A Villa in Sicily: Olive Oil and Murder

by Fiona Grace

  A place like that was probably free of all the ills of the world. Politics? What’s that? Crime? Not on your life! Natural disasters? Never heard of them! And creepy, leering men probably didn’t dwell there, either. It existed away from all of that, in its own little bubble of perfection.

  She had to read the headline three times before it finally cracked her cerebrum.

  Own a villa in beautiful Sambuca, Sicily for only $1!

  Right. There had to be some catch. Something the advertisers weren’t saying. All it will cost you is $1 … and your living soul!

  Somehow, that ridiculous headline managed to taint paradise ever so slightly.

  Nevertheless, it’d done its job. She was intrigued. She clicked on the ad.

  It brought up the same photograph of a lovely Italian villa, along with the words, Have you ever wanted to live in Italy? Now is your chance, at a very affordable price. Today, you can own a piece of beautiful Sambuca, Sicily, for less money than a cup of coffee! Plant your dreams now! See you on this side of your own private Eden!

  Audrey brought the photograph so close to her face, she nearly bumped the screen of her phone with her nose. She kind of did want to dive right into those blue Mediterranean waters. Charter a yacht. Go sailing with a tall, dark Italian named Antonio or Rinaldo. Something ending in an “o.”

  She sighed again, imagining a walk down a cobbled street to her beautiful Italian villa. It all seemed so quaint, so simple, so … European.

  She almost missed her stop at Copley. But when the doors to the T opened, she looked around her bleak surroundings and a bit of sense leaked back into her head. There’s a reason those homes are only a dollar, Audrey. If something looks too good to be true, it usually is. Her sensible mom’s voice filled her head, the same woman who’d never let Audrey stand at the bus stop without an umbrella if it even smelled like drizzle.

  She stood up, arranging her slit modestly and, ignoring the hairy man’s catcalls, exited the car. It wouldn’t have been too hard to make it to Copley Square Hotel had she not been wearing lethal heels. People actually walk in these? she wondered as she got one stuck for the thousandth time. Sewer grate, crack in the sidewalk, uneven curb … as an old city, Boston had plenty of those. Her mom would’ve insisted she wear flats, but Easy Spirits would’ve totally dulled the effect she was hoping to have on Michael. Somehow, she made it to the hotel with all her limbs intact.

  Inside, she tottered a bit to the registration table at the front of the ballroom.

  She hadn’t seen them in ten years, so it took her a minute to recognize them. Mitzy Silverman, Westwood High’s Most Likely to Earn a Lexus with her MLM Scheme, with a fruity drink at one elbow and an already-drunk Dobie Something, class quarterback, staring down the front of her dress, at the other.

  She giggled at something Dobie said and then scraped her eyes over Audrey. Her smile faded. “This is the Westwood High reunion, dear. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

  “I know. Audrey Smart?”

  She rolled her eyes. “There is no …” She stopped when Audrey leaned down and grabbed the name tag, holding it up triumphantly.

  “Thanks for all your help!” she called, ripping off the backing and adhering it to her boob.

  Heaving a sigh, she wondered if it wasn’t too late to make a break for the door. The Invisible Girl. That’s me.

  It made sense that few people recognized her. They’d had over a thousand people in her class, and she’d been a complete wallflower, spending most of her time volunteering at the pet clinic instead of going to school functions.

  Then she thought of Michael. Cutie.

  At first, it might as well have been a room of strangers in ball gowns and budding wrinkles. Then she gradually began to recognize some of them. A mousy girl who used to share her flute stand in band had totally become a knockout. The class burn-out, who’d checked out freshman year, had turned in his flannel for a three-piece suit. Around the room, people chatted about their lives, and Audrey picked up snippets of conversation here and there.

  But no one came running to her, arms out, excited to give her a hug, as appeared to be happening all over the room, little volcanoes of Oh my god! erupting all around. Her former classmates swerved around her, like she had the word Plague stamped on her forehead.

