Summer in Tuscany (18 page)

Ben

Ben was thinking that Gemma’s hair was drying in little golden spirals, like a fancy poodle’s, but that he couldn’t tell her that, because he knew she would take it the wrong way and be insulted. He had learned the hard way to be careful with her; now he knew that beneath that wary doctor’s exterior lay the heart of a sensitive woman.

She licked the spaghetti sauce from her lips. Lips, he noticed tenderly, that lifted at the corners in that sweetly touching way that made her look as though she were smiling even when she was mad as hell. It sent a dagger of passion through him, and he wanted to kiss her again, to hold her. At this moment he didn’t give a damn about the Villa Piacere and the water; he didn’t even care if she was guilty of sabotage.

“What next?” Gemma asked, and he laughed, enjoying her enthusiasm. “How about a salad?” She shook her head. “Okay then, a veal cutlet for you and boned squab for me.”

“
I
want the squab.” Her narrow blue eyes were laughing at him, and he grinned back.

“Waiter,” he said, “two boned squab, please.” Then he poured the last of the wine into her glass and ordered a second bottle.

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s been a long time since a man tried to get me drunk.”

“I’m not trying to get you drunk, Gemma.” It was true, he didn’t want her drunk; he wanted her alert, smiling, clinging, loving.

The American country-club matrons got up to leave. “Please call us a cab,” they said to the manager, who shrugged and raised his hands palms up and said, “Sorry,
signore,
but it’s raining. There are no cabs.”

Ben and Gemma smirked at each other. “I like to think of them walking through the rainstorm,” she whispered, “and arriving back at their hotel looking exactly the way we did.”

“Kind of, that’ll show ’em, huh?” he said, and she laughed out loud as though he were the wittiest guy in all Italy. God, Ben thought, you had to love this woman, didn’t you?

They had chestnut-flour fritters for dessert, filled with ricotta doused in rum, an old country recipe, the waiter told them. And then they had espresso, and contemplated each other silently.

“I wonder if the rain has stopped,” Ben said, praying it hadn’t. And “I wonder what time it is,” she said, glancing at her serviceable doctor-style watch with the big numerals and the second hand swishing around, ticking away their time together.

As if it were God himself answering, a clap of thunder rattled the windows.

Ben paid the check, and they stood in the doorway staring at the solid sheet of rain. Lightning fizzled and thunder rumbled around as they clung together. Ben told her it would be dangerous even to attempt to drive in such a storm, and anyhow, the car was parked at the other side of the city.

“The only sensible thing to do is find a hotel,” he said.

Gemma clutched his hand, terrified of the lightning, and scared of what he had just suggested. “A hotel?” she whispered, searching his face.

“Is that okay with you?” he asked, and kissed her gently on her rain-wet cheek.

Gemma

We didn’t bother to run; there was no point. We just skidded through the puddles back to the riverbank, and, just the way it used to happen with Cash, we almost fell over a tiny hotel. A sign blinked green outside,
VACANCIES
.

There was a glass door with a brass handle and a shiny brass plate with the name
HOTEL DOTTORE
. We laughed, and Ben said it was obviously meant to be. Hand in hand, we pushed open that door and went inside.

Don’t think I didn’t ask myself what I was doing. Of course I did, but wine warmed my veins, and excitement gripped my loins, if that’s what that sexy part of us is called. I was falling, tumbling, hurtling—
crashing
into love. Me, the ice maiden…the one whose vow was about to be broken. Oh—but it couldn’t.
I
couldn’t.
Of course
I couldn’t. I’d just remembered I was wearing my old cotton underpants, the ones that had been laundered a thousand times. And Ben was a man of the world; obviously he was used to making love to expensive blondes in lacy lingerie. But it was too late. He was giving me that look that made me feel I was the only woman in the room. And this time I was.

Our window overlooked the rain-swollen river, but now Ben closed the tall shutters. We were alone together, in a tiny room with a large bed with a carved gothic head-board. Ruby lamps cast a pink light over us as we stood there staring into each other’s eyes.

“You’re so wet.” He stroked back my hair tenderly.

“You too.” I lifted my face, waiting for his kiss. I no longer gave a damn about my hair, or my underwear. I wanted this man.

I slid out of my wet shirt like a stripper on opening night, unzipped my skirt, let it fall around my ankles. He had his shirt off by now, then his jeans. We were barefoot, half naked, wet.

