by D. M. George
Perla turned to the sound of her name.
Vito peered through the opening. “Get out of there now before the whole thing collapses!” he shouted.
“Just a second. I almost got it.” Perla pressed down on the pipe with all her weight and tilted the cement up an inch. The dog’s tail slipped out, bloody but wagging. He gave her a quick lick on the face and bolted into the sunlight, nearly knocking Vito over.
Vito seized her ankles and dragged her out, but not soon enough. The wreckage overhead shifted, loosening a shower of dirt and shards of glass onto Perla’s head and neck.
“See, what did I tell you? You might have been killed!” Vito propped her into a sitting position against the wall across the street. He blew in her face, but the thick dust stuck like a mask. “Let me take a look.” He pulled her forward. “Oh no. These cuts are small, but they’re bleeding profusely.”
Vito brushed his fingertips over the skin, checking for glass. Perla saw the blood on his hand when he reached into his pocket for a tissue. Her blood. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she closed her eyes.
She opened them to her worst nightmare. She saw Vito’s outstretched arms frozen in midair. He’d unclasped her necklace. The cameo swung on its chain, inches off her skin. Vito’s eyes bulged, his mouth made an O shape, and he dropped the necklace as if it had burned his fingers. He groaned and stood up unsteadily, shock, horror, and fear muddling his face.
Oh God, no. Not here. Not now. Perla sucked in her breath and held it.
Vito stared and moved his lips but made no sound.
“Vito, say something!” she pleaded.
Karma frowns on liars and cowards. Had she really thought the truth wouldn’t catch up with her? Not thinking had been the real problem—she’d just turned off her brain and let Vito sweep her off her feet. Vito’s face twisted as if she’d stuck a knife in his back. This was the price for pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
A strong tremblor rumbled beneath them. Perla didn’t see the sharp object that crunched into her skull.
When she opened her eyes, row after row of stretchers filled with earthquake casualties lined the central plaza. She was one of them. A half dozen paramedics triaged the victims around her. How long had she been there? Fifteen minutes? Thirty? A fat bandage wreathed her throbbing head. The back of her neck was bandaged too. She scanned the plaza, but Vito was nowhere in sight. No surprise there. She imagined him flying down the road to Rome in a cloud of dust. Who wouldn’t run after what he’d seen?
Something hard pressed against Perla’s breast. Perla reached under her shirt and pinched the object between her thumb and forefinger. The cameo! Her heart skipped a beat. Double disaster averted, thank God. If it hadn’t slipped into her bra… Her mind couldn’t go there. She put it in her pocket.
A paramedic saw her sit up and came to check her pupils.
“I’m fine. Go help the others,” Perla said and stood up to leave. Her words didn’t sound right and her feet were someone else’s.
“Sit down. You have a concussion and you’re going to the hospital.” The medic waved for a gurney. Perla’s protests became feebler as a thick blanket of drowsiness covered her. They loaded her into an ambulance next to a man who didn’t move. All she wanted to do was sleep.
Perla awoke in a bed with crisp white sheets. She raised her hands to the gauze bandage encircling her aching head. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through a window. She staggered to her feet and parted the curtain dividing her room. The lumpy figure of a woman slept in the bed next to hers. A nurses’ station was outside the door and across the hall.
“Where am I?” Perla whispered to the nurse who had seen her move and entered the room.
“This is the Petruccioli Hospital in Pitigliano.”
“Where’s Pitigliano?” Perla asked, sitting back down on the bed.
The nurse read Perla’s clipboard while she spoke. “West of Orvieto, the nearest medical center to Saturnia. All the towns in the area were hit hard by the earthquake. It was an 8.2.” The nurse switched on the ceiling-mounted TV to a news channel with ongoing coverage of the earthquake recovery.
“…The death toll stands at 353 with hundreds more missing…”
“This is the worst earthquake in my lifetime, and our hospital is swamped with casualties. How do you feel?”
Perla took a deep ragged breath and closed her eyes. “I’m not sure. What happened to my head?”
“You had a concussion and a subdural hematoma—a vein rupture under the skull. We performed emergency surgery to relieve the pressure.”
