“I’m actually in my office. I’ll come out and meet your wife. Meet me in the lobby.”
Like everything else about the hotel, the lobby was luxurious, decorated in dark gold and brown leather. Moments later, Virgil Li appeared, his tall, frame weaving in and out of guest and staff traffic with the practiced ease of the lean-muscled football player he’d been in college. He came forward with his hand outstretched. Santino had first met him at a memorable weekend party thrown by his cousins in the Hamptons on Long Island some time ago, back in the pre-Vanessa days. They’d kept in touch. Handsome, friendly, outgoing, like most of the Lis, Virgil was a good guy.
“Good to see you, man,” he said, greeting Santino with a handshake and half hug, then shaking Vanessa’s hand, who smiled back. “Hello. I’m Virgil Li. You must be Vanessa.”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” she said in return.
Virgil’s gaze turned searching from one face to another. “How’s the room? Is everything to your liking? Sorry I couldn’t get you the bigger suite, but with the festival, we were lucky to get that cancellation.”
“Are you kidding? The room is amazing,” Santino exclaimed. “And the food’s been great, too. We couldn’t have asked for better.”
“Good to hear,” Virgil said, relaxing into a pleased expression. “How’s the family? How’s Nonno?”
“Nonno’s great. He’s got his Manager by his side for the summer, so he’s happy,” Santino said with a grin, referring to Nico.
“Cool. I’ll be heading out to visit our property in Milan in July. Parma’s not that far. I’ll stop by and pay them a visit. In the meantime, I hope you’re ready to party Wednesday night. Go check out the front desk. There’s a package waiting for you,” Virgil said in a low voice, peering around as if there was a horde of guests who’d get to them first.
Santino shook his hand again. “Thanks for everything, man. Appreciate it.”
“No problem. Anything for a D’Alessio. Sorry,” Virgil said, flicking his wrist to check the time. “I’ve gotta run. Enjoy the concerts, and I’ll text you my address for that after-party. Have fun, guys. Vanessa, it was lovely to meet you.” He flashed them a brilliant smile and disappeared as swiftly as he’d come.
“What after-party?” Vanessa asked.
“He throws a little something at his house after the big headliner concert when most of his friends and work people are in town. Heard about them but I’ve never been to one. They sound cool. When I texted him last night and mentioned Bobby and Zoe, he said they’re invited, too.”
At the front desk, the smiling attendant handed him a manila envelope when he told her his name. Santino checked the contents but kept the information to himself while Vanessa tried to look.
“Let’s put these in the safe upstairs, then we can head out.”
After the envelope and its contents were deposited in the room safe, they left the hotel and headed for Chinatown. It was tiny but Vanessa loved it from the red paper lanterns strung up in an outdoor dining area to the glimpses of old lacquered wood in the restaurants. After partaking of some delicious dim sum and hot mint tea, they strolled the dark cobblestones to Notre-Dame Basilica, whose twin towers of gray stone rose high in the air.
“Not as tall as St. Pat’s,” Santino remarked on the way inside.
“Oh God, please don’t start yelling that we’re from New York,” she said with a light laugh.
“How else are they gonna know? We’ve gotta represent, baby.”
She pointed at his FDNY shirt. “I think between that and your Tims, they can figure it out.”
The interior was still a sight, with the main altar rising majestically to a high arch with soothing blue stained glass that resembled a golden sunrise. The place was smoky and sweet with incense and lit up with the glow of votive candles in crimson holders.
“I love those,” Vanessa whispered, pointing at the rose windows in the blue ceiling letting in natural light. There were tiny fleurs-de-lis etched into the designs of the skylights, letting a viewer know this was of French origin. “And it’s nice they acknowledged the full history of Montreal, like that lady at the shop was telling us about.” Sure enough, alongside the stained-glass depictions of French settlers, there was an Indigenous woman standing in front of a village.
The next light show started soon, so they settled into a wooden pew and watched. The show detailed the settlement of the colony and the building of the church, along with music and colorful flashes of light. During the performance, he felt his phone ring in his pocket, but he didn’t look at it until the show was over and they were back outside.
He didn’t recognize the number. Vanessa glanced at the phone but didn’t say anything.
“Well, that was cool. Did you like it?” he asked as they started walking again.
“Yes. It was really pretty. But I guess we’ve seen a bunch of pretty cathedrals,” she replied.
“Yeah. We never had our big church wedding like we were supposed to,” he said thoughtfully. “It bothers me we never made it happen.”
Santino had been telling her he loved her and wanted to marry her pretty regularly after month one, but when he showed up one day with a ring and first-class tickets to Aruba in month two, she was still surprised. They’d already gotten flak from his mom and hers because of his “tender age” so they decided to go for it somewhere without judgment, where they could celebrate their union freely without warnings of doom and catastrophe.
They’d shared the news later, at the villa in Italy during San Gennaro a month after the marriage, where Nonno and Gina had thrown them a big party, ignoring Lina’s simmering anger the whole time. There was always a plan to have a bigger, proper wedding sometime down the line, but it never happened.
Vanessa shrugged it off. “It would have ended up being a big waste of money since we didn’t stay together, so it’s cool. I flew out of town to a wedding once, paid my own flight and hotel. When they broke up less than two years later, I was so annoyed. I was about to ask for my money back.”
