produces a knitted sweater in all the colors of the rainbow.
“All the different peoples,” she explains, “are all the different colors.” She stands awkwardly when she’s finished. She did so great, though. I’d tell her that, but I’m afraid my voice would crack.
I’m honestly touched, and dangerously close to shedding a tear. I take the sweater, then walk around the table, crushing her in a hug.
“I will miss you,” I whisper. “You better take care of yourself.”
The other students laugh as I tear off the hoodie I’m wearing and pull the sweater on. I feel like a moody teenager; the arms are just a little too long, coming up around my fingers.
“Okay,” I say. The Italians keep scribbling. “Let’s get started.”
The class is the best we’ve had in a long time, mostly because the Italian crew is completely silent. I nearly lose it when one man, a notable nick of a scar under his lip, raises his hand to ask to use the bathroom. I just shake my head in disbelief, and then have to turn it into a nod to let him know it’s okay. Max and Johnny, toward the end, talk in mostly unbroken English about their favorite soccer teams. Lucille regales us with stories about her sprawling family.
It’s a big, big win for us.
Maybe I should be grateful. But I can feel Carlo’s presence like the man himself is in the room, smirking at me. There’s just something so entitled about it, like he thinks he can just wave a magic wand and remake the world in his image. Like he’s God. And on the fourth day, Carlo De Maggio made Hazel’s life just that much more tolerable. I know he’s expecting me to gush with gratitude.
As the class winds down, I give Sofiya another hug and then start to pack away my things. The Italians walk out single file, in step with one another like toy soldiers. It’d be hilarious if they weren’t deadly serious about their whole dog-and-pony show.
Lucille strolls over to the desk. “Am I dreaming, girl?” She cackles.
“Tell me about it.”
“They been orchestrated for sure.”
It’s true this time, and Carlo has done the “orchestrating.” Maybe he expects me to sing for him as a thank you. All too easily the memory of his hands on my hips resurfaces. I shiver.
“I’m missing that girl,” Lucille sighs. “She’s a good one.”
“She is,” I agree.
Lucille sighs, shrugging. “Well, I see you next time, cielito.”
I’m left in the classroom alone. I sit behind the desk, close my eyes, and see, on the insides of my eyelids, a Christmas Carol slideshow of past and present and possible future. I see a scared little girl and the woman I am now. Then I see a strong, self-possessed woman in a chef’s hat with a paintbrush in her hand.
Maybe that’s a little much—a hat and a brush at the same time? I mean, c’mon now. Maybe I want too much all at once. But a girl’s gotta dream, right?
I open my eyes, glad I have distracted myself from Carlo at least for a couple of minutes, and head out to the parking lot.
As I’m walking across the parking lot to my car, the sun setting and the sky painted in vivid orange, the man himself comes swaggering over as though I owe him a favor. The lot is deserted. I wonder where his car is. The Italians have already left.
“Hazel,” he says, stopping a few feet short of me. His lips are too tempting, and there’s a glint of a smile in his blue-green eyes. “I’m assuming the class went well?”
So he really came all the way down here just to gloat? If he’s such a big shot, shouldn’t he have like, I dunno, work to be doing?
I think about flinging some scathing barb back at him, but in the end, there’s nothing more final than just ducking my head and pretending he doesn’t exist. I completely blank him as I walk to my car.
As I pass, I catch a glimpse of his face, an annoyed tremor moving across it. I don’t want to feel the keen note of satisfaction that gives me. I don’t want to feel anything at all for him.
He’s stalking me like a lion. I feel his eyes on my ass, undressing me. I hate the tingle that moves up between my legs. Sensations are tap dancing obnoxiously through me and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. In the murky reflection of