Dreaming of Rome

by Dreaming of Rome (retail) (epub)

  ‘He hasn’t been about much. I imagine he’s been working hard to get everything done before the holidays. The laboratory shuts down for two weeks around the middle of the month. Most everything over here closes down in August. It’s so bloody hot!’

  ‘Well, if it helps, it’s bloody hot here as well, now that it’s finally stopped raining.’ She wondered what Corrado was going to do for his holidays. A visit to London, maybe? In spite of herself, she felt a frisson of excitement.

  It was misplaced.

  ‘I imagine he’ll go off somewhere on his yacht. That’s what he did last year.’

  An alluring image of Corrado in his swimming shorts on the deck of a luxurious boat, floating on an azure sea, came to Jo’s mind, closely followed by the less alluring image of a beautiful Italian girl in a sexy bikini lounging on the deck beside him. She suppressed a snort.

  ‘Well, say hi from me next time you see him.’

  ‘He said the same thing to Mario the other day. Mario says he thinks he’s missing you.’

  ‘Well I miss him too, but we both know that’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘People can change, Jo.’

  ‘That’s what everybody’s been telling me.’ She spotted the yellow front of her train approaching. ‘Anyway, got to go. Here’s my train. See you.’

  ‘I’ll call you on Thursday to wish you a happy birthday.’

  That evening as she checked her emails, she spotted one from Ricky in California. It was very friendly, and highly complimentary of the ideas she had outlined for dealing with plastic waste recovered from the oceans. He promised to look into the feasibility of doing something along the lines she had laid out, but then her eyes were suddenly riveted to his final paragraph.

  I’ve only just got back to LA and I’ve been meaning to contact you. On my way home from Europe, I had a four-day stopover in New York and I was invited for lunch with Professor Dietrich. We talked about the Rome conference and it’s pretty clear she was very impressed by you. I delicately dropped a few hints about a lot of your paper on plastic waste coming from you, rather than Captain Jack Sparrow, and she appeared to be even more impressed. It may come to nothing, but you never know – you might even get a job offer out of her. She’s coming to LA next week and I’ll see her again. If you’re interested, why don’t you send me your résumé and I’ll pass it onto her. Couldn’t hurt…

  Jo was genuinely gobsmacked. Professor Dietrich worked for the United Nations. Jo knew she headed a specialist department dealing with climate change and the idea of being asked to join a team like that was amazing. She was still dreaming when her phone rang. It was Victoria.

  ‘Hi, Jo. We’ve been visiting George’s sister in Dulwich and seeing as that’s sort of just down the road, we thought we’d drop in to check on how you are. Are you in the middle of anything?’

  Jo assured her she would be delighted to see them and told them to come round. Fifteen minutes later they appeared. Victoria subjected Jo to careful scrutiny.

  ‘Hi, Jo. I’m glad to see you looking cheerful.’

  Jo waved them in.

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve just come back from a day with mum and dad and look what I found on my computer.’ She read them the last paragraph of Ricky’s email and explained what a big deal it would be to work for the professor.

  Victoria, ever observant, was the first to point out what this would mean.

  ‘Where does this Professor Dietrich work?’

  ‘New York.’

  ‘So presumably any job would be in New York as well.’

  Jo’s brain hadn’t zeroed in on that yet. Of course, Victoria was right. She stared blankly at the two of them for a moment.

  ‘Yes, of course. I suppose it would have to be New York.’

  ‘So, do you fancy working in the US? New York’s supposed to be a really great city.’

  Jo turned it over in her head. She had heard the same about New York. It really did have considerable appeal.

  Victoria was still looking at the downside of any possible job offer. ‘Of course, I daresay your mum wouldn’t be too happy, having just lost one daughter to Italy, if she were to lose the other to even further afield.’

  ‘But it’s dead easy and not too expensive to get to New York.’ George was encouraging, as always. ‘Your parents could go over to see you.’ He glanced at Victoria and grinned. ‘And so could we.’

