Italy Is My Boyfriend by Annette Joseph

Author:Annette Joseph
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: N/A
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Strange Bedfellows, or

Screaming Italian-Style

The summer routine was pretty locked in after years of spending the season in Alassio. I went to the beach club, entertained guests and friends.

My friend Monica decided she wanted to open another home furnishings boutique in Saint-Tropez, France. Her daughter was about to graduate from interior design school in Milan, and, like all Italian mothers, she wanted her daughter to take over the family business. What better way to teach her about the business than having her help open a branch of her interior design business in France?

Monica had already been doing business on the French Riviera. The invasion of wealthy Russians had hit the coast hard and they were buying up properties as fast as they could. Of course, this meant that Monica and her assistant, my good friend Leo, spent lots of time schmoozing Russians—which to me sounded pretty awful. I had noticed an influx of Russian families at our own beach club. The Russians at our beach club tended to be loud and flashy and overbearing. My impression was not a good one. Monica, on the other hand, who gets along with everyone, found herself spending lots of time with her Russian clients. In fact, they monopolized her time.

One day, Monica thought it would be a great idea to take me to her Russian client’s project in Nice and show me around. We would then head to Saint-Tropez and spend the weekend. It sounded like a wonderful plan, and I was very curious about what she was doing at the project. So as I always did, I said yes. Her plan was to pick me up in the morning and we would drive to Nice and then Saint-Tropez. Sounded easy enough. I was waiting in front of our flat at 9:00 a.m. when she roared up. I noticed that she was not driving; she was seated in the back of her black Jeep SUV, which the Italians pronounce “soov.” Her driver was none other than the infamous ex-husband Nino. Nudo Nino would be driving us, but at least he was dressed today. I thought to myself, This should be interesting.

I hopped in and Monica yelled “Andiamo” and we sped off, bound for Nice. The music was blaring some euro techno as Monica explained the “project” to me in Italian. I gleaned 80 percent of what she said—enough to understand that is was a big project, hung off a cliff, and that money was no object.

“It sounds like a dream job,” I said.

“Well, not really,” she replied. “They are very difficult. They don’t pay me now. They pay me in the beginning, but now, no. I am not sure what to do. it is just difficult. You understand?”

“I think I understand, although he seems like a guy you would not want to piss off,” I said. I had met the man and his wife at a dinner party Monica threw a few weeks before, and had been very unimpressed with them. He seemed more like a thug than a businessman.

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