The Knotty Bride (10 page)

(Four months later, March)

Ever since our return to Arona, my life with Brandon has become welcomingly quiet. Over the last four months, I have become a frequent visitor to Villa Buschi in the mornings. I drop the children off at nursery school and head off to spend some time with Brandon before reporting for duty at the ice cream shop. This new status as “guest” at Villa Buschi is a little strange for Aunt Alice. Nowadays, she offers to take my coat when I arrive.

“Oh please, Alice, I know where my coat goes. Don’t bother.” I maneuver around her to hang up my raincoat in the closet stowing my heavy handbag with its contraband in a storage bin. A moment later, I stride confidently into the dining room, looking smart in wide-legged plaid pants, black pumps and my new three quarter length pink sweater with sleeves that flare out in the latest fashion.

Yes, it’s true. Brandon took me on a spending spree. But I haven’t betrayed the sisterhood, and I’m not a kept woman. I still have my own place. And I still work a crappy job that consumes most of my day. So what’s wrong with a little shopping at the fine boutiques in Stresa? Brandon insisted that I needed new things, my old clothes were falling apart. My sweaters were unraveling, my socks had holes, and my shoes were coming apart at the soles. I looked like a bag lady.

“You look lovely today, Lily,” Jason, Brandon’s brother says as I take my place at the breakfast table. It’s festively set with Easter plates depicting stoic looking rabbits in waist coats and pince-nez glasses. I picked them out when Brandon, me, and the boys went to London for a long weekend.

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” I beam at him as I pour orange juice into my glass. In response, Jason leans over to clink his tumbler with mine. Jason is a taller, skinnier version of his brother with spikey brown hair and a long face. I love both Jason and his girlfriend, Anna Lidiano. They are the cutest couple. I feel that they are practically my new in-laws. These days, there’s great energy here at Ca’Buschi as Anna and Jason are beginning to plan a huge, “proper” wedding to be held on the front lawn of the villa this June. I’m really caught up in the spirit of it all, and while Brandon and Jason are busy with other things, Anna and I pore through bridal magazines. It’s quite funny though, because if Brandon catches us, he always repeats, “Really, Anna, don’t encourage her. She’ll be wanting her own wedding soon and you know how I feel about marriage.”

Anna and I just laugh at this because we are sisters of the heart. Every time Brandon makes his little speech Anna quips, “Don’t believe it, Lily. I’ve never seen Brandon so happy. You’re the one for him.” These words make me love her all the more. Although there’s one tiny thing that bothers me about both Anna and Jason. Well, not so much bother, as makes me curious. You see, she and Jason have installed themselves at Ca’ Buschi and don’t seem intent on leaving. So what bothers me, I mean what makes me curious, is will we all live here after Brandon and I are married? Is it wrong that I want it to someday be just the four of us, Brandon, me, and the boys? I’m not sure why I worry about any of this. After all, Brandon and I are taking things slow. Our wedding, at least in my opinion, is probably still over a year away.

Speaking of weddings, I’m hoping to have some time alone with Anna this morning. I’d like to get her to pin down a date in June for the wedding so we can start putting plans in motion. Plus, I have some more magazines to show her. My mother, who is so consumed with the idea that I’ll be marrying Brandon, has sent a slew of magazines in a large package all the way from Colorado. The package that arrived yesterday was so thick and heavy that the postage must have cost her a month’s salary.

Anyway, my favorite wedding magazine is
The Knot
, and I’ve been telling Anna all about it. “I call the brides who read the magazine Knotty Brides,” I informed her the other day. Being Italian, she didn’t get my pun so I explained it in painstaking detail.

“What is it, Lily? You look positively giddy about something,” Jason asks on this rainy morning, as I settle into my breakfast of scrambled eggs. Truth is, I am positively giddy. Spending time going over wedding ideas with Anna sounds like tremendous fun. But I mustn’t give myself away. I don’t want Brandon to know about the contraband magazines sitting in my purse in the coat closet.

“No, not giddy. Actually feeling a bit down, weather and all.” I do my darndest to make my mouth form a frown, which is hard to do when I’m feeling so genuinely excited about my future.

“You feeling alright, Lily?” Brandon asks, putting down his newspaper. “That’s a pretty intense grimace on your face.”

As luck would have it, I am saved by the bell. “Who is it?” I hear Alice ask, answering the intercom in the nearby kitchen. These days, we have to be so careful. The photo of me and Brandon in the Orvieto train station went viral and it was plastered on the front of every tabloid from here to the Antarctica. For the last four months, the paparazzi have been thick as flies in downtown Arona and I can barely leave my house without flashes going off.

“Signor Logan,” Alice says coming through the swinging door that separates the dining room from the kitchen, “The police are here. They’re at the gate. Shall I admit them?”

“My goodness,” Brandon wipes his hands on his napkin, “That was fast. I thought they would simply write down my complaint about the photographers hanging around at all hours of the day. I didn’t expect them to want to discuss the matter. They’ve never done anything in the past. But that’s okay, go ahead, Alice. Ring them through.”

It turns out that ringing them through was a huge mistake. An absolutely massive police officer greeted Alice when she opened the door. Faster than anyone could say boo, he bellowed, “Alice Bettonina? You’re to come with me down to the police station. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud.”

