CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

Lorenzo tells me about the gala at breakfast, if he had told me earlier I would have prepared myself. 

Not in a nice way or with any kind of lead-up or preparation or even basic courtesy. He simply looks up from his newspaper and says: "There is an event tonight and we have to attend, be ready by seven."

"What kind of event?"

"The kind we need to be seen at."

"That is not an answer."

"That is the answer I'm giving." He turns to a page "Rosa will help you get dressed."

Fine. I'll call my mother.

My mother picks up on the first ring which means she has been waiting for me to call which means she has already seen the news which means this conversation is going to be a lot.

"Sofia Maria Valenti," she says. In the full name voice, the voice that has meant trouble since 1996.

"Hi Mamma."

"Lucy's story, the retraction. You haven't called in two days ,where are you?"

"I'm safe and I'm staying with someone."

"Who? What someone? Sofia I called your apartment three times "

"Mamma, I'm okay, I promise."

The specific silence of a mother deciding which question to ask her only child 

"Is it a man?" she says.

"...Yes."

"Sofia."

"It's complicated."

"How complicated?"

 "Very."

"Give me a name."

"Lorenzo De Luca."

"The De Luca?" she whispers. "The man from the news? Sofia are you in danger? Should I call someone? I can call your uncle Gio he knows people "

"Please do not call uncle Gio."

"He is good, I'm sure he can.."

"Mon, Uncle Gio is a retired plumber he definitely cannot help with this."

If only my mom knew that I was almost shot

"He knows people!"

"Mamma, stop." I sit down on the edge of the bed. "I know this sounds like a lot, it is a lot. But I need you to hear me mom, I am not a victim in this. I made a choice, I am handling it and I am fine."

She is quiet.

"You always say that," she says finally. Softer now. "Even when you were twelve and broke your wrist falling off your bike you said I'm fine before you passed out."

"I was fine, eventually."

"Sofia." Her voice drops to the one she uses when she is done performing worry and is just actually worried. "You are my daughter. I need to know you're safe. Not fine. Safe."

I feel it pull in my chest the way it always does when she uses that voice.

Growing up I watched my mother make herself smaller every single day for my father, for his family, for whatever room she was in that did not feel like it belonged to her. I made myself a promise at fourteen that I would never do that. That I would take up space and I would not shrink for anyone.

And here I am in a borrowed dress, in a borrowed life. About to walk into a room full of people I do not know, on the arm of a man I did not choose, performing a story that isn't mine.

"I'm safe Mamma," I say. "I'll call you tomorrow"

The dress is a long burgundy gown and it fits like it was made for me which is suspicious as Rosa will not confirm or deny whether Lorenzo had my measurements before I arrived.

"You look beautiful," Rosa says, and she means it which makes it better.

"I look like someone else," I say.

"You look like someone who belongs in the room you're walking into," she says. "That is not the same as being someone else. That is just dressing for the life that chose you."

I look at her in the mirror.

"That is surprisingly profound, Rosa."

She shrugs. "I've worked for this family for twelve years. You pick things up”

At the gala Lorenzo is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

He has a dark suit on, the kind that does not try to impress anyone because it does not need to. He looks up when I come down and does the full rapid assessment, top to bottom, half a second.

He says nothing.

"Well?" I say.

"You're two minutes late."

"That's what you're leading with on our first night out. Perfect"

"We should go." He offers his arm.

I take it and lean slightly toward him as we walk to the door and I say quietly: "You could just say I look nice, normal people do that."

"You look appropriate for the occasion," he says.

"Appropriate," I repeat.

"It's a compliment."

"It really isn't.” 

But there's something about the way he said it that sounds like I should be grateful because he doesn't give compliments often

Okay so I have been to nice places before. I went to a rooftop bar in Midtown once for a colleague's birthday that cost forty dollars a drink and I thought that was fancy.

This is not that.

The Plaza ballroom is everything: P*******t boards are made of chandeliers, flower arrangements taller than Nico, women in gowns that have their own gravitational pull, and the particular air of a room where everyone knows exactly how much everyone else is worth.

I grip Lorenzo's arm slightly tighter than I intend to.

He notices but he does not say anything about it. He simply slows his pace by a fraction so I can match it, which is either considerate or tactical and I have not yet decided which.

People look at us, some with curiosity, some with the specific expression of New York society registering a new intake and calculating its implications.

"Smile," Lorenzo says under his breath.

"I am smiling."

"You are baring your teeth Sofia there is a difference."

We move through the room and he introduces me to three people whose names I recognise from financial news and two whose names I recognise from the accounts I probably should not have audited. I shake hands and smile and say exactly the right amount of nothing and I think: three years of being invisible was actually excellent training for this

Lorenzo gets pulled into a conversation with an older man near the bar. 

The man is Italian, serious, the kind of conversation that requires both hands and low voices while I step to the side with my champagne glass and breathe for the first time in an hour.

"First time?"

The voice comes from my left

He is young, probably in late twenties maybe, dark-haired, the specific kind of handsome that has had time to become comfortable with itself. He is holding a whiskey glass and looking at me with warm eyes that are doing a lot more work than warm.

"Sorry?"

"First time at one of these," he says. "You have the look."

"What look?"

"Like someone who is doing everything right and is furious about it." He smiles. "It's a good look actually, most people in this room stopped noticing years ago."

I look at him and he looks back directly at my eyes, unhurried, like we have all the time in the world and he has already decided to use it.

"Dante Ricci," he says.

"Sofia Valenti."

"I know who you are," he says. "Lorenzo De Luca's new" he pauses, “companion."

The pause was not accidental.

"Something like that," I say.

He nods slowly, like I confirmed something he already suspected then he looks past me toward Lorenzo, who is still deep in conversation with the older man, and back to me.

"He's never brought anyone to one of these before," Dante says. "Not once in five years."

I don't know what to do with that so I say nothing.

"Enjoy your evening, Sofia Valenti," he says, lifts his glass slightly, not quite a toast, more of an acknowledgement and moves away into the crowd.

I watch him go and Lorenzo appears at my shoulder almost immediately.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Dante Ricci."

The silence that follows is not empty but full of something Lorenzo is choosing not to say.

"Come," he says while his hand goes to the small of my back firmer than before. "We're leaving."

"The event isn't…"

"We're leaving, Sofia."

We walk to the exit but his hand does not leave my back nor does the pressure of it change.

In the car he stares out the window the entire way home

Dante said he never brought anyone before.

Not once in five years and I do not know if that means something or if Dante Ricci just said it to make sure I would wonder.

Either way, I am wondering.