“Ah, signorina.” The woman’s hand-wringing was almost comical when Rina asked about Tony. “Lui è scappato, è andato via.”
“Scappato? Andato? Dove?” Gone? Where?
“Non lo so.” The landlady didn’t know. “He left euros. Nessuna lettera. Nient’altro.” Run away, the woman said. But from whom? From her?
Rina didn’t want to imagine what that meant. The worry grew.
By the time the bell sounded for dinner, she badly wanted to rip something, anything, to shreds. Sunday began as Saturday had ended. She hunted for a semblance of peace in the dark recesses of the cathedral, where the air seemed to hear her thoughts and echo them. She ducked back into the daylight and walked to the end of the Corso. There, she took a solitary table at Perugia’s most expensive restaurant, drank two overly large glasses of white wine, and dined on something made with fish layered over pasta. The dish was wasted on her. Her taste buds had atrophied. She wobbled back to the convent and took a nap.
Acie called around seven. “Can I come by?”
Half an hour later, they were sitting together in the empty convent parlor. “What’s up?” Rina asked. “You’re still not sleeping any better?”
“Have you seen Tony yet?”
That sounded like a non sequitur if she’d ever heard one. “How did we get from not sleeping to whether I’d seen Tony? And no, I haven’t seen him.”
“You’ve gone to his rooms?”
“He left money to pay rent, but no note, nothing else.”
“It doesn’t make sense, but a lot of things don’t seem to.” Acie extended a hand to touch Rina’s arm as if she needed human contact. Then she clutched both hands in her lap. “I am sorry,” she said and drew a couple of deep breaths. “Look, I’ve got to tell you. I’ve got to tell someone, and I don’t want to upset Mae. I’ve been having horrible dreams.”
Rina waited.
“The worst part is, they seem so true. I’m scared.”
“I didn’t tell you that your dream about a picnic at the lake came true,” Rina said, trying not to focus on those moving fingers that now twisted themselves together. “The one in the rain.”
“I wish it hadn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Acie’s voice became a whisper. “I’ve had prophetic dreams most of my life. Since I was a teenager. Always about things I couldn’t know but that came true. But the ones I’ve had recently scare me.”
Rina rubbed her hands down her arms, trying to ease her shivers, which weren’t from cold.
“And now…” Acie took a deep breath, as if fighting for control.
Hearing her friend’s near-panic, Rina tried to keep her tone neutral. “No wonder you’re not sleeping.”
“The first showed things happening to my family, and those have been getting worse, more vivid. I’ve tried to ignore them. But twice now, I’ve seen a man in khaki pants and a blue shirt, lying face down in what I think is sand, maybe a beach. But it’s pretty rocky, with brush nearby. Anyway, the picture keeps floating into my mind even when I’m awake.”
“Do you know anything more about him, this man?” Too many dead bodies had shown up in her world. They didn’t need another.
“No. But that’s why I asked about Tony.”
“Tony.” A stone hit her gut. Rock hard, down where heat burned and acid seemed to drill holes.
She shook free from the jolt of fear. Acie had to be imagining things. That’s all this could be, an overactive imagination, maybe from all that caffeine her friend had been drinking. Or food. “I don’t want to sound as if I’m not taking this seriously, because I am. I mean, you proved yourself to me with that picnic dream. But is it possible a doctor could prescribe something? Maybe you’ve eaten a food that disagrees with you. I’ve heard of that happening. An allergy making the mind play tricks. Or maybe it’s PMS, which makes me want to crawl out of my skin.”
“Oh, please, for a simple answer. My early dreams always hinted at good, like the one of you guys. So these can’t be true. They can’t. Especially not the one I had of Mae’s baby. It was horrible.”
That stopped Rina. “Didn’t the doctor say Mae’s baby is healthy?”
Acie nodded.
“See? You’re probably just overtired and stressed. There’s been a lot going on in your world recently, and stress can make us crazy, you know? Maybe you’ll feel better now that you’ve told someone.”
