by Gail Mencini
Hope looked at the man and was thrilled to see a horrified expression on his face. It was all she could do to keep a straight face. She picked up the confirmation and circled the amount prepaid for their rooms, an amount likely three or four times the going rate for this hotel.
“To save you from this terrible disease entering your hotel,” Hope said, “why don’t you transfer these women to another hotel and forward their payment?” She tapped the circled number.
Hope dug out the brochures from her purse that she had collected during her wanderings today. One of them, she remembered, had advertisements for several hotels, all much nicer than the Hotel Americano. Hope pointed to one of the hotels she had walked past, a very respectable-looking place. “Call here.”
The man looked uncertain. He glanced at the cluster of women in his lobby.
“You don’t want this in your hotel.” Hope pointed to her drawing of the infected foot. “Call.” She pointed to her brochure.
He picked up the phone and spoke in rapid Italian. At the end of the call, he pulled a Hotel Americano checkbook out and wrote a check made out to the new hotel. He offered it to Hope. “Go. Get them out of here.”
Of course he spoke English, Hope thought.
Luckily for the tour group, Hope had experience driving big vehicles. One time, she’d even driven a school bus.
Hope slid in behind the wheel of the van, adjusted the mirrors, and thought, God, please guide my hands so I don’t hit anything. She checked her map one more time. The maze of tiny side streets in the vicinity of the hotel left her clueless. The vehicle had a navigation system, but to Hope’s eyes, it seemed far from state-of-the-art. Still, it was better than nothing. Hope entered the new hotel’s address and was pleased when it plotted a route.
She turned her head to face the women seated behind her. “I say we leave this dump and go find a decent hotel. OK with you?”
The women cheered and clapped. In minutes, they started chattering, leaving Hope to both the driving and the navigating.
Hope was relieved to learn that the device gave audible directions. Negotiating the corners was a bit of a challenge, but she didn’t care. These women had been abandoned by their driver, booked to stay in that dump, and overcharged. All the fury that she couldn’t muster to defend herself against Charlie burned in her now. These women needed her, and she refused to let them down.
While stopped at an intersection, Hope glanced at the map displayed on the guidance screen. It showed them to be almost at their destination—a little farther straight ahead, and then a block or so to the left.
She slowed the van to a crawl as their path traveled up a steep, narrow stone street. Hope hated going uphill with a stick shift. She had bad high school memories of rolling downhill backward with a carload of hooting, cheering friends onboard while she attempted to juggle between the clutch, brake and accelerator. Today, at least, there was no one behind them on the hill. “Whew,” she said in relief when they had reached the top.
At the crest of the hill, the street leveled out and three cars had been parallel-parked directly in front of Hope, two facing right and one facing left. She realized it was a “T” intersection. Sure enough, the navigation system instructed Hope to turn left. Fortunately, in this intersection, the street was wider.
Hope pulled the van forward and then backed up, so she could make the ninety-degree turn. The one-way street ahead angled steeply down, with one narrow walkway to the side and no second lane. Hope couldn’t see the end of it but imagined it opened into a piazza in front of their new hotel. She cautiously steered down the narrow street. With her foot more often on the brake than the accelerator, they crept forward. The tour group had stopped talking in the “T” intersection, when Hope had backed up to make the turn.
It can’t be, Hope thought. The street narrowed more. Now, the space between the van and the building to her right wasn’t even wide enough for a single pedestrian, and the passageway on the left could only accommodate the width of two.
One of the women squeaked in alarm. Two men in their thirties walked side by side toward them. Leading them was a leashed greyhound that meandered side to side.
Hope stopped the van to allow them to pass safely. The closest man practically brushed the side mirror as he walked by. The hotel better be ahead, she thought. She glanced at the rearview mirror. Holy shit! If this was the wrong street, it would be impossible to turn around, and she’d have to back uphill—with a stick shift. Hope groaned at the thought.
