I rub my bare wedding-ring finger. Even though I’ve removed the ring, I’m still married. I have no right to Ren. Because despite anything he might offer me as solace to a very bruised ego, I’m still married. In actuality, I should have been the one turning him away, listening to conscience. In another phase of my life, a time when I hadn’t felt so rejected, I would have, because regardless of how Ty and I started out, the bond of marriage and the vows I made have always meant something to me.
I once thought they meant something to Ty.
The thought of facing him, of hashing out everything that will have to be hashed out between us, makes me feel sick.
I don’t want to hear his whys and his explanations and justifications for the choice he made. Ty is a lawyer. He convinces for a living. Somehow, someway he will convince me that his choice was entirely my fault. That I’m really the one to blame for the fact that he jilted our anniversary trip in favor of a twenty-four-year-old attorney.
A rap at the door bolts me off the bed. My stomach plummets at the very same moment, and I am suddenly drenched in a confused combination of heat and cold. Has Ren changed his mind? Have I changed mine? I don’t have an answer to either of those questions.
But I get up and walk to the door anyway, turning the dead bolt lock only to find that it is not Ren standing on the other side.
It’s Ty.
I picture myself as I know I must look. Eyes wide and still hazy with lustful thoughts of another man. Lips parted in complete and utter surprise.
“Hey,” he says, not angry, as I might have expected, but contrite.
Contrite is something Ty has never done. It’s as unnatural to him as accepting defeat without an all-out brawl to the death.
For the life of me, I cannot speak. I try to force his name past my lips, but it won’t come. It is stuck somewhere in the back of my throat behind a scream of utter outrage for the fact that he has caught me so off guard.
“May I come in?” he asks, and I notice immediately how tired he looks. His white cotton shirt is uncharacteristically wrinkled and untucked from his khaki pants.
“Um, no,” I say. “As a matter of fact, you can’t.”
His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and if I didn’t know him so well I might have missed it. But I do know him, and he did not expect my answer.
“What do you mean, I can’t come in?” he asks evenly. “I’m your husband.”
The laugh leaves my throat before I realize it’s even there. And it is funny, actually, the irony of it.
“So you do remember that?” I ask, once my amusement has faded.
“Let me come in, Lizzy. We need to talk.”
“Well, see, I don’t really think we need to talk. I think I know everything I need to know.”
He doesn’t answer right away. “Lizzy, it’s not—”
“Yes, it is,” I say. “It so is.”
The words slip out, so revealing, so indicative of my hurt, I want to grab them back, hide my pain from him, and not give him the satisfaction of knowing what he has done to me.
He reaches out and pulls me hard up against him with one arm, while anchoring his other hand in the back of my hair. He leans in and kisses me fast and furious, and the first thing that registers is, this is how he used to kiss me. Before I became neutral in his eyes. Before whatever he used to see in me faded away.
For whatever reason, the tables have now turned, and Ty is seeking instead of rejecting. I allow this to have its effect, feeling just the smallest amount of gratification. And then I realize how much I do not want him to kiss me. I try to pull away, but he’s not letting me, and I push against his chest saying, “Stop, Ty. Stop!”
“You don’t really want me to,” he says. “You want me to come in there and beg for forgiveness, and I can do that. I will do that. Let me, Lizzy,” he says and kisses me again.
This time I catch him slightly off guard. When I push him away, he stumbles back a bit and hits the corner of a table against the wall behind him. He kicks the table and then, “Damn it, Lizzy. What are you doing?”
“Leave, Ty. I want you to leave.”
I hear the chain on the door to the room next to mine. It is only then that it occurs to me we might wake up Ren. The door opens, and there he stands, shirtless, in jeans and bare feet.
“Are you okay, Lizzy?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice shaking a little.
Ty looks from me to Ren and then back at me again. “What the hell is going on here?” He starts to say something, and then stops as if the words won’t come out. Finally, he manages, “Are you telling me that the two of you have been—”
He breaks off and takes a step back, raking a hand through his hair and anchoring the other on his hip. He stares at us both in utter shock.
“It’s not what you think,” I say.
“Then what the hell is it?” he says, each word measured and tight, barely concealing his anger. He looks back at Ren, and I see the moment of recognition on his face. It’s quickly followed by disbelief.
“I’m a friend of Lizzy’s,” Ren says. “That’s who I am. And if she doesn’t want you here, you need to go.”
Ty shakes his head as if he has no idea where to go from there. He laughs a short laugh and looks at me, saying, “So I came over here thinking I was the bad guy, all prepared to do anything to get you to forgive me. And as it turns out, you must have been hoping I would back out of the trip.” He stares at me and then at Ren and says, “Although this makes absolutely no sense.”
“Which part?” Ren asks, his voice low and careful.
“The part where my wife has been screwing a rock star.”
