by Anita Hughes
“Is the somebody male?” Francesca asked. “Is he why you look like a walking wax figure?”
“Yes.” Hallie nodded, unable to say more. She walked quickly into the village. She saw a couple sitting at an outdoor café, sipping hot chocolate and espresso. She saw tourists in gloves and boots buying souvenirs at the kiosk. She saw two children throwing stones into the fountain.
“Let’s have some coffee and cake.” Francesca touched Hallie’s arm. “I’ve been longing for Italian coffee and I used to love their chocolate torte.”
They entered a café and ordered cappuccinos and thick slices of cake. They sat by the window and Hallie slowly began to relax. She told Francesca how she and Angus met, in the hall of mirrors. She described the Villa Luce: the ornate frescos, the glittering chandeliers, the sweeping views of the lake. She told how excited she was to design the new wing, how she finally had her own project that would lead to other things.
She talked more slowly about their first kiss, Angus’s strength when Hallie discovered the diaries. She described how calm Angus was, how he was such a good listener. She told how Peter had shown up unexpected and she gave him back his ring. She said she didn’t think she really loved Peter, only Constance and her friends thought he was perfect.
Hallie told how her relationship with Angus changed into something romantic, something that made her feel warm and excited. She told Francesca how Angus said he was falling in love with her, and she thought she might be falling in love with him.
“He sounds like a lovely person,” Francesca murmured, eating a forkful of cake.
“He is a lovely person.” Hallie nodded. “Until I found out he isn’t Angus at all. He’s really Max Rodale, the reclusive owner of the villa. Portia found Angus’s photo in Peter’s biography of Paul Johns. Angus was standing with the crew team and the caption read Max Rodale. Angus made up everything. He wasn’t an archaeologist; he didn’t go to college in New Hampshire. I don’t know where he grew up or who his family was. Angus sold an Internet company and made a fortune. Everything since then has been a lie.”
Francesca frowned. “He must have a reason.”
“That’s what Portia said!” Hallie exclaimed. “But there’s no reason to say you love someone and lie at the same time.”
“There could be,” Francesca said slowly. “You should give him a chance to explain.”
“He came to the villa to explain but I wouldn’t let him.” Hallie slumped in her chair.
“I’m not saying you should take him back.” Francesca sipped her coffee. “But you could hear what he has to say.”
“What difference would it make?” Hallie demanded. “I never want to see him again.”
“I didn’t take you to church very often, but I do believe in God.” Francesca looked out the window. “One of the greatest gifts human beings have is the power to forgive.”
“You think I should forgive him?” Hallie’s blue eyes were wide.
“I think you should listen to him, and then decide for yourself.”
Hallie sat quietly, stabbing the cake with her fork. She remembered sitting in the middle of the lake, trying to catch the Lavarello. She remembered how Angus let her talk about the diaries, about her anguish over Francesca. She remembered how his shoulders were strong and his lips were sweet.
“Go see him,” Francesca suggested. “Then you can put it behind you.”
“Okay.” Hallie gulped. “I’ll take Milo.”
Francesca paid and they walked down to the ferry terminal. Hallie hugged her arms around her chest, trying to keep warm.
“What are you going to do?” Hallie asked when she purchased her ticket.
“I’m going to go tell Pliny I’m here,” Francesca murmured.
“Give him the rest of the cake.” Hallie grinned. “He loves vanilla frosting.”
* * *
Hallie found Angus in the kitchen, making a risotto. He wore tan corduroys and a green T-shirt under a white apron. His hands moved quickly, dicing onions, slicing tomatoes, adding oregano and parsley.
“Hi,” Hallie said quietly as Milo bounded across the room.
“Hi.” Angus put the knife down and walked awkwardly toward her.
“Milo missed the villa,” Hallie mumbled, keeping her eyes on the tile floor.
“I missed him.” Angus bent down and let Milo lick his cheeks. “I was making a late lunch. Care to join me?”
Hallie shook her head. “I just filled up on cake with Francesca.”
“Your mother is here?”
