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“Well, Signora Bonetti can take it up with the gods of wind, whoever they might be.”
“Anemoi,” he replied as he nervously glanced at his wristwatch. The crush of passengers departing had moved past us, some leaving to get rides, some off to find their luggage.
“No, not those little stinging things on coral reefs. Wind gods.” He stared at me. I made wavy motions with my arms as I made whooshing wind sounds. I clipped some dude darting past. “Sorry.”
Random Dude replied in Italian. It didn’t sound like a pleasant response. Maybe, in retrospect of what had taken place the past three days, I should have made an effort to learn Italian at home. Mama had begun to teach me her native French, but then she got sick and died, and Dad…well, who had time to sit down with their child and pass along a new language? Not Tommaso Bonetti. Making more money was more important. Whatever. I could manage for a year. That was why they had translator apps on cell phones.
“Luggage?” Alessio asked as I stared at Random Dude’s back.
“Right, yeah, I have a few bags.” With that, I led Alessio to baggage claim where my eight suitcases were circling around the belt like lost sheep. I’d wanted to bring my steamer trunks as they were Arlo all over, but the airlines seemed to have an issue with them for some reason, something about them being overly large and therefore I would need to pay like $200 for each of them. Totally ludicrous if you asked me. See, if my father had allowed me to fly on our private jet, none of this barbarism would have taken place. I mean, how totally rude had it been of the airline agent to ask if steamer trunks went out with the Titanic when I had called? Totally gauche. I’d informed him that only the chicest people traveled with trunks and they were the out-of-date ones for making the elite pay more for a simple steamer trunk. To which he told me that I could pay two grand or I could use suitcases like everyone else born after 1890 before he hung up on me. Honestly, what has happened to customer service?
“Okay those dark plum ones are mine,” I announced and tugged out my phone to film more of the horror of my life for my followers. When I tried to access my data, I was told my account had been suspended. My father. Gods damn it! I then had a small meltdown, and as much as it pained me, I hooked up to the airport internet. Good Lord, the humiliation of it all. After I was done stamping my little boots, I shook off the injustice, held up my phone to catch my best angle, and began rambling about how desperate I was to get to the villa and have a cocktail. “Oh, and this charming gent is Alessio, my great-aunt Ginerva’s driver. He is very cute and polite.”
When I turned to find Alessio, who I assumed had by now loaded my bags onto a trolley, I found him poking buttons on a vending machine, my bags still rolling along.
“Alessio, excuse me, but the bags?” I called, pausing the video, as I motioned my free hand to the conveyer belt.
“My lumbago is big bad,” he replied as a candy bar thudded down into the holding bin. Lumbago? What the hell was lumbago? “Signora Bonetti gets mad for tardy people.”
With a glorious huff, I went off to find a trolley and tossed each bag onto it while Alessio stood there chewing on his Kinder Beuno as I did all the heavy lifting. Totally fine. The man was old with a bad lumbago, but it was just another steaming pile of humiliation heaped onto the already gigantic mountain of chagrin Arlo Bonetti was living.
“I’m ready,” I announced as I fought to catch my breath. Alessio nodded and led me out of the airport. The humidity was akin to getting smacked in the face with three-day-old trout. The sun was brilliant, and the parking lot was filled with Florentines and tourists being greeted by loved ones. And here I was pushing my own trolley behind a man I had just met that had hazelnut filling in his madcap mustache.
There were two police officers on duty, stunning men they were, young and fit, in uniforms that made them look as edible as the candy Alessio had purchased. I threw them a wink. They both looked at me as if I had stepped out of a flying saucer. Guess they weren’t used to seeing men of my gravitas and silken vests exiting the terminal.
“Please tell me the car you came in can carry all of my bags,” I wheezed as I shoved and tugged the trolley along, sweat staining my armpits I was certain.
“Oh sì, the car is big,” Alessio called over his shoulder and then waved at a shiny black and white Bentley parked nearby.
“Is this the Grand Countess of Grantham’s car?” I tossed out, wrestling a trolley wheel out of a pothole.
“No, is Signora Bonetti’s car.”
“I was making a…it’s not important.” Fifteen long minutes in the ghastly heat trying to get all my bags into the 1950 MK VI four-door, I was done in and ready to weep into my hankie. Alessio was trained well enough to hold the front passenger side door open for me. “Grazie,” I panted as I fell into the seat, my bags tidily arranged in ways that would make a TETRIS fan jealous. The interior of the car was spotless, the wood patina glowing, the leather seats soft and supple. There was a sunroof open to allow more air into the lumbering beast of a car. I sank back into the seat, jet-lagged and soaked with sweat, and had to search for a seatbelt.
