Page 51 of Duke for the Summer

Before he had too much time to sink into self-pity, skulking like an interloper on the edge of their lives, it was time for dinner, a simple affair of cheese toasties and chips that Caitlin threw together, apologizing that they hadn’t been prepared for guests. Another bottle of wine washed away some of the awkwardness, and soon Noemi was showing Jacopo her favorite music videos, and Lucia was telling stories from university.

“Jacopo pulled our whole study group through second-year Latin,” she said, smiling at him from across the table. “He’s always been good at languages. He always got better marks than me, and I don’t think he really had to try in most of his classes. Well, except–do you remember that visiting professor of American Literature, Jacopo? The cute one with the blue eyes?”She nudged Caitlin, telling her, “Oh my God, Jacopoagonizedover that class. He would spend hours poring over his essays, trying to make them perfect. We were drunk one night and Jacopo got this grand idea that he was going to call this man’s office and leave an anonymous confession of love, but he didn’t have a cell phone, so we spent hours wandering around Napoli looking for a pay phone–”

“A pay phone?” Noemi said. “That’s absolutely tragic.”

“Lucia.Please.” Jacopo ran a hand across his face.

She gave him a playful look over the rim of her glass, and for a moment it was like they were back in that rickety little student apartment with the yellowing paint and the overflowing ashtrays out on the balcony.

“How did you meet?” Jacopo asked, desperate to change the subject. “And when did you meet?”

“Oh, it was about twelve years ago,” Caitlin said. “I was at a hen do in Rome, and she was working the bar, and when she came out from behind it, I noticed what great legs she has.” She smiled at her wife with easy affection. “And so I invited her to join us after she got off work.” She clinked her glass against Lucia’s. “It was a little complicated at first, what with living in different countries, and me not sure how I felt about being a mum at such a young age, but we got through it, didn’t we, Lu?”

Noemi rolled her eyes, obviously having heard this story a thousand times. “Mamma says you live on a small island,” she said to Jacopo. “And that your family has to take care of a castle in case the duke comes back. It all sounds very romantic, really.”

“It’s not that romantic,” he told her, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “There are a lot of goats, and not much else.” He tried not to think of Nate, but there was a little flicker in his chest, like a butterfly just learning to open its wings. He looked across the table at Lucia and Caitlin, how their shoulders touched and the lines of their bodies tended toward each other,as if each one was in the other’s gravitational pull.

“Well, I want to see it.” Noemi tossed her hair. “I hardly remember Italy. And I’m already a bit notorious at school for having two mums, so having a gay dad and a family who guards a castle will really give me, like, a special cachet, I think.” Noemi toasted with her glass of soda as Caitlin suppressed a giggle and Lucia smiled fondly across the table.

The night wound on, and although Jacopo couldn’t remember everything they talked about, he remembered howeasyit was, how he didn’t have to worry about the words getting caught in his throat on the way out of his mouth, or formulate a dozen sentences in his head before managing to spit out the right one. His body felt loose thanks to the wine, and when he finally stood to excuse himself and go outside, the spike of pain that he’d come to expect in his lower back didn’t happen. It was as if the fibers in his muscles had changed from wire, to silk, all the tension washed away.

Out in the garden, Jacopo looked up at the moon, wreathed in mist. The air was crisp and mossy-smelling and colder than he was used to, and underneath it all was a hint of salt from the sea. He could hear the clank of pots and pans from Caitlin and Lucia’s kitchen, the sound of the TV in a neighboring flat. He had just lit a cigarette when the door opened and Lucia came out onto the front stoop, pulling on a jacket.

“You’re still smoking those, huh?” she said in Italian.

“I know, it’s terrible.” He looked at the lit end of the cigarette, the bright orange flare of the coal. “I might quit.” As he said it, it seemed almost possible.

“Well, give me one, for old time’s sake.” She reached out a hand.

They smoked without talking for a while, looking out onto the quiet residential street. Jacopo had missed this easy silence, almost more than he’d missed the rest of their friendship. Thecat from before, a little calico that Noemi had named after a character in something called a K-drama, came in through a gap in the fence and rubbed against Lucia’s leg, then wandered back off into the dark.

“It’s good that you came,” Lucia said at last, exhaling smoke into the sky.

“I should have come sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t. I was–so afraid that she’d hate me.”

“She doesn’t, obviously.” Lucia put a hand on his arm. “It’s a little strange for her, but I think she’ll adjust.”

“I felt guilty for not being there. Not that–that I know anything about being a father, but I felt awful that she didn’t have one.” He swallowed. “But I see now that she has two wonderful parents already. And I’m so glad.”

Lucia’s face lit up, but there was sadness behind her smile. “Thank you. And please don’t feel guilty. I should have told you sooner, and in person. I–well, you know how I am. I panicked, and I acted on impulse. She had just started to get interested in boys, and Cait and I didn’t know what to do about it. I thought it would be good for her to have a father figure in her life.”

“I don’t know how much I can tell her about boys,” Jacopo said ruefully. “Or how much I should.”

“Really,” Lucia insisted. “I should have told you as soon as I knew. But–you had to be with your family. And I was worried you’d try to–you know. Fix it. Say we should get married. And then we’d have been miserable.”

“I would have,” he sighed. “Wewould have.” Jacopo tried never to think of that night, the phone call that his father might be dying, the father he’d always felt so ambivalent about. How afraid he’d been that he wouldn’t make it home in time to say goodbye. How grief and panic and alcohol had blurred the lines of their friendship and how comfort had crossed the line intophysical. And he felt a pang of sadness for the two of them at nineteen, how young and sad and jumbled up inside they had both been. He still was, he guessed, though Lucia seemed to have moved beyond it. “Lucia, it shouldn’t have happened. If I’d just been honest with myself–”

“Don’t. It was just one drunken night between friends. We don’t have to dwell on it. And if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t have that weird, wonderful, brilliant girl in there.” Lucia touched her cigarette to his in a makeshift toast. Her eyes were glimmering in the moonlight, and Jacopo felt answering tears prickle at his own. He looked away. The stars blurred and grew haloes before his eyes, an Impressionist painting.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I’m so glad I met her, Lucia.”

“This isn’t it, Jacopo. You should be in her life.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Not sure how to reconcile how hopeful he felt, and how jagged inside, and how unmoored.

“How long can you stay?” Lucia asked.

“I don’t know.” Part of him wanted to stay forever. Maybe he could make a life for himself here in Dublin, speak English with a lilting accent and wear long coats and learn to like beer, and the rain. It was a tempting fantasy, but it wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right without Nate. He sighed.

---