Page 41 of Giovanna
Chapter Seventeen
Francesca
For the first time since we were so rudely snatched from our kitschy flat in Chelsea a couple of months ago, I feel genuinely happy. It is no coincidence that it is the first chance Massimo and I have had to escape the clutches of our deranged families and just hang out like we used to.
My friend Sammy from work is joining us. She and Massi have been getting on just like I knew they would.
We’ve only worked together at the Strive gym near the Marino house for about six weeks, but she is the only person in my life not trying to push me into something or manipulating me into doing ‘what is best for the Family’. Even Massi is a Marino first and foremost.
Sammy’s sleek brown hair is always in a ponytail and 90% of her wardrobe is sports bras and exercise leggings. She wears only minimal makeup, but her face is stunning and feminine nonetheless.
Almond-shaped green eyes, a button nose complete with a smattering of freckles, and rosebud cheeks give her an angelic appearance, but having spent many hours at work with her talking shit, I can attest that she is no angel.
Funnily enough, people seem to assume she’s gay because she’s a complete tomboy, but when I asked she confessed that she was “unfortunately strictly dickly”. She’s gorgeous and I think I could be attracted to her, but the gravitational pull I feel towards Giovanna makes it difficult to even see other women. There’s only room for her and there has only ever been her.
Sammy is everything the people I spend my life with are not. She is unpretentious, quick to smile, and, most significantly, unaffiliated with the mafia. Although I guess her friendship with me probably puts her on some mafia affiliate watchlist somewhere.
She is beautiful. Her Maori heritage gives her light toffee skin which provides a striking contrast to her green eyes. She calls herself a ‘Mozzie’ - a Maori Aussie. Born in New Zealand, her parents immigrated here when she was a toddler and she speaks with cultural and vernacular influences from both sides of the Tasman Sea.
Her positive attitude doesn’t mean she shies away from standing up for herself and others though and to be quite honest, I am a bit nervous about her ever being around Elio. As the only neutral person in my life, I have shared with her a curated version of Elio and my story, and let’s just say she is less than impressed with his treatment of me.
Sammy should keep a notebook of all the creative names she has come up with to refer to Elio. Just yesterday she came up with ‘Deadshit Douchebagette Ball-bagging Motherfucker’. Whatever that means.
After weeks of enforced dating with Elio - the Deadshit Douchebagette Ballbagging Motherfucker - throughout which I have resolutely refused to reenter his bedroom nor let him in my pants in any other room, we are no closer to wanting to marry each other. We have had some entertaining dinners and fun going out to the clubs, but he has made no attempts to even hide his continuing philandering with any and every woman he fancies. Monogamy is not in our future. Fucking ball-bagging motherfucker.
My future appears to centre around a miserable marriage in which I won’t even have my husband’s affections to myself during the honeymoon period and the thought of it all has triggered several panic attacks.
The first meltdown was after a nice date with Elio was spoiled in classic fashion when two women were waiting for him when we arrived home. We both knew that I wouldn’t be putting out for him as I made the mistake of doing after our first date, but for him to have his booty calls waiting at the house after our date was beyond insensitive. He could have dropped me home. He could have snuck them in later. Rude.
I was more angry at my pathetic stuttering response. I allowed him to introduce them to me for goodness sake. To be fair I was in shock.
He’d sauntered off upstairs with his double act and I had been left standing alone in the echo-y open-plan living space. A silly girl in a slinky Michael Lo Sordo dress, ditched after dinner.
My breath had caught in my throat and I just couldn’t dislodge the lump that settled there. When Giovanna happened to pop downstairs to make a cup of peppermint tea she found me hunched over with my hands on my knees, panting like a dog left in a hot car. She talked me into deep breathing and sat with me on the floor for over an hour chatting to calm me down.
The second panic attack hit in the middle of a particularly painful Marino and Rossi family dinner. Massimo sat opposite me and I watched the concern on his face grow as our parents talked about my wedding, when I should get pregnant, and whether I should work. Massi mouthed words of support at me, but listening to them droning on was like acid dripping down my spine.
From the head of the table, Giovanna tried to show me with her hands that I needed to slow my breaths. She could recognise the onset of panic by now.
This time when my breathing seized I knew I had to get out of there. I stood and walked out of the glass backdoors at the Marino house and strode into the pool ruining another of my mother’s dresses. Massimo landed in the pool moments later and kept me company as I got my breath under control.
Through the open door, I heard my parents discussing my “attention-seeking behaviour” and I yearned to hear Giovanna’s voice cutting them down, but it never came.
Sick of everyone’s shit and in need of some escapism, I was excited to throw on a bikini, little linen shorts, and sunnies and slide into Massimo’s Range Rover for a day at the beach.
We are heading across town to Bondi Beach, picking up Sammy on the way, and although it is early, on a sunny day like this we will be joined by half of Sydney.
The windows are down, the warm wind whips my hair, and I’m reclining back in the front passenger seat with my tangerine-painted toes up on the dash. Massi is showing his Adonis rig off in just a pair of boardies that reach his mid-thigh and in true Aussie fashion, he picked up iced coffees for us all on the way, barefoot and shirtless.
We are all smiles as we belt out the cheesy Top 40 hits blasting from his sound system. “Gimme a song, Massi!” I shout.
“K,” he thinks for a moment and then tells me to put onHoly Waterby Noah Davis.
I’m surprised because the song is about coming out and dealing with homophobia, but Massi came out ages ago and his family is fine with him being gay. I contemplate asking him about it, but his furrowed brow tells me that maybe he’d prefer not to discuss it. Now is not the time to deep it.
“Do you guys want to learn to surf with me?” Massi suddenly shouts above the music.
“Today?!” I exclaim.