“Signora install them for safety,” Alessio informed me as he rolled the Bentley over and peeled out of the parking lot. I grasped the seat, eyes round, and was given a crash course in driving in Florence. It was an experience that I would never forget. Someone would have to forcibly remove my fingers from the upholstery when we got to the villa—if we lived that long. I was in too much of a panic to see much of the city other than tall tan buildings with open windows, shutters of various shades, and motorbikes. So many motorbikes.
Seemingly, or so it appeared to me as I clung to the front seat like a terrified cat, motorbikes in Italy had no laws to abide by. Nor did pedestrians. People just stepped out in front of you, assuming you would stop, and the motorbikes flew past in every which direction. I tried to drink the beauty of Florence, but there was no way to do so when my sight was locked on the front bumper of the Bentley. Surely we would run over an old woman or a motorcycle soon and somehow, inevitably, it would be my fault.
“Is traffic always—” We peeled around a corner, four men dashed out in front of us from a local bar, and proceeded to slap the hood of the Bentley in passing. Alessio shouted at them. They shouted back. Fingers were lifted into the air in a gesture that even a Yank like me could translate without an app. Then, as if nothing had taken place, off we went again. “Is traffic always like this?”
“No, sometimes is bad,” Alessio replied, pulling out onto a tree-lined street in front of two girls on scooters. They swerved around us, never losing a beat of their conversation. I nearly swallowed my tongue. The streets were so narrow there were spots where I was sure the old beast of a car would get wedged in, but somehow Alessio moved through the chaos of parked cars and madcap motorbikes as if it were second nature. To him, it was just another day in the life. To me, it was a nerve-racking end to a long, difficult journey. My lower lip was trembling by the time we rolled up to an old-fashioned gate that grandly rested in between tall, tan stucco walls coated with ivy and bright pink flowers.
I whispered a thanks to the tiny statue of Mary resting in an alcove beside the keypad. It was easy to find the Virgin if you needed her help, for I had seen dozens of these street shrines—most of them blurs of pristine statues, flowers, and candles as Alessio flew past them—on our trip from the airport to home. Home. Not my home. Well. It was, but not. I would not home without a snit or ten, that was factual. Thankfully, we moved out of the crush of the city, the Arno River running along beside us, as we made our way east for just a few miles.
“Is this it?” I asked, tugging my nails from the fabric, my stomach ready to bring up the spareribs I’d had on the flight. “Are we safe? Please tell me that we don’t have to go back out onto those streets.”
Alessio studied me closely as the old gates clattered open. “This is it,” he reassured me, easing the car through the tapered, curving drive. “Signora is waiting.”
“Noted.” Did he think I was going to bolt from the car to escape my punishment? Did he even know about the fellatio fiasco? I hoped not. Alessio seemed cool in the way that old duffers are cool. “As soon as we get to the…wow.”
We eased into a rich, flowery garden area, the drive splitting the massive flowering rose bushes, lemon trees in terracotta vases, and towering wisteria that invited a person to linger under their sweeping branches. The trellis that held the still vibrant climbing plants reminded me of the ones back in my mother’s gardens. Now that I saw—and clocked—the courtyards here, I picked up the Tuscan influence that was dotted throughout Moms. The car crept forward, the home of the Bonetti matriarch coming into view bit by bit. The villa was impressive, something that I hadn’t noticed the last time I was here when I was a child. I had snippets of this place, most bad memories of my great-aunt chiding me for everything and then me hiding in my mother’s skirts. Yeah, and Dad wondered why I had never come back. Who in their right mind would sign up to spend a day with the Wicked Witch of Firenze?
Still, the home was breathtaking. There was no taking that away from Ginerva. Sitting tucked among sculpted shrubs and perfectly trimmed cypress trees that seemed to prick the brilliant blue sky overhead, the dwelling screamed money and prestige. If anyone wanted to see a mansion that was the epitome of Florentine aristocrats, they only had to visit La Villa Bonetti. The aroma of the river flowed over me as I sat in the car, tension creeping in despite the beautiful view of my ancestral home.
Wide, raised double doors awaited us, along with a plump woman in a blue dress with a black apron standing on the single marble stair, her salt and pepper hair pulled back into a neat bun, her smile wide and warm as the sun overhead. In her day she had been quite a beauty, I suspected, for her face held hints of classic beauty that sun and time could not erase.
“My wife Giada,” Alessio said, his affection for the tiny stout woman obvious.
