by Fiona Grace
The young taxi driver with the wayward dark hair and the button-down shirt, open to reveal a wife-beater, eyed her as she clumsily wheeled her bags toward him. Accidentally, one caught on the base of stanchion that formed the taxi line, and down went the whole thing with a clatter. “Whoops!” She attempted to lunge forward to save it, letting go of the handle of her case, but then the suitcase sprung back, hitting the traveler behind her in the groin. He let out an “oof.”
“Sorry! I mean, scuzi!” she said, looking up at the taxi driver, who didn’t seem all that willing to help her out. Even when she wheeled the luggage right up to him, he just kept staring at her, like Americans.
“Mussomeli?” She lifted her book and said, awkwardly, “Per favore portami a questo indirizzo.”
She held up her phone with the address, clearly written.
He stared at it for one beat, his thick brow narrowing. Then he burst out laughing.
She laughed too, because Jovial Taxi Man was much better than Serial Killer Taxi Man. Maybe there was something else to that laugh, but she didn’t really want to think of what it could be. Only then did he grab her suitcases, effortlessly, and throw them into the back of his cab. At least now they were on their way.
“All right. Here we go,” she said proudly, mostly to herself, then turned back to the poor man whom she’d given a crotchful of her suitcase. “Sorry again!”
She ran off the curb, opened the door, and slid inside the back of the car. She peeked over the front seats and saw the man’s license. Antonio Puglisi. Sounded like a famous painter. He had a rosary attached to his rearview mirror and a dog-eared picture of a couple of skinny kids at the beach taped to his dash.
Maybe he was a struggling artist, with dreams of creation, who’d taken up driving a cab to support his beloved family. How romantic. How Italian!
He got into the driver’s side and lurched into traffic on a heavy foot. “So, Antonio,” she said, now thinking about the way he’d laughed when she showed him the address. “Do you speak English?”
He peered into the rearview mirror with eyes that said, Don’t even start, woman, and turned up his radio, where someone was crooning “My Way” in Italian.
She took that as a no. She peered at the photos from the website on her phone and sighed again. Gorgeous. Then she looked out the window. Here it was—that bright Italian sun, the impressive mountains, the dark sea stretching out to the horizon, meeting the equally blue sky. White crags stuck out from the water, and boats dotted the harbor. As they pulled away from the airport, she saw brightly colored terra cotta and stucco buildings with red tiled roofs.
She nearly pressed her nose against the glass, trying to take in all the sights of the city on the sea. She almost didn’t want to stop to send Brina a text, but she’d promised she would, when she got in.
Eventually, though, they left the city proper and turned inland, and civilization fell away. They passed grassy fields and gently rolling hillsides, studded with cows and horses. Mussomeli was nearly two hours from Palermo, according to the maps on her phone, so she took a break from the view to type in, I’m here. It’s more beautiful than I even imagined.
A few moments later, her phone dinged. You realize it’s 2AM here?
Whoops, she’d forgotten about time zones. Sorry!
Her sister responded a second later. It’s okay, I was feeding Byron. Little bugger still won’t sleep through the night. And I was thinking about you. Glad. You get to the house yet?
She smiled. She’d kissed her sister and her nieces and nephew goodbye at their home just over fourteen hours ago, and she already missed them. She typed in: No, on my way to Mussomeli now.
He sister replied, Send me pics! I can’t wait!
Audrey couldn’t, either. She tapped her fingers on the armrest, then rolled down the window and let the warm air blow through her hair.
After about another hour of driving into the hills, she leaned over and said, “How much longer?”
The man simply looked over at her and shrugged. Then he pointed to a cluster of homes in the distance, perched on a hill, half-hidden by trees, and muttered, “Mussomeli.”
She scrambled across the back seat of the car to get a closer look. “Mussomeli? That’s it?”