“I sure hope so.”
“Everything will be fine. I’m sure of it.”
Her fake smile—the one that accompanied her oh-too-assured words—stayed affixed until she said good-bye at the door, and Acie turned to walk away.
28
RINA
The air hung, damp and miserable, unchanged from the day before. She glanced around the room. School had ended, but she’d made no plans. She told herself it was because she hadn’t heard from her uncle, but it probably had more to do with lethargy. Which was not an attitude a woman in search of adventure should have.
So, she asked her mirror. “Paris, as planned? London? Tokyo?”
Her mirror remained silent.
“Who cares?” she told it and the absurd image staring back from it. Her emotions were not going to control her or dictate her future. They weren’t.
Just because some guy she’d called friend had decided to take off without a good-bye was no reason to hyperventilate.
The jerk.
She sat on the edge of her bed and pulled the brush through her tangles. She was being absurd.
Here she was, an independent, semi-wealthy, semi-educated, semi-literate basket case. Instead of lifting her head high, standing strong, she wallowed. Maybe she and Acie were both PMSing. Whatever. She had to put Tony out of her thoughts. He obviously wasn’t worth the energy she’d wasted on him.
If he could take off like that, without a word, then she could just as easily forget about him. Their friendship hadn’t meant as much as he’d claimed. He’d lied. That’s what men seemed to do. Lie.
Okay, maybe not Jason, but at this point, she wasn’t sure she could go back to that. To him. He might be good. He might be generous. And, he might love her. But, she decided with a flick of her hand, he also bored her.
A knock sounded. “Sì?”
Monica announced that the telephone had rung for her. She didn’t bother with shoes, but padded barefoot down the stairs. The cool stone felt good.
“Pronto?” she said into the receiver.
“We need to talk,” Acie said. “I’ll treat for lunch. Can you meet me?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. How about that trattoria just up from the convent? The one on the left as you climb those steps?”
“What time?”
“Twelve-thirty? Or would one be better?”
“Twelve-thirty.”
Acie was sitting at a table, already nursing a soda. If anything, she looked worse than she had yesterday, though her glasses may have exaggerated the dark circles. “I’m glad you could come.”
“I figured I’d better.”
“You want to order?”
“Whatever you’re having. I’m not very hungry.”
Acie asked for the pasta special for two.
“We’re a cute pair, aren’t we?” Rina said. “I’m surprised they’re willing to serve us, the way we look like death warmed over.”
“Honey, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better. I debated all morning whether to say anything, but Mae insisted you’d want to know.”
“Know what?”
“I don’t think Tony left town on his own.”
That got her, and in a moment, she went from glum to heart-hammering scared. “What do you mean?”
Acie sipped on the soda, watching as the waiter set a bottle of water on the table. “I think someone made him go,” she finally said.
Her words made no sense at all. “Another dream?”
“Call it what you want, but I was awake, so it was either
a daydream or a vision. All I know is that it seemed real. I never used to see things like this and never so many, but they’re coming all the time, each worse than the one before. And I’m hearing voices in my head. I feel like crumpling in a heap—or asking for a brain transplant.”
Words failed Rina, but a reprieve came when the pasta arrived.
“I haven’t a clue what I did to bring them on,” Acie said, her expression bleak.
“You’re scaring me. But what about Tony?”
“I’m sorry.” Was Acie apologizing for scaring them both or for what happened in her dream? “I saw him climbing into a car. I can’t be sure, but it looked like a gray Mercedes.” And then, with a shake of her head, “Another one? Or the same one that hit Signor Bertelli? Anyway, a man pointed a gun at him, at Tony. Just that. It came and went so quickly, I was confused. Then this morning I saw the same thing.”
A gun? Gripping the sides of the table, Rina shut her eyes and tried to slow her breathing to control a sudden dizziness.
