by D. M. George
Copyright © 2020 by Donna M. George
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission from the author except for the use of quotations in a book review.
Cover painting: “Hope” by Russian-American artist, Victor Nizovtsev
My heartfelt thanks to Christian of Bimonte Sorrento
for introducing me to Parthenope,
and to Sara H. for her kind encouragement.
Chapter One – The Encounter
Chapter Two – Luca and the Cats
Chapter Three - Parthenope
Chapter Four - Teddy
Chapter Five – Timeless Beauty
Chapter Six - Ischia
Chapter Seven – Beauty’s Curse
Chapter Eight - Circe
Chapter Nine – Sabina’s Story, Part One
Chapter Ten – Perla Counsels Luca
Chapter Eleven – Circe’s Party
Chapter Twelve – Parthenope’s Cave
Chapter Thirteen – Sabina’s Story, Part Two
Chapter Fourteen - Baia
Chapter Fifteen – The Migrants
Chapter Sixteen – The Blue Grotto
Chapter Seventeen – The Third Date
Chapter Eighteen - Janus
Chapter Nineteen – Luca’s House
Chapter Twenty - Rome
Chapter Twenty-One - Saturnia
Chapter Twenty-Two – Finding Parthenope
Chapter Twenty-Three - Redemption
Chapter Twenty-Four – The Intervention
Thank You
About the Author
Let’s Connect
The Encounter
Parthenope slid through the water with the stealth of an otter. She spotted her prey, dove deep, and resurfaced behind a large rock. The snorkelers didn’t see her boost herself up and lift the lid of their cooler, nor did they see her slip away underwater, treasure in hand.
Silent and unnoticed, she swam to her favorite hideaway—a tiny inlet tucked behind a stone outcropping. She wriggled onto a submerged ledge between a slab of limestone and a high rock alcove. It fit her like a watery throne. The bottle rested heavily in Parthenope’s hand, and the yellow liquor glowed with the promise of oblivion. She took a swig. It was fire in her mouth. Delizioso.
Parthenope set down the bottle, leaned forward on one elbow, and rested her chin in her hand. If only she had a drinking partner, the day would be perfect. She cursed her appearance for the thousandth time and stared down to the bottom of the crystal clear water where a crab picked the flesh off the once-beautiful tail of a decomposing fish. An ache rose in her chest.
Parthenope’s keen ears picked up a woman’s cries in the distance. She jerked upright and shoved off the rock.
Following the sound of shrieks down the shore, she discovered a man pinning a teenage girl against a steep bank. They were struggling as he tugged at her bikini top. The girl slapped him with one hand and held on to her swimsuit with the other.
A shadow crossed Parthenope’s porcelain face and her eyes narrowed. At once the waves flattened, the breeze stopped, and the gulls overhead veered away. She dropped underwater and torpedoed toward them.
Moments later, she rose up waist deep behind the man. “Hey, mister! Mine are bigger than hers. Come play with me instead.” Parthenope’s clear, melodic voice rang out in the eerily silent air.
The man pivoted. “Holy mother of God!” He released the girl and stumbled to the water’s edge, eyes and swim trunks bulging. The girl fled.
“Come on, baby.” Parthenope’s body moved in a gentle back-and-forth motion. The man waded in and she moved back. Soon he was over his head and swimming toward her. “Come to mama…” She held out her arms and sank underwater just as he reached her.
The man screamed like an animal being eaten alive and disappeared below the surface. A froth of blood and bubbles erupted and dissolved into a red trail leading out to sea.
Perla Palazzo stepped off the ferry at Marina Grande and into a living postcard. The sky and water looked digitally enhanced. A cluster of Popsicle-colored boats bobbed in the harbor, pulsing with brilliance. The spectacular Saturday morning in June smelled of drying seaweed and marine fuel. Scooters buzzed like chainsaws as they weaved through the waterfront traffic. Unlike other tourists, Perla had not arrived in Capri with hopes of adventure but instead with the anxieties of a writer on a deadline. Worry ruined the idyllic moment and dragged her mind back home to San Jose, California, where her burdens waited.