******

An hour or so later and I am sitting in a small gray cell. It all seems so surreal. Only a few months ago, I was in
Lipari’s Luxurious B and B by
Debi
, and Brandon and I were venturing out in the squally weather. We were trying to unlock the “technical shed” to retrieve the bicycles so we could ride to a nearby restaurant. We ended up giving it up after a few seconds because the wind was so strong, it blew me sideways off the bike. In the end, we had to walk to the restaurant, hand in hand, bent forward with our heads into the wind. I thought that if he let go of me, I might sail away out into the night sky like a wayward balloon. But that’s the wonderful thing about Brandon, he’ll never let go. Now that we’re finally together, he’ll never let go. That whole wonderful image of us during our first days together in Lipari seems so far away as I look around at the peeling gray walls.

As already noted, I’m not good in emergency situations. I cannot be a first responder. I am also not good around death. And I think it’s fair to say, I’m not the person one wants around in a crisis situation. Which is precisely why I am in a holding cell in a tiny jail on the outskirts of Arona. You see, when that policeman told Alice she was being charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, my mind went wild. Alice stood there in the bracing wind on the front steps of Villa Buschi looking genuinely confused. I started shouting bloody murder when the policeman grabbed her by the arm and began yanking her towards the car. Brandon was there and he was yelling, “What’s this all about? You can’t arrest her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

For a few short moments, as the policeman continued to prod Alice along, it was as if the world, the universe, and time slowed way down. A strange silence took over inside my head and it went like this: silence, silence, silence --deck the burly man-- silence, silence, silence.

“Let go of my aunt,” I shouted and sprang forward. At first, I tried to pull on Alice’s arm and tug her backwards but the policeman tugged equally hard in the other direction. Then, I tried to insert my body between Alice and the policeman, but this didn’t work, and the policeman continued to parade Alice towards the car. Flooded with adrenaline, I did the only thing I could; I began slapping the policeman about the head. (Lightly though, nothing too hard or disrespectful.)

“That’s my Aunt! Let her go,” I yelled. Behind me, I heard the gasps of horror from Elenora and Carla as they watched the scene unfold from the villa’s steps. I also heard Jason and Anna come to the front door and demand to know what was happening. And I heard Brandon’s sharp voice say, “Lily, no, Lily, don’t!” That’s when my right hand, which was flailing about, collided (quite accidentally) with the policeman’s nose. In a second, all hell broke loose as another policeman, a small skinny one, jumped out of the car and grabbed me about the waist.

“My nose, my nose!” the burly man shouted as a most unfortunate amount of blood began to spurt all over his face. From the stairs, Elenora and Carla gasps morphed to wails so magnificent, it sounded as if Alice and I were being thrown on a funeral pyre, rather than being stuffed into a police car by two very irate-looking men.

“I’m dialing my lawyer, right this minute. If you take those ladies beyond the villa’s gate, I will file charges against the police department,” Brandon boomed authoritatively. His voice brought me out of my daze. Suddenly things were no longer in slow mo. Indeed, numerous things were happening at once:

              1.) The small, skinny policeman behind the wheel yelled that I was going to be charged with assault, while

              2.) The other policeman climbed into the passenger seat, dribbling blood all over the cheap interior, while

     3.) Jason ran, as if on fire, to the converted carriage house which housed Brandon’s collection of cars, while

              4.) Anna tried to calm down Carla and Elenora so that Brandon could speak to whomever it was he had dialed on the phone.

              Amidst all this chaos, the skinny policeman started up the car, did a three point turn, and rocketed off towards the gate. Behind us came a loud roar of a V8. It was Jason, driving Brandon’s silver Maserati. Turning around in my seat I saw him pull up to the front steps. Brandon hopped in and Jason gunned it. Quickly, the Maserati came racing along behind us, its engine thundering in a most intimidating fashion. Yet there was nothing Brandon or anyone could do, the police were intent on carting us off to jail.

Beside me in the police car, Alice sat in eerie silence, staring straight ahead. For once in my, life I was quiet too. Obviously I was going to be charged with assault, but why on Earth were they arresting Alice? If this was about the fact that Carlo Buschi faked his death, then they got the wrong woman. Alice knew nothing about that. A flashback transports me momentarily to last October when I told Alice that Signor Tacchini had lied about identifying Carlo Buschi’s body. When I told her that Signor Tacchini had confessed this crime to me, Alice’s face registered real shock. There was no way Alice could have been that good of an actress. No, I already know all the people who were involved in helping Carlo Buschi commit a fraudulent death and Alice wasn’t one of them.

Twenty minutes later, the second policeman, whose name happens to be Signor Techetti, led Alice and me into a 1950’s-style post-war concrete police building. Brandon and Justin, having followed us the entire way, were instructed to wait in the lobby while Alice and I were “processed” in the back. Alice turned a pasty white color as she was fingerprinted.

“Look here,” I said authoritatively while the policewoman pressed my index finger into ink and then rolled it back and forth on a small white piece of paper, “What is my aunt charged with?”

The policewoman glared at me darkly before informing me it was none of my business. Then, she wiped my finger with a tissue and escorted me to this dank holding cell.

Now here I am. I stare across the room at the scary, squalid, stainless-steel urinal on the wall and faster than you can say “power of suggestion,” I have to pee. My subconscious knows there’s no way I could ever use that toilet and so the inevitable has happened; I now have to pee so desperately that I cross my legs tight.

“Guard,” I holler. “Guard!”  What are they feeding these policemen? The one who gets up from a small desk at the far end of a dark hall and waddles my way is as enormous as that burly man whose nose I broke. (Yes, turns out I broke it. He had to go straight from the police station to the hospital and the police woman who fingerprinted us told me I was in big, big trouble. She made it sound like I may never feel the sun on my face again.) I stare in awe at this huge guard who shuffles over to the bars on our cell, looking like an overstuffed plush bear.