“It’s okay. I mean, the gun didn’t go off or anything. And then there was another picture, this time of streets with cypress trees lining them. After that, the sea and a plane. A little one. It could all be my imagination, just something else to frighten me.”
Rina opened her eyes. “I’m scared all right. For you. And for Tony.”
Acie pushed away her plate. “I can’t eat this. I don’t know why I bothered to order anything when I knew what it would be like. But Mae said, go out and eat, distract yourself, and told me to take you, she’d pay. Only, she should have remembered what we’d be discussing.”
“What about that body on the sand?”
“I haven’t a clue. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes as the guy in the car, but he could be the same person. Remember, these are just flashes, momentary pictures that sometimes rewind but mostly just show up and then fade.”
Rina braced her head on her curled fingers, taking a moment to gain enough control to utter the words “It’s too much. All of it.”
“I know.”
“Do you think… I mean, what if these visions aren’t coming from God?”
“Well, God and I were never on a first-name basis, and I only know what the nuns or the priest said about him, but I just assumed. Because where else would they come from?” Acie gulped down her drink but held onto the glass. “The priest never once talked about this sort of thing at mass.”
“But doesn’t the Bible say you’re supposed to test the spirits? I mean, I went to church long enough to have heard that. Or maybe Auntie Luze said it.” It didn’t matter where she’d heard the words. They made sense if a person talked about woo-woo and visions.
“So, how do you suggest I do that? Do I just ignore what I see? If we were just talking about passing thoughts, I’d ignore them. But these have come over and over and over.”
“And you’re not sleeping.”
Acie shook her head.
“We need help.” Rina dropped her palms to the table and stood. “And so does Tony.”
She wasn’t ready to return to her room, not until she’d done some research. She could kick herself for not having brought a laptop along. She didn’t even have an email address for Tony.
He’d said he worked in Amman for an oil company, but not which one. She needed to find out how many had offices in Amman, because Amman wasn’t exactly on the map as the oil capital of the world.
Wandering the town, she waited for the Internet café to reopen after the lunch break and the Italian period of riposo. The pigeon feeder perched on the steps of the Palazzo dei Priori, pulling bread from a paper bag for the entourage pecking at his feet. Instead of focusing on faces along the Corso Vannucci, Rina stared blankly at the shop windows as she made her way to the plaza at the street’s end. And then she turned and wandered back, just as blankly.
By three, shopkeepers began opening their metal shutters. She bought computer time and set to work, hoping for one possibility, finding several. Who knew that in Amman she’d be able to contact a company that produced vegetable oil, one that found oil in shale, two international companies whose names she recognized, and a couple of other odd businesses that linked themselves on the search engine for some obscure reason.
She checked the news for something, anything that might point her in the right direction. She searched Tony’s name but came up blank, which probably meant he didn’t run around on the social media sites.
Just to distract herself, she typed in Jason James Whittaker.
Whoa. Look at that. Jason was a busy boy.
He had a Facebook account. Something called LinkedIn. Twitter.
Twitter? So, Jason tweeted. Twittered.
She snorted, obviously with enough vigor to disturb the person at the next computer. “Sorry,” she said. “Mi dispiace.”
He turned back to his screen. He probably wasn’t an Italian. An Italian would have enjoyed her snort.
Facebook wanted her to join to see what Jason was up to in that sphere of influence, but Twitter let her peek without an account. And there he was, @LawyerInMorehead. Jason’s profile described him as tall (really?), a lover of coffee, good wine, sushi, and the beach.
Fine, but did anyone care that he’d had a cup of coffee that was grande, creamed with soymilk, and laced with caramel? Sounded sickly sweet to her. Or that he would be attending a wine tasting tonight with friends, including the Jennings, plural, and then playing golf with them tomorrow? There were only two Jennings, father and daughter. Beautiful daughter, influential father—for whom Jason worked.