“She showed up this morning, like a spirit appearing out of the lake.”
“What is she doing here?” Angus moved closer to Hallie, nervously running his hands through his hair.
“Pliny told her I was sick,” Hallie replied. “He also told her I found her diaries.”
“What did she say?” Angus asked.
“It’s not important.” Hallie shrugged. She was too exhausted to repeat her conversation with Francesca. She suddenly thought she was wrong to come. She couldn’t ask Angus why he lied, because she didn’t know if he’d answer with the truth.
“I should go,” Hallie said. “I just wanted to bring Milo. You should keep him. I don’t know my plans and Sophia doesn’t want a dog at the villa.”
“Hallie, wait.” Angus blocked her path. “There’s a reason you came.”
“Francesca said I should give you a chance to explain,” Hallie mumbled. “She said sometimes people lie with the best intentions.”
“It doesn’t make it right, but it’s true.” Angus took her hand. “Sit down and have a plate of risotto.”
Hallie followed Angus to the breakfast room and sat at the round glass table. It was too cold to eat on the balcony, but she could see the rose garden, the view of Bellagio that used to fill her with joy. She let Angus serve a plate of risotto and a glass of mineral water and listened to his story.
“I grew up in Connecticut. My father was head of pediatrics at Greenwich Hospital and my mother was from old New York money. She spent most of her time at the Met and the Guggenheim and started her own modern-art collection. She found out she couldn’t have children and would have been quite happy serving on her boards, but my father was desperate for children. He would have adopted the whole pediatric wing. He loved going to baseball games, watching football, playing soccer. When he wasn’t working, he always had some kind of ball in his hand. We did everything together, but he died when I was eleven, dropped dead at the operating table.” Angus paused, drinking the red wine he had poured for himself.
“I was devastated. My mother didn’t know what to do with me. She sent me to boarding school in Massachusetts. Before I went, I found out I was adopted. I discovered the health forms she signed and underneath family diseases she wrote ‘unknown.’ I’ll never forget.” Angus gazed at Hallie. “That was the ugliest word in the English language.
“I spent most of my time in high school trying to discover my birth parents,” Angus said. “It was a closed adoption and my mother refused to help me. Finally, I gave up. That was pre-Internet, and it was easy to reach dead ends. I concentrated on sports, I hung out with my roommate. He was a scholarship student from Boston with five brothers and sisters. I applied to Stanford, my father’s alma mater, but I didn’t want to do pre-med. I double-majored in history and computers.” Angus gulped down more wine.
“I messed around with search engines and started a site where adoptees could look for their parents. You’d be surprised how walls come down online, and how slim are the degrees of separation. I helped hundreds and then thousands of teenagers and adults find their real parents.” Angus’s eyes sparkled. “I thought I was doing good, helping people achieve their dreams. I sold the site to Yahoo! six months after graduation. I bought a house in Los Altos Hills, a silver Porsche, a wardrobe of Hugo Boss and Armani. I invested in different things, considered joining a few start-ups. One evening about four months after the sale, a girl showed up at my door. She was about twe
nty, with bright red hair and pale cheeks dotted with freckles. She looked like a grown-up orphan Annie. I invited her in; lots of people came to my house. I used to have parties and invite all the Silicon Valley big shots. She sat down in my living room and took out a knife. She said she wasn’t going to hurt me but she was going to tear up every leather sofa and suede chair.” Angus flinched, as if she was in the room.
“I got her to give me the knife and tell me what happened. She said her boyfriend, Harry, just graduated from community college, was going to start USF in the fall. She said he became obsessed with finding his birth parents; he spent every minute on the computer. She told him to quit; it didn’t matter where he came from. But he found Connect and stayed on it all night and day until he discovered his birth mother. She was a manicurist in Burlingame, fifteen minutes from their apartment. Harry went to see her. She was in her late thirties, she’d had him when she was fifteen.” Angus paused, stabbing the risotto with his fork.
“She told him his birth father was in prison for life. He had raped and molested six teenage girls.” Angus glanced at Hallie. “Including her.”
