Summer in Tuscany (19 page)

Gemma

I was stretched out on the old wicker lounger in the garden at the inn, staring up at the tiny hard green grapes dangling over my head, and the dust and pollen and other no doubt allergy-making material floating in the filtered beams of sunlight, doing absolutely nothing at all. My mind was empty; my body was drained; my emotions numb. My arm slid from the lounger and just dangled there; it took an effort to lift it back up again.

I wasn’t thinking about Ben; I was thinking about Cash. About the time he took me to meet his family in Texas. Of course, Livvie was with us. Cash had said he wanted to show off his ready-made family, and young Livvie was so excited about the plane ride.

Cash and I had been together for almost a year, not exactly living together except on weekends, when we really felt like a family, and Sundays at Nonna’s took on a whole new meaning. It was as though there was a future, beyond just Sunday lunch.

Cash was in an off-Broadway play, I was working hard, and whatever time we could manage in between our odd schedules, that’s what we had. We loved, we lived, we took care of Livvie, together. The idea of being apart never even occurred to me. This was it. The end. The ultimate. I was so in love with him, and with my new life.

A man who looked like an older version of Cash met us at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Cash’s father, of course. His hair was silver and not the sun-streaked blond Cash’s was, but his eyes were the same light blue, and they were crinkled at the corners, from staring out over his acres at the ranch, I guess. He hugged me, then took Livvie in his arms and said, “You too big to be carried, young lady?”

I still remember Livvie’s confident laugh as she said that of course she was, but she still liked it, and then they walked hand in hand to his big Chevy Suburban, white and dusty and crammed with bits of machinery and lengths of rope and other masculine stuff. He and Cash and the car were so macho I could almost smell testosterone in the air. And I loved it. Oh, how I loved it. I had never felt more secure in my life.

“So you’re a doctor,” Matt Drummond said to me, smiling at me in the rearview mirror.

“That’s me.” I was suddenly shy.

“I always told Cash to find a clever girl,” he said. “Brains beat beauty every time.”

I stared horrified at his reflection in the mirror. Did I look that bad?

“But Cash got lucky,” he added. “He got both.” We all laughed then, and Livvie asked when could she see the horses, and how many acres, and did they have a dog—a big one, she hoped.

We drove for what seemed a long time and finally turned in through a gate with wooden posts and an iron arch on top with their brand, an entwined D & R, inscribed in iron letters. The blacktop road led through acres of gentle grassland rimmed with dusty hills, and about a mile along was the house. A typical low-slung ranch house, built of wood with a tile roof, painted white with green trim, with lots of shiny clean windows gleaming in the sunlight. And Marietta Drummond waiting on the porch to welcome us.

“Welcome, welcome,” she called, her arms open wide, all ready to hug us. After we hugged and Livvie was made a fuss of, we were shown the house and our rooms. Ours was Cash’s old room, complete with pennants and high school swimming trophies and his framed graduation diploma from Texas A & M. How he had ever emerged from this secure family, this secure way of life with a certain job running the ranch that seemed tailor-made for him, and decided to become an actor, I would never know. Had it been me, I never would have left.

It was so lovely, just being there with him as his girlfriend and future wife. We were not officially engaged; no ring as yet; but it was “in our stars,” Cash said, and I knew that was true. We had talked about the house in the country and promised Livvie the biggest dog she could think of—the Newfoundland for which Sinbad was now a surrogate. I had planned to change my life, move to Connecticut, get a job in a local hospital, one that would have easier hours, giving us more time together.

Cash, beautiful Cash with his golden hair and eyes already crinkling like his father’s, with his body that fit so well with mine, and his passion for me…and mine for him. I never wanted anyone else, I told him. And I meant it.

It was different making love with him in his schoolboy bedroom, in his family home, with his parents just down the hall. We were quieter, of course, almost stealthy, giggling guiltily as we wrapped ourselves around each other, so tenderly, oh so very tenderly. So much in love.

The next day we rode the range, pretending to be cowboys. Cash looked perfect in the role, and Livvie was a natural, but by the end of the day I had a sore butt and a headache from the sun, and I knew why they wore those big hats and got the crinkles around their eyes. To Livvie’s delight, one of their five dogs had attached himself to her and hung around with her wherever she went; and that night there was a gargantuan barbecue with all their friends and family and neighbors invited. It was like old home week in Texas, with the guys in white Stetsons and the women in pointy alligator cowboy boots, and we were welcomed as part of the family.

