The Sweet Life

by Rebecca Lim

  She saw Luca, in the embassy car, tooting his horn at the passing press of people, who wouldn’t let him through.

  Janey, feeling chilled, watched as Luca finally slid the vehicle through a break in the crowd. He hadn’t even looked her way or shown any sign that he knew she was there, but it had to be the weirdest, most unbelievable coincidence that both of them were in this obscure corner of the city at the same time.

  With a pounding heart, Janey pushed her way back into the mass of people slowly making their way up the street, weaving her way forward as fast as she could. She was usually the politest person around – one who’d rather hang back than act pushy – but seeing Luca out here had had the impact of an electric shock. It was suddenly even more vital to get back to Celia’s as quickly as possible.

  But as Janey was finally pushed out into the Piazza di Spagna with a torrent of other people, she noticed Freddy’s friend Brandon coming out of the nearby Burberry store, carrying a loaded shopping bag!

  Janey stopped in her tracks as though she’d been hit by lightning. What were the chances of seeing someone else she knew in Rome within the space of such a short time? She looked about in panic for somewhere to hide. It was suddenly really important that he not see her.

  She abruptly changed direction and made for a leather goods shop back in the direction she’d just come from. Brandon didn’t seem to have seen her, she thought wildly. So if he didn’t follow her into the store, he couldn’t possibly be the malevolent presence that had been following her around Rome all afternoon. If he did find her, well, he might be the one behind that text message!

  Janey scrambled into the ritzy showroom of Sermoneta Gloves, despairing of ever reaching Celia’s. The shop was deserted at this hour of the day because the thermostat was probably pushing forty degrees outside and no one in their right mind was looking at buying fur-lined leather gloves right now, but it was the closest place to hide.

  She headed straight for a display at the back of the store that was packed with hand-made luxury golf gloves and hovered there, looking nervously out the front windows.

  The elegant saleswoman started to say, ‘May I help—’ when Janey gave a small shriek and hissed, ‘Is there a back entrance I can use?’

  The woman shook her head in confusion as, like a heat-seeking missile, Brandon’s head of wind-ruffled blond hair could be seen bobbing up the main staircase to the showroom. He’d found her.

  Janey just stared as Brandon strolled into the glove shop as if he did this every day, and said amusedly, ‘Janey Gordon! It is you. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to hide from me. You changed direction like one of those ducks you see in a carnival shooting parlour.’

  Janey just gaped at him. Ducks?

  He put his arm through hers and led her out of the store, when something inside Janey seemed to snap and she pushed him away before spinning on her heel to run.

  ‘Janey!’ Brandon said, catching at her arm. ‘What on earth’s the matter? Aren’t you glad to see me?’

  Janey couldn’t meet his eyes. She was so freaked by everything, she needed to get away.

  ‘L-look,’ she stammered in a strained voice, ‘this might sound kind of crazy, but there is some kind of, of . . . cyber stalker trying to do a number on me today, and in case it’s you (sorry, but it very well could be), I’d really like to get back to Freddy’s place now, so if you don’t mind . . .’

  Brandon’s expression was one of baffled astonishment.

  ‘Don’t take it the wrong way, Brandon, but I’m trying to shake you off and you’re not even remotely co-operating. So if you go that way,’ Janey waved him back in the direction of the swanky designer stores on the Via Condotti, ‘and I go that way,’ she pointed up the seemingly endless marble steps that led away from the Piazza di Spagna towards the Villa Borghese gardens and home, ‘that would be a huge load off my mind.’

  Brandon led her, protesting, towards the Spanish Steps that gave the piazza its name.

  ‘Sit down,’ he ordered. ‘And tell me exactly what you mean by cyber stalker. You lost me right about there.’

  Janey slumped in sudden exhaustion, her backpack between her feet as Brandon settled beside her. ‘It would be easier to just show you,’ she said slowly. She wasn’t sure if she could trust him, but maybe just showing him Fellini’s message would tell her whether or not Brandon knew anything about it. She was a pretty good reader of people.

  Janey dug around in her backpack for the Italian mobile phone that Celia had given her, when it buzzed again, indicating another text was coming through. She dropped the pack as if it was composed of live coals and said shakily, ‘You do it. It’s probably that creep Fellini again.’

