Page 42 of My Lemon Grove Summer
‘She can’t make you one. She died, three years ago.’
‘Oh, that’s awful. I’m sorry.’
‘Not really. She was ninety-seven. It’s a good age.’
‘And who has the shop now?’
‘No one. Like most of the shops. The owners have died and there is no one to take them over.’
I look at the window again.
‘Sophia!’ The familiar yet unexpected voice makes me jump. Luca steps out of the grocery shop, under the battered green and white awning. ‘Oh, hi!’ He smiles and raises a hand. ‘Sophia, your mamma is looking for you.’
‘I was just out chatting with my friend.’ Sophie beams at me.
‘Well, you have studies to do.’
‘Ugh, biology and maths, no doubt. Why can’t I go to school in England? Can you teach me?’ She turns back to me. ‘I just want to study English.’
‘Oh, I’m not sure. I’m no teacher, and I don’t think your mamma would be very pleased . . .’
‘Besides, Zelda and her friends are leaving us, sadly,’ says Luca.
‘Actually . . .’ I look at him. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard.’ I lift my chin. ‘We’re staying after all. Perhaps you could pass the news on to your father.’ I speak more tartly than I meant to. ‘He hasn’t got rid of us that easily. Tell him we’re here and we’re staying.’
Luca’s face breaks into a wide, lazy smile.
‘Actually, I had heard, but I wanted to hear it from you. That is good news, very good news indeed,’ he says, guiding Sophie by the shoulders back towards the shop.
‘Like I say, I’m not sure your father would agree!’ and I wish I could bite my tongue. Why can’t I just let it lie? He hasn’t run us out of town. We’ll all have to learn to live alongside each other. Notwitheach other, clearly. He doesn’t want anything to do with us, and frankly, I don’t want anything to do with him. But we do have to find a way of existing in the same town without bothering each other.
‘Does that mean you can teach me now?’ Sophie says, head turned back over her shoulder.
‘I’m sure your mother is doing a much better job than I could,’ I say, trying to sound diplomatic but thinking that really this girl could benefit from being in a school with others, making friends. She’s clearly very bright.
I hear her mother call her name and shoo her towards the shop before the woman finds another reason to pick a fight with me. Reluctantly she goes in, and Luca turns to me with a smile.
Infuriatingly, butterflies buzz around my stomach. I lift my chin again, trying to regain control of my senses. I have no idea why this man makes me feel like this. Why that smile has this ridiculous effect on me.
‘So I hear that the wedding will happen, here in Città d’Oro?’ he says, raising an eyebrow.
‘The wedding is going ahead, yes, mine and Lennie’s,’ I say, hoping that repeating this will send the butterflies on their way, along with that lazy smile. It doesn’t. ‘We’re staying,’ I say firmly, reminding myself that it’s this man’s family that nearly put an end to all our plans. ‘We’re not going to be bullied out by your father. We came here with hopes and dreams and he isn’t going to stop that.’
He smiles even more widely, causing the butterflies in my tummy to go into overdrive.
‘I’m glad,’ he says.
I swallow, look down, and then say the words that are crashing round my head, demanding answers, making me feel stupid, a fool. And, strangely, betrayed.
‘Tell me, I need to know . . . When you helped us with the cooking that night, was that all part of your father’s plan to get us out? You distract us while someone else turns the signs round and puts our guests off?’
He looks straight at me, and I wish he wouldn’t. I actually feel my knees give a bit.
‘I promise you, Zelda, it wasn’t. I knew nothing of that. Matteo was probably acting on my father’s instructions, yes. But I give you my word, I wasn’t involved.’ And somehow, here, right now, his word seems to mean an awful lot. ‘My father holds the purse strings around here,’ he continues. ‘People might not like it, but they do what he says.’
‘Well, I refuse to be run out of town by him,’ I say, wishing I didn’t feel more than a little uneasy about making an enemy of his father. ‘Just tell him we’re determined to make a go of things. All of us. The B&B is working, and we’re going to look at ways of starting our own businesses. Lennie and I are going to get married here,’ I reiterate. If I say it enough, I think, it will become real. ‘We’re here to stay,’ I finish.
He looks right at me with those dark hazel eyes with their green flecks.
