by Maddy Hunter
So did she.
“You must feel so bogged down toting this thing around, Em.” She gave the breathable nylon fiber a possessive pat. “Why don’t you let me carry it for you?”
I manacled my hand around the strap. “You’re sweet to offer, but I can manage. Besides, it’s too heavy for you.”
“Heavy? This little bag of yours? Really, Emily, it’s light as a feather.”
Sure it was. That’s why it was sitting on the floor.
“Think how much nicer it would be for you if I carried it,” she continued. “Imagine the wonderful things you could do if your hands were freed up.”
I gave her an expectant look. “Like…?”
“Well…you…you…” She shot a quick look around her. “You could bless yourself. And with Vatican holy water! I bet the water here is much holier than it is back home.”
This was so like my mom. It was bred in her bones to want to make everyone’s life better, to be generous to a fault, to be responsible for everyone’s happiness. But she always ended up going overboard, like putting whole heads of lettuce on a sandwich when a single leaf would do, or arranging the cold medications in your bathroom in alphabetical order during the commercial breaks of TV shows. She’d been on a tear about alphabetizing stuff ever since she’d started volunteering at the local library. Dad was doing his best to keep her away from alphabet soup, but it was a constant worry for him.
“Here’s the scoop, Mom,” I reasoned, trying to “out-nice” her. “You want to show Dad what the inside of the basilica looks like, don’t you? If you’re saddled with my bag, you won’t be able to take pictures yourself.”
She crooked her mouth slightly and spoke in an undertone. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Em, but most of the statues around here are the size of forage silos. Who can take pictures? Besides, I read an article in The Catholic Herald that hinted it might be sacrilegious to take photographs in places as holy as this.” She gave my arm an encouraging squeeze. “But don’t let that stop you. If you didn’t read the article, it probably won’t count as a sin for you.”
I hung my head and moaned. When Mom got an idea in her head, she could make the much touted “dog with a bone” look like a slacker. I wasn’t a wuss. I mean, I could deal with rabid killers, runaway horses, and Irish ghosts, but dealing with my mom was a whole different dynamic. Through the years my family had learned there was only one sane thing to do when she got like this.
Give in.
If I didn’t, I’d be engaged in a tug - of - war over my bag that would continue until it was time to leave, and then I’d get no pictures.
I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay. You win.” I stood up, hoisted my bag off the floor and looped the strap over her head and shoulder. She looked up at me with an exuberant smile lighting her little moon face.
“I’m so happy you’re letting me do this for you, Emily, but do you suppose you could do me one small favor before you leave?” She lunged for my arm. “Could you help me straighten up? My knees have frozen solid on me.”
Five minutes later, with her joints thawed and circulation restored, she was ready to be on her way. “Remember,” I instructed, as I shielded her arm over my shoulder bag, “this place might be the safest place in Italy, but don’t tempt Fate. Hold the bag close to your body and keep your hand over the zipper. Everything I own at the moment is in that bag.”
“That was such a shame about your luggage, Em. I know they’ll find it quickly though. I said a prayer to St. Anthony.”
Everyone’s luggage had arrived at the Fiumicino Airport, except mine, which had probably ended up in Rome, all right, but the one in Kansas. The Fiumicino Airport officials assured me they would track my bag down and rush it to my hotel; but just in case it was missing for longer than twenty-four hours, I wrote down names, badge numbers, and phone numbers. I threatened to contact the American embassy. Rome was the fashion capital of the world. If I ended up having to wear Nana’s little lace-trimmed sweatshirts and polyester togs again, I’d create a commotion that would leave Alitalia Airlines begging for the kinder, gentler days of Attila the Hun.
I checked my watch. “Okay, we have ten minutes before we’re due to regroup at the front entrance.” We actually had a half hour before we were scheduled to meet our Landmark Destinations guide at the door, but Mom operated on Iowa time, so she needed to be at least twenty minutes early to be “on time.” “Any questions?”
