The Juliet Club (17 page)

As she shoved the last offending gown to the side, Kate could feel tears begin to prick in her eyes. It shouldn't be this hard to find something that she looked halfway decent in, should it?

She bit her lip and considered grabbing the pale pink gown—the one she knew would make her look like a dish of raspberry ice cream—and hurling it to the floor and stomping on it.

Just then, a voice behind her said, “Do you need some help?”

Kate looked into the mirror and saw Giacomo, who lifted one eyebrow meaningfully. “We're back on stage, I think.” She looked past his reflection in the mirror and saw everyone else, busily engaged in looking at their costumes or out the window or at one another—anywhere except at her and Giacomo.

Then Lucy sneaked a quick peek in their direction, caught Kate's eye, and startled as if a mouse had run over her foot. She turned hurriedly away to say something under her breath to Tom.

Kate's spirits lifted in spite of herself at the sight. She smiled up at Giacomo from under her eyelashes. “Thanks for the cue.”

“You're welcome.” He smiled back. “Oh, just a quick note—the way you looked up at me just then? Excellent flirting technique.”

“But I wasn't trying . . .” She stopped.

“Even better,” he said with approval. “Now, as for your costume . . .”

“I know,” Kate said, trying not to sound dejected. “I
know
.”

Her voice trailed off. He had walked away from her, but only to begin sorting through the rack of dresses at the far end of the store. “Now this,” he said finally, bringing a gown over to her. “This might do.”

He turned her to face the mirror, then swung the dress in front of her with a flourish, holding it with his right hand. His left hand rested lightly on her waist. She glanced in the mirror and saw that he was looking at her. In the store's soft lighting, she saw that his brown eyes had flecks of gold. It was strange, she thought, that she hadn't noticed that before.

She forced herself to look back at the dress. It was a subtle fawn silk with ivory lace at the neckline. Dark gold embroidery and pearls were sewn on the bodice. Kate stared at herself. The dress seemed to make her blond hair look golden, her skin rosy, her eyes a deeper, richer brown. And she felt all sparkly and confident and alive. . . .

It was amazing, she thought, how much difference the right dress makes.

“What do you think?” she asked, a little breathless.

Giacomo glanced over his shoulder. Benno and Tom had their backs to Kate and Giacomo as they carefully examined a plumed hat. Lucy's eyes were fixed on the two necklaces she was comparing, and Silvia had turned her head away, elaborately uninterested in anything Giacomo might be doing.

He lifted Kate's hand to his lips, then turned it over to kiss her wrist. His eyes met hers in the mirror. He smiled.

“Perfetta,”
he said.

Act III
Scene II

Silvia walked up the three flights of stairs to her family's apartment, feeling strangely cheerful. This wasn't an emotion she had experienced much lately, so it took her several blocks to identify it and most of the long walk home from the costume shop to accept it.

As she pushed the door open, she was still dreamily remembering the way the long skirt had swayed around her ankles, the rich color glowed in the light, and the silk felt brushing against her body. When she smelled the familiar homey scent of cooking pasta and simmering tomato sauce, her heart lifted even more.

Then she heard the cheerful babble of babies. Her smile disappeared. She slammed the door behind her and walked down the hall toward the living room, where the causes of her current discontent were crawling on the rug, looking adorable, as always. Silvia stopped just outside the doorway and silently watched her father. As usual, once he stepped inside his own home, he was a changed man.

The short, pompous mayor with the red sash that the world knew was gone. In his place was a man with a vacant, doting look on his face, a man who could spend hours staring at three babies, a man who was captivated by the smallest, most insignificant action, as long as it was performed by someone under the age of two. Tonight he was watching the triplets attempting to stand and failing miserably.

“I see we are in for another entertaining evening,” she said. “No need for television, eh, Papà? Not while we have the Baby Channel. All babies, all the time.”

“Silvia,
cara,
how are you?” he asked, not even bothering to look up. One of the triplets threatened to tip over. He caught the baby quickly and set her upright again, cooing, “There you are, you're all right, aren't you?”

Silvia shot him a poisonous glare. “Terrible, thanks for asking.”

