Selena Kitt - Letters to the Baumgarters

So many things had happened that I hadn’t been expecting today. What else did the experience of this life have in store? I wondered, looking at the charm. So far, aside from a few bright moments, life hadn’t been very sweet to me. But maybe I was just being ungrateful. I put the necklace on and found myself thinking of Nico with a little spark of hope.

I had come to Italy for so many things, including the great food, of course, but sometimes I just wanted a good old American cheeseburger. The Mood Cafe had the best cheeseburgers around, and that’s where I told Nico I’d meet him for lunch. He was late, and I was already eating, drinking a vanilla Coke and dipping my fries in hot mustard, when I saw him walking up the cobblestone street.

The day was bright, a little chilly, but I’d decided to sit outside anyway. Italians were oblivious to the weather. In America, life was about comfort. In Italy, it was about experience. If it was cold, you were cold. If it was hot, you were hot. If it was raining, they didn’t care. In the summer, there was no air conditioning anywhere, and it was hot as hell-but no one cared. Those weren’t problems to be fixed, but rather things to be experienced.

I smiled as he approached, seeing his eyes light up when he saw me. I couldn’t help my body’s instant response when he bent to kiss my cheek, remembering his lips, his mouth, his hands. It still felt like a dream, like something that had happened to someone else and not to me.

“Thank you for waiting, bella,” he murmured against my ear.

“Last minute gondola customer?” I guessed, smiling at the waiter as he refilled my water glass and took Nico’s order-cheeseburger, fries and cherry Coke.

“My mother.” He sipped his own glass of water. “She asked me to come home to help her move a table.”

I blinked. “And you left work for that?”

“I didn’t have any customers.” He shrugged. “Carnavale is over and the tourists have all gone home.”

“But you had a lunch date with me,” I reminded him.

“And here I am.” He spread his hands, taa-daa, and smiled.

“Yes, here you are.” Late, I thought, but didn’t say it. “So tell me something…”

“Anything.” He reached over and snagged one of my fries, crunching happily and grinning at me. There was something about him that made me want to smack him and kiss him at the same time. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on who.

“How do you become a gondolier exactly?”

“Do you have career ambitions?” He raised an eyebrow and then laughed. “The training is actually quite extensive. You have to go through a year-long apprenticeship and take several tests.”

“Really?” I moved my plate out of his reach when he went for another fry. “I had no idea it was so involved.”

“The association actually caps the number of gondoliers they’ll allow to work in the city.” His gaze wandered to the people passing on the street and I noticed a pretty blonde-and noticed him noticing her.

“So it’s kind of an exclusive club.” I offered him a fry, a distraction. I didn’t blame him for looking-the woman was stunning-but I also didn’t feel like competing.

“I suppose it is.” He took my peace offering. “My father was a gondolier and my father before him.”

“Wow. So it’s a legacy. Sounds like you were destined to do it.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” He smiled thinly as the waiter appeared with his cheeseburger. Nico dug in immediately, wolfish, talking with his mouth half full. “So what are you going to do with your degree?”

“Probably find a job in the states doing translation. Spending lots of time traveling back to Italy for business.” I watched him swallow a huge bite of cheeseburger, washed down with a swig of cherry Coke. “At least, I hope.”

He paused, chewing his last bite thoughtfully before swallowing. “Why don’t you stay here, work here… live here?”

“I’ve thought about it,” I admitted, seeing the hopeful look on his face and deciding to change the subject. “I have to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

The blonde was coming back this way and I saw his gaze shift again as she passed.

“I’m embarrassed to admit it.”

He smiled, looking back at me. “Confession is good for the soul, remember?”

“Okay… the truth is…” I cleared my throat, glancing first at the disappearing shape of the blonde and then over to the waiter, as if someone might overhear. “Before yesterday, I was under the impression that you were gay.”

He laughed. “Why would you think so?”

“When you dropped me off at the post office, you were talking to a man,” I explained. “Well, not just talking…”

“Ohhh!” His eyes brightened with understanding. “Well, then I guess I have a confession to make as well.”

“You really are gay and I was just a fling?”

“No.” He smiled. “I’m bisexual.”

Well that explained everything, didn’t it?

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“Actually, no.” I sat back in my chair, making yet another confession. “So am I.”

He looked surprised. “You have been with both men and women?”

I nodded. “My last committed relationship was with both a man and a woman.”

“Interesting.” He went back to working on his cheeseburger, already halfway through, chewing thoughtfully. “I’ve been with men-and women-but never both together.”

“You should.” I grinned. “I highly recommend it.”

“So how did this happen?”

I considered not telling him-I’d kept my relationship with the Baumgartners a secret, not something I was ashamed of, but more like something precious that might be spoiled by sharing it-but he looked so curious and interested and open that I confessed that too.

“I met Carrie and Doc about a year before I left for Italy.”

“Tell me about them.”

And so I did. I told him about meeting Carrie and Doc, about their slow seduction and my ending up in love with them both. It had been an amazing year of my life, something I’d fallen into while my marriage to Mason fell apart. They weren’t the cause of the end of my relationship with my ex, but they were both there to pick up the messy pieces, and I would always be grateful to them for that.

“Both of them? You loved them both?” Nico cocked his head at me.

I nodded. “I did. I do.”

“But they are married?”

“Yes, and very much committed to each other,” I explained. “They loved me and included me, but it was always clear that theirs was the primary relationship. And I was okay with that.”

“Fascinating.”

Of course, I left out the part about being in the middle of a messy divorce from Mason at the time. That didn’t seem relevant. Or maybe I was just kidding myself.

“You are a mystery, bella.” He was done with his meal, leaving a few fries on his plate, an afterthought, and he leaned over to take my hand.

“Nico…” I looked down our hands twined together on the table, remembering the way our bodies melded, dissolved, becoming one. “I can’t help feeling like we’ve opened Pandora’s Box.”

“Yes, perhaps we have,” he agreed, rubbing his thumb against the crease in my palm. “But the thing is, you can’t close it once it’s been opened.”

“Do you want to?”

“Me?” He grinned. “Hell no.”

We both sat back as the waiter appeared, refilling water glasses and asking if we needed anything. We dismissed him as quickly as we could, wanting to keep our focus on each other. I could feel the energy between us, hotter than any sun, and I couldn’t help but turn my face toward it.

“Do you have to go back to class this afternoon?” Nico inquired, leaning in again.