Gianluca goes around the front of the car and gets into the driver’s seat. This is an old-model Mercedes, but the interior still has the scent of new leather, while the navy blue exterior is polished to a glassy finish.
Gianluca hits the gas pedal like he’s bolting from the first position at the starting gate at NASCAR in the Poconos.
“Whoa,” I say. “Keep it under ninety miles an hour, will you?”
I scroll through my e-mails. I answer Wendy’s about the hotel, Gabriel’s about the leather, and Mom’s about Gram. Roman writes:
I dream of you and Capri. R.
I text back:
In that order? V.
“You like that thing?” Gianluca points to my phone.
“I couldn’t live without it. I’m in constant touch with everyone I know. How could that be a bad thing?”
He laughs. “When do you think?”
“Funny you should ask. I actually turned this off and soaked in the tub last night, and then I did some reading.”
“Va bene, Valentina.”
That’s funny, only my father ever called me Valentina.
He continues, “I don’t like those things. They interrupt life. You can’t go anywhere without beeps going off and silly songs playing.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, Gianluca. But I think these things”-I hold up my phone-“are here to stay.”
“Agh.” He dismisses the entire contemporary-communication matrix with a wave of his hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being rude e-mailing instead of talking to you.” I put the phone on pulse and put it in my purse.
I catch the corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. Okay, Gianluca, I’m thinking, you’re Italian. You’re a man. This is all about you. “I’m all yours,” I tell him.
To reward me for my undivided attention, Gianluca frequently slows down to show me the exterior of a rococo church, or a roadside shrine to the Madonna placed by a devout farmer, or an indigenous tree that grows only in this part of the world. On the outskirts of Prato, he takes a turn off the autostrada and onto a back road. I grip the handle above the door as we jostle over the gravel roadway.
As Gianluca slows down, I see a lake through the trees. It shimmers like pale blue silk taffeta. The edges of the water are blurred by wild fronds of deep green stalks that bend and twist over the shoreline. I commit the color scheme to memory. How luscious it would be to create an icy blue shoe with a deep green feather trim. I roll down the window to get a closer look. The sun hits the water like a slew of silver arrows.
“This is one of my favorite places. Lago Argento. This is where I come to think.”
The lovely silence is broken by the beep of my cell phone. I’m mortified that I’m spoiling Gianluca’s sacred space.
“Go ahead and answer it. I cannot fight progress.”
I look at Gianluca, who laughs, and then I laugh. I reach into my purse and check my phone.
Roman texts:
You first. Forever and ever. R.
I smile.
“Good news?” Gianluca asks.
“Oh, yeah.” I put the phone back in my purse.
The Prato silk-factory building is a modern, rambling complex painted a dull beige, and has a tall steel-ornamental fence enclosing it. Low landscaping around the border gives it a manicured look.
Many great designers come here to shop for fabric. The old-guard, visionary Europeans like Karl Lagerfeld and Alberta Ferretti, to new talents like Phillip Lim and Proenza Schouler, make the trip to Prato. Some designers even take the scraps from the floor and weave them into original fabric designs; evidently, even the chuff of this factory is valuable.
Gianluca shows his ID as we pull up to the guard’s gate. They ask me for my passport. Gianluca opens it to the page with my picture and hands it to the guard.
Once we park, I wait for Gianluca to come around and open my door. He was polite about my beeping phone, so I’m not about to undercut his proper Italian manners. When he opens my door, he takes my hand to help me out. When our hands touch, a slight shiver runs down my spine. It must be the spring air, which blows cool under the hot sun.
We go through the entrance where there’s a small reception area with a window. Gianluca goes up to the window and asks to see Sabrina Fioravanti. In a few moments, a woman around my mother’s age, with reading glasses on a chain around her neck, greets us.
“Gianluca!” she says.
He kisses both her cheeks. “This is Signora Fioravanti.”
She takes my hands, pleased to meet me. “How is Teodora?” she wants to know.
“She’s doing fine.”
“Vecchio?” Signora says. “Like me.”
“Only in numbers, not in spirit.” I start thinking about what my eighty-year-old Gram is up to this very minute.
I follow Sabrina into the mill, to the finishing department, where the ornate silks are being pressed and mounted onto bolts, which spin the fabric onto giant wheels that fill to the size of tree trunks. I can’t resist touching the fabrics, buttery cotton sateen embroidered with fine gold thread, and cut velvet with squares of raw silk.
“Double-sided fabrics you need?” Sabrina asks.
“Yes.” I reach inside my purse for my list. “And taffeta with a velvet backing, and, if you have it, a silk striate.” I take a deep breath.
“Is there a problem?” Gianluca asks me. He points to the deep lines forming a number eleven between my eyebrows. “You look concerned.”
“No, I’m just thinking,” I lie. “And when I think, I get a uni-brow.”
“What?”
“You know, worry lines. Ignore them.”
Sabrina returns with a young man carrying a pile of fabric swatches. It will take me the better part of the day to look through them. Now I know why I have the worry lines. This is a big job and Gram isn’t here to guide me. She’s too busy pitching woo with Dominic under the Tuscan sun to schlep to this factory and sort through hundreds of fabric samples to find what we need. I’m feeling abandoned, that’s all. But it’s too late, we’re here now, and I have to go it alone.
Sabrina goes. I pull up a stool and put my purse on the table behind me. Gianluca pulls up a stool and sits across from me at the worktable. I place my written list on the table and begin to sort through the fabrics.
“Okay.” I look at Gianluca. “First, I need a durable satin jacquard. Beige.”
Gianluca sorts through a pile and pulls one. He holds it up.
“Not too much pink in the beige,” I tell him. “More gold.”
I put aside the fabrics that would be too flimsy even if we backed them ourselves. Gianluca follows my lead. Then he begins to make a stack of the heartier varieties. I find a heavy double-sided satin embroidered with filigreed gold vines. I wonder if we can cut on the embroidery and reluctantly put it aside.
“You don’t like that one?” he says.
“I love it. But I don’t think I can cut around the pattern.”
Gianluca picks up the sample. “But you can. You just buy extra, and repeat the pattern across.” He drapes the fabric on the table, then tucks it under. “See? It’s the same with the leather.”
“You’re right.”
I place the silk with vines on the top of my buy pile. There are so many to choose from, but the selection is enthralling. I begin to imagine shoes in every sample I pick up: canton crepe, peau-de-soie, matelasse, velveteen, faille, and a silk broadcloth with a tone-on-tone stripe. I throw myself into the fun of it, and the process picks up speed as we sort for a good while.
“You like making shoes?” Gianluca asks.
“Can you tell?” I check another item off my list. “Do you like working as a tanner?”
“Not so much.” Now Gianluca gets the number eleven between his eyes. “Papa and I fight. We have for many years. But it’s worse since my mother died.”