“Just one. Do you have any idea where I should start looking for your grandmother?”
The main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica is an oblong of white marble that sits beneath a soaring bronze canopy. Four black-and-gold corkscrew pillars the size of giant sequoias support the structure. I snapped several pictures of the sculptures atop the canopy, then, as I framed my next shot, heard a click, click, click, click of stiletto heels on marble. “Hold up, Emily,” a voice echoed out in a throaty whisper.
I glanced over my shoulder to find a tall, glossy-haired brunette hustling toward me. She had the face of a madonna, the body of a supermodel, and a sassy style that turned the heads of most men. Her legs were long and tan, and she wore a sexy white minidress that fit like a coat of spray paint. She was all sleek angles, graceful curves, and exact proportions, except for her feet, which were big as snowshoes. Her name was Jackie Thum. Before she’d had sex reassignment surgery to become a woman, she’d been a guy named Jack Potter, and I’d been married to him.
“I’m so glad you told us about the dress code here,” she said, straightening the flutter sleeves that fell from her shoulders. “If you hadn’t, I actually might have worn something totally inappropriate today.”
I wondered what she’d consider more inappropriate than white spray paint. I regarded her arms. Oh, right. Spray paint without sleeves. “Out of curiosity, how did you get your minidress past the clothes police at the front door?”
“I sneaked in with a flock of nuns. The dress code guys were so busy arguing with a macho gorilla in a muscle shirt and running shorts that they never even noticed me.” She removed what looked like a writing pen from her knit shoulder bag, held it to her mouth, and began speaking into it. “If you’re visiting religious sites in Italy, check to see if there’s a dress code. Bare arms and hairy legs aren’t permitted in the church proper of St. Peter’s; however, the clothes police might let it pass if you’re planning to play bingo in the basement.” She snapped the tape recorder off. “They play bingo here, don’t they? It’s a Catholic church. What Catholic church doesn’t play bingo? Can you imagine the haul? I mean, this place can accommodate sixty thousand.”
She held her minirecorder up for my perusal. “Doesn’t this rock? It’s the perfect gadget to help me chronicle your every move. I’ll be James Boswell to your Samuel Johnson.”
Ever since Jack had become Jackie, she’d been searching for her new niche in life. After ending up on the same tour in Ireland with me last month, she’d decided she might like a job like mine, so she signed up for this tour of Italy in the hopes of recording the dos and don’ts of the successful tour escort. I tried not to let it go to my head, but it was kind of flattering.
Jackie flashed me a smile that suddenly turned to horror. “Eh! Where’s your shoulder bag?”
“Mom has it. She wanted to free up my hands so I could bless myself.”
“You gave your shoulder bag to your mother?” Her brittle tone made it sound as if I’d given away my firstborn. “Jeez, Emily, that was brave of you.”
Unh-oh. Was St. Peter’s no longer the safest place in Italy? Was Nana’s information outdated? OH, GOD! Was the travel guide Mom checked out of the library the 1952 edition of Frommer’s? I swallowed slowly, a cold sweat prickling my forehead. “Why was it brave?” I asked hesitantly.
“Because you can get picked up by some really hot Italians in St. Peter’s. You need to keep your cosmetic bag handy for those critical lip gloss touch-ups.”
I waited a beat before thwacking her on the arm with the back of
my hand. “Jack! You’re married! What are you doing looking for men?” She’d eloped a month ago with a Binghamton, New York, hair designer named Tom whose specialty was corrective color and infliction of the choppy cut on unsuspecting heads.
“I’m married, Emily. I’m not dead.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking if I came down with another case of stress-induced hives, I was going to kill her.
