by Doyle, S.
“Meet in the lobby for breakfast around nine?”
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. That I was actually going to attempt to spend the day with a stranger and just see where it went. Instantly my trust issues kicked in.
“How do I know you’re not a serial killer?”
He shrugged and took a sip of his beer. “I guess you don’t. But Venice is packed with tourists this time of year. It would be really difficult to off you and dump your body without someone seeing.”
Sounded logical enough to me. Besides it’s not like he was physically threatening. I’m pretty sure if I had to, I could take him out. As a person who lived on the streets, I knew how to fight dirty and how to kick a guy in the balls where it really hurt.
“Okay, Ted. Tomorrow in the lobby at nine. Don’t be late or I’ll think you decided not to come.”
“Trust issues much?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I finished my martini and hopped off my stool. “Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe.”
“You’ll see me tomorrow. Definitely. It will be fun.”
I lifted one shoulder. “I guess we’ll see.”
* * *
Liam aka Leigh
ME: Hey, you’re online! How’s it going so far?
BETH: Well, I just got here, but so far, it’s pretty incredible. And I already met a guy. Well two guys…sort of.
ME: Two guys! Deets please.
BETH: The one guy is superhot and totally out of my league. Like Charlie Hunman hot.
ME: That is hot.
BETH: The other guy was sort of goofy looking, but I liked him.
ME: Goofy? How so?
BETH: He wore a baseball cap and thick glasses and his ears were a little big.
ME: You know what they say about big ears though…
BETH: Ha. Not that it matters. He made it very clear he was not into me that way.
ME: How did he do that?
BETH: Get this! He told me my boobs weren’t big enough!
ME: ASSHAT! But you should be careful. He could be trying to trick you with the hard-to-get play. The minute he says he’s not interested in you, suddenly he becomes a challenge.
BETH: Trust me. Ted is not trying to be a challenge. He’s just not the type. I could tell right away. But we’re going to do Venice together. Figured it would be nice to see the city with another American. Did I mention that he’s American?
ME: Sounds fun. Report back tomorrow night.
BETH: Right. Hey, it didn’t even occur to me, what time is it for you? It must be…don’t make me do the math…
ME: Early afternoon. With my job I keep some odd hours. So, report back your night during my day.
BETH: Yep. I can’t wait to really get started. This is so exciting!!!
“You have no idea,” I said to the empty hotel room.
I shut down the computer and considered going downstairs for another drink now that I knew she was safely tucked into her room.
Shit. Fuck. Shit.
This couldn’t be happening. This seriously could not be happening.
I truly didn’t know how I would react when I saw her for the first time in person and not just through candid headshots or half glances.
Now I knew. I was totally into her.
Her pixie face and bangs. Her fucking adorable nose ring. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was pierced anywhere else.
Fuck!
Now I was hard and annoyed. I pushed the laptop to the other side of the bed and thought about my job and why I was really here. Wondering for the first time in my life if those two things weren’t the same answer.
One thing was obvious. She needed protection. Probably from me, but definitely from him. It helped to soothe my conscience knowing that while I might be lying to her—like huge, unforgiveable lying—I was still doing it in her best interests.
No one was going to hurt Beth.
Well, at least no one but me when she found out the truth.
4
The Next Morning
Beth
I stood in the lobby and looked at my phone. It was 8:59. The elevators dinged announcing a drop-off and when the doors slid open, Ted walked out with a smile.
“On time.”
He looked much the same as last night. Baseball cap, only this one was a Red Sox cap, same dark-framed glasses, a loose T-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, that hello, 1980 wanted back. And flip flops. His knees were a little bony, but his calves showed the muscles of someone who was possibly a runner.
“You want breakfast first?” I asked him.
“Absolutely, I’m starved. One of the things on my agenda is to eat my way through Italy. The breakfast here at the hotel rocks.”
We made our way to the dining room and got a table for two. He ordered the eggs benedict, but I just stuck with toast and coffee.
He looked at my order skeptically. “You’re not one of those anorexic chicks, are you? Because they are no fun to eat with.”
I frowned. “Do I look anorexic? And you better think hard about your answer, Ted.”
“Sorry, no, you don’t. In fact, you look really nice. That’s a pretty dress.”
I’d gone with a spaghetti strap, cotton dress, black and soft, and sandals. And I’d purposefully not worn makeup so that in no way, shape, or form would he think I was trying.
Because I wasn’t. Trying. Not with him.
“Thanks,” I said. “Bonus, because I know you’re not going to be checking out my rack all day, I didn’t bother with a bra.”
He choked on whatever he was eating, and I had to wait for him to work it out.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he sipped his coffee. “Went down the wrong pipe.”
“Anyway, no, I’m not anorexic, I just don’t like big meals. They make me lethargic. I’m more of a snacker.”
He cut off some of his poached egg dripping with hollandaise sauce and put it on my plate. “Snack on that then. It’s delicious.”