Hallie gasped. “Oh.”
“Harry went home and told his girlfriend that his father was a rapist. He was so upset, he stormed around their apartment breaking things. She screamed at him that it didn’t matter, that it didn’t make who he was any different. Harry got so angry he put his arms around her neck, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to frighten both of them. His girlfriend ran to a friend’s place. When she came back she found Harry hanging from the ceiling fan with a rope around his neck.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Hallie insisted. “You didn’t even own the company.”
“I was sitting in a million-dollar mansion while her boyfriend was hanging from their ceiling,” Angus replied. “If it wasn’t my fault, whose was it?”
“He could have found his birth mother another way,” Hallie tried again.
“But he didn’t.” Angus threw his fork on the plate. “He found it through my site. No one ever wants to take responsibility, especially on the Internet. It’s a big free-for-all. I sold the house and the car; I never wanted to see a computer again. I went to India, but I didn’t belong there. I was twenty-five, I couldn’t spend my whole life questioning eternity.” Angus got up and walked to the glass doors.
“I went to Rome. I’d always been fascinated by the Renaissance. I started collecting Renaissance art. I loved the human anguish Michelangelo and Raphael portrayed on the canvas. I took a day trip from Florence and discovered Lake Como by accident. I loved the beauty of the lake, the timelessness of the villages. I thought I could find peace here, so I bought the villa.”
“Why did you make up Angus?” Hallie asked, puzzled.
“I was never Max Rodale to begin with. I didn’t know who I was.” Angus scowled. “I hated what Max did, I wanted to be someone different.”
“You can’t just change who you are,” Hallie said slowly.
“You can.” Angus jammed his hands in his pockets. “If you go somewhere no one knows you. I finally felt like the brick had been lifted from my chest. I could keep living.”
“You weren’t responsible for that boy’s death,” Hallie murmured.
“Angus isn’t, but Max was,” Angus implored her. “That’s why I lied. It had nothing to do with money. I don’t care about money. I’d be happy living in a tent.”
“You have to forgive yourself,” Hallie said, remembering her mother’s words.
“Will you help me?” Angus walked toward her. He pulled her up and kissed her softly on the mouth. He buried his face in her hair, stroking her thighs. Hallie tasted the wine on his breath, felt her body respond.
“I can’t.” She pulled away.
“I love you,” Angus said. “You can move into the villa, we can travel, collect art. You can redo every room.”
“I couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t love himself,” Hallie replied. “I’d never know what’s true and what’s a lie.”
“But I had a reason to lie,” Angus protested. “I was trying to erase the past.”
“And you may have another reason to lie,” Hallie said gently. “But that’s not an excuse. I should go, Sophia may have thrown Francesca into the lake.”
“Can I take you home?” Angus offered.
Hallie remembered the afternoons spent fishing on the lake, the glorious sunsets watched from his motorboat. She shook her head. “I’ll take the ferry.”
“You have to come back,” Angus insisted. “You have to finish designing the villa.”
“There are plenty of talented designers in Como.” Hallie walked toward the door. “I don’t think we should see each other again.”
Hallie ran down the steps to the lake. She heard the door open and saw Milo bounding toward her. She heard Angus call her name, and kept walking.
chapter twenty-three
Hallie slipped a jacket over her cotton shirt and grabbed her purse. She was going to meet her mother for lunch and explore the boutiques in Bellagio. Francesca suddenly had a desire to wear something other than jeans and sneakers, and they had spent the last three days on a shopping spree.
Pliny had been courteous and polite but Sophia would not allow Francesca to stay at the villa. She got a room at the Hotel Metropole and slowly formed a truce with Hallie. They ate breakfast on Francesca’s balcony, devouring Swiss muesli and mixed berries. They strolled through the shops where Francesca bought silk dresses, cashmere sweaters, leather bags and shoes. She insisted on buying scarves and gloves for Hallie, and a Moschino purse for Constance.
