Chapter 27

The Evil Eye

The Rose Festival is finally here, so I truly couldn’t have picked a worse time to break up with our gardener. The grounds don’t need much tending, though, as Ben had placed everything perfectly last night.

But as usual in this family, nothing runs smoothly.

“We’re getting rain,” Uncle Paul shouts from the parlor. He presses his face to the sliding glass door and gazes hopelessly at the greenish clouds forming ominously over Valle Forest.

At the kitchen island, Aunt Ro—already dressed in Mama Bianchi’s Sicilian peasant frock—eyes me sourly before returning to her plate of cold bread patties. Slumped next to her in my dress blacks, I roll my eyes. “Oh right. I made it storm.”

Ro calmly sets down her mug. “You put the evil eye on us. It’s been a summer of nothing but mule labor, and you go pissing off the one person who helped us.” She lobs a set of keys noisily onto the table. “I found these this morning—his house keys—and a note. Ben’s quitting. He asked me to mail his last check.”

Lexi is really pulling her weight today. I might be exhausted, but the pain of Ben’s instant departure floats mercifully in the distance. It still hurts like hell, but pre-Lexi, an event this cataclysmic would be clanging through my head like a church bell tower.

I chomp into a bread patty. “This feels bad enough, Ro. You don’t have to make it harder.”

“Explain why I should make it easier. Your problem is—wait, nope, I’m not doing the advice thing now.” Ro flicks her hand and then retreats to her coffee. Changing her mind, she sets it down again. “This festival could mean the difference between selling off our family legacy and saving it, so maybe you could’ve rescheduled dumping Ben to Monday. He’s done so much for us, it’s bad karma hurting him before the festival, and we need all the good karma we can get.”

My mouth filled with bread, I launch a counterattack. “I said I was sorry. I thought we sold all our reservations for the next few months.”

“Short-term thinking, Grant!” Ro claps her hands together in a begging gesture. “If the buzz is good, we can keep booking through the winter. Almost all our summer revenue went into renovating the place and putting on the festival! We could be struggling again by Thanksgiving. And where will Ben be? I don’t know. Where will you be? Jolly old England. Where will I be? The toilet.”

Chomp-chomp-chomp. That’s all I can do. It’s just you and me now, bread patties. And Lexi, of course. Blessedly, Uncle Paul saunters into the kitchen in a very Old Italian look: white dress shirt, dark slacks, and suspenders. “All right, Ro, that’s enough,” he says.

Ro tosses her balled-up napkin to the table. “Paul, I have to say my side—”

“All right, and you’ve said it. You’re badgering the kid. His heart’s broken.”

“Paul…” Ro protests, but sadness is finally overtaking her anger.

Paul kisses the top of her head. “It’s just a little rain. Today’s gonna be beautiful. Grant did so much work for us. That fountain. Those dresses made of real flowers? People are gonna lose their minds, rain or no rain.”

Ro’s shoulders buckle, and both of us smile wearily at my uncle, who knew exactly what to say. My heart pinches remembering what Grandpa Angelo told Ben: that the outside people who come into this family are always patient nurturers.

Because our bloodline is as hot as a teakettle.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Ro says, wrapping a desperate hug around me. Her touch is everything I need. The gentleness, the love, is so powerful I have to shut my eyes.

“Ro,” I whimper into her shoulder, “I thought I was doing the right thing. I want him to be part of this family. I just want to be realistic.”

Ro laughs heartily and retakes her seat. “When has a Rossi or a Bianchi ever been realistic?”

I have to laugh, too. “You’re right. Why start now?” I toss the last bread patty over and over on my plate. “I have plans and…dreams. I can’t ask him to drop everything and come with me. That’s too soon.”

Ro purses her lips. “You’ve been part of his life for a decade. If anything, you’re too late.”

My heart racing to my throat, I turn to her. “You think it’s too late?”

Aunt Ro doesn’t answer. She just looks tired.

“Is Ben still coming to the festival?” Uncle Paul asks, his body half-hidden behind the fridge door as he hunts.

I glance at my phone. No new messages.

“He said he would,” I say, smoothing tension from my cheeks. “Said he’d be coming as a guest, so I think he’ll be here when the foot traffic from the other festival houses finally reaches us.” My eyes glumly stuck to the floor, I shrug. “At least he’s not ignoring my texts.”

Ro shrugs along with me. “Ben always comes back. He’s my little alley cat.” She smiles and rubs my knee. “You know, after Mom died…After you and Ben had that big blow-out fight, and you went back home…Ben still came around.”

“Really?” I ask, my chest lightening with such a sweet thought.

“He did, every weekend. Your grandpa started getting worse, and no one else was around anymore. The house got so dark. Like someone switched off a light in me. Everything looked the same, but felt wrong. But Ben kept coming around to say hi. He’d stay for lunch. He’d talk with Dad. He’d even fiddle with the vegetable garden when Dad couldn’t make it down the hill by himself anymore. Having him here was like a life preserver. I don’t know why a teenage boy would want to hang around some sad old lady, but he did. Saved my life.”

I squeeze Ro’s hand under the table. “I don’t think he ever liked going home.”

Her eyes flare. “Definitely not. The way that family fought.” She shivers and stares into her mug, like she’s lost. “We never had kids. Ben’s my kid.” Ro smiles, pain in her eyes, and reaches for my chin. “Whatever you end up doing, he will always be part of this family.”

I feel run through with a spear.

I never thought about how deep Ben’s roots grew with my family. How when I smashed apart our friendship, I overlooked how much he meant to so many other people. How could I have let things get so strained? Twice!

“What do you want, Grant?” Ro asks. “Really. If you could wish again?”

Wishing.

Haven’t I done enough of that?

After a thoughtful sip of coffee, my answer finally arrives, frighteningly simple: “I want to design in London, and I want Ben to come with me.” Now a storm breaks across my face. “But I don’t want you to be alone. And I don’t want to make decisions for him.”

Chuckling, Ro lands a kiss on my forehead. “First of all, don’t ever plan your life around me—except today, everything should be planned around me today! Second of all, it sounds like you just need to ask Ben what he’d like to do.”

There it is. The simple thing I just can’t do.

The thing I’ve been avoiding.

My smile becomes a wince as I ask my most vulnerable question: “What if he hates me?”

All of this fell apart because I’d rather blow up a great thing than ask a risky question and hear a disappointing answer.

Standing, Ro straightens the rose-colored shawl over her Mama Bianchi dress. “From the bottom of my soul,” she says, “if you don’t take this chance now, you will become a handsome, successful designer who lies awake in bed wondering, all those years ago, what Ben’s answer would have been.”

Satisfied that she’s torn my still-beating heart from my chest, Ro walks out.