Page 36 of Casanova LLC

“What are you?—”

“Claire’s jet-lagged.”

He waved a hand. “She’ll nap tomorrow, while you’re seducing her.”

“I think it’s time we wrapped this up?—”

“Noooo!” they whined in unison.

“I’m fine!” Claire insisted. “Besides, we haven’t had dessert yet.”

“Sì, Sandro, we haven’t had dessert yet.”

It was the raised eyebrow on his smug face that made me want to do a murder.

He had already turned his attention back to a rapt Claire. “He and his sister spent summers in Venezia to give his poor mother in New York a break. But he stayed with my mother around the corner, not here.”

“The palazzo wasn’t exactly an appropriate environment for children,” I put in.

“But you saw enough. For a while he thought… Remember you would say, ‘So many girlfriends, Zio!’”

I stood and began collecting the plates. I needed something to do.

“Have you got a train to catch?”

“I’m just preparing for dessert.” If there were a train to catch, he’d be on it.

“One day, he asked how I make my money. Because he never saw me work. So I told him.” I could feel him looking at me, studying the side of my face as I stacked porcelain and cutlery. “How the men in our family, this is what they did. You were, cosa, ten? Eleven?” I nodded. He turned back to Claire. “You see, I was the first generation where there was not a choice of men. It was only me. The older brothers of my father had been killed in the war. My own brother, he was omosesssuale, gay.” He crossed himself again, but this time added a soft kiss to his fingertips. “And then, like me, there was only Alessandro. We became very close, like father and son. Even better. So we understand each other. Very well.” He gave me a short but pointed look.

I felt Claire’s eyes on me. “So you had to do this?”

I began to shake my head, but Jacopo answered for me. “You’ll forgive me, but to say he, or we, ‘had to’ is not quite correct. Better to ask if we choose this life or did circumstances make the choice for us?”

I picked up the plates and carried them into the kitchen. The question was one that I had wrestled with over the years and, to this day, had not been able to answer. At least honestly. It was best I leave the conversation for the moment.

But then I heard Claire ask, “How old was he when you began his…his education?”

“When the balls, they drop, the school, she opens.”

And I grabbed the bottle of wine and hurried back out. “More wine?”

Jacopo grinned and pushed my shoulder as I sat again. “I joke, I joke.” He turned back to Claire. “When he was a teenager, he said he wanted to do it. But of course he wanted to do it. When you are a teenager, anything that will get you laid sounds like a good idea.”

I groaned yet again.

“So I say, okay, I train you. I will train you and then we will see. He of course thought that the training would involve touching of women, but you do not touch for at least five years.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “Really.”

“Assolutamente. I have a friend, he is a barber. He is known for—” He looked to me and asked for the English translation.

“Hot shave.”

“Sì. Hot shave. You know”—he mimed it—“with lather and a straight razor. His grandfather, he was Syrian, he trained him on a balloon. He could not shave a man until he had shaved balloons for two years without them popping. He pop one, the two years, they start over. And women…women are more delicate than balloons. First, you must learn them here.” He touched his temple. “And then here.” He touched his chest. “Before you can learn them there.” He gestured to his lap.

Claire grinned. “But he stuck it out.”

“He did. After he went to art school, he came to me and said, yes. I want to do this. I am ready.” Jacopo leveled a sober look at me. “And now he respects, and honors, and holds sacred the traditions that have been passed on to him.”

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