The Juliet Club (15 page)

Act II
Scene VII

“Okay, let's try the beginning of the dance one more time. You remember what we did yesterday, right? We begin with three steps, the first two steps down, the third one up on your toes.” Dan stood at one end of the ballroom wearing a faded T-shirt and shorts. His students stood in two groups at the other end. The college students clustered on one side of the room, and the high school students on the other, each divided into a row of boys and a row of girls. Full-length mirrors had been mounted on one wall so that they could study their reflections as they learned the patterns and steps.

This was not a good thing, in Kate's opinion. They had been practicing for almost two hours, and she still couldn't bring herself to look in the mirror. Other people, she noticed, did not have this problem.

Lucy, for example, smiled and winked and positively flirted with her own reflection. And it was no wonder, Kate thought grudgingly. Lucy was wearing a crisp white T-shirt and short blue sarong skirt and looked charming. She was also an excellent dancer.

As was Giacomo, who possessed both physical grace and the superior air of a natural courtier; Silvia, who moved through the steps with haughty ease; and, somewhat surprisingly, Tom, whose balance and agility on the soccer field translated effortlessly to the dance floor.

Kate, on the other hand, held herself too stiffly and couldn't stop staring at the floor. She consoled herself with the fact that she was not as bad as Benno, though that was small comfort, considering that Benno was a disaster. He couldn't remember more than two steps at a time. He tripped over his own feet when he had to do a turn. And, when put under pressure, he forgot how to tell his right foot from his left.

“Excellent,” Dan said in a bright voice. “So! Let's begin! One, two, three, four . . . and down, down,
up
! Down, down,
up
!” As he counted out the beats, his voice got steadily louder with frustration.

They all managed to make it down the length of the room in this manner. Then it was time for the dancers to stop, turn to their partner in the opposite line, and bow. Kate came to an abrupt halt, turned a meticulous ninety degrees, and bowed exactly as Dan had shown them.

“Look at me,” Giacomo whispered.

“What?” Startled, she glanced up.

He smiled and held out his hand. “That's better. You seemed afraid to look me in the eye.”

“That's ridiculous.” She frowned as she took his hand, and they walked around each other until they both were facing the opposite way.

Then it was time for them to do a double skip to the side and clap their hands, a move that was supposed to be executed in a high-spirited manner and
in unison
, as Dan kept reminding them, but which once again ended up with Benno tripping, the serious Jonathan and Erik clapping as if they were ordering an execution, and everyone else finishing at different times. Kate took a quick peek in the mirror and was dismayed to find that her face was bright red, there were damp patches of sweat on her T-shirt, and a piece of hair had come out of her braid and was sticking out over her left ear at an odd angle.

“Not bad, not bad at all,” Dan called out. “If I may make a few
small
suggestions . . .”

As he walked over to talk confidentially to Benno, Giacomo leaned closer to Kate and whispered in her ear, “We are supposed to be falling in love, remember?”

“I remember,” she said, exasperated. “But I can't do that
and
think about learning this stupid dance.”

“There's nothing to it, I promise you. Just relax. Smile when I take your hand and laugh at things I say as we dance,” he said. “Oh, and try looking at me when my attention is elsewhere, as if you can't keep your eyes off me. That will be very persuasive.”

Kate surveyed him coolly. “You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

“Enormously.” He grinned at her, his dark eyes sparkling. A few brown curls were clinging damply to his forehead, but otherwise he looked completely unruffled. He stepped even closer and put a hand on her arm. “Our spies are keeping very close watch,” he murmured.

Kate glanced over his shoulder and saw Lucy and Silvia standing together, watching them. Lucy looked pleased, but Silvia, Kate was happy to note, was glowering darkly. Today she wore a black leotard, silver tennis shoes, and a gray skirt that had apparently been shredded with a butcher knife. Three lug nuts dangled on a leather thong around her neck, heavy black kohl surrounded her eyes, and all her fingernails were painted black. She looked like a malevolent fairy.

Giacomo followed Kate's gaze, then whispered in her ear, “Why don't we give them something worth seeing?”

Kate turned her head to hide her smile. “Excellent idea.”

He stepped back and said, a little more loudly, “Would you like to practice the turn now? The one that goes like this”—Giacomo stood opposite her, then stepped forward, turning to the side so that his right shoulder was facing her. Kate did the same thing so that they were standing close, their shoulders almost touching, looking into each other's eyes.

“And we flirt,” he said in a low voice and winked.