“Surgery?” Perla touched her bandage again. No wonder her head hurt.
“Yes, to prevent brain damage. A tiny hole was drilled in your skull and a catheter inserted to drain the fluid causing the pressure. You were sedated. The doctor removed all your tubes an hour ago and let you wake up.”
Tubes? Perla cringed but thoughts of catheters vanished the moment she remembered Vito. “Has anyone asked about me?”
“I’ll see.” The nurse turned to leave, and Perla tugged at her sleeve.
“Oh, could you also check if anyone with the first name of Vito or Vittorio was admitted the same day, also from Saturnia?” She was grasping at straws. Perla strained to think where her cell phone was and remembered she’d left it the trunk of Vito’s car. She stared at the phone in her room and sighed. She couldn’t pronounce the string of c’s, ch’s, and k’s in Vito’s last name, let alone spell it for the information operator.
A moment later the nurse returned. “No, no messages for you. No one named Vito was admitted either. I’m sorry.”
Of course not. Vito was perfectly fine and long gone by now. What man wouldn’t bolt after seeing his thirtysomething girlfriend shape-shift into a fifty-five-year-old hag? Worries cascaded, too fast to sort out.
“Is today Saturday or Sunday?” Perla asked.
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Tuesday!” Perla jerked upright in bed. She shook herself like a wet dog to eject the vestiges of sedation. “Noooooo!” The contest deadline! She almost hit her forehead with the heel of her hand but stopped before she killed herself, punching the pillow instead. All her work down the drain! She fell back and covered her face with the pillow.
Either hubris or magical thinking had convinced her she could become a travel writer in such a short period of time. What cruel irony: she’d lost the contest by missing the deadline, not because she was a lousy writer. Maybe she would have won—she’d never know now. No matter; failure was failure. She was the same divorced, unemployed, heavily mortgaged washout she’d been when she arrived in Italy.
How many roommates would she have to take in to avoid foreclosure? The face of her college roommate came to mind, along with the scent memory of her ever-present boyfriend who forgot to bathe. Never again. All she had left was $412, a huge credit card balance, and a plane ticket home. And a cameo necklace.
The cameo! Perla’s mouth went dry. Where was it? The events before Saturnia bubbled into awareness with each thudding heartbeat. Eight days had passed since she’d discovered Parthenope was dying. The specter of her friend’s wizened face loomed in her mind’s eye.
Perla swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and shuffled into the nurses’ station, holding her hospital gown closed at the back.
“May… may I please have my personal belongings?” Perla hyperventilated.
The nurse unlocked a cupboard and handed her a plastic bag. A second nurse, who had been peeking at her phone, seemed to recognize Perla and quickly looked away.
Perla tore through the bag. It contained her clothes—freshly laundered she noticed appreciatively—and the money belt she’d been wearing in Saturnia. She almost asked for her purse but remembered it was with her cell phone in the trunk of Vito’s car. Or maybe he’d tossed it over the cliff on his way back to Praiano.
She unzipped the money belt. Forgetting to lock it in the hotel room safe at Saturnia proved fortuito
us: her passport, money, credit card, and traveler’s medical insurance card were still in her possession. Tucked in the corner of the pouch was her cameo. She’d finally caught a break.
“I have to go,” Perla announced to the nurses.
“No, you don’t.” The nurse clasped her elbow. “You cannot leave until Thursday—doctor’s orders. You’re still at risk for swelling and seizures.”
Perla protested as the nurse guided her back to bed, but dizziness overcame her. She sank into the mattress, which spun like the teacup ride at a county fair, and gulped down the pain pill the nurse gave her. She stared at the bent straw in the water cup on her bedside table until her worries became soap bubbles and she floated off into fitful sleep.
Perla awoke around midnight, right after the cherry slushie hit her. She jerked upright in bed, catching the attention of the night nurse, who came to check on her.
“Do you need anything?”
“No… thanks… Just a bad dream.” Perspiration beaded on her forehead.
