by Rebecca Lim
It was late. And Janey was sick of hiding. She just wanted to get back to Celia’s and barricade herself inside and not leave again until it was time to go home.
Home. A lump formed in her throat. It felt so far away. Celia had been right, Janey thought sadly, this trip had been a mistake. You couldn’t force someone to like you, even if they were supposed to be your family and you wanted them to like you so much that it hurt.
Janey wanted to believe that she wasn’t hopelessly lost. The threat of that masked watcher, lurking, had caused her to change direction a multitude of times and she was probably ages away from Celia’s by now. It was a shock when she emerged from the narrow, bar-filled street she’d been cautiously traversing to find a busy multi-lane road that ran hard up against a stretch of the old city walls.
She hurried towards the nearest pedestrian crossing and started thumbing frenetically through her guidebook, feeling certain no one would try anything in the presence of so many passing cars.
At that moment, instead of buzzing to indicate a text was coming through, her mobile rang.
Janey almost jumped out of her skin. She scanned the area around her, which was deserted of pedestrians, then scrambled through her backpack for her phone.
It was the first time she’d heard her phone actually ring all night. She’d spent so much time skulking around in bars that if it’d rung earlier, she wouldn’t have had a hope of hearing it.
As she withdrew it now, the name on the screen took her breath away.
Luca (mobile)
She was so jittery that seeing his name, after all that had already happened, just propelled her into panicky motion. She killed his call immediately, without thinking. She saw that he’d tried to call her at least a dozen times because Luca’s name filled the missed-calls screen!
Not waiting for the lights to change in her favour, she dashed across the road, dodging oncoming cars as if her only salvation lay on the other side.
Breathing hard, Janey reached the other side of the Viale Pretoriano and scanned her surroundings. Through a gap in the ancient city walls, ahead of her stretched the gloomily lit Viale dell’Università. She was standing at the top end of an upside-down T-intersection, torn about which way to go.
Should she head back along this side of the Viale Pretoriano in a northerly direction in the hope that it somehow connected up with the Via Nomentana – the main road that would take her back towards Celia’s? Or should she continue along the Viale dell’Università and try to find someone to help her get her bearings? On this side of the Viale Pretoriano there was barely any footpath to speak of beneath the shadow of the old Roman fortifications that ran alongside it, and the rushing traffic showed no sign of thinning out any time soon.
Janey hesitated for a moment – but her mind was made up for her when she noticed someone approaching down the Viale Pretoriano. Wearing a white porcelain mask that covered the entire face.
She turned on her heel and started walking quickly in the other direction when another figure, wearing a full gilt-and-white harlequin mask, stepped calmly out of the traffic further down the street and began moving towards her. It felt unreal. Like she’d walked into a scene from an Italian Terminator movie. She was hemmed in on both sides, and her tormentors were moving closer.
Fellini hadn’t given up and gone home – he’d brought reinforcements!
In wordless terror, Janey spun back around and sprinted up the tree-lined Viale dell’Università, which was absolutely deserted. Streetlamps were lit every hundred metres or so, but it was still very dark beneath the cover of the trees, and devoid of life. As she ran – her lungs burning, her backpack banging painfully into her spine – Janey registered that the buildings she passed looked official, like low-rise government office blocks. But few windows were lit and the car parks beneath them were largely empty. Between the harsh rattle of her breathing and her own footfalls, she thought she could hear the unhurried footsteps of her two pursuers echoing behind her. In desperation, she sprinted right at a crossroads and looked around for somewhere to hide. But the door of the first building she tried was locked, and she gave a tiny scream and kept running.
It felt like she’d been running forever when she skidded to a halt in some kind of public square, complete with flagpoles displaying the Italian tri-colour. A street sign told her she was standing in the Piazzale Aldo Moro. A number of darkened roads and streets fanned out from the square in different directions, and she was frantically deciding which one to take when more masked figures appeared silently at the boundaries of the square. There were five in all, including the two that had pursued her from the Viale Pretoriano.
