Flavia, who had looked at the time on her smartphone screen several times in the last five minutes, listened distractedly to what Fabrizio was telling her at the end of lunch.
«I'm leaving for Slovenia with the municipal official on the twenty-eighth, in the afternoon... Claudia, it's not nice to play with that thing at the table while I'm talking to you...»
«Sorry, dad! I have an urgent phone call to make» she said, getting up from her chair and going to hide in her own room, upstairs.
She dove belly-down on the bed, gripping the phone with both hands and her eyes glued to the screen. As she tried to swallow her impatience before it turned into anxiety, she saw the digital display change to indicate two thirty-two.
"Flavio is entering Nasoni's office. Now!" she thought and, sliding her sweaty fingers on the glass of the touch-screen, she started the call.
Cristina was about to leave the waiting room when she heard her phone ring with Flavia's ringtone.
«Hello!» she answered as she crossed the threshold.
«Hi Cri... how is it going?»
«I was just thinking about you... you won't believe who I just met!» Cristina announced as she headed for the stairs of the D.S. SEAD.
Flavia felt her heartbeats rise in her throat. She hoped only that, in that encounter, everything had gone as well as she remembered.
«Who? Who did you meet?»
«I met your Flavio!»
«Really? What a surprise!» Flavia feigned.
«Yes, I ran into him just now at the university.»
«What a coincidence! So... uh... what did you think of him?»
«He's just like you told me... but you didn't tell me he was also so charming and fun!»
The dreadful doubt that Cristina was talking about some other Flavio clouded Flavia's mind. Then Cristina continued: «He confirmed that he wants to come to Valdaora, are you happy?»
In a sigh, Flavia exhaled the chill of terror that had squeezed her lungs.
«Speaking of Valdaora... I wanted us to agree on coming here together to pick up my father's car.»
«Of course! I made sure I got leave from Christmas onwards just for this!»
«I'm going back to Rome already for Saint Stephen's Day, how about we leave right away on the twenty-seventh?»
«Don't you think it's too soon?» Cristina hesitated.
Flavia sensed that there was something Cristina didn't want to tell her. She was sure Franco was involved. «My father has to leave Valdaora on the twenty-eighth afternoon, it would be a bit complicated to delay.»
«I'm sorry...» Cristina said, and Flavia could clearly perceive the regret in her voice, «I have a commitment on the twenty-seventh. But we can leave on the twenty-eighth, with my plane in less than three hours we can land in Bolzano. We can be in Valdaora for lunch!»
Flavia had already taken a short test flight with Cristina and the idea of making a real trip on her plane seemed exciting. She got confirmation from Fabrizio that he would be able to pick her up at the airport and the trip with Cristina remained fixed for December twenty-eighth.
Flavia spent Christmas in Florence with Claudia's mother, as planned. And, as planned, Flavia was bored to death. Of course, she would never get tired of the quaint restaurants in the historic center of Florence, especially with their winter menus filled with ossobuco, ribollita soup and Florentine steaks, and even more so the menus they offered for the holidays, displaying a triumph of Tuscan pastry tradition with its aroma of panforte, cantucci and vin santo. But, unless you resort to cannibalism, food can never be as good, or bland, as the people who are next to you.
YOU ARE READING
Spare Future
Science-FictionFlavio Mancini is a brilliant but lonely student from Rome who has a crush on Claudia, a wild and reckless girl. He doesn't know that he is the result of a genetic selection by the Interdimensional Assembly, a group of beings who can manipulate quan...
