Page 3 of Storm in a D Cup

Renata is tiny and blonde, with big blue eyes and big breasts, which is pretty much a man magnet around here. When we’re out and about, I see the way men check her out. She may be slight, but she’s a rebel packed with strength, determination, oodles of mischief, irreverence and talent. She is the best cook in the area and works hard to raise her kids. And like me, she couldn’t care less about appearances.

They had arrived one morning, the entire family, with a basket full of goodies such as homemade bread, cakes and cookies, along with fresh jams and Nutella. And a thermos full of espresso coffee and endless chatter. How could you not instantly fall in love with them? And soon thereafter we became like family, sharing our weaknesses and secrets, seeing each other out through thick and thin. And the best part was that Julian and Marco had become like brothers, too.

Marco would give Julian advice on running the farm, and Julian would give Marco tips on how and where to invest their savings. There was a very strong bond between us that, outside Paul and my aunts, I had found nowhere else.

Marco stepped out of his faded blue Fiat Nuova Strada pickup and strode to my side, facing Leonardo with his fists clenching at his sides, sheer murder in his eyes, although Marco had never, in the seven years I’d known him, hurt a fly. ‘Get lost,’ he spit out. ‘She has her family and friends. You are neither. Now get into your car before I run you over, and you have no idea how happily I would do that.’

‘Calmati, mi-ha te la mangio.Calm down, I won’t eat her,’ Leonardo said and Marco turned to snarl at him as he loaded my bike onto his pickup. Poor Marco was ready to put up his dukes for his crazy American neighbor who still had to learn the unspoken laws of female survival in Italy.

‘Now, or I’m getting in my car,’ Marco ordered.

And Cortini obeyed. I watched as he scowled, got into his Ferrari and gassed it for all he was worth, disappearing over the hill in a cloud of dust.

‘Are you OK, sweetie?’ Marco asked, touching my elbow.

‘Yes, thanks. Just a bit shaken, I guess.’

‘Well, try not to be out on your own without anyone else being around.’

‘But this is a safe place,’ I argued. ‘Nothing ever happens here.’

‘Hehappened, isn’t that enough for you?’

Of course, Marco was right. All you needed was one scumbag to ruin everything.

And all this because I’d gone into town after a sudden hankering for a piece of ready-madePanforte, too lazy to bake it myself. This wasn’t the first time my gluttony had got me into trouble. Screw my old bike – next time I was taking the Jeep. Or baking something myself.

‘If you care about your marriage at all, I suggest you stay away from thatpezzo di mota. He’s only trouble,’ Marco growled as the pickup plowed through the colorful countryside still tinged with the light of the setting sun.

It reallywasbeautiful. If only Julian had been there to see it. But at the moment Julian was very far from all this. I decided I wasn’t going to tell him about Leonardo. He’d have a fit and probably go down to his house down by the river and sock him one himself. He was like that, Julian. Protective and territorial, probably due to the memories of our life in Boston, where my ex-husband Ira was constantly on my tracks and Julian always on the alert.

‘He surelookslike trouble,’ I said to Marco. ‘Is there any truth to his reputation? That he attacked a woman once?’

Marco gave me a sidelong glance and my suspicions were confirmed. ‘Yes. And he and Renata were officially engaged many years ago.’

‘Ah.’ So that was it. She had bedded the monster. Or vice versa.

‘Ahis right. He left her waiting at the altar, thebastardo.’

‘Now I understand why you hate him.’

‘Everybody hates him.’

‘I wonder why he doesn’t move away, then?’

Again Marco cast me a sidelong glance as we reached the bottom of the hill where my driveway began its squiggly drunk’s doodle, with giant, deep green cypresses piercing the magenta sky like sentinels on either side. ‘Because he owns half the town, that’s why.’

I looked over at Marco’s face in the rapidly darkening sky.‘Owns?’

‘Yes. Thevilla comunale? He owns that, gardens and all. The secondary school building? His family owns that, too. Remember the school had to move premises last year?’

‘Yeah?’

‘That was because he upped their rent so high, just to make them leave the premises.’

‘Geez…’

‘And the public library? They pay rent tohim. The list is endless – the banks, the post office and all the buildings around the town square. Why do you think it’s called Piazza Cortini?’

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