That was the night Cash made his announcement. He had been offered a job, a movie—his first. It wasn’t the lead, but it was a good role—and not playing a cowboy either. He was to play a Hollywood gumshoe in a noirish script, sort of Raymond Chandler style. He said, of course, that meant he would have to move to Hollywood.

“Only temporary, of course, honey,” he added, putting his arm around my waist and squeezing hard. “I’m a stage actor at heart. I’ll soon be back.”

I felt a little lump in my throat at the thought of losing him, even temporarily, to Hollywood. But we had so much, and our love was so strong, I knew nothing could go wrong.

Could it?

I was torn from my reverie of Cash and the past by the sound of Ben Raphael’s voice. My heart was pounding like a young girl’s in the throes of second love as I hurried to meet him.

He was sitting opposite Nonna on the hard green leather sofa. His arms were folded across his chest. He looked up as I came in, and he did not smile.
Oh God,
I thought,
now what?

I saw Amalia hovering around in the hall and Laura, her daughter, standing there with her mouth open, not even pretending not to listen.

“Mrs. Jericho,” I heard Ben say, “I have reason to believe you are behind my troubles at the villa.”

“What are you talking about?” I stood next to Nonna, my hand protectively on her shoulder. “Is this about your water supply?
Again?
I already told you we had nothing to do with it.”

“Right. And I suppose you, along with your accomplices, Rocco Cesani and the mayor, Guido Verdi, have nothing to do with my electricity being cut off, and my phone being cut off, and my contractors disappearing and taking my heavy machinery with them?”

For a moment I was too stunned to speak. I noticed Nonna was silent too and thought how shocked she must be, with Ben accusing her like that.

“I’m here to tell you that if this sabotage continues, I will be forced to take legal action,” Ben said.

That tipped me over the edge. It was as though last night had never happened. We were strangers, enemies, at war with each other. “And if you continue to slander my mother—and me,” I said haughtily, “I too will take legal action.
Mr
. Raphael.”

He got to his feet. Somehow he looked very tall in that low-beamed ex–cow barn of a room with the old iron feeding troughs on the wall. “You can’t intimidate me,” I added hopefully.

He looked at me, a long look with those greenish-gold eyes that I could not read. “I apologize if I sounded…impolite,” he said stiffly. “But I meant what I said.”

We looked at each other again. I felt Nonna’s eyes swivel back and forth between us in the long silence. Then he turned and walked away.

Oh God,
I thought.
He just walked out of my life
.

“What’s going on between you two?” Nonna said.

I shrugged. “As you saw—nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Ha, I know what I saw.” Still sitting on the hard green chair, cool in her blue cotton shirtwaist, she looked levelly at me. “You might have told me something was going on. We could have approached this whole matter differently.”

“What
matter
? You mean the villa? Jeez, Momma, don’t tell me you had something to do with this after all!”

“
I
didn’t do anything. Anyhow, my feeling is that Ben Raphael is only getting what he deserves. If the locals have turned against him, what chance does he have of succeeding around here with his plans for a hotel? In
my
villa,” she added.

I ran my hands frantically through my hair. This was crazy. I wished with all my heart I was back in the safety of my trauma room, just dealing with life and death, which was the thing I did best, instead of all this. It was too complicated, too emotional, too…fraught.

I fished in the pocket of my shorts and found the car keys. “I’m off to see Maggie Marcessi,” I said, heading out the door.

“What are you going to do there?” Nonna hurried anxiously after me.

“Get my tarot cards read,” I said.

“Well, dear girl, this is a surprise.” Maggie was arranged on a squashy chintz sofa, legs propped on the glass coffee table, in the “small”
salone
. Her color scheme today was violet: a print dress with a hemline well above the knees—she was so proud of her legs—and a deep V neck adorned in the cleavage with an amethyst butterfly pin. A ruffle trailed from neck to hem, and a sash wrapped her plump waist. The shoes were lavender lizard mules and, like everything else she wore, very expensive.

She patted the sofa for me to sit next to her. “You look very pretty,” I said, sinking into the feathery cushions.

“I believe in color coordination, dear. It always works. I’m into colors, y’know, as well as tarot. And tea leaves, I’m quite good at those too.”

She patted her red beehive hairdo studded with sparklers of the diamond sort and gave me that shrewd look. “I’ve been expecting you,” she said.

“Really?”

“Ben was here already.”