Janey thought her heart would explode with fear! They were closing in on her from all sides, and she had nowhere left to run.
The sound of a car door opening somewhere behind her made her spin around. She focused her shattered gaze on a grey cement block building with blank mirrored windows. A dark car was parked in front of the building and from beneath one of the building’s blunt, rectangular arches Luca appeared.
For a moment, Janey stopped breathing.
When she remembered to breathe again, she found herself trapped between the masked youths and Luca’s tall and familiar form.
What Brandon had told her had all been true!
All of Janey’s terror and rage were in her voice as she screamed at Luca. ‘How could you do this to me?’
Fellini
Luca held Janey’s wild-eyed gaze with his own. ‘Cara mia!’ he called out. ‘Run to me!’
Janey flinched. ‘Why would I do that?’ she spat. ‘After all you’ve put me through? Do you get off on playing s-sick jokes on girls who like you or something?’
‘You are wise not to trust him, Jane,’ shouted a male voice in heavily accented English behind her.
Janey turned. It was one of the watchers, the one in the gold mask that she’d first spotted near that pharmacy.
‘He is the mastermind,’ the speaker added. ‘He has set you up from the beginning. All of it is due to Luca Sarti.’
In a flash, Luca’s face registered such a look of fury and loathing that Janey instinctively took another step back, away from him and towards the masked people grouped behind her.
‘Bugiardo!’ Luca roared. ‘Liar!’
Uncertainty made Janey’s step falter.
In a gentler tone, Luca urged Janey, ‘Call Brandon, everything will be clear!’
Janey stared at Luca in confusion for a split second, then grabbed her mobile out of her backpack. Before the watchers behind her registered what she was doing, she’d dialled Brandon’s number.
Almost immediately, ‘What Goes Around . . . Comes Around’ cut through the still night air.
Janey spun around.
‘You idiot!’ said someone, as another of Janey’s masked tormentors started laughing.
‘You cowards,’ said Luca in a ringing voice, ‘remove your masks. You are undone by one of your own! Adesso. Immediately.’
One by one, Janey’s pursuers removed their masks, laughing defiantly, and Janey felt her entire world tilt dangerously for one split second.
For there was Freddy, twirling her mask on one finger as though the malevolent looking creation of gold-and-white porcelain was the latest must-have accessory! And the tall figure in the golden mask had been – who else? – that creep Paolo, while the others revealed themselves to be Luz, Minka and . . . Brandon.
Janey couldn’t bring herself to look at Brandon. She couldn’t believe Freddy and her friends had been behind the cruel hoax the entire time.
Fellini wasn’t one person – ‘he’ was five!
‘Why, Freddy?’ Janey gasped. ‘What have I ever done to you? And Brandon?’
Brandon – the only one who wasn’t laughing or smirking – stared at his feet.
Freddy snorted. ‘How do you know Luca’s not behind it all?’ She drifted closer to where Janey stood. ‘It’s his word against ours. Blood’s thicker than water, re
member? He’s practically a stranger. He could have put us up to this for his own amusement. You know I’ve had a crush on him for ages. I’d do anything for Luca, wouldn’t I, caro?’ she added, blowing a kiss in his direction. ‘And my friends would do anything for me. Can’t you take a joke?’
Paolo snickered, while Luz didn’t bother to hide her look of snobby disdain.
‘Fermati!’ Luca snarled. He turned to Janey and urged, ‘Do not believe her, bella mia. She is making trouble.’
Paolo gave an ugly laugh, his expression unapologetic. ‘It’s what Federica does best! Half the reason she’s so fun to be with.’
Minka glanced away in embarrassment, while Brandon just looked sick.
Janey’s head was spinning trying to make sense of all the arguments and counter arguments trading back and forth around her. Was Luca the ringleader of the whole thing, or Freddy? Who did she believe? She didn’t know either of them well enough to tell.
‘That’s enough!’ issued a new voice out of the darkness as a car door opened nearby. Everyone froze as Celia appeared from the shadows.