He nodded, not nearly as enthused as she was. This time, she did press her nose against the glass. The place, mostly old, gray stone, rose from the hillside like a mountain itself, a collection of buildings that looked like some kind of medieval fortress.
“It’s amazing,” she breathed wistfully, before realizing she didn’t have to dream about it. It was hers. She had a place here, in this town, an actual address. This was her home.
A slight feeling of dread overcame her. This is my freaking home. She tamped that down. Her hands shook in her lap, so she flattened them against her thighs as they got closer, rising up higher into the hills so that her ears felt full and started to pop.
Finally, he pulled to a stop at the side of the road and opened the door.
Audrey looked around. Other than a flat, barren area on the other side of the road that looked like someplace where they used to test atomic weapons, there was nothing around. Nothing, except for some very crumbly, steep old steps, cut into the hillside.
Maybe the guy needed to take a pee break?
She sat there for a moment, waiting, but then she peered in the rearview mirror as he opened the trunk. In the crack between the trunk’s lid and the car, she saw a flash of flowered fabric from her suitcase, heard the thud as he threw them on the ground.
Pushing open the door, she scrambled out of the back of the cab and over to him, adjusting her comfortable travel shorts, which were really just glorified gym shorts. “I’m sorry. Why are we stopping?”
“Mussomeli,” he said with a nod. Audrey was now convinced that might be the only word he knew.
“Yes, but I gave you an address. Piazza 3.” She held up three fingers. “Tre? Yes?”
He nodded and pointed up the staircase. “Si. Piazza Tre.”
“Oh? This is it?” She let out a sigh of relief. Somewhere, just up those steps, was her destiny. “Cool.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out her credit card, went back to the car, and swiped. When she came out, those steps suddenly looked a bit steeper.
She winced at her big bags. “You wouldn’t happen to be able to help me …”
He stared at her, and for the first time, she had a feeling he knew exactly what she was saying. Because he simply laughed like she was the funniest comedian on earth, waved her away, jumped in his car, and sped off, tires squealing, leaving Audrey choking in his dust.
What the heck have I done?
She tamped that down again. No, this was not the time to be a Negative Nelly. She waved a hand in front of her and gauged the steps. From here, three flights. That was it. She could manage it.
Dragging the two cases to the foot of the stairs, she decided she wouldn’t be able to get them both at once. So she hefted the first one, stair by stair, up to the first landing. By then, it had to be over eighty degrees, and the hot sun seemed a lot closer because she was pretty sure her nose was turning red. Her T-shirt clung to her frame with sweat.
Not a problem, she thought, jogging down to get the second case. She repeated the motion until she was on the first landing with both cases. She took a few deep breaths, resting as she gauged the next obstacle. Just a little bit more.
Unfortunately, when she got to the top of the third landing, she realized there were three more staircases waiting for her. By then, she would’ve killed a passing mountain-climber for a sip of water, and her nose was definitely starting to blister.
She had to stop and sit on the steps several times to reclaim her energy, so it took the better part of an hour. Meanwhile, cars passed by on the street below, and it occurred to her once or twice whether any of them were looking at her like the idiot American who’d decided to scale a mountain with suitcases instead of a backpack. But she r
efused to let those thoughts intrude. This is going to be good. This is going to be awesome. Just over this hill is everything I ever dreamed of.
When she finally crested the last staircase, she looked around, breathing hard, searching out her home, her lovely Piazza 3.
But there was nothing.
No buildings. Nothing that even looked like an abode, not even a freaking hut. Just another hill and a gravel service road, stretching upward before winding around another hill. Beside that? A high, closed chain-link fence.
Her hands clenched into fists.
You’re no artist, Antonio Puglisi, she thought darkly. You, my friend, are a total jerk.
*
About two hours later, after Audrey had gone up and down the hillside like a roaming mountain goat, but far less gracefully, she finally entered the city proper. She almost got down on her knees and kissed the asphalt, because it was far easier to roll her suitcases on it than on the gravel that had constantly been getting stuck in the wheels.