“Ah, good, good,” he said. He hurried over to where Giovanni was reaching for a light plug. “No you don't, little man,” he admonished, lifting the baby and placing him at a safe distance from the outlet.

Giovanni's mouth formed a perfect square, his wispy eyebrows drew together, and he took in a deep lungful of air. Silvia, who recognized the warning signs, put her fingers in her ears.

The anguished wail that echoed around the room brought her mother and grandmother on the run. “Ah, no, my poor Giovanni, what is the matter?” her mother cried, lifting the little boy in her arms.

Giovanni's wail had set off his siblings, Rosa and Lorenzo, who were now crying even more loudly than Giovanni. Nonna picked up Rosa, Silvia's father picked up Lorenzo, and the living room was filled with the hiccupping snuffles of babies who were reluctantly letting themselves be calmed.

Silvia came close to stamping her foot in disgust.

“My day was more than terrible,” she continued. “My life has been ruined, my future shattered, my hopes and dreams dashed to pieces!”

Her grandmother murmured to Rosa, “There, there, little one, all is well!”

Her mother lifted Giovanni above her head and made a face at him that was so ridiculous that he burst into giggles.

Her father did that silly thing with his lips, the thing that sounded like a motorboat sputtering and that always made Lorenzo laugh and laugh.

Silvia hesitated. Part of her wanted to go to her room, slam the door and leave the rest of her family in the happy little cocoon they had created. Another part of her knew that going to her room would feel like exile, even if it was her decision.

After a brief inner struggle, she stepped into the living room just as her two little brothers and her little sister were put down on the floor. As they caught sight of Silvia for the first time, they greeted her with happy cries and crawled rapidly in her direction, occasionally tumbling over in their haste.

“Oh, how sweet, they are so happy to see their big sister!” Silvia's mother said, beaming and casting a look of hope in Silvia's direction. “They can't wait to say hello!”

Silvia bit her lip before she made a snarling response that she was sure to regret. After the triplets had arrived so treacherously on the scene, she had discovered that babies have the power to turn every adult within fifty meters into complete idiots. Case in point: All grown-ups insisted on attributing motivations and inner lives to infants who clearly only cared about three things: eating, sleeping, and pooping. They did not, Silvia was quite sure, count the minutes until she arrived home so that they would be sure to awaken from their nap in time to greet her.

Rosa, the youngest, took two tottering steps, fell over, and chortled madly. Lorenzo, the middle triplet, managed to stand, then put his head on the floor and flipped over in a neat somersault that would have been quite impressive had it actually been planned.

“Oh, look at that!” Silvia's father said. “They're showing off for you!”

Silvia gave her father a stony look. She refused to be charmed. These triplets were, after all, usurpers. Tiny, innocent usurpers—they hadn't asked to be born—but usurpers nonetheless.

Then Giovanni, the oldest, asserted his leadership role by crawling across the perilous expanse of living-room rug, grabbing the arm of the couch, and pulling himself upright. He reached up to place one small hand confidingly on her leg and proceeded to make a long, involved and earnest speech. No one, of course, had any idea what he was saying. Some of his phrases sounded vaguely Japanese.

“Oh, listen, he wants to tell you all about his day!” her grandmother cried.

His day? What about
her
day?

“I'm going to my room,” she muttered.

But Rosa chose that precise moment to reach for a glass candy dish, so her departure went completely unnoticed.

Silvia stomped down the hall to her bedroom, locked her door, and threw herself on her bed, not even bothering to take off her black boots. She gazed at her latest creation, hung on the wall like a work of art. Well, of course, it
was
a work of art. A dress, certainly, but also a work of art. She had taken a relatively simple pattern and added her own touches: slashed sleeves, an asymmetrical hem, dozens of tiny buttons, a winged collar . . . it looked like something that a time-traveling Edwardian might wear on a visit to the year 2039.

Silvia sighed. Usually anything to do with her fashion creations made her happy, from sketching her initial ideas to sitting at her sewing machine until late in the night. Even looking around her room, which was a riot of color, with fabrics tossed everywhere and various projects in different stages of completion, usually gave her a contented and quiet feeling that was totally at odds with her normal emotional state.

