“No,” said Antonella, shaking her head. “Turn this way, and look right at me.”

Giancarlo did as she told him and sat there very still as Antonella gazed at him, studying his face. He could have stayed that way forever, basking in her attention as she began to draw.

“I heard you are going to America,” Antonella said after she had been at it for a while.

“That’s the plan right now,” said Giancarlo. “But I’m still not sure if I will go.”

“Oh, but you must go,” said Antonella, looking back and forth from the pad to his face. “It will be nice for you. I’m glad you are going.”

At hearing these words, Giancarlo’s heart sank a little, for he had hoped that perhaps she would be disappointed by the news and try to talk him out of it.

“Of course,” Antonella went on, “I will miss our little conversations in the afternoons while you are gone.”

“You will?” said Giancarlo, scarcely believing his ears.

“Sit still,” she told him with a huff. “You have a good face to draw, but I can’t do it if you keep moving all around.”

“Sorry,” said Giancarlo.

For a time neither spoke, and the only sound Giancarlo could hear was his own breathing and the scratching of her pencil against the paper. Antonella’s demeanor softened once more.

“You know, I think of your face sometimes,” she said in a faraway voice, without looking up from the pad.

“When?” he asked.

“Sometimes at night,” she replied, “when it’s quiet and I can hear the sound of your piano echoing all through the village. It’s one of my favorite sounds.”

“I never knew anyone was listening,” he said.

“I listen,” she answered.

Antonella looked up at him, and in her eyes Giancarlo was certain that he saw the first flickers of true affection. She quickly looked back at her pad, and turned it around for him to see.

“What do you think?” she said, showing him her work.

“I think you’ve captured me,” Giancarlo had answered.

“I know,” she said.

Anyone with eyes, and there were always many watching in a little village like Castelalto, could see that there was something happening between the two. At this point it was not yet possible to guess if it was merely friendship or something deeper. After that day when he let her sketch his face, Giancarlo of course was convinced that it was the latter. For too long he had kept his silence about his feelings for Antonella. He decided that the time had come for him to make them known to her, and to learn if she felt the same for him, as he suspected she did. He began to plot exactly where and how he would do it, but as so often happens in life, events would unfold in a way he could not possibly have anticipated.