Beyond

Get organized before starting

The headmaster called me in his office early in the morning, first working day after the summery break; we had just turned the calendar page, indicating then September.

I knocked on the open door, he recognized me, his face lit up and came towards me, open arms.

"Dear Giulia, welcome back. How are you?" he asked, kissing and embracing me.

It was always a pleasure for me to see him again; he guided me from the limbo to the paradise, a true friend.

"Dear Andrea, hello. I'm well, ready to start again. And you?"

Coming back to his desk he didn't lose time:

"Well. Sorry to bother you so soon but I need your help."

Oh, my presence hadn't been requested only for banal greetings, there was more.

I sit curious, waiting for his explanation.

*****

The story began.

He explained me that a new guy coming from London would have joined my team of adrift students, the one at the fourth year of studies precisely. When he told me the news, I stared at him astonished; fortunately Andrea was too concentrated in his exposure to notice that.

The guy's father, successful manager in the fashion field, accepted a job offer of one year in Milan, the start-up of an haute couture company. Mr. Sergio Riva, that was his name, had Italian origins and moved to London after the wedding with an English model, Claire Green.

After it got even better. The Italian return of the family Riva wasn't justified only by the father's working needs but also because the son was crossing a very creative phase of his adolescence. Mr. Riva was thus convinced that a separation from all his London bad habits would have helped him to get again in line. A doubt came immediately to my mind and I translated it into words:

"Why our school?"

'In the centre of Milan there're optimal private schools and for the guy to pass from London-city to Milan-periphery must be a trauma, not a little one. However he's just an adolescent' I thought.

"Mr. Riva comes from this zone and has some acquaintances still living here; he rented a villa a few kilometres far from our school, these friends spoke very well about us to him. Moreover their sons were more or less the same age of his ones and he thinks that this could facilitate their integration in the new context. Their older daughter is studying here" he explained me.

"And there's more" he added.

'Poor me' I mumbled on my own.

"The son has followed in the footsteps of the mother and is already working for the fashion world, also for the advertising.

Considered his young age, the father has tried to slow down his artistic vein encouraging him in the prosecution of the studies. He fears that the premature start of this career can degenerate; then the choice to move in an important but however calmer city.

Moreover the guy, considering his intense social and working life, has rather neglected the studies and it's only thanks to the father's influent position if he avoided to repeat the last school year. Thus he has also some backlog to recover. The father explained me he forced the guy to choose a commercial institute, the objective was to give him a concrete and fast scholastic basis which could be always useful to him in the life.

Other important note, the boy will need to absent sometimes for taking part to castings, shootings, other things like that; the father asked me if we can allow him some flexibility in such sense."