But lately even her room, her projects, her fabrics and buttons and ribbons, did not soothe her soul. She considered the dress on the wall more thoughtfully. It was the best thing she'd ever done. But there was something a little unnerving about the way it hung there, empty, like a dress worn by an invisible girl.

She tore her gaze away and stared up at the ceiling, where she could still see the faded constellations her father had painted for her eighth birthday. The luminescent paint had faded over the years, but there was the pale outline of Orion and the faint tracing of the Big Dipper. She remembered the thrill of joy that had run through her when she had first seen them. Her parents had led her into the room at bedtime, smiling the excited smiles of grown-ups with a secret. Then they had turned off the lights, and it was as if the roof had been lifted off the house and she was staring straight up into the universe.

The stars blurred in front of her eyes. She jumped up and tore off her tattered black cotton jacket, which had been too much for the hot day, really, but which she had been determined to wear because she fancied that it made her look sultry and dangerous.

She had just leaned down to unlace her boots when she heard a soft knock at her door.

“Silvia? Are you hungry?” her mother called.

“No!” Silvia shouted back, even though she could have eaten everything in the house and then gone out for a pizza.

“Are you all right,
cara
?” Her mother's voice was troubled.

Silvia smiled grimly at herself in the mirror that hung next to the closet. She was quite pleased with the way her wind-tossed hair, smeared black eyeliner, and cynical expression made her look. In fact, she fancied that she looked like the reincarnation of one of the Borgias, a family known for its expertise in the fields of poison and murder.

“You must eat something!” her mother tried again. “You'll waste away to nothing!”

Silvia sneered at that, even as her eyes flicked over to the small photograph wedged into the mirror frame. It was a picture of her at fifteen. Surely her mother remembered how she looked then? A long, heavy braid of dark hair, scraped back from her round face. Thick black-framed glasses. Lips firmly clamped over the mouthful of metal that her orthodonist had subjected her to for years. And, of course, fat.

“Silvia?” There was an edge of anxiety in her mother's voice now, touched with a shade of irritation. “Did you hear me? Are you all right?”

“Yes!” Silvia said, in the loud, impatient tone of someone who can't believe she has to waste so much precious time explaining the most basic concepts over and over again. “I'm fine! I just have a lot of work to do!”

“But you need to eat something. And dinner tonight is your favorite.” Her mother was cajoling her now. “
Maccherine e ragu,
your nonna made it special.”

For a moment, Silvia wavered. Her nonna made the best
maccherine e ragu
in the world. . . .

Then a sudden piercing cry split the air (Silvia recognized the voice of Giovanni, the most vocal of the triplets), followed immediately by two more. She heard her mother gasp with concern and start down the hall toward the latest catastrophe, only stopping long enough to call back hurriedly, “I'll put something in the refrigerator for you for later.”

Silvia slammed the closet door shut. Distantly, she could hear the babies' screams gradually diminish to hiccupping sobs as a chorus of adult voices murmured and clucked and soothed them.

Of course, Silvia thought bitterly. She had locked herself in her bedroom in obvious despair. Did anyone care? No, not as long as the terrible triplets ruled the household.

At least her plan to trick Giacomo was going well. It had been quite amusing to see him flirting with Kate in the costume shop and Kate flirting back. Really, quite, quite amusing.

In the mirror, Silvia could see her lip tremble. She bit it hard enough to taste blood, then turned sharply away and threw herself on her bed. She stared at the ceiling once more, imagining herself fading away into nothing, then floating away into a sky of vanishing stars.

Act III
Scene III

“Benno is over there. In the
farmacia,
” Kate reported. “He's doing his best to lurk, but—”

“Yes, I see him.” Giacomo grinned.

Kate and Giacomo were sitting on a bench in the piazza, sipping lemonade and people-watching. They were watching one person in particular: Benno, who had trailed them from the villa and through the town for the last half hour.

“He would make a terrible spy,” Giacomo added, shaking his head. “Does he see us?”

“Oh, yes.” Kate chuckled. It was a lovely sound, full of mischief, like sunlit water running over rocks in a stream.

