Chapter 9: Renzo Guesses

The wedding planner met us at the Villa gate at nine, in a camel coat with a tablet under her arm.

Gemma was already there.

She had her hair twisted up and a paper cup in each hand, and she gave me one without a word.

"Black," she said. "Two sugars."

I had never told her how I take coffee.

"Who told you?"

"You did. On the soup night." She looked at the lawn. "Eat something. You look wrecked."

I looked wrecked because I had woken up alone, with her smell on the quilt and a note on the pillow.

I wanted to ask her why she had left.

I took a sip, and she straightened my collar with two fingers and walked on ahead, and my whole body followed her without asking me.

The Villa lawn runs down the hill in three green terraces to a stone fountain.

It was January, so the grass was brown, and a crew in orange vests was already marking out the footprint of a tent with white paint.

"That's not ours," the planner said.

"No." I knew the crew. "It's Renzo's."

My brother came across the grass in a long camel overcoat of his own, with a coffee, and the easy walk of a man who owns the ground.

"There he is," Renzo said. "The groom of the hour. Where did you sleep, little brother? The shed?"

"The bay."

"With the bride." He tipped his cup at Gemma. "Gemma, sweetheart. You've had your fun. I'm willing to forget it."

"Renzo," Gemma said. "You are standing on my guest list."

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