The place was, in a word, adorable. Just as those photographs had promised. She stepped past an old church with the rusty bell atop the door and a statue of the Blessed Mother outside, arms outstretched. She took that as a Welcome sign and headed to an open town square with a small stone fountain, a trickle of water dribbling between a grape-toting woman’s breasts. Some of the buildings were quite modern, and a few cars were parked on the streets. It was the perfect combination of modern convenience and old-world charm.
She stopped the first person she saw, a woman on a bicycle with a basket, and, out of breath and too tired to grab her dictionary, said, “Please tell me you speak English?”
The woman nodded. “American?”
Audrey wanted to kiss the middle-aged woman with the fiery red hair, invite her into her house, if ever she could find it, for tea. But for now, she just nodded. “I’m looking for a house.”
“You are not the first American to be doing so,” she said in a heavy accent. “Our city’s been—how do you say?—flooded by foreigners lately. You have bought a one-euro house?”
Audrey nodded. “Well, one dollar.”
“Ah.” She peered at the address on Audrey’s phone and smiled. “You’re in luck. Your house is right down that road. Not far. Keep going until you see Tre.”
“Oh. Thank you!” Audrey gushed, peering down the narrow street. It was old and quaint, with cobblestones, slanting down and curving out of sight. The homes were all collected together, sharing walls. Some were in better condition from the outside than others, others had small balconies. A clothesline hung across the narrow expanse, covered with someone’s laundry. Birds perched on modern streetlamps, peering down at her.
“Good luck to you,” the woman said, before pedaling off.
“Crepi,” Audrey mumbled under her breath, staring down the street.
Fisting her hand around each of her big cases, she dragged them on the street. The lane was barely wide enough for her to pass through comfortably with both bags trailing behind her, without catching them on the front stoops of the homes. The cobblestone street slanted a bit to the center, in a V, with a thin rivulet of water draining downhill. She didn’t pass a single person as she walked, so she peered in doorways as she counted the numbers down to tre. People had terra cotta potted plants and geraniums in their doorways, a couple of balconies on the homes were adorned with intricate scrollwork, and there were a few full milk bottles on a couple of the stoops.
So cute! They actually still have milk delivery?
Starting at 97, the numbers kept going down until finally, she spied number three down the hill, a gray, nondescript square. It was on the very corner, which as she remembered from the map, vaguely made sense. She let go of her suitcases and scooted up to it, standing before the front door.
Honey, I’m home!
Okay, well … it was old, but there was a definite charm to it. The gray, smooth river stone walls were crumbling, nearly eaten up by ivy. The rustic front wooden-plank door was full of holes and pits, and seemed to be lingering tentatively in the doorway like an unwanted houseguest.
But it was hers. The stoop, the rotting old door, the property, the walls, the whole darn address. All of it. Hers. And it was so cute. The windows had little shutters, and just like in her fantasy, there was a cute mailbox affixed to the doorway, for all those letters she’d be getting from Brina. With the right fixes, maybe a nice coat of paint, it’d be a postcard of its own. She could send it off to Brina in reply, make everyone at home wish they’d invested in Sicilian real estate, too.
She clapped her hands excitedly. She’d never owned a piece of real estate before. Because it wasn’t hers, she’d been afraid to so much as nail a picture to the wall of her apartment in Southie. She could do whatever she wanted to this place; if she wanted to paint it bright pink, that was her prerogative. She’d been psyching herself up for this for the past two weeks, and was ready to put in the work, get her hands dirty, make it a home. It’s perfect.
As if on cue, a stiff wind blew down the corridor, stirring up the clothing overhead and sending her hair flying in her face. An aluminum can skittered loudly on the stones, toward her. She watched it, until she heard an even louder, ungodly creaking noise coming from the direction of her new home.
And the front door suddenly collapsed to the ground with a terrific bang, two inches from her toes.
CHAPTER NINE
Is this the right place?