Did they destroy anything? Perla’s thumbs flew as the disembarking crowd swept her down the jetty.
Relax, texted the neighbor who cleaned between Airbnb guests. It’s only been two days.
The thought of strangers shagging in her bed repulsed her.
Her phone pinged to announce that a bank statement had arrived in her Gmail: only $3,051 left of her severance package. Would it last six weeks? Not likely. This trip was a fool’s errand, but not as foolish as suffering another year of “We’ll get back to you.” Fifty-five-year-old women, she’d learned, didn’t project the youthful, cutting-edge image Silicon Valley tech companies desired. So now what? She cinched her ponytail so tight her eyes slanted.
Perla’s beige maxidress was a smudge against the kaleidoscope of brightly clothed tourists swarming the esplanade. Happy couples were taking photos of themselves with those ridiculous selfie sticks, forcing her to stop or veer off the path to get out of the way. Later, they would probably post the images on their social media altars of narcissism, hoping to impress their thousand closest friends—a total waste of time in her opinion. She hated their cheesy grins, but mostly she hated her gigolo ex-husband for leaving her when she needed him most.
The funicular had just descended from Capri town, the pre-Roman village that was wedged between two rock outcroppings above Marina Grande. Perla hurried to queue for a ticket, then scanned her email for contest updates from TravelBauble.com while she waited.
There they were: instructions for how to upload files before August 1. The line inched forward. Perla observed the cashier glancing past her. He motioned for the leggy young woman behind her to come forward.
“Hellooo! I’m standing right here!” Perla raised her arm. “I can see you. Can you see me?”
The clerk ignored her.
Once aboard the funicular, Perla scrunched into a window seat. She admired the dramatic scenery as the car began its slow climb up the tracks. She thought about her first trip to Europe right after college and how different it had seemed. Where was the exhilaration and sense of boundless possibility that she’d felt back then? Those months alone with her rail pass and overstuffed gym bag were a personal statement, an act of rebellion, and a series of priceless firsts that had made her feel so alive and so fully adult. Who could forget their first swim at a nudist beach or first sighting of an uncircumcised penis? She leaned her head against the glass. Too bad Italy had no surprises in store for her this time.
Perla’s face scowled back at her in the window’s reflection. Damn her skin. The only differences between her and the younger job candidates for whom she’d been passed over were her hooding eyes and loosening neck. Mere millimeters of extra skin had marginalized her from the workforce, put he
r out to pasture against her will. Those slight wrinkles had invalidated the knowledge and skills acquired over her long career and tossed them into the trash like a carton of milk beyond its expiration date. Why couldn’t anyone see she was still thirty inside?
Perla exited the funicular at a leisurely pace, glad to have the weekend to be a tourist before her work began. She stopped to photograph the Lego-like houses stacked up the sides of the basin encircling Capri town. Lemon trees with fruit the size of overweight guinea pigs grew in large pots everywhere, their blossoms spritzing passersby with fragrance. Italians seemed to worship lemons. Stores brimmed with ceramic canisters, plates, platters, fruit bowls, and oil cruets, all painted with lemons.
Perla paused in front of a whitewashed storefront to zip her phone into the pocket of her beach bag. The battery was dead, and she made a mental note: confirm Monday’s appointment with jewelry-store owner. His tiny shop, located somewhere in the warren of narrow streets in Sorrento’s old town, specialized in the traditional manufacture of cameos. She looked forward to his carving demonstration but deliberated, again, her decision to feature cameos in the first of her four articles for TravelBauble.com. Shopping the world for authentic souvenirs was the blog’s tagline—were cameos authentic enough? Yes, she reassured herself. They fit the criteria nicely: unique to the area, locally sourced, and tied to the region’s history and culture.
