A Villa in Sicily: Capers and a Calamity

by Fiona Grace

  Concetta shook her head. “I think we will be fine for two or three days, barring any emergencies.”

  “But what about those new kittens? The bunnies?”

  “They’re fine. I live right down the street, remember? And I can get Luca to help me. Plus, I can see to any of the check-ups and regular appointments,” she said, looking over the schedule. “And that’s all we seem to have for the next week.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I can handle it!”

  Audrey hesitated. Are you trying to push me out?

  She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and went to the door. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  She went outside and passed through the middle of town, with its quaint, narrow streets, lined with charming old buildings with colorful shutters and wrought-iron balconies. The town was bustling. As the sun set behind the buildings, people moved about the busy sidewalks, and some called Buonasera to her. The evening was warm and pleasant. It was a lovely place to live, but Audrey couldn’t help thinking that it would be lovelier with someone to share it with.

  She stopped outside the café of her friend, G. Friend. Maybe he was more than that. They’d gone on dates, but because he was so friendly to everyone, and maybe because of the culture difference, she never was sure of his intentions.

  Maybe, she thought, now that things with Mason have petered out, I should go in and find out. . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  Audrey scooped some spackle onto a spackling knife and smoothed it onto a divot in the stone wall in her massive living room. Smoothing it down, she got it nice and level with the rest of the wall. A little paint, and no one would ever know it was there.

  She’d taped a picture of what she wanted the room to look like on the wall, for inspiration. She’d been studying magazines and had really wanted to go with the classic, Sicilian Baroque style. Gilded crown molding, colorful tile floors, a frescoed ceiling, mirrors on the walls, and of course, she’d have to restore the massive and opulent chandelier hanging from the ceiling. That alone would be a chore.

  Then she sat back and looked over the rest of the walls in the room. One hole down, five thousand more to go.

  The walls were atrocious. She’d thought ripping the wallpaper off would be half the battle, but once she saw what waited for her in the room, she realized she was wrong. The walls were in terrible condition; someone had just covered them with ugly flowered wallpaper to conceal that fact. It was almost as if some rabid animal had taken bites out of the walls.

  Just another wonderful surprise that came with her one-dollar Mussomeli house. She was making progress, albeit slow. The kitchen was just about done. The downstairs bathroom. She’d even planted a little garden out back, in the lovely space with sweeping views of the grassy, golden Sicilian hillside. She’d finally patched that massive hole in the floor of the bedroom upstairs, but much of the upstairs and this large living room were still very much works-in-progress.

  “One thing at a time is all we can do,” she said, repeating a line her father had told her many times. He was a general contractor, and though he’d been absent from her life since she was a preteen, his words always seemed to stick with her. Now, he was who-knew-where . . . a place called Montagnanera, maybe. She often thought about going out to seek him, but now wasn’t the time, with everything she had to do.

  Right now, her “one thing” was getting this wreck of a house under control.

  Wearing pajama pants and a tank top, hair done up in a messy bun, she figured she had no one to impress. This whole week, she’d been like an automaton, moving from work, to home, to work, to home, taking care of business, with no time for a social life.

  She didn’t want a social life now, after the number Mason had done on her heart. That’s why, when she’d stood outside G’s café, she’d decided not to go in. She didn’t want to be rejected by him, too. Better to forget about men and concentrate on the work at hand. There was a lot of that to do.

  She yawned, grabbed her glass of wine, and took a sip. Meanwhile, her wild pet fox, Nick, a rescue of her own, came over, sniffing at the tub of spackle. He let out a little squeak of distaste.

  “I know, you’re hungry.” She stood up and dusted off her jeans. “Me too. One apple, coming up.”

  She took the three steps down to the kitchen, cut an apple for him, and laid it in his bowl, saving one slice for herself. He eagerly scooped it up and began to nibble as she ate hers. Something delicious and fattening from Pepe, the market down the street, called to her, but she resisted. The reason she’d changed into pajama bottoms the second she got home was because her jeans no longer fit her right.

