CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (10 page)

“They’re coming with us too,” Marcello
said to Marika, pointing at three of his teammates over his shoulder.  He hadn’t
looked at her once the entire evening, being too absorbed in a poker game with
his boys.  “We thought we’d keep the party going at a pub since the ‘club’ here
is closing so early.”  He ran his fingers through her hair.  “Won’t you keep me
company?”

She shook her head.

“Too bad.”  He moved in on her.  “Anyway,
I’ll take you home first... or anywhere else you want,” he said, flirting
shamelessly.  “I already told them they’d have to wait for me.”

“Don’t bother!”  Marcello’s words were
barely out of his mouth before a hand appeared on his shoulder, followed by a
voice.  “She’s coming with me.”

“No one asked you, Zovigo,” he commented
coldly, flexing his muscles, while Marika fell deep into the warm trap of
Matteo’s eyes.

“Thanks, Marcello, really...” Marika said,
quickly placing herself between the two guys, “but it’s easier for everyone if
I go home with him.  We’re headed in the same direction.”  Standing on her
tiptoes, she placed two short kisses on Marcello’s cheeks, adding, “Merry
Christmas.”

He kissed her back, hurt and angered by
the appearance of Matteo.

The tension was only broken by the arrival
of Carlotta and Dario, who were carrying jackets and pushing people out the
door.  “Marika, you coming with us?”

“No, go ahead!  I’m with him.”  She said
goodbye to everyone present, before whispering to her cousin, “He didn’t want
me to leave with Marcello... do you think it means something?”  The mere
thought of it gave her a thrill.  “God help me!”

“I don’t know, maybe, perhaps, could be...”
Carlotta replied, before raising her voice and saying loudly, “OK, see you
there, then,” pretending as if nothing important had passed between the two of
them.  But before she took her leave, she added, mischievously, “Take your
time!”   Carlotta couldn’t avoid the temptation of adding a bit of soap opera
drama to any scene.

“Shut up!” Marika glared at her with a
nervous smile on her face, checking to see if anyone else had heard her.  “Don’t
overdo it!”

In the parking lot, the cousins split up. 
Carlotta followed Valerio and, to her dismay, Dario, while Marika got into the
Alfa Romeo, cleaned inside and out for the occasion, waiting patiently while
Matteo took his time to get the motor running.

She didn’t realize that he was
deliberately delaying, waiting for the other cars to drive off before them.  He
slowly searched for any radio station, finding one that was playing a mix of
songs from the ‘90s, and then pulled a heavy, rectangular box out from
underneath his seat, carefully wrapped with a red bow and a sprig of
mistletoe.  “My sister did the wrapping,” he admitted, his voice shaking
slightly.  He handed over the gift.  “It’s no big deal.”

Marika was stunned, too shocked to even
stretch her quivering hand across the seat.  “But I don’t have anything for
you,” she said, embarrassed and confused.  “We’ve never exchanged gifts before....”

“Yeah, I know,” he smiled.  “Like I said,
it’s nothing big,” he repeated sweetly.  “The usual gift for soccer fans are
free tickets to the games, but seeing as how mine are already free for everyone....” 
He was trying to joke around a bit so as to ease the confusion that this
unexpected situation had created.

“Thank you so much,” she said, quietly,
her eyes shining and her mouth dry.

“Wait to see what it is before you thank
me,” he said, pushing the package into her hands, “even though I have no doubts
about you liking it.”

“Oh yeah?” Marika steadied herself and
tried to sound as if she weren’t on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  She didn’t
know if she should cry or laugh, if she should just let down her defenses and
kiss him a thousand times, or pretend to be untouched by his generosity. 
Ultimately, she chose the easiest and least-reactive of all possible solutions:
she put herself on standby, letting fate take over.

“I have my sources,” he claimed, leaning
back so as to see the expression on her face.  “Go on, open it.”

“Let me read the card first...” she said,
trembling.

“Not out loud, I hope,” Matteo said,
suddenly uncomfortable.  “I’m not much for writing.”  He looked at her.

Marika avoided his gaze, thinking, “
You’re
embarrassed are you?
”  Then she smiled, hiding her nervousness.  “
Just
how do you think I feel then?  I feel like I’m holding a time bomb that’s about
to explode in my hands and destroy everything that we have at this moment
....
”

“The last time we talked about this

I had to give you a lesson...

Now you can give one to me.  Merry Christmas!

Matteo.”

She read the dedication in silence.  She
was in much worse shape than he was in terms of trying to formulate a complete
sentence.

Considering the telltale shape of the
package, she had already guessed as to its contents, but, more than anything
else, it was his words that would turn this event into such a treasured memory.

She rapidly tore off the paper before he
could say anything else.  “Noooo!” she said, glowing.  “Thank you!”  She
quickly opened the first page of
Breaking Dawn
, the fourth and final
book in the
Twilight
series, but she couldn’t understand a word of it. 
Her mind was overflowing with memories of that unforgettable afternoon with
Matteo at the old water mill.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!!”  Her
emotions were overwhelming her, and she felt as though she were about to
explode.  “God, what would I ever do without you?” she confessed, lowering her
guard completely and taking him into her arms in a long-lasting and completely
unrestrained embrace, the gear stick pressing uncomfortably against her
stomach.  “Merry Christmas!”

But what did she care about the leather
gear knob or the bruise it would inevitably leave on her skin compared to the
rush she felt at finally being able to give in to her desires and hold him in
her arms?  The only thing that mattered was to suck the life out of every
single second of this unique moment that would never come again; because
yesterday is the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift.

