Taste of Italy

C H A P T E R n i n e t e e n

                                                                      . . .

    "Are you gonna to get that?" asked Kelly, taking a sip of her chardonnay.

Iris took out her phone, once again, and denied the phone call. "Nope." With a sigh, she placed the phone back into her jeans pocket and sipped her Barolo red wine.

"He's been calling you non-stop . . . you're—"

"I'm what? Not gonna call him back? Being a jerk? Irrational? Emotional?" she said, cutting off Jane. "I'm not letting someone ruin and get to me because he's a jerk-face himself. If he wanted to talk to me, he should've been honest in the first place."

Kelly bobbed her head and pursed her lips. "True . . . but we both think that you're making a mistake."

"What?" Iris chuckled, eating her pasta and shrimp dinner. "I thought you would be happy that I'm 'adulting,'" she said, after swallowing her food.

"Really? 'Adulting' is doing your taxes or going shopping on your own. It's not hooking up with a backstabbing liar and not returning his phone calls." Jane finished off her water and quietly asked the waitress near her to get another. Iris thought of the actions more like "dropping the microphone."

"And . . . I don't know what Jane is thinking, but maybe the guy is sorry? Maybe he wants to apologize and try to get back with you?" Kelly shrugged, eating . . . whatever was on her plate. Iris couldn't tell what either of them had. She didn't even know what she had, despite it being good. But she concluded that almost anything with shrimp was delicious anyhow.

"We're leaving anyway. We just have a few days left, so why try to patch things up?" Iris thought it was best for things to be left unsaid. She came for a good time and on one hand, she did just that. Of course, she wanted to be with Dante again, and of course, she wanted things to go back to normal. But she knew that it would only make the situation worse.

"Because . . . deep down you want to be with him. I think we all know that." Kelly touched her sister's hand and gave a faint smile. "I know you love him."

For a moment, Iris stared into her little sister's eyes, wanting to believe every word she said. But as she kept searching for a reason to believe her, she came up empty handed.

Did she love him? She only knew him for not even two weeks. What was there to love? All the adventure became was the infatuation. Even though Iris stalked him through the internet and knew more than she probably should have, all she was to the man was just a stranger. And even she considered himself a stranger to her as well.

Iris took her hand away and looked at the wooden dock below her feet. "Do I love him? Or am I just crushing on a stranger that I probably should have never met?" She didn't look up in fear that her sisters would see that tears were about to come down her face. If it was one thing that Iris didn't want now, it was ending the night in tears and pitiful stares.

Raising her head up, she looked around her, avoiding her sisters' eyes. The boat on the water was so bright inside and lively—Baja, they called it—with people walking around, eating, and laughing along with friends. The lighting in the area was nice since the restaurant set up a few plain Christmas lights around the small trees in the corners of the docks.

If there weren't a few wires stretched across the wooden poles going around the floating device, anyone could easily step off the dock and land themselves in the river. The place, she thought, was a quaint little restaurant and bar, and how creative it was to have it on River Tiber. Not exactly the location you would think a restaurant would be at, but so far, she thought it was well worth it. The food, atmosphere, drinks . . . it deserved its popularity.

"What do you think? Ask yourself why you're ignoring his phone calls." Kelly took a bite of her food and gave Iris a smile.

Before Iris could answer her, her phone rang. When she dug into her pocket to take it out, she knew who it was. After denying his call and about to put the phone back into her pocket, it buzzed again. This time, indicating a text message. Rolling her eyes, Iris checked her inbox.

"Please answer me . . . I can explain," Dante wrote. Iris stared at her phone, frozen. She thought of texting him back, but it buzzed again. "Hear me out, okay? If you don't like what I have to say, then you can hang up on me and never speak to me again."

Iris sighed, only to catch the attention of her sisters' eyes on her.

"Go," said Jane, leaning closer to the table.

"Talk to him." Kelly smiled, her lips going from ear to ear.

With a deep breath, Iris stood and walked her way to the entrance of the restaurant, which was on a bridge to go inside. She wanted to be away from a crowd. Since almost no one stood or walked on the sidewalk or near the entrance, she wanted to be able to freely speak to him.

With the phone in her hand, she dialed his number and held it up to her ear.

"Iris," Dante spoke, instantly picking up, "thank you for answering."

"Make this quick," she said firmly, not wanting to play around. "So what happened? Why'd you do this?" There were too many questions burning in her mind. They all needed to be out there, already said and answered.

"I'm divorcing Carlina," he began. Iris mentally noted that Carlina must be the Italian woman from earlier. "I have been trying to for a long time now, but she's very stubborn. She doesn't like the idea. She's . . . manipulative. She's been using me for my wealth and I recently found out that she's been cheating on me . . . with an ex-husband of hers. The fact of the matter is, the situation is complicated and I've been trying to divorce her, but she won't sign anything and we cannot come to an agreement on the furniture or anything."

"So you lie to me?"

He breathes heavily. For a moment, Iris wished she could smell his breath again. Or feel it on her skin. But instantly, the thought shook away. "I didn't think much of it at the time. Honestly, she is dead to me. So it wasn't exactly a lie."

Iris leaned against the bridge's railing, trying not to touch the Christmas lights that wrapped around it just in case if they might break. "I don't care how small the lie was. It was still a lie. How can a relationship form if it's based off lies?"

"Our relationship wasn't based on a lie—"

"Are you sure, Dante? Do you even like me? You even stormed off saying how I was too young for you. I'm just a child in your eyes."

It was silent on the other end.

"That's what I thought." She hung up and went back inside.