  As she was turning to go back to her work, a bright beam of light shone through the kitchen window, momentarily blinding her. “What the . . .?”

  She pulled open the front door to find an entire camera crew standing there, spotlights at full blast. Her eyes stung. There was a camera focused right on her.

  “What is this?” she cried, but she had a pretty good idea.

  Her American neighbor, Nessa, was about to star in her own HGTV program. This had to have something to do with that. Nessa never stopped talking about the show.

  A large man in a T-shirt that didn’t quite cover his giant beer belly shrugged. “Sorry, lady,” he said, sounding less than apologetic. “My orders are to film the whole block.”

  Film the whole block . . . including me? In my pajama pants? She wiped her cheek. And I have spackle on my face. Perfect.

  “Nessa!” she growled.

  The door swung open and her California-blonde neighbor appeared, petting her cat, Snowball. She was in full makeup, her platinum blonde hair piled on her head like a debutante. As always, ready for her close-up. “What do you want?”

  “Maybe not to be assaulted by your cameras? Aren’t you supposed to get permission before filming anyone?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. There isn’t a single person alive who wouldn’t kill to be a part of this production. You’re lucky your— house, if that’s what you’re calling it—is even going to be filmed.”

  Audrey frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I want people to envy where I live. Which is pretty hard when it’s across the street from a junkyard!”

  Audrey’s jaw dropped. Just because she’d left a little pile of stripped wallpaper outside on the front stoop of her place during the demolition of the living area, it was a junkyard now? Forget the fact that Nessa had had crews of people and unlimited money to renovate her place to the lovely state it was in now, and Audrey was just one person with a limited budget. Audrey’s place was the largest property in town. Owned by royalty. It would be amazing. She just needed the time and the funds to get it there.

  But she didn’t feel like arguing. Also . . . the guy still had a camera pointed at her. Was the film rolling even now?

  “Just . . . please. Try not to shine lights in my windows all the time. And don’t film me, if you can help it?”

  Nessa scoffed. “Audrey, please. They have more interesting things to film than you.” She fluffed her hair and smiled as the camera swung toward her. “Namely, me.”

  “All right. I’ll clean the garbage up. But just—”

  “Whatever. Can’t you see we’re a little busy here? This is our first day of filming.” She looked at the cameraman. “Which of my sides is the best in this light?”

  Audrey slammed the door on the camera crew and turned back toward her kitchen. She touched the walls and sighed. “You’re my beautiful home. You’re not a junkyard,” she whispered.

  At least, it wouldn’t be when she was done with it.

  The money that that vet job was offering sure would help speed it along. She could even hire someone to help. Things had been moving along steadily, though slowly, but Mason not coming by lately had brought progress to a near standstill.

  Mason. Macey.

  She sat on the stairs, grabbed her glass of wine, and d
rained it in one gulp. Then she poured herself another.

  Who was that mysterious woman? The girl was probably a model. That’s exactly what she expected for a man like Mason, who was such a pretty-boy, he could be in movies himself. She looked exotic and wild and cultured and everything Audrey wasn’t. She probably never tripped over her own feet or laughed so hard she snorted wine out her nose. Her name was probably Philomena. Or Ishanti. Or Tamika. She looked like a Tamika.

  Sitting there, in the dim light of a single lamp in the kitchen, she absently petted Nick as she looked around her home.

  It wasn’t a junkyard. But it still needed a lot of work. Work she wasn’t sure she could do on her own.

  She grabbed her phone and typed in the name of the island: Lipari.

  The search returned all the answers she was looking for: Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands, an archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the northern coast of Sicily, southern Italy.

