Milk Glass Moon (18 page)

“Girls, this way!” Jack Mac shouts from a distance. Iva Lou points toward the sound of his voice, and I follow her up the path.

“What’s all the noise about?” I ask as we reach my husband’s side.

“I’ll be damned. Peacocks. A slew of them,” Iva Lou whispers.

“Watch.” Jack whistles, and the sound makes the peacocks scatter, leaving the safety of their group to create individual spaces in the field where they strut solo. Suddenly, making a big flapping sound, we see the first of the peacocks’ fans unveiled. The peacock stops, poises his neck, and spreads his glorious feathers, a mix of bright turquoise and pure white plumes that open wide, revealing tips of burnished orange and horizontal stripes of polished black. Each feather has a circle in the center of its design that shimmers like the horn of a seashell.

“You know, the peacock is the symbol of eternal life,” I whisper to Iva Lou.

She doesn’t say anything, just watches the spectacle like a little girl, not missing one detail of the show and in awe of every movement, as though it were choreographed just for her.

“You know, this is Italy,” I tell her. “There’s always something around the corner that you weren’t expecting.”

Etta and Chiara go into the old town for
La Passeggiatta,
the traditional after-dinner stroll, while Jack, Iva Lou, Giacomina, Papa, and I sit in the front yard and eat fresh berries from the bushes behind the house.

“I must show you the pictures of Pete and Gina from when they came to visit last year.” Giacomina gets up and goes inside.

“Have you met Pete’s wife?” Papa asks us.

“No, we haven’t. They were supposed to hike through Big Stone but postponed it,” Jack tells him.

“We had a good time with them.”

Giacomina returns with a pack of pictures and shows them to us.

“That’s Gina.” Mario points to the petite woman with a chic blond haircut. She wears sunglasses and smiles in the picture. Good teeth. Lots of them. Long. Narrow. White. Pete looks, well, Pete looks gorgeous.

“Well, that is a fine-looking man,” Iva Lou says, studying a photo. “And woman too,” she adds quickly, looking at me.

I’d like to stand up and say, “This is all too weird,” but I don’t. I just smile and look at the pictures with everyone else. I’m crazy about my husband, but the truth is, when I look at Gina in these pictures, I envy her a little. She got the guy who talks poetry and is as sensual as he is intelligent.

“We have a gift for you,” my father tells Jack and me.

“Papa, you’ve done enough,” I say.

“No, this is one that’s just for the two of you.” Papa hands me an envelope. “My cousin Battista helped with this one.”

I open the envelope. There is a single card trimmed in gold, written in Italian, inviting Jack and me to two nights at the Villa d’Este on Lake Como.

“Battista Barbari is one of the managers of the hotel. He is your second cousin, and when he visited us last month, he wanted to meet you. So, this came in the mail. You really should not miss it.” My father rarely endorses something this strongly.

“When should we go?”

“Tomorrow. You can drive. It will take you about an hour and a half. You have to go down the mountain and then north a bit until you get to Cernobbio.”

“What about Iva Lou and Etta?” I turn to her.

“Honey, I have a list as long as my arm of stuff I want to do around here. You and ole Jack Mac could use a set-down in a romantic setting.”

Giacomina pats Iva Lou on the back and looks at me. “Don’t worry. I will take good care of Iva Lou. Your father and I will take her to Bormio to the spa for a facial and a steam, and then we’ll shop in Clusone. She won’t even miss you! And don’t worry about Etta. Chiara will keep her busy for the entire visit.”

Laughter coming from the kitchen rouses me in my royal bed on the second floor of Via Scalina. I wake up happy, as this is the day Jack and I depart for the Villa d’Este.

The aroma of rich coffee and sweet steamed milk greets me at the door of the dining room. Everyone is around the table, talking, enjoying crusty bread with soft butter and raspberry jam.

“Stefano!” I’m surprised to see him.

“He missed us, Ma.” Etta laughs.

“I thought you could use a tour guide.” Stefano smiles at me.

“Jack and I are off to the Villa d’Este today.”

“He knows already, Ma. Dad told him all about it.”

“We’re making big plans while y’all are gone. Stefano here is gonna take us all up through these hills,” Iva Lou assures me.

Jack rushes me to pack a small bag to take on our trip. Iva Lou follows me upstairs to help.

