Tacie Graves - Compromising Positions

“You’d better get that. I’m busy.”

Giovanni watched her stab the gelato and shook his head, but he knew better than to get between a woman and her comfort food.

“Are you expecting a delivery?” He called, and she made negative noises around a mouthful of strawberries. “I didn’t tell anyone I was staying here.”

When he pulled the door opened Mina half-expected it see his mother standing on the doorstep, ready to drag her baby boy away from the terrible influence of the American floozy.

It wasn’t.

“Buon Giorno, Signor Genovese. I am sorry to drop in on you like this, but my name is Ivy Fielding. I’m a friend of Mina’s. May I come in?”

“What do you mean he’s in the car waiting?” Giovanni’s voice rose to a volume that Mina had never heard from him. Red edged his cheekbones, and his hands clenched and unclenched in what appeared to be an effort not to shake the woman in front of him.

Ivy wasn’t impressed. She stood ramrod straight, barely reaching Giovanni’s chin as he towered over her, and refused to let him intimidate her. Their dark heads were almost identical in color-one curly, on straight-but that was where the similarity ended.

“I convinced him it would be better if I came in first. I was afraid he would not receive a very warm welcome, and if your reaction is anything to go by, I was right.”

Ivy’s tone was perfectly even, but Mina could hear the “screw with me and I’ll rip your face off-politely” note that she reserved for the absolute lowest of her acquaintances. Like Ethan.

Giovanni opened his mouth to yell some more, but Mina held up a finger to stop him. When Ivy got like this yelling never got you anywhere.

“Ivy,” she said, digging deep to find a shred of calm to hold onto, “it isn’t that I’m not happy to see you, I am.” She leaned forward and tried to meet Ivy’s eyes through her protective sheet of hair. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Ive, really .” Her earnest tone soothed some of Ivy’s ruffled feathers, but she couldn’t stop there. “The thing is, I talked to you two days ago, and you were in Miami. And now, you’re here. With Marco.” Mina’s throat closed around his name and she had to clear it to continue. “It’s a little hard to follow.”

“And even harder to understand,” Giovanni stuck in mulishly, unwilling to be relegated to the sidelines. “I thought you were her friend !”

Ivy’s posture became even more rigid, if possible.

“How dare you! I travel halfway across the world to try to save her from making the stupidest mistake she’s ever made,” she turned to glare at Mina, “and you’ve made some doozies, let me tell you,” and then snapped back to Giovanni, “and you , you testosterone drowned asshat , have the nerve to question whether I’m her friend ?” Ivy rarely lost her temper, but it had slipped its lead and was long gone. Her chest was heaving with indignation, and bright pink spots colored her cheeks under exhaustion induced dark circles. Giovanni turned to Mina and mouthed “ asshat? ”, but she wasn’t paying any attention to him.

“The stupidest mistake I ever made was signing on with Mr. High and Mighty in the first place.” She set her lips in a stubborn line. “If you’re here to stop that, you’re a little late.”

Ivy rolled her eyes and groaned in frustration.

“Of all the hard-headed, narrow-minded, short-sighted…” she stopped exercising her vocabulary of insults and took a deep breath.

“First, think about this: how did I get here?” When Giovanni opened his mouth to answer she shushed him. “No, I don’t mean by car or plane or boat, I mean… how did I get here ?” She waved her hand to indicate the apartment.

Mina looked at her and shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’m assuming Marco told you where I was.”

Ivy gave a satisfied nod, and Mina felt like a kindergartener who’d just gotten a gold star for coloring Clifford the Big Red Dog.

“Now, since I was in Miami, how did Marco tell me this?” She raised her eyebrows in anticipation and Mina frowned at her.

“I don’t know-telephone? Skype? E-mail?”

Ivy made a show of looking disappointed. “Try again.”

Mina thought about it-how Cinzia hadn’t seen him for two days, how Giovanni hadn’t talked to him, how he hadn’t been at the offices for the final museum arrangements.

“He flew to Miami?” She looked at Ivy and got a nod in return.

“Good! I’m glad to see that brain hasn’t completely melted in the Italian sun.” Ivy leaned forward. “He arrived on my doorstep Saturday afternoon.”

Saturday afternoon?

“But that means he left first thing Saturday morning!” Wheels within wheels began turning in her head. “Why would he have done that?”

Ivy pulled the throw pillow off the chair behind her and threw it at Mina.

“Because he loves you, you moron!”

Ivy was yelling. Ivy never yelled. Ivy was always calm and cool and collected-the voice of reason in a world of idiots.

“But he was kissing someone else!” The words came out in a cry, her pain almost palpable. “I saw them, Ivy-with my own two eyes! They were in his office, up against his desk. She was practically in his lap!”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I can’t do that again, Ive. I can’t. It was bad enough with Ethan-I didn’t really love him, I know that now, so the hurt of him cheating on me didn’t last. But Marco? I …”

Her voice faded away and Ivy slid forward to kneel on the floor at her feet.

“You what, sweetie?”

Mina knew the look on her face. She wasn’t going to let her out of it.

“It’s different.” Silence filled the space between them. Mina twisted her hands together, and Ivy clasped hers around them.

“It’s different because you actually love him.”

The words were said softly, but they hit Mina like a hammer. Her heart slammed painfully in her chest, and her breath was uneven.

“I can’t…” she whispered, begging Ivy to understand, but Ivy was relentless.

“You have to.” Her hands tightened and she forced Mina to look at her. “You have a chance-a beautiful, terrifying chance-to fulfill every dream you’ve ever had. A true happily ever after! All you have to do,” she raised a finger, tilting Mina’s chin, “is trust him.”

She made it sound so easy-trust him. Like she could just flip a switch and all her worries would disappear.

“It isn’t that easy.”

Ivy gave her a serious look. “It is, actually. He’s out there waiting. He wants to explain. Hell, he explained to me, and I believed him, and I don’t even know him.”

She stood up.

“I’m going to open that door, and you are going to swallow your pride and your fear and you are going to sit and listen to what the man has to say. If, after that, you still don’t believe him I will drop the subject and never revisit it. If, however, you do not listen to him, I swear on my black cashmere trench coat that I will make every day of the rest of your life an utter misery. For both of you!” She stabbed a black-manicured finger at Giovanni and he retreated as far as the couch would let him. “And don’t you think I couldn’t do it.”

“You’d better listen to her, Mina mia ,” he said, a glimmer of his old twinkle lurking in his eye. “I don’t think either of us would survive very long with this virago after us.”

Ivy nodded once in satisfaction at his agreement, and then turned back to her friend.

“You’ve run away from him twice, Mina,” she said, rising from her chair. “I don’t think you’re going to get a third chance. ”