The punch is so quick and so sudden that I can’t quite believe it’s really happened until Ty is picking himself up off the floor and coming at Ren with the look of a bull that just discovered a competitor in his pasture. He charges at Ren, knocking him into the open doorway of the room. They both stumble through, and I scream for them to stop. The room is dark, and I can barely make out who is who. But I hear punches. I also hear Sophia whimper from somewhere in a corner of the room, and now I am yelling. “Stop, stop, stop!”
The room goes silent. I flick on the hallway light, spot Sophia huddled by the nightstand and run over to scoop her up.
A hotel manager is now standing in the doorway, looking as if he’s not sure whether to come in or run.
“What is going on here?” he asks, in an authoritative voice.
“Everything is fine,” I say. “Just a misunderstanding.”
The manager looks from Ren to Ty, shakes his head and says, “Must I call the polizia?”
“No, no,” I say, pleading in my voice. “Everything is okay.” I point at Ty. “But this man isn’t staying at the hotel. Could you please ask him to leave?”
“Lizzy!” Ty barks.
“Go, Ty. This isn’t how we’re going to solve anything.”
“I think it’s pretty clear that you’re not looking to solve anything with me,” Ty says.
“I believe she asked you to leave,” Ren says.
Ty shakes his head as if he has no idea what to make of any of it. And for a moment I almost feel sorry for him. Maybe I do feel sorry for the old Ty. Just not for the new one.
He turns abruptly and walks out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. The strip of moon through the balcony door is the only light left. Even so, I can feel Ren’s gaze on me.
Sophia wiggles in my arms. I reach out and hand her to him.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice quiet and soft.
I nod. “I should be asking you.”
He rubs his palm across the left side of his face. “He’s got a decent right hook. I’ll give him that.”
“I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this,” I say, mortification beginning to set in.
He shrugs. “Don’t be.”
A large red circle is beginning to imprint on his left cheek. I reach out and touch it with one finger, then quickl
y pull back as if the touch has just burned me.
“That’s going to hurt. Do you want me to get some ice?”
“No. It’ll be fine. I’ve had worse, believe me.”
“I wouldn’t have taken you for the brawling type.”
He smiles. “I usually try avoidance as a tactic whenever possible. Saves the knuckles.”
We study each other for a moment. At least a dozen things I should probably say cross my mind. I reject each of them though under the painful awareness that what has just happened will change things. I can no longer go gallivanting all over Tuscany pretending that I don’t have a situation in my life that needs resolving. Clearly, it does, and no one else can do that for me. Not Winn by giving me a heads-up. Or Ren by coming to my defense with his fists.
Tomorrow I will face the music as I already should have done. If I had, none of this would have happened tonight. All I want to do now is sleep and hope that when I wake up tomorrow, things will look a little better than they do now. I’m not sure how that will happen, considering where things stand at this moment, but I guess I can hope.
“If you’re sure you’re okay, I think I’m going to bed.”
“Okay,” he says.
I take a step back and start to turn toward my door when he says, “Lizzy?”
I turn back. “Yes?”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asks.
I can’t deny the concern in his voice, and I wish I could wrap myself up in it like a cocoon of comfort. But I just say, “I’m good. See you in the morning, okay?”
“Good night, Lizzy,” he says, and with obvious reluctance, leaves.
34
Kylie
KYLIE COMES AWAKE abruptly.
Her eyes fly open, and she instantly flashes to the last thing she remembers. A hand with some kind of cloth covering her face, a smell that she fights but fails to push away. She could only breathe it in, and then nothing.
Until now.
She tries to scoot up, but finds that her hands are locked behind her back, chained to something—a bed rail. She yanks at it, feels her shoulder scream in protest. She cries out in frustration, looking around in panic at her surroundings.
The floor is some kind of yellowed linoleum. Black paper has been stapled to the windows, and the only light is what seeps in around the seams.
“Hey. Are you awake?”
The girl’s voice makes Kylie scream. Only her scream is muffled by the tape across her mouth. She makes a sound to indicate yes.
“Good. I’ve been trying to wake you up for hours.”
Kylie tries to ask where she is, but the sounds behind the tape do not come out as words.
“Don’t try to talk. They won’t take off the tape until you quit trying to scream. I’m over here, on the other side of the bed. I’ve been here three days, and I’m sorry that you’re here, too, but I’ve never been so glad to see another human being as I was to see you.”
Kylie tries to scream, “Why?”
“They haven’t done anything to me yet. I think they’re planning to take us somewhere. I overheard one of them say they needed two more after me. So I guess we’ll be waiting until they get another one.”
Another one? Kylie hears herself being described as a thing, and she is suddenly so filled with rage that she starts to buck against the chain holding her hands prisoner. This can’t be happening! This CANNOT be happening!
“You’ll just hurt yourself,” the girl says, her words underlined with the acceptance of defeat. “I’ve tried all of it. You won’t get loose.”
But Kylie isn’t a quitter. She twists and pulls until her joints scream in protest, and she is sobbing behind the tape.
Her efforts do not go unnoticed. A key sounds in the lock of the door across from the bed. A large man walks in, holding a rag in his hand. Kylie looks at his face and realizes he’s wearing a mask, the face of an old man with stringy gray hair.
