Plenty of Places

The heat of summer had all but withered the grain and three days remained before they left Castelvecchio.

You remember that film, Antonia,” Gia’s father said as they sat in her uncle’s kitchen. “Pane e Tulipani? About the woman who started a new life? You said she had guts.”

Gia’s mother let the empty demitasse drop to the saucer. “You bought that damn house, didn’t you? Just like the others without telling me.”

“No,” said her father. “I didn’t.”

Gia pulled her chair nearer her uncle, who sat stirring his coffee. Dinner had been light, roast chicken and green beans from the local oven, since her uncle’s wife couldn’t cook. Gia hadn’t eaten much anyway.

“Then what are you telling me?” her mother said.

Her father’s eyes behind the thick glasses looked vast. He tented his forefingers.

“Listen, Giovanni,” said her uncle. “We all want you to stay, you know that. As far as a place to live, there are plenty. Sure, there will be red tape, but Antonia was born here for God’s sake. The problem is, there are a lot of tailors in Italy.”

“That’s what I told him,” Antonia said. “More than you can shake a stick, and they’re artists.”

Giovanni looked at her, blinking. Everyone knew he wanted to stay, make a place for himself, a name even. Nobody ran down Via Veneto after a tailor from the house of Brioni without good reason. Gia glanced at her uncle, who worried the edge of a white linen napkin.

“What about you, Gia,” said her father. “What do you want?”

“Madonna, Giovanni, what are you about, asking a child such a question.”

“She’s almost eighteen, Antonia. She can think for herself.”

“Well, Gia?” her father asked.

Each day she had wondered about staying. She had been happy this summer and all the other summers, had even found a measure of joy, but no peace, no sense of safety.

“I don’t know,” she said. “The kids here, my cousins, they’re all so advanced, in school, everything.” She had nearly lost Bernardetta at the discotheque again the other night, and when they had gone to Fano to buy all those books for the fall term of the five-year high school, she’d had such a sense of vertigo she had to walk out.

“And the government’s not very stable besides,” she said, parroting the news and what she’d heard at every evening meal since they arrived. Beyond that, she thought of Peter back home, going from junior varsity to varsity football, her stretch of sand near surf beach, the privacy of her own room.

She looked at her mother, who glared at her across the table. “I don’t think it’s a good time, now, to make a move.”

Her father sat silently, nodding, fingers pressed together like a gable.

“Buck up, Giovanni,” said her uncle. “At least you didn’t put any money down."