breeze tickled the palms lining the drive.
“He’s waiting,” Lowell reminded me as I stretched my arms over my head. Franco stood by the trunk, lips flat as a papercut, dark cap on his head, unable to assist me. “Best not to make him wait.”
“Can you at least put my bags in the foyer?” I asked the driver and got a sad shake of his head. “Okay, yeah, no worries.”
Ten minutes and a gallon of sweat lost later, I had dragged my luggage into the foyer, uncaring if the trunk scraped the Italian marble tiles. Winded, I glanced up at the curling stairs that led to the second floor. The soft hum of a vacuum being run somewhere on the first floor reached me as I began the climb. I glanced back to see Lowell and Franco at the bottom of the stairs, one with a cap crumpled in his hand and the other with his shiny silver tablet, watching me stride closer to the riser. I gave them a flip little smile as if I hadn’t a care in the world, flung my scarf over my shoulder, and ticked my chin upward.
If Tommaso was going to hit me with a double barrel blast of parental displeasure, I was going to make sure he got a flamboyantly cheeky target.
Chapter Two
Maria, Franco’s wife, met me in the hallway at the top of the stairs, silent vacuum at her side. The carpet had neat marks from the Hoover and the scent of lemon hung in the air that danced down the corridors, the breeze from outside flowing through the open Tuscany windows that resided like Italian dignitaries in each and every room. The windows were always open here at La Casa di Bonetti Pindes as my father disliked air conditioning. He claimed it weakened a man. Something that he rued dearly, I was sure, since his son was the feeblest man he had ever been exposed to. Not that he said that. No, no, of course not. Tommaso Bonetti kept all his feelings locked down so tight one wondered if he had emotions at all. That was how things were done in the Bonetti family. One did not rant and rave, throw things, or cause scandals.
One was also not homosexual. Or, if they were, God forbid, they were not abrasive about their differences. Coming out was not greeted with rainbow cakes or glitter bombs from your parents who were members of GLAAD before you even finished announcing your gayness to the room. The Bonettis were good, God-fearing Catholics who tried their best to be politically correct to the only rainbow sheep in our little flock. Coming down on your gay son would look bad in the press, so I was used for the photo op here and there, sent off to Pride events as needed for the website, and then shunted back into the shadows where the priests couldn’t see me.
“Bienvenido a casa, Señor Arlo,” Maria whispered, her deep brown gaze resting on the handle of her vacuum. “Your papà is in his office. Would you like a cocktail?”
“Gods yes,” I replied and gave her a weak little smile. She and Franco had always been kind to me, if distant.
“I will bring it,” she softly said and hustled off, her vacuum rolling along behind her on quiet wheels.
I passed empty rooms, guest rooms, each dusted and vacuumed every day in case of visitors. And we did have those. Businessmen and women who moved in the same stratus as my father and the other top olive oil barons in the world. Sitting at number one always made my sire happy. At least something did.
At the end of the east wing was my father’s office. Pausing fifty feet away from the dark walnut double doors at the end of the corridor, I gave my ivy green corset a tug down, my stomach churning as it always did viewing this portal to his domain. Whenever I was here as a child, it was due to something bad that I had done. Good deeds went largely unnoticed but being bad got me an audience with Dad. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that naughty got me attention. Truthfully, it would seem a man grown would get over being a brat just to garner the interest of his parent but here we were just the same.
Memories flowed over me. Nanny Ingrid hauling me down this long, long, long hallway by the ear, telling me over and over in her stout German accent that I was a brash, bad boy. My father would, nine times out of ten, look at me over his desk, his sight barely lifting from his spreadsheets to land on me, and tell me to be good. Then he would allow Nanny to set my punishment before we would both be dismissed. That penance generally was no dinner and saying Hail Marys until my fingers grew numb from rubbing tiny beads, for she was Catholic as well. I often wondered if being a papist was an unspoken prerequisite for working in this heartless, stunning abode.
Feeling Nanny Ingrid’s dour ghost tugging at my lobe, I drew in a breath and then flung the doors open with such panache that they rocketed into the stops, making a crash that drew Tommaso’s attention from his laptop. Father was still a handsome man, even though he was now fifty-one. He was swarthy, slim but wide of shoulder, his ebony hair thick still but sprinkled with silver flecks. He always wore white dress shirts and dark trousers to his office, his suit jacket and tie resting on the back of a burgundy wingback to his left. The room was warm, the windows open, a tickle of wind moving the front pages of several newspapers resting on his massive desk.
“Lucy, I’m home,” I announced so that it would be heard outside by the gardeners tending Mom’s beloved flower gardens. Sailing into the oppressive office, I dropped down into a chair as my father rose from behind his desk. A small tic above his left eye was the only sign that he was upset. Oh, and the glass of wine, now emptied, sitting on the windowsill. So he had been spying on me as I arrived. Good. I hoped he was happy that I nearly ruptured my spleen from toting all my own bags. “I see you’ve been reading the funny papers.”
My father drew himself to his full height of well over six feet. I’d taken after my mother in most things, including height, build, hair, eyes, and bullheadedness. Maybe someday Tommaso would speak of me in that wistful way he spoke of my mother’s spunk. Speaking of spunk…
The front page of the Sacramento Sentinel showed me on my knees before two men, their flies down, their enormous cocks pixelated. What a pity they blurred out those impressive dicks. People should see them. I know I’d be carrying the memory of them in my head for quite some time.
“What is wrong with you, Arlo?” Dad asked, his voice modulated, calm, almost monotone. Oh but his dark eyes, so different from the honey-brown eyes I had inherited from my mother, were snapping with rage. Awesome. Maybe he would finally show some hint of feeling, good or bad…I didn’t care.
“I’m feeling a bit colicky. They fed us rancid nuts on the flight from JFK,” I tossed out, crossing one leg over the other, then pressing out the wrinkles from my slim-cut slacks. “Nuts always make me gassy.”
He drew in a long breath through his nose, stalking to the bar beside the window he’d been stationed at, the sheers billowing on the rods. One panel fell over the bottles of wine, bourbon, and whiskey on the imported Fontana Blue cabinet. Everything in this room was red and blue to match the colors on the Bonetti Farms Olive Oil logo, which was a circle with a large B in the center, four gold stars on either side, and a red olive branch under the dark blue B. That damn logo was everywhere. On the sides of our jets, our cars, and the walls of our home. Funny how there were no pictures of me anywhere to be seen…
“Why must you be so flippant all the time?” he asked while pouring himself another goblet of Malbec. “Why must you act as you do?” He turned from the bar to stare at me in loss. My sight drifted to the wall of books behind his desk. Tomes about farming, business, and agriculture. Nothing that interested me in the least. The books were old, of course, probably first editions printed in Firenze and shipped to our American address by Ginerva over the years. She never visited. The woman rarely left her villa, which was fine with me. I’d only seen the crone once—at my mother’s funeral—and she had scared the living shit out of me. She’d tottered to me at the graveside, lifted her black mourning veil, and told me to stop crying so loudly.
