8
" This late afternoon, they stood shoulder to shoulder at the masthead, watching the dockhands tie up the boat. Though she was four years younger and a girl, they were nearly the same height, Gina and Salvo. Gina was actually taller. No one could figure out where she got the height; her parents and brothers were not tall. Look, the villagers would say. Two “piccolo” brothers and a “di altezza” sister. Oh, that’s because we have different fathers, Gina would reply dryly. Salvo would smack her upside the head when he heard her say this. Think what you’re saying about our mother, he would scold, crossing himself and her at her impudence. "
― Paullina Simons , Children of Liberty (The Bronze Horseman, #0)
9
" I told you,” Harry was saying to Ben. “I warned you. As soon as I saw her from distance, do you remember what I said to you?”
“Yes, yes. You said she was trouble. You where wrong there, and you’re wrong now.”
“Benjamin, I know about these things. She is trouble.”
“You know nothing except the idiocy you glean from your insipid books that tell you nothing about life. You don’t know how to live.”
“And you do?”
“Yes, I do. She is no trouble. She is Life!”
Harry rolled his eyes to the heavens. “More fool you. How else do you define trouble?”
“Like a femme fatale,” Ben said.
“Give her time, Benjamin. She is a fille fatale. Quattordici indeed!”
Ben moved away from mocking Harry, his shoulders dropping. "
― Paullina Simons , Children of Liberty (The Bronze Horseman, #0)
12
" Twirling on the sand, she quotes Emma Goldman to him in a song. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” He steps up. Come on, Gia, he says, be in my revolution. She is barefoot on the sand. Where are her stockings? She hasn’t taken them off; they’re not lying in a heap nearby. When his open palm goes around her waist, he can’t feel her corset, he feels velvet and under it the curve of her natural waist and lower back. Suddenly he has three left feet and, usually such a capable dancer, can’t move backward or forward. She steps on his awkward toes a few times, laughs, and they trip and fall to their knees on the sand. What’s gotten into you, Harry, she says. I can’t imagine, he says, his eyes roaming wildly over her flushed and eager face. Both his hands are entwining the narrow space from which her hips begin. It’s late afternoon on the wide Hampton beach; it’s gray and foggy when he kisses her. He’s never kissed Sicilian lips before, only Bostonian. There is a boiling ocean of contrast between the two. Boston girls were born and raised on soil that was frozen from October to April and breathed through perfectly colored mouths that took in chill winds and fog from the stormy harbor. But his Sicilian queen has roamed the Mediterranean meadows and her abundant lips breathed in fearsome fire from Typhonic volcanoes. He kisses her as if they are alone at night—as if she is already his. His arms wrap around her back and press her to him. They become suspended, he floats like a phantom around her in the moist air. He won’t let her go, he can’t. "
― Paullina Simons , Children of Liberty (The Bronze Horseman, #0)
