by Fiona Grace
“Certainly. Two?” Maria said, as Audrey rounded the corner into the bedroom. If it could be called that. It was tiny, full of garbage, and a yellow-stained mattress that had no discernable shape whatsoever.
She took two steps and then nearly went straight through the hole in the floor, to the pseudo-kitchen. “Yes. Two would be lovely.”
She stepped over the hole and went to the window, drawing back ancient wooden shutters to the outdoors.
As she did, a gray blur flew in her face, letting out a wobbly sort of shriek.
“Ahhhh!” she screamed, dropping her phone and flailing her arms to get it away. What was it, some weird Italian ghoul? The spirits of the previous owners, trapped inside?
The thing flopped to the ground and righted itself as Audrey shoved her body away from the window, backing up so that suddenly she found herself treading on air for a mere split second before she began to sink.
Slipping one leg into the hole, right up to her knee, she realized it was only a pigeon as it hopped, unruffled, onto the windowsill. It looked back at her for the briefest of moments, like, Aren’t you a spaz? and flew off, past its little corner nest.
She let out a sigh of relief, catching her breath.
“Miss Smart? Are you all right?” Maria’s voice came from the phone on the floor.
From her trapped position, Audrey reached across the floorboards for it. Not quite tall enough. Pushing down on the floor, she managed to extricate her leg from the hole and grab the phone. “Just great. Are pigeons … dangerous around here?”
“Scuzi?”
There was no balcony, but it looked like there could be one, if she wanted to put one there. A cool breeze carried the scent of the ocean, citrus, and sweet basil. And it overlooked the most gorgeous, hilly vista, all the roofs of the buildings rising up to her, the trees below her, and in the very far distance, the ocean.
The advertisement was right. This was some view.
“Forget it. Do you know of any hardware stores in the area?” she asked.
Maria said, “I’ll email you right now the addresses of some places that can help you.”
“Thank you.” She ended the call with Maria and rubbed her hands together. “This will work,” she murmured, thinking of her father.
Miles Smart, her dad, had been one of the area’s best contractors, a pro at flipping houses. He’d taken her and Brina off on a lot of his jobs, growing up. Though he mostly told them to stay out of trouble so they wouldn’t get nails in their feet, she’d learned a little something from him. How to use a nail gun. How to handle basic repairs. She knew her way around a hammer. Plumbing. Electricity. She didn’t know a lot, but she certainly had more experience than most women.
She’d be absolutely fine. I’d be better if he was here, too.
But no … she’d pledged to do this herself. No help needed. And she would. She opened up her phone and started to jot down in the notes a list of things she needed to buy in order to get started. By then, Maria’s email of the nearest hardware store had arrived.
She wheeled her bags into the front foyer, propped the door back in place as best she could, and headed out blindly, trying to find the store.
She’d fix this place into the best little house on Piazza … even if it killed her.
CHAPTER TEN
Audrey trekked down the cross street that intersected with Piazza, following the map on her phone. As she did, she said Ciao! to just about everyone she came across, because she couldn’t remember a single thing that Gabriele had taught her on the plane. Not that there were many people—the town was largely empty. The people she did run across, though, all smiled at her, and occasionally they’d say more, but Audrey just waved and continued up the street, hoping she wouldn’t give away her utter cluelessness.
The lady she’d met when she first set foot in the city proper had said the village had been flooded with foreigners, but not a single person Audrey ran into seemed as out of place as she felt. They all seemed like very comfortable fixtures of Mussomeli, like they’d lived here their whole lives.
Maybe they are foreigners, but they’d easily adapted to life here. Maybe that will be me in a year. Maybe I will be totally Sicilian by the time I go back home. Maybe I won’t go home at all. Maybe I’ll only jet back for a quick visit, but have to leave because I miss Sicily too much. Maybe this will be my home.
The mix of old and new was truly a work of art, creating a unique look. The medieval architecture of some of the buildings was exquisite, with Baroque style, gothic features, Corinthian columns and wrought iron. Grotesque gargoyle ornaments peered down at her from both sides of the street, shaded by blooming olive trees. Between the buildings, she glimpsed a gorgeous view of the countryside, studded with green fields and mountains. In the distance, on one of the peaks, stood an impressive castle, melding into its rocky façade, like something out of a fairy tale.
She tripped over a pile of rubble on her walk, and realized it was a house that had just given up. It was one of many. The old homes were very old, some in danger of crumbling into the mountainside, and many of them looked abandoned, their open doorways like the mouths of dark caves.
There were a lot of shuttered businesses, too. She stepped past storefronts, peering beyond the dusty glass to see if any of them sold anything resembling hardware. There was an old vacuum store, and a store that sold nothing but religious figures. A butcher shop, with strings of sausage hanging in the window. A market with crates of onions and apples outside. All of this, she filed away for later.
There were only a few cars in this area, since most of the roads were too narrow. People zoomed by on bicycles. One brave soul slipped past her on roller skates, suicide considering all the broken cobblestones. Everyone seemed so fit and happy, too. No suited businessmen, heads down, frantic to get to their next meeting. The air smelled like basil and freshly washed laundry. It was all so cute. So homey. So welcoming.
