Chapter 26 - THE VOTE LUCA COULD NOT BUY
Luca asked me to come to a concert on the evening his company board was scheduled to vote on a major transport lease. I assumed he would cancel when the agenda expanded to include the disputed auction collection and the Mason Slip claims process. Instead he called to say he could be late, not that I should wait for him indefinitely.
"If I'm not there by seven, go inside," he said. "Your ticket is yours."
I appreciated the distinction. He had bought two inexpensive seats through the public box office, and he had asked before paying. My wages could cover my own ticket, so I transferred him the cost. We were still awkward about money sometimes, but the awkwardness felt preferable to pretending the difference between our finances didn't exist.
At the board meeting, according to the public notice later released, a director proposed accelerating the sale of several waterfront holdings to compensate for remediation costs. The list included an old repair shed that community groups hoped to preserve as a workshop. The director argued that the company wasn't a museum and couldn't carry every historical burden forever. Leah responded in a written submission that a sale without enforceable protections could undo the work begun by the settlement.
I heard about the disagreement from Bianca, who called to ask whether Luca was likely to arrive at the concert. She knew only that he had been at the office since early morning. I said I didn't know. She offered to join me if he couldn't come, and I accepted. The thought of sitting alone in a crowded hall had made me unexpectedly nervous, but I didn't want to treat my own evening as something that belonged to his calendar.
Bianca arrived wearing a bright red coat and carrying two paper cups of hot chocolate. We found our seats and talked quietly until the musicians appeared. The program included a string quartet and a short piece by a young local composer. Bianca told me she'd helped the composer volunteer at a children's clinic and that he was more nervous about speaking to an audience than performing his music.
Halfway through the second piece, Luca slipped into the empty seat beside me. He had removed his tie, and his hair looked as if he'd been running his hands through it for hours. He didn't whisper an explanation. He sat still and listened. At the interval he apologized for being late, then asked what I'd thought of the music.
"The last movement sounded like somebody trying to find a door in the dark," I said.
Bianca smiled. "You always turn everything into a story."
"That's because I'm hopeless with technical musical terms."
After the concert Luca told us the board had approved a revised proposal. Rather than sell the repair shed immediately, the company would commission an independent valuation and consider a long-term lease to a community organization if one could demonstrate a viable operating plan. Some directors had opposed the compromise. Others wanted a faster decision. Luca had voted for the review and agreed to disclose the company's financial assumptions to the oversight committee.
"Did your vote decide it?" Bianca asked.
"No. Two directors who usually disagree with me supported the amendment. The chair made sure the vote was recorded individually."
She nodded approvingly. "Good. A family business should be able to survive a family member being outvoted."
We walked to a late diner. Luca ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and seemed relieved that no one at the next table recognized him. I asked how he felt about losing the ability to settle everything by command. He said he sometimes missed the simplicity but not the harm it caused.
"There's a difference between having influence and having the final word," he said. "I didn't understand that when I inherited the company."
"I think I did," I answered. "I just didn't expect you to agree with me."
Bianca laughed. "You two are exhausting. Eat your sandwiches."
The next week a community group led by Leah began developing a proposal for the repair shed. Aria was asked whether she would consider teaching occasional workshops if the building could be made safe and accessible. She said yes in principle but wanted to see the operating budget, insurance arrangements, and safety inspection first. I admired how she could remain hopeful without volunteering herself into an unpaid obligation.
Nina Morales asked whether apprentices might be allowed to use the space. Leah said that was one possibility, but the committee needed input from residents who wanted other activities: bicycle repair, textile mending, tool lending, and a place to document neighborhood history. The shed could not become a monument to one craft at the expense of everyone else.
I attended a planning meeting after work. A young man named Jonah Pike, whose father had maintained ferry engines, presented sketches for modular worktables. An older woman wanted a quiet area where people could repair clothing without the noise of power tools. Another resident asked how visitors who used wheelchairs would reach the building from the bus stop. The current route had a broken curb and a narrow gate. The questions grew faster than the budget.
Leah wrote them all down. "We can't promise everything," she said. "But we can stop pretending the missing parts don't exist."
Later I told Luca what I'd heard at the public meeting. He said the company was prepared to fund a feasibility study, provided the community group chose its own consultant. I asked whether that commitment was documented. He smiled and said Leah had asked the same question before lunch.
"She sounds like somebody I would hire," he joked.
"She'd make you sign a better contract."
"Probably."
That evening Mom and I reviewed my appraisal-course budget. The fee was manageable, but travel and materials would cost more than I'd expected. She offered to contribute from her repair earnings. I thanked her and said I wanted to pay most of it myself. She didn't insist. We worked out a plan that left room for emergencies, and I felt the quiet pleasure of making a decision with numbers I understood.
At Aria's shop, the auction dispute moved forward slowly. The consignor accepted a mediation process for the disputed objects, but the participants had not agreed on a final resolution. Dr. Kim continued verifying provenance. Victor Hale's letter from Clara had been authenticated as consistent with its period and materials, though questions remained about the corporate design license. The revised catalogue remained public.
One afternoon I found Luca standing outside the shop looking at the florist's window. He'd bought a small potted plant, not flowers, and held it awkwardly as if it were a fragile machine. He said it was for Mom's kitchen sill. I asked whether he was trying to replace the basil he'd killed.
"This is mint," he said. "The florist claims it is difficult to destroy."
"She hasn't seen your kitchen."
He laughed. We walked to Mom's apartment together, passing people who had no idea who Luca was and others who recognized him but kept walking. For once I didn't feel the need to explain our relationship to either group.
At the door he stopped. "Emma, I want to ask something."
I waited.
"Would you like us to make plans that go farther than next Friday? Not a promise about marriage or moving. Just a conversation about where we see ourselves a year from now."
My heart beat faster. I thought about the tiny savings account I had begun, my workbench at Aria's, and the feelings I was still learning to trust. Then I thought about a board meeting in which Luca could lose a vote and still choose to come sit beside me in a concert hall.
"Yes," I said. "A conversation. No decisions made for me before I arrive."
"Agreed."
We went inside. Mom was waiting with tea, and Luca held out the mint plant like an offering to an extremely demanding judge. She inspected it, nodded, and told him he was making progress. I looked at them both and felt something steady take shape: not certainty about the future, but enough trust to discuss it without pretending either of us owned the answer.
May you like
After the conversation about the future, I sat with my own calendar and marked the dates that mattered to me: course deadlines, work shifts, Mom's cooperative events, and an afternoon I'd promised to spend with Mrs. Alvarez. Then I sent Luca the weekends I was free. He replied with his availability and no attempt to move mine. I studied the two lists, smiling at how unromantic they looked. Yet there was tenderness in asking what a person had already chosen before inviting them into a new plan. The life I wanted with him would require dozens of small agreements like that, not one grand decision made under expensive lights.
I could feel an old instinct urging me to apologize merely for being present. I let the feeling pass without allowing it to determine what I said. Once, while cleaning a scratched pendant, I'd discovered that the scratches formed part of an inscription. I hadn't touched them further until the owner could decide what preservation meant. When people disagreed, I reminded myself that their needs didn't become less real merely because they were difficult to fit into one budget. An honest plan could name the conflict. Later I would remember the hesitation more clearly than the confident sentences. It was the moment someone had made room for uncertainty instead of disguising it.