Two spots of high colour appeared on Freddy’s cheekbones as her look of amusement died.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am,’ Celia said to Janey, ‘that I believed a single word this spoilt psychopath of mine ever told me about you! I don’t know how to make it up to you, but it starts tonight.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Janey replied distractedly, still trying to process Freddy’s and Brandon’s duplicity.
‘And you!’ Celia barked in her daughter’s direction. ‘Get in the car, you disgraceful baggage. And the rest of you,’ she took in Freddy’s friends with a sweeping glare, ‘push off home. I’m going to get on the phone to your parents as soon as this is over and I’m making sure they ground each of you for at least the rest of the summer break.’
The histrionics began almost as soon as Luca drove out of the Piazzale Aldo Moro with Janey in the front passenger seat and Celia and Freddy in the back.
‘Apologise now,’ Celia bellowed.
Freddy shook her head mutinously and burst into tears.
Luca and Janey exchanged wry glances.
‘What’s gotten into you lately?’ Celia continued more gently over her daughter’s bowed head. ‘I’d expect you to treat me like I’ve got some sort of leprous disease, but not Janey. Why would you treat her like this? You’ve always wanted a sibling and then Janey shows up – the next best thing in the circumstances – and what do you do? Try and run her out of our lives! I don’t understand you.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ Freddy sobbed. ‘Then you’d get to keep all the money! And it’s not like we need another girl in the family when you don’t know what to do with the one you’ve got.’
Janey resisted the urge to turn around. It was between Freddy and Celia, she told herself, though her ears were practically on stalks.
‘Whatever do you mean, all the money?’ asked Celia incredulously.
‘The Gordon money!’ Freddy hiccupped. ‘If you found her but we didn’t get along, remember, because you decided she was of bad character – like that stupid will said – we’d get to keep it all and wouldn’t have to share it.’
Celia shook her head. ‘You set all this up so that I’d believe Janey was some kind of ditzy tramp?’
Freddy glared tearfully at her mother.
In the front of the car, Janey frowned, while Luca’s straight dark brows shot up. Both maintained their silence, listening intently.
‘You mean you knew about the details of the Gordon will?’ Celia cried. ‘How?’
‘You don’t password our home computer,’ Freddy responded sullenly. ‘I read all the letters you exchanged with the lawyers for the Gordons’ estate. Every single one. I’ve known about that stupid will for ages. If you located Lydia Gordon or her child and decided that they weren’t of bad character, the lawyers would be obliged to distribute half the money to them.’
‘And you decided to prove Janey’s character was of the very worst kind!’ Celia sounded flabbergasted. ‘I’ve never wanted all the money, Freddy! I’d much rather have Janey in our lives than keep it all. It’s rightfully hers anyway. She needs it. We don’t. I can’t believe this was all about the Gordon bequest.’
Janey swallowed through the sudden lump in her throat, remembering how they’d struggled to find the money to pay for her mum’s medical expenses. ‘The money’s pretty useless to me now,’ she muttered. ‘Freddy can have it.’
Freddy ignored her. ‘But then we’d be almost as well off as Luz and Brandon are!’ she addressed Celia pleadingly. ‘And she’s a dork anyway. She’d never fit in with my crowd. I mean, look at her. I gave a her a head-to-toe makeover and she still doesn’t know how to dress.’
Freddy really was a piece of work! Janey thought in disbelief. Makeunder, more like! She was so totally in the wrong, and could still come out with stuff like that!
Luca cleared his throat. ‘Brandon did not think so. He took her to the Café de Paris. Perhaps he has not taken you there?’
Freddy’s eyes were wide with chagrined surprise. ‘He didn’t tell me about that!’ she said, biting her lip angrily. ‘ And he’s been in love with me forever. Unreciprocated of course,’ she added, darting a quick look at Luca. ‘He should’ve stuck to the script!’
‘Enough!’ Celia barked. ‘We’re home now, and we ’re going to have it out if it kills us! Every last whinge and gripe and unreasonable demand! It’s time you stopped acting like a spoilt princess. I didn’t ask for this situation! Your father suddenly decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with a doormat and I wasn’t prepared to do that. End of story. Stop pushing it all back on me.’
