2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

M aria, Franco's wife, met me in the hallway at the top of the stairs, silent vacuum at her side. The carpet had neat marks from the Hoover and the scent of lemon hung in the air that danced down the corridors, the breeze from outside flowing through the open Tuscany windows that resided like Italian dignitaries in each and every room. The windows were always open here at La Casa di Bonetti Pindes as my father disliked air conditioning. He claimed it weakened a man. Something that he rued dearly, I was sure, since his son was the feeblest man he had ever been exposed to. Not that he said that. No, no, of course not. Tommaso Bonetti kept all his feelings locked down so tight one wondered if he had emotions at all. That was how things were done in the Bonetti family. One did not rant and rave, throw things, or cause scandals.

One was also not homosexual. Or, if they were, God forbid, they were not abrasive about their differences. Coming out was not greeted with rainbow cakes or glitter bombs from your parents who were members of GLAAD before you even finished announcing your gayness to the room. The Bonettis were good, God-fearing Catholics who tried their best to be politically correct to the only rainbow sheep in our little flock. Coming down on your gay son would look bad in the press, so I was used for the photo op here and there, sent off to Pride events as needed for the website, and then shunted back into the shadows where the priests couldn't see me.

"Bienvenido a casa, Se?or Arlo," Maria whispered, her deep brown gaze resting on the handle of her vacuum. "Your papà is in his office. Would you like a cocktail?"

"Gods yes," I replied and gave her a weak little smile. She and Franco had always been kind to me, if distant.

"I will bring it," she softly said and hustled off, her vacuum rolling along behind her on quiet wheels.

I passed empty rooms, guest rooms, each dusted and vacuumed every day in case of visitors. And we did have those. Businessmen and women who moved in the same stratus as my father and the other top olive oil barons in the world. Sitting at number one always made my sire happy. At least something did.

At the end of the east wing was my father's office. Pausing fifty feet away from the dark walnut double doors at the end of the corridor, I gave my ivy green corset a tug down, my stomach churning as it always did viewing this portal to his domain. Whenever I was here as a child, it was due to something bad that I had done. Good deeds went largely unnoticed but being bad got me an audience with Dad. It didn't take long for me to figure out that naughty got me attention. Truthfully, it would seem a man grown would get over being a brat just to garner the interest of his parent but here we were just the same.

Memories flowed over me. Nanny Ingrid hauling me down this long, long, long hallway by the ear, telling me over and over in her stout German accent that I was a brash, bad boy. My father would, nine times out of ten, look at me over his desk, his sight barely lifting from his spreadsheets to land on me, and tell me to be good. Then he would allow Nanny to set my punishment before we would both be dismissed. That penance generally was no dinner and saying Hail Marys until my fingers grew numb from rubbing tiny beads, for she was Catholic as well. I often wondered if being a papist was an unspoken prerequisite for working in this heartless, stunning abode.

Feeling Nanny Ingrid's dour ghost tugging at my lobe, I drew in a breath and then flung the doors open with such panache that they rocketed into the stops, making a crash that drew Tommaso's attention from his laptop. Father was still a handsome man, even though he was now fifty-one. He was swarthy, slim but wide of shoulder, his ebony hair thick still but sprinkled with silver flecks. He always wore white dress shirts and dark trousers to his office, his suit jacket and tie resting on the back of a burgundy wingback to his left. The room was warm, the windows open, a tickle of wind moving the front pages of several newspapers resting on his massive desk.

"Lucy, I'm home," I announced so that it would be heard outside by the gardeners tending Mom's beloved flower gardens. Sailing into the oppressive office, I dropped down into a chair as my father rose from behind his desk. A small tic above his left eye was the only sign that he was upset. Oh, and the glass of wine, now emptied, sitting on the windowsill. So he had been spying on me as I arrived. Good. I hoped he was happy that I nearly ruptured my spleen from toting all my own bags. "I see you've been reading the funny papers."

My father drew himself to his full height of well over six feet. I'd taken after my mother in most things, including height, build, hair, eyes, and bullheadedness. Maybe someday Tommaso would speak of me in that wistful way he spoke of my mother's spunk. Speaking of spunk…

The front page of the Sacramento Sentinel showed me on my knees before two men, their flies down, their enormous cocks pixelated. What a pity they blurred out those impressive dicks. People should see them. I know I'd be carrying the memory of them in my head for quite some time.

"What is wrong with you, Arlo?" Dad asked, his voice modulated, calm, almost monotone. Oh but his dark eyes, so different from the honey-brown eyes I had inherited from my mother, were snapping with rage. Awesome. Maybe he would finally show some hint of feeling, good or bad…I didn't care.

"I'm feeling a bit colicky. They fed us rancid nuts on the flight from JFK," I tossed out, crossing one leg over the other, then pressing out the wrinkles from my slim-cut slacks. "Nuts always make me gassy."

