It would have been pointless to pretend she hadn’t seen the wave or heard his words, so she merely asked, “Who are you?” Having to look up at him instead of down her longish nose put her at a disadvantage when it came to sounding snarky.
“I told you the other night, remember? My name is…”
“I know your name.” She schooled her face against the humor in his. “I know your name, but who are you? Why should I have coffee with you when, for all I know, you could be an ax murderer. You could be just as bad—or even worse—than that Italian I got rid of. Why all this sudden eagerness?”
“Now, is that nice? You speak English. I speak English. Isn’t that reason enough?”
He took her arm while she stared, bemused because he’d echoed her earlier thoughts about chatting for the sake of hearing her own language. What? Did she have words scrolling across her forehead so that he—and Acie the other evening—could read her mind? She blinked at that image and might have laughed, but she couldn’t object without making a scene while he propelled her out of the school building. And then they began to climb toward the town center, and she didn’t have breath enough to complain.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, not at all breathless. “Come with me, and I’ll tell my boring story. That can’t hurt you, now, can it? One little lunch?”
“Probably.” But she didn’t pull away. “Only, you said coffee.”
“Food first. Then coffee.”
He gave her very little time to consider her own motives as he ushered her inside a restaurant near the top of that hillside of steps. She allowed him to order when he promised she wouldn’t be disappointed. She sipped from a glass of water and tried to relax.
The first course arrived within minutes. “The soup’s called minestra di passatelli,” Tony said, “little meat things with spinach.”
She bit into one of the dumplings. When the flavor hit her tongue, her eyes lit. He smiled. She sipped, chewed, and schooled her expression. He didn’t need to see how easily good food could seduce her into enjoying his company. And then there were his awkward efforts to please, which were totally disarming. She glanced away.
“I see it in your eyes,” he said. “Looks like a stifled smile to me.”
She fixed that. Polite interest, that’s all she’d show. “So. You were going to tell me all about yourself. To put me at ease.”
“You’d be a much more interesting subject for study.”
“Not to me, thank you. Now, from the beginning.”
“Of what? Not my infancy?”
“You must have heard Acie call you an Arab. What does that mean?”
“Ah, yes. Well, my father was first-generation American, and my mother was born and raised in Jerusalem. They met when he visited relatives. They married, he took her home with him, and I came along a couple of years later.”
The waiter produced the main course.
“Grazie.” Tony thanked him. “This is one of my favorite dishes.” He picked up his fork and twirled it in the long white noodles coated with small black slices of something. “Spaghetti al tartufo nero. Black truffle spaghetti.”
Truffles? The only truffles she knew were chocolate. She coiled oily strands around her fork and took a bite. She chewed. Savored. Tried to connect the dots.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I’ve never had anything quite like it—a bit mushroomy, earthy.”
“Earthy? You’d have a basis for comparison?”
She flicked a hand at him.
“No, earthy is good.”
“So what are they?”
“A fungus grown underground. There are different varieties, but I’ve only tried these black ones.”
“These aren’t the things pigs find, are they?” She stared intently at her loaded fork.
Tony waited until the bite was in her mouth before he nodded.
She tried not to visualize a pig’s snout anywhere near her food and forced herself to finish chewing and then to swallow when she caught the glint in his eye. “They’re very good.” They were, in spite of the harvesting ritual. “Now back to your life history. You were, I think, discussing your parents’ marriage.”
“Right. I grew up traveling, living mostly in the Middle East, where my father’s knowledge of engineering got him a job at the American University in Beirut. I did my undergraduate and graduate work at MIT. I’m an engineer, now residing in Jordan, here to learn the language because my bosses think that a well-rounded boy speaks them all.” He paused and smiled. “Any questions? My life is now an open book.”
She coiled another forkful. “I’m sure I’ve dozens, but I’m too busy eating to think of them.”
“So, do I pass muster?”
“I can’t tell yet.”
The brow hiked. Fascinating talent, that.
“Maybe. The spaghetti is excellent.”
“Maybe’s better than no.” He made a mock bow over the table. “And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, I’m enjoying the meal.”
“Good enough.”
As he wrapped noodles on his own fork, she tried to imagine what his real thoughts would be if he knew her parentage. He was an Arab-American engineer, and she was a half-Jewish history teacher. A lone noodle slithered to her plate. She stared at it momentarily.
“Tell me about Rina Lynne.”
“Just Rina.”
“Rina Lynne has a certain ring to it.”
She glared over her glass.
He stared back. “Do you mind?”
“It reminds me of my father.” She hoped her tone revealed what she didn’t want to put into words, but he certainly was creative with that brow of his. She swished up oil with a chunk of bread.
“Rina, then,” he said, giving in.
She wasn’t used to men who capitulated without an argument—or at least without more questions. Jason’s warnings against Middle Easterners in Europe seemed a little over the top for this very American male.
Of course, what did she know?
She’d just decided to eat and run when a picture flashed into focus: Sheik Anton pulled a dagger from between his teeth and laid it at her bound feet. No, he wouldn’t kill her, but… her rescuer wasn’t in sight. Ah, of course. Jason was at home with his mother.
