“Good morning, Nonna,” she chirps, going straight to her grandmother and kissing her on the cheek. “I was out for a walk and thought I might bring you back some apricots from the fruit stand on the corner.” She hands over a small brown paper sack. Rosa takes it and empties the fruit into a bowl on the table, beaming that Angela is so thoughtful.
“Grazie, sweet girl,” she says.
“I never knew that Americans liked walking so much,” sniffs Bella, but she reaches and snags an apricot. Bites into it noisily.
Angela dares to meet my eyes for the briefest of moments. I wonder if anyone else notices that she’s still wearing the same clothes as last night.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” she says, and her smile is full of secrets.
ANGELA
I wake up in his arms, a ray of morning sun cutting across us in his tangled-up bed. Wow, I think. That was . . . wow. Totally worth the wait.
For a minute I keep perfectly still, savoring the feel of his body against mine, the hair on his legs a delicious counterpoint to my smooth skin, his breath in my hair, the steady thump of his heart under my cheek. I lift my head to look at him. He’s awake—he’s a morning person, one of his many flaws. His eyes are warm as he gazes down at me.
“Morning,” I say, my voice rough with sleep.
“Yes,” he says, an affirmation, Yes, it is morning. He reaches to brush away a strand of damp hair that’s stuck to the side of my face. I wonder if I was drooling on him.
His fingers trace the outline of my ear.
“You were whimpering,” he says. “What were you dreaming about?”
I dreamed about my vision. The guy in the gray suit. The steps. In the dream I climbed the steps and stood behind him, waiting, afraid to do what I was meant to do. I was supposed to touch him on the shoulder, I think, and then he would turn (and I would finally get to see his face!) and I would deliver my message. But I didn’t. In the dream, my hand lifted, hovered near his shoulder for several seconds, then dropped.
I don’t know the words, I thought. I’m not ready. I’m not prepared.
Panic seized me. I took a step back, then another, and another, then turned and fled down the steps, leaving the guy in the gray suit behind. The bright sunshine darkened into a storm. I ran, and the skies opened and poured rain down on me, chilling me, soaking me to the skin.
I’d chickened out. I’d failed my purpose. I had the sense that I’d lost everything, everything that was important to me, every hope, every dream.
I shiver. “Nothing,” I say.
A lie.
He raises his eyebrows the tiniest bit.
“It was a performance-anxiety dream,” I explain, “like my equivalent of one of those showing-up-for-class-naked dreams.” I glance at the clock on the nightstand. It’s almost seven o’clock. I sit up, drawing the sheet around me. “I have to go. My grandmother’s an early riser.”
“All right, just love me and leave me,” he says with a playacted sadness, folding his arms behind his head and watching me as I go around gathering up my clothes.
No, that’s what you’re going to do, I want to say, but I don’t. This is supposed to be casual between us.
I’m not supposed to love him.
“Sorry, babe,” I say as I slip on my shoes. “I gotta run.”
He smiles at the word babe, so American, then slides out of bed and starts to get dressed quickly. “I wish you could stay for breakfast,” he says. “I’m getting good at making eggs.”
“Rain check,” I say. “I’m going to have to think fast to explain things to Nonna as it is.”
“Will Clara tattle on you?” he asks.
This stops me. We haven’t talked about Clara, not this time. I guess I told him enough about her last year that he was able to recognize her on the train. She’d freak if she knew how much I told him, all about her and Jeffrey and her perfect Dimidius mother, although I knew pretty much squat about the real situation last summer. I didn’t know about Christian. Or Mr. Phibbs and Billy and the congregation. Or about Michael.
“No,” I say to answer the question. “She’ll cover for me. She’s the loyal type.”
“I’d like to meet her,” he says softly, like he knows this may upset me. “Why don’t the two of you come to dinner this evening? I’ll make something nice for us.”
My stomach clenches at the thought of Clara here, in his apartment, her wide blue eyes taking it all in, taking him in.
She’s prettier than I am.
An utterly stupid thought to have, I realize. I’m no plain Jane. I know that. I don’t have trouble getting a guy’s attention if I want to. But my mind jumps instantly back to British History, junior year, Clara and me standing in front of the class, Clara in her Queen Elizabeth getup for our class project. Christian Prescott in the front row. The way he looked at her like she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever beheld in his life.
Or Tucker at prom that same year, gazing longingly across the room at Clara as she stood next to Christian daintily sipping her punch. I might as well have been invisible next to her.
They talked about me, that night. Christian said, “You’re friends with Angela? She’s kind of intense.”
Intense. That’s the word for me. Not beautiful. Intense.
There’s something about Clara that pulls boys in like a magnet—something to do with her vulnerability, I think. The heart-on-the-sleeve stuff. It makes them want to protect her. Guys always want to be the white knight.
It’s kind of pathetic.
“Sure,” I say now, lightly, as if I couldn’t care less about it. “I’ll invite her.” I button up my shirt, then pull my hair out of my collar and give it a little shake so it tumbles all down my shoulders, turn, and meet his eyes. He starts to pull a T-shirt over his head, those plain white tees he wears, sexy as hell, but I put my hand on his arm to stop him. I lean to whisper in his ear, “But I’d rather be alone with you.”
The truth.
CLARA
“He wants to meet you,” Angela says later, when we’re alone. No explanation—nothing—just “he wants to meet you,” with the dramatic voice.
“Who?” I say sarcastically, and when she doesn’t answer, “Aren’t you even going to tell me his name?”
“No.” She’s determined to be mysterious about the whole thing, but I’ll take what I can get. I’m that curious.