“Oh.” I stared uncomfortably at my feet in their old sneakers.

“You smell nice, dear,” she said after a while.

“Violetta di Parma,” I said. “Violets.”

“I know.”

“Maggie,” I heard the desperation in my voice, “I want you to read my tarot cards.”

“Of course, dear girl. You want to know your future. And maybe some of your past also.” She got up and went to a small antique escritoire, took out the cards, and called me to come sit at the table under the window.

“Well now,” she said with a mischievous cackle of laughter. “Let us see what we shall see, shall we?”

“I think I already know it,” I said, but she shook her head.

“Fate is fickle, my dear, remember that. None of us ever knows exactly what is around the next corner.” She gave me the cards to shuffle. “Now, let’s begin.”

She laid out the cards, staring thoughtfully at them. “Mmm,” she murmured. She placed more cards on the table, murmuring comments about each one, none of which made any sense to me.

“What does it all mean?” I asked, and she began to tell me about the Greater Arcana and the Lesser Arcana, poking a jeweled finger at the Joker, or Fool, which I just knew she was going to say was me.

“You’re fooling yourself, my dear,” she said, looking at me over the tops of her little gold bifocals. “It’s a failing you have, not looking reality in the face.”

“But I face reality every day of my life.” I was thinking of the hospital.

“Not your own, my dear,” she said quietly. “Never your own. See here.” She pointed to another card. “I see a place of pain and disruption, a great river still to be crossed.”

She glanced curiously at me, but I shrugged and said skeptically, “You already guessed that.”

“I see trouble ahead,” she said, “difficulties….”

Now I was wishing I’d never asked her to read the cards.

“Aha!” she exclaimed, delighted. “A dark man.” She beamed triumphantly at me. “Ben Raphael. Of course!”

“Maggie, can you really see stuff in there, or are you just putting me on?”

“Of course I see things in the cards. I’m a bit of a witch really, you know. At least my second husband used to call me that. Oh, now look, Gemma. You have a date with destiny.”

“I’d rather have a happy ending,” I said, ever hopeful, but Maggie said that that was up to me.

“Try again next week, darling—the cards are sure to have changed by then,” she said with that mischievous little grin.

We had tea then, though I refused her offer to read the leaves. We ate plain English cookies, and she asked me where things were at between me and Ben.

“At a standstill,” I told her. “Worse. We’re at war.” And I told her what he had accused us of.

“Do you think he might be right?” she asked, curious.

“Of course not! I would
never
do a thing like that!”

Maggie sipped her tea thoughtfully. “Think about it, my dear. There’s an old saying, you know, about not cutting off your nose to spite your face. Now I know something happened between you. I read it in Ben’s face and yours. Make peace with him, my dear, that’s my advice.”

I thought about what she had said, driving home in the car.

Two days passed with no word from Ben. I moped in my room with a summer cold, caught no doubt in the rain, struggling to balance my conscience with my actions, and failing. Making love with Ben had definitely not been the right thing to do. I had broken my vow. I had taken a chance again. But it had been so delicious, so sensual, so scary, that feeling that I was crashing into love. Could it be love? The way it had been with Cash? Of course not. It was just a brief affair. And it was over.

I remembered our latest confrontation and knew that Ben believed I had something to do with his troubles at the villa. It was all Donati’s fault, and the bastard had disappeared without a trace. He was ruining my life.

Angry all over again, I raced downstairs to the phone and tried Donati’s number again. Of course, no one answered. There was now no doubt in my mind that Donati had pocketed Ben’s money and disappeared with it, as well as with the only copy of Count Piacere’s will. And that my only chance of sorting this out once and for all was to go to Ben, tell him this, and suggest we employ a detective to find Donati. “It’s the only way to find the truth,” I would tell him. Surely he would see the sense of that.

I hung up the wall phone and saw Amalia hovering in the hallway, pretending to dust.
“Buona sera, dottoressa,”
she said. “I hope your cold is better.” She was speaking in Italian, but I had enough of an ear by now to get the gist of what was going on. I said thanks, but no, and pointed to my red nose and watering eyes.

“I saw the
signor
Ben this morning,” she said casually, and my ears pricked up. “He was in Rome for a couple of days,” she added, “on business. He’s back now, though.”

“Oh,
grazie,
” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else. But my mind was ticking over, fast. I thought about calling him, but remembered he had no phone. It was four in the afternoon. Nonna and Livvie were out on a sight-seeing trip, taking in the fabulous gardens of La Foce, near Pienza. Now was my chance. It was now or never.