  That was all right. She wasn’t there for them. Her best friend was her sister, after all, and that was all she needed. At the tables, people she sort-of-maybe-not-quite recognized proudly traded photographs of their children and suburban McMansions and exotic vacations and swapped stories of their exciting lives. Audrey fidgeted, fighting the urge to bolt.

  She scanned the room for that signature thick, wayward blond mop of his, that million-dollar Ode to Orthodontia smile. His Facebook photo had been that of Snoopy, so it wasn’t much help, but she imagined a more filled-out, sexier version of the old Michael. Men always seemed to age better. Hello, Sean Connery? Really, how much could he have changed in fifteen years? She hadn’t changed nearly enough, she realized, as her knees actually knocked together. Thank goodness for long dresses.

  Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she crossed the ballroom, hearing bits of conversation here and there—a “Just got promoted to CFO!” here, a “Tuscany was enchanting, but I prefer Milan” there.

  On the way, Audrey passed by a guy that she almost recognized and did a double-take. He did the same. She stopped. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been doubled over a trash can, too scared to give his valedictorian speech. Back then, he’d had bad acne, an unfortunate crew cut, and a bit of a weight problem. “Kevin?”

  “Audrey?” He came up to her and gave her a kiss, then stood back to look at her. She did the same, gaping. The baby fat was gone, his skin flawless, his dark hair tumbling in a rakish way.

  “Y-you look great!” she stammered, hardly able to believe it. He’d been her lab partner during her junior and senior years, and the reason she didn’t go insane. He’d also been a bit of a nerd—okay, a lot of a nerd—so much so that she’d barely even looked at him. He’d almost asked her out, in a roundabout way, but Audrey had always scurried away whenever he got that amorous look in his eye.

  Now, he was gorgeous. Flat-out, Grade A eye candy. She grabbed his arm. “Oh, god, it’s so great to see—”

  “And this is my wife,” he said. “Mimi.”

  Audrey found herself gaping at the exotically beautiful Asian woman. She was sure she’d seen her on a magazine cover somewhere. “Oh. Um, hi. You look familiar.”

  Mimi only giggled.

  “Could be. She’s a former fitness model. But more recently, she’s been a physicist who worked on my team. That’s how we met.” He beamed at her, took her hand, and squeezed.

  “Your team?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes, my company works with the government, pioneering new technologies which will create clean energies to make a better future for the world,” he said, sounding much like a commercial announcer.

  “Wow … so you’re literally … saving the world?”

  He nodded. “That’s right. What about you?”

  Audrey hesitated. Next to that, doctor of veterinary medicine didn’t seem all that grand. But what the heck. To some people, their pets were their world. She raised her chin with pride. “Well, I’m a—”

  Just then, the DJ started playing “Oh What a Night,” and his wife pulled on his tuxedo. “Come on, Kevvy. Let’s go dance!”

  Audrey waved at him as he was dragged away.

  Finally, she made it to the bar. The bartender ignored her for the first five minutes, and then finally looked up at her. “Rum and Coke?” she asked. She didn’t normally drink, but she desperately needed to take the edge off.

  “ID, please?”

  She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and pointed to her name tag. When that didn’t work, she unzipped her purse and pulled out the ID. “I’m thirty-two,” she said to him, wondering when she would start to feel flattered about being mistaken for being
under the age of twenty-one.

  With her drink in hand, she’d just begun to take a sip through the stirrer straw when someone said, “Ashley?”

  At first, she didn’t turn around, but when someone said it again, adding her last name, she looked up.

  “Audrey, actually,” she said to the woman with the short dark pixie cut who smiled at her. She had a flowy scarf around her neck and had the smart, no-nonsense look of a psychoanalyst, but Audrey remembered her. “Kristin?”

  She nodded, and Audrey smiled, happy to find another person to talk to so she wouldn’t be helplessly alone.

  “Yes!” Kristin said. “Wow, you look great. You haven’t even changed!”

