Page 29

On Friday nights, after family card games, he’d show my dad how to lead my mother in a waltz or a foxtrot. They’d spin around the low table, avoiding my mom’s puzzle in progress and the old TV in the corner. While my dad spun my mom around, Levi would pull me to him and all the air would leave my body. And I’d hold on tight and let him encompass me.

Exactly like he was doing now. Enveloping me in his strong arms, surrounding me. It was confusing and heartbreakingly familiar at the same time. My head spun. My feet were heavy logs, stomping gracelessly on the marble floor. Everything about this moment only proved how out of sync we were. We weren’t idealistic teenagers anymore, and there was a world of hurt and unspoken confessions between us. I stepped hard on Levi’s foot and he grimaced.

“I told you I can’t do this,” I whispered.

“Just stop thinking so much. Let go,” Levi said, securing his hand on the small of my back.

“Maybe Mrs. Harris would like to step in,” I suggested hopefully, attempting to put some distance between us by turning toward her.

“Oh no, dear. You were doing a fantastic job. Go on.” She smiled and I reluctantly turned back to Levi. I felt faint as his hand once again wrapped around me, holding me with just the right amount of firm pressure.

I ground my teeth because I was suddenly, incomprehensibly angry. I’d been robbed of this closeness . . . this contact that still felt so natural, so right after all these years. He’d taken it from me. I wanted to pound my fist against his chest and make him tell me why. I couldn’t, though, not here in front of these women.

But I could make him suffer. Just a little.

I stepped hard on his foot, digging the heel of my boot into his toe.

“Ahh,” he groaned but refused to release me. So I stepped on him again. Levi was nothing but determined though, and he moved on graceful as a cat. As hard as I tried to fight against him, I couldn’t help but be swept away by the moment: the gondolas on the canal, the crackling of the gramophone, the familiar scent of Levi’s cologne.

I hated myself for falling so easily back under his spell. But I closed my eyes and went with it anyway; my limbs softened like water, became fluid, light, moving in complete accord with Levi’s body. This is what it would feel like to melt into him.

No. This couldn’t be happening again.

Panicked, I stopped mid-turn and darted out of reach, leaving him in the middle of the floor with his hand outstretched. “I can’t.” I turned to find everyone staring. “Sorry, my foot is bothering me.”

Levi cleared his throat and held his hand out to Signora Visconti. “Why don’t you try?”

“Oh no, Giulia. You go.”

Their voices became a blur as I wandered over to the window and stared out at the boats in the canal.

“That was lovely, Diana,” came Mrs. Harris’s voice behind me. “It’s so obvious there is still something between you two.”

I don’t know what dance she was watching, but it obviously hadn’t been that pathetic waltz. I smiled at her and edged closer to Claudia Visconti, hoping that eventually I’d get the chance to speak to her directly. I still hadn’t figured out just how I was going to finagle an invitation to the fundraiser and prayed for inspiration.

“Oh, my Giulia. She has two left feet, as you say,” she whispered to me as I settled into the chair next to her.

It’s true that her granddaughter was stiff as a board. Speaking from experience though, that might just have been the Levi effect. It’s not easy as an awkward teenager to be whisked around a room by a gorgeous, graceful man. Especially in front of your giggling friends.

“She’ll get the hang of it,” I assured her grandmother, switching to Italian. “Levi is an excellent teacher.”

Watching Giulia, I couldn’t help being reminded of myself at her age. She was pretty in a very unusual way. Somewhat tall and gangly, with curly dark hair and braces that kept her from smiling fully. I imagined that she was studious and introverted like I was.

“She doesn’t leave the house much,” sighed Signora Visconti. “Always with her face in a book like Giancarlo. I had to force her to agree to this ball.”

My heart tightened for the awkward teenager, whose three glamorous friends were clearly more comfortable in their skin and kept giggling and flirting with Levi when it was their turn to dance.

Giulia came to sit next to us while her friend Anna, a Brigitte Bardot lookalike spun around the floor.

“She’s so graceful,” she said, a sad twinge in her voice.

“Yes, but I’ll bet she’s had practice,” I said and Giulia nodded.

“Ballet and contemporary dance. We started together when we were five.”

“Yes, but she continued and you abandoned it,” added her grandmother. “Look how you would be if you had continued.”

Giulia rolled her eyes and smiled at me, big braces and all. “Your fiancé is very nice. You’re so lucky.”