That question had been launched into Audrey’s head the second the door fell at her feet, but only seemed to grow as she stepped inside.
She climbed over the refuse, into the front “foyer,” if it could be called that. It was the size of a telephone booth. A second later, she ducked her head out and checked the number. 3. Yep. This was the right place. Across the way stood 2, looking remarkably more put-together.
Audrey slipped back in. A step through the entryway, she found herself in the kitchen, if it could be called that. The walls and floor were all crumbling plaster. It looked like the wreckage from a war-torn place, covered in dust and refuse. It smelled like mold and fresh dog poop. It had a wash basin, a table, something that might’ve been used as stove in some other century, and a massive hole in the ceiling. A skylight?
There were no windows in the room, so Audrey instinctively went for the light switch. She couldn’t find one.
Wait, didn’t they say this place had electricity? she thought, rifling through her purse for the informational brochure, which the agent, Maria, had sent her. She unfolded it carefully.
Sure enough, the paper definitely listed electricity, air conditioning, balcony, furniture, television … lift.
Something told her she wasn’t going to find air conditioning or an elevator here. She’d be lucky to find working plumbing.
That was when she spotted an open doorway across the miniature kitchen. She climbed up a step, choking on the dust, and went across to it.
She grabbed her chest to keep from retching. Though it smelled like a bathroom, it had neither a toilet nor a sink. Just another hole, this one in the ground.
Staggering back, she grabbed her phone and pressed in a call to Maria. Maria answered after a few rings, spouting something in Italian Audrey still couldn’t understand, even though she’d heard it about a thousand times in the last two weeks, every time she called to iron out a detail of her plan. “Hi, Maria. It’s Audrey. I’m here, in Mussomeli. At the property.”
“Ah. Good. We’ll have to arrange to come by. Lots of paperwork.”
Audrey backed away from the offensive bathroom, if it could be called that, and went back into the foyer, which she’d already decided didn’t deserve to be called that, considering it was smaller than a telephone booth. “Yeah … um. About that. I was expecting it to be in a little better condition.”
“Oh, well. It’s a dollar,” she reminded Audrey. She got the feeling that Maria had had this conversation before. “But it’s two hundred years old, rich in history, and
… did you notice the view?”
“No, but—” There was a strange staircase, hooking off to the right. Strange, because she’d have to climb up almost waist-high to get to it. She stuck her head in, but all she could see was another wall up ahead, in terrible disrepair, and possibly another room. “One second.”
Cradling the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, she hoisted herself up onto her backside and climbed to her knees, taking a fresh coat of chalky plaster with her. Brushing it off her, she climbed the tiny stairs.
“You see, it’s nice. The town is really cute. But the house … I thought it had things. Like air conditioning?”
Maria burst out laughing. “That place? Oh, no. No no. No. Not ever.”
“The listing did say that it had it, though.”
“It did?” There was a pause and the faraway tapping on a keyboard. “No. It doesn’t.”
Audrey climbed the steep stone steps, hugging the walls, which wasn’t hard, because her shoulders nearly brushed both of them, the stairwell was so narrow. It was also better suited to someone who was about four feet tall, because she found herself crouching to avoid scraping the water-stained roof with her forehead. “Maria,” she said. “I have the listing right here. And it says—”
“Well, all of the listings say those things. But unless there is an X by the amenity, the property does not have that particular amenity.”
Audrey stopped on the step, squinting in the darkness at the page. She went down the list. There was only one X. For Views.
Oh, god. I am so stupid. “Ah, pardon me. I see now,” she said sheepishly. “My mistake.”
A pause. “I hope you’re not reconsidering?”
Audrey frowned. Heck no, what did this lady think she was? It’d take a lot more than that to send her home with her tail between her legs. She was her father’s daughter. She never backed down from a challenge. Besides, construction was in her blood. Well, sort of. “Of course not. Do you think you can come around this afternoon with those papers?”