He strode away from me into the bathroom, and I stood there admiring the way his lean, muscular back sloped to his butt. Such a sweet butt, I thought tenderly.

He came back with a towel and began to briskly dry off my hair. I bent my head feeling like a pet dog, and I giggled. Then I took the towel from him and dried his hair, then his chest, and then…lower…

He picked me up and carried me to our pink silk bed, threw back the covers, and then threw me onto it. I laughed again as he flung himself over me, kissing my face, kissing my hair, sliding the straps from my shoulders and finding my nipple with his tongue. I was shocked to hear myself moaning, an otherworldly sound coming from somewhere deep and primitive inside me. I found myself reaching out for him, sliding my hands down his smooth hard body, over crisp black hair, and then the round softness, and then the delicious hardness.

He groaned too, and whispered, “I’m making love to an angel, my Botticelli angel.”

I almost looked around the room to see if someone else were there. Could he possibly mean me?

But we were kissing again, joined at the mouth, body, hip, my long length stretched taut while he lapped me as though I were the fountain of youth and he was a desperately thirsty man, and I arced and twisted, begging him shamelessly not to stop.

When he finally pushed between my legs, he held himself there for a moment, above me.

“Scared?” he whispered, looking deep into my eyes.

It was the third time he had asked me that today. Third time lucky. “No,” I said.

Remember the electricity the first time he kissed me? Well this was like being struck by forked lightning. I raised myself up for him, felt him thrust into me, felt my juices flowing around him, heard my own cries of pleasure. His body slammed into mine and I was over the top, tumbling down the other side of paradise.

Much later, we pulled away from each other and lay, side by side, soaked with the sweat of love, slippery with its precious juices, hands linked just the way our bodies had so recently been. I didn’t want to let go of him. My body was tingling again. I wanted more.

I turned my face to look at him, just as he turned and looked at me.

“Botticelli,” he said,
“angel.”

I thought, I needn’t have worried—he hadn’t even noticed my old cotton underpants. And then we made love some more.

I awoke to darkness. Chilled, I touched his sleeping form, moved closer, hugging spoonlike around him. Rain spattered against the windowpanes, and thunder still rumbled distantly. I had no idea what the time was. All I knew was that I didn’t want this night to end.

I don’t like the night. I have always been afraid of the dark and slept with a light on. Night is so dense, it touches you, whispers seduction in your ear. I can
feel
night. It’s a time of soft moans, unuttered dread, a soundless scream. Or else it’s the magic time of making love with a man you want, a man you’re crashing into love with. Night, I thought now, when you’re holding the man you loved, is the best time of all.

The next time I awoke, a gray light filtered through the shutters. I wondered for a second where I was. Then I turned my head and looked at Ben’s still-sleeping face. Such a handsome face, I thought, mentally tracing the line of his firm mouth with my finger, the jut of his blue-stubbled jaw, the wide swerve over the cheekbone. I wanted to lick every little bit of him.

Pins and needles stabbed through my right arm, which was crushed beneath his body, but I didn’t care. He could crush all of me if he wanted. Outside our window, life was returning: muted bird chatter, the faint hum of traffic, the clatter of a motorcycle on the cobblestones. That cool dawn breeze. I thought about Bellevue, and about Patty, about my long silent journey home on the subway, almost too weary to shower, too tired to eat. But the one thing I did not allow myself to think about was Cash.

I sighed. I was a woman whose hard edge had suddenly slipped, along with the memories of her job and her responsibilities. I turned to Ben, pressed closer, feeling his warmth. I had always liked making love at dawn.

We breakfasted like naughty children, on
semifreddo
at Riccis in the Piazza Santo Spirito, looking out at the exquisite little church and surrounded by frescoes and mahogany and polished brass, as well as by smart Italians drinking espresso on their way to work. Now,
semifreddo
is a custard-based ice cream made with chocolate chips and frozen whipped cream, and it’s about as sinful as you can get, a fact I thought appropriate to the moment.

We were not exactly the perfect couple: I had no makeup on, not even lipstick, because my mouth was swollen from his kisses; and though my shirt and skirt were almost dry, they looked as though I had slept in them. Which, of course, I had not, but judging from the skeptical looks of those around us, others were not of the same opinion.

Ben looked much better than I, and I wondered how it was that after a night of passion, men always emerged looking refreshed and at peace with the world, while we women had to worry about a sore chin where his stubble had grazed us, and the tender bruises along our inner thighs, and the fact that we looked as though we had just fucked all night, which, even if we had, we didn’t necessarily want the rest of the world to know.

