“Hello there,” she said to me in English. “You must be James. I’m Claudia, nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you,” I replied, wondering how the hell she knew my name.
Her fiancé probably read my thoughts on my face, because he said, “We met your mother earlier. She said you’ll be staying here the whole month.” He spoke with a clean, British accent. “I’m Francesco, Roberto and Marco’s cousin.”
He leant back on the gate, his tall, toned body relaxed as he gazed at me with light brown eyes. The warm light of the lamps brought out the golden hue in his brown hair, perfectly framing his chiseled face. At that moment, I thought that family had been blessed with some amazing genes. Francesco wasn’t as handsome as Roberto – but then again, who was? – but he was fairly attractive too.
“You’re Italian?” I asked, more than a little surprised. I hoped I didn’t sound rude. “I mean, your English sounds perfect.”
“Well, thank you,” Francesco said with a small bow of his head. “Yes, I am one hundred percent Italian.”
Claudia smiled widely and turned to him, saying, “I hope you’re not gonna brag about this all night now.”
Francesco just made a face. I liked the dynamic between them.
“So James, were you leaving?” Claudia asked me. The too-familiar sting of embarrassment in the pit of my stomach came back, and I couldn’t look back at her.
“Yes, I mean, no…” I said.
Francesco gave me an understanding look and said, “I know how you feel. To be honest, I can’t wait to go home too. You can’t start a barbecue at nine; nobody has dinner that late. These people aren’t normal.”
I was slightly confused by that last comment. Claudia explained, “Fra was born and raised in Milan. He doesn’t understand how we have fun here in the South.”
I was about to ask Claudia how they met each other, when a young guy with short black hair and thick-framed glasses called her, gesturing for her at the center of the backyard. She excused herself and joined the man, who drew everyone’s attention by gently hitting his glass of wine with a knife. When everyone had their eyes on him – and somebody was filming the whole thing with their smartphone, I noticed – he started making a speech which I couldn’t understand at all. At the end he made a toast, looking deeply into Claudia’s eyes, and everyone cheered and applauded. Claudia looked incredibly embarrassed, but she smiled at him and they kissed, causing somebody to whistle from the crowd.
My eyes naturally moved to Francesco, who turned to look at me as if nothing had happened. “They’re getting married in a few weeks,” he explained. “Rob and I came from Milan specifically for this wedding, like most of the people you see here. It’s something like the event of the year.”
“I see,” I said. “I thought you were…”
“You thought we were engaged?” He smiled. “She’s just another cousin. Prepare yourself because you’re going to hear this a lot. Everybody here is somebody’s cousin.”
I couldn’t hold back a short laugh. What a classically Italian thing to say.
“Fra, I see you met our new neighbor.” Roberto walked over to us and as soon as I saw him my heart jumped in my chest, as I remembered I was still holding the empty beer can we had shared. I hid it behind a bush as fast as I could; I’d never let him see I was still carrying that thing around.
Roberto turned to me and said, “Whatever he says to you, don’t listen to him.” He slung an arm around his cousin’s shoulders and added, “Never trust a guy who secretly checks his phone to read work emails. Nothing good can come from a guy like that.”
“Fuck you, Rob,” Francesco said with an eye-roll. “As I was telling James, it doesn’t make sense to have dinner so late. I bet nobody’s gonna see any stars tonight,” he added with a sigh.
“The stars?” I asked.
“Right, I guess I forgot to explain it to you,” Roberto said, “Saint Lawrence’s Day is in three days, the 10th of August. It’s the night of the shooting stars, so we were planning to do this barbecue and go to the beach to look at the stars with my uncle’s telescope. But Uncle Mario won’t be here in three days, so we moved the party forward.”
“Which is kind of ridiculous because the shooting stars should only be visible between the 10th and the 15th, but at least we have a chance to use the telescope. It’s a shame we won’t even go to the beach in the end,” Francesco remarked. “Look at Uncle Giuseppe. The man is ready to keep grilling for at least two more hours.”
I looked at Giuseppe, Roberto’s dad. He was shirtless and his cheeks were flaming red, but he had the focused and determined expression of a war hero. Not even the huge pile of raw meat packages waiting for him on the table seemed to slow him down. Kudos to him.
He probably heard us saying his name because he turned our way. He said something in Italian – I only understood Francesco’s name – and his nephew rolled his eyes and walked over to him.
“I’ve never seen a shooting star,” I said, almost unthinkingly. “Do you think I’ll be able to see the stars from our balcony?”
“Why, are you going home?” Roberto asked. I shouldn’t have said that. My stomach dropped to the floor.
“It’s not that I don’t like the party… It’s fun, it really is…”
“You don’t have to make up an excuse or anything, James.”
“No, really. Look at my family; you got my sister to drop her damn phone for a while, my mother made new friends and Dad is – what are they doing again?” I muttered, now focused on my father playing some sort of card game with a bunch of locals. He was laughing, which was weird. My father never laughed. Especially when he was anywhere near me.
“They’re playing ‘briscola’,” Roberto explained. “My personal favorite is ‘tressette’, but ‘briscola’ is a classic.”
“It looks like fun,” I said.
“It is.” Roberto’s unreadable and gorgeous smile was making me uncomfortable. I was probably being rude to him, and I didn’t mean to be. “I can teach you,” he told me, which made my heartbeat go crazy.
“Now?” I said, a little breathless. I wanted to disappear.
“No,” he chuckled. “Tomorrow, at the beach. What do you think?”
He wanted to see me again. At the beach. To spend time with me. With me. I started wondering if I was dreaming. I must be dreaming.
“Okay,” I said awkwardly.
“To answer your question, I don’t think you’ll be able to see the stars from the balcony. The light of the lamps in the backyard will ruin it.”
Pity. A real pity.
Before I could say anything, Roberto added, “Do you really need to go home? Because if you don’t, I have an idea.”
How can I say no to that face?
Roberto and I left the party unnoticed. Everyone was laughing, playing and eating. It was a good thing the whole neighborhood was there, or somebody would have certainly complained about the noise.
We crossed the street and the narrow sidewalk that separated the houses from the beach. Once there, Roberto kicked off his shoes and rolled his pants to his knees, and I did the same. The closer we got to the water, the weaker the noises of the party became, until they disappeared completely.