  ‘I must admit it appeals a lot. There’s just one thing, though…’ Unbidden, her Italian elephant had just lumbered into the room.

  Victoria wasn’t her best friend for nothing. ‘What’s the problem? Are you thinking about being distanced from a certain hunky Italian by any chance?’

  Jo bought herself a bit of time. ‘Do you guys want tea?’

  She filled the kettle and watched it come to the boil, her mind now firmly on Corrado. Yes, it would take her further away from him, but so what? He was just a future relative after all, nothing more. She filled the teapot and turned round.

  ‘You’re right, I was thinking of him, and Angie and Mario. But, like you say, they could always come over to New York to visit me. Besides, we’re only talking about the vague possibility of a job at this stage. There’s a long way to go yet.’

  At this moment her annoying subconscious served her up a tantalising image of Corrado lying naked beside her on a big bed in a stylish apartment looking out over Central Park. She was gently running her fingers down his muscular chest to his ribbed stomach, while he…

  She almost ran across to the fridge, tore the door open and made a grab for the milk bottle, burying herself in the icy interior to cool her flushed cheeks. As she was still hidden by the door, pretending to look for the chocolate biscuits, she heard Victoria’s voice.

  ‘Your friend Ricky has a point, though. It wouldn’t do any harm to send him your résumé. “Résumé”? Have you ever asked yourself why the Americans use a French word and we use a Latin abbreviation? Surely we should have a perfectly satisfactory English word for it?’

  As her friend let her academic curiosity get the better of her, Jo took a deep breath and ran the cold milk bottle across her cheeks. Refreshed, she emerged from the fridge with the chocolate hobnobs in her other hand, thankfully now minus the bedroom image in her head.

  ‘You sometimes hear ‘bio’, but that’s hardly a completely satisfactory English word. Anyway, yes, I reckon I will send him my whatever-it’s-called.’

  ‘And if Professor Whatshername offers you a job, you think you might take it?’

  Jo filled the teapot and brought it over to the table, along with the biscuits, the mugs and the milk.

  ‘There’s a long way to go before that happens. She might never offer me anything. Ricky only said it was merely a possibility, after all. And then my decision would depend upon what they’d want me to do, and how much they’d be paying me. And I’d need a work permit and all that sort of thing. Green cards are notoriously difficult to obtain.’

  ‘Jo, have you ever considered a career in politics? You’ve just taken a whole minute to say nothing.’

  Jo grinned at her. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is maybe.’ She paused for a few seconds, weighing it up in her head. ‘But, on balance, I think I’d be tending more towards a yes than a no. Certainly it would be a great career move and it would get me away from my current boss.’

  They all sat down and she distributed the mugs of tea. They chatted for a bit and it soon became clear that Victoria and George were very much a couple now. They looked and sounded very happy together and Jo was delighted for them. Victoria soon brought up another subject.

  ‘It’s your birthday this coming Thursday, isn’t it, Jo? What are we doing to celebrate?’

  ‘I’m not sure turning thirty deserves celebration. Commiserations, more likely.’

  ‘Thirty’s the new twenty-five, Jo. Remember that. Besides, you don’t look thirty.’

  ‘I feel thirty. And it’ll be all downhill from there on.’ She kept her tone l
ight, but it was a substantial milestone after all. ‘Mum’s bullied me into having lunch with them and a bunch of the neighbours next Sunday, but I suppose I should go out for drinks or something on the day itself. There are half a dozen people at work to invite, plus a few old friends living in London. How are you two fixed on Thursday?’

  ‘George is going to Scotland, but Thursday’s good for me.’

  Chapter 14

  Thursday turned out to be far more enjoyable than Jo had expected. By the time she was leaving for work, the postman had delivered half a dozen birthday cards and when she got to the office, there were more on her desk, along with a load of chocolates from the other girls on her floor and emails from more friends and family. But the most interesting surprise by far was the parcel that arrived just after midday.

  Carol from the reception desk delivered it personally.

  ‘Here you go, birthday girl. It’s got an ‘Urgent’ sticker on it so I thought I’d bring it straight up.’