She smiled and they both stepped back and then repeated the move, stepping forward and swinging the opposite way so their left shoulders were touching. Close again, she said in his ear, “And we flirt.” He turned his head and she noticed for the first time that his nose crinkled up a little bit when he smiled. Then he twirled her around and she sank down into a curtsy and he bowed with a flourish of his arm and then he pulled her up and said, “Once more?”

As they repeated the move, Kate meant to glance over and see how their audience was enjoying the play she and Giacomo were putting on. But somehow, as they spun around, first close together, then apart, again and again, she completely forgot to look.

“You're late.” Giacomo's grandmother spared him one quick glance, then turned back to the flour she had heaped up on the counter. She made a small depression in the flour and, scowling, cracked an egg into it. “Again.”

“Perdonami, nonna,”
he said in his most contrite voice, which often got him out of trouble. “I was tired after the dance lesson. I took a nap.”

“Hmmph.” She didn't look up from the flour, which she was now mixing into a sticky dough. “You are always sorry, Giacomo, and yet you always have much more to be sorry for.”

“
Si,
you're right. I really must change my ways.” He gave her the charming smile that almost always got him out of trouble.

She slapped the dough sharply. “I only hope I live that long. Because that would mean I live
forever
.”

Giacomo couldn't help it; he had to laugh at that. Then he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, which never failed to get him out of trouble.

She gave a reluctant chuckle that sounded like a rusty iron door creaking open, and he knew he had been forgiven. Then she pinched his cheek with floury fingers. He winced. It was a hard pinch; his nonna was not as easily hoodwinked as he would like.

“You are a rascal, Giacomo,” she said, her voice rough with both irritation and fondness. “Now start chopping the vegetables.”

He moved over to the end of the counter where a chipped yellow bowl was piled high with plump tomatoes. He grabbed a knife and a tomato and began slicing with the ease of long practice.

He smiled to see the neat stack of newspapers on the wooden table. His grandmother read four papers every day, hunched over a heavy brass magnifying glass, diligently scanning the columns of type for stories of disaster and destruction. As a child, she had lived through World War II; as a young woman, she had scrabbled for a living as a cook or maid; as a young wife, she had nursed her clumsy husband through numerous broken limbs, then went back to work when they lost all their money in a confidence scheme. She was determined not to be caught off guard by any future calamity.

As a result, she was remarkably—if morbidly—well informed. They often had interesting discussions about the world's woes as he helped her prepare a meal. But before he could ask about the latest catastrophes, his grandmother said, “So, I saw you with that girl. The American.” She slammed a pot of water onto the stove and turned on the burner.

“Kate?” he asked, striving to sound casual as he sneaked a quick peek at his grandmother. Her opinions of his girlfriends tended to be brutal; her predictions for his relationships were inclined to be dire. He braced himself.

“Hmmph.” She rolled out the dough with a heavy marble rolling pin. After a moment, she said, “Yes. I think she will be good for you.”

“You do?” He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Si.”
She smiled grimly. “She will break your heart and leave you shattered and alone.” She paused to think that over, then nodded approvingly to herself. “It will make you a man.”

“She's not going to break my heart,” he said, viciously stabbing a tomato. The tomato retaliated by squirting juice in his eye.

Muttering a curse, he wiped his face with a towel and wondered why everyone suddenly felt that they had to offer an opinion on his love life, although he was fairly sure he had never asked for anyone's views on the matter.

He returned to his chopping and added, “We are just playing a game.”

“Ha!” his grandmother snorted with derision.

“What?”
he snapped.

But just then, the door swung open and his mother swept into the kitchen. “Mama, what are you doing?” she cried.

Francesca Marchese was impeccably dressed, as always, in a silk jacket, skirt, and stiletto heels; her makeup was polished, her hair twisted into an elegant chignon, her jewelry understated and elegant. She stared at her mother, dressed in a shapeless black dress and black orthopedic shoes, her hands and arms covered with flour, her hair pulled back into an untidy bun, and shook her head in despair. “I keep telling you, you don't have to clean! You don't have to cook! I have a staff to do all that now!” She paused for emphasis, then said with great satisfaction, “I am rrrrich!”

“Today you are rich.” Her mother shrugged. “Tomorrow you could be ruined.” She began cutting the pasta dough into strips. “I will keep cooking.”

Her daughter gave an annoyed shrug. “Fine. Do what you like.” She turned to squint at her reflection in a copper tray hanging on the wall. “I just wanted to stop by and let you know that the caterers are coming tomorrow to look at the kitchen. Please don't scare them too much.” She tweaked a stray lock of hair back into place.