  “Thanks, so do you.” It was all coming back now. They’d worked on scenery together, especially for Death of a Salesman. They’d both painted the living room fireplace while drooling over Michael as he rehearsed his lines on stage. Part friends, part rivals over Michael’s attention, they’d become close only because neither of them had much success in catching the actor’s eye. “You still live in the area?”

  “No. Moved to New York. We’re up here for the weekend, Rob and I. My husband. I met him at NYU. He’s a physician in Brooklyn. I run my own non-profit, helping to put an end to human trafficking.”

  Wow. Yet another person saving the world. It seems my high school class bred them like rabbits. “That’s amazing.”

  “God, it’s great to be back, and to see you!” she said, rubbing Audrey’s bare arm. “What about you? Are you married?”

  “No! But I actually still live in the city. For now, at least. I’m a—”

  “Oh my god.”

  Kristin’s eyes had drifted somewhere behind Audrey, and were now bulging.

  When she spun around to follow her line of view, sure that a waiter was on fire or zombies were invading or something, she saw him.

  He stood in the doorway, at the top of the stairs, pausing there like royalty waiting to be announced. People stopped talking. In her head, the DJ’s Backstreet Boys’ track screeched to an ear-splitting stop. A small earthquake rippled under her feet, which would’ve sent her stumbling if she didn’t have the bar against her back.

  Because there he was …

  The Michael Breckenridge.

  He scanned the place, eyes falling on Audrey, zeroing in. Target acquired.

  And then he started heading right for her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “There he is,” Kristin breathed. “Do you remember how amazing he was as … what was his name? Willy Lohan?”

  “Um … Loman,” Audrey murmured, taking him in. Taking all of him in, including the extra hundred and sixty pounds he had with him.

  No, Michael Breckenridge hadn’t ballooned quite that much. Oh, he definitely had the spare tire, a burgeoning extra chin … but most of the added weight belonged to the tall, Barbie-esque bleached blonde on his arm, drowning in sequins, like she was about to give away a sedan on The Price Is Right.

  Audrey nearly spit her mouthful of rum and Coke out as he jog-strutted down the stairs, a sassy little swing in his step, like a cross between John Travolta and a motivational speaker. As he did, he snapped his fingers and pointed at different people in his adoring crowd. Caught a few kisses from the girls.

  This was clearly a guy who lived for his high school reunions.

  She squinted, wondering if it was just poor lighting, but were those long, luscious blond locks now the victim of … gasp! … a receding hairline?

  Before she could make the determination, he deposited the blonde at a table like a Hefty bag on the curb and bee-lined it toward Audrey.

  Or … not toward her. More like, toward the bar.

  Unfortunately, as he got closer … this walking nightmare?

  Only got worse.

  He was tan, unnaturally so, but the tan didn’t hide the massive undereye bags and his Rudolph-red, runny nose. Or the freckles in his complexion and the general droopiness of his jowls. Added to the receding hairline, he looked about, oh … sixty. He was wearing a rumpled tux, but there was some foreign, greenish substance on his lapel. It could’ve been guac, snot, or vomit. None of those things seemed particularly appealing to Audrey at the moment.

  And yep, definitely a receding hairline. Considering he’d grown his blond locks so long they touched his shoulders, he now looked a little like a swaggering Benjamin Franklin.

  “Hey, girls,” he said, pointing at them as he sidled up to the bar. Appropriately, the bartender didn’t card him as he asked, “Open bar?”

  When the bartender nodded, he said, “Fantastic,” and gave an itemized list, counting off on his fingers.

  As the bartender lined them up, he grabbed the first one, a Stella, and chugged it.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he turned to them, elbow on the bar, and grinned. “Hey … I know you two.”

  Sure. The two of them had been like peanut butter and jelly during their after-school rehearsals. One was rarely seen without the other. Audrey looked at Kristin, who seemed to have fluttered off onto some cloud, she was so starstruck. It was true, they’d spent hours inhaling paint fumes and fantasizing about the day when Michael Breckenridge would notice them. Despite the fact that their crush now looked like a Founding Father, for Kristin, it looked like that dream was finally coming true. She chirped, sounding no older than seventeen, “Yes, I’m Kristin? From scenery?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Thought so.” Then his eyes swung to Audrey. More specifically, Audrey’s boobs. “Audrey Smart.”