Perla wasn’t a blogger, but she reminded herself that she’d written sales and marketing copy all her career and that the prize, a travel-writing stipend, was within her grasp. She resumed window-shopping and recalled a cartoon she’d once seen in the New Yorker. It showed a dog working at a computer, and the caption read: ON THE INTERNET NOBODY KNOWS YOU’RE A DOG. Nobody knows your age either.
Ah, to be a cameo lady right now… One of those graceful women in classical gowns, with flawless skin and gobs of high hair adorned with flowers and tiaras. They were so feminine and timelessly beautiful. If one were to change into a suit, she’d be hired on the spot.
Her mother’s peach-colored cameo came to mind, the one Perla had played with as a child. It was an heirloom from her great-aunt Delia, who was an adventurous woman for her time and had traveled extensively. Perla liked to clasp the velvet choker around her neck and fantasize about the secrets it held and the romantic spells it might cast. Was the cameo a gift from a handsome Italian lover? Was he the reason Delia never married? Would someone special give her a cameo one day?
A set of lemon-themed salt and pepper shakers in a shop window caught her eye—the perfect addition to her collection at home. She ducked inside. The midcentury kitsch of shaker sets made them her favorite souvenir. At the back of the display shelf, she discovered a lemon shaker without a mate. She examined it and brought it to the counter.
“I was going to throw this away,” said the cow-eyed salesman.
“It would be a shame,” Perla said. “It’s still useful, and pretty too—don’t you think?”
“But who wants a single shaker?”
“I do.”
“You can’t give it as a gift…”
“Sure I can—a gift to myself.”
The clerk rolled his eyes, put it in a bag, and handed it to her. “Here, take it. No charge. Just write me a good Yelp review.”
Perla sat down at a nearby café with a stunning view of the Tyrrhenian Sea and ordered tea and biscotti. Her Blue Grotto tour was in three hours, and it was probably a good idea to postpone lunch until later in case she got seasick. A little snack wouldn’t hurt though, and she loved biscotti—especially the chocolate-dipped kind with big chunks of almonds. She played with her shaker while she waited for her order. Did three holes mean salt or pepper? Two tables away, an elderly couple sat with their gray heads bent together as if sharing a secret; a perfectly matched set of lovers. Perla’s heart clenched.
Her savings had run out, and so had her husband—with a younger woman. She hated the skinny, BMW-driving bitch with laser-polished skin and high six-figure income. Age hadn’t worried her when she was married, but since her divorce, it terrified her.
Perla returned to the harbor with two hours to kill before the tour—plenty of time for a swim. She crunched along the gravel beach behind the jetty, looking for a spot to spread her towel. At the far end she stopped, set down her bag, and surveyed the buttscape of thongs, wedgies, cellulite, and saddlebags. Two couples in their twenties squealed with laughter as they played chicken-fight in the shallows. Perla stared, hands on her hips. Rolls of fat swallowed one girl’s string bikini and shaped her figure like a giant soft-serve ice-cream cone. She watched them push and shove until all four toppled into the water. They resurfaced, hooting gleefully and arguing about who had won. What blissful lack of self-consciousness. Perla wondered whether she had been born into the wrong generation.
Perla lifted her maxidress over her head, revealing her old one-piece swimsuit. She removed a crewneck swim shirt from her bag—the kind surfers and Australians wear—and put it on over her suit. Next, she shimmied into a pair of bicycle shorts. Crepe-skin arms and jumbly thighs… Life was so unfair. She was still the size six she’d always been, but in spite of jogging and going to the gym regularly, gravity had conspired with age to reshape her once-firm flesh in unsightly ways.
Water shoes on, euro coins and hotel key zipped in her shirt pocket, Perla dove in. She frog-kicked away from the other bathers, far past the end of the beach. The electric-blue water was so clear that passing boats appeared to float on air. It looked as though she could touch the bottom with her toes, when in fact the water was over twenty feet deep. She rolled onto her back and gazed at the sky.
“Damn you, Gordon!” she shouted to no one. Did his new girlfriend take him on vacation to places as nice as Capri? “I’m not on vacation,” she said, correcting herself and rolling over. “I’m on a mission.”