  Brandon took the bag out of Janey’s hands with a look of confusion and retrieved her mobile. Janey took the key lock off and Brandon held the phone up as both of them read the new text.

  He’s cute. But dont get

  your hopes up.

  Brandon’s eyebrows shot up. Janey turned milk white.

  ‘Okay,’ said Brandon. ‘Start from the beginning.’

  The whole weird saga of her day spilled forth. It was a relief to tell someone who actually seemed to care and wanted to hear her out. Celia didn’t even seem to have enough time to do that.

  ‘Who is this guy?’ said Brandon. He scrolled through the inbox to find the earlier message and read that as well, frowning.

  ‘I don’t know who he is,’ Janey said, ‘but he ’s been on my case since Australia, posting freaky comments on my MySpace, and now this. I thought at first it was someone from the rave the other night, or that it was you,’ Janey laughed shakily as Brandon frowned again and re-read the two messages. ‘And then I thought, for a split second, that it might even be Luca. As if !’ Her voice was a little hysterical.

  She told Brandon about seeing Luca in a part of town she hadn’t expected to be in, and certainly hadn’t expected to see him in. Brandon’s look of concern deepened.

  ‘Well,’ he replied slowly. ‘That may not be the crazy idea you think it is. Didn’t you say Fellini’s avatar was a black luxury sedan? Does it look anything like the car Luca drives?’

  Janey nodded. ‘But it can’t be Luca,’ she insisted. ‘He took me out yesterday. Why would he do something like this?’

  ‘He’s an expert at toying with your emotions, according to Freddy,’ Brandon said grimly. ‘It’s the kind of sick game a guy like him would play. He can’t be trusted.’

  Janey flinched, recalling that Celia had said something similar.

  ‘And it’s not so weird that you ran into me here,’ Brandon added. ‘Everyone shops here.’ Brandon held open his shopping bag, which had the latest Burberry handbag nestled in it, together with a boxed silk scarf in signature nova plaid. Janey’s eyes widened at the kind of gift she could never have afforded to give Lydia, no matter how much she deserved it. Then she remembered that Brandon was mega-wealthy and shopping here was normal for people like him.

  ‘Mom’s birthday,’ he shrugged. ‘She likes this stuff. So that explains how I got here. Luca, however, is another story altogether.’

  Janey took in Brandon’s explanation silently.

  ‘Why me?’ she wailed after a moment. ‘Luca and I had a great day together yesterday. We walked all over town. We got along like the proverbial house on fire. The only off note of the whole day was when we visited that awful crypt of human bones on the Via Veneto and he apologised for taking me there . . .’

  Brandon’s gaze had flown to Janey’s sharply when she’d mentioned the crypt. ‘It all fits!’ he exclaimed. ‘The crashed car, Fellini, the Via Veneto, taking you to that gruesome tomb. Don’t you see? One minute he ’s lulling you into a false sense of security, then he ’s trying to unsettle you the next. He ’s leaving you clues about who he really is. He tried to do exactly the same thing with Freddy when they first met, she tells me.’

  It was Janey’s turn to look shocked. Luca had pulled the same kind of st
unts on her beautiful cousin? Her mind raced.

  ‘He did take about a million calls from other girls while we were out together,’ she said dismally.

  ‘Look,’ said Brandon, ‘I’ll put you into a cab. After the day you’ve had, you don’t need to be power walking in this heat when all you want to do is get back home.’ And he was as good as his word, ordering a cab driver in fluent Italian to get Janey safely and quickly back to Celia’s and paying him generously to do it.

  Janey sank into the back seat of the taxi and pondered all the new stuff she’d learnt about Luca. Maybe he was Fellini. After all, she’d told him almost all there was to know about her life, and it was probably a cinch to send her texts from someone else ’s number. And the MySpace comments were easy. Anyone could do them. Plus, Celia had told her expressly that Luca couldn’t be trusted not to break her heart. And he ’d been well on his way to at least putting a dent in it. That was, until she’d met Brandon again and he ’d set her straight on what a low-life Luca really was!