They were so close to each other that they
could hear their heavy breathing, lost as they were in the warm scent of
neroli, musk, and candied fruit that emanated from the heat of their ardent,
almost feverish bodies.  In their innocent physical fusion, they could hear the
pounding of their hearts, and they were no longer able to determine which one
was pulsating more intensely, or which was which.

“You look good dressed like a girl,” he
whispered in her ear, his voice deep and resonant despite the joking tone which
alluded to the usual jeans and sneakers that she wore 364 days a year, holidays
included.  “I mean it.”  Shifting his body, his lips brushed against her cheek,
and while she babbled some incomprehensible sounds, Matteo let his instinct be
his guide and moved his lips toward hers, uncertain about what her reaction
would be.

Marika lowered her eyelids, encouraging
him not to stop.

“
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!  Beep...
Beeeeeeeeeeep
!”  Too bad that in his romantic attempt to remain alone with
her, Matteo hadn’t noticed Giacomo’s car hidden behind a large beech tree and
which had now rolled up alongside his, the horn blaring.

Matteo lowered the window, frustrated.  “You
still here?” he asked, biting his tongue to keep from letting his
disappointment show and from giving in to the temptation to tell them to go to....

“Yup!  Sandra had to rush back in to the
bathroom.  Girl stuff,” he added, casting a glance at his better half seated
beside him.  “How come you’re still here?”

By the way Giacomo was joking about Sandra’s
menstrual cramps, it was obvious that neither of them had seen anything.  “We
were waiting for you,” Matteo bluffed.  “We wanted to know how she was.”

“Oh... fine thanks,” their friend said,
surprised and touched.  “It’s all good now.  She took some aspirin.”

“Great.  So we can go, then.”  Matteo
turned the key, avoiding Marika’s face.  She remained seated next to him,
staring ahead, embarrassed about what he had wanted to do... but hadn’t.

During the drive to the village church,
neither of them mentioned anything, while the situation became more and more
surreal inside the car, smelling now of nothing more exciting than a stale air
freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.

At midnight, they were all seated for
mass.  Marika, in a dream, took her place next to her parents, as did Carlotta
and Sandra, while the rest of the crew, Matteo included, stood together at the
back of the nave.

“
Gloria in excelsis Deo
” the
ceremony began, ushering in the celestial beginning of Christmas.

***

December 25,
8:18 a.m
.  Marika awoke early, as she did every
year on that special day, and still dressed in her pajamas – pink flannel with
yellow cows printed on them – she came downstairs to the large room where the
tree and the nativity were set up.

It was a particularly beautiful fir tree
this year, almost six feet of colored balls and lights, which became more and
more numerous every year.  Toward the top of the tree she spied the little
ceramic angel and reindeer that she had made in third grade.  On a side table,
the buildings of the nativity scene were decorated with cotton ball snow and
small statues of varying sizes to give the impression of perspective depth.

Underneath the tree, all of the gifts for
the family, grandparents included, were piled up high.  Marika started
unwrapping the ones with her name on them, one by one, calmly and with no rush,
starting from the smallest.

The present from her parents was, as
always, perfectly matched to her tastes.  This Christmas, they had gotten her a
pair of jeans from a famous Italian designer who was booming internationally. 
They were a perfect fit: a timeless classic made of Japanese Kurabo denim,
dark, refined, and sexy.  Jeans that didn’t depend upon a flashy logo, but
which made their mark by the way they accentuated a woman’s body.

Her grandparents gave her their usual
heaven-sent envelope full of money – 100 euros from each set.  While she was
busy unwrapping the gift from her aunt and uncle, her eyes fell upon another
small package that had escaped her notice.

Without delay, she read the card attached
to it.

“Happy Holidays!

Marcello”

Just as terse as the man himself!

He had probably given it to her parents,
without her noticing, at the end of midnight mass last night while everyone was
exchanging kisses of goodwill and sipping their mulled wine.

Her heart started to race, excited by the
unexpected surprise and nervous about what it might mean.  “
Wow!
” she
said to herself as she opened the small blue velvet box to find a delicate
Swarovski crystal pendant necklace inside.

“Marika, are you finished?” her mother
called from the kitchen.  “You coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” she
responded, unsettled.  “Just a minute!”

There was a Vendramini tradition that on
the morning of the 25th, everyone gathered around the kitchen table to open the
gifts for Mom and Dad and to comment on the various things that their “little
girl” had received.  And while Marika didn’t really fit into that “little girl”
definition anymore, especially when her hormones went berserk and took control
over her actions, her mother and father still enjoyed thinking of her as their
baby, and she never wanted to let go of the joy she felt during this moment,
surrounded by her family and their love.

Around 10:30, they made their usual round
of telephone calls to their relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas, followed
by a deluge of texts from friends.  Marika wrote the same message to everyone
except Carlotta and Matteo, who she always treated differently from the
others.  In her message to Marcello this year, she added a friendly thank you
for his sweet, not to mention expensive, gift.

Christmas lunch saw the reunion of the
entire Vendramini clan around the table.  Everyone was there, from both sets of
grandparents to her aunt and uncle and Carlotta.

At the table, decorated with candles and
lace, the banquet got started with an appetizer of sliced meats and cheese,
followed by homemade pasta in chicken broth and a risotto with radicchio and
Amarone
. 
This was followed by mixed boiled meats with pickled fruits and grilled polenta,
charred salami, fennel in milk sauce, and lentils.

Paola was a dervish in the kitchen; her
specialties were the pasta dishes, but she surpassed her own standards with the
homemade holiday sponge cake, the pineapple doused in maraschino sauce, and the
perfect choice of almond nougat from Lonigo, packaged in tin boxes.