14. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

“Why exactly are we doing this again?” Sadie asked her as Lara locked her front door that Sunday evening. Most people who lived in the middle of nowhere didn’t bother to lock their houses when they went out, but Lara always did.

“I have no idea.” Lara trailed reluctantly down the porch stairs towards her. “What the fuck do people wear to wineries?”

“I’m so flattered you think I know,” Sadie said drily, leaning her hand against the door of her car. She looked faintly alarmed as she looked down at her neat but casual outfit. “Is this like, going to a winery? ” she asked. “Or just dinner at a mate’s place?”

“I don’t know,” Lara gritted out. She was nervous and she didn’t like the feeling.

“It’s just hard to understand what’s happening here. You and Ollie Gabrielli want to fuck each other so bad that we’re all going to family dinner?”

“I do not want to fuck Ollie Gabrielli,” Lara hissed, as she reached the car, darting her eyes to where the kids were already in the backseat, happily engaged in more important conversations than whatever their mothers were talking about.

“Cool,” said Sadie. “Your hair looks good, by the way.”

“Fuck you.”

They drove the winding track through the trees, Sadie slamming on the brakes for a wallaby, making everyone in the car jerk against their seatbelts.

“Mum!”

“Sorry.”

“Are you nervous or something?” Lara tried to shift the focus from her own slightly tight chest.

“Actually,” Sadie focussed out the windscreen at the road ahead, “I’m pumped. Great food, an entire family of extremely good-looking Italians. Watching you be weird. Best night out in years.”

The sun touched the horizon by the time they reached the Gabrielli estate, the last rays glinting off the olive grove, drenching everything in dark gold.

“Is this where Aria lives?” piped up Tilly, belatedly invested in their evening as she peered out the car window.

“I don’t know,” she told her daughter. “It’s where her grandparents live anyway.”

She thought of Aria’s mother, Natasha. Dinner with one of the school gate mums? What the hell was she thinking, agreeing to this?

They pulled up in front of a big wooden home. It was a sizeable Queenslander, but looked entirely modest, a gang of farm dogs scrabbling around to bellow at them, low porch lights already gleaming in the pink dusk. And standing on the bottom step watching them arrive - just as Sadie had predicted - stood their first extremely good-looking Italian of the evening. Ugh.

“Watch out,” warned Ollie, as a small chocolate-coloured dachshund broke from the dog pack and flung himself like a small rocket toward them. “He’s dangerous,” she said drily, as the creature flung himself onto his back at Tilly’s feet, short legs waving, tail like a rotor blade. Her daughter squealed and she and Frankie practically collapsed into the dust right next to the car to play with him.

“Go on!” shouted a man’s voice from the porch above them. “Give it up!”

The other dogs trotted off obediently, satisfied they’d completed their canine duties sufficiently. Lara looked up to see who the voice belonged to and saw an older man - balding, sun-baked and wiry - probably in his early seventies and yet still, squarely in the good-looking ball park, with his firm chest and loose white dress shirt. Jesus christ, what a gene pool.

He descended the steps while Sadie and Lara hovered awkwardly, Ollie next to them like some kind of bridge between the worlds, his expression unreadable.

“Welcome,” he said, gripping Lara’s hand between his two huge ones. He dropped a kiss on each of her cheeks like something she’d only ever seen in movies. If she’d been warned it was coming she’d have ducked out of reach, but now it had happened and she was watching Sadie receive the same treatment, she only felt oddly warm. Despite the space invasion it felt entirely fatherly.

“Dad,” Ollie was watching, an odd expression on her face. Was she nervous? Lara couldn’t get a read on her. “Lara and Sadie, you remember them from school. My dad, Giovanni.”

Lara’s voice seemed to have deserted her. Meeting anyone’s parents was out of the realm of any regular experience for her. A flash of the middle-aged couple who’d been her in-laws leapt into her mind. Their extreme awkwardness with her, their clear disapproval. The brief thaw when she’d birthed them a grandchild. Their grief-filled rage when Josh had died. They only lived on the road over to Silverbloom but neither she nor Tilly had heard from them since the week of the funeral.