She turned off the engine, grabbed her brochure with the hotel’s address, and got out. She jogged up to the men who had walked by and showed them the brochure. Hope pointed to the address of the ladies’ hotel and then down the street that the van sat on. She asked them if the hotel was ahead.
One of the men chuckled. The other shook his head. He turned and faced the spot where Hope had made the last left-hand turn, opposite to the direction that she was now piloting the van. He gestured straight, then left and up the hill.
Wrong, she thought. There was no road that went up the hill from the “T” intersection, only right or left. Should she have taken a right instead of a left at the crest of the hill?
Hope tramped back to the van and then walked beyond it. Maybe, she thought, he was sending her in the wrong direction as a sick joke. She decided to walk farther down the street and, hopefully, find the hotel, or at least a sign for it, ahead.
What Hope found made her heart sink. No hotel. No sign for the hotel. Only a dead end.
She drew a deep breath. These women depended on her. She had no choice. She would back that van uphill.
When she reached it, she asked for one calm volunteer. Emphasis on “calm,” Hope thought. The woman who had gone to inspect their hotel rooms before check-in raised her hand. Hope explained what she needed. The woman’s job was to walk backward and direct from the uphill position, pointing to the right or left, to keep Hope from clipping one of the stone buildings that loomed on each side.
Hope knew how to back up a vehicle. But this was uphill, with a stick shift, and in quarters so tight one could practically touch the buildings on each side.
Hope instructed all of the other women to be quiet. The last thing she needed was a chorus of instructions. “Ready?” she asked the woman who stood behind the van.
“You’re a little to the right,” the woman said. “Go a tad this way.” She gestured with her arm to the left as if she were a traffic cop.
Hope knew that her direction changes had to be in inches, not feet. I hope there’s insurance on this sucker, she thought. She put the van in reverse, moved her foot from the brake to the accelerator and eased it down while letting the clutch up, until the engine caught and propelled the van backward. Thankfully, they rolled downhill only a short distance before the engine caught, and there was nothing in front of them. Hope bit her bottom lip and focused on the woman behind her.
“Straight. Right. More right. Too much—stop! Left now.”
And so Hope edged that van, inch by inch, uphill. Finally, she reached the “T.”
The two men with the dog whom she had asked for directions? They stood at the top of that cursed alley and had been watching her back uphill. Laughing, no doubt, at the crazy Americans.
Hope was shaking. She pulled the van off to the side as much as possible and turned off the engine. The ladies in the tour group clapped and cheered.
“How about we look for the hotel on foot?” Hope asked. She was met with whole-hearted concurrence from the group.
An elderly Italian woman entered the intersection on foot. Hope went over and asked directions, pointing to her brochure. The woman spoke no English but pointed up the hill. Looking more carefully, Hope realized there was a footpath that snaked up the hill from where she had parked. Their hotel must be at the top. Hope helped the women get their luggage out of the van. She sized up the group and then picked up the suitcases for the oldest two women. Together, they trudged up the path.
“Are you kidding?” one asked.
“You saved us,” another said.
“You’re our hero.”
From the looks on their faces, Hope believed them. She went inside with them and verified that the new hotel would honor the check from the Hotel Americano and the women’s rooms were waiting for them.
A gold clock in the shape of the sun hung over the reception desk. It was almost time for her rendezvous at the Duomo. Hope had two choices. Show up without a vehicle, or take the van.
39
Bella leaned with the Vespa as it rounded the street corners. She dodged pedestrians who lingered on the narrow streets. She pursed her lips and chewed on the foul air of loneliness. She knew she was feeling sorry for herself but couldn’t seem to break out of it.
Bella recognized the shops she passed. The Duomo emerged in the gap of converging streets. Bella throttled down the Vespa. People swarmed the sidewalks and streets for the ritual nighttime stroll. Her pace slowed to a crawl.
