My Italian BFF

Chapter Six

Luca gave me a strange look. I didn’t think we had ever discussed my mother’s existence. I tried to avoid the memory of her at all costs. My entire life, she had plagued my internal thoughts with her criticism and disdain for me. My father had left when I was three and, in truth, I believed she blamed me for his departure. She wouldn’t speak of my father.

I had no memory of him, only one photograph of him at their wedding. In it, presumably his two brothers surrounded him. The resemblance between them was obvious. As was the resemblance between me and him, the only thing I knew about him was his name, Cristian Martin. I only found that out when I was a teenager, finding it entered on my birth certificate. He had the same high cheekbones as me, similar almond-shaped eyes and the same slightly too-large nose. On him it made him look chiselled and defined, on me, it just looked odd.

She burst through the front door before Luca had the chance to quiz me about her arrival. I, of course, knew that she had turned up because I failed to reply to her last message. It served me right for trying to avoid her. I never managed to hide from her so-called helpful input into my life for long.

She hadn’t even looked at me before she started. “Hello Dear, I just came to chase you up about the interview…” She stopped as she took in Luca’s presence, and I hoped she would rein herself in with him being there. No such luck. She didn’t even acknowledge his presence before she continued. “It is a coveted job and if you are to secure it with your limited experience, you need to act fast.” I barely knew how to respond, but Luca thankfully spared me from that horror by stepping forward to her and offering his hand to her.

“Hello, Mrs Cooper. Rylie has spoken of you often.” His lies were a shock. To my knowledge, I had never known him to lie, but he did it effortlessly. She took his hand, but the disgust was evident on her face, and I flushed with embarrassment and not for the first time when it came to my mother.

“Her name is Rosemary; I will not tolerate any of this Rylie nonsense. She should use the name I so carefully chose for her.” Luca looked from my mother to me, clearly confused. I refused to use my birth name and changed it legally as soon as I turned eighteen. As such, Luca had no idea of my previous name, and I wished it had stayed that way. I was in no way a Rosemary. The name was a symbol of the woman my mother wanted me to be and the woman I had no intention of turning into. My mother had lost her mind when I told her that I had changed it.

“Of course, it is such a pretty name.” Luca really did have a charm about him that meant he could bring any woman to her knees, but he would be hard-pushed to get my mother on his side. She didn’t even respond to him, just looked him up and down, taking in his overly worn jeans, festival tee and bare feet. She tutted slightly before turning her attention to me.

“The job, Dear?” Why she insisted on me using my birth name was lost on me given that she never used it when she spoke to me, anyway.

“Yes, Mother, please, would you set up an interview? I would be very grateful.” Normally I would have resisted the proposal, and I had planned to, but with Luca being there, I just wanted her to leave as soon as possible and the easiest way to do that was to let her think she had won. I could see Luca scoffing with amusement until she turned to him, and his face instantly turned to stone.

“Oh good, so we are in agreement that you need to leave that unsavoury establishment?” She stepped toward me and pulled my hair from my face. “You really should do something with your unruly hair, my dear. It is not becoming for a woman to look like she is homeless.” I wanted the ground to swallow me whole. On the plus side, at least Luca would see exactly why I didn’t see much of her. I was not sure I would have been capable of describing her accurately. In that moment, all the newfound confidence I had been feeling disappeared. It was amazing how easily she knocked the self-respect, right out of me.

“I’m afraid you have caught me at a bad time, as I was about to get ready for work, Mother. As such, you will have to excuse me.” I started pulling my hair into its usual tight bun, hoping to appease her. She seemed to completely miss her cue to leave and instead wandered over to the coffee table, inspecting its surface for dust and dirt. Just then, I noticed my father and his brothers staring at me from their place on the front of my fridge. I panicked and moved as seamlessly as possible to the fridge, shoving the offending photograph in the nearest drawer. I closed it a little too loudly and drew her attention away from my housekeeping skills.

“Have you considered trying to rectify things with Spencer? He is such an accomplished young man; you could do a lot worse.” Her eyes darted to Luca, and it made my blood boil.

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t intend to. Now if you wouldn’t mind Mother, Luca and I need to get ready for work and it would be most inappropriate for the two of us to be in a state of undress with you here.” She threw me a look of nothing less than contempt. I wouldn’t normally have riled her up on purpose, but she was being so rude to Luca.

“Really, dear, is there any need to be so vulgar? I will take my leave then. Don’t forget to come for dinner on Sunday.”

“I have already told you; I am working on Sunday. Let me show you out.” Walking her all the way down the three flights of stairs that led to the main doors of the building. I wouldn’t have bothered usually, but I wanted the chance to calm down before I had to face Luca. I felt really guilty about how she had treated him.

