That Italian Man
“Uncle Elmo!” The heavily mustached man turned around only to be smothered with hugs from an excited female. It took all of 5 minutes to extract the arms and the bags. Passersby were amused at the scene where a huge man was being hugged tightly by a young and frail-looking girl who shouldn’t be impossibly strong to entangle him.
“Bo. Nee. Ta, I can’t. Breathe!” Elmo managed to extricate himself from the entangling mess. As usual, his favourite niece was so enthusiastic that she was carrying her mass number of bags and throwing herself at him without removing the strings and knots.
“I’m so excited to be finally here! ITALY!” she shouted at the last word. Elmo cringed. She was in her element, excitement often made her unaware of her surroundings. Sighing, he picked up her largest suitcase wondering what on earth was inside her bags. The luggage fees hadn’t deterred her from bringing almost her whole room during her travels.
They proceeded towards the parking lot to his car. During the ride, Bonita was so animated about the wedding that she would be attending and the life back home. It was unfortunate that her parents were engaged in an important business negotiation that they couldn’t make it for the wedding. Elmo smiled quietly, she was her usual talkative self.
“So, Uncle Elmo, who is the lucky bride?”
“Her name’s Flora and she just graduated from Cambridge a few weeks ago.”
“Wow! What did she major in?”
“History. She mentioned something about wanting to know more about what happened and why things are the way they are now.”
“How interesting.” From the tone, Elmo knew she wasn’t interested in history. Bonita never was. She was of the Natural Sciences type. He wondered if the two girls would be able to get along during Bonita’s stay. He hoped he could let Bonita explore Rome, Venice and Florence since the wedding was still 3 days away.
After washing up at her uncle’s place, Bonita announced that she wanted to explore the streets. Elmo nodded and went off to busy himself with the wedding stuff. Bonita decided that taking the public transport would be too much since she wasn’t going to wander off too far.
With a map and her trusty camera in her hand, she was off on her own adventure. The cobblestones fascinated her and she took various angles of them. Since she was interested in visiting Basilica di San Francesco, she went off to the place as her first place of interest.
The ruins fascinated her further. The history was sad as quite a number of people were executed there until the 13th century. Busy with her phototaking, Bonita slipped on a loose stone. At that moment, she felt someone holding her and breathed in the strong masculine smell. Heady from the smell, she nearly fainted.
“Signorina, alright?”
Stabling herself, Bonita regained composure and looked at her saviour. He was swoon-worthy. His deep-set eyes and incredibly hazel brown eyes were captivating her. He was talking to her.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m alright now,” Bonita finally replied. She smiled at him. “Grazie.”
He grinned showing off his perfect set of white teeth. Bonita was in love. She had never met such a perfect man that was charming her. Regaining herself, she bowed and left reluctantly as she didn’t want to be late for dinner. Uncle Elmo would be worried.
Throughout her solo visits to other parts of Italy, Bonita was hoping against hope that she would see him again but to her dismay, he wasn’t in sight. On the wedding day, she finally met Flora, the wife of her cousin. She was a lovely woman and Bonita realised that those who studied history needn’t be boring either. They chatted happily away just before the bride was to be wedded officially.
That was when Bonita saw that Italian man again. He was in a suit and strode purposefully towards her cousin. Wanting to know his name, Bonita crept towards them. “Orlando!” Her cousin was saying. The rest were in Italian that she couldn’t pick up as she was bad in learning new languages.
Knowing his name made her feel closer to him a little. After the solemnisation, everyone went towards the buffet table. In her attempts to find a table, she bumped into Orlando. “Ah, signorina. We meet again.” He was flashing his pearly whites at her again.
Bonita smiled demurely not wanting to give herself away. “It’s nice to see you again, signor. I see that you are my cousin’s friend.”
“Si, we have been best friends since high school. I’m very happy to see that he is now marrying a wonderful woman.”
The both of them found a table and started to chat away. After the wedding had ended, Orlando proposed that he take Bonita around as most of the Italians prefer speaking Italian to English. Bonita was delighted and accepted his offer.
Spending 3 days with Orlando was pure pleasure for her and she was happy to be accompanied by him. They went to The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Grand Canal and The Uffizi. They took countless photographs of each other and together.
On the 3rd day, Orlando seemed gloomy. Sensing his sad vibes, Bonita was at a loss as she didn’t know him well enough to intrude on his personal thoughts. However, during dinner, Orlando spoke his thoughts. Floored, Bonita was at a loss on how to reply at first.
“Married?” was all she could utter. He nodded sadly.
“Don’t you have to accompany your wife or something?”
“It’s like this, the day I met you at the Paradise Hill, I like you. It was like the first time I saw my wife, my heart was on fire and I wanted to see you again. I was so happy that you are Carlo’s cousin that I wanted to see you more.
After the 3 days with you, I realised that I still love my wife. I haven’t seen her for a week now.”
“Did you quarrel? I’m sure it can be solved easily.”
“Well, it’s like this, she saw me with my arm around another lady.”
Bonita was speechless. She never knew that this handsome and trustworthy looking man was capable of being such a Casanova. Perhaps men who had his looks tend to have such a behaviour. She told him sternly that he had to keep his hands only on his precious wife if he loved her that much.
Relationships can be thrilling and passionate if they put in the effort together. A marriage was to be kept sacred and renewing the wedding vows should help them remember why they got married in the first place. They ended the day with Bonita reminding him to get some flowers and gift for his wife.
Orlando seemed to walk with a lilt in his strides. She smiled. That Italian man had made her stay in Italy more exciting and she didn’t regret it.
[Entry to Tiger Airways contest. Share your holidays here.]
