Chapter 26 - Matteo
2387 Words
“Great, then I want to have a shower, like, now.” she says, standing up. “Show me to my room?”
Aurora takes the joint from her and sits down in her place, crossing one leg over the other. “I’ll be here.”
Matteo leads Valentina to one of the guest rooms down the hall, the only one who has an en suite bathroom and a closet.
“Thanks. Do you have towels?” Valentina asks as she looks around the room before going over to the bathroom. “Nevermind, I see there are towels here. Thanks.”
Matteo returns on his balcony, where Aurora is currently sitting with an extinguished joint between her fingers. He sits down in his seat and takes it from her fingers, making a point of lighting it up.
“Since when are you two friends?” Aurora asks, wiggling her eyebrows.
“Since- I don’t know.” It occurs to Matteo just now that he first became aware of her last summer. “Last year? She’s Isabella’s best friend.”
“Why is she here?”
“She helped me take an online exam. I flew her in from Moscow. How do you even know her?”
Aurora looks like she panics for a second, but she quickly composes herself. “I’ve seen her around. I like her.”
“You don’t like anyone.”
“I just graduated from high school on a random Thursday, no ceremony, nothing. How long is this virus even going to last?” she asks, changing the subject.
“We’re going on a trip to Ibiza tomorrow, I don’t think we should be whining about it.” Matteo finds himself saying, feeling not like himself but like his father.
“You sound exactly like dad.” She jokes and rolls her eyes. “Have you even seen him today?”
Matteo shakes his head.
“Can I get some clothes?”
The two of them look towards the door, where Valentina’s standing with a towel around her body and wet hair.
Aurora stands up and waves her hands excitedly. “Of course. I’m going to make you look like you were born to be Italian.”
Valentina throws Matteo a confused look, but all he can do is smile and shrug, having no idea what Aurora even means.
Aurora comes back eventually, long after Matteo finishes the joint.
“You’re still here?” she asks, dropping down on the chair.
Matteo doesn’t even know how much time has passed since he’s been sitting in the chair he always sits in, looking out to the sea. He can’t even remember the last time he just sat here, simply staring out where the water meets the sky. He’s been trying so hard to figure out what makes Valentina so sure she would never be sad with this view, that he hadn't even realized he didn’t get bored by just sitting there.
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“We should go out tonight. It’s nearly six.”
“We’re on a national lockdown, Aurora.” Matteo reminds her.
“Yes, but I’m going to lose my mind if I have to stay in this house for one more day! Dad comes and goes whenever he wants, why wouldn’t we?”
Because dad owns the police on this island, Matteo thinks, but doesn’t say.
“Pia also wants to. Come on, let’s convince Vinnie and Isabella and let’s all go out! We can show Valentina around, we can’t just keep her inside until tomorrow.”
“What about me?” Valentina asks, stepping outside. She’s wearing a short white satin dress Matteo has seen Aurora wear around the house before.
“I was just telling my brother that we have to go out tonight, we can’t just keep you inside instead of showing you beautiful Palermo.”
“I wouldn’t mind.” Valentina says and sits down on the bench by the stone railing, facing the two of them. “But isn’t Italy on lockdown because you have the highest death rate in the world or something?”
“Exactly, so the streets are going to be empty, even better!”
“What about the police?”
Matteo looks at Valentina and nods, agreeing with her question. Aurora waves it off. “Eh, no worries. We’ll deal with them when it gets to it. I’ll text the groupchat.”
Aurora leaves after that, and Matteo lights up a cigarette.
“Do you know each other?” he asks Valentina, who’s typing away on her phone. She looks younger than usual in the white dress and semi-wet hair.
“Who? Me and your sister? Not really. I just know she’s your sister.”
“Hm.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
Valentina doesn’t ask any further questions, so Matteo also focuses on his phone.
Aurora: let’s go out in Palermo tonight
Aurora: everyone bring a bottle of wine
Aurora: let’s walk around Palermo
Pia: why would we do that
Aurora: because I’m going to DIE if I spend another day locked inside
Matteo thinks about his father for a moment. If he’d hear them complain about being locked in a giant mansion by the water with a pool and everything you could possibly want, he’d laugh at them and tell them to come back to reality. But Valentina’s right, when you have
everything, nothing is exciting anymore. Living in lockdown during a pandemic in a giant mansion can become depressing, especially if you know, deep down, that you should be more grateful about where you are and what you have. Matteo never realized he was bored and burnt out until Valentina came to Italy. Every day has been the same, but he’s gotten used to it.
“Don’t your parents mind you being in Italy during Covid?”
Valentina looks up from her phone. “I just texted them. They’re not excited about it, but they’ll deal. My dad travels for work anyway.”
“He’s a businessman, right?”
“Right.” Valentina answers, with a hint of hesitation in her voice.
Matteo doesn’t mention it, but he remembers her telling Isabella about how her parents are trying to keep someone dying a secret. He also remembers his first instinct saying ‘mafia’, but then she explained that her father is a businessman and that they were just being secretive about it.
Sometimes Matteo forgets that his reality does exist, but there are very few people in the world who are in it as deep as he is. Born into it, stumbling upon the truth when young, doing jobs that got more serious each time, using drugs to make money to buy other drugs, and so on.
Also, he tried googling her name to find her dad, but all he got was a link to her ** and f******k. She didn’t post as much as the other girls Matteo followed, and she definitely looks better in real life than in photos.
“What are you thinking about?”
Her question makes him snap back to reality. He’s never been asked that before in his life. He also can’t really answer the question truthfully.
“How things aren’t always what they seem.”