An overweight man in plaid orange-and-brown shorts and a white stretched-out T-shirt stepped in front of Bella. She braked. She lurched forward on the seat. Bella felt the scooter’s weight shift to the right. Instinctively, she planted a foot on the street to steady herself. A car honked behind her. Bella clenched her hands on the scooter grips and glared at the oaf who blocked her path.
“Bella.” She heard Lee’s voice.
Where was he? A feeble horn tooted to her right. Bella whipped her neck around and tried to pick him out of the crowd.
“Wanna race?” Lee’s jovial tone ratcheted down her pity party.
There. Behind her in a banana-yellow Smart car. Lee’s head and arm protruded from the window. He waved at her, and a grin lit his face. “Love the Vespa, Bella.”
“Nice gas guzzler you found.”
“You, too. I’ll follow you in.” He tapped his horn again. Bella saw an opening in the crowd. Without hesitation, she gunned the Vespa and shot through. Shadows crept around the Duomo. Bella aimed for the bank of steps by the tourist entrance. She and Lee ignored all parking restrictions and left their vehicles at the base of the Duomo.
Meghan stood in front of the steps, her face tilted to the sky. Lee and Bella walked over to join her. Meghan’s hand steadied a bicycle. Bella’s neighbor, when she was a child, had a girl’s bicycle with big, dented fenders identical to the one Meghan held. Even the ratty woven front basket was the same.
“Wherever did you find this?” Lee pulled the lever of the silver bell on the bicycle’s handlebars.
The sound of the bell brought a rush of warm memories to Bella of her mother. Using their neighbor’s bike, her mom had taught her to ride. Oh, how Bella had loved to ring the bell.
Meghan giggled. “I helped the owner of a natural products store find new supply sources on the Internet.” She patted the bike seat. “The owner couldn’t believe I’d actually work to borrow this.”
“Good eeev-ning, Florence!” Hope’s voice bellowed from the window of a touring van.
Hope parked the van right behind Lee’s Smart car. She sauntered over to them and slapped Lee’s raised hand in a high five.
Meghan, Lee, and Bella all burst into laughter. Meghan hugged Hope. “You’ve certainly got us beat, at least on the creativity angle.”
“How did you pull that one off?” Bella asked.
Hope shrugged. “Dumb luck. I wandered around aimlessly for a while. Mostly, I stuffed my face with gelato and charged things to Charlie’s credit card. Then I came across this.” Her hand swept toward the van. “A group of tourists was stranded by their driver, who also happened to be their guide. A piss-poor one, I might add. Here they were, at this dive hotel: no air conditioning, no elevator, yellowed threadbare sheets, and a bathroom down the hall. Four stars? Try a measly one star. They asked him to find another hotel. First he swore at them, and then he ditched them.”
“What did you do?” Meghan asked.
“What anyone would do. I went in and sweet-talked the Italian behind the desk into booking the group into another hotel, a nicer one with private bathrooms and air conditioning. He was very willing to cooperate when I explained that one member of the tour had a highly contagious foot fungus. And, of course, he wouldn’t want that spread through his hotel via the communal bathroom.”
They all doubled over with laughter. Tears escaped Bella’s eyes. She released herself to the laughter. Bella could picture Hope weaving her tale as the unsuspecting clerk took it in.
The obnoxious roar of a high-speed motorcycle sliced through the normal evening buzz of cars and voices. A red Ducati slowed to a stop in front of them. The rider tugged off his black and red helmet.
“Nice wheels, Rune.” Lee’s tone spoke his admiration. He moved in for a closer inspection.
Meghan approached the Ducati with caution, as if mere proximity might be life-threatening.
“Splendid choice, Rune.” Stillman’s voice came from behind them.
Turning to look at Stillman, Bella saw that their own touring van was now parked behind the roped-off area on this side of the Duomo. Rested and dashing in a cream-colored silk shirt and handmade loafers, Stillman walked toward them.
The roar of an approaching engine pulled her eyes to the sound. A black Ferrari spun to a halt next to the Ducati. Phillip unfolded himself from behind the wheel and leaned—oh so casually—against the car.
