Very Valentine

I get gutsy and move close to her. I smile. “Your brooch is beautiful.”

“Mia Mama’s.” She smiles and points to the jewelry store. “My family shop.”

“Oh, how nice.”

“My father made this pin for my mother.”

“It looks like an angel wing,” I tell her. My mother has a Christmas ornament of a cherub with beaded wings that reminds me of the wing shape on the brooch.

“Si. Si. My mother’s name was Angela.”

The woman folds down the edge of her paper bag, closing it. She stands up and waves to me as she goes. I open my sketchbook and draw the pin, an angel wing dense with stones and outlined in diamonds. I take my time drawing the shapes. Slowly, I begin to fall in love with this shape. I draw it over and over until the page is full of wings. The piazza empties as the tourists get on the bus for the last haul down the mountain to the piers.

I draw one last wing, co

Angel Shoes

Then I close the notebook and return to Costanzo to show him my sketch.

By the time I return, Costanzo is closing up the shop. He checks his watch and makes a tsk-tsk sound, faux guilt from my pretend padrone. He’s joking that I’m late, and he’s getting a kick out of himself. I let him. Then I show him my assignment. I hand him the sketch. He looks at it and points to the embellishment. “Wings?”

“Angel wings.”

“I like it,” he says. “Why angels?”

“Our shop is called the Angelini Shoe Company. But the sign is very old where the rain hits it, so now it says, ‘Angel Shoes.’ So when I saw the old lady’s brooch in the piazza, it got me thinking. The great designers have a simple logo, instantly identifiable. So, I thought, what if my design incorporated an angel wing?”

“And when you put the shoes together, two wings.”

“Symmetry! And I can make the wings out of jewels, or leather, or brass. Even embroidery.”

“Anything,” Antonio says and shrugs.

“Right. Exactly!” I beam. “Thank you for sending me out there. I would never have seen the brooch.”

“Every idea I ever had for a shoe came from observing women,” Costanzo says. “You see my shop? There are thousands of combinations to be made. Just like women, no two alike. Remember this when you draw.”

I pack up my tote and go. When I return to the piazza, it is completely empty. I make my way down the hill to the hotel. When I arrive at the entrance, Gianluca is sitting outside reading the newspaper by the fading light.

“Reading in the dark is bad for your eyes,” I tell him.

He looks up at me and smiles, takes his reading glasses off, and puts them in his pocket. He pulls out the chair next to him. I sit down. “Are you going to work there every day? You’re going to spoil Costanzo.”

“I wish I could stay for a year.”

“You came here to rest.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the chance to come back here. Or if Costanzo will be here when I return.”

“He’ll be here. We will all be here. Except your Roman.”

“Who told you?” I lean back in my chair. Italy is getting to be an awful lot like America, where my family is hot-wired to move private information at the speed of sound.

“Your grandmother. Your mother called her.”

“My relationship is an international scandal.” I look around for the waiter. Now, I need a drink.

“He’s a fool,” Gianluca says, flagging down the waiter.

“I’m allowed to be angry at Roman, but you are not allowed to call him names. He’s still my boyfriend.” Sometimes Gianluca sounds more like my father than he knows.

“Why not?”

“I’m not breaking up with him. And even if I were, I wouldn’t do it over the phone or on one of those godforsaken text messages.”

“Good point.” Gianluca places our drink orders with the waiter.

“And by the way, it just makes it all worse when you point out what an idiot I’ve been. I do have a little pride.”

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Gianluca assures me.

“Really? I think there’s something completely wrong with a woman who won’t ask for what she needs, and then when she does, she apologizes.”

“There is a difference between trying to make a relationship work and forgiving things you should not forgive,” Gianluca says. “Your grandmother wants you to come and stay with us.”

“Thanks, but I like it here at the hotel.”

“There are some things I’d like to show you on Capri,” he says.

“Sure.” I would agree to anything, because the truth is, nothing matters now that the old vacation I dreamed of is not to be. “I’d like to show you something,” I tell him.

Gianluca raises an eyebrow in a way that borders on sexy. I will not go there.

“Relax. It’s a sketch.” I pull the pad out of the tote bag, opening it to my new shoe. Gianluca pulls his reading glasses out of his pocket and studies the drawing.

“Lovely,” he says. “Orsola would wear it.”

“Good. It’s a shoe that Gram could wear, or my mother would buy, or I would wear. I’m aiming to hit a nerve. I even have a name for them. Angel Shoes. What do you think?”

“You have so many ideas,” he says.

“Well, I’m going to need them. When this little dream of Italy is over, I’m going home to a war zone.”

“It can’t be as bad as that.”

“You know, Gianluca, this is the difference between you native Italians and those of us called Italian Americans. You live a balanced life. You work, you eat, you rest. We don’t. We can’t. We live as though we have something to prove. There’s never enough time, we eat on the run, and we sleep as little as possible. We believe the one who works the hardest wins.” The drinks arrive. We toast each other and take a sip.

“What makes you happy?” he asks.

The question catches me off guard. Roman has never asked me that question. I don’t remember Bret ever asking me either. In fact, I don’t even ask myself that question. After I think for a moment, I answer him, “I don’t know.”

“You can never be happy if you don’t know what you want.”

“Oh, okay, oracle of Capri, man-with-the-answers to life’s major questions. What makes you happy?”

“The love of a good woman.”

“Good answer. That wouldn’t have been my answer a week ago. I had the love of a good man, and I didn’t put him first.”

“Why?”

“If I’d put him first, maybe he’d be here.”

“If he were smart, he would put you first. Why do you blame yourself for the man’s terrible ma

“I’m pretty sure I had something to do with it.”

“That’s ridiculous. If you have love, you honor it. You take care of things you love. Yes?” Gianluca has raised his voice a bit. I remember the first day in Arezzo when Gram and I went to the ta

“Hold on there, Gianluca, don’t get all geared up like you do back at the ta

Gianluca smiles. “Come and stay with us.”

After a month in Italy, I’m an expert on the Vechiarellis. Gianluca is all about family. He likes to herd everyone together, whether it’s around a di

“But we have a room for you.”

“It’s not the attico suite.”

“The room at our cousin’s is very nice.”

“I’m sure it is. But trust me, it’s not this room. Do you want to see it?”