Just to prove I didn’t have any issues with food, I took a bite. I let out a little moan. Man, that was good. While I didn’t eat a lot, I always appreciated when something was delicious.
He smiled like I’d done him a favor.
We finished our meal and got directions at the front desk to take the water cab over to San Marco. The concierge handed us two maps and made some recommendations about areas of interests.
Together, we took our seats on the cab for what amounted to a five-minute ride across the lagoon. It was sad to imagine that someday the water would be too high for the city to handle and all this would be lost. But I wasn’t going to let geopolitical, global-warming issues get me down today.
The sun was out, the sky was an amazing shade of blue and the colors of the buildings, as we approached, were firing off my creative juices.
This was good for me, I thought as we rushed over the water. This was exactly what I needed. To think Jared breaking up with me had been a good thing. A freeing event.
He’d said I was holding him back. I was. I was holding me back, too.
We made it to the dock and Ted jumped off in front of me. Then he offered a hand so I could step up. I took it and wobbled a little as I moved from the boat to the landing. Instantly his grip tightened on my hand and for a second time I was shocked by the strength in him. Like he shouldn’t be as strong as he was.
Feet on firm ground, I quickly snatched my hand back and shoved both of them into the pockets of my sundress. I didn’t want to send Ted any mixed messages. Like I wanted to hold hands or anything. We were simply two people hanging out.
Because tonight, if I got lucky and my blond friend was sitting at the bar again, I wasn’t going to hesitate. I was going to saddle up next to him and offer to buy him a drink and see where things went from there.
This was the new me. The bolder me. The person not afraid of her own damn shadow. My life didn’t have to be about my past anymore.
“Okay where are we going?” I asked him
as he pulled out the map the concierge had given us.
“There is a pretty cool church over here,” he said, pointing to an area smack in the middle of this section.
“Let’s do this!” I agreed.
We started to walk and quickly came to realize that Venice was not laid out like any city I’d ever been in. Streets turned into dead ends, alleys opened up into piazzas and one wrong move, and you’d be facing the water with a guy in a gondola making his way past you.
“Hey,” Ted said when we spotted our first gondola.
“Nope,” I shot him down quickly.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please, nobody sees a gondola and doesn’t think, hey I want to ride in that thing. But it’s cheesy and touristy and probably a total rip off. And it’s supposed to this big, romantic gesture and you and I have already determined we’re not romantic.”
“Oh. Right,” he snorted. “Forgot about your thing with the douchebag. Wouldn’t want to steal his thunder by popping your gondola cherry. Because we’ve already got a lot of cherry popping going on.”
This time my look was more of a glare than an eye roll. “Just look at the map and tell us where we’re going.”
“Yeah, this map is not really conducive for that,” he said, his sarcasm obvious. “Okay, I think we have to go down that street.”
I looked at where he was pointing. A dark narrow alley. “That’s not a street. I don’t even know if we can fit down there.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the only way to get to the next piazza,” Ted said. Then he wiggled his eyebrows. “You’re not scared, are you?”
It was broad daylight and there were a hundred other tourists around us, all following maps or I should say all struggling to follow maps. It’s like we were dropped into the middle of a maze and all of us were trying to make our way out.
I gave Ted the finger and led the way down the alley. I was right that it wasn’t wide enough to fit two people.
I was also convinced it was getting narrower and narrower the farther we walked, and we were going to have to turn sideways to keep going. But then, sure enough, it spit us out into another large, open square with café tables at every corner.
“This city,” I muttered. Then I remembered I was supposed to be taking pictures of it. I lifted my phone and snapped a few. Then I turned the phone on me and took a selfie.
Ugh. This was so embarrassing. But still, I smiled for the camera.
“I know, right?” Ted said, coming out of the alley behind me. “It’s kind of cool, though. Almost like a game. Come on, the church is over there.”
I followed him across the piazza and enjoyed the views. The church was old and lovely. It was sobering to think how long this building had been here, how much it had seen. And how they had created this much beauty without any of the modern tools. Wild. I could spend hours admiring the architecture alone.
There was a mural along one of the vestibule walls, faded but still visible, of Mary holding her dead son in her arms. The cross in the background behind them. Whoever had constructed it was an incredible artist.
“Do you believe?” Ted asked me.
“Do I believe in what?”
“You know. God, Jesus, the whole thing.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really think about it too much. It’s not like I had any religion growing up. But there’s a lot of fucked up shit in the world. If God was this great, all-powerful dude, why would he let all of that happen?”
“Ah. Spoken like a person who has had fucked up shit happen to them in the past.”
I didn’t comment. My past wasn’t something I talked about. A. because it sucked and B. because I didn’t want people thinking I was pathetic. Because the second you shared with someone that you’d spent time on the streets, they immediately looked at you like you were different.
Like there was an automatic assumption I turned tricks to eat. Or I pandered for drug money.
I did neither of those things. Which, of course, had left me with only one option.
I stole.
