Page 9 of Duke for the Summer

“Allora, piacere,” she said, and wiped the lipstick off Nate’s cheek with a corner of her apron before giving him a hug. Upon releasing him, she embraced Jacopo with similar vigor, then held him at arm’s length and clearly scolded him for something.

Jacopo seemed to shrink in on himself. “She hopes you are not too tired,” he translated.

“I’m good,” Nate said, though his head was spinning. One of the nice ladies was offering him a glass of wine, and another one kept squeezing his arm and explaining something that was obviously very important but was, again, in Italian. The air was fragrant with food smells, tomatoes and garlic and some kind of roasted meat, and Nate’s stomach let out a very loud growl.

Jacopo’s mother gestured toward him with another loud admonishment, like,See? Our guest is hungry.

Nate could feel his face getting hot. “It’s fine,” he said, “I really–”

“Mamma, ci penso io.” A younger woman gently shooed away the lady who had been telling him about–quantum physics, or something. “Nate Schafer,” she said, in a flat West Coast accent barely tinged with anything else. “I’m Grazia. You can call me Gracie. Come on, let’s get you seated. Mamma is going to make Jacopo help with the goat.”

“Goat?”

“The village roasted a goat. I hope you’re not a vegetarian.” She smiled, dimples showing in her cheeks. She was short and curvy like Mirabella, but she had Beatrice’s complexion, and Nate realized she must be another sister.

“No one’s ever roasted a goat for me before,” Nate supplied helplessly. Whatever brain cells he had left after almost twenty hours of no sleep were pinging gleefully around in his head, refusing to hold hands. He took a large gulp of wine, hoping it would help.

“You’ll like it,” Gracie told him. “Come, you need to sit. My stupid brother probably made you fly–what do you call it? Economy? He is socheap, Nate. I told him you’re a duke and we need to, what is it? Roll out the red carpet. Is that right?”

Nate took another gulp of wine, then realized she was waiting on him to reply. “Yeah. Your English is great, did Jacopo–”

“Pfft. Jacopo? Why would he bother to teach me anything?” She rolled her eyes. “I learned from online multiplayer games, since we got internet when I was fifteen. But don’t tell Nonna, she thinks they’re the Devil. And I’m studying to work in data science, so I need to have good English. You have to correct me if I say an idiom wrong, okay?” A flash of Jacopo’s intensity passed across her face. “Okay? Deal?”

“Deal. Yeah.” Nate looked mournfully at the salami on his plate. So close, yet so far away. He wouldn’t have fingers to eat it with unless he found a place to set his glass down.

“You’re the best! Anyway, let me introduce you to Zio Beppe.”

There was Zio Beppe, and Zia Grazia, not to be confused with Gracie, and the third, oldest sister, Alessia, and her husband, Marcello. There was Nonna Rosina, and Papà, a sickly-looking old man who held a cigarette in one trembling handand responded to Nate’s presence with little more than a grunt. It seemed like one side of his face was paralyzed, and Nate wondered briefly what was going on with him before getting swept away into another sea of introductions. More uncles, more aunts, some cousins, a bunch of people called aunt, uncle, or cousin who weren’t actually related or whose relation was unclear, about a billion children, at least one guy who was actually, legitimately named Guido, and at least two other guys who were named Peppi, and Nate knew that in the morning he would have exactly zero memory of who was who.

He bumbled around, Gracie pulling him into multiple social situations. People kept refilling his glass and telling him he was welcome, urging him to eat. Nate looked for Jacopo’s slim, tall figure in the crowd and thought he spotted him a few times, but then there was always another distraction, somebody else to meet, another appetizer to try. Children were everywhere, though Mirabella and Alessia were doing a great job of keeping them from getting underfoot or falling into the fire pit, and the air was hazy with smoke from the roasting goat and the cigars some of the uncles smoked. Women, their forearms covered in flour, laughed to each other as they rolled out pasta, draping it over wooden spoons suspended between chair backs so it could dry for cooking, and Nate was surprised to see that even the grandmas were taking part, their fingers still nimble enough to hand-fold tortellini despite being knobbly with arthritis. It was as crowded and noisy as any county fair, but with none of the tension of being surrounded by strangers. Everyone knew each other; everyone knew Nate and liked him just for being here. It had never been so easy to be popular before.

By the time the goat came out, Nate was so full he could barely breathe, and he didn’t want to think about how many spritzes and glasses of wine and other, less-identifiable alcohols he had drunk. Still, he had to try some–though he did send up asilent and slightly delirious prayer of forgiveness to his parents’ two pygmy goats, Merry and Pippin. It was delicious, smoky from the fire and flavored with rosemary and peppers. Nate’s eyelids fluttered, and he suppressed a yawn. The faces at the table had begun to get a blurry sheen to them, and his limbs felt unbearably heavy. Would it be okay if he just fell asleep at the table? Was that a thing dukes were allowed to do?

Gracie was at his side, feeding him gossip just as the old ladies had fed him pasta and endless slices of meat and cheese, telling him about Nonna Stella, the town eccentric, who read Tarot cards and sold medicinal herbs and was rumored to have the heart of her last husband buried in a jar in her backyard, and about Zio Beppe, whose foraged mushrooms you shouldn’t trust because sometimes they weren’t the cooking variety. And Nate, because he had had countless drinks and Gracie was his new best friend, was telling her about how Thea had done too many mushrooms one time on a camping trip and swore that she had astral-projected back into a former life as one of Marie Antoinette’s handmaidens–

And as Gracie threw her head back in laughter, Nate cast his gaze across the table, taking in the blurry faces and, for the first time since they’d sat down, catching sight of Jacopo, who was pushing his chair back abruptly and standing up. He’d been at the other end of the table, Nate realized, sitting with his mother and the old man Gracie had introduced him to earlier, the old man who hadn’t spoken. Their dad, Nate remembered.

Beatrice was saying something, but Jacopo shook his head shortly and left the table, walking off into the darkness. Nate could see the red cherry of his lighter flicking on, and then he had turned around the corner of the house and was gone.

“Huh,” Nate said, his thoughts sluggish. Someone was taking away his plate, replacing it with a cup of espresso and a little shot glass of something yellow. “So that’s where he was.”

Gracie tsked. “Again? Always arguing, those two.”

“What?”

“Oh, Papà and Jacopo. They can’t stand each other.” She shrugged, holding out a basket full of cookies. “Have a biscotto. And tell me more about this asteroid projection of your sister.”

4.

Thea:DUDE FUCKING TEXT SOMEONE

mom thinks you’re in a bathtub full of ice with your kidneys missing

how’s the weather? are you dead? did you marry a mafia boss and have to enter witness protection? why aren’t you answering me?

NATEEEEEEEEE

Nate’s head was fuzzy and the roof of his mouth tasted vaguely medicinal, like lemons and anise. Blinking down at his phone, he tried to type out a reply as the truck jostled up the hill.

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