“Excellent,” Giacomo said. “Then let's begin.”

Across the square, Benno peered at Giacomo and Kate through the
farmacia
window. Their trick seemed to be working, although Benno was less gratified by this than he would have thought. For one thing, he was hot and sweaty after following those two all over Verona. They hadn't spotted him, of course; he was far too clever for that. Although there had been a few moments when Giacomo had taken such a roundabout route to the piazza that Benno had wondered whether his friend was leading him on a merry chase on purpose. . . . But just as he was thinking that, they had all finally reached the piazza. Kate and Giacomo had settled down on a bench. And Benno had decided that his imagination was playing tricks on him.

The second reason he was in an ill humor had to do with what he was watching through the window. He could see Giacomo's dark head bend toward Kate's blond one. He could see Giacomo's hand lightly brush her arm. He could see—

But actually, he thought, he had seen quite enough. When he had agreed to this prank, he had told Silvia that he would enjoy watching Giacomo and Kate being tricked into love, but he had expected Giacomo to fail; Kate, he thought, was simply too serious to be won. In fact, he had devoutly
hoped
that Giacomo would fail.

And yet there they were in the piazza, acting so sweet to each other that it made him sick.

“What's so interesting out there, Benno?” Signora Lombardi, the owner of the
farmacia,
leaned over his shoulder to peer out the window. “Ah, a pretty girl, I should have known. But isn't that your friend Giacomo with her?”

“Si,”
Benno said glumly.

Signora Lombardi gave him a knowing look and a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Never mind, Benno. Remember,
botte piccola fa vino buono
!” A small cask makes good wine.

Benno began to scowl, then forced a smile instead. It wasn't Signora Lombardi's fault that she was perhaps the five hundredth person to quote this proverb to him in the past few years. It was supposed to be a nice way to compliment someone who was short, but somehow Benno never quite saw it that way.

“And anyway,” she added, “I'm sure you'll get your growth spurt any day now. My Christopher was the shortest boy in his class until he was sixteen, and then, overnight, he shot up five inches!”

He decided not to point out that he had turned sixteen several months ago.

“So, listen,” she went on, “Signor Moretti's heart medicine is ready. Can you take it over to him?”

“Ma certo,”
Benno said. A quick glance out the window told him that Kate and Giacomo were still sitting in the piazza. He could slip around to Signor Moretti's
gelateria
while still keeping them in sight and probably get a free scoop of
cioccalato
as thanks as well.

“Look over there, at the woman in the green flowered dress,” Giacomo said, pointing to his left.

Kate leaned in front of him slightly and looked. “Where? I can't see—” She felt his arm go around her shoulders.

“No, don't pull away from me,” he said. “Relax.”

“All right, fine.” She relaxed, somewhat gingerly, against his arm. “That was very clever, the way you did that. Do you often use the woman-in-the-green-flowered-dress approach?”

“Only when there really is one. See?” He gestured toward a nearby bench, where a middle-aged woman was sitting down. Even from some distance, Kate could sense her sigh of relief as she eased herself back into the seat. Her feet probably hurt, poor thing. Kate looked her over more carefully. The woman's hair was pulled back severely from her forehead and fastened with bobby pins. Her large round glasses winked in the sun like oversized bug eyes. And that dress . . .

“She's had that dress for thirty years,” she said out loud. “She has to have it altered every year, of course, because she can't seem to stop gaining weight. But she can't give it up.”

“Not surprising,” Giacomo said easily. “After all, it was the dress she was wearing when her husband proposed. She didn't know he was going to propose, of course, or she would have worn something much nicer.”

“But they were going on a picnic and she thought it wouldn't show the grass stains as much.” Kate stopped and turned sharply to Giacomo. “I thought I was the only one who did that!”

“What? Making up stories about complete strangers? I used to do it all the time,” he said. “When I was younger. Hanging about at some boring conference with my mother—”

“Trying to sit perfectly still and not make any noise and not get into trouble,” Kate said, adding indignantly, “even though it's impossible to get into trouble in a room of two hundred English lit professors!”

