Page 66 of My Lemon Grove Summer
‘Zelda, will you stop talking and listen!’ He takes hold of my upper arms again and I do stop talking and look at him. He’s trying to tell me something.
‘Is it the dress? Is it ready for a fitting?’
‘The dress is fine. I’m getting there. We’ll do a fitting soon.’
‘Oh, good. I was—’
‘Zelda, it’s not the dress. It’s Emily!’
‘You said. Are you worried about what your father will say, with her being British?’
He looks at me as if trying to read my feelings. I suddenly bite my bottom lip, trying to fight back the tears of frustration that I’ve been holding on to for so long now.
‘The verdello. The bottle she took . . .’ he says.
I look at him quizzically, my head tilted to one side.
‘She loves it!’
‘So she said. She took the bottle.’
‘And she gave it to her customers to try.’ He is beaming from ear to ear.
‘Good. I’m delighted. Now I have to get on.’
‘Zelda . . . she has an order for it. A high-end deli. They want to place an order! They’ll pay half up front, half on delivery.’
‘But . . . but I only have what I made for the wedding,’ I say, not really taking in the information.
‘Then make more!’ He beams. ‘You’re in business.’
Slowly but surely, the information sinks in. I’m in business. I have an order, from Emily. Someone wants to buy the verdello limoncello! Suddenly my spirits rise from the floor like a plane taking off and a huge grin spreads across my face. I’m going to make this work. The wedding is going to happen, and maybe life here beyond it too! And I find myself beginning to laugh, as tears of relief roll down my cheeks, and Luca’s too if I’m not mistaken.
He hugs me, and I can’t not hug him back, despite being hot and sweaty. But as I draw away, I catch sight of a figure standing in the entrance to the barn, leaning heavily on a stick and casting a long black shadow.
Chapter Thirty-two
‘So what happened?’ I ask. I’ve been waiting for Luca at the restaurant, helping myself to gelato as instructed.
‘He said he’d heard I was farming lemons.’ Luca helps himself to lemon gelato too, scoops up a spoonful and lets it sit on his tongue.
‘And?’
He pulls the spoon from his mouth.
‘And that I was letting the family down. The land is worth much more as a redundant lemon grove and I was disrespecting him and the rest of the family by not leaving it that way. If the inspectors came and saw it thriving, it could jeopardise all the subsidies if they thought we were producing fruit whilst claiming.’
‘And?’ I push.
He shrugs, sits on the table and eats more ice cream.
‘He says he’ll make sure the water to the lemon grove is cut off. He’ll get Matteo to check.’
‘But you have the tunnels for water.’
‘Sadly, you need rain to fill them up,’ he says, and puts down the little glass bowl. ‘We haven’t had rain in ages.’
Not since we’ve arrived, that’s for sure.