The nightmare was always the same: she stood on the corner of Almaden Road and Curtner Avenue in San Jose, shaking an arrow-shaped placard advertising Mountain Mike’s all-you-can-eat pizza and salad buffet for $6.99. She wore ratty jeans, a faded T-shirt, and a baseball cap pulled down over her sunglasses so that her neighbors wouldn’t recognize her. Out of the corner of her eye, a convertible full of teenagers sped by. One of them hurled a slushie at her and screamed, “Loser!” She shielded her face with the placard in time, but the sticky red syrup splattered on her legs and feet. She dropped the sign and lobbed her water bottle at them. The car was already out of range, but she could still hear their laughter.
Short, jerky breaths signaled the tears to come. Her subconscious hadn’t needed to shoot up that flare; she was well aware her life was at an all-time low and her jobs prospects nil. She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek. I’ll soldier through my financial mess when I get home, she assured herself. Somehow. What she couldn’t soldier through was the agony of losing Vito. He’d ripped away the better half of her soul and left her wallowing in a personal puddle of hurt.
The hollowness in the pit of her stomach brought to mind the beloved miniature schnauzer she’d owned over a decade earlier. Her name was Lady, and she’d been a gift for Karla’s fifth birthday. After a long life of love and luxury, Lady died and left Perla with a stinging absence no other pet could fill. She wouldn’t have adopted Lady in the first place had she known her inevitable loss would be so devastating. But you never think of those things when you pick up a puppy or lie with a handsome man for the first time.
Perla thanked her subconscious for sending Lady’s memory bounding out of the past to console her. Her ghost sat next to her, black eyes twinkling, ears folded back in love.
Perla had grown up with dogs; she knew dogs, loved dogs, but something unexpected happened when she brought Lady home. One night, when Lady was about six months old, she padded into Perla’s bedroom and put her paws up on the side of the mattress. Perla got up and carried her back to her dog pillow in the living room. Lady returned and Perla relented, picked her up, and set her on the foot of the bed—she had to get some sleep before going to work. She drifted off and dreamed she was wearing a coat with a warm fur collar. When she opened her eyes, Lady lay on the pillow next to her with her chin resting on her throat. The moment triggered a tipping point in her heart. The affection that she once controlled had transformed into an all-consuming love that Lady now owned. A small gesture had enslaved her heart.
Just like Vito had enslaved her heart in Rome. Her love for him became all-consuming the moment he swept her up in his steamy tango. Perla had entered their relationship thinking she was in control, thinking she had nothing to lose, thinking she knew what to expect from men. And like Lady, Vito had surprised her with an intimacy she’d never experienced. He’d given her self-respect and the chance for a happy life together but then abandoned her without saying goodbye. Scorn, rejection, and self-reproach compounded her loss. Perla had never been more miserable.
Lady’s memory curled up on the pillow and laid her chin on Perla’s throat. She stroked her imaginary fur, closed her eyes, and waited for sleep.
Finding Parthenope
Perla woke up on the train from Orvieto to Rome’s Termini Station. She blinked several times to clear the haze of sleep and remember the events of the morning. It was Thursday, her discharge day, at last. She had wrapped up the insurance paperwork in the morning, thanked her doctor and nurses, filled her prescriptions at the pharmacy, and found her way to the Pitigliano bus station. The ride to Orvieto, the nearest train station, was long, windy, and nausea inducing. The relief of finally arriving though was short-lived. She discovered she’d boarded a lumbering regional train that made every stop on the way to Rome.
Her impatience boiled over at the next station when the conductor stepped out onto the platform for a smoke. Please get me to Sorrento in time! her mind screamed at him. No passengers got on or off, but he lingered anyway, puffing and checking his phone. She touched the cameo around her neck. Ten days and counting since she’d seen Parthenope. She stood up, paced down the aisle and back. Was she alive? If so, what condition was she in? The whistle blew and the train crawled out of the station. She’d been traveling all day and still had miles to go.
Sorrento’s streetlights had just flickered on when Perla shuffled into the lobby of her hotel.
“Good heavens, what happened to you?” exclaimed Jacopo, who was working the night shift. He stood up from behind his desk. “I was wondering when you’d come back.”
