Under a Sardinian Sky. Sara Alexander
the crowd. They spun to the center of the terrace, and the guests gathered around and cheered. As the young man jitterbugged with her, she threw her head back with abandoned laughter, never once missing a beat or falling out of sync with him.
“I taught her everything she knows, ladies and gentlemen!” Mr. Curwin shouted over the music, smirking.
“Of course, my darling!” she answered back, beaming, then reached out her hand to him. The two men spun her between them as she basked in the raucous applause of her guests.
Tore returned to the kitchen with the empty trays of antipasti. “They’re drunk already.”
Piera focused on the steaming dish of cauliflower she spooned into another terrine, catching out of the iron skillet the final pieces of tender olives and tomatoes she had cooked them with. “I don’t care if they’re dead—just get this out!”
“When do I get to eat?” Tore asked.
“When I say so!” Piera shooed him out with the cauliflower dish in hand.
The bell marked ENTRATA rang in the glass-fronted service box hanging over the door.
Carmela looked up from the radicchio leaves she had just begun to pat dry.
“Hurry,” Piera said, “God gave me only two hands.”
Carmela took off her apron and placed it on the back of the chair, then smoothed her hair. She flew through the living room, past the ornate rococo settee, the velvet ottoman, and the somber portraits of Franco’s uncle’s ancestors. Mrs. Curwin’s laughter bubbled above the twirling dancers and Perry Como. Carmela caught glimpses of the party through the square holes in the crotchet lace curtains of the living room windows. She tried to imagine how it must feel to be swung around your terrace by young, visiting soldiers while your husband enjoys you from afar.
Reaching the main doors, Carmela turned the fat, gold knob with two hands and heaved them open. The silhouette of a man stood before her, blackened against the candlelit path behind him.
“Buona sera, Signore,” she said, politely.
“Buona sera,” he replied, removing his hat. “I hope I’m not too late.”
“You’re fashionably late, Lieutenant, that’s what you are,” Mrs. Curwin cooed as she glided in behind Carmela, flushed with dance and rosato. “And handsome as a button.” She laughed, breathless. “No dueling for my heart, though, do you hear?”
The lieutenant smiled, bashful.
“Beauty is beauty is beauty,” she continued, “to be appreciated at all costs, don’t you agree?”
“Yes, ma’am,” another man answered, stepping in behind Kavanagh. He was taller, with a strawberry tinge to his blond locks and the beginnings of gray creeping in at his temples. His face was dotted with freckles, which Carmela tried not to stare at. His eyes were closer to slate than the luminous blue of Kavanagh. They raced over Mrs. Curwin’s outfit in one swift move.
“Captain Casler, I am honored you could make time to stop by!” Mrs. Curwin said.
“Just trying to do the proper thing for a pair of proper Brits.” His face creased into a sharp smile.
“Lieutenant, Captain, this is the inimitable Carmela.”
She felt their eyes on her, followed by the flush of her cheeks.
“Her talents are utterly wasted here,” Mrs. Curwin continued. “Look at what she made me!” She twirled, hands on hips, inviting their gaze. “Ought to have her own studio on Fifth Avenue, not Piazza Cantareddu! I want her to come work for me in London, but she’s intent on getting married to her dashing childhood sweetheart! A horribly pretty pair. If you are looking for anyone to help you with interpreting work, this is your lady!”
Carmela felt her cheeks turn a deeper shade of plum.
“Shall we?” Mrs. Curwin asked, with a coquettish tilt.
“Yes, ma’am,” the captain answered, offering her his arm. The pair left for the terrace, where Mr. Curwin headed toward them with a welcome glass of rosato.
“Third time’s a charm, right, Carmela?” Kavanagh said.
Carmela looked at him, blank.
Kavanagh cleared his throat. “It’s the third time we’ve been introduced.”
Carmela smiled, feeling her head give an involuntary nod instead of words finding their way out. He tipped his head and walked away. She liked the way her name sounded when he said it.
A pound at the door startled her. She opened it.
“Franco!” she gasped. “I thought you weren’t getting back to town till tomorrow.”
“You never told me there was a party,” he said, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette on the gravel. “I got to hear about what my fiancée is doing from strangers?”
“What?”
“That why you’re dressed like that?”
Carmela stepped forward and planted a soft kiss on his mouth. It tasted like ash. “Is your uncle coming, too?”
“His house, isn’t it? Madame invited us last week. Your little secret, eh?” He reached forward, took her chin in his hands, and ran his tongue over her top lip, then strutted down to the terrace.
Carmela watched him disappear into the throng, then turned back and walked out through the door and along the front of the house. She carried on past the side of the house toward the fragrant herb garden, flanked with the last of the summer’s plum tomatoes and bell peppers. Peppe sat by a pile of hot coals placed at the center of a dusty circle, a safe distance from the foliage, turning the spit. His flat cap sat at a jaunty angle, and his tiny wooden stool ached under the weight of him.
“Almost ready?” Carmela asked as she watched him dip a tied bunch of rosemary into a terra-cotta pot of olive oil and run it across the caramelized crackling of the suckling pig.
“Americans come, everyone wants now. Rush life, die quick.”
Carmela smiled. Peppe’s face was burnt ochre in the glow of the coals, emphasizing the deep creases of his face. They watched the spit turn without talking for a moment, with a cicada chorus in the blackened brush and echoes of laughter rolling up in waves from the terrace.
“Gianetta brought you water?” she asked.
“I wait till Sunday for my wine like a priest?”
She grinned. “Depends. Have you said confession?”
“You grow a mouth on you like Zia Lucia, no one will want to marry you,” he answered with a benevolent twinkle. As the first child born to the brothers, it sometimes seemed to Carmela that Peppe was as much her father as his brother Tomas.
“Let me share a glass of the good stuff with my favorite uncle!” Franco yelled, appearing at the kitchen door and sauntering over with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
“There’s the vagabond!” Peppe replied. “You’d do best not to travel till she’s got that ring on her finger, if you know what’s good for you.” He chuckled.
“Gonna keep my treasure safe, don’t you worry.”
Franco’s eyes planted on hers. For a fleeting moment, they slit with a passion that Carmela would have liked to describe as love. She was his treasure. Had he ever described her this way? Perhaps. So why did her mind claw the word just now? There was so much still to do inside with her sister, as the party was dancing into life. Yet the word pricked, a minuscule spike from a cactus fruit that can’t be seen to be removed but sharpens into the skin with even the gentlest brush of fabric. Treasure? Hold on to precious, she lied to herself. Treasure: something to keep hidden under lock and key. Something to covet, gaze upon. Own. Carmela had followed Franco into the muddy distance