‘Fine by me!’ said Freddy. ‘I don’t get enough attention from either of you anyway, without adding another person to the mix! I’ve got plenty to say.’ Mother and daughter glared at each other across the back seat.
Luca stopped the car in front of Celia’s apartment building and opened the car door for Celia and Freddy before helping Janey out of her seat. Touching her arm, he murmured, ‘I may call you?’
Janey, her head still spinning a little from the way things had turned out, nodded shyly. ‘You have my number.’
She waved as she entered the building behind her aunt and Freddy. Luca gave a jaunty return blast on the car horn before roaring off at his usual terrifying speed.
It felt to Janey as if she’d last entered the apartment a lifetime ago. So much had happened since that morning.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked, as Celia shrugged out of her suit jacket in the living room. Freddy attempted to skulk off to her bedroom, but Celia barked, ‘You! Stay.’ Freddy crashed onto an ottoman with her back to them, her arms crossed.
‘Just after eight, my inbox pinged,’ Celia said, weariness creeping into her voice. ‘I’ve been so flat out putting the finishing touches to an economic paper on a possible Italian–Australian bilateral free trade agreement that I let a lot of things slip. Including keeping tabs on you and Freddy.’
‘So what’s new?’ Freddy snarled. Celia pointedly ignored her daughter’s outburst and continued to study Janey.
‘Um, okay,’ Janey replied, wondering where Celia was going with all this, but still glad they were really talking now.
Celia smiled as she slipped her heavy spectacles off her face, looking instantly younger, less official and very tired. ‘I do have a point. I’d accumulated sixty-plus emails since I’d last checked and right near the top I found an email from a Ness McAdams entitled “Attention Celia Albright”.’
Janey gaped for a second. ‘My friend Ness?’
Celia nodded as she gestured at Janey to sit. ‘Though I couldn’t place her at first until I opened her email and saw your name leap out at me from paragraph one. Stupidly, I assumed that it couldn’t be important, that she was probably just trying to update you with gossip from home. So I printed and closed the email, then promptly forgot all about it for
the next hour or so.’
Janey shook her head. That would probably have been around the time Paolo – in his freaky golden mask – had started stalking her.
‘Around ten,’ Celia continued, ‘Libby – the woman you met the other day, who was stuck working late too – poked her head into my office and asked for a quick word. Turns out she’d been trying to speak to me all week – ever since that day you stood up the Ambassador and embarrassed me horribly – but I just haven’t made the time to see her. Something more important kept coming up.’ She crinkled her nose apologetically. ‘She said it was about you, and I’m sorry to say that I demanded to know what it was that you’d done this time.’
Janey winced. ‘Freddy had pretty much assassinated my character in your eyes by then, so I can understand that.’
Freddy made a snorting sound, but it was clear that she was listening intently.
‘Well, Libby didn’t,’ said Celia. ‘She’d figured you for who you really were and said it wasn’t what you’d done, but what someone was doing to you. Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about because you hadn’t said a word to me! So I ordered her to sit down and spill the beans. She said you’d received a threatening text message while you’d been sitting in the Ambassador’s waiting room. You must’ve been terrified!’
Janey shrugged. ‘I was so jumpy by that stage, I wasn’t thinking straight! As soon as that text arrived, all I could think of was escaping the embassy, you, Luca, everybody.’
‘Your flight reflexes kicked in,’ said Celia.
‘Bet we gave you a workout,’ Freddy muttered.
Janey ignored her. ‘I mean, the most sensible thing would’ve been to sit there and wait for you to get out of your meeting and help me track Fellini down. I mean, it’s an embassy – everyone who goes in and out has to sign. But instead, I just panicked like a dumbbell and ran.’
Freddy laughed, making Celia frown.
‘Bolted, was the word Libby used. She said she was on the phone and saw you drop your mobile with a shriek and hightail it out of there seconds later. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’ Celia chided Janey. ‘Instead of letting me think what Freddy wanted me to think about you?’