Luckily, the hardware store wasn’t too far away. Just two blocks south, past a road that had modern buildings mixed with rustic homes like her own, she found the double doors wide open, letting in the breeze. It had barrels outside, filled with rakes and shovels, and a couple of charcoal grills, and an old-fashioned, human-powered lawnmower. She stepped over the cracks in the curb and went inside, having a feeling that in the next few weeks, she’d probably become its best customer.
Knowing that, she smiled even bigger at everyone inside, so much that her face hurt. They probably thought she was insane. Especially at the man stocking the shelves and the woman behind the paint-mixing counter. But she wanted to be their best friends. Desperately. That was what her dad had taught her: Rule number one in any renovation: Make nice with the folks at the nearest hardware store.
Cleaning supplies, she told herself, reaching into her travel shorts for her phone so she could look at the list she’d typed in. Bucket. Mop. Sponges. Cleaning solution. Hammer, screwdriver, wrench, drill, screws, and a couple of hinges for the front door.
That would be a start. And, she realized, pretty much all she’d be able to lug with her, on her own.
The aisles were impossibly narrow and cluttered with assorted wares. The signs at the head of each aisle may have been a help, if she could’ve read what they said. After navigating up and down the aisles about a hundred times, she collected most of the items in a big red bucket, stuffed the mop and broom under her arm, and carefully found her way to the front of the store.
When she got to the front, the paint-counter woman was leaning against the register, looking bored. There was a red barrette atop her head, hopelessly lost in a tangle of black, wayward hair, and she had a bit of a long, pointed nose that made her look like the Wicked Witch of the West, minus the green skin.
Audrey approached the counter and said, “Ciao!” just as she heard a deafening crash behind her.
She whirled around, realizing she’d upended a dog tag display. Reaching down to pick them up, she knocked over a couple of bottle
s of spray paint from a shelf with the long, unwieldy mop and broom handles. Then she whirled back, narrowly missing a man in a greasy white T-shirt, who ducked just in time.
“Whoops! Sorry,” she said as the cashier spouted Italian to her at a breakneck pace, motioning wildly at her. Finally, she tilted the offending mop and broom so they were upright and leaned them against the counter. “I mean, scuzi.”
The woman gave her a disgusted look. “American?”
“Yes …” Audrey admitted, withering under her stare. She pointed to the goods as the woman rang them up on the old-fashioned register. “Do you happen to deliver?”
The woman surveyed her things, and her eyes narrowed.
“Not this stuff, obviously. Obviously I can carry this myself. I’m just thinking, for the future. When I come back?” She tittered nervously, thinking of that bathroom, if it could be called that. “I’m fixing up a home around the block, and I’m going to need quite a bit of stuff. Including a toilet. Can you deliver a toilet?”
The woman looked blankly up from the price tag on the hammer and didn’t say a word.
“Annnnd obviously I’m wasting my breath because you don’t speak English,” Audrey said with a sigh.
As the woman finished, Audrey reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. She found her credit card in the sleeve and was just about to thrust it across the counter when the woman pointed to a faded, peeling sign, half-hidden underneath a display of lanyards and carabiners. It said, No carta di credito.
She didn’t need to know Italian to know what that said.
“Oh, then …” She picked through her wallet, finding a few American twenties. “You don’t take—”
“No.” She rolled her eyes.
“Um …” She hesitated, fidgeting. “I don’t have anything else. You see, I forgot to change out for euros. I thought I could just use a card everywhere.”
The woman stared at her. “No.”
I could use a little more help than that, she thought, sticking her card back in her wallet.
As if reading her mind, the woman touched her card and pointed outside, then started rattling off something in Italian that made Audrey’s head spin. She listened, following her pointed finger, but it didn’t make sense until she thrust a finger at the card and mimed putting it into a machine.
“Oh, an ATM? I can get euros from there?”
The cashier, obviously done, just crossed her arms. A couple of other people waited in line behind her. They didn’t tap their feet or let out exasperated sighs, as Americans would have, but she still felt their eyes boring into the back of her head.
“Where did you say the ATM was?”
More Italian. Funny, when she’d set out for Italy, the Italian language had seemed so pretty, so melodic, she could understand why it was known as a romantic language. Now, it gave her a headache.
“One moment.” She pointed to her things and backed toward the door, stopping abruptly when she came in contact with a rack of home improvement magazines. “I’ll run and get cash. Just … hold these right here for me? Please?”
Audrey dashed outside and stumbled about blindly for a bit, until she found a bank, and the ATM machine. Of course, there was a line. Waiting behind an old man, feeling the seconds tick by as the sweat trickled down her ribcage, dread pooled in her gut. What are you doing, Audrey? If this disaster didn’t tell you that you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, what will?
Finally, it was her turn. She nearly dropped to her knees in thanks when she saw a selection on the screen that listed a number of languages, including English. After a minute or two, she was able to extract two hundred euros, though she wasn’t sure on the transfer rate. She hadn’t looked at the total on the register and hoped that’d be enough.
