Brava, Valentine

“I’m sorry I made you sad,” he whispers in my ear. “I’m sorry we wasted so much time.”

“I don’t care,” I tell him. “I got buckets of time. Boatloads…all I have is time.” He interrupts me with kisses down my neck. He finds the half-undone back of my dress and I hear the soft whir of the zipper as he undoes it. His hands on the small of my waist feel warm as he eases them up to my shoulders. If I wasn’t tipsy, I’d stop him, as my parents are down the hall, and Aunt Feen is sleeping off her reception bender with a snore they can hear in Florence. But I don’t care about any of that now. I just want him.

He spins me gently through the room, like the flutter of snowflakes that made dizzy patterns outside my window this morning. It’s as if I’m moving through the air without a destination in sight, not quite flying, but definitely off the ground. This must be how ballerinas feel when they sail through the air during a jump. I am weightless as he carries me to the bed.

This is not a good idea, I’m thinking, as he lays me on the bed, and yet it also feels like the best idea ever. I don’t hear church bells, or brass blaring, or see satin ribbons unfurling; this isn’t going to be triumphant sex, there isn’t going to be a parade, but I don’t need one. I need him. Gianluca wants me-and he’s wanted me a very long time. Is there any harm in pursuing something that ca

We both know that I’m leaving in the morning. Figuring out the continental divide, doing the math: I’m there, he’s here-so what? It’s a challenge-what element in my life isn’t a challenge? What else might stop me? He’s my grandmother’s stepson? What difference does that make? When the international divorce rate hits 50 percent, the truth is, everybody’s related anyhow.

What’s the worst that could happen here? So, we make love, it’s divine-and then, we never do again? I promise I will be very happy with the four hours I will have with him before the sun comes up. I’ll treasure the memory like a rope of dazzling diamonds and not be upset at all if I find out the stones aren’t real. I swear: whatever I get, whatever we have tonight, will be exactly enough. Here’s a bold concept for a Catholic girl from Queens: stay in the moment.

“I’m so happy you came back to me.” I cover him with kisses.

He smiles as his hands travel from my hips to my waist. My dress falls away as he pulls me closer still. “I wanted you from the first moment I saw you.”

“And I thought you didn’t like me at all.”

“Now do you understand that I do?”

“I understand.”

“There was a problem,” he whispers.

My heart races. Here it comes. I always expect to get bad news, but usually not this soon, and never after I’ve already stepped out of my dress. I ask, “What problem?”

“You’re so young.”

I don’t know if it’s the crappy sherry, or that I can’t get the sound of Aunt Feen hitting the floor out of my head, but when a thirty-four-year-old woman hears she’s too young, all inhibitions and obstacles disappear. Young. The word itself is an aphrodisiac-not that I need one. A great lover knows exactly what to say, which is even more important than a great lover knowing what to do. I needed to hear that I’m still young after a day of feeling like that warped wheel on the old horse carriage. “I’m not too young,” I assure him. “I remember eight-track tapes.”

“It doesn’t matter, because I can’t help the way I feel about you.”

Even with my smeared black kohl eyeliner giving me the look of silent movie star Theda Bara, and my disheveled silver lamé dress thrown across the bed like a mermaid’s fin, I get it. He wants me, and I want him. Begi

Gianluca glides on top of me gently, pulling me close. He reaches around me and lifts me so I’m on the pillows. He shifts, pulling my BlackBerry out from under me. “Lose the phone.” I kiss him. He drops the BlackBerry to the floor as the cool night air blows through the curtains and washes over us.

There’s a banging at the door.

“Oh, God,” I whisper.

“Don’t answer it,” he whispers back.

Neither of us moves.

We hold our breath.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Auntie Val?” my niece Chiara calls out to me.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Gianluca rolls off me. I point to the bathroom. He goes into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. I grab my robe from the hook on the back of the door and pull it on. I yank the belt of the robe in a knot like I’m rigging a boat to the dock.

I open the door. “What’s the matter?”

My niece stands before me in her Ha

“Um, I think it would be better if you slept in your own bed.”

“Charisma is crowding me.”

“Give her a little shove.”

My tone causes Chiara to raise her eyebrows. She counters, “She’ll wake up. It’s too hot in our room.”

“I’ll open the window.”

“Nah.” She folds her arms across her chest.

“I think you should go to your room,” I say with an urgency she hasn’t heard since I yanked her away from the closing doors on the E train exiting the Queens Boulevard stop when she was five. Chiara looks at me suspiciously. I turn perfectly nice, hoping to ditch this kid back into her room, so I can return to Gianluca’s arms. “Really, honey. Auntie is exhausted.”

“Do you have any candy?” She tries to peer through the partially opened door and into my room.

“No, honey, I don’t.” I look down the hallway. Where in the hell is this kid’s mother? Why doesn’t Tess wake up and deal with her? I smile at Chiara. “It will soon be breakfast-and I’ll buy you a big jar of Nutella for the plane ride.”

“You will?”

“Yep, and a spoon. And you can eat for seven hours on the plane on the way home.”

“Do I have to share?”

“No, no sharing.” I give Chiara a hug, and then, closing my door behind me, walk her down the hallway and back to her room.

“Mom won’t let me eat it out of the jar.”

“Yes, she will. I will buy her a jumbo bottle of Coco cologne off of the duty-free cart.”

“Good.” Chiara pushes the door of her room open.

A woman’s loud scream, coming from my bathroom, peals through the quiet.

“What was that?” Chiara grabs me, afraid.

“Go in your room.”

I turn and run down the hallway and into my room. Gianluca is standing in front of the bathroom door.

“I frightened your sister,” he says as he points to the bathroom. “It co

“I forgot to tell you.”

The hallway light flickers on. “Is everything all right?” my mother calls out from her room at the end of the long hall.

“I saw a mouse,” Jaclyn calls from her door, next to mine, covering for the shock of finding Gianluca in her/our bathroom.

“I’ll send Daddy,” Mom calls out reassuringly.

“What the hell can I do? Club it with a shoe?” Dad bellows.

“I don’t know, Dutch. Think of something,” my mother says.

“I’m not chasing mice,” he barks. “Hasn’t this day been bad enough?”

“I’m afraid!” Chiara comes out of her room and into the hallway and begins to cry. “Maaa-maaa!” Her voice echoes through the hotel like an Alpine yodel.

Tess opens her door, comes out of her room, and joins her daughter in the hall, groggy from sleep. “What’s the matter?” I hear her say.

“Aunt Jaclyn was screaming,” Chiara explains.

“You shouldn’t listen at people’s doors,” I hear Tess tell Chiara; clearly she thinks it was a pleasant scream that her daughter misunderstood. Tess then closes Chiara’s door softly behind her.

“I’ll go.” Gianluca kisses my hand.

“No, you’re staying.”

“I can’t, now. The children. Your family…”

“Right, right. A bloodcurdling scream knocks the starch right out of romance. How about…” I’m thinking we could go to his house-and so is he.