She blinked and Giovanni was leading them all up the stairs saying something about wine already.

“You’ll have to excuse him,” came a woman’s voice. Lara looked up to see Ollie’s mother was pushing her way out the screen door. “He gets like this around beautiful women. All blah blah blah.” She met first Sadie’s and then Lara’s eyes. “I’ll get rid of him, don’t worry.”

Lara barely had a chance to smile before she got the same double cheek kiss treatment from the woman Ollie introduced as Francesca. She was entirely unpretentious - greying hair, wrinkles, a comfortably fitting floral frock - and quite adamantly beautiful. It was clear from which parent Ollie got her dark soulful eyes.

Inside the house was packed full of furniture, big couches, sideboards, fresh cut flowers, piles of books, comfortable clutter, framed family photos everywhere. Francesca Gabrielli kept up a comfortable patter as Lara paused in front of a photo of what was unmistakably a pre-teen Ollie, toothy smile too big for her face, late nineties hair, NSYNC t-shirt. She turned and smirked at the woman following behind her, sarcastically mouthing the word cute .

Ollie rolled her eyes, grabbing Lara’s elbow and dragging her quickly past it, shooting her a dirty look before dropping her warm fingers from her skin. Lara realised Francesca was watching the interaction and she straightened her spine, wishing she could just remember to be nice for once in her life. She really didn’t want this soft-eyed older woman to remember it was nasty Lara Bennett she’d let into her lovely home.

“Can I help with anything?” Lara looked toward the big open kitchen, oven going, pots boiling on the stove, a mouth-watering scent in the air. Ollie’s older sister - Pia, she remembered her vaguely, a tall, excruciatingly pretty final year student when Lara was starting high school - was doing something complicated with pastry, a baby bump so large she could hardly reach the bench.

“Hi!” She gave them a distracted nod accompanied by a warm smile. “I’ll come greet you properly when head chef here lets me go,” she rolled her eyes toward her mother who was already bustling towards the food.

“Oh, you’re a darling,” Francesca called back to Lara, ignoring her eldest daughter. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Stop mooching like a lost puppy, Viola, and go pour your guests some wine.”

Ollie gave an identical eye roll to her sister’s but led them out the living room door and into the open air. They stepped out onto a broad wooden deck filled with laughter and voices and Lara teetered for a second in the doorway, desperately wishing she could flee back to the safety of the warm kitchen.

Before them was a mammoth wooden table, already set for dinner, covered in bowls of salads and fresh bread, approximately a thousand wineglasses, and seated with several more good-looking humans. A small hoard of children ran by, her own included, with an ecstatic dachshund thundering at their heels. There was a sleepy-cheeked toddler snuggled against the chest of a woman Lara immediately realised was Natasha Gabrielli.

For a second, silence grew, as several sets of eyes just looked at them. Ollie made introductions. There was Matty, a bit of a legend amongst the community - especially the women - when she’d been in school, all thick football playing limbs and strong masculine jaw; Nico, more wiry, like his dad, lazily attractive stubble and liquid dark eyes; James Mackey, Pia’s husband and the odd one out at the table with his light skin and decidedly ginger hair; Natasha, with her big grey eyes and wary expression.

Sadie and Lara nodded polite hellos. Suddenly, there was movement as Matty got to his feet, his grin wide and easy. The others followed his lead instantly and the two women found themselves in a swarm of handshakes and hugs and more damn cheek kisses. Lara didn’t generally like being touched by strangers - in particular men - but she made herself tolerate it. Apparently the Gabriellis were a tactile bunch; she had to admit a part of her felt intensely warmed at the greeting.

Natasha was the last one to reach her. To her surprise the woman pulled her in for a hug too, light and tentative.

“Welcome,” she said simply. When she pulled back she looked deeply uncertain and Lara realised she appeared slightly frightened of her, like she might bite her rather than just say hello. Usually this knowledge would give her a little quiver of power. Tonight, it just gave her a slight pang.