But I didn’t do that now. I’d made myself into a different person and I wasn’t going back to that life, ever. This trip was about making another change. I’d trusted no one and made my world as small and safe as possible. Now it was time to open a door and start exploring the other side of normal. With adventure and dangerous-looking guys.
None of which I was prepared to share with Ted.
“I’ll tell you what I do believe in,” I said. “Art. The mural is stunning.”
“It is. Is that what you do for a living? Something art related?”
“No. I’m a blogger. That’s why all the pictures, by the way. I’m not like one of those people who has to be snapping a picture of myself every second, but my editor wants me to beef up my Instagram account.”
“A blogger. Wow. One that actually gets paid money?”
I could feel my lips twitch. “Pull out your phone and give it to me.”
He handed his phone to me. I pulled up my blog and he stood closer to me so we could both see the screen. I glanced up at him only to realize he was taller than I’d expected him to be. Last night when we’d been at the bar, I’d been sitting so I hadn’t really accounted for how much taller than me he was.
I tried to shake off the feeling of being petite. Delicate even.
“That’s my blog. See all those ads running down the side? That’s what pays the bills.”
“Holy shit. I’ve read this blog! You’re famous.”
“Not exactly. It’s just a blog. But this editor from a New York publishing house wants me to turn it into a book. So they wanted lots of pictures…with me in them.”
“That’s why you’re here? Really?” he asked as if that was a surprise to him.
“Yep.”
His phone beeped with a text.
I see you...
No name, just a number. “Sorry,” I said, handing him his phone back. Did I mention that I saw the message? Did I mention that it was creepy? He took the phone and shoved it in his pocket without even looking at the message.
It had to be some prank thing or spam.
We left the church and stepped out into the bright sun.
“Where to next?” I asked him.
“I think we just wander around and get lost. There is a cool bridge I’d liked to check out.” He pulled the map out and I started to laugh as he turned it twenty different ways trying to get a sense of where we were and where we needed to go.
“This way,” he said eventually pointing to the left. “I think.”
We started strolling along again. After a big breakfast he probably wasn’t hungry yet, but I was getting ready to eat something. Pretty much everything anyone was eating looked amazing and was dripping with cheese.
“So why Italy? Or is this just your first stop?” Ted asked me.
“It is. The plan is to spend the next few weeks seeing as much as I can. Enough to fill a book I imagine. Why Italy first? That’s sort of a lame reason,” I said with a half laugh. “My father is Italian. Or at least that’s what my mom always told me. I never met him. But I figured I must be part Italian, so why not see Italy? But I’m saving Paris for last.”
“You never met your father?”
I shook my head, thinking back to Agent Davies. How crazy was it that I’d booked this trip with him in mind, then some random FBI dude showed up asking if I’d been in contact with my father? That was about as far from my reality as I could imagine.
“Nope. He was a professor or something like that. Older. My mom was smoking hot before… Anyway, he used to come into the diner where she worked. They hooked up, and nine months later I was born. I’m not even sure if she ever told him I existed.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “His loss.”
“And he hasn’t ever tried to contact you?”
“That’s so weird,” I exclaimed. “You’re the second person t
o ask me that in a month. My dad was a ghost before I was born. I don’t even know what he looks like. So no, he hasn’t ever tried to contact me. Why would he?”
“Yeah, well, you’re right then. His loss. What about your mom? Are you and her close?” Ted asked.
“Yep. We’re really tight,” I lied. Because the truth was the sad-sack version of my life and I didn’t want to talk about that here, today, and ruin the mood which, without even realizing it, had been surprisingly fun.
Another couple walked by us eating pizza that looked like it was topped with tomato slices and fresh spinach and my stomach rumbled.
“Okay, that’s it,” Ted announced. “I can’t go one more minute without a pizza slice or I’ll die.”
I laughed because I felt the same way.
“But you had a monster breakfast,” I reminded him.
“Fun fact about me. I’m one of those people who can eat anywhere and at any time. Especially if something looks good. And everything looks good!”
We found a small café with seating outside. He ordered for both of us at the counter. I went with a simple slice of tomato and cheese, he brought back two more slices for himself covered with things I couldn’t even identify.
“What is all that?” I asked, but still snapped a few pictures on my phone as I did.
He folded it up and took a bite, the cheese dripping down onto the paper plate. He lifted his head and closed his eyes like he was savoring the bite.
“I don’t know, but I don’t care. Fuck, that’s good,” he said as soon as he swallowed. Then he dove back in, and for a time, we just sat, people watched and indulged in the best pizza I’d ever had in my life.
“What do you do? For work?” I asked him casually.
“I’m a spy.”
I gave him my get-real look.
“International man of mystery?”
“Try again,” I said and took another bite. Along with the pizza, he’d gotten us some fresh squeezed lemonade. It was both tart and sweet and so amazingly good. I took small sips so I could make it last.
“I’ll buy you another lemonade, you know. If you just want to slurp that down in one, long gulp.”
