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Amazing how seeing her friend’s interest in a trunk had elevated my dream from a foolish notion to a hobby. Someday, all the scoffers would take note of Bonetti Custom Trunks. This was just the first step.
“Can I have the trunks in the attic?” I asked and got a funny look from my aunt and her bestie. “To redo.”
“I will sell the remaining ones to you for fifty euros each,” Ginerva replied.
“Deal. Can I have some money?”
“Have you done any work here at the villa to earn a wage?” My aunt studied me over her tea, her scare now in the past and her hands steady once more.
“Well…” I thought back over the past few days. “Not really, but—”
“Then you have earned no money. When you work, you get paid.”
“That’s not fair,” I whined.
“Life, my sweet nephew, is never fair. Now, will you pay me what I ask or will we have Donvino take the trunk back to the attic?”
I dearly wanted to shout, but being a newly minted businessman, I nodded. Sending her the cash for the trunks would wipe my account clean.
“I can pay you for one now,” I bargained, and she nodded, then shooed me away so she and Señorina Cappello could finish getting ready for confession.
“Arlo, please shower and be dressed for church in one hour,” Ginerva called out to me as I wrestled my trunk down the hall to my room. I made a puking face at Lucia, who seemed to be quite pleased with herself despite her catch getting away. “And do not wear my hat to church.”
How on earth was I supposed to earn money for the other trunks with no knowledge of the language, no car, and no real skills outside of sharing my dinner plates and sweet toes with millions of strangers? Maybe I should have listened to my high school guidance counselor and taken a few vocational courses. She might have been onto something…
Chapter Nine
Much to my surprise, Ricardo Martinelli, the undersecretary of agriculture, was a pretty cool dude. Tall, lean, mid-forties, with wavy black hair and deep brown eyes that stole your breath. He’d been appointed to his post by the new president who had been recently voted into power just last year. He was unabashedly single and not averse to changing plans on the fly. When the eatery he had chosen notified us en route that they’d suffered a plumbing emergency and were closing for the indefinite future, he glanced at me as if to ask if I knew of a place.
“If you’re open to something less prissy, I have a friend…well, he’s kind of a new acquaintance who I met when I arrived. He also does yardwork for my aunt, a big strapping fellow, incredibly friendly, who works at a lovely little restaurant,” I offered as we lounged in the back of his limo, trying to decide what road to take where. His dark eyebrow rose. “It’s called the La Festa dei Leoni.”
“Perfect,” he said, relaying the address to his driver, who tapped it into his phone, and off we went.
He sat back, talking animatedly about organic olives and how pleased he was with all the changes that the Bonetti mills had made over the years. I nodded along, not knowing one damn thing about our farms other than the obvious. I knew nothing about the work my father had done in the past two decades to improve his groves by implementing earth-friendly means to control insects, choosing better fungicides, and increasing the wages of his workers.
Truth be told, I was rather stunned to hear this stranger talking so warmly about my father, the same guy who threw me to the wolves. By the time we were cruising by the famous town hall of Firenze with its rusticated stonework, imposing clock tower, and reproductions of the statue of David and Hercules, I was sure this man was speaking of some other Tommaso Bonetti. He had to have been. My father was an uptight prig who valued nothing more than money and prestige. This man of the people and the land that Signor Martinelli was gushing about was not the same man who’d shipped me off to sleep under an underpass.
Okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. I’d been shipped off to sleep in a villa worth a few million euros, which was kind of…no, it wasn’t similar at all.
The limo slowed, then stopped, the driver jumping out to open the doors for us. No sooner had the car slowed, fifteen motorbikes flew around us while two cars that had to stop for ten whole seconds began beeping their horns.
We hurried to the sidewalk. Ricardo spoke to his driver, turned to me, and gave me a charming smile.
“He will go park somewhere until we have the need for him. This is the place, yes?” He waved a hand at a small caffè with wide-open doors. A man stood on the street, older, with a black shirt, white tie, and black slacks, calling to people as they passed. He looked our way, and I noted the same proud nose that Donvino wore so well.
“I think so,” I replied, my eyes darting to the sign of a regal lion of ye olden days, rearing on its back legs, with the words La Festa dei Leoni painted under the roaring feline.
“Come in, come in, we have a wait list but a good bar,” the man said, waving us into the eatery before shouting at a slim girl in a similar outfit to show us to the bar. The place was small but airy, with tan walls, tiled floors, and about fifteen tables of dark wood. There were red shutters on the walls with flowerpots resting under them, a look that reminded me of the streets of Florence. A balcony looked down on the ground floor, flowering plants cascading over the railing, and people seated at small tables eating. The smells rolling out of the hidden kitchen made my tummy rumble. “Oh look, up there we have a table for you. Maria, she will seat you.”
“Grazie,” I said, then fell in step behind the lovely Maria, who led us up some circular stairs that overlooked a small bar which seated perhaps ten, to the second floor. This seemed to be a couples-only grotto, each table set for two with flickering candles. It was considerably more private up here, secluded, a perfect spot for lovers to coo and flirt while down on the main floor the tables were bigger.
“May we see your wine menu, please?” Ricardo asked the young lady.
“Yes, your server will bring it,” she replied, then scurried off, leaving us to smile awkwardly at each other as soft Italian music floated through the garlic-scented air.
“So, you know my father,” I opened with as we stared at each other over a fat candle in a squat glass holder.
“I do, yes, and your aunt. I am sorry she is under the weather. She is always such a joy to dine with,” he said, his sight leaving me to grab onto something behind me. I looked up to find Donvino at our table. His black shirt, white tie, black slacks, and red apron looked so good on him. His eyes rounded in surprise, flying from Ricardo to me.