“Thank you,” she said back softly, making sure to smile. Natasha smiled too, also seeming slightly surprised. Bloody hell, this town.

“Merlot?” offered Matty, bottle already in hand.

“Actually,” interrupted Ollie, “Lara likes our chardonnay,” she said, with a sly grin. Her hand reached over her brother’s to pour from another bottle. “She’s basically obsessed with it.”

She handed the glass over to Lara who shook her head at the ridiculousness of Ollie Gabrielli pretending to know anything about her, even as she grudgingly accepted what she knew from the last bonfire night to be exceptionally good wine.

“Good to know.” Matty gave his sister a sideways look.

“None for me,” Sadie put her hand up to stop the offered bottle. “I’m sober driver.”

“Are you sure?” Nico spoke up for the first time. “I mean, I can drop you all back if you want. I’ll stop drinking right now.”

“Um, I’m good.” Sadie eyed him warily. He nodded and didn’t push.

Ollie guided them both to chairs and took her own seat - not next to Lara, just as she’d promised, but opposite her - smirking a little across the table when Lara looked up.

“So,” started Matty. God, what the hell were they going to talk about? “How’s business?” he asked. Sadie and Lara exchanged glances. Sadie grew bush tucker plants for nurseries right across the Sunshine Coast but her business was as under the Ribbonwood radar as it was successful. Lara ran the most hated business in town.

“It’s good,” she said lightly, taking a sip of her wine. “Being the devil incarnate is really working out for me.”

There was a brief silence. Then Matty snorted. Just as if they’d all been given permission, suddenly everyone fell into raucous laughter. Any lingering tension around the table melted into the darkening sky. Ollie caught her eye and smiled widely, giving her a small toast from across the table. Lara made herself look away as if she didn’t remotely care.

Francesca pushed through the doors with a steaming platter in her hands, followed by her eldest daughter with another. Nico leapt to his feet .

“Sit down, Mama,” he said. Ollie’s head jerked up, clear befuddlement on her features. “Jimmy, christ, look at your wife, come on, help me serve up.”

James looked suitably chastened though his wife sent him a look of solid amusement as he pulled out a chair for her. Lara wasn’t sure what the deal was, as Matty and Ollie exchanged glances until the eldest Gabrielli looked over at Sadie and grinned broadly.

“You should come over more often,” he said, “if it makes him get off his lazy arse.”

“Shh!” Francesca hushed him. “You’ll make the girl uncomfortable and then she’ll leave!”

Sadie just laughed out loud, her dark eyes sparkling as her grin flashed. Everyone watched Nico as he returned, presenting the last platter and a pile of serving implements like he’d felled a deer for them all.

“What?” he asked, when he felt the eyes on him.

“Nothing,” Matty said innocently. “We’re all just enjoying the view of a man being whipped by a woman who hasn’t even looked at him twice. ”

Nico went slightly pink, and by the look on his face as he opened his mouth to retort, was about to drop something truly vile when the screen door creaked again. He shot over to hold it open for his father, who was pushing a wheelchair. Inside it was the tiniest, frailest woman Lara had ever seen.

“Mama,” Giovanni said, “Sadie and Lara. They’re Ollie’s friends from school,” he introduced her, slowly wheeling her so she could see the guests. “Alessandra Gabrielli,” he told them, “but you can call her Nonna.”

Nonna nodded at them seriously as her son guided her to the table. Being introduced as school friends made Lara feel approximately eight years old. She found she quite liked it.

She imagined an alternate universe where the last two years of high school hadn’t happened and her childhood had simply continued on, in a series of class parties, girl alliances and invites home. She wondered whether there was a world in which she, Sadie and Ollie could have been friends, instead of three separate teenage girls, all navigating the darker elements of life in Ribbonwood without each other. She swallowed the lump in her throat and pretended she couldn’t feel the youngest Gabrielli’s eyes burning against her skin.