C30 Chapter 29 - Matteo

Matteo takes out his driver’s license and a 100 Euro bill before handing them over to the guy who just talked. He motions to Aurora to get out of the fountain.

“If you think this will work you’re mistaken, Mr…” the officer trails off as he reads his name, voice trembling at the end. “Oh. Mr. Giudice?”

“Yes, and that ‘blonde’ is my sister, Aurora.” Matteo adds, pointing to Aurora, before placing both of his hands in his pockets and relaxing.

The other policeman double checks his ID as well, looking at him then at the photo about five times before handing the ID back to him. The 100 Euro bill didn’t make it back, of course.

“Have a good night.” The first to talk smiles at him, before bowing his head and going back to the car.

By the time they leave the Square everyone is out of the fountain and over the fence anyway, mood ruined. Vinnie hands his jacket over to Valentina, who obviously didn’t think that getting herself wet while wearing a white dress would be a bad idea.

“Let’s just go back to the car, I’m bored.” Pia groans after not having said anything for ten minutes while the rest of them finished the bottles.

“I drank, I can’t drive.” Matteo says.

She rolls her eyes and looks away, crossing her arms over her chest. “Then let’s order a taxi."

“Why are you in such a bad mood today?”

Her cheeks turn pink, and she looks at him with an angry look on her face but doesn’t answer.

“There’s a taxi station a few streets away.” Vinnie suggests, so they all set off after him.

“What did you tell the police to make them go away?” Isabella asks him once the two of them and Valentina naturally end up a few steps behind.

“I gave them a hundred and showed them my ID.”

“They recognized the name, obviously.” Pia says, not turning around, probably rolling her eyes.

“Do they know their names?” Valentina asks her and Matteo knows she’s asking a question she already knows the answer to. What he doesn’t know though, is why.

“Vaguely.” He answers for Pia.

“Why?”

Aurora interrupts their conversation by calling over a free taxi van coming down the street in their direction.

They all pile inside and Vinnie hands the driver two hundred Euros, apologizing for them dripping over the seats. They drop Isabella off first before they set off East towards Aspra. Pia is sitting between Vinnie and Matteo while Aurora and Valentina each lean against a window, contently smiling as they look out of them.

“Did you have fun on your first ever day in Palermo?” Aurora asks, turning her head to look at Valentina.

“Yes, I did. I’m sure it’s even more fun when the city isn’t locked down.” She makes eye contact with Matteo as she says it, and neither of them break it until Aurora sits up straight. The car stops in the middle of the road, across from the gate leading to the Barone residence, just a hundred meters away from their own home.

“See you tomorrow, the plane leaves at six thirty!” Matteo yells after them.

Five minutes later they’re already walking down the long driveway leading up to the house.

“I love this smell.” Valentina sighs and looks up at the trees as she walks.

“What smell?”

It literally smells like nothing.

“The smell of the sea…the smell of summer. I want to live here.”

“Why would you want to live here?” Matteo laughs, not intending to sound judgy. They stop in front of the door and the girls wait for him to unlock it.

“Why wouldn’t I want to live here? The air is…different. I feel like everything is different. I even like the people here more than I do back home.”

“You’ve only met us, though.”

Valentina looks up at him with a smile as she struggles to take off her sneakers by the door.

“I’ve been vacationing in Capo d’Orlando for over ten years. There’s a clear difference in the personalities of people who grow up in sunny places and those who grow up in places where it’s mostly bad weather. I notice the difference between the people in Russia and people in Italy. Especially the boys.”

Matteo rolls his eyes. “Italian boys being a thing is just a stereotype though. I can name a few who would be worse than your Russian boys.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Aurora is just standing there, looking between the two of them as they talk. She grabs her stuff and slips into her house slippers.

“You can have the matching pair, Valentina.” She says and points to the matching white slippers. “I’m going to bed, see you tomorrow.”

She hugs them both and kisses Matteo on the cheek before hurrying up the stairs. They walk upstairs in silence.

“Do you have pajamas?” Matteo asks her when they stop in front of his door, since it’s the first one right by the stairs.

“Yes, Aurora gave me some.”

“Alright.”

He places a hand on the doorknob and looks at her one more time.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He takes a quick shower with his playlist on shuffle before he changes into his sleeping briefs. Just as he’s about to go out on his balcony to smoke his end of the day cigarette (he’s too lazy to roll), there’s a knock at the door.

Valentina is standing there in his sister’s cotton pajamas holding up a cigarette and a lighter.

“I wanted to smoke my goodnight cigarette, but I realized I don’t have a balcony and I didn’t want to smoke out the window.” She explains.

Matteo steps aside and she waltzes in, asking if she can take the half-filled bottle from the desk.

“Just take a new one out of the fridge.” He answers and points to the minifridge in the corner next to his walk-in closet.

She joins him outside and sits down where she first sat down this morning. The only light on his balcony is the one above them, and he can see her lips are dark red from the wine she’s been drinking.

They smoke in silence for a couple of minutes while looking out into the darkness. Matteo thinks about everything that happened today, and how different it felt from the past two months, which he knows feels have gone by on autopilot.

The Italian rap song that was just playing inside changes to PPP by Beach House.

“I love this song.” She smiles and closes her eyes.

Matteo listens to it for a while. The song feels like getting home after a long day at the beach, feeling content. He used to feel like that when he was younger and everything around him seemed easy.

“Why did you play stupid today?” he asks out of a sudden.

Valentina turns to look at him, surprised but still relaxed. “When did I play stupid?” “When Pia was trying to belittle you and you didn’t play into it.”

“Ah. Whatever that was about, it’s definitely not about me. I don’t even know her, so that’s her problem to deal with.”

“What about when you asked if the police knew our names?”

“Sometimes my instinct tells me when it’s better to be underestimated.”

Matteo puts out his cigarette and watches the small orange spark fade into darkness. “Do you ever do that with me?”

She tilts her head and blows out smoke, smiling with her tongue poking out between her teeth. “What do you think?”

There’s a spark in her eye which he noticed the first time he saw her in Taormina but hasn’t again until now. He smiles and looks back down at the ashtray, feeling a bit dizzy from the wine, the cigarettes, and the joint he smoked alone with Vinnie earlier.

“I think you’re way smarter than you let on.”

She playfully squints at him and puts out the cigarette without breaking eye contact. “Which tells me the same thing about you.”

Valentina smiles at him once more before standing up and grabbing the bottle. “I had fun today, thank you.”

He nods and looks at her bare legs for a split second before looking back at her face. She looks more tired in the light now, but her eyes still look the same like they always do.

“Goodnight.”

She waves as she leaves the balcony without looking back at him. “Goodniiight.” She sings. The door to his room close a few seconds later.

Matteo chain-smokes two more cigarettes as he looks out into the darkness, listening to the waves and the song playing in the background, thinking about nothing. He goes to bed ten minutes later, his mind blank.

When he closes his eyes, all he sees and feels is that endless moment he was in the fountain with the water up to his neck and looked up at the sky.

He falls asleep without anything playing in the background for the first time in months.