“Well, not
impossible,
” he said. “But you do have to try quite hard.” He gave her a mischievous sideways glance. “But back to our subject.”

They both turned to examine the woman through narrowed eyes.

“Her name is Cornelia, I think,” Kate said. “Her parents are dead now, of course. They were quite old when they had her.”

“Yes, yes, they were so happy when she was born,” Giacomo agreed. “They had almost given up hope.”

“And so they started spoiling her from the day she was born.”

“Her father called her his little princess and gave her whatever she wanted.”

“So she grew up expecting everyone to treat her that way,” Kate said. “And then one day, she met, um—”

“Cesare,” he offered.

“Yes, perfect!” Kate could see this Cesare in her mind's eye. He had a bold nose, like the Emperor Caesar, and a willful, stubborn personality to match. “He was also an only child, also spoiled, also used to getting his own way.”

“It was love at first sight,” Giacomo added.

“Naturally,” Kate agreed.

“They met at the disco.”

“At the festival of Santa Lucia,” Kate corrected him. “They shared a passion for parades and marching bands.”

He considered this, then nodded. “Yes. Each secretly imagined that the celebration was being held in their honor.”

Kate laughed at that and added, “But after two months of happiness, they faced their first real test. Cornelia wanted to go to France on vacation.”

“But Cesare hated France, ever since the time a Parisian maître d' had sneered at him,” Giacomo said gleefully.

“Yes, he had never had anyone sneer at him, not ever!” she said dramatically. “He still thought about what he should have said, even though his scathing comeback was years too late!”

“So he suggested a holiday in Greece,” Giacomo went on.

“But Cornelia had her heart set on Paris.” Kate sighed. “Neither one would give an inch.”

“So the love affair ended.” Giacomo's tone was mournful. “No ring on her finger, no beautiful wedding to make her friends jealous, no
bambini
for the parents to spoil.”

“She began going to the piazza to throw a coin in the fountain, wishing that she would find a love like that again,” Kate finished. She sighed, feeling unexpectedly sad at the ending they had written.

“Hmm.” Giacomo seemed to sense her mood. He tilted his head to one side, squinting at the woman as if he were a painter trying to decide if his canvas was finished. After a moment, he said briskly, “And her wish was answered. One day a young man appeared, as if by magic.”

“Yes, that's good,” Kate said, her face brightening. “He had golden hair and blue eyes and a winning smile.”

“But he wasn't perfect,” Giacomo cautioned. “He snored, for example.”

Kate gave a little shrug. “Cornelia could forgive that. After all,
she
had a tendency to hum under her breath.”

“But he insisted on having his supper every evening at five.” Giacomo shook his head sadly. “She hated to say it, but her new love was a barbarian. The only civilized hour to dine, of course, is nine o'clock. And he watered his wine, and he picked his teeth, and he used up all the hot water every time he took a bath.”

“But she loved him anyway,” Kate interrupted hastily, determined to bring this story to a happy conclusion.

“She did?” Giacomo quirked an eyebrow at her. “Because . . .” He paused invitingly, waiting for her to complete his sentence.

And Kate stared back at him, completely at a loss. Finally, she threw her hands up in the air. “Because she loved him,” she said simply. “She couldn't explain it, she knew it made no sense, her friends and family thought she had lost her mind, but there it was.”

He smiled and shrugged. “There it was. She loved him.”

They stopped and looked at each other. Without realizing it, they had stood up and started walking, engrossed in their story. They had ended up in the small parklike area in the center of the piazza, where tall trees cast a cool, green shade.

“Benno is still watching, yes?” Giacomo whispered.

Kate looked into his eyes and nodded slightly.

“Then I think we should kiss now.”

“Do you?”

“Well.” Giacomo pretended to give this serious thought. “Benno will be expecting it.”

Kate nodded judiciously. “Yes,” she said. “If we don't he may begin to wonder.”

On the other side of the piazza, Benno gaped at the sight of Giacomo kissing Kate.

Then he saw Kate kissing Giacomo back.

“
No,” he said under his breath. “I don't believe it.”

He threw his half-eaten dish of gelato in a nearby trash can. Somehow he no longer had the taste for it.