Letters to the Baumgarters Read Free

wearing a suit and carrying a
briefcase, a strange sight during Carnavale, when masks and make-up were the
norm.
    The men laughed together and then hugged—something unheard of on the
streets of America, but very common in Italy—but when the man in the suit
kissed the gondolier on the lips, I nearly dropped my bag in surprise.
    Hugging, yes. Even kissing each other on each cheek, or—strange to
Americans—patting each other on the behind, all of those things I’d seen. But a
full kiss on the lips between two men? That could only mean one thing.
    The encounter was over by the time I went outside, the man with the
briefcase gone, but I couldn’t help voicing my curiosity.
    “Who was that?” I asked as Nico offered me a hand and I stepped onto the
boat.
    He glanced at me in surprise as I settled myself on a seat. “Just a
friend.”
    “Looked like a very good friend,” I remarked, hiding a knowing
smile.
    “He is, still.” The gondolier untied and pushed off, and we were on our
way again. “He lives in Sicily now. I see him very rarely. It was a coincidence
to run into him here.”
    He was so cavalier about it, not embarrassed at all, but it was clear to
me—Nico was gay. Which, I had to admit, relieved me of some of my trepidation,
and I began to look back over our conversation with a different lens.
    “So are you ready for a real Italian Shrove Tuesday?” he asked as we
maneuvered back down the little canal. “My mother has been cooking all week for
today. If we get there early enough, we can eat all the Zeppole before
my sisters arrive. What do you say?”
    I’d denied myself the revelry and masked silliness in the streets, but I
had to admit, I’d been longing for some company, a little good food and wine
and conversation. Who could turn down homemade Italian cooking on Carnavale?
Why not?
    Smiling, I accepted. “ Si, signor! You’ve convinced me.”
    Nico smiled as we headed into the more open water of the Grand Canal,
steering us toward his home.
    * * * *
    “Nico brought a girl home!” Nico’s mother—“Call me Mama
Dorotea!”—stage-whispered into the phone to one of his sisters, glancing over
at me perched on the edge of the sofa. I got the feeling Nico didn’t bring
girls home often—go figure—and they were all trying to be casual but I’d heard
the phrase, “Nico brought a girl home!” at least ten times since I’d
arrived.
    “No, a girl .” Mama Dorotea cupped the mouthpiece with her hand as
she spoke, as if it might make sound travel slower in my direction. “Are you
coming soon?”
    That was the third daughter on the phone, I deduced—the other two were
already present and accounted for. The oldest, Anna, was married and had two
children, a boy and a girl, who ran straight to the kitchen when they arrived
to “help” grandma with the food. Helping, of course, involved a great deal of
tasting. The youngest daughter, Caprice, still a teenager, seemed intent on
beating her older—and only—brother at Scrabble. Nico was sprawled out with her
on the floor. Out of his gondolier uniform, wearing jeans and a gray pullover,
he was even more handsome. It never failed—the cute ones were always gay.
    “Another glass of wine, Daniella?”
    “It’s Dani,” I corrected her again, accepting the glass from Anna, the
oldest daughter. Her husband had parked himself in front of the television for
a football game—which, in Italy, meant soccer—and hadn’t said a word to anyone.
His wife, on the other hand, had attached herself to me, talking almost
non-stop since I arrived.
    She paid no attention to my words, going on about the issues they were
having with their flat, the landlord refusing to fix things. Nico, from the
floor, offered to help repair the leaky sink, but Anna didn’t listen to him
either. She seemed more focused on complaining about her problems than she was
on actually solving any of them.
    I sipped my wine—homemade, according to Mama Dorotea—and watched