Adriana Trigiani - Brava, Valentine

His beautiful hands have the strong and sure grip of an artist, one who walks in the world first through feeling, and then through touch. Gianluca is a craftsman who makes something lasting from nothing, who knows when to be gentle, and when to be certain, and when to be direct, and when to step back and observe. He is an artist who considers the angle, the placement, and the frame of the object he desires, so as best to appreciate it. Tonight, he is the lover who makes me beautiful; in his hands, I am the best I can be.

How succinct Gianluca’s purpose was in winning me. How clear his vision as he removed every obstacle one by one, until he had me alone. Gianluca knows exactly how to treat me, because he took his time to observe me with an eye no other man ever has. As he kisses me, I feel something I can’t name-it’s as if we’ve already written our history, and this love affair resumes from long, long ago, when in fact, it is just beginning.

As his lips travel down my neck, I see moments in my mind’s eye, of times we were together, in Capri floating on the turquoise waves of the Mediterranean Sea, and in Greenwich Village, on the roof with a blue afternoon sky behind him, when I disappointed him and let him go, and now in Buenos Aires where the sky is saturated indigo, where the stars make lavender pools of light in the dark and I finally see clearly enough to choose him.

With each picture I see, I remember him and how he looked at me and took me in. He appreciates me for exactly who I am, and he understands me as I wish to be understood.

Gianluca and I embody that old Italian word: simpatico. We are like-minded souls who say and do things that please one another, because it comes from a place of recognition.

We lie down in a field of feathers, sinking deep into the covers, finding one another as we move through; we’re tumbling through clouds, weightless, nothing but an endless sky over us, and the world below, beneath us, so far away, its details blur so as not to matter.

In Gianluca’s arms, I stay.

We sail, we fly, and we sail and we fly deep into the night, long into the blue, with no destination in mind, just now, just this very moment.

GIANLUCA SLEEPS DEEPLY IN OUR bed. Even breakfast, rolled into the living room on a silver trolley filled with delicate croissants, raspberry horns, and a pot of rich, black coffee, did not disturb him. I pull the silk draperies closed against the early morning sun so as not to wake him.

I’m showered, dressed, and ready to meet my cousin Roberta. I went through my morning ritual with such urgency, I kept dropping things in the bathroom. There is a lot more riding on this trip than I want to admit.

I text Gabriel.

Me: Gianluca is here.

Gabe: In BA?

Me: In my room.

Gabe: OMG. Ding! Ding! Ding!

Me: I know.

Gabe: You realize that you had to actually leave the airspace over the continental United States to get laid?

Me: Enough!

Gabe: How’s the food?

Me: Trays of fruit and chocolate and cookies.

Gabe: Sex and cookies. My favorite marriage. Go and get busy with John-lucky.

“Where are you going?” Gianluca rolls over in bed and looks up at me. His eyes are a clear china blue in this yellow room.

“I was just leaving you a note. I’m going to the factory.”

“I’ll go with you.”

I sit next to him on the bed. “No, no, you stay and rest.”

“Because I’m old and I need it?” he teases.

“Yes.”

He reaches for my hand as I turn to go. I look down at him.

“You look beautiful,” he says.

“Thank you.” I lean down and kiss him.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “She will like you.”

I close the door to the suite and walk to the elevator. It’s slow to arrive, and the empty moments send me into a slight panic. I have a few free minutes to think about all the things that could go wrong. Roberta will think I’m an idiot, so we’ll be forced to make the shoes in China. Then I up my anxiety. It’s rude to abandon Gianluca after the night we shared. Are we now in a relationship ? Will it last? Ridiculous, improbable, disjointed thoughts tumble over one another until the elevator doors open. I check my tote for the files I brought to share with Roberta. My sketches of the Bella Rosa are printed in color and include a grid of specifications. I’ve done my homework. I remind myself that I am completely prepared. I can’t help it, I’m afraid. I can only hope these jitters are about my first-day-of-school nerves, and not the work itself. I am walking into a completely new and therefore uncertain situation.

The cab speeds through the streets of Buenos Aires, through the barrios El Centro, San Telmo, and Palermo, whose moods change from residential, to arty, to high-tech and whose architectural styles flip from French Colonial to Spanish to Italian with every turn of the wheel.

Last night, Buenos Aires was washed in every shade of blue, and this morning, in bright daylight, it’s as though this city was built out of candy.

The stucco on the Mediterranean houses is the color of orange circus peanuts; the doors are painted in shades of bubble-gum cigars: bright yellow, soft lilac, and hot pink. Garden walls are washed in vivid tones of bright white, magenta, and periwinkle, trimmed in licorice black, resembling a dish of Good & Plenty. Tall wooden fences are drenched in bright Kool-Aid blue. Even the textures of the landscaping burst forth like showers of candy from a piñata: low mounds of nasturtium stuffed with buds that resemble Red Hot Dollars, and the pecan trees seem to be loaded with Root Beer Barrels.

The cab pulls up in front of 400 North Caminito, a large, rustic pumpkin-colored factory building with rows of Catholic-school-style windows propped open. A weathered sign says:

Caminito Shoes Inc.

Since 1925

I pull out my phone and take a picture of the sign, noting that the factory is named after the street, and not the family.

There are two metal entrance doors. One reads “Oficina,” and the other says “Fábrica.”

I enter the office, which has the familiar scent of rich leather and beeswax. The scent soothes me, and reminds me of home and also why I made this trip in the first place-to find a way to grow the Angelini brand while keeping it all in the family.

I approach a woman who sits at a desk behind the entrance window.

“I’m Valentine Roncalli from New York.”

She smiles. “ Si, si ,” she says, coming out from behind the window. “We are expecting you. I am Veronica Mastrandrea.”

“Just like Perry Street,” I say as I take in the office. The steady hum of the machines in the factory beyond the front office creates a rhythmic buzz that stops and starts.

The industrial flap windows, propped open on metal bars, create a nice breeze and also let in lots of bright light. The furniture is plain and functional, built from heavy oak, stained dark.

The desktops are cluttered with papers, ink pads, and stamps. Shoe boxes lie open on the desk, used as filing boxes for stubs and bills (I do the same at home).

Thick, leather-bound ledgers are propped open, with figures written in the margins in pencil. On the far wall, a shelf is filled with a series of hand-carved wooden lasts, the forms upon which shoes are sized. The lasts are lined up neatly by size. Computer screens are lodged amid the old-world equipment, sticking out obtrusively like pay phones in the jungle.

There are a few dusty framed certificates on the walls, written in Spanish, some garnished with gold seals. A spiral-bound calendar for 2010 hangs on the back of the door, just like the ones I found in storage after Gram left, flipped open to the month of May.