  But why? She ’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, they were starting to even be friends, when all the time he ’d probably just been trying to mess with her mind . . .

  Thank goodness for Brandon, Janey thought, as the taxi drew up in front of her aunt’s villa. She made her way shakily up the front steps, thinking that it didn’t hurt that he was a babe, either.

  Gabriel

  It was almost eleven-thirty after her freaky day of trying to outrun Fellini’s increasingly bizarre attacks.

  Janey couldn’t wait to see her friends’ faces. She didn’t think they’d believe the story she was about to lay on them. In the airconditioned comfort of her bedroom, after a cool shower and the great dinner of vegetarian lasagne that Celia had left in the fridge for her, she almost didn’t believe it either.

  Imagine, Janey thought with bemusement. I have a stalker. Like I’m some kind of A-list celeb or something. It just boggled her mind.

  Celia had explained in a note on the fridge that she was stuck entertaining a party of visiting trade delegates that evening, and that Freddy was staying over at Luz’s place, so Janey had the apartment, and more importantly, the computer, all to herself.

  At eleven-twenty-nine Rome time, Janey Skyped her friends.

  Gabs picked up almost instantly and her familiar grin lit up the screen at Janey’s end.

  ‘It’s sooooo good to see you!’ Ness squealed from somewhere behind Gabs’s left shoulder.

  ‘Ditto to that!’ yelled Em, who waved as she crossed the room and moved closer to the monitor, growing bigger in the frame.

  The sight of the three of them, clustered around the webcam at Gabs’s place, made Janey burst into tears all over again.

  ‘See,’ said Gabs, turning to Em and Ness, ‘I told you she keeps doing that.’

  ‘This is so not you, Janes,’ Em said with concern. ‘What gives?’ Ness frowned and nodded in agreement.

  It all tumbled out in a weepy, out-of-order diatribe that would’ve made no sense if it wasn’t for her friends’ incredible patience at piecing the whole story together.

  ‘It’s like some horrible thriller,’ whispered Ness in consternation after Janey finished her tale of woe.

  ‘Starring you,’ whistled Em.

  ‘And you know what I’m like with horror movies!’ Janey gulped, feeling calmer. ‘Sorry to lay it all on you guys, but I feel like I’ve got no one to turn to over here. Freddy seems nice, but she ’s out all the time with her ritzy pals – and fair enough, she’s on her holidays and can’t be expected to babysit me – while Celia thinks . . .’ Janey blushed, making it clear what Celia thought.

  ‘Anyway.’ Janey changed the subject. ‘How come you’re all together? Isn’t it, like, well before eight over there? And I know none of you princesses like to rise before noon during the holidays . . .’

  ‘You’re worth more than a little lost beauty sleep to us,’ Em responded. ‘It was easier for us to prod each other out of our sleeping bags at Gabs’s place than to try and drag ourselves to our individual computers at home and hook up a four-way conversation at this hour of the morning! Too logistically taxing, even for moi. Plus, we wanted to see you. The only way to do that was to all be in the one place.’

  ‘And you guys know technology is so not my thing,’ Ness added with a laugh. ‘I was happy to let someone else fire up the Skype engines and just point myself at the webcam and bat my eyelashes winningly.’

  The other three girls giggled. Unless Karl Lagerfeld started making dresses and jewellery out of recycled laptops or something, Ness would continue to shun everything technical apart from her MySpace profile. And even that, she had trouble with. She frequently posted blogs that were half finished, by accident. And her wallpaper and photo galleries were pretty half-hearted and blahs-ville for someone so beautiful, with the wardrobe to prove it.

  ‘Maybe you should change your profile to private?’ suggested Gabs.

  ‘Would that work?’ asked Janey, brightening.

  ‘No,’ Em interrupted. ‘She added Fellini as a friend, remember? He can still access her private stuff if he ’s a “friend”.’

  Janey’s face fell again. ‘That’s right. I checked Fellini out when this craziness all started, and his profile ’s private. All I know is that he ’s apparently twenty-one and Italian. Plus, I’m his only friend.’

  ‘Eeeuuuuwww,’ Gabs exclaimed. ‘Now that’s creepy.’