“Hi, angel.” Ben spooned a little dollop of
semifreddo
into my smiling mouth, and I felt suddenly all right again, and I didn’t give a damn about the way I looked, or about other people.

“Botticelli,” I said, licking my lips. “Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“Oh, from a painting…a lot of paintings. You know the ones, with the sweet-faced, impish-looking angels with masses of curly golden hair.”

“Aren’t they usually plump, though?”

He laughed and fed me some more ice cream. “Better eat up.”

“Time to get back,” I said regretfully.

“Real life again, huh?”

“I have my responsibilities.”

“Me too.”

He looked seriously at me. “Are you all right with this, Gemma? I mean, with us?”

“Oh, sure.” I shrugged uneasily. It wasn’t the woman’s place to make the next move, was it? I was so out of practice, I didn’t know where I stood. “You know,” I said awkwardly. “These things happen.”

“Do they?”

I glanced away, remembering my unseemly behavior.
Unseemly
. God, I was talking like Jane Austen again. My
wanton, shameless
behavior was more like it.

“I guess so,” I said casually. And he looked away from me, down at the little marble table.

“You’re right,” he said, getting to his feet. “I guess it’s time to go.”

And we made our way back to where the Land Rover was parked, and drove, almost silently, back to Bella Piacere.

Oh God, Cash, I thought, suddenly bereft. What have I done?

Ben

Back at the villa, Ben unplugged his electric razor. He plugged it in again, switched it on. Nothing. He flicked the light switch. Same thing. Now he had water but no electricity.

He grabbed a towel, wrapped it around his middle, and stomped downstairs to the phone. There was only one in the entire house, and it was in the library. He flung himself into a chair, looked up the number of the electricity company, then dialed it. Scowling, he put the phone to his ear. Nothing.

Now he had no telephone either.

He went into the kitchen to find Fiametta. The door to the courtyard was shut, the kitchen silent and dark. The usual pot of coffee was not brewing on the stove, and there was no smell of toasting
ciabatta
.

He went outside and sat at the table where he’d had coffee with Gemma—was it only yesterday?

His mind was suddenly full of her: of her scent, the way her skin had felt under his hands, the little lift at the corner of her mouth. Her smiley mouth, he thought tenderly, smiling himself, remembering how she had looked with her wet halo of hair as she’d patted the raindrops off at Cammillo’s, and remembering how she had denied she was scared when he was going to make love to her, her cries, her long slender legs wrapped around him. Remembering her, her joy, her lust, made him hard, and he smiled ruefully.

Gemma was a complicated woman, hot one minute, freezing him out the next. It was just his bad luck to complicate his life with a woman when all he had come here for was peace and quiet: to paint, to begin work on turning his villa into a hotel, and to escape exactly these sort of complications, which always messed up his life. Yet now he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

Still, there was work to be done. And come to think of it, he couldn’t hear any sounds of machinery coming from the stable yard.

He ran back upstairs, threw on some clothes, then hurried out to the old stables. The backhoe, the digger, the concrete mixer were gone. All that was left were sacks of cement and a pile of builders’ sand. He stood for a minute, arms folded, an angry scowl on his face. Then he walked back around the house, got in his Land Rover, and drove to Maggie’s to pick up Muffie.

He found them on Maggie’s immaculate back lawn. Maggie was teaching Muffie how to play croquet. The sun glinted off his daughter’s pale green hair, and he groaned; he had forgotten about that. Plus she was wearing a brief little skirt that came almost up to her butt and a skimpy red top with sequined straps and clompy platform shoes that made her two inches taller. His kid looked like a minihooker. He wondered about the Jericho family.

“Hi, Daddy, we’re playing croquet.” Muffie ran to be kissed, and he picked her up and swung her around. Tacky-looking or not, she was his daughter and he loved her.

“Hi, honey,” he said. Then “Hi, Maggie.”

“Hi, yourself, Ben.” Maggie whacked the ball with the mallet, then stood back and watched it swing in a perfect arc through the little hoop. She grinned, pleased with herself, then turned and looked him up and down. “Have a good time last night, Ben?”

She had that knowing look in her eyes. Maggie had a nose for intrigue. She always knew when something was going on, and usually what it was and with whom. Plus she was a born gossip.