“Iva Lou . . .”

“Honey-o, you don’t even have to say it. I will watch Etta like a hawk watches raw hamburger. Don’t you worry.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“Ole Stefano has that look in his eye. Well, the look might be in his eye, but his entire body is electrified with possibilities, if you know what I mean.” Iva Lou takes one look at my face and knows I’m concerned. “Now, don’t worry. If there ever was a chaperone who knows the wily and secretive ways of men, it is yours truly. I’ll keep ’em apart, and just friends, I promise!”

The Iva Lou plan is in place, but I don’t hedge my bets. I pull Papa and Giacomina aside and tell them to please watch Etta while I’m gone. I know Etta has a good head on her shoulders, but even I was tempted by romance in these Alps. This is a place made for love, and my daughter is young. Even though she
says
she’s not interested in Stefano, she might become enchanted under the right circumstances. Giacomina understands more than Papa, who you’d think would have instant insight into this but does not. He knows Stefano is a good guy and doesn’t believe that he would try anything. “It’s not just Stefano I’m worried about,” I tell Papa. This, finally, he understands.

The gates to the Villa d’Este are so impressive, I feel I should be in a glass carriage and wearing a tiara to enter. The guard, with his long, serious face, checks a clipboard for our names. When he finds them, he grins broadly and waves us in. I order Jack to drive slowly, as I don’t want to miss a detail of this entrance that looks like the start of a winding road in a fairy tale, with its perfectly manicured bushes, beds of red satin begonias, trees plumed with open cups of white magnolia, and a family crest carved into the hillside in flowers. The gardens are the least of the beauty, though. There is a low walkway with a rococo handrail along Lake Como, which might very well be made of midnight-blue lapis and not water, as it glitters so brilliantly in the sun.

As in all fairy tales, the road leads to a castle, known on this lake as the Cardinal’s Palace. The Queen’s Pavilion, a burnt-umber-faced villa with a boat launch at its base, faces the main building, where Battista has booked us. Jack says nothing, as he has never seen anything like this either. Only the most glamorous and elegantly dressed, coiffed, and perfumed belong here. No wonder Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra honeymooned here; Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, was kept in exile here; Clark Gable roamed these grounds; and Ginger Rogers swam in the pool that floats on the lake. This is heavenly, and stars belong here. Jack and me? We’ll do our best not to gape our two days away in awe of all we see.

“I am so happy that you decided to come,” Battista, my cousin who looks like an elegant duke, says as he leads us to our room. We banter in Italian, and Jack turns and looks at the architecture. The high ceilings are shades of yellow, and the marble staircases with their flecks of silver reflect light in every direction. Battista takes a large key from an envelope (even the key has a tassel on it) and opens Room 218, a suite with a view of the lake. He opens the windows and lets the lake breeze play through the draperies, which are boldly striped in shades of dusky blue. The living room has a gray velvet couch and blue-and-gray-striped chairs; there is a bowl of fresh yellow roses on the glass-topped table. The bedroom is set off by more draperies and boasts a walk-in closet, and French doors lead out to our own private balcony overlooking the lake. Battista can see that I am overwhelmed. “But you haven’t eaten a meal here yet. The cuisine is what we are famous for!”

He leaves us to our unpacking. Jack and I keep looking at each other as though we have landed on another planet.

“We only have two days!” I wail. “Let’s stay right here on the lake and see everything we can.”

As soon as we have unpacked and made plans for the morning, like visiting the statuary and going to the floating pool, we want to start for the lake. But before we get out the door, Jack turns to me and sweeps me into his arms and kisses me like the first time he ever kissed me in Iva Lou’s trailer park so long ago. He takes the camera out of my hands and the sunglasses off my face and we tumble onto the bed. As we make love, I can hear the gentle waves of the lake and smell the jasmine that coils around the balcony. I feel young again, utterly connected to Jack, not just by our vows but in this moment. My husband, I know, feels the same. He looks at me and understands what I am thinking (one of the pluses, or minuses, of being married for so long). We laugh at our urgency and our passion—where is
this
coming from? I learn something very important today: environment matters! When a country girl is in a castle, she behaves like a princess and expects as much from her man.