  A sudden thought made Janey flinch. Luca was twenty-one and Italian!

  ‘Well, why don’t you remove him?’ Ness queried. ‘I mean, he’s clearly not a friend, is he? He ’s more like an anti-friend.’

  ‘Much as I would love to do that,’ said Janey, still bothered by the new link she’d made between Fellini and Luca, ‘I kind of want to figure out who he is and what he wants. Remember that old saying, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” He ’s a bit of a show-off. One day soon, he ’ll slip up and I’ll be onto it. His true and evil identity will be revealed at last and I can tell him to get lost to his face.

  ‘Anyway,’ she added sadly, ‘it’s probably Luca. What Brandon said makes sense. Fellini and Luca seem to have a few too many points in common for my liking. And why would an international playboy hottie like him even want to spend a whole day with me anyway? It’s totally suss. He’s probably just playing some weird-ass game I don’t understand. Apparently he did the same thing to Freddy when they first met, according to Brandon.’

  Janey didn’t see the quick looks the others shot each other at each mention of Brandon’s name.

  ‘Remind me again,’ Gabs murmured. ‘Brandon is Freddy’s underwear-model friend?’

  Janey laughed. ‘No, silly, he ’s the one I said looked like a walking perfume ad campaign. The all-American, strong-jawed type with wind-swept blond hair.’

  ‘Mmmmmmmmm,’ Ness said.

  ‘Well, whatever,’ said Em, ‘He sounds too good to be true with his white-knight routine.’

  Janey frowned and Em added, ‘No really! Hear me out. I’m just thinking out loud here. I mean, you’ve run into the guy twice now in Rome. That’s one hell of a coincidence strike rate. I mean, remind me, but isn’t Rome like a city of, uh, several million people?’

  Janey shook her head. ‘Brandon’s been awesome, every time, Em. And super patient and generous. My story’s pretty unbelievable, but he still sat through every word and put me in a taxi back to Celia’s place when he could’ve just left me in the Piazza di Spagna – as a spluttering mess, I might add! – and washed his hands of the whole crazy thing! A message came through from Fellini while Brandon was sitting there and he looked as stunned as I felt. Though I wish my pulse raced around him the way it does around Luca.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m going to have to go cold turkey where Luca’s concerned. He’s clearly bad for my health. Especially if he ’s some psycho freakazoid.’

  Em frowned, but didn’t push the point.

  The four friends talked for another h
our, Janey asking her buddies for all the goss back home. It felt almost as though they were together again, shooting the breeze in Gabs’s room. Except that eventually she had to end the link-up, and the screen showing her friends’ smiling faces went abruptly blank.

  Uneasy once more, Janey trailed off to bed.

  When Celia and Janey met in the hallway the next morning, Celia was friendly, but brisk.

  ‘You forgot to check in with me yesterday,’ she said in a mildly accusing tone, as Janey flushed. So much had happened yesterday that it had completely fallen out of her brain!

  ‘No matter,’ said Celia more kindly. ‘I’ve arranged for Luca to stop by this morning.’ Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as Janey turned pale beneath her lightly developing tan and looked less than pleased at the news. ‘He had an unexpected cancellation, and said he could do it. I hope that’s okay with you,’ Celia continued. ‘He’ll take you to the Australian Embassy to meet the Ambassador – who’s looking forward to meeting you very much – and to tour our building. It’s a beautiful place. And you can get Vegemite on toast in the canteen if you’re feeling homesick! The Aussie accents you’ll hear all around you will be a bonus.’

  Celia smiled and rushed off to work, promising to meet up with Janey once she reached the embassy.

  Luca was due to ring the security buzzer at ten-thirty. For once, Janey was not looking forward to seeing him at all and was totally unsure about what to wear and how to act. The thought that he was possibly behind the nasty joke that seemed to be unfolding around her made her stomach flip. She’d be stuck in the car with him! What was she supposed to say to a potential stalker? Hi, how are you? Are you responsible for messing with my head? And could you please stop?

  Janey slipped into the wrap dress and ballet flats, deciding on minimal make-up and a low ponytail. When the buzzer sounded she stood up and made for the door as though she was heading to her own execution.