“As long as they don't get in my way, they have nothing to fear.”

“Yes, well.” She turned back to her mother. “That is what worries me. However, I don't have time to argue with you. I have a meeting at the university in an hour and then I'm having dinner with my American publisher, so I must fly!”

She rushed over to kiss her mother's cheek, first one, then the other. “
Ciao
, Mama.” She turned to Giacomo and kissed him, “
Ciao
,
tesoro
. I'll see you tomorrow!”

Then she whirled around and was gone, leaving nothing in her wake but the smell of her musky perfume. Giacomo stared after her. The perfume had awakened faint memories from childhood. Lying in bed at night, waiting for his mother to come tuck him in. Finishing his homework, hoping she would ask to see it. Eating dinner one slow bite at a time, trying to make it last so that she would be home in time to join them. And always, always, what he got instead was this: a quick rush into the apartment, a brief conversation, a kiss on the forehead, and then she would be gone, with only the lingering scent of her perfume as evidence that she had been there at all.

He looked up to meet his grandmother's shrewd eyes. She shrugged in an understanding way. He shrugged back, then nodded toward her newspapers. “So, what fresh calamities have struck the world today?”

“Oh, there is all kind of horrible news, everywhere you look.” She shook her head mournfully, clearly enjoying herself. “Murderers roaming the streets, buses crashing off mountaintops, people getting hit by lightning! And the international money markets! Pah!” She made an emphatic gesture of disgust, and flour flew through the air. “Sure to collapse any day now.”

Giacomo clucked his tongue and picked up another tomato. “What a world.”

“And I have not even told you the worst!” she added.

“There's more?”

“
Si!
Today there was a report from scientists who have spent their entire lives studying chimpanzees and you know what they said? They said the monkeys are learning to make spears! They've never been able to make weapons before but now,
now,
all of a sudden, they can!” She gave him an ominous look and took the lid off the pot of boiling water. “Mark my words, Giacomo. They're doing it for a reason. The next thing you know, they'll be coming after
us
.”

“Mmm. That will be bad.”

“
Si,
very bad.” She threw the pasta into the pot. “But I will be ready for them.”

Act II
Scene VIII

Kate stared resolutely at the computer screen in front of her, refusing to look out the library windows and risk being tempted by the golden evening. She had hurried to the library immediately after dinner, hoping to get there before Winnie. She had managed it, just. But even as she had rushed into the empty room, she had caught a glimpse of the sun beginning to set. The sky was a clear, pure blue with streaks of rose and pale apricot at the horizon, and Kate couldn't help thinking that it was a shame to waste the last of the light. . . .

No. It had been days since she'd written to Sarah and Annie. By this point, they were sure to be feeling neglected and resentful, if not homicidal.

She had forced herself to sit down at the desk, logged on to her e-mail account, and clicked to open a new message screen.

The door opened.

“Kate! What are you doing here?”

She looked up to see Winnie standing in the doorway, looking accusatory.

As if I don't have as much right to be working on this computer as she does, Kate thought indignantly.

But she gave Winnie a big smile and said cheerfully, “I have a few e-mails to send! It'll just take a minute!”

Winnie scowled as if she didn't believe this story for a moment. Kate quickly tapped some nonsense words to stave off her wrath.

“All right,” Winnie said. “I'll come back in half an hour and then you'll have to log off. The computer is for everybody's use, you know.”

Kate resisted the temptation to say something very rude, and Winnie left, slamming the door behind her.

“Dear Sarah and Annie,” Kate wrote. “Sorry it's taken me so long to write. I've been really busy. We had our first dance lesson today. I think I told you that we're supposed to perform an Elizabethan dance at the party that ends the conference? It actually turned out to be rather fun—”

The scent of lilies drifted through the windows on the evening breeze. Kate paused, gazing at nothing as she remembered the feel of Giacomo's hand on her waist, guiding her through the dance. She found that she was looking out the window again. She could see the lilies nodding, ghostlike, by the weathered stone wall.

“—and even though I'm not the best dancer in the world (stop snickering, Annie!), I managed to learn all the moves, including one called
la volta
. It involves the girl leaping into the air with the guy's help—”

She stopped again, remembering how Giacomo lifted her into the air. She had been nervous, sure that her leap would be clumsy and awkward, but instead she had felt almost graceful—

“I was surprised at how much energy the dance took,” she continued. “When Elizabeth I was queen, she and her ladies-in-waiting would dance every morning as a form of exercise. I can see why. Your heart does beat quite fast, I've found—”

The door opened.