“For two days I’ve had no water,” Ben said, ignoring her query. “Today, I have no electricity, I have no phone, and the heavy equipment has been removed from my yard. Fiametta did not show up for work, nor did the construction crew. I am virtually cut off from the world—the local world—and I am totally pissed off—’scuse me, honey,” he added in an aside to Muffie, “with the locals. I’m being sabotaged, Maggie, and I thought you might know something about it.”

Maggie opened her blue eyes wide. She patted her hair, adjusted her rope of pearls, and got ready to make another play, feet apart, hands clasped near the top of the mallet, swinging it gently. “Why should I know anything?” She jabbed at the ball and clipped it on the side, sending it careening over the lawn. “Damn it,” she said.

“That was God’s retribution,” Ben said, “for lying. You
do
know what’s going on, don’t you? And you know it has something to do with the Jericho women.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Muffie interrupted, “you
always
want to blame the Jerichos for everything.”

Maggie gave Ben a whack on the shins with the mallet, smiling wickedly as he yelped with pain. “That’s for calling me a liar, Ben Raphael. I know nothing about your diggers and backhoes and your electricity. However, you and Muffie are welcome to stay here until you get it sorted out.” She gave him a sharp sideways look. “Which no doubt you will. In due time.”

“What do you mean, ‘in due time’?”

“Ben, my dear, this is Italy.
Rural
Italy. Don’t you know by now it works on its own time schedule? All I can suggest is that you go and talk to the mayor. He’s usually to be found in the Bar Galileo about now, having his first grappa of the day. Why don’t you ask
him
what’s going on?”

Guido Verdi, the mayor of Bella Piacere, also had a day job, working his own small vineyard where he grew Trebbiano grapes that he sold on to the large vintners. He owned two acres of chalky hillside, where his vines grew in neat rows, each with a rosebush planted at the end. The roses were not just for ornament’s sake, though he enjoyed their flowers, but because bugs would attack them first, thus giving him warning before they reached his precious vines. In his own world, Guido was a success. He owned a small farmhouse, much like Rocco’s, had a wife, a son, and two grandchildren, and he was mayor of his village. He was a happy man, and every day at eleven, he headed into Bella Piacere and the Bar Galileo.

He was sitting in his usual green plastic chair, watching a soccer game on the old TV with the black-and-white confetti picture. He was enjoying a shot of grappa and a cold Peroni, his favorite beer. With him was his old friend Rocco Cesani. Having come straight from the fields, both were in their usual work attire of tattered shorts, T-shirts, and Wellington boots.

When Ben walked in the door, which was propped open with an empty beer keg, Guido and Rocco had their heads together, laughing. Carlo, the bar owner, was rinsing glasses behind the Formica counter, and Ben noticed there was no shortage of water here, or electricity. The three glanced his way, threw him a polite nod, then returned to a rerun of Firenze versus Milan.

Ben dragged up a chair and planted himself between them and the TV. “
Signor
Verdi, Rocco,” he said, “I’m here on important business. Water at the villa was cut off for two days. Now there is no electricity, no telephone, and my heavy machinery has disappeared, along with the contractors. I demand to know what’s going on.”

The two men glanced slyly at each other. They shrugged their shoulders, lifted their hands, palms up, in perfect synchronization, then said as one, “Perhaps it’s just bad luck,
signor
Ben. Maybe there is some mistake with the bills….”

“They told me that at the Water Board in town. I paid the so-called overdue expenses. Now what am I supposed to do? Go to the phone company? The electricity company? The contractors? Pay more ‘overdue expenses’?”

The mayor shrugged. “If that is what needs to be done,
signor
Ben, then that is what you must do.”

Ben looked them both in the eyes. They glanced uncomfortably away. Ben knew they knew more than they were saying, and
they
knew
he
knew it.

“Everything can be worked out,
signore
,” Rocco said soothingly. “It is only a matter of time.”

“How
much
time, Rocco?” Ben banged his fist on the back of his chair and then wished he hadn’t; it hurt like hell, matching the whack on his shin Maggie had given him.

Rocco just gave him that shrug again, that little expressive lift of the shoulders, the sly smile that said more than words.
“Signore,”
he said, “this is Italy.”

Ben got to his feet. He placed the chair carefully back where it came from. He called the bartender for more grappa for the mayor and for Rocco. He stopped at the door on his way out. “No, Rocco,” he said, seething with anger, “this is
not
just Italy. It’s
sabotage
.”

And then he went off to find Gemma Jericho and her troublesome family.