Adriana Trigiani - Very Valentine

Roman carries me up the stairs, marking each step with a kiss. My feet drag along the hallway wall like handles on an old suitcase as he carries me to my room. As we make love, every doubt I have, every question that enters my mind about us, who we are, where we’re going, and what we will become, disappears like the quarter moon behind the low clouds of spring.

I have fallen more deeply in love with this man on the very day I was planning to say good-bye to him. I may need my solitude, but I also want to be with him. I may not always see this clearly when he is away from me, but it’s what I’m most sure of when we’re together.

“I love you, Valentine,” he says.

“You know, I get that a lot.”

“You do?” he asks as he kisses my neck.

“‘I love you, Valentine’ is actually a popular phrase used in greeting cards.”

“If you were sending me one, what would it say?” he asks.

“I love you, too, Roman.”

And there it is, words that I dread to say and do mean, because with them comes the responsibility of owning it, moving forward together and deciding for real who we are to each other. Now we’re not just lovers discovering what we like and sharing what we know. In this mutual declaration, we’re accountable to each other. We’re in love, and now, our relationship has to build slowly and beautifully in order to hold all the joy and misery that lies ahead.

He places the tip end of his nose on the tip end of mine. I almost feel he’s looking so deeply into my eyes, he’s seeing the rest of my life play out in slides clicking through on a carousel. I wonder what he’s looking for, what he sees. Then he says, “Our children would be blessed, you know.”

“They would never go without good food or pretty shoes.”

“They’d have brown eyes.”

“And they’d be tall,” I say.

“And they’d be funny. A house of laughs we’d have.” He kisses me.

“That’s my dream,” I tell him.

We get tangled up in the down comforter and the pillows that fly around the bed like doors opening and closing, and as we settle in to make love, we begin to make plans. I no longer wonder where this is going. Now, I know.

I PULL OVER ON THE SIDE of the road on the hilltop above Arezzo and park the rental car. After the hullabaloo at the Rome airport, with customs, the bags, and figuring out the directions on the Italian map, I am happy to actually set foot on Tuscan ground.

We have arrived, and now, our work begins. We must buy supplies to meet our orders, and find distinctive and fresh elements to make the shoes from my sketch for the Bergdorf windows. It’s not going to be easy to win over Rhedd Lewis, but I have a greater goal in mind: to distinguish the Angelini Shoe Company as the face of the future in the custom-shoe business. That may sound lofty, but we have to succeed in new ways if we’re going to save the old company and reinvent our business.

Gram and I spent most of the flight working on the fine details of the sketch for the competition. There’s a problem with the heel I designed. Gram says that I need to refine it, while I feel it needs to be bold and architectural. Her idea of modern and mine are about a half century apart. But that’s okay-Gram is encouraging me to use my imagination, and while she likes what I’ve drawn, she also knows her experience counts when it comes to actually building the dream shoe.

Gram gets out of the car and joins me. The cool April breeze washes over us as the sun, the color of an egg yolk, begins to sink behind the hills of Tuscany. It drenches the sky in gold as it goes, throwing its last bit of light on Arezzo. The houses of the village are built so closely together, the effect is of one enormous stone castle surrounded by fields of emerald green silk. The winding cobbled streets of the town look like thin pink ribbons and I wonder for a moment how we will get the car through them.

All around us, the hills of Tuscany are parceled into contour farms. Sloping dales of dry earth are planted with rows of spindly olive trees next to square beds of bright sunflowers. It creates the effect of a patchwork quilt, bursts of color separated by straight seams. Soft spring colors, chalk blue and cornmeal yellow, spike the fresh green leaves while stalks of wild lavender grow on the side of the road, filling the air with the powdery scent of the new buds.

“This is it.” Gram smiles, exhaling a breath that she seems to have held since we landed in Rome. “My favorite place on earth.”

Arezzo looks different to me now. I came to Italy during my college years, but I stuck to the touristy stuff. We took a day trip through Arezzo, during which I snapped some pictures for my family and promptly got back on the bus. Maybe I was just too young to appreciate it. I couldn’t have cared less about architectural or family history back then, as I had more important matters on my mind, like the hotness of the Notre Dame rugby team, who’d joined our tour group down in Rome.

The Angelini side of my family is originally from Arezzo. However, we didn’t have this magnificent view from the mountaintop because we lived in the valley below. We were farmers, descendants of the old Mezzadri system. The padrone, or boss, lived on the highest peak, where, from his palazzo, he would oversee the harvest of the olive trees and the yield of the grapes. The farmers exchanged their labor for food and lodging on the padrone’s land, and even the children helped pick the crops. From the looks of this valley, I would have been very happy to be a serf, walking through these deep green fields under a bright blue Tuscan sky.

“Let’s go,” Gram says and climbs back into the rental car. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” I slip behind the wheel. I’m driving a stick shift for the first time in twelve years. The last stick I drove was Bret Fitzpatrick’s, on his 1978 Camaro. “I’m going to have biceps of steel when this trip is over.”

I drive carefully into town as there are no sidewalks, folks just cross the streets willy-nilly, anywhere they please. Arezzo is a haven for poets. The baroque architecture with its ornate details is the perfect backdrop for artists to gather. Tonight, young writers type on their laptops on the steps of the public square and on tables under the portico of an old Roman bath that now houses offices and small shops. There is a feeling of community here, one I wouldn’t mind being a part of.

The incline up to the hotel is steep, so I gun it. As I reach the curve of the road behind the square, Gram asks me to stop.

She points to a small peach-colored stucco storefront with dark-wood-beam accents. “That’s the original Angelini Shoe Company.” The old workshop is now a pasticceria that sells coffee and sweets.

“It was also the homestead. They lived upstairs, just like us,” she adds.

The second story has glass doors that lead to a balcony filled with terra-cotta pots overflowing with red geraniums. “No tomatoes, Gram.”

She laughs and directs me up the street to park outside the Spolti Inn, a rambling hotel built of fieldstone. I help Gram out of the car and unload our bags. My grandparents stayed at this inn every time they traveled to Tuscany on their buying trips.

The staff of the hotel know Gram, as do the locals. Some even remember her great-aunts and -uncles, Gram tells me. Most custom shoemakers get their leather from Lucca, while Gram insists on Arezzo, where our family has used the same tanner for over 100 years.

As we climb the steep stone steps to the entrance of the hotel, Gram lets go of my arm, pulling in her stomach and straightening her spine. She takes the banister. With her brown hair and peasant skirt, black cotton blouse and sandals, she could be twenty years younger. It’s only when her knees give her trouble that you notice her age.