At first Hallie was hesitant to spend time with her mother, like a horse that refused to take its bit. But gradually she found she enjoyed her company. She liked ambling along the promenade pointing out their favorite villas. She enjoyed laughing at the Italian fashions, the ridiculously high heels and plunging necklines.
“Italian women display more cleavage in October than women in San Francisco show in June.” Francesca frowned, trying on a scooped-neck silk blouse.
“It’s gorgeous, buy it,” Hallie encouraged her. She loved seeing her mother wear a knee-length skirt and two-inch heels, holding a square Prada handbag.
“Only because I’m stuck here till Portia returns.” Francesca handed the blouse to the cashier to ring up. “Once I return to San Francisco, it will all get stuffed into my closet.”
Portia was still in Venice and Francesca didn’t want to leave without seeing her. Hallie still didn’t know what she was going to do, but she was relieved that she had put Angus behind her. The more she replayed his story, the more she pitied him. His pain was as raw as if the boy’s suicide happened yesterday. But Hallie didn’t think she could love someone capable of spinning a web of lies.
* * *
Hallie’s phone rang. The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number.
“Is this Hallie Elliot?” a female voice inquired.
“It is,” Hallie replied.
“This is Jane Finch, personal assistant to Vanessa Getty in San Francisco,” the voice continued. “Mrs. Getty would like to speak with you, if you have a minute.”
“Hallie Elliot.” Vanessa Getty’s voice purred down the line. “I was poring through Architectural Digest and discovered photos of the Villa Luce in Lake Como. I have never seen anything like it. The furniture, the drapes, the artwork. You have such an eye, it is like an Italian castle.”
“Thank you.” Hallie frowned, wondering how photos of the Villa Luce had ended up in Architectural Digest.
“My assistant did a little research and discovered the designer was from San Francisco!” Vanessa said excitedly. “My mother-in-law is a dear friend of your grandmother. I decided you must design our villa in Napa. I want to fill it with antiques, Venetian glass, sculptures by Michelangelo.”
“I hadn’t thought about returning to San Francisco,” Hallie stammered.
“You must say yes!” Vanessa implored. “I’ve been searching for a d
esigner for months. When I opened the pages I knew you had the right vision. The rooms are so grand, yet intimate.”
“It’s very flattering.” Hallie paused. “But I need time to think about it. I just finished the Villa Luce.”
“Take your time,” Vanessa replied. “Say hello to Constance for me. Hallie, I’m so excited to have found you. I can’t wait to meet and hear your ideas.”
Hallie hung up and stared at the phone. She imagined a glorious villa perched on a hill in Napa. She saw rows of vineyards, the sun setting over the trees, a soft fog blowing in from the ocean.
Hallie picked up the phone and dialed Constance’s number.
“Hallie, dear.” Constance’s voice was faint. “I’ve been wanting to call you, but I came down with a nasty flu.”
“Are you all right?” Hallie asked.
“I’m improving,” Constance replied. “Francesca didn’t tell me she was going to Italy. She just got on a plane and vanished.”
“It’s good to see her,” Hallie said truthfully. “I think she’s enjoying herself.”
“I almost fainted when she told me she was in Lake Como,” Constance continued. “But she was very worried about you. Pliny said you were ill.”
“I’m good as new,” Hallie said cheerfully. “Have you spoken to Ann Getty lately?”
“I haven’t seen Ann since the Opera Ball,” Constance mused. “She was wearing the loveliest Diane von Furstenberg original.”
“I just got a call from Vanessa Getty,” Hallie said in a rush. “She saw photos of the Villa Luce in Architectural Digest. She wants me to design her villa in Napa.”
“That’s wonderful news!” Constance replied. “Vanessa and Billy are lovely people. I heard their new villa is spectacular.”
Hallie hesitated. “I wasn’t planning on coming back to San Francisco.”
“How is the Villa Luce coming along?” Constance asked.
“My work is done,” Hallie said evasively. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do next.”
“You said Portia is happy with Alfonso,” Constance broke in. “There is no reason for you to stay in Lake Como.”