  Jo took it from her and was immediately struck by the fact it had come all the way from Italy. While Carol leant against the desk and pretended to admire the view out of the window, Jo opened the parcel and pulled out a further smaller package wrapped in tissue paper and sealed in a plastic bag. On the outside of the bag was the single word, ‘Gucci’, and she stopped in her tracks, gazing in awe at the world-famous name. She set the bag down very carefully in front of her on the desk and pulled the sheets of tissue paper delicately apart. When she saw what was in there, she caught her breath.

  It was a bikini. It was a very light cream colour with a delicate pattern of butterflies of many different colours and species. It was simply delightful and any woman would have been happy to own it, but for somebody with a love of butterflies, it was truly superb. Along with it, there was a white envelope containing a card. Her fingers were shaky with emotion as she slit it open and found a short message from the sender.

  A very happy birthday to the most wonderful lepidopterist I know. You are always in my thoughts.

  Corrado (and Daisy)

  P.S.: Angie told me what size to buy but if, for any reason it doesn’t fit, there should be a Gucci shop in London who will swap it.

  As she sat there, staring in awe at the present, the words ‘You are always in my thoughts’ echoed through her head and she felt her eyes begin to sting. The fact that he had remembered her mentioning the Gucci bikinis showed he had been thinking of her maybe as much as she had been thinking of him.

  ‘Wow, Jo, that’s what I call a present.’

  Jo had forgotten about Carol. She surreptitiously wiped her eyes and looked up. Carol had now been joined by two of the other girls from her floor and they were all ogling the bikini.

  ‘Aren’t you going to go and put it on, Jo? Wear it all day? I’d never take it off.’ Denise from accounts had always had a cheeky sense of humour.

  ‘Not here, ladies. What would Ronald say?’

  ‘Ronald isn’t here. Go on, try it on.’

  Jo shook her head and wrapped the bikini up again, slipping it back into its own bag for added protection. She was holding something very precious after all. Seeing the disappointment on the faces around her, she opened the biggest of the boxes of chocolates and passed them round and the crowd grew. It wasn’t long before she was faced with the question she had been dreading.

  ‘So, who’s it from, then?’

  ‘It’s not your oh-so-handsome model man, is it?’

  Jo shook her head. ‘No, it’s not from Christian. You might be surprised to know that in the four years we were together, he never once gave me clothes. That was his thing. Anyway, that’s all over.’

  ‘So, who’s this one? Is he another model?’

  Jo grinned and shook her head again. ‘No, he’s a chemist. And he’s just a good friend.’

  ‘Some friend!’

  ‘Can we become friends of his as well, Jo?’

  ‘You lucky thing.’

  Jo made sure all the chocolates got eaten and mused about just how lucky she was. It was an absolutely wonderful present, both because it was beautiful in itself, but also because of the thought and effort he had obviously put into finding it. In fact, irrespective of its obvious cost, it appealed to her immensely for that very reason. It was also, her subconscious was quick to point out, a very intimate present and, for once, she didn’t disagree. Slipping the bikini into one of her desk drawers, she took the lift down to the ground floor and went out into the remarkably warm sunshine.

  She took out her phone and called Victoria, who answered almost immediately.

  ‘Hi, Jo. I was just going to call you. Happy birthday, sweetie.’

  Jo gave her the news about the bikini and could hear the excitement in Victoria’s voice as she replied.

  ‘Amazing, you lucky, lucky girl. You definitely can pick them. If only George was a millionaire… So, have you phoned him up to say thank you?’

  ‘Erm, no. I wanted to see what you thought I should do.’

  There was a pause as Victoria deliberated the best course of action.

  ‘The way I see it, there are various ways of responding to something like this. First, you could go into your bedroom, put the bikini on, take a photo of yourself and send it to him. Even better, you could video yourself putting it on and taking it off again and send that to him. If you’re not up for the exhibitionist option, my suggestion would be to go home this evening, pour yourself a glass of Prosecco, put the bikini on, lie on your bed and then call him. He wouldn’t see you, but I think you might get a real kick out of that. Any good?’