Perla told him about the earthquake in Saturnia and her time in the hospital. He nodded empathetically.
“I didn’t think you’d skip out on your bill,” he said with a grin, “but I confiscated your laptop just in case. I have the master key. Sorry.”
It’s useless to me now, Perla thought. You may as well keep it. She handed over her credit card with a heavy heart. How in hell was she going to pay off the ballooning balance once she returned home? There goes my near-perfect credit score. She sighed. To make matters worse, her suitcase remained at the hotel in Saturnia. In the morning she’d have to buy new toiletries and a change of clothes. Thoughts of the double-digit interest rate took an ax-bite out of her pride.
Aches, pains, and fatigue made Perla long for sleep, but she had to reach Luca first. She borrowed Jacopo’s phone, called information for Luca’s number, and held her breath. He picked up on the third ring. Luca listened intently as she retold her story, and then he questioned her repeatedly about her injuries. He reassured her he still wanted to meet Parthenope but insisted she get some rest first. Fat chance—her only concern was finding Parthenope in time, reversing her age, and introducing her to Luca. God bless you, Luca—this all depends on you. Perla dragged herself up the stairs to her room, collapsed onto the bed, and fell sound asleep.
The vertical hills of Capri rose too slowly for Perla. She bounced her crossed leg and willed the ferry to move faster. A cluster of millennials seated in front of her were glued to their phones, laughing.
One of the girls in the group glanced back at her several times and whispered, loudly enough for everyone to hear. “It’s her.”
Her friends turned to stare. Perla ignored them and pinched the bridge of her nose. She just wanted to get off the ferry as quickly as possible.
The moment it docked, she elbowed her way to the front of the line and disembarked.
Perla took a deep breath, dug her paddle into the water, and rounded the sentinel rock guarding Parthenope’s hideaway. Crap! The vacant slab of stone stared back at her. She slumped in her seat. Did she really think Parthenope would just be sitting there alive and well, waiting for an apology? Too easy; Perla hadn’t atoned for her sins yet.
She parked the kayak, sat down, and hugged her knees. They had enjoyed so many drinks and conversations in this very spot. Perla’s heart constricted. She ripped the bandages off her neck and r
an her fingers over the hardening scabs. Where was Parthenope? Was she dead? She stood up, paced in circles, and picked at the scabs until her fingers were bloody. The water in front of the rock remained clear and empty. No amount of wishful staring made Parthenope rise from the deep.
“That’s it. Here I come,” Perla said to the aquamarine water. She stripped down to her underwear, dove in, and pushed the heels of her hands together. The cold intake of water shocked her armpits, but seconds later a burst of oxygen supercharged her bloodstream. She gathered speed and arrived at Parthenope’s cave in minutes.
Perla broke the surface in Parthenope’s dimly lit chamber. It too was vacant. She kicked the knee-deep water, cursing.
What have I done? She stumbled onto the cavern floor, sank to her knees, and blubbered. “She’s dead, and it’s all my fault!” She should have realized what was happening when Parthenope’s appearance began changing; she should have put the cameo around her neck when she had the chance; she should have stayed at her side and talked her out of ending her life. But no… She’d stolen a final weekend with Vito, and then everything had gone to hell. Now Parthenope’s skeleton probably lay at the bottom of the Tyrrhenian, picked clean by crabs. And it was all her fault.
Pull yourself together. Perla stood up, rolled her shoulders, and paced. Parthenope’s junk was scattered everywhere. What a disgusting pigsty—how could she live like this? Perla gathered the empty bottles and stood them upright at the base of the trash pile in the corner. Limoncello, grappa, Jack Daniel’s, Moët & Chandon… the eclectic taste of a scavenger.
Perla rummaged through the heap of rubbish beside Parthenope’s chaise. She untangled the sunglasses and put them in a battered cooler. Capri’s well-to-do tourists had provided a fine collection: Ray-Ban Aviator, Chanel Cat Eye, Oakley, among other designer brands. She wondered whether Parthenope ever wore them, and if so, which pair was her favorite.