She flew back down the street and exploded through the doors, but when she got back, it was like the moment had been frozen in time. The cashier was still there, in almost the same position she’d been before, as was the rest of the line, just patiently waiting for her return. A couple of the people behind her even smiled benevolently. In America, a stock clerk would’ve put her stuff back on the shelf by now and someone would have already keyed her car in the parking lot.
But you’re not in America anymore, remember, Aud?
“Thank you for waiting,” she said to them, opening her palm and pulling out the crumpled bill, which she flattened on the counter.
The lady at the register made change, handing her a few coins and bills. Thanking her, she pocketed the change and collected her purchases. The other people in line swerved out of her way, giving her a wide berth so she wouldn’t smack them in the face with the broomstick.
“Signorina,” the lady behind the register said as Audrey turned to leave. She said it two more times before Audrey realized she was talking to her.
“Yes. Um, Doctor, actually.”
“Delivery is free within the village limits,” she said, in perfect English.
Audrey sighed. “Grazie,” she mumbled, then thought, I think.
So much for making best friends with the owner of the nearest hardware store. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to show her face there again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Success!” Audrey cried as she finished screwing the hinge to the door frame.
It’d been tough to wrangle the heavy door into place, but somehow, she’d managed to prop it up there long enough to drill the brand new hinges into place so she could have a fully functioning door. When she finished, she spent the next few minutes just opening and closing the door, inspecting her handiwork. It was a darn fine door, if a little rustic, but that was great. It fit with the house. It was sturdy. They didn’t make ’em like this anymore.
Just look at me now, Dad, she thought, smiling.
Well, one thing down, a thousand more to go, but at least she’d made her place safe from whatever intruders might lie in wait, in this town.
She took a couple of steps away from the stoop and held out her hands, fingers in a goalpost with the tips of her thumbs together, making a frame. Yes. It was all coming together.
Just then, a boy with a squeaky-wheeled cart came up the street and stopped in front of her. In his faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, jeans, and shaggy haircut, he could’ve passed for an American high schooler, circa 1970. Audrey smiled at him.
He smiled back. “Audrey Smart?” he said, in remarkably unaccented English.
“How did you know my name?” she asked, astonished.
He reached onto the cart and lifted up a Vera Bradley purse in a very familiar paisley pattern. Familiar, because it was hers. Which prompted her to ask the pressing question … when had she seen it last?
Also, did this mean he’d been going through it? Well, of course, he had to, in order to know her name, but still, she felt a little weird about strangers going through her things. “Where did you find it?”
He pointed down the street. “You left it down at my parents’ store. You forget?”
“Oh!” The news didn’t shock her. She’d gone running to get the money, and then she’d been so discombobulated, it wasn’t a surprise she’d left it there. What did surprise her was that someone was bringing it back to her, and in relatively the same condition as it was before. She opened it; her credit cards and all the twenties were still there. Not that they’d do anyone good in Mussomeli. “Thank you. How did you know where I lived?”
He reached into the opening of her bag and pointed out the informational brochure from Maria, with the address of her new house, circled in red.
“Oh. Right. Well, I appreciate you delivering it to me.”
The good-looking boy with the dark brown eyes smiled mischievously. “I have something else for you.” He went around the side of the cart and pulled a burlap sack off a toilet. “My mama said you wanted one of these. We had this one out back. She thought you could use it.”
“She did?” Maybe she’d misjudged the woman. Audrey patted her heart, touched. It was the f
irst time a toilet had sparked that kind of reaction in her. “It’s amazing. Thank you. How much do I owe for it?”
He shook his head. “It’s free. Consider it a … housewarming gift.” He motioned to it. “Get the door and I’ll bring it in for you?”
She scurried to the door and held it open as the boy hefted it into his arms and brought it inside the house. She motioned him through the kitchen, and he set the toilet down outside the bathroom and looked around.
“I think you have your work cut out for you,” he said, whistling as he caught sight of the hole in the ceiling.
“It’s okay. I’m fully prepared and ready to work,” she assured him, looking around. “I’d offer you something to eat or drink but I actually don’t have anything now, for obvious reasons.”
He laughed. “That is all right. I am fine.” He reached out a hand. “I did not introduce myself. I am Luca.”
She shook it. “Audrey. But obviously you know that. How do you speak English so well?”
“Because I went to America for school. Two years. Free ride. I play your soccer there. But then I got hurt, and no more scholarship. They send me back.” He shrugged. “I hope Mama wasn’t bad to you. She hates Americans.”
Now it was making sense why she’d receive a toilet as a housewarming gift. Well, it was better than nothing. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “It’s okay. Now I get to live my dream of delivering toilets to pretty American ladies like you.” He winked.
Audrey stiffened. What a Latin lover. Did he often deliver toilets to American ladies? And if that was the start of a flirt, she needed to shut that down fast. She may have looked around his age, but she had to have been at least ten years his senior. Plus, the last thing she needed was to think about dating. She had work to do. “I appreciate it.”
He wiped his hands on his jeans. “You need help?”