He drew in a long breath through his nose, stalking to the bar beside the window he'd been stationed at, the sheers billowing on the rods. One panel fell over the bottles of wine, bourbon, and whiskey on the imported Fontana Blue cabinet. Everything in this room was red and blue to match the colors on the Bonetti Farms Olive Oil logo, which was a circle with a large B in the center, four gold stars on either side, and a red olive branch under the dark blue B. That damn logo was everywhere. On the sides of our jets, our cars, and the walls of our home. Funny how there were no pictures of me anywhere to be seen…

"Why must you be so flippant all the time?" he asked while pouring himself another goblet of Malbec. "Why must you act as you do?" He turned from the bar to stare at me in loss. My sight drifted to the wall of books behind his desk. Tomes about farming, business, and agriculture. Nothing that interested me in the least. The books were old, of course, probably first editions printed in Firenze and shipped to our American address by Ginerva over the years. She never visited. The woman rarely left her villa, which was fine with me. I'd only seen the crone once—at my mother's funeral—and she had scared the living shit out of me. She'd tottered to me at the graveside, lifted her black mourning veil, and told me to stop crying so loudly.

Yep, my family is all about the emotions. Yeah, not.

"To be fair, he never mentioned—" I began.

My father whipped his glass against the far wall, the shatter of fine crystal startling me so badly that I squeaked. Wine coated the oil painting of a Tuscan village overlooking a small blue lake. One of our many farms in Italy, I assumed. The red liquid ran down the wall onto the stone mantle over the fireplace, dripping onto the hardwood floor. I stared at that puddle of wine in shock, jerking madly when my father took me by the shoulders and shook me. Not hard enough to cause whiplash but soundly enough to get my attention.

"What is wrong with you?" he asked once more, his usually light accent growing thicker as he grew angrier. "Why do you do these things?!"

"He had a nice dick," I parried with, unable to register this passionate man with the automaton that I had known for the past fourteen years.

His fingers bit into my shoulders. Then he released me, giving me a sharp push away. My shoulders thumped into the upholstered armchair, my held breath rushing out.

"That is disgusting," he spat and then spun on his heel, his hands raking through his hair as he began to pace the office. "Why do you say such things? I do not understand you, Arlo. I have given you everything a boy could have wanted." He went to the bar, stared at the wine, and then fell back into stalking me like a tiger. "You had the best clothes, the best toys, the best nannies, the best cars, and the best homes. I made sure you went to the best college money could buy here in the States since you refused to attend LUISS in Rome as I did. You spent six months at Harvard, dropped out, came home, and drove your car into a lake. Why?! Why do you do such things? What is wrong with you? I do not understand why you seek to humiliate this family as you do. I was accepting of you as a homosexual when you announced you wished to be one."

"It's not a thing you want to be, Dad. You're born gay." I had to say it because if I heard that line once, I'd heard it a thousand times. And the fact that he was still saying it showed me that he cared nothing about learning anything about my queerness, or me.

His nostrils flared. "Whatever the case, Arlo, I have done all that I could to try to gently lead you along in life as your mother asked. Now this is what I get for being giving?" He waved a shaking hand at the pile of newspapers on his desk. "A Supreme Court justice is calling me and demanding I do something. His robe's in a knot as if I had any control over his son or mine."

"We're all adults. It's not like I was molesting kids like all those—"

He raised a finger and jabbed it at me. "Do not bring the church into this, Arlo, you know better."

I bit back something snide. My father, for all his faults, had drawn back from attending mass after learning that all men of the cloth weren't paragons. He inhaled so deeply that his shirt stretched over his chest. Where the hell was Maria with my vodka and Red Bull? If ever I needed something to refill my courage vats and give me a rush, it was now. I could sense something dark on the horizon…

"It's not all that bad, really. That justice's son is now out and able to live his true life," I said, hoping it would shift some of the man's rage from me. And it was true. "In a way, what's his face and his father should be thanking me for getting him out of the closet." My father gaped at me. "What?"

"It's not that bad he says," Dad murmured to the portrait of my mother resting on the wall above the bar. I hated it when he spoke to that oil painting. It made me feel little and stupid, unfitting of my mother's soft smile or the kindness in her toffee eyes. "Lynette, forgive me for what I am about to do."

I ripped my gaze from the portrait of Mom in healthier times, her skin pale as a swan's plumage, her light brown hair glowing with natural baby highlights pulled up atop her head as she sat in her flower garden, her hands on her lap.

I leapt to my feet, sure that my father was about to throw me out the window. His sight veered from Mom to me, his face now calm, the fire in his umber eyes gone. Tommaso the ice lord had returned. Hands fisted at my sides, heart thumping under my corset, I watched him return to his seat and gently push the tabloids and weekly papers aside. Okay, cool. Being flung into the flowering crab trees down below wasn't going to happen. A shaky breath passed over my dry lips.

