Page 34 of Skin Deep

Chapter12

Harrison

“Buongiorno!”

My eyes narrowed against the sun, trying to focus on the man in the not-far distance, waving at me from a two seat, three-wheeled bike. It had another seat in the furthest back with gift baskets on it. I’d been walking for about ten minutes, and he was the first sign of life I’d come across.

Thecase(Gigi had said the plural form of casa wascase) in this resort were spread out. I remembered seeing a cluster of them when we first arrived at the gates, but beyond that, it was almost like a labyrinth. Little pathways brought me to a fewcaseand a few standalone bungalows—or whatever they were. Well-tended gardens were interspersed, along with a few run-down places that were down to nothing but bones.

If this old man didn’t have some English, we were going to struggle. My Italian was slim. I could handlebuongiorno,though. Even if his English was the same as my Italian, I hoped he could point me in the direction of wherever they did breakfast around here.

“You are walking like you have hardening cement in your shoes!” he hissed at me when I was close enough. “Get on and pedal!”

“The bike?”

“No,” he said. “That boat on land over there!”

I looked in the distance, and when I turned back to him, I realized that he was fucking with me. I also realized that he had a poncho over his shoulders in the heat, and a bottle of wine between his legs. The baskets in the back were filled with what looked like wrapped containers of food. Maybe they delivered breakfast to each casa?

“There are wild dogs around here,” he whispered in a rush to me. “Do as I say. Quick! They will eat my old bones in no time.”

The panic in his voice made me climb on and take off.

He said something in Italian—or was it Sicilian?—and even though I couldn’t understand his words, his hand slapping me on the back of the head was understandable in any language.Faster!

I was pedaling as fast as I could, following a worn-down path, breathing heavy from the strain of carting around another person and the food in the back. When the man next to me started to roar with laughter, I stopped. In front of us were two trees with a hammock hanging between them. In the distance, groves of orange and lemon trees perfumed the air.

“Do not stop now!” he almost rasped, then took a drink of wine straight from the bottle. “We were having so much fun!”

“There were no wild dogs, were there?” I said, panting like a dog myself.

“Only my grandson,” he said, chuckling darkly. “You saved me from my daughter. She was going to take my wine away when she finished delivering sweet things to the casa. She coddles me too much. I am not ready to end the celebration from last night.”

“You made me steal a bike,” I said, realizing. “With you on it.”

“You say steal, I say fun ride.”

He offered me the bottle of wine. He pushed it toward me when I hesitated.

“My father used to say a glass of red wine a day keeps the doctors at bay.”

I took it from him, taking a sip. It was warm like the day; red and full-bodied. “What about a bottle?”

He took it back from me. “Hopefully it will preserve this old man for a while longer.”

I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but I didn’t ask. I was too busy trying to catch my breath and cool down from the morning workout. Even though the old man had duped me, I grinned to myself. He was a sly old fox.

He asked my name, and after I gave it to him, I asked him his. He told me I could call him Nonno. He started telling me about the lemon and blood-orange groves. When he was a boy, he loved the smell of them, of taking naps underneath them in the summer. When he was about to drift off, rhythms would start to move in his head. He would set words to them.

“Are you a poet?” I asked.

“I am,” he said. “And once upon a time, a novelist. Could sing some as well.”

“You’re a troubadour.”

“I am not French, but…” He shrugged, then he smiled and lifted the bottle at me. “What do you do?”

“Once upon a time I dreamed of playing baseball,” I said. “I’m a lawyer now.”

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