  She nodded. At least he had the name right.

  He leaned into her, his breath reeking of alcohol. His hand snaked around her back, landing on her backside. “Wow, aren’t you a little slice of pie.”

  She winced and looked over at Kristin, hoping to be saved, but Kristin’s eyes filled with desperation. “Michael, we were just talking about your legendary performance in Death of a Salesperson,” she gushed, wrapping her arm around his elbow. “You really brought down that house.”

  He’d been leering at Audrey, so uncomfortably close she could count the pores on his ruddy nose, but when Kristin touched him, he looked down at her hand and then at her face, disinterested. “Hey. Rachel Maddow. Scram.”

  Wounded, Kristin took a sip of her wine and scurried off, thereby driving the final nail into the coffin that was Audrey’s pseudo-friendship with her.

  He leaned forward, eating up whatever was left of her personal space. “So … cutie.”

  Before, when written in a Facebook bubble, she’d relished it. Now that he’d said it, nearly spitting it in her ear, it sounded almost … dirty.

  She managed to skirt away a bit, but came in contact with a wall at the side of the bar, where she could move no farther. He filled the gap, his hot, noxious breath assaulting her skin. She glanced at the table, where his female companion was chatting with the girls around her table, oblivious to Michael’s shenanigans. “You came with a date?”

  “A date?” He glanced in her general direction. “No. That’s just my wife.”

  Just my wife.

  He started to play with the spaghetti strap of Audrey’s dress, lifting it playfully and delving his fingers underneath as his eyes roved over her bare skin. She’d read it in romance novels before, but until then, she’d never quite known what “undressing her with his eyes” meant. “We have a, you know …” He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against her ear, nose burying itself in her hair. “… open relationship.”

  Audrey’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t be … he wasn’t …

  “And I saw a pretty nice coat closet on the way in. So, baby …I’m game if you are.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  Oh, no. He was.

  With that realization sending shivers—not the good kind— down her spine, the drink slipped from Audrey’s hands, landing on her toes before splattering everywhere.

  Michael was too busy staring down the front of her dress to notice.

  She reall
y needed a drink right about then, to clear the gag that lodged itself in her throat. Instead, she started to cough, doubling over. Hacking like a lung cancer patient.

  Thank goodness, Michael backed away, patting her back a little half-heartedly as Audrey’s choking began to attract a small audience, the first one Michael wasn’t happy to have. “Something go down the wrong pipe?”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. But you’re not,” she told him. “What happened to you?”

  He reached for his drink. “Relax, cutie. Tonight’s about fun.”

  She stared at him.

  “And if you aren’t game,” he continued with a smirk, “I guarantee there are about a hundred other girls in here who would be. So if you’re not into this, don’t waste my time, all right, babe?”

  She mulled the words over, their taste sour on her tongue. “Waste your time?”

  He chuckled and winked at a waitress. “Yeah. You heard me.”

  Before she could even think about whether it was the right thing to do, her heart took over. She grabbed the drink from his hand and tossed it in his face, eliciting a small gasp from a few people around them. “I wouldn’t visit the coat closet with you if I were your freaking ski jacket!” she shouted.

  And in the next fraction of a second, her reputation as the Invisible Girl was shattered.

  Because that’s all it took for every eye in the place to suddenly land smack dab on her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Audrey marched right over to the blonde who was “just” Michael’s wife and stood in front of her, chest heaving.

  “I didn’t know your husband was an interior designer,” she said.

  The woman cast a judgmental eye over her and snapped, “What?”

  “He invited me to check out the coat closet with him.”

  That got the appropriate reaction. The woman’s face twisted, and her eyes shifted toward the bar. Clearly, if there was an open relationship, “just the wife” didn’t know about it. She pushed up from her chair and marched in his direction.