Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

I look around the room for something, anything, to eat. I’m starving. Well, there’s always the welcome platter that Signora Guarasci left in each of our rooms. A bottle of pink liquor, some breadsticks, and a bowl of fresh figs call my name.

I grab the bottle and the corkscrew off the platter and, placing it on the nightstand, stab the point into the cork. I’m so over this day, I could bite off the neck of the bottle with my teeth. I need a drink, and I need it now. How ironic. I spent most of the day at the hospital waiting for my drunken great-aunt to sober up-and the first thing I do in the hotel room is grab the booze. At least this particular weakness is in the DNA, it’s not my fault.

I fill the crystal tumbler from the dressing table with pink whatever-it-is to the brim. I rip open the breadsticks, anchor one in my mouth like a cigar, and chew. Then I sit down in the rocker, pull the footstool over, and put my feet up. I hold up the glass and toast myself. Congratulations! You didn’t get kissed! You didn’t eat cake! You were upstaged by Bella Boobs, and you’re in business with your brother, who has never liked you! We’ve got a winner! I swig.

Then, I look down at the scads of faux pearls that lie on my chest in a tangled clump. What was I thinking? They are ticky-tacky. On top of all the indignities of the day, I didn’t even look good.

After twelve hours, the pearls feel like pennyweights around my neck. I lift the mass of them over my head and drop them on the floor. That’s the beauty of plastic; it travels well and takes abuse. I could drop them out the window and they wouldn’t shatter on the streets below-no, they’d just tuck and roll, like my ego has done all day long. I won’t wear multiple strands of Coco Chanel-inspired pearls ever again-unless I’m in France. This look did not work in Italy. Or maybe it just didn’t work on Gianluca Vechiarelli, and that’s what’s troubling me. I take another swig.

I text Gabriel Biondi, who would be the love of my life if he weren’t gay. We’ve been best friends since college, and he’s the desperate call I can make at 3:00 A.M.-or the transatlantic text I can make at any other hour of the day. Right now, he’s devising the seating chart for the sold-out Saturday night show at the Carlyle. He’ll be happy to hear from me, if only to procrastinate at work.

Me: Disaster in Italy.

Gabe: What?

Me: Aunt Feen hammered at the reception. Was hospitalized.

Gabe: OMG.

Me: Gets worse.

Gabe: How?

Me: Alfred fired at the bank-Gram put him in business with me.

Gabe: The Apocalypse!

Me: It’s here. I’m sucking flames.

Gabe: How’s John Lukka?

Me: Learn to spell. You’re Italian. GIANLUCA brought a date to the wedding.

Gabe: Expletive.

Me: Uh huh.

Gabe: Thought at least you’d get lucky.

Me: No such lukka.

Gabe: They cut my hours at the Carlyle.

Me: No!

Gabe: It’s gonna be a Hard Candy Christmas around here.

Me: It’s only February.

Gabe: OK. Hard Candy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Me: I’m sorry.

Gabe: Come home.

Me: In a hurry.

There’s a knock at the door. I ignore it.

The knock becomes a series of small, persistent taps. Guilt washes over me. What if Aunt Feen has stopped breathing? What if my dad or mom is sick? I take a big gulp of the wine and throw my phone on the bed. I give up.

“Coming.” I open the door.

“Valentina.” Gianluca leans against the sash of the door and folds his arms. The fine gray wool of his morning suit appears pressed, as if he just put it on. The only indication that he’s been through the same long day I just endured is the loosened tie, a black-and-white-striped foulard whose undone knot gives him the sexy air of formal/casual sprezzatura-even at this hour.

“Hi.” I close my eyes and inhale the familiar scent of his skin, a combination of clean lemon and spicy leather, before I take a step back into my room. I wasn’t expecting him. Ever . I am in postevent decline: my mascara is smudged like raccoon tar pits underneath my eyes, my dress is half unzipped, and I smell like cheap dessert wine. What a confluence of lovely to lure this man into my lair. “Just a moment,” I say to him. I go to the bed, snap open my evening bag, and remove his handkerchief. “Here.” I hold it out for him. “Thank you.”

“I’m not here for the handkerchief.”

“Oh.” I fold the handkerchief in half, and then, after a few moments of silence, I turn it into an origami accordion in my hand. The hallway behind Gianluca is quiet and still. The only light comes from the security lamp at the far end of the corridor.

“I hoped that I might choose the right room,” he says.

“Aunt Feen is down the hall,” I tell him, waving in the general direction of her room. What a responsible guy. He came to check on his new aunt, the one with a drinking problem.

“How is she?” he asks.

“She’s sleeping it off.”

A few moments pass. I refold the handkerchief.

“Are you going to ask me in?”

I pause. Actually, I freeze. Ask him in ? For what, exactly? Maybe Carlotta rebuffed him. Just like the paste version of real pearls, I’m her substitute. Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe it’s a business thing, and he wants to sell me some rare calfskin for the shop. Or maybe it’s an old debt. It’s possible that I owe him for the horse and carriage. All I know is that he’s standing there waiting…for something .

Oh, if only it were me. My secret hopes for a wedding-trip tryst with Gianluca hit the ground and burst into flames the moment he showed up with Carlotta at the reception. I didn’t see that coming; a woman with a love plan never does. My instincts did not serve me well, but to be fair, when I’m with my family, they never do. My instincts focus elsewhere-usually churning around some drama they’ve created. The pursuit of potential romance and family obligations do not mix.

When Gianluca left the hospital with Carlotta, I felt rejected. Ridiculous, I know. (You cannot be rejected by someone that you do not actually have a date with.) Gianluca and I were hardly a sure thing, but if our past encounters were any indication, there was heat, a mutual attraction, and a certain sympathy that I imagined might lead to something more. It’s been a few months since I saw him in New York, and while I’ve been busy, my thoughts have gone to him from time to time. Okay. More than a few times. What woman doesn’t like a man that makes his desires known? He told me he had feelings for me. And I already know that I like kissing him.

And then there’s the digestif element, the concept of a treat at the end of an arduous night. I deserve a little romance and male attention after all I’ve been through on this trip. Payback for being a good sport and unpaid majordomo for my mother and sisters and their families. I have been an undesignated but completely used Extra Pair of Hands (my mother’s term) since we gathered at the airport. I lug, I tip, I assist, and I corral-and I do it with a smile.

I hauled my mother’s extra suitcases, counting them as my own so she wouldn’t have to pay extra. I administered my father’s glaucoma eye drops on schedule in Italian time. I helped my sisters with their kids, the patient maiden auntie who diverted their attention in the terminal when a fight was brewing, bought them candy to shut them up, and once on board played rounds and rounds of Tic-Tac-Toe on cocktail napkins until I thought my eyeballs would blow from their sockets and roll down the center aisle and into first class.

I also served as an unpaid assistant nurse for the geriatric travelers in our party. I fetched Aunt Feen’s meds, unwrapped her crackers from the cellophane, smeared them with cheese, and upon landing, became her two-legged cane/wheelchair stand-in, which has left me with a stiff shoulder and a sore lower back.