  She stared at the little cluster of islands, gnawing on her lip. Then she pulled up some photographs of the place. She saw a beautiful, white-sand beach bordering a coastline of calm blue-green waters. Narrow, serpentine cobbled streets, much like those in Mussomeli, with brightly colored homes pressed together, each one with a small, wrought-iron railed balcony and pale blue shutters. Cafes and shops bustling with people. A vibrant harbor full of yachts and small fishing boats.

  I’d like to see this place, she thought.

  She’d been hung up on Mason all week. Ever since that day, she’d been staying awake in bed, thinking about him, her heart hurting every time she pictured his face. She kept replaying that awful last moment in her head, wanting to cry for how stupid she’d been.

  And for what? She should’ve gone along with her first impression of him, which was that he was far too handsome to ever be interested in her. He’d done nice things for her. Taken her in when she needed it. They’d toured Agrigento together, and he’d said some sweet things. But that was all. He’d been flirtatious, but that was just teasing. He never made any promises or indication that it was anything but friendship. She’d built it up to something else in her head.

  Now, she was doing herself no good, sitting around here, moping. If she wanted things to happen, she was going to have to take the bull by the horns and make them happen.

  If she really wanted to make progress on this “junkyard” of hers, then a little shot of money was the first order of business.

  She was being silly, thinking the vet center would fall apart without her over a matter of a few days. It wouldn’t. Concetta was perfectly capable of handling the minor check-ups and appointments, and could call her if she had problems. It was very likely that no one would even miss her.

  And it would be good to put distance between herself and this place for a little while. If she was busy in Lipari, maybe she wouldn’t have time to think about him.

  Not to mention that it would be great to escape the prying eyes of the video cameras across the street.

  “What do you say, Nick?” she asked her pet, still stroking his red fur. “Want to go on an adventure?”

  He yawned and snuggled in close to her thigh. Right now, it looked like all he wanted to do was sleep.

  She reached for her purse, pulling out the paper where she’d scribbled Matteo Gallo’s name and number. She plugged it into her phone. It rang only once before a voice said, “Gallo.”

  “Mr. Gallo?” Audrey asked, taking a deep breath. “It’s Audrey Smart. I thought about your offer. And I accept.”

  “Wonderful!” he said with great excitement. “That is fantastic news.”

  “Yes, so when do you—”

  “There is an early bus leaving Mussomeli tomorrow morning! You come to Messina and take the ferry to Lipari, yes?”

  Whoa, she thought, her mind racing. That soon? I don’t even know where Messina is! And what about packing! I haven’t done anything! I’m sure I’m forgetting something. “Actually, I probably need to—”

  “Not many buses from Mussomeli. You don’t want to miss it.”

  “Oh. Okay, and—”

  “Give me your email address. I email you all the details.”

  She recited it to him. “But—”

  “I meet you at the harbor when you dock, and we speak more. Safe travels, Dottore.”

  “Okay, but—” she said, but stopped when she realized she’d said it to dead air. He’d hung up.

  She looked at Nick and shrugged. “I guess we’d better pack, bub,” she said to him. “We’re leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for Lipari.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” Audrey said into her cell phone for the fifth time as she sat on the old bus, pulling into the seaside town of Messina, Sicily.

  For the past few hours, she’d been packed like a sardine into the seventies-style motorbus. There were no seatbelts, so it bounced the passengers around like an old school bus. It smelled like exhaust and body odor, even with all the windows open. Just when she thought she could take it no longer, a cool sea breeze wafted in, and she smiled at the first sight of the sea, as well as the port city of Messina, in the distance.

  “Of course!” Concetta said brightly. “It’s no problem. I just called to ask you where the extra gauze is. I have it under control.”

  She did seem to have a handle on everything. Audrey had lingered there, earlier that morning, making lists and quizzing Concetta on every possible thing that could go wrong. She’d checked on the strays in their care and gave them all extra cuddles. She’d told Concetta her cell phone number several times. Eventually, Concetta had just had to push her out the door, with a firm, but kind, “You go on! And don’t worry at all about us!”

