Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone

Author:Silvia Avallone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

• • •

They looked everywhere for them.

Alessio was out of his mind, furious, shouting: “Where the fuck is she?”

He was especially pissed off at Sonia, who was supposed to have been keeping an eye on her. Meanwhile, Cristiano dialed and redialed Mattia’s cell phone number, and the phone kept repeating: “The number you have dialed is not in service.”

Alessio was acting like a lunatic. And he still hadn’t put two and two together.

It was one in the morning. The roller rink was emptying out.

Sonia kept telling Alessio to calm down, not to worry, that Anna was certainly somewhere nearby, that she’d show up any minute. But Alessio wasn’t calming down, he was shouting louder and louder.

“Francesca! Do you seriously mean to tell me that you didn’t see anything? For Chrissake, you guys were together!”

Francesca, sitting on the bench next to Lisa, barely deigned to shake her head no.

“I’ll go,” Massi said, as he got to his feet. “I’ll go take a look around in the pine grove.”

Aside from the fact that he couldn’t take Anna’s absence any longer, he was eager to make a good impression on Alessio, who, whatever else happened, even though he might be freaking out right now, was still the most highly respected young man in the quarter of Via Stalingrado.

“In the pine grove? What the fuck would she be doing in the pine grove? If something happened to her . . . If somebody touched a hair on her head, I swear . . .”

He never finished the sentence. Anna emerged from the trees, her hair all mussed, a big smile on her face. As if nothing at all had happened, as if her clothes weren’t all rumpled and askew.

She said: “Don’t swear, I’m alive.”

Right behind her was . . .

Everyone fell silent.

Anna was smiling.

Alessio wasn’t smiling.

Mattia, who had been smiling, wasn’t smiling anymore.

From the bench, Lisa was starting to understand a few things. Nino decided that now a brawl might be about to break out, and he was on Alessio’s side, without a doubt. Massimo finally had the confirmation that Anna was never going to be his girlfriend. Sonia, Maria, and Jessica decided that Anna had really put her foot in it this time, and that at the same time, she had gotten away with something big. Cristiano, aghast, said only: “Shit.”

“Is there something you want to tell me, Mattia?”

Alessio’s tone of voice was unmistakable. As was his face, actually.

Mattia, with great dignity, replied: “Not here. Let’s get in the car.”

And he walked on ahead toward the Peugeot.

No one breathed. There were even a few people who pretended to look away.

As Mattia walked off, Alessio made a gesture to Cristiano as if to stay: You stay here. He’d be walking home again. But he lacked the courage to object.

Alessio started walking toward the car, then he suddenly turned and looked back at Anna.

“You,” he decreed, “go home now, and wait up for me until I get back. Understood?”

Anna didn’t blink an eye.

“UNDERSTOOD” he roared.

Anna nodded yes.

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