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And even though I've already looked at all the digital versions of the newspapers he left on my desk, I can't help but reach out and pick one up.
“The woman caught at an intimate dinner with businessman Vittorio Cataneo has not yet been identified, but reliable sources guarantee that she is the billionaire's new romantic interest and that she is spending time at Cantina Santo Monte. The brunette with the mysterious smile seems to have captivated the attention of Italy's most eligible bachelor. Has the grape magnate’s heart finally been caught?”
When I finish rereading the paragraph printed on the cover of the largest Italian newspaper, I can't help but, for the second time today, mentally correct the adjective used to describe Gabriella's smile. There's nothing mysterious about it. The girl gives away all the emotions when her lips stretch. You can tell if she's nervous, if she's having fun, or if she's just being polite. Her smile is not mysterious, it is completely transparent.
CHAPTER 30
________
Gabriella Matos
I have a new ritual, or maybe, it's just some kind of self-imposed torture that I can't escape.
My favorite part of the castle is definitely the windows. And last night, when I couldn't sleep because I didn't know how to deal with the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts triggered by the dinner I had returned from with Vittorio, I found a new one. It's not really new, I've just never been there before.
This one doesn't have a stained-glass window or a distant landscape through which I'll just let my thoughts run wild. The squared white frame has a padded bench beneath it and overlooks a swimming pool, still in the Don’s wing, but on the first floor.
I had no idea that this pool existed and, when I looked at it, I imagined how incredible the feeling must be, during the heat it has been when the sun is still in the sky, to go into it to cool off. I spent hours living the scene in my own head, and at some point, I realized I wasn't alone there anymore.
It was a subtle and sneaky desire, completely unreasonable, that arrived slowly and settled in as if it hoped no one would notice its presence here.
And instead of being frightened by its presence and immediately expelling it, I noticed it out of the corner of myconscious eye and ignored it as much as I could, until I couldn't anymore.
When I thought it was no longer possible to remain inert in its presence, when I thought I should take action, I sighed deeply and did it. Instead of kicking it out and telling myself to stop being crazy, because Vittorio and I in a pool together is the kind of scene that only my hallucinated mind could project and that reality would never come close to realizing, I simply got up from the seat under the window and decided that, for that night, it was enough of dreaming about impossible things.
But now, as the day is bright and warm, and I walk past that same window and don't stop, I know that I will return at night to dream new impossible dreams. Later I should probably start by imagining that I learned to swim.
***
The clothes on my body feel wrong as I walk down the stairs to the kitchen inSignoraAnna's wing, and the fact that I want my old ones isn't even the reason. It's just that while I was wearing a uniform, like all the other women I know I'll meet there, it was easier to feel like I belonged there.
The chaos that had already become familiar could be heard even though I was still meters from the kitchen. Will Luigia let me stay?
“He's going to get tired of her any minute now.”
I stop walking on nothing but instinct when I hear two voices inside the pantry, the door I was about to walk through. I tell myself that the butterflies in my stomach are crazy, they're not talking about me. I'm just contaminated by Rafaella's constant complaints.
“He only put her in the house because she's a Brazilian whore. I doubt the Don would do that to a real Italian woman.”
It's me they're talking about, then. Standing in the middle of the corridor, I blink, not knowing whether to continue or go back to Vittorio's wing. Two seconds later, I regret not moving when loud laughter sounds from the same place the voices came from.
“How long do you think it will take before she ends up in afamiglia’s brothel?”
One of the women asks and, listening now, I recognize her voice. It is Giovana. We had started talking a few weeks ago. I was under no illusion that we were friends, but I definitely wasn't expecting that kind of comment.
“A month?” the other voice suggests. Camila, I remember.
I swallow hard, but not because the words hurt me. What disappoints me is knowing that wherever I am, there will always be people willing to be gratuitously cruel.
It could be a romantic or naive idea on my part, but I really wanted to believe that I didn't need to carry my previous pains and mistakes into this life. If that was the only choice I could make, then I would make it. I didn't even need to carry the people who hurt me, even if it was just inside me.
I turn in the opposite direction I was walking, my heart free of sorrows, but my head full of doubts. Those women may be completely wrong about Vittorio only taking me to his wing because we're sleeping together, but they're right about one thing: what will happen when I lose the usefulness, he's just discovered I have?
Would he put me in a brothel? But if he were to do that, why bring me here in the first place? He could have done this from the beginning, right? I shake my head from side to side, denyingit, and decide that all I don't need right now is to lock myself in the library with just the books, my thoughts, and the comfort of that couch.
Rafaella's promotion was great for her and for me too, it means I can have her around for more than an hour a day during our classes, but most of the time I just try not to get in the way of Rafaella's work. Luigia is still the head housekeeper, and if anything Rafa does is anything less than impeccable, the lecture will definitely come.
Knowing that I probably won't be able to pay attention to a single line, maybe later, but definitely not now, I give up on the library idea entirely. I pass straight through the entrance to the wing and continue walking until I find the exit.