  “I know you’re more than capable,” Audrey said. “But if you run into any trouble—”

  “I know, I know. I have your number. Where are you now?”

  “I’m just getting to Messina. I’m not sure when the next ferry is, but I’ll probably be in later. I’ll have my cell phone on, though, so—”

  “Got it! Have a safe trip!”

  Audrey hung up just as the bus turned a sharp corner. The man sitting next to her, who must’ve been asleep, swayed with the bus, finally resting his head on her shoulder. She gently nudged him back and gazed out the window, dipping her sunglasses to get a better look. They were just above the seaside town, descending into it, and in the distance, several islands rose out of the deep green sea. She wasn’t sure which was Lipari.

  She snapped a photograph and sent it to her sister, Brina, in Boston, along with the caption, My current view.

  Brina replied right away with Pretty. My current view, and a picture of Audrey’s nephew, Bryon, giggling on the changing table as his mom tried to wrangle a diaper on him.

  Audrey responded with, Cute.

  She waited for Brina to ask her where she was, or what she was up to, but her big sister and best friend didn’t. Whenever they texted, Brina was much less interested in the Sicilian scenery and far more captivated—some would say, obsessed—with the man she called Abs. Mason, who did have a very nice set of them, which he liked to show off as often as possible. Whenever Audrey sent Brina a photograph of him, her sister drooled and asked for more—more photos, more details, more everything. She was almost too eager to make Mason a part of the Smart family.

  But since Audrey told Brina what had happened with him, she’d been mum about it. Audrey appreciated her big sister not trying to touch on her sore spots, but she would’ve liked some enthusiasm about the other things she had going on in her life.

  She finally typed in: I’m heading to an island off the northern coast of Sicily to help with their stray problem. How is my nephew?

  She responded with: Good. We all miss you here! Happy though, that you’re saving the world, one stray at a time.

  The bus pulled to a stop in front of the harbor. Audrey stood up, stretched her limbs from the long ride, and collected her luggage and pet c
arrier. When she received it, she looked through the netting at Nick. He looked miserable. She took an apple slice from her bag, slipped it between the opening, and petted his nose. “I’m sorry, baby. I know this isn’t fun for you, but the bus wasn’t all that comfortable for me either. Just a little longer,” she whispered.

  Then she went to the edge of the dock. Luckily, the ferry was just boarding for the trip to Lipari. She got a ticket and climbed aboard the small ship, sitting out in the sun at the front of the boat so she could take in the view.

  As the ferry took off, she looked at a map on her phone. There were several islands in the archipelago, of which Lipari was the most populated. She scanned the area, trying to orient herself, giving names to the various islands she saw. She found Vulcano, the active volcano nearest to Sicily, then strained to see the others. In the far-off distance, she saw a little rise on the horizon that could have been some of the other ones, and mainland Italy.

  “Ciao,” an older man said, sitting next to her on the bench. She realized he was the same man who’d fallen asleep on her shoulder on the bus. He started to speak to her in Italian.

  She shook her head. “Sorry, I only got about half of that. Non parlo molto l’italiano,” she explained. I don’t speak much Italian was one sentence she had no trouble saying, since she said it all the time.

  “Ah, you speak English!” he said, clapping his hands delightedly. He was small and wiry, and carrying a fairly large crate covered in burlap, which he set down at his feet.

  She nodded. “American. You live on the island?”

  “Si, Lipari is my home.” He smiled wide, revealing a few gaps between his teeth. “I come to Mussomeli to pick up a friend from a cousin.”

  “A friend?”

  He leaned over and pulled back the burlap sack to reveal a small piglet, rolled in a little ball amidst a pile of hay. Audrey patted her chest. It was so small, it reminded her of little Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web, her favorite book growing up. She’d read that book and wanted a pig desperately, and that was probably the start of her desire to become a vet. The idea of nursing a tiny runt to health had been so appealing to her.