  ‘Vic, I’m not trying to seduce the poor man. We’ve been through this all before.’ Although the sheer naughtiness of the third option did have considerable appeal. ‘What I need to know is, do I call him, text him or email him?’

  ‘Call him. Something like this needs verbal contact.’

  ‘Right. And just say thank you?’

  ‘Unless you’re going to pledge undying love to him, I reckon “thank you” will have to do.’

  ‘Right, a phone call and “thank you” it is. Thanks for the advice, Vic.’

  ‘See you in the pub later on. Wait a minute. I know, why don’t you turn up at the pub wearing it and I’ll take a photo of you and send it to him?’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘I know, sweetie. See you later.’

  Jo dashed home after work to change before going to the pub to meet the others. The first thing she did was to run into the bedroom, try the bikini on and check herself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. It looked fabulous and it fitted perfectly. It certainly wasn’t any bigger than the one she had borrowed from Angie, but it looked really classy, not obscene. For a moment she glanced at the phone lying on her bed before shaking her head, firmly resisting any temptation to take a photo, and heading for the shower. When she was dressed once more, she sat down at the kitchen table and sent Corrado a brief text. She knew he was a busy man and she didn’t want to disturb him with a personal call.

  Hi Corrado. Is it convenient for me to call you now? Jo.

  To her surprise, less than thirty seconds later, the phone started ringing. It was him.

  ‘Corrado, hi. Thanks for calling back.’

  ‘Hi, Jo, and happy birthday.’

  ‘Thanks. I wanted to call you, to say thank you. The bikini’s amazing. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘And it fits all right? You can change it, you know…’

  ‘It fits perfectly, and it looks wonderful. And with butterflies, I’m really touched.’

  ‘So you like it?’

  ‘I love it, Corrado. If you don’t mind me using that word.’

  He didn’t react to her jibe. ‘I’m glad. I’ve never been great at presents, but the idea came to me the other night while Daisy and I were watching a documentary about endangered species. It made me think of you.’

  ‘I can’t thank you enough, and do thank Daisy for her input. But you really shoul
dn’t have. I know how much these things cost.’

  ‘I very definitely should have. I’m just happy you like it.’

  ‘Absolutely, it’s wonderful. So, how’s my four-legged friend?’

  * * *

  Jo got to the pub half an hour late after spending almost an hour on the phone to Corrado. The minutes had just slipped by and she had got real pleasure from the sound of his voice. When she finally hung up, her head was buzzing with thoughts of him and she was still dazed when she reached the pub and met up with the others. She managed to tell Victoria what she had done and she saw a happy expression on her friend’s face.

  ‘Verbal communication, you can’t beat it. So, when are you going to see him again?’

  ‘The wedding’s fixed for April so I’ll definitely see him then, if not before.’

  ‘That’s nine months away, Jo. Surely you can sort something out before then.’

  ‘He did mention something about maybe having to come over to the UK for business. You never know; he might come here.’

  ‘Well, it would be a very auspicious sign of his interest if he did.’ Victoria grinned at her and lowered her voice. They were surrounded by Jo’s co-workers, after all. ‘It would be ironic if he came to London only to find you’d moved to New York.’

  Jo had a good time that evening although she turned down most of the drinks she was offered and got home at just after eleven. Before going to bed, she checked her emails and, to her delight, she found one from Corrado. It just contained the words ‘Happy Birthday. Thinking of you’, and a delightful photo of Daisy sprawled out on the floor of his terrace with her trademark canine grin on her big hairy face.

  Jo glanced across the room at the bikini lying on top of its tissue paper on the dresser and for a moment she contemplated sending him a photo of her own, but just as quickly decided against it. Instead, she just settled for:

  Wish I was there. I’ll always be dreaming of Rome and thinking of you (and Daisy). x Jo.

  As she pressed ‘Send’, she told herself the little ‘x’ was nothing more than a convention, and meant nothing.