Page 29 of Prosecco with My Professor
I raise my hands. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but I want to know what’s going on in your life.” I’ve always been in some gray area between father figure and friend. I love her like a daughter, but the dynamic isn’t quite the same.
“Well,shehad a great time.” Bell tells me about her new girlfriend, who she’s been seeing for three months now. “She’s beautiful. Like Mom.”
“Like you,” I correct.
My stepdaughter waves her hand, the one with the lit cigarette in it, causing the smoke to zigzag in the air. I don’t love her smoking, but her mother does it. She quit while we were together, but after we separated, she started up again, and it’s my greatest pain leftover from the divorce, which says a lot about my investment in our marriage. “Mom gets all the attention. Men like to pretend they think we are sisters.” She rolls her eyes.
The way she says attention draws my mind back to Emma saying she was getting unwanted attention from men around the neighborhood. “Bad attention?” I ask with a frown.
She shrugs. “Sometimes.”
My frown deepens, and I hum.
“Why do you ask?”
“My friend—well, my neighbor—she got harassed a couple of months ago. The guy called her and followed her.”
Bell frowns. “Calling, yes. Most of my friends have been catcalled. Usually, it’s harmless. Not to say that it’s okay,” she says. “But I have never felt troubled here.” She sighs. “There are bad people everywhere.”
I don’t enjoy thinking about Emma being in danger, so I change the subject back to Bell’s girlfriend. But a few minutes later, Bell sits up and looks around. “Where’s Zola?”
I curse, looking around. She’s not in the pot, though I can tell she was there thanks to the dirt on the balcony floor and the Zola-shaped indent.
Bell waves her cigarette, rising to her feet. “Go look inside. I’ll call for her.”
Turning, I step inside just as Bell shouts, “Zola!”
I get less than two meters in before a quizzical voice shouts back, “Santo?”
“Yes, do you have his cat?” Bell shouts back, but she’s speaking in Italian.
There’s a brief pause, and Emma yells back, “I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian, but I have Zola!”
“My neighbor,” I explain to Bell and then shout back in English, “I’m coming to get her.”
Amused, Bell snuffs out her cigarette in the potted plant and follows me into the hallway. Emma’s door opens just as we arrive, and Zola is in her arms again.
Lucky cat.
Emma lifts the cat up, and we make the transfer. “I am sorry,” I say. Fuck, why am I constantly having to apologize for my little escape artist? “We were out on the balcony, and I lost track of her.”
“It’s fine. But next time she shows up, I might keep her.”
She’s joking, I think. Before I can respond, Bell clears her throat, reminding me she’s here. “Ah. Bell, this is my neighbor, Emma. Emma, my stepdaughter, Abelie.”
The women shake hands and exchange small talk as I stroke Zola’s back like a Bond villain. She purrs.
I shift on my feet. I don’t know how to act around Emma outside the university without the professor-student facade between us. I wish I could make her smile and flush like I did the night I met her, but I’m frustrated enough as it is; there’s no need to torture myself, especially in front of Bell.
When Bell asks what brings Emma to Rome, Emma’s gaze finds mine. “Um. I’m a student?” Her voice goes high on the last syllable.
Bell braids her fingers together and sways toward Emma, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Are you a student at the university?”
“Well, uh, technically, yes.” A blush rises on Emma’s cheeks.
“Bell,” I reprimand.
“What?” She spreads her hands, the same innocent look on her face I saw, frequently, when she was a teen—the one that she uses when she knows exactly what she’s doing wrong. “It’s a great university. You must be smart to get in. How are you finding it? The first term is over, yes?”
