A month at my Nonna's in Europe
I promised I'd write about this summer, so here it is. It's long. Sorry not sorry. I've been putting it off bc writing it means admitting it's actually over, and I'm not totally there yet. Some nights I still check if he posted anything. (He hasn't. He barely posts. It's very annoying and very him.)
Every few years my mom ships me off to stay with my Nonna in Italy. She lives in this tiny white town in Puglia, down in the heel of the boot, like 20 minutes from the sea. Everybody knows everybody. The old men sit outside the bar in the piazza all day and comment on everything that moves. The first time I went I was a kid and bored out of my mind.
This summer I went for the whole month of July. I was 21, newly single, and honestly kind of a mess after everything with T. My mom said "it'll be good for you." She had no idea.
The first week was exactly what I expected. Nonna fed me five times a day. I went to the beach with my cousin Giulia. I slept a lot. I was sunburned and sad and texting nobody.
Then Giulia dragged me to her friend's birthday at a beach bar outside town, and that's where I met Luca.
He was working the bar. That's the first thing. He was 24, worked there every summer, and had that dark curly hair that's always a little salty from the ocean. Tan everywhere. White linen shirt unbuttoned way too low, like, sir, button something. Giulia saw me looking and elbowed me so hard I spilled my spritz.
"No," she said.
"I didn't say anything!"
"You don't have to say. I see your face. He's trouble, Hannah. Everybody's cousin has kissed Luca."
Which obviously made it worse.
Later he came over with a plate of those little fried dough balls and set it down in front of me. "For the American," he said.
"How do you know I'm American?"
He smiled. "You say 'grazie' like it has three syllables."
I was so offended. I was also so, so into it.
After that I saw him basically every day. He'd show up at the beach where Giulia and I went. He'd text me at 1am, sei sveglia? (are you awake?), and I'd sneak out of Nonna's house in my sandals, closing the big wooden door super slowly so it wouldn't creak, and he'd be waiting at the end of the street on his Vespa with the engine off.
I'd climb on behind him and wrap my arms around his waist and we'd just drive. No helmets (sorry mom). Through olive groves, down these narrow roads with stone walls on both sides, the air warm and smelling like the sea and wild fennel. I'd press my cheek into his back and feel his stomach under my hands and think, this can't be my actual life.
The first night he took me to a little cove you can only get to by climbing down the rocks. Totally dark. Just the moon and a lighthouse blinking way out on the point.
"You swim?" he said.
"Now?"
"Now." He was already pulling his shirt off.
I stood there for a second thinking, what are you doing, you met him four days ago. And then I just stopped thinking.
I didn't take everything off that night. Just down to my underwear. We swam out into that black water, which was so much warmer than I expected, like a bath, and he swam up close, and under the water his hands found my waist.
"Okay?" he said.
"Okay," I said.
And he kissed me. Salty, warm, his wet hair dripping on my face. I wrapped my legs around him under the water and I swear I forgot my own name.
I don't want to make it sound perfect and movie-like, bc it wasn't. His English was okay but not great and my Italian is embarrassing, so half our conversations were hand gestures and Google Translate. He was late to literally everything. He had a lot of opinions about American food that were kind of rude (and kind of right).
And Nonna knew. Obviously. Nonna knows everything.
One morning I came down to breakfast after getting home at 4am, and she put my coffee in front of me and said, super casually, in Italian, "The Moretti boy has a nice Vespa."
I almost choked.
"I don't... what?"
She just looked at me. Then she patted my cheek and said, "Be careful with your heart, tesoro. Not with the rest. The rest is yours." And she went back to the stove.
I still think about that. I'm 90% sure my grandmother gave me permission. I'm 10% sure I made it up so I'd feel less guilty.
The pull between us was ridiculous. I've never felt anything like it. I'd be at dinner with my whole Italian family, fifteen people at one long table, and my phone would buzz in my lap with one word from him, stasera? (tonight?), and my whole body would react. Face hot. Knees pressed together. Zia Rosa would ask me something and I'd have no idea what she'd said.
I spent alot of that month in a constant state of wanting. Just walking around turned on all the time, in the heat, in my little sundresses, counting the hours until it got dark. In the afternoons when everyone napped I'd lie in Nonna's guest room with the shutters closed and the ceiling fan going, thinking about his hands and his mouth, and I couldn't keep still. That room has the thinnest walls in all of Italy. I had to be SO quiet.
The third week we took one trip together. He borrowed his brother's car and drove me to Matera, this ancient city carved into a cliff, all cave houses and stone stairs. We walked around all day, ate way too much, and that night we stayed in a tiny room in one of the old caves they turned into a hotel. Stone walls. One small window. Completely silent.
That was the first night we actually slept together.
I'm keeping most of it for myself. I'll say that he was slow. That he kept looking at me like he couldn't believe I was real, which is ridiculous, bc that's exactly how I was looking at him. That at one point he said something in Italian against my neck that I didn't understand, and I didn't ask, bc I didn't need to. That the stone walls held every sound and I stopped caring who heard.
And that after, lying in the dark with his heartbeat under my ear, I thought: oh. So this is what it's supposed to feel like. Nobody making me feel like too much. Nobody flinching at what I wanted.
The last night he took me back to the cove. We didn't swim this time. We sat on the rocks with our feet in the water and watched the lighthouse.
"You come back next summer?" he asked.
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Maybe," he said, doing my accent, and I shoved him.
He held my face in his hands and kissed me for a really long time. Then he said, "Don't be sad. It was good. È stato bello." It was beautiful.
I cried the whole flight home. The lady next to me handed me a tissue and didn't say a word, which, thank you, ma'am, wherever you are.
It's October now. It's getting cold here. Leaves everywhere, everybody drinking pumpkin everything. And some nights I lie in bed and close my eyes and I'm back there. The heat. The Vespa. The salt on his skin. That cave room in Matera with the one little window.
I think that month changed something in me. Everything I've been writing about here, the fitting room, the lake, the stuff I fantasize about, I think it all comes from the same place. I spent so long feeling like I wanted too much. Luca was the first person who made me feel like the wanting was the best part of me, not the worst.
He texted me last week for the first time since I left. Just a photo of the cove. No words.
I haven't answered. I've looked at it maybe a hundred times.
Flights in July are cheaper if you book early, right?
xo, H