Nonna had the car, so I would have to walk to the villa. I checked the weather; a cloud covered the sun, and it wasn’t quite as hot. I got out of my bathrobe for the first time in two days, put on shorts and a white T-shirt, dabbed on sunscreen, combed my unruly hair, powdered my nose, decided against the lipstick, and slammed a straw hat on my head.

I sprayed Violetta di Parma lavishly all over and headed out the door. To my date with destiny, I thought, remembering Maggie’s tarot cards.

The villa was farther than I remembered,
and
it was on top of a hill. It was also hotter than I’d thought, and by the time I got there, my shorts were rubbing my legs and my T-shirt was sticking to my back with sweat.

The Land Rover was parked by the fountain. He was home. “Hi,” I called, striding into the cool hall. “Hi there, Ben, it’s me.” I walked through the French door onto the terrace, calling hello.

Ben was sipping a cool drink, and next to him was a tall, icy Scandinavian beauty. Her pale blond hair was pulled back from a perfect face, she wore huge dark glasses, and she was immaculate in white linen. Even her toes in her expensive sandals looked perfect, lacquered a pale shiny peach. She was glamorous, sexy, and a dead ringer for a blond Nicole Kidman. And Ben might as well have been Tom Cruise, that’s how remote he seemed.

That rainy night in the cool white bed in the old hotel with the ruby lamps and a window overlooking the River Arno seemed light-years away.

Ben got to his feet, while the blonde just stared, as though she had never seen anything quite like me. He said, “Gemma, this is Luiza Lohengrin.”

I felt plain just being next to her name!
“Excuse me, I didn’t m-m-m-mean to in-in-interrupt,” I said, smiling as though I hadn’t a care in the world. “See you later, Ben.” Damn it, I was
stammering. I should never have come
. Then I flung around and walked straight into the French door, which had swung closed behind me.

I bounced off it like a rubber ball.
Oh God, oh God, I was dying here.
I shoved my sunglasses back up my horribly painful nose and stalked regally away.

I heard Ben call after me, but I was out of there, running down that rutted gravel drive, tripping over the clumps of weeds, and cursing myself for being a stupid fool. Of course he didn’t give a damn about me…he never had…just look who he was with now…and it had taken him all of
two days
to find her.

Well, fuck him! I marched on, wounded, alone. I should never have done it, never have made love with him, never have let him into my life. Those ruby lamps had shed too romantic a glow on that cool white bed, our hot bodies. Oh God, I couldn’t bear to think about it. I was so
humiliated
.

I looked back at the Villa Piacere, serene in its shady bower of trees with the Tuscan hills encircling it. When I’d first seen it, I’d thought it was paradise.

Well, now paradise was lost.

Back in the safety of my white room, I flung myself onto the bed and my fury turned into tears. I was thinking of Cash now. I hadn’t cried in a long time; too long, I guess, because now the tears wouldn’t stop. They spurted from my eyes and trickled into my ears, soaking my pillow, but this did not soothe my battered soul one little bit. Tears did nothing for me.

After about an hour of crying, I sat up, blew my nose, struggled to my feet, and went to the gigantic old armoire that filled one white wall. I found my duffel and took out a sweater I treasured. Soft cashmere. Light gray.
Cash’s
sweater.

I held it to my face, seeking his scent the way an animal might, but it had been so long, the smell of him had disappeared. All that was left was the gray wool. And memories. I pressed the sweater to my face and cried, softly now, into its folds.

By the time Nonna returned with Livvie later that evening, I had showered off the sweat and grit and stresses of the day and composed myself. Nevertheless, one look at their horrified faces told me they knew something was wrong. I guess it was the swollen red eyes and the battered nose, lit like Rudolph’s.

“Mom.” Livvie was at my side in flash. “What happened? Are you all right?”

I could see she was on the verge of tears herself, at my state, and I hugged her to me and told her I would be fine.

“What happened, Gemma?” Nonna said, very quietly for her. For once she wasn’t playing the Italian matriarch, and I knew I must really have her worried.

“I have to get away from here for a while,” I said, trying to keep the wobble their sympathy evoked out of my voice. “I mean…I just have to…it’s necessary.”

For once Nonna didn’t question me, she just nodded and said, “We’ll leave tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to see the Amalfi coast, and it’ll do Livvie good to be at the seaside for a while.”