Her bubble of laughter stopped Tony’s hand as he reached for his glass. “You want to share the joke?”
“Sorry. I was just remembering my fiancé.”
That seemed to check him, but he made a swift recovery. “And he’s that funny?”
“No. No, it’s nothing.” She bit her lower lip and shifted her thoughts away from the ridiculous.
“Then start from the beginning. Where were you born? Where’d you grow up? How did you get here?”
Words slid off her tongue as if greased. She’d determined to share only the basics, but that dollop of sugar and the heavy hit of caffeine in her second cup of espresso must have snuffed out her inhibitions.
Tony smoothed his napkin into fourths. “You Southern ladies do have some interesting names, but it’s too bad you’ve only your Auntie Luze left.”
“There’s also an uncle on my mother’s side. He lives in Israel.” She figured that would get his attention, but… not even a flicker.
“You say that as though he’s somebody special.”
“He is. He’s an archaeologist.” She didn’t mention that he was also a rabbi, the last remnant of her Jewish half, relegated almost to obscurity by her father and her Episcopalian Auntie Luze in the years after her mama’s death.
She’d been eight, maybe nine, when she’d asked her aunt if a person caught Jewishness like a cold or the flu. Her mother’d had it, so, did she? Somebody—probably Uncle Adam—had said she was a Jew because Jewishness is passed down through the mother’s line, making her Jewish even if her father and aunt tried to mold her into a good little Christian. Instead of answering the question, Auntie Luze had bitten the side of her lip and stared at some place
over Rina’s left shoulder, her standard behavior when faced with anything difficult or uncomfortable. Had she thought Rina irreverent?
Her aunt’s response seemed hard to imagine now—the old Luze and the new.
The old Rina and the new?
That memory triggered a different one. Of her father scowling over his reading glasses, his long nose dipping toward a mustache that all but hid the lips he’d pressed into a tight line. He’d accused her of flippancy. An idle question, a remark about nothing, and his eyes would bore into her with That Look. The first few times, she hadn’t even known what flippant meant, but Jane Eyre-ish, she’d bowed her head and let his anger dwarf her.
Tony cleared his throat. “And?”
“And what?”
He smiled. “I just wanted you to continue.”
Continue? Where had she paused? Caffeine was supposed to help a person focus. It wasn’t working.
“There’s not much to tell, really. I’ve lived a very ordinary life, with very ordinary, not very interesting people.”
“No one named Luze could be boring.”
That made her laugh. “No, you’re right about that. She’s a darling. She and her elderly girlfriends are trying to write a romance.”
“Ho! And how’s that working?”
“They giggle a lot. The oldest is in her late seventies.”
“Oh, man, that’s an image I won’t forget.” He signaled the waiter. “You want anything else? More water to dilute all that caffeine?”
“I’d better.”
He ordered another bottle of acqua naturale. “I’d love to know how you got here from North Carolina. Was there anything in between?” His curiosity and ability to listen felt compelling. Had anyone other than Jason wanted to know details?
Or maybe she ought to ask herself if she’d ever given anyone else the chance to probe. She shook off that thought, because even if she’d been that way before, she wouldn’t be now.
“Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “I’m boring me.”
Another waiter arrived with a small cart of desserts. “Dolce?”
Her gaze locked on a particularly beautiful chocolate confection. “I shouldn’t.”
“Yes, you should,” Tony said.
“I’ll be asleep as soon as I get back to my room if I eat another thing.”
“We’ll walk it off.”
She looked back at the cart as Tony pointed to the cake she’d ogled. “Per la signorina.”
The waiter set it before her with a flourish. She cut a bite and brought it to her mouth, then blinked as the gooey morsel hit her tongue. She was sure she moaned.
“Good?”
With a napkin in front of her sticky lips, she mumbled, “Chocolate is a weakness of mine.”
“So I see.” He sat back to watch.
She sighed over another bite and then twirled her fork in the air. “You want some?”
He shook his head, seeming amused as she licked a speck of icing from the corner of her mouth. When she paused for a sip of water, he said, “I’d really like to hear more. Now that you’ve renewed your energy.”
“More.”
“Yes, more.”
“Well, I spent a summer in D.C. apartment-sitting for a friend from school.”
“Which part of the city?”
“The wrong side of the zoo, in one of those post-war brick complexes where the windows look out onto trees and the floors are real wood. My skin color and accent didn’t fit the neighborhood.”
“Ah. Adam’s Morgan.”
“You’ve been there?”
“I remember a Cuban restaurant off Columbia Road.” He kissed the tips of his fingers. “Black beans and rice, spicy, and washed down with beer. It was great.”
“Jason and I tried Cuban. Once. I loved it. Jason didn’t. When alone, I mostly ate in. I’d just get off the bus after work, tuck my head low, and dash home.”
“Probably safer.”