“Okay,” she said, consulting a paper in the side pocket of her bag. “I made a list, and the next ‘must see’ in the basilica is” — she turned around — “this way.” She banded her hand around my arm and dragged me half a mile down the center nave. We stopped before a mammoth five-sided pillar to regard a bronze statue of a fuzzy-haired man with a beard. “St. Peter,” said Jackie. He was seated in a marble chair beneath an ornate canopy, one hand raised solemnly like Al Gore in a vice presidential debate, the other clutching a set of keys. I’d read someplace where the body of the statue might originally have been that of a Roman senator, with the haloed head and hands soldered on later. I had to compliment the Italians. St. Peter looked pretty darned good considering he might have been pieced together like Robocop.
“We need to get in line so we can kiss his toe,” Jackie instructed.
I remembered back to my grammar school catechism and wondered what kind of spiritual reward we might receive for paying homage to this great saint. Partial indulgence? Plenary indulgence? In the days of the old Church, the faithful accumulated indulgences like frequent flyer miles and could use them to get out of Hell free. You didn’t hear much about indulgences anymore. Wasn’t that always the way? You just get locked into a great reward system and boom, all the perks expire.
“What significance does kissing his toe have?” I asked.
Jackie shrugged. “I thought it was the Italian version of kissing the Blarney stone. Hey, look. There’s some of the people on our tour up near the front of the line. You see the tall guy in the rose-colored polo shirt? Silver hair. George Hamilton tan. Big bottle of water in a harness over his shoulder? That’s Philip Blackmore, executive vice president of Hightower Books. They tell me he’s a legendary marketing genius. He’s supposedly the one behind Hightower’s switch from literary to more commercial fiction.”
It was Hightower Books who was sponsoring this two-week holiday to promote its unprecedented venture into the historical and contemporary romance market. The theme of the tour was Passion and Pasta and it provided an opportunity for romance fans and unpublished writers to rub shoulders with established writers, editors, agents, and other publishing luminaries. Guests were promised exciting excursions to historic venues as well as daily lectures from the experts on how to write a best-selling romance. My group of Iowans weren’t particularly interested in the romance market, but when a slew of cancellations in the main tour occurred a couple of months ago, Landmark Destinations needed to fill up the empty seats, so they offered me some great discount prices, and I’d scooped them up.
“And you see the woman standing to the right of Blackmore?” Jackie continued. “The one in the floral muumuu with the horn-rimmed glasses and Cleopatra hair? That is none other than Marla Michaels. The Marla Michaels.”
I gave the woman a quick look-see. “Who’s Marla Michaels?”
Jackie stared at me in disbelief. “Emily! Do you live under a rock? Marla Michaels. The Barbarian’s Bride? The Viking’s Vixen?”
“Oh. That Marla Michaels. The world renowned” — there was only one occupation I could think of where barbarians and Vikings would be commonplace — “opera singer.”
Jackie threw up her hands. “Marla Michaels is only the most famous historical romance diva in the world! Hightower lured her away from her old publisher by offering her a very lucrative contract that includes theme park rights and extended author tours to exotic places.”
“She’s a romance writer? How was I supposed to know that? I don’t read romances.” I cocked my head and smiled coyly. “But it seems one of us does. How do you know about her?”
“The seminar last night? She gave a talk? She autographed books? If you’d been less interested in complaining about your missing luggage and more interested in the theme of the tour, you’d know about her, too.”
“Right. You read romances, don’t you, Jack? Oh, my God. I bet you were reading them when we were married! That’s why you were sneaking into the bathroom so much in the middle of the night. You weren’t treating your athlete’s foot. You were reading bodice rippers!” Wow. He’d kept a lot of things hidden in the closet back then.
“Are you guys in line?” I heard a chirpy voice inquire behind me.
She was one of ours — a flaming redhead in her twenties who was snapping gum like a kid snaps rubber bands. The wording on her name tag read, Hi! My name is Keely.
“You’re on the tour!” she said, aiming a finger at Jackie. “I recognize you from the seminar. I would kill for that leather bustier you were wearing last night. Can you believe this? Marla Michaels and Gillian Jones in the same room together?”
