Love blooms on a Venetian island in our short story

You work too hard,” Rosalia says. Rosalia is my adopted “mother” in Venice. Most days I drop into her café near my office, though her customers and my phone mean our conversations are snatched.

“Where I come from we’d say that was the pot calling the kettle black,” I tell her.

“It is not the same.” She pouts when I explain.“this is my café – I must work; it is my life. And I am old. But you are young. You should live, love –”

“No, thank you. Lurve!” I mock.“done that one.”

“Pah!” She swats me with her tea towel in disgust.“you will waste your youth and beauty.”

A boat festooned with ribbons moors alongside the Strada Della Rosina: a wedding party on their way to the Basilica. Funny to think that might have been me back home if all had gone to plan.

Actually, Luke did me a massive favour. We’d known each other since school; our relationship had been sleep-walking its way to the altar.

Fortunately, Luke had the courage to call time on us before it was too late and we were locked into something that would have made both of us miserable.

Because of his courage, I’d found enough of my own to explore who I could be in my own right. If we hadn’t split up I wouldn’t be living here in this incredible place with such a busy life.

I watch the well-heeled wedding guests pick their way along the ancient paving stones. The bridegroom looks like Rosalia’s waiter, Marco.

“He’s a hopeless waiter,” she told me once. “So why employ him?” She arched her eyebrows. “Why do you think?” “Rosalia!”

“Nothing wrong with a bit of eyecandy for the tourists – and also…”

My mobile pinged at that point, provoking the usual tirade from Rosalia about the “devices of the devil”.

I glance at my devil-device now: no message from this potential client.

Private English tuition provides a supplement to my salary as an admin assistant at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University. I’m the only English speaker in my office and we have lots of American students so life can be pretty frantic.

I’m intrigued by this client who says he is Rosalia’s nephew. She’s never mentioned him before, but that’s hardly surprising given the size of her extended family.

“Yes, yes.” She nodded when I asked her about this one, and then, as is often the case, she was claimed by customers and I could ask no more.

Eduardo says he works in one of the restaurants that line this part of the lagoon. He wants regular tuition, so it was worth the journey over here pressed up against tourists on the overcrowded water bus.

The groom moves off with his best man. He looks nervous, like Marco did in Rosalia’s café that first day I met him.

“Hi.”

I remember swallowing the flutter in my stomach.

“Your English is good,” I said after more words exchanged in passing.

“It should be.” He laughed.“my mum’s half American. I came here –” My mobile’s ringtone truncated our conversation.

“Excuse me.”

“See you around,” he said and part of me thought, yes, please.

“You could do worse, you know,” Rosalia commented when I came off the phone.

“I’m not looking for another mistake.” I winced at another mobile shrill and she moved away.

Now the bride arrives in a private launch covered in so many flowers it looks like a floating garden.

She is radiant in white lace, smiling as she stands and waits for the crew to tie up the boat.

Everyone disperses to the Basilica, laughing and taking photos. Her mother leans forward and fusses with her daughter’s gown. It’s a poignant gesture and a moment that makes me wonder whether one day that could be me, after all. After a few minutes I stare out at the salt flats and sunlit lagoon beyond the buildings. It is so quiet now that the wedding guests have gone.

Torcello is a peaceful oasis and I remember again how lucky I am to live amidst all this beauty. I wonder if Rosalia’s nephew looks like her. I scan pedestrians for a squat, rotund man. My mobile pings: With you in a moment. I turn and see him.

“You! Eduardo?”

“My middle name.” Marco looks abashed.“would you have come if I hadn’t been business?”

“Are you even Rosalia’s nephew?” “Of course. My father is Rosalia’s brother – that’s why she gave me the summer job.”

“So you don’t work in a restaurant in Torcello?”

“Yes, I do.” A smile illuminates his face.“but not today. Today…” he takes my mobile and mutes it “…I walk the pathways of Torcello with a beautiful woman so that we can get to know each other, OK?”

I giggle because he looks so handsome and he’s taken so much trouble to engineer this.

“OK. But I don’t know what Rosalia will say.”

Marco grins.

“It was her idea.”

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I am intrigued by this client who says he is Rosalia’s nephew