She went back to the name search and scrolled down to a mention of Jason as a rising associate at Jennings, Jennings, and Baker. And then there he was again, linked to a news article and picture in which Sam Jennings, the senior partner, stood slightly in front of him, with Sam’s very blond, very beautiful daughter—the second Jennings in the company name—draped over Rina’s fiancé. Rina squinted, bent toward the screen. Nope. Not draped. The woman was wrapped around Jason, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. No, it looked as if he were wrapping right back.
She would not think about Jason and that bimbo. Or about Jason and his Facebook relationships. Or his tweet-twitters. Or his links at LinkedIn.
Her college dorm mates had all joined Facebook to meet guys and had tried to talk her into it. But she hadn’t had the time. She’d had a campus job and classes—and she sure didn’t need to meet men, not with Jason waiting for her in Morehead. He’d said he was glad she wanted no part of the social media scene.
Why? So he could play on it without her knowing?
It made her wonder what else he’d been up to when he was trying to keep her pure.
His word. Pure.
Only three boarders dined in that night, and Rina didn’t linger over the food. Back in her room, she found her nail file and propped on her bed to do some much needed maintenance. Her toenails were ragged. And they needed color. She rooted in her bags until she found a bottle of hot pink, just garish enough. After spreading a towel, she climbed back up and got to work.
Jason didn’t approve of nail polish. Neither had her father. She just bet Sam Jennings’ daughter wore polish. Plus a lot of other things Jason hadn’t approved of for her.
Her thoughts shifted back to Tony, whose silence might be perfectly legit. He didn’t owe her an explanation. Not really.
Stuffing tissues between painted toes, she waddled toward the sink to wash her face, avoiding the mirror except to check for zits. It felt like one was trying to form on her chin.
Of course it was. Nerves always blossomed into one big red pimple. Sometimes two.
By the time her toes had dried and she’d brushed her teeth and slathered on face cream, the rest of her skin hurt, the way it did when she was feverish. Her stomach had tied itself in knots.
Her head hit the pillow, and images came with a vengeance: Tony laughing, teasing, taking her on that rainy-day picnic, showing her how to listen and listening to her, kiss
ing her palms. Kissing her lips. Holding her. By the time she got to memories of his touch, she began to feel very uncomfortable in places that were doing her no good at all.
She was a fool.
He was probably a terrorist or at least involved with terrorists. He’d left town without a word. He might already be dead.
She shook her head. He wasn’t a terrorist. No way. But in league with them? That was possible.
No, he was too American, even if he spoke Arabic and knew gunmen.
Perhaps terrorists’ women felt the same way: their men couldn’t be involved in anything horrible because they didn’t seem horrible, not to the women, anyway.
So what now? Tony was who-knew-where and who-knew-what. Acie was falling apart, and there was Jason. She sighed, because, of course, there was Jason. Until she did something about that relationship, they were still engaged. She had to tell him the truth, but should she mention that newspaper picture or just say she wanted out?
Better not say anything about his arms being where they oughtn’t, because that would just lead to excuses. She didn’t want excuses. She wanted them over, ended—whether or not Tony was in her future—because now she’d tasted the possibility of more. Of true romance.
And what about this thing with Acie? She’d seen evidence that at least one of Acie’s dreams had been prophetic. But the rest might not be. Right? Tony might have simply tired of the game and fled Perugia to escape her.
She sat up in the bed and brushed the hair out of her eyes. She needed to get a grip.
She was strong. She was a grown woman, able to make choices. If Tony didn’t want her or care enough to call, well, fine. She wouldn’t imagine any more than that.
She collected pen and paper from the bedside table. The letter had to be kind but firm enough to keep Jason from catching the next plane over to set her straight.
She didn’t want to be set straight by him. Or by anyone.
Uncle Adam would tell her to pray. To ask for wisdom.
“Um, God…” That was a good start, but what came next? There used to be all sorts of prayers in that book Aunt Luze used, but she hadn’t memorized any. She’d best just get the writing done.
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