She lights up a cigarette and turns around to watch the sea, smiling up at the sun. Matteo looks back at his phone screen.
Pia: meet in front of your house in 20?
Matteo sends a thumbs up emoji before deciding to go change out of his tank and shorts into something more appropriate for going out. He finds a pressed white linen shirt and clean jean shorts in his closet. Good enough.
“Let’s go get the wine first.” Aurora tells the two of them when they meet in the foyer.
They go down to their wine cellar, stocked to the brim with wines produced by their own company, some of the bottles being ever older than Matteo.
“Il Giudice 2010?” Valentina reads off a bottle she picks out. Matteo walks over and takes the bottle to read it.
“Yes, it’s the batch from 2010. It’s good wine, I think. I prefer spirits.”
“Yes, but Giudice? Wait, are all of these Giudice?”
“It’s our family winery.”
Matteo doesn’t tell her that you can find this type of wine in every supermarket selling alcohol in Sicily, if not all of Italy.
“Do you sell it?” she asks anyway.
“Some of it.” Matteo answers and picks out a random bottle. “Let’s go.”
***
They take Matteo’s convertible, with Vinnie sitting in the passenger’s seat holding a bag of wine bottles. Pia, Aurora, and Valentina are sitting in the back, already sharing the bottle from 2010. Marco and Eddie chose to stay home and play Fifa, and Isabella is waiting for them in front of the restaurant in the city.
The drive takes fifteen minutes because there’s not even one car in sight, and the city feels different when it’s deserted. The sun is setting behind them and the silence is eerie as Matteo parallel parks in front of their closed restaurant.
“It’s weird, right? The silence.” Aurora says in English, hopping out of the car without even opening the door, then grabs a bottle from Vinnie’s bag.
“Shouldn't we at least be wearing masks?” Valentina asks, looking around.
“Don’t be a loser.” Pia laughs and shakes her head, taking the bottle from Aurora’s hand. “There’s no one around. Salute!” She raises the bottle and takes a long sip from it.
“Yes, that’s the spirit!” Aurora cheers her on and goes to throw an arm around her shoulders.
Matteo and Vinnie exchange looks. It’s obvious, to Matteo at least, that the two of them are trying, for some reason, to show off in front of Valentina. They would never be this excited about drinking wine in the streets of Palermo. The boys have done it numerous times before, but Pia and Aurora were never with them. Is this what they think Russians do for fun?
Isabella shows up five minutes later with a smile on her face. She hugs Valentina first, and soon enough they just settle on aimlessly walking around the city drinking the wine. Matteo and Vinnie trail behind Aurora and Pia, who in turn are following Valentina and Isabella a few steps behind. They share a joint as they walk, completely unbothered about someone looking out the window.
Half an hour later, when the sun has completely set and the moon is slowly starting to show, they find themselves in front of the Port, with two out of five bottles already empty.
“Let’s just sail to Ibiza now.” Pia chuckles and points to a boat in the marina, slurring her last words.
They all sit down on the benches facing the boats, sharing two opened bottles between the six of them.
“I can’t believe you live here.” Valentina says to no one in particular as she looks around.
“You’ve never been to Italy?” Pia asks with the same condescending tone she talked to Valentina earlier. But Valentina doesn’t even seem to care, nor notice.
Instead, she smiles.
“I have, and every time I come here, I feel like I belong.”
“Too bad you were born in Russia then.”
Matteo and Isabella exchange looks. Okay, so Pia is being meaner than usual.
“s**t, Police!” Aurora says and stands up when she sees two Carabinieri walking towards them. They don’t even notice their group until they’re running away, following a laughing and screaming Aurora.
They yell something behind them and their footsteps echo throughout the streets as they run up Via Vittorio Emanuele.
“Do we even know where we’re going?” Valentina yells from behind him, and before he even thinks about it, he turns left and then right on two small streets.
He doesn’t stop until he knows where he's running to, finally coming to a halt in Pretoria Square, sweating and out of breath. When he turns around, he sees everyone else is in the same state, except the girls, who have smiles on their faces.
“What is this?” Valentina asks after everyone’s had a moment to breathe and the bottles are doing the rounds again.
“Piazza Pretoria.” Isabella answers. “And that’s the fountain.”
The Pretoria Fountain looks even more beautiful at night when the street lights around it shine on the statues and reflect in the water.
Valentina walks up to the black fence surrounding the stairs leading up to the first level of fountains. “Can’t we go see the top fountain?”
Isabella tries the gate, which is usually opened during the day. “It’s locked.”
Valentina takes a gulp from the bottle, closing her eyes and scrunching up her face as she does so, before handing it to Aurora.
“Help me up, Izzy.” Valentina says. “The fence isn’t even that high.”
Everyone looks at each other but Isabella doesn’t even question it before helping Valentina hop over the fence. Everyone except Pia jumps the fence and follows Valentina to the second level of the fountain.
“Have you talked to Sophia about Ibiza tomorrow?” Pia asks Vinnie from behind the fence.
“I tried calling her for the past three weeks, but it goes straight to voicemail. I think she’s ignoring me.”
Isabella huffs and takes the bottle from him.
“I had a dream about this two days ago.” Valentina says and kneels on the concrete. She places the palm flat on the water, as if she were testing its temperature.
Isabella looks away from Vinnie, trying to fake excitement. “About being in Palermo?” “No, about swimming in a fountain. Also, I’m drunk.”
She takes off her sneakers and jumps in the fountain.
“Dio mio!” Aurora screams in an excited tone, walking up closer to her.
Valentina laughs and takes the bottle from her, before walking backwards and finally sitting down in the fountain.
- Writer
