All my aunts conversed about Adriana’s bachelorette party as I sat off to the side and across from Nonna at the table, with a cup of coffee in front of her. We’d only heard that tiny bit of Gianna’s conversation before my family’s noise drowned out the rest.
I shook my head, slightly amused, but more unsettled. The words Oscar Perez had whispered in my ear earlier sank to the pit of my stomach. He’d pulled me aside once more to tell me to smile, that it would complement my belleza—whatever that meant. I didn’t speak Spanish and I never wanted to. The beautiful language sounded harsh and invasive from his lips. I hated when someone told me to smile, as if a smile of mine belonged to them and not me.
He never had clarified why he’d be upset that I ran away and slept with a man, but there was only one reason I could ascertain: He thought he was going to marry me. It was hard to imagine Papà would agree to it considering Oscar wasn’t even Italian, but why else would I have sat next to him at dinner when I never had to before?
“You are unhappy.”
My gaze coasted from the scratches in the wooden table to Nonna’s brown eyes. I shook my head. “No, I’m not.” I would never let a man like Oscar Perez steal my happiness.
“You are not a good liar, cara mia.”
I didn’t respond, uncertain of what to say.
“The littlest problems seem so great to those who are young,” she lamented. “I used to worry like you, you know. Do you know what it got me? Not a thing. Do not waste your time on things you cannot change.” She stood up, bracing a hand on the table. “I’m going to bed.”
“Goodnight, Nonna.”
She stopped, turning to me. “Do you know what you need to do when you are unhappy?”
I didn’t want to argue with her that I was not unhappy, so I raised a brow. “What?”
“Something exciting.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. Maybe smoking cigarettes with handsome young men.”
Ugh. A smile pulled on my lips. Only she would think of Nicolas as a young man.
“Goodnight, tesoro.” Nonna winked.
The candle’s flame danced, a bleak reminder of false smiles in the orange, mesmerizing light. Sheer curtains blew in the light summer breeze, and a lamp cast a soft glow against the wall of shelved books. Frank Sinatra leaked under the library door so quietly it could be a distant memory of a similar night half a century ago.
I sat with my legs folded against my side in a seat by the fireplace, a book lying on the arm. I hadn’t read more than two pages until I’d given up and rested my head against the chair and stared at the candle filling the room with the smell of lavender. My heels lay forgotten on the floor, the white bows unraveled across the red oriental rug.
I’d escaped the kitchen as soon as I could, my mamma’s talk about the wedding an annoying noise that became louder and louder until I needed silence. It wasn’t even about Oscar Perez anymore. It was about words unsaid and a future uncertain.
Like the hard shell of a coconut, the Sweet Abelli shielded the real me from the world. It couldn’t be cracked without strong tools. Lowering that barrier bared a part of me not many had seen—a me that felt. A vulnerable me. I wasn’t sure why I let Nicolas Russo see that side. Maybe it was because his indifference made me believe he didn’t want to crack me.
My eyes shot up when the click of the library door hit my ears, and, as if my thoughts had conjured him, Nicolas stepped in.
When his gaze came up from the floor and he noticed me, he stopped short. For a second, I thought he was going to turn and leave without a word just because I was here. His stare was an indifferent, condescending one—like he’d come into his library to find a servant in his chair. The man really wanted nothing to do with me. Well, I didn’t like him either. Truthfully, it was mostly because he didn’t like me.
His gaze narrowed. “Why aren’t you at the party?”
“Why aren’t you?” I countered.
He ran a hand down his tie, watching me in a calculated way, like he was weighing the pros and cons of my presence. It didn’t look like there were many pros.
Making up his mind, he shut the door and headed to the minibar, never answering my question. He poured a drink, and I tried to pretend he wasn’t here, that his presence hadn’t filled the room, making my mind now useless. Nonetheless, I found myself watching him, every smooth move as he filled a glass tumbler with whiskey.
My skin lit like a live wire, the fabric of my dress felt heavy, and the breeze from the open window brushed my shoulders. As he walked past, I pretended to be engrossed in the little black sentences before me, but in reality, I didn’t take in one word of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. History, facts, they made me feel better in a time of doubt, because someday I would be nothing but a memory, just like them.