When I walked back in, Luca seemed almost amused, with a slight smirk on his face. It was alright for him to think she was entertaining; he didn’t have to live with her for eighteen years. Despite his amusement, I still felt I needed to apologise for her actions.

“I’m sorry Luca, she’s like that with most people. It isn’t just you.”

“Oh, don’t apologise. I found her delightful. No wonder you don’t talk about her.” I was grateful for his attitude towards the situation and tried to forget she had ever interrupted us. I left him pondering the experience while I went to get dressed for my appointment. As I took in my appearance in the mirror, I felt self-conscious. The derma piercing would be in the centre of my chest tattoo. It was the only tattoo I had, and I had it done as part of my rebellion phase.

The dreamcatcher spread across the centre of my chest and would look even better once the gem was installed in its centre. I loved the tattoo, but to enable easy access, I had chosen my most low-cut top and it was a little too low for my liking. At the last minute, I changed my mind, selecting a basic navy tank top instead. Deciding it would be better to strip to my bra, in the comfort of the tattoo parlour, rather than walk through town feeling overly exposed.

I left Luca at my apartment while I went to have it done. It was quick, but certainly not painless. It was red and sore, and I regretted my choice of top, as my tank top rubbed at it slightly. Nevertheless, the small titanium stud with its purple stone looked exceptional and really added to the effect of my tattoo. It wasn’t a long walk back to my apartment from town, only about thirty minutes, but I found my mind wandering.

I daydreamt about me and Luca staying together in an actual relationship. His mum was constantly nagging him about settling down and getting married. I half considered asking him to marry me. It would appease his mother, and then I could stop worrying about having to give him up one day when he wanted to move on.

It made me contemplate why he had suggested a friends-with-benefits relationship in the first place. Did he not think I was girlfriend material? I already knew the answer. It had come up early in our friendship. He wanted an enormous family, with lots of little Luca’s running around. I, on the other hand, had made the decision not to have children.

How could I consider bringing children into the world? I didn’t have a normal childhood. I had no idea how a normal mother behaved, but I was certain it wasn’t the way my mother did. There was certainly a stark difference between my own mother and Luca’s mother. I didn’t want to inflict that on a child, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to do any better than my own mother did.

Luca had told me stories about how he had grown up in a household full of extended family members and his two siblings. How his uncles worked at the vineyard with his father and stayed for dinner each night. The idea fascinated me. There was only me and my mother growing up and we had never been close. By the time I was a teen, I had avoided sitting around the dining table with her at all costs. Luca, by contrast, had grown up cooking with his mother, using his food as a tool to show his love and care for his family. His mother once said to me that Italian food wasn’t authentic unless it was prepared with love.

I could never be the woman he saw himself ending up with because he wanted something I couldn’t give him. All my life, novels had led me to believe that love was enough to overcome anything. Clearly, Luca and I were the exceptions. Nevertheless, I would cling on to him for as long as I was able.

When I arrived back at the apartment, Luca was studying something intently at the dining table. As I stepped close, I saw the photograph of my dad.

“You found my photograph then?”

“I saw you hide it from your mother. Who are they?”

“That there is my father,” pointing at the man in the middle dressed in his groom’s attire. “The others are his brothers, I think, but I can’t be certain.” It pained me to think I could have some vast family out there like Luca’s, the sort that enjoyed spending time together. Luca’s mother nagged at him, but it came from a place of love. She didn’t care who he married or what their social status was, as long as he was happy and settled.

I picked it up and placed it back on the fridge, securing it with the new magnet that Luca had brought me, it was a sombrero to signify the night we became more than friends. Before then, the photograph had been buried in a drawer in my bedroom.

“Are you sure you’re not Italian?” Not that again. I felt like he was dying for me to be Italian, but why?

“I never knew him, and my mother won’t discuss him, but I don’t think so.”

“That lake in the background it looks very similar to one we have back home, Lago di Garda. Although I’m probably wrong. Does your mother never speak of him?”

“No, I don’t know anything about him.” I wished he would let it drop. I had spent most of my childhood years dreaming about him coming and whisking me away. I knew I should have counted my blessings. My mother wasn’t neglectful, and I was well cared for financially, growing up relatively well-off. I went to a private school and had a university fund, not that I ever used it. My grandfather had paid for it. He left an inheritance for my education and left my mother enough to keep her in the life she enjoyed. I half expected her to be pleased that I failed to go to university because that meant the money reverted back to her. Truthfully, the only reason I didn’t go was that I refused to take a penny off a family that had never shown me any real love.