Lessons Learned

said with a grin. “She wanted a husband, and though I couldn’t accommodate her, we parted friends.” He held up the bottle as proof.
    “Did you have it analyzed before you drank any?” Gina asked dryly.
    He touched the rim of his glass to hers. “A clever man turns all former lovers into friends, Mama.”
    “You’ve always been clever.” With a small movement of hershoulders she sipped again and sat down. “I hear you’re seeing the French actress.”
    “As always, your hearing’s excellent.”
    As if it interested her, Gina studied the hue of the liqueur in her glass. “She is, of course, beautiful.”
    “Of course.”
    “I don’t think she’ll give me grandchildren.”
    Carlo laughed and sat beside her. “You have six grandchildren and another coming, Mama. Don’t be greedy.”
    “But none from my son. My only son,” she reminded him with a tap of her finger on his shoulder. “Still, I haven’t given you up yet.”
    “Perhaps if I could find a woman like you.”
    She shot him back arrogant look for arrogant look. “Impossible, caro. ”
    His feeling exactly, Carlo thought as he guided her into talk about his four sisters and their families. When he looked at this sleek, lovely woman, it was difficult to think of her as the mother who’d raised him, almost single-handedly. She’d worked, and though she’d been known to storm and rage, she’d never complained. Her clothes had been carefully mended, her floors meticulously scrubbed while his father had spent endless months at sea.
    When he concentrated, and he rarely did, Carlo could recall an impression of a dark, wiry man with a black mustache and an easy grin. The impression didn’t bring on resentment or even regret. His father had been a seaman before his parents had married, and a seaman he’d remained. Carlo’s belief in meeting your destiny was unwavering. But while his feelings forhis father were ambivalent, his feelings for his mother were set and strong.
    She’d supported each of her children’s ambitions, and when Carlo had earned a scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris and the opportunity to pursue his interest in haute cuisine, she’d let him go. Ultimately, she’d supplemented the meager income he could earn between studies with part of the insurance money she’d received when her husband had been lost in the sea he’d loved.
    Six years before, Carlo had been able to pay her back in his own way. The dress shop he’d bought for her birthday had been a lifelong dream for both of them. For him, it was a way of seeing his mother happy at last. For Gina it was a way to begin again.
    He’d grown up in a big, boisterous, emotional family. It gave him pleasure to look back and remember. A man who grows up in a family of women learns to understand them, appreciate them, admire them. Carlo knew about women’s dreams, their vanities, their insecurities. He never took a lover he didn’t have affection for as well as desire. If there was only desire, he knew there’d be no friendship at the end, only resentment. Even now, the comfortable affair he was having with the French actress was ending. She’d be starting a film in a few weeks, and he’d be going on tour in America. That, Carlo thought with some regret, would be that.
    “Carlo, you go to America soon?”
    “Hmm. Yes.” He wondered if she’d read his mind, knowing women were capable of doing so. “Two weeks.”
    “You’ll do me a favor?”
    “Of course.”
    “Then notice for me what the professional American woman is wearing. I’m thinking of adding some things to the shop. The Americans are so clever and practical.”
    “Not too practical, I hope.” He swirled his drink. “My publicist is a Ms. Trent.” Tipping back his glass, he accepted the heat and the punch. “I’ll promise you to study every aspect of her wardrobe.”
    She gave his quick grin a steady look. “You’re so good to me, Carlo.”
    “But of course, Mama. Now I’m going to feed you like a queen.”
     
    Carlo had no idea what Juliet Trent looked like, but put himself in the hands of fate. What he did know, from the letters he’d received from her, was that Juliet Trent was the type of American his mother had described. Practical and clever. Excellent qualities in a publicist.
    Physically was another matter. But again, as his mother had said, Carlo could always find beauty in a woman. Perhaps he did prefer, in his personal life, a woman with a lovely shell, but he knew how to