There is a formal dinner dance each evening on the veranda. Thank God I brought my mother’s vintage dress, a simple pale blue silk off-the-shoulder sheath with a ballerina-length skirt. Jack looks handsome in his navy suit and red tie. Battista promises something special tonight, and we can’t wait to see what awaits us. (Fine dining and cuisine has become a theme in our family; in New York it was Max, in Florence, Renzo, and now the Villa d’Este!)

The waiter seats us at the water’s edge and tells us that Battista has ordered for us. As soon as our drinks arrive, Jack points out over the lake. “Look, Ave!” By the Queen’s Pavilion, two hot-air balloons, one with the face of the moon and the other with the sun, float over us, with two trapeze artists twirling from their baskets. The dinner guests erupt into applause, and I hear a woman at the next table tell her husband that this night is called “A Midsummer Night’s Party.” No wonder Papa wanted us to come right away. We won’t have to dream tonight—what could be more fantastic than this?

Later, as Jack and I prepare for bed, we keep looking up at each other and laughing. This tops our honeymoon, or maybe we’re just old enough to appreciate a night like this, to savor it.

“You know what I love about you?” Jack wraps his arms around me as we lie in bed. I am studying the trompe l’oeil doors on the closet, depicting a scene of a picnic on Lake Como.

“What?”

“You have a sense of wonder.”

“Who wouldn’t have a sense of wonder in a place like this?”

“I know lots of people who wouldn’t.” He pulls me closer still. “You know I never loved anyone like I love you.”

I don’t know what to say. My husband never talks like this. Well, not until recently, anyway; maybe it was the champagne. Or the Courvoisier after dinner. I don’t care. I like it. And frankly, I’m going to pump him for more. “Why’s that?” I ask demurely.

“I just never have, and I don’t think I ever will.” Jack kisses me good night and turns over. The soft warm breeze off the lake and the smell of gardenias take me back seven years to the summer in Schilpario when I left Jack to bring Etta to Italy. I think of him alone, back home, and his friendship with Karen Bell. It seems long ago, almost as though it happened to someone else. Instead of yanking at the picks in the fabric of our past, I leave it alone. We survived our problems, I remind myself. Love or something else saved us. Maybe it was just the timing, but we made it through. I know I was meant to take care of my husband, and I’ve seen him grow contented with our life together. I must remember to always be tender with him, because he always has been with me. I cover my husband with the duvet, centering the embroidered crest on his backside like a label. This makes me giggle.

“What’s funny?”

“Honey, you have a royal ass. You are actually stamped and certified.”

Jack and I want never to leave the Villa d’Este, but we also can’t wait to go back to Schilpario to tell everyone what we saw. We decide to tour the quaint village of Cernobbio on the way back and to have lunch in Bellagio, which we saw from our boat tour of Lake Como. Our captain, Sergio, would speed down the center of the lake until he saw the home of a celebrity, and then he would turn off the motor and tell us about the owner as we bobbed on the water. The homes often matched their owners. The house of Fiorucci (the madcap shoe designer) was lime green with forest-green shutters; Catherine Deneuve (the regal French film star), a tasteful three-story beige villa with brown shutters; the Versace family (fashion designers), an old Hollywood-style white castle trimmed in gold and black. At the Ratti silk outlet, I buy six yards of silk wool in a multicolor bouclé to have a coat made for Etta. I hope she likes it. My mother would swoon at the quality of this fabric. Jack picks up some wine and cheese in Saronno on our drive back. I call ahead and tell Papa that we won’t make it for dinner, we’ll probably roll in around midnight.

There is a single lamp on in the front window at Papa’s house when we pull into the driveway. We load ourselves down with the parcels so we only have to make one trip and enter the house through the garage. I take the perishables to the kitchen.

“What’s that racket?” Jack asks as he drops a bag on the table.

“What racket?”

“That.” Jack points to the street. We go to the window. Four figures come down the narrow street singing. And it’s a song we know. It’s the theme of the Outdoor Drama, “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.”

“Jesus, it’s Iva Lou. She’s drunk,” I tell Jack as he follows me to the door.

The volume of the singing escalates. “Etta?” Jack asks, obviously hoping it’s not her.

“Daaaa-dee,” she says, one arm slung over pie-eyed Iva Lou and the other over Chiara, whose mascara has smeared into two black triangles under her eyes. A man, holding Iva Lou upright, emerges from the shadows.