It had started by accident two weeks prior. She had literally run into Dr. Jacobs on her way from the Mercato, nearly spilling his espresso as he exited the osteria. She was in such a rush to get back to the boarding house for rehearsal –hisrehearsal – that she hadn’t even seen him. He’d urged her to slow down, and they’d walked back together, talking about the Fitzgerald novel she had been reading that day.
That collision became habit over the next fifteen mornings. Conversation was always so easy with him, easy in a way it hadn’t been since the night they met. As they walked the streets of Italy, she could pretend that this ease was the inevitable result of that night at the opera instead of the never-ending purgatory they’d occupied for the last year.
So much had happened since then. She wasn’t the same person she had been a year ago. She was more guarded now, a little less spontaneous, a lot less trusting. The new Min never would have left the opera house with Liam that night, and she certainly wouldn’t have let him take her into that dark hallway…
But each morning, walking through the streets of a city that didn’t care who they were or how they’d met, she felt like the old Min again. Recognition that he craved the stolen moments as much as she did made matters both better and worse, but for all that, it was still the best part of her day, even if she could almost hear the clock ticking down the time they had left there.
They began winding their way back across town towards their boarding house on Via Rucellai. As the sounds of the market grew fainter, the bustle of the train station came into prominence. Several tourists stood outside the station, a large rail map of Italy spread on the ground before them as they argued over how long it would take to get to Cinque Terra.
“What are you reading today?” Dr. Jacobs asked as he took a sip of his espresso and sidestepped the map on the sidewalk.
“The Sun Also Rises.”
“Ah, Hemingway.” He glanced at her with a mischievous grin. “What 21-year-old reads Hemingway for fun?” She nudged her shoulder into his with a roll of her eyes and he laughed. “Next you’ll be telling me you read Dickens on the train.”
“No, definitely not,” she scoffed in mock indignation. “Nabokov for the train. Dickens for cold winter nights. Shakespeare for –“
“The quad.” He smiled in a way that crinkled the edges of his eyes. Her stomach flipped.He remembered.“And Hemingway for Florence?” he asked.
“Mmhmm. Why not read about Pamplona while sitting in the heart of Tuscany?” she joked.
“Have you ever been to Spain?”
“No. This is my first time out of the US actually.”
He looked at her in disbelief. “Really? Well, we’ll just have to find you some more young artist programs so you can travel the world.” He winked and they continued on their way.
The lines were already forming at Santa Maria Novella, including a large group of students from the university’s study abroad program. Dr. Jacobs waved at one of the frazzled looking art history professors in line as they passed, a tall slender redhead. Min fought the jealousy that bubbled up within her. She’d been doing so well at not being jealous of every woman who glanced in Dr. Jacobs’ direction – and there wereso many. But ever since they’d started sharing their mornings, laughing and talking about books and allowing themselves to smile freely at each other, something had shifted. She had spent the last year reciting to herself all the reasons they were wrong for each other, why it shouldn’t matter to her who he smiled at, how impossible it was that what she felt for him was anything more than lust. But here, outside the boundaries of the university, where every moment with him felt soright, she struggled to remember even one of those reasons.
They rounded the corner of Via Rucellai, narrowly avoiding a collision with the line forming at the gates of St. James. Min fumbled in her bag for her keys, pulling them from beneath a mass of papers just as the front gate swung open. Barbara, the British ex-pat owner of the boarding house, stood in the opening, a cigarette between the second and third finger on her right hand, a surprising amount of ash clinging to the tip as if it might plummet at any moment. She held a glass of red wine in her other hand, the rim stained with her deep crimson lipstick.
Barbara rented the top floor of her home to the university to house the opera singers, Min included, who were in Florence as part of Dr. Jacobs’ new summer young artist program. The first floor of the house served as their practice space and the middle floor housed Barbara and the program’s staff. This was the inaugural year, part of Dr. Jacobs’ efforts to increase the profile of the university’s opera program and attract the attention of new donors. As far as Min could tell, it was a successful first volley. The summer program had drawn applicants from all across the United States and Dr. Jacobs was meeting with several potential donors who were interested in seeing what this new program was all about.
Their host stepped aside to let them through, taking a swig from her wine glass and throwing her long, wavy, black hair over her shoulder. “Cutting it close, aren’t you, dearies?” she said with a smile.
Dr. Jacobs laughed – the practiced laugh he reserved for donors and university administration, not the deep rumble that Min had grown addicted to. “A maestro’s privilege,” he said.
Barbara arched an eyebrow. “Any other privileges I should be aware of?” She made a big show of giving him a once over before meeting his eyes with a comical raise of her over-plucked eyebrow. Min clenched her jaw to keep from snapping at the woman.No right to be jealous, she reminded herself.He’s not yours.
Ever composed, Dr. Jacobs smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He cleared his throat. “We must be going,” he said, placing his hand on Min’s lower back and guiding her towards the entrance of the house. The tension melted from her shoulders at the unexpected touch.
Their morning walks were starting to throw Min off balance. They were allowing her entirely too much time to remember how good it felt to touch Dr. Jacobs freely, the scent of lemongrass and cedar that lingered on his skin, the fluttering low in her belly when he gave her his undivided attention. As they approached the house, she forced herself to recite her newest litany, an increasingly ineffective reminder to squash any fantasies her traitorous mind tried to harbor about this man:He’s thirteen years older than you. He’s way out of your league. He’s your professor.
The logical part of her brain knew they could never be anything more to each other – no matter how many easy conversations they shared or how many times she thought she caught him looking at her with that darkness in his eyes that promised all kinds of delicious forbidden things. It had been over before it even began. He didn’t need to tell her. She didn’t want to hear him say that the best night of her life had been a mistake.
When they returned to Burnett in a few weeks, he would go back to being her professor with the haunting eyes and she would go back to being just another college student. But her body remembered his touch. No one had ever kissed her the way he had. Or touched her like he might die if he didn’t. Even now, he had a way of making her feel like she was the only one in the room. Like he wished things could be different, too.
Min never stood a chance of getting over him. And she bore the scars of her attempts to.
Bobby flopped into the seat next to her in the salon and grabbed her bag from where it lay on the floor, digging through it. “Where’s your ibuprofen?” he asked, his eyes vacant and a bit unfocused.
Min pulled her bag away from him. “Good morning to you, too,” she said.
She tossed the bottle of ibuprofen into his lap. “Take two,” she said.
Bobby nodded as he fumbled with the child safety cap on the bottle. He threw back the two pills and swallowed without the aid of water. Leaning close, he slipped the bottle back into her bag and kissed her cheek.
She bit back her criticism of the way he was partying this summer – after all, he was still one of her closest friends, even if things were awkward sometimes now. They had yet to master the uncomfortable existence after sleeping with someone and then promptly deciding never to do it again.