An abandoned air mattress wedged between two rocks caught her attention—a gift from the gods. She reinflated it, lay on top, and paddled away from Marina Grande, away from scrutiny.
Far down the shore, Perla came upon a narrow cleft in the hillside, filled with boulders. The giant rocks had spilled into the water eons ago, creating a maze of nooks and crannies that begged to be explored. A shiny green fish darted under her air mattress as she approached a particularly large stone outcropping. It hovered near the surface as if beckoning her. Curious, she followed the fish into a tiny hidden cove. A sensation of being watched made her look up. The breath caught in her throat.
A naked woman sat waist deep in a crevice between a slab of stone and a smooth rock backrest. She resembled a pre-Raphaelite muse waiting for her margarita at a swim-up bar. An admirably firm breast peeked through the mantilla of cinnamon hair purling down her shoulders and into the water. Her opalescent skin seemed to glow from within. Perla was riveted; fascination vanquished manners, and she gaped at the woman’s otherworldly beauty.
“American?” the stranger asked.
“I’m sorry. Is it so obvious?” Perla said, ignoring the rubbery goose feet tiptoeing up her spine.
The woman studied Perla’s attire, eyebrow arched. “Americans are uncomfortable with nudity.” She adjusted her hair to cover her breasts. A fat braid entwined with strands of red coral beads twisted across her head like a crown. A cameo pendant graced her Nefertiti neck. Its peachy background silhouetted a portrait of the woman in creamy relief.
“Just my own,” Perla replied. “But if I were thirty years younger, I’d be doing naked cannonballs off this rock.” Good Lord, had she really just said that? Her conversation skills had grown rusty after months of living alone.
The woman said nothing and regarded her indifferently, as if she were merely a new species of beetle.
“Nice cameo.” Perla wondered what to say to a goddess who could have modeled for any of the nymph statues cavorting in fountains throughout Italy. “I’m Perla. Who are you?”
“Parthenope. Limoncello?” The muse conjured a bottle and passed it to
Perla over the table of rock that separated them.
Parthenope’s alcohol breath mingled with the fresh sea breeze. Perla admired her slender white fingers, conch-shell-pink nails, and huge seafoam-green eyes. Was she thirty? Thirty-five? The hard glare, downturned mouth, and permanent scowl tempered Parthenope’s youthful beauty with a distinct world-weariness.
“Just a sip.” Against her better judgment, Perla reached for the bottle. Their fingers touched for a split second. Parthenope’s icy skin sent a shiver up her arm. “Here’s to your beauty.” Perla raised a shaky toast.
The limoncello tasted like lemon-flavored gasoline.
“Beauty is a curse. Men hunt me and women hate me.” Parthenope’s voice sounded lyrical yet serious, each note as pure and resonant as a tuning fork.
“I don’t hate you. I want to be you!” Perla joked, trying to lighten the mood as she handed the bottle back to her new friend.
Parthenope’s lips curved just enough to reveal the tips of needlelike teeth. Dizziness washed over Perla, and she glanced at the shore.
“Why?” Parthenope asked, regaining Perla’s attention.
“What? Oh… many things. Perfect skin… respect… any man you want.”
“Men are pigs.” Parthenope spat out the words like she had eaten an ant. “They don’t respect beauty; they respect what they fear.”
“Why do you hate men?” Perla reached for the limoncello.
“Why do you hate yourself?”
“How can you say that? You don’t know me.”
“Because you look so unhappy.” Parthenope pushed out her lower lip mockingly.
“What do you know about unhappiness? You’re young and beautiful.”
“I know that reducing yourself to your appearance makes you as shallow as the swine you hope to impress.” Parthenope plaited a tiny strand of hair, oblivious to her loveliness.
“And why not? Everyone else does—my ex-husband in particular. He left me for a younger woman… A rich younger woman.” The words jumped out of her mouth without consulting her brain. Alcohol had loosened her tongue and made her confide in Parthenope like a sloppy drunk to a bartender.