She starts to sob, but the cries stall in her throat.
The rag covers her nose, and she tries to hold her breath. But the man is patient and waits until she can no longer refuse. She breathes in with the panic of suffocation and everything around her falls away.
35
Lizzy
I OPEN MY EYES to pounding. At first, I think it’s a hammer. But as my grogginess starts to lift, I realize someone is knocking at my door.
“Signora Harper?”
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, stand and walk in a not-so-steady path to the door. I look through the peephole and see the manager from last night wearing a very worried look on his face. I open the door just far enough to peer out and say, “Yes?”
“I am very sorry to disturb you, signora. But I have had a phone call this morning, a most troubling phone call.”
“What is it?” I ask, suddenly worried.
“The polizia are asking about the incident last evening.”
For a moment I have to wonder what incident and then the memory of what had happened in the hallway between Ty and Ren washes over me. And right behind it, a sweep of anxiety.
“What did they want?”
“It would seem Signore Harper is filing charges against Signore Sawyer.”
“What?” The question comes out on a gasp of disbelief.
“Si, si. I thought you might want to know. The polizia are on their way just now.”
“Now?”
“Si. I did not know if you might wish to leave.” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “If you would like to go, I will tell them I am not aware of your leaving.”
My mind is suddenly so full of anger at Ty that I can barely force myself to speak.
“You are very kind. I will speak to Signore Sawyer. But what about our bill?” I ask, shaking my head.
“Is fine,” he says. “Come again another time.”
“But we can’t possibly—”
“You should leave, signora,” he says in a more serious tone. “I feel the paparazzi will be not far behind the polizia.”
I realize then that he is fully aware of who Ren is, and this act of kindness is one I shouldn’t question.
“Thank you,” I say, grateful. “Thank you so much.”
I close the door, grab a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and yank them on as fast as I have ever gotten dressed in my life. I slip on sandals, toss the rest of my belongings in my open suitcase, pack up my laptop and camera and drag them quickly out the door. At Ren’s room, I rap quickly and sharply and call his name a few times before he comes to the door, looking ridiculously appealing considering that I have just woken him up.
“Hey,” he says, running a hand through his dark wavy hair.
“I think we have to go.”
He raises his eyebrows and says, “What do you mean, have to go?”
“The manager just came up to warn me that the police have called. Ty has apparently filed charges against you. He suggested we go.”
Ren stares at me for several long seconds as if he’s not sure what to say.
“I don’t generally run from guys like Ty,” he says carefully. “And he threw the first punch.”
“Do you want to stay and explain that to them?”
“We can.” He shrugs. “I’m good either way.”
But I see the awareness on his face of exactly what being questioned by the Italian police will mean for him. A scene he would no doubt rather avoid. Press he would no doubt rather avoid.
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get Sophia? I’ll grab my things.”
I leave my bag in the hallway, step into the room and walk to the bed where the tiny dog is curled up on a pillow. She had apparently been asleep next to Ren. I wait with her in the hallway, and it’s ninety seconds or less before Ren comes out and closes the door behind him.
“We should go by the front desk and settle up,” he says.
“I don’t think there’s time, and the man
ager was kind enough to say it would be okay to go. He said the paparazzi would not be far behind.”
I see the gratitude on his face as he nods and says, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
He grabs my suitcase, and I tuck Sophia under my arm. We take the stairs and when we reach the bottom I say, “It would seem we’re making a habit of this.”
“It would seem,” he says.
We all but sprint to the car, and this time he says, “I’ll drive.”
I hand him the keys and get in the passenger side.
Sophia is trying to wriggle out of my arms, and I suspect that she has to go potty.
“We’ll stop a few miles from here,” Ren says, throwing the car into gear. We take the road behind the hotel. It’s steep and winding and narrow enough that I’m hoping we don’t meet another car. Luckily, we don’t. When we hit the paved road, Ren winds out the Fiat’s small engine.
Neither one of us says anything for the next ten minutes. The sun is just starting to come up as he pulls onto a gravel turnoff and eases the car into the grass at the edge of the road. We both get out and let Sophia take care of business. Within two minutes, we’re back in the car driving. We say nothing, but my mind is racing to find a solution to fix this. Ren’s face is solemn and serious in a way I don’t think I’ve seen in him so far. The realization prompts me to say, “Why don’t we go back? Surely, they will understand once we explain.”
But he stops me with, “I need to make a call. It won’t take very long.”
He finds another place to turn and pulls far enough off the main road that we won’t be seen by anyone driving by. He gets out and walks a short way from the car, pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping the screen. He’s pacing while he waits, the phone to his ear. He starts to talk, although I can’t understand what he’s saying. It’s brief. He gets back in the car, and we drive off again.
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
“That was my manager. He’s looking for somewhere out of the way where we can go for a bit. He’ll call back in a few minutes.”
I start to say something but realize that I have no idea what to say. I’m beginning to realize that we might both be in a lot of trouble.
That Month in Tuscany (Take Me There) Page 14
