Black Diamonds for a Red Valentine

A way to get away from herself was to walk to the FAO building early, as early as seven thirty and go up to the rooftop café, where in addition to a wonderful café latte she would have the most incredible view of Rome with the Circus Maximus on her left, the Colosseum and the whole of the ancient Apennine structures in front of her, and the Terme di Caracalla to her right, a true feast for the eyes and the mind, grasping a glorious past while working for an uncertain but, hopefully, better future.

Being so early she could always count on a good seat and, sipping her aromatic, strong but milky coffee, try to understand the articles in the Messagero. The three years of Latin that she had taken in high school and her French served her well. In addition, she had the good idea of asking her Italian assistants for any primary school books that they might spare, especially those from the first and second grades.

She was making enormous progress, speaking and understanding more Italian in the just over four months she had been in Rome, than Thomas Gardner, her boss, had managed in over the twenty-seven years he had spent in Italy, all of them in the organization in Rome.

“Ancora un café latte?” the bartender asked.

“Come sempre…as always,” Cleo answered.

More than a week had passed since she had torn Lars from her heart, and she was miserable. It took her all the strength she had to be the ‘gocce di sole’, the sunshine, her staff had started calling her.

Having come back from vacation with his elderly mother, Alessandro had wanted to take her to the sea for the weekend, but she had found a way to excuse herself, pleading a headache from her time of the month. Both were true but would not have prevented her from going were it not for her broken spirit.

“Fai finto di leggere. You are pretending to read,” she suddenly heard.

Alessandro? It could not be. How could he get in? He was not staff or a visiting expert.

But there he was!

“I’m not pretending,” she exclaimed. “How did you…”

“Get in?”

“Yes.”

“My secret,” he smiled, took her hand and brought it to his lips, then sat down in the empty chair by her table. “I see coffee with milk. Per me, un espresso,” he told the bartender.

He kept looking at her even as he drank his small, intense cup. “I have something for you,” he said and brought out a tiny box from his inner suit pocket and held it before her, then slowly opened it. A big, bold, almost signet like ring glowered at her, with eight, even, dark outer sparkles in a square around four tiny white diamonds surrounding a central stone.

“I knew you thought I couldn’t do it, but I did. Of course, it is not one stone but nine stones, with what the designer insisted to make it suitable for a lady, the four small normal diamonds.”

Cleo looked on, incredulous. The barman stopped working. The only other person there, another staff member, sitting two tables over to the side, was stretching his neck.

Alessandro went back to his inner pocket and brought out another tiny box and opened it. The ring also had nine dark stones but instead of the four white diamonds had a more massive platinum base.

“So, cara mia, shall I put yours on your finger, and you put mine on mine?”

Cleo broke out laughing. “You managed! I cannot believe it!”

The audience of two was even more attentive.

“Per te, tutto,…for you everything,” he laughed back and took her hand. Carefully, he slipped the ring on her finger and held out his hand.

Cleo took a deep breath, shook her head, and did the same. She, then, stretched her neck, expecting a kiss. Instead, he took both her hands and kissed them. She shook her head again and a tear came down her cheek.

“Of joy, I hope,” he whispered and winked.

“Surprise,” she barely managed to whisper back.

“Auguri, congratulations!” they heard from the bartender, whose delft fingers just popped the cork of a Dom Perignon. “I don’t think we have ever had this happen here!” he almost shouted in Italian.