Everyone except Bella and Stillman rushed to examine the Ferrari.
The sound of slow clapping made everyone turn to look at Stillman. His deliberate, hollow clapping mocked Phillip’s choice. Bella knew Stillman had grabbed the final word.
“I give the award to Hope, for bringing the most unpredictable mode of transportation.” Stillman’s voice brought quick seconds of agreement from Meghan and Lee. Phillip couldn’t care less, it seemed. He had his showy prize and didn’t care what price he had paid to get it.
Stillman moved beside Bella and rubbed her shoulder. “By the way, love, how did you get your Vespa?”
“I volunteered at a bookstore.”
“And how did it go?” Stillman said.
Bella stared at him. She had a hunch he knew something about her afternoon. Had he seen a placard for the signing? She steadied her voice before speaking. “It wasn’t quite what I expected, but I did come away with the Vespa.”
She heard the uncertainty in her words and suddenly got angry with herself. Bella didn’t need another person to validate her. The signing had been a success, damn it, and she should be proud of it. “It went very well, thank you. Did you see signs this afternoon for an event at a bookstore?”
“Yes, and it took all my willpower not to come and be a mouse in the corner.” Stillman wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gestured to her with his other hand, saying, “Everyone, I want you to meet the reclusive but very talented and successful author, E.V. Tate, who earned her Vespa by doing a book signing this afternoon.”
Congratulations and cries of surprised delight came from everyone. Even Phillip sounded excited in his congratulations, but Bella couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Questions started peppering her, but Bella waved them off. She wanted to turn the attention to someone else and so asked Lee, “What about you? How did you get the Smart car?”
“I gave a talk at a hospital nearby on state-of-the-art surgical procedures.”
“Good for you,” Meghan said. “I’ll bet they appreciated it.”
Lee shrugged. “I guess so. Physicians are nerds and like to talk medicine.” He nodded at the car. “But I could use one of these at home. It certainly would make parking easier.”
“And what about Mr. Playboy? Did you buy the Ferrari?” Stillman’s eyes cut into Phillip.
“No, I bartered for it, like everyone else. No money coul
d change hands, wasn’t that the rule?”
Another Ferrari, this one red, rumbled in next to Phillip’s. A man got out of the passenger seat. Without exchanging a word, Phillip passed off his key to the man, who nodded and then climbed behind the wheel of the black sports car. The two Ferraris snaked away through the crowd.
“Well, I’m sure as hell ready for dinner.” Hope rubbed her hands together.
Stillman, with his arm still around Bella, whispered in her ear. “Do you think Phillip lied about how he got the Ferrari? We both know he double-crossed a friend thirty years ago. What do you think, love? Is Phillip the kind who would lie or break a promise to a friend?”
A millipede with icy feet marched across Bella’s neck. She had told Stillman that she and Phillip had broken up by mutual agreement. Stillman made it sound like he knew that Phillip had ditched her. And if he knew that, did Stillman suspect that Phillip had fathered David?
40
The next morning, Meghan and Rune stood outside the window of a shop that featured shirts and blouses of all colors. The display’s vibrant hues derailed their search for a holistic remedy shop. Meghan was surprised when Rune had suggested that they search for the alternative medicine store. He hadn’t explained why, and she hadn’t asked. Some things were private. Who knew that better than she?
Now, Rune grabbed Meghan’s hand and pulled her into the clothing store. Inside, they gravitated to opposite sides of the narrow shop. Meghan’s fingertips explored the fabrics—fine cotton and silk. The rich tones of the fall season sent her eyes skipping between the garments.
Meghan felt a presence behind her. A tiny, wizened man, the store’s owner, cradled a silk blouse of sapphire blue. He grinned under a thick gray moustache. He gestured to the back of the shop, where a parted curtain marked a dressing room.
Meghan’s hand fluttered up. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”
She felt Rune’s palm push against the small of her back. He tucked the blouse and Meghan into the dressing room, despite her sputtered objections.
