Page 89 of The Unraveling

I wish Sylvie was here. Or any friend.

And that’s when I walk in and see the perfect, most ideal distraction in the world.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Luca is sitting in the corner of the dark bar at a table with a tea-light lamp, a half-full rocks glass in front of him.

I know that one of my options is to turn around and leave. Do I really need to risk complicating everything further?

According to Cynthia, one of the appeals of Luca is that he doesn’t make anything complicated. All the gossip I’ve heard about him has only confirmed it. The dancers act like he’s a rite of passage. A favorite toy to be shared around, everyone understanding that it’s a matter of turns, not possession.

“Hey,” I say, walking up.

“Jocelyn!” He looks delighted to see me and puts down his book—The Last Nude by Ellis Avery—and stands. “Come, sit, please.”

I take off my scarf and coat, which he takes and hangs up for me.

“What would you like to drink?” he asks.

“Um—what are you drinking?”

“A Negroni made with Montenegro instead of Campari.”

“That sounds perfect,” I say.

“You got it,” he says. His accent lilts over the very American expression, and I sigh at how adorable and appealing it is.

A moment later, he returns with two more cocktails and sits down at the table with me. He, of course, smells incredible.

“So, what brings you to the bar on our day off? And by yourself? Surely a beautiful girl like you has many men, no?”

“Uh, no,” I say, with a laugh. “And, I don’t know, I just got off the phone with my grandmother and then…fancied a drink.”

For the next two hours, we chat about everything and nothing. We talk about the book he’s reading, which he’s reading because a girl he knows recommended it to him, we talk about movies, great restaurants, and then, eventually we come to where we grew up.

He grew up in Northern Italy, in an absurdly idyllic-sounding setting. His father was a poet and his mother an opera singer. They had him when they were both on the older side, his father fifteen years older than his mother. His mother would travel around singing in various operas, but his father was always home. They were both dead now, his mother having had a condition that meant she would always live a relatively short life—he didn’t know the English word for it—and his father having died in his eighties.

Naturally, this led to him asking about my upbringing. And for some reason, it felt very safe to tell him.

I told him about Louisiana, and my contentious relationship with my mother. My wonderful relationship with Mimi. Where Mimi was now.

Eventually he asked, “And your mother? Do you no longer talk?”

“She actually died. This past winter.”

His face falls and he shakes his head. “No. Life…life can be so painful, can it not?”

“Yeah.” I play with the condensation on the side of my glass. “It’s actually the first time I’ve really said it out loud like this, except, unfortunately, to Isabella on her first day,” I say with a cringing laugh.

He laughs. “Well, Isabella is the perfect person to spill to. She has a good heart. I’ve worked with her a few times now. I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Thanks. Yeah. It was really shocking,” I say. “How she died. I mean, it wasn’t until Isabella started talking about Manon dying in poverty in Louisiana that it hit me. Even though I wasn’t particularly close with her. I wasn’t…I mean, I wasn’t close with her at all. She was kind of a stage mom—do you know that expression?”

“Yes, I’ve learned it,” he says.

He’s listening intently, but without putting pressure on me. He’s leaning on his fist, elbow on the table, eyes scanning mine as he listens.

“Well, anyway. Yeah, and she was kind of a shitty mom in that way. But I also really wanted to be a ballerina. I didn’t have that much discipline, or at least I wouldn’t have. I never would have given up ballet, but I might have been too flaky to really succeed. She didn’t let that happen. I’m…I mean, I’m grateful for that.”

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