Dad nodded to himself, looked up, and speared me with that emotionless stare. "You are one year away from being able to manage the trust fund your mother and I have set up for you."

I knew that. Hell, I lived for that birthday. No more having to kowtow to my father or Henry Lancaster, the bank trustee that my parents had given far too much power to for my liking. One more year. July fourth. Then I could dive into an Olympic-sized pool of cash. I planned to drain our pool out back and fill it with crisp hundred dollar bills and tons of gold coins, then belly flop into it ala Scrooge McDuck. Yep, just three hundred sixty-four days.

"I know," I replied as I dreamed of the yoke being lifted from my shoulders. Oh the parties I could throw. No one to say shit to me about what I did or how I squandered. Bliss. "I've got Independence Day written on next year's calendar, so I don't get too drunk to forget that on that glorious day I shall finally be free of your tyranny."

The flash of pain on his face felt good. For a second. I began humming "Raise a Glass to Freedom" from Hamilton to ease the guilt.

"I never saw myself as a tyrant, only a father trying to connect with his son," Dad replied so softly the slide of the sheers on the window nearly covered his words. I winced internally, all humming stopped. "But I can see that you do. That is a shame, Arlo, but it changes nothing. I vowed to your mother as she moved from this realm that I would do what was right by you and so to that end, I am sending you to your great-aunts for a year."

My mouth fell open. Like, literally, my jaw unhinged like an anaconda. Sadly, no lyrics from Nicki Minaj accompanied my gape.

" What ? You can't make me go to Italy or spend time with that old bitch!" I shouted down at him. He blinked once. That was the extent of his response to my outburst. If not for the wine soaking into the imported Positano area rug in front of the hearth, I would swear I was conversing with a robot.

"Your great-aunt is not a bitch. She is a regal woman, a pious soul who is a scion of her community. She knows more about our holdings in Italy than anyone other than me, and she is firm but fair. She raised me when your grandparents and my sister were killed in that accident. I think she did a good job of training me to take over the company as well as ensuring that I was a fit man to carry on her family name in a manner that she could be proud of."

"Unlike me who is a flouncy little faggot," I flung at him.

"I did not use that word, you did, and I wish you would not. I find it offensive."

"Yeah, well, tough. We're reclaiming it. Also, Aunt Ginerva is a wicked old twat and I am not going to spend a day in fucking Italy listening to her tell me to toughen up and stop crying. My fucking mother had just died!"

Dad stared at me openly as if hearing this for the first time. Though he probably was, for I had never mentioned that graveside bullshit to anyone and I highly doubted old Ginerva would have mentioned it.

"That was many years ago, Arlo. You were a child and misunderstood her meaning, I am sure."

"Nope, no misunderstanding from hearing someone tell you to stop crying as they lower the only person on this planet who really understood you into a muddy pit."

His jaw ticked. "I'm sure you misunderstood. Arguing about this is pointless. The bank has been notified and Henry agrees that you are unable at this time to responsibly handle the three hundred million you are being left."

Oh damn, that had climbed nicely since Henry had last called me in to talk money. I cared little about the ins and outs of that trust fund, only that the dividends kept rolling into my bank account.

"So I am giving you one year to grow up. During that year, you shall reside with Ginerva and learn the business from her since you refuse to learn from me." I rolled my eyes. He ignored the look. "You will learn restraint, manners, and strive to be the son that your mother always wished you to be." Ouch! "At the end of the year, on your twenty-fifth birthday, the trustees will meet to see if you have matured enough to inherit. If you have not, you will be given a small stipend and all ties to this family will be severed." Double ouch! That cut deep, but I would be damned if I would let him see me hurting.

"How much is a stipend?" I asked, forcing my chin higher.

"Whatever a working man brings home in Florence," he answered, his eyes boring into me as if he were looking for something. What I did not know nor care to find out. What the hell? How much did a working man make? Not much, I bet. Shit. Shit. "If, on the other hand, you show improvement and growing maturity, we shall turn the trust over to you to do as you see fit. While you are in Italy, your monthly income will be the same as the people who work in our olive mills in Tuscany."

"Man, you are a cold motherfucker."

"And you are a pampered brat with no respect for anything. Now go pack. Your flight leaves this evening."

A million replies, all of them shitty, formed and then melted on my tongue. I stalked out, met Maria in the hallway with my vodka and Red Bull, plucked it from her hands and downed it with loud, choking gulps until the glass was empty. Then, because I could, I hurled it at those imposing office doors. Maria gasped, hand to heart, eyes wide.

"Sorry about the mess," I whispered to her, to Mom, and maybe to myself. But not to my father. Never to my father.