Dani whoops. ‘Let’s dance!’
The accordionist starts to play a fresh tune that has the spectators clapping along. Dani directs Leo and Isabella to hook arms in the middle of the vat and dance as the adults hold hands in a circle around them.
‘We’re going to can-can!’ Dani declares, taking up Tyler’s hand and turning to offer me the other. She grins up at me and I know she’s as surprised as I am that I’m doing this. I take her hand and give my other to Faye. The circle is complete and we’re off, our feet squelching through the grapes, the sensation between my toes the strangest I’ve ever experienced.
Not as strange as the lightness in my chest, though...
The tempo picks up, the noise, the laughter, the fun, and it’s not just in the air now. It’s rising up inside me, taking over, and I feel almost drunk with it.
‘Brother!’
‘Si?’ I call down to my sister.
‘Grazie mille!’
I give her a nod, my grin too big for my face, and lose myself in the music. The more we dance, the faster the tempo, the further the grapes fly, until we are all covered, head to toe. Even the spectators take a showering...including my mother. There’s a second’s displeasure on her face and then Giovanni is there, wiping it from her dress and from her cheek, and even with the chaos going on around me I see the expression in his eyes, the softness. I see the exact same look in my mother’s face too.
What the...?
I look to Aunt Netta and she too is watching. Not with surprise, but with pleasure, as if it was meant to be. And then Giovanni takes my mother’s hand and draws her towards the vat... She won’t... She wouldn’t...
She is.
They’re climbing in and Dani is breaking away from me to make space for them. My mother laughs as her feet hit the grapes, her eyes lifting to find mine. Tentatively, she offers out her hand and I take it. Take it and feel my head shake.
‘Couldn’t leave all the fun to you,’ she says, but I hear the emotion that catches in her voice, that shows in her over-bright eyes, and then we’re moving again. Giovanni is in between her and Dani, the circle once more complete and alive with laughter.
I feel Faye squeeze my hand encouragingly and I look at her. Her eyes are so blue, so bright, and I see all the happiness and joy reflecting back at me, pushing out the questions, the overthinking...
I’m living for the moment, lost in it, happy. It’s where I want to stay for as long as I can.
* * *
‘Hey, Faye, you coming?’
I look up to see Dani beckoning me from the middle of the wedding party as they make their way back inside the castle to get cleaned up. I’m the only one left by the well-crushed vat of grapes and I can’t find my sandals.
‘Of course. Just finding my shoes!’
She laughs. ‘Only you could lose your shoes so quickly.’
She’s right. Only me. I resume my hunt as the sounds of the party disappear into the castle.
‘Looking for these?’
I spin on my heel, and there he is. Rafael. Leaning on the stone archway that leads off into the kitchen garden. Grape-stained, hair ruffled, shirt unbuttoned and sexier than I’ve ever seen him. I wet my lips and look at the pair of sandals hooked in his outstretched hand.
‘So that’s where you snuck off to?’
‘I may have had an ulterior motive.’
‘What motive is that?’
‘To ensure you were the last guest standing.’
My laugh flutters up. Excitement, desire, nerves. I turn to see the last of the guests disappear.
‘They’re gone,’ he says.