“Yeah.” Hadn’t her life been all about safety? “I’d dipped my toe in this larger puddle of a big city, but instead of fully enjoying it, I dreamt of places I wanted to visit and would probably never see. Every Sunday, I poured over the Travel section of the Post, underlining economy fares, making elaborate itineraries. I even planned a trip to Singapore via fifty ports of call in the Pacific.” She stopped abruptly. She was talking way too much. If she weren’t careful, she’d regret more than the calories. “And then I went home.”
“But you finally got on that plane, and here you are.”
“Here I am.” And it happened again. Words just tumbled out of her mouth. “My father died.”
What was she thinking? She ought to slap a hand over her lips. Instead, she stuffed in another bite.
“I suppose I should say I’m sorry, but you don’t sound very broken up about his death. Unless this was longer ago than I imagine?”
She concentrated on the next to last bite of chocolate, holding up a hand so he’d get the message.
He sipped and waited.
Which meant she eventually had to speak. “Not long. I felt grief or something for a couple of days. Until I inherited his estate.”
Both brows tented, but all he said was, “Ah,” as if complaining about an inheritance were a normal thing. “Debt?”
She had an oiled tongue, all right, loosed as if she were in that safe-to-tell-all zone of fellow airline passengers, the sort where you meet, greet, share stories, and never see each other again. She shook her head more for her benefit than his. “No, no debt, but it doesn’t matter, because it set me free and got me here.” A last lick, and then, “I’m eating way too much. But I haven’t had such cake in… well, I don’t think I’ve ever had one that good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He pulled out some bills and laid them on the table. “Come on, let’s go for that walk. I know a place out of town, not too far, if you have the time.”
“I was going back to study. I really should.”
“If you try to sit over books after all that food, you know what’ll happen.”
She did feel bloated. But everything about him seemed larger than life. And so, well, so not Jason. Still, being here was all about the adventure, wasn’t it? And he didn’t mean her harm.
Certainly not.
She mentally flipped a coin. Go and hope for the best. Hide and stay safe.
She opted for the former. Following him down the street, she straightened her shoulders and whispered, “Adventure.”
“Hmm? You said something?”
She shook her head. No, nothing. Nothing at all.
He offered his arm at the head of the long hill of steps. Holding on gave her the freedom to look around instead of at her feet, and she marveled at the solid strength of his muscles, their heft under her hand.
He picked up the conversation as he steered her out of the way of some noisy students. “It’s none of my business, and you obviously don’t want to talk about it, but you have to admit very few people would complain about inheriting enough to travel.”
She faced ahead. Either she had to agree that this was none of his business and return to the convent with a thank you very much, or she had to talk. He walked on without speaking. Why did guys do that? Make a silence so loud you had to hush it with words?
Fine, she’d started. She might as well finish. But she waited until the ground leveled.
“My father always pretended we didn’t have enough money for anything. When I was old enough to realize doctors weren’t usually penniless, I supposed he’d invested badly. That he was somehow in debt and so couldn’t help the sort of genteel poverty that allowed us to live in a big house but never let me have nice clothes. I had to skip so many things because we couldn’t afford them.” Her lowered voice forced him to lean closer.
“And that wasn’t the case.” He made it a statement.
She didn’t elaborate. The revered Dr. Roberts had selflessly tended the sick and ruthlessly kept his daughter and siste
r at arm’s length. They’d had to tiptoe around to avoid becoming a lightning rod to his anger. No wonder pulp fiction had caught her aunt’s imagination. Now that he was gone? Her beloved Auntie Luze could write or dance or putter to her heart’s content.
And she could walk down a street in Italy.
Tony guided her as they rounded another corner, dropping her arm to walk slightly behind her in the narrower street. Once they began descending another, shorter flight of low stone steps where he could continue at her side, he spoke again. “All right, we’ve got you from Washington to Italy. But why Perugia? You were bored and decided to study Italian?”
“Sort of. I’d never traveled, except from North Carolina to D.C. and back. I wanted to see something of the world before I’m married, and this seemed like a good starting point. A smallish town. Plus, the idea of learning appeals to me.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“December.” Or March. Maybe May. But last she’d heard, December. “Definitely December,” Jason had said. “Everything will be ready then.”
Tony pointed to the right. The street narrowed again, but he remained at her side.
“December gives me time—” And then she tripped, jostling against his arm. “I’m sorry. An uneven stone.”
“I know. They leap up sometimes, don’t they?” Those blue eyes grinned down. “Does that mean you’re heading back after this course?”
“Not right away. This is sort of a stepping off point for me.”
“And after this?”
“Wherever.” Wherever her dreams took her, whether by train or plane or automobile. The image brought a dreamy smile to her lips.
Once, their hands brushed as they dodged traffic, and she crossed her arms, but that made balancing difficult. She tried to hold her hands in front, clasped behind her back, hanging stiffly at her side. She quickened her pace, conscious of his length and the way her stride almost matched his. Their footsteps echoed. She walked on the balls of her feet to lessen the noise hers made. At one point, he lifted her against a wall as a tiny Fiat careered around the corner. They’d walked another quarter mile before she could erase the imprint of his fingers and the thought of how petite he made her feel. Petite was a totally new experience, and she enjoyed it.
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