C29 Chapter 28 - Matteo

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.

“Shit, 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.

“It’s hot outside anyway!” she jokes, and Aurora joins her without saying anything else.

“You’re not allowed in the fountain.” Matteo finds himself telling them. He’s getting paranoid about the Carabinieri returning and arresting them for being outside their homes, not to mention hopping over the fence and basically violating a historical monument.

“Like you ever give a shit about the rules!” Aurora laughs at him in English, and he flips her off.

“Oh, come on Matteo. No one’s around to judge you.” Valentina mocks, standing up and walking in his direction with a mischievous grin on her face.

“Don’t you even think about it.” he says, stepping back.

“You live here and you never got into this fountain? What a shame!”

“Why would I want to get into the fountain?”

“You asked me how it’s possible to keep life exciting.” She cocks her head. “The first step is doing something new every day.” She smirks, knowing she just won the argument that started this morning.

Matteo knows she’s right, and what’s fair is fair. He toes off his sneakers, then his shirt, and throws his wallet on the ground before getting into the fountain.

“I can’t believe my eyes!” Isabella exclaims and tells the three of them to get closer to each other so she can take a photo. Vinnie also laughs as he takes photos, and Matteo finds himself laughing along. Maybe it’s the wine, maybe it’s that he’s seen this fountain a hundred times before but never once thought about swimming in it until today.

“It’s kind of nice.” Aurora says as she swims over to Valentina to take the bottle. Matteo leans back against his palms and looks up at the sky. Everything seems to stop for a few moments, and it's just him, the sky, and the water. He smiles, feeling a wave of unfamiliar happiness wash over him.

“Merda!” Pia’s voice loudly echoes through the square, and Matteo’s surroundings suddenly turn into red and blue flashes. He watches the police car pull up in front of Pia, and two different men get out of each side.

They order the five of them to come down this instant, threatening them with prison time and high fines for breaking lockdown in the first place.

Matteo sighs and stands up from the fountain, already forgetting those few seconds of complete peace and serenity as he looked up at the stars while drunk on wine.

“What’s the problem?” he asks them in Italian after grabbing his wallet and walking down the steps barefoot. He stops on the other side of the fence from the police and Pia.

“The problem is you’re trespassing and you’re breaking a nationwide lockdown. May I see all of your IDs? Also, can the blonde come out of the fountain before we call for backup and take you all to jail?”