“Kate! What are you doing here?”

She looked up to see Tom standing in the doorway, looking self-conscious.

“I'm working,” she said, a bit impatiently.

“Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.” He edged his way in. “I just wanted to, um, get something.”

“Fine,” Kate said, relieved that he didn't want to chat. He began looking at the bookshelves. From the corner of her eye, she could see him glancing over his shoulder at her every once in a while, but she ignored him.

“Giacomo is my partner, which I was dreading, as you can imagine. It ended up being better than I had expected, though. He was actually almost likable.” It was interesting how different his smile looked when he wasn't striking an attitude, Kate thought idly. When he was just enjoying himself, his expression was much more open and pleasant and . . . well,
friendly
.

“See you later.” Tom was halfway out the door, clutching a small volume, by the time she looked up.

Strange, Kate thought. He seemed almost embarrassed to be seen with a book. With a mental shrug, she looked at the last words she had written, then added, “Of course, I think it probably helps that he can't
talk
much while he's dancing.”

She was smirking to herself when she heard her father's voice, saying, “Yes, indeed, I think this room will do nicely.”

The door opened.

“Kate! What are you doing here?”

She watched as the grin on his face disappeared, only to be replaced by a strangely furtive expression.

“I. Am. Working,” Kate said evenly.

The door eased open a little farther and Professoressa Marchese stepped into the room behind Kate's father, looking cool and amused.

“How admirable,” she said. “We certainly don't want to disturb you.” She put one slender hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Sanderson, perhaps we can continue our discussion about next year's conference somewhere else?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” He sounded grumpy.

“In fact, it's such a lovely evening . . . perhaps we should sit outside with a glass of wine?”

“Oh, yes!” He sounded happier. “Excellent idea!”

“Much better than sitting inside on a night like this,” she was murmuring as she softly closed the door behind them.

And then they, too, were gone.

Kate propped her chin on her hand and looked wistfully out the windows. The last sunlight still slanted through the trees, the lazy sound of conversation and laughter could be heard in the distance, and all of Italy—Italy!—lay right outside her door, yet here she was, staring at pixels until she was about to go blind. She grumpily studied what she had written so far. One paragraph, two at most. No color, no detail, none of the “you-are-there” reporting she had sworn she would send back.

Gritting her teeth, she placed her fingers on the keyboard.

The door opened once more.

“Kate . . .”

“I'll tell you what I'm doing here, I'm
working,
that's what I'm doing!” Kate said as she turned to glare at the latest interloper.

It was Giacomo, wearing a white shirt and jeans. One last ray of sunlight turned his dark hair gold, then vanished.

“Good for you,” Giacomo said mildly. “I was just going to say that I've been looking for you. Do you want to go into town to get a gelato?”

“That sounds great,” she said, surprised to feel a little flutter in her stomach. “Let me just send this.”

“Lucy and Tom have already gone to meet Silvia,” he went on. “It's the perfect chance for us to stage another little scene. This time, it will be an accidental meeting. You will look flustered, I will look annoyed, they will think they have discovered us in the midst of a secret assignation.”

“Oh.” She felt unaccountably dashed. “Right.” She cleared her throat and added, “But we did have lunch in the garden yesterday. And we walked by the river the day before that. Won't they suspect that something's up if we go out again tonight?”

“Yes,” he said. “They will suspect that we like each other, which is the idea. Besides,” he added persuasively, “you can't work on a beautiful evening like this,
cara
mia.
”

His warm voice seemed to caress the last two words. She wavered. “I really do need to send this e-mail.”

“Fine. I will wait until you finish, then we will go.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Kate made her voice brisk. As she returned to typing, the cursor seemed to blink a little faster on the screen, as if in rhythm with her pulse.

Giacomo threw himself into a chair, picked up a book and examined the title with a quizzical look. “
Alchemical Symbolism in the Age of the Renaissance,
” he read out loud. “Lord.” He dropped it back on the table. “Tonight is not a night for studying! It is a night for walking in the moonlight and laughing with friends and
living
.”

She glanced over, but the room was filling with shadows and she couldn't see his expression. Only his shirt glowed white in the gathering dusk.

Was it her imagination or was the cursor now blinking impatiently?

She quickly typed a few words, hit send, and stepped out into the summer night with Giacomo.