“Gillian Jones?” I asked tentatively. “Another romance writer?”
“I’ll say.” Keely popped a bubble, then sucked it back into her mouth. “Sixty-four weeks on the New York Times Best-seller List for A Cowboy in Paris. Eighty-six weeks for A Cowboy in Sydney. The reviewers said books about cowboys wouldn’t have global appeal. Boy, were they wrong. She’s the most successful writer of contemporary romance ever.”
“She’s standing behind Marla in line,” Jackie pointed out.
Gillian Jones was waifishly petite with platinum hair cut close to her head and huge cactuses hanging from her ears. I suspected the oversized earrings might be her trademark. The Lone Ranger’s was a silver bullet. Gillian’s was desert vegetation.
“Marla and Gillian supposedly hated each other for a lot of years,” Keely explained, “but now that they’ve signed on with the same publisher, I’ve heard they’ve become the best of friends. I want to learn so much from them. I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve won every regional First Chapter contest ever offered.”
“That’s great,” I enthused. I had a hard time writing postcards, so I admired anyone who could actually win a contest for putting words on paper. “But you’re unpublished at the moment?”
“Prepublished,” she corrected. “Unpublished gives the wrong impression.”
Right. I guess it would give the impression that…you’re not published.
“But I’m this close” — she flashed a quarter-inch space between her thumb and forefinger — “to getting published.”
“Have you had any nibbles?” Jackie asked with girlish excitement.
“Not exactly.” Keely blew a bubble the size of her head, then had to use her fingers to shove it all back into her mouth. “I need to complete the manuscript first, but finishing up should be a piece of cake.”
“Are you close to the end?” I asked.
“Real close. Only thirteen chapters to go.”
Thirteen to go? I couldn’t imagine the fortitude it took to sit down every day and grind out page after page of fiction. I regarded her with even greater respect than before. “How many chapters have you written so far?”
“One. But like I told you, it’s award-winning.” She blew another bubble. I gritted my teeth. If she did that one more time, I might be forced to grab it out of her mouth and stick it in her ear. “What I really need is an agent,” Keely confessed. “That’s part of the reason I’m on this trip. Gillian and Marla’s agent is here, so I need to impress her big-time. I’m hoping if she reads my award-winning chapter, she’ll like it well enough to represent me. Her name’s Sylvia Root. Ever heard of her? They call her ‘the barracuda.’ High-powered. Ruthless. Cojones the size of Jupiter. She’s every author’s dream. And by the way —” She reached into her pocketbook, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me. “I run an online romance writers’ critique service, so if you ever need help with your novel, e-mail me. I offer special rates to p
eople I’ve met.”
I skimmed her card. Romance Solutions. Become a published author. Manuscript critiques offered by award-winning writer, KEELY MACK. Reasonable fees.
“Whoops,” said Keely, “there’s my roommate. Gotta run. She wants to explore the grotto where all the popes are buried. She has this obsession with dead people. She wants to break into the market with the first zombie romance. Isn’t that a kick? She’ll probably start a hot new trend.”
Good reason to stick to nonfiction.
The queue to reach St. Peter moved quickly. I kissed his little bare toe, then pondered what other part of the statue I’d be kissing if the early Romans had worn wingtips instead of sandals. “If kissing the Blarney stone imparts the gift of gab,” I commented when Jackie and I were through the line, “what gift do you suppose kissing St. Peter’s toe imparts?”
“I don’t know, but if you start speaking in tongues, I’m outta here.”
After oohing and aahing over the magnificence of Michelangelo’s dome and Bernini’s sunburst, we snapped some photos of the gilded lanterns surrounding St. Peter’s tomb and headed back toward the entrance. “Hi, Jackie,” gushed two blonde women wearing Landmark name tags.
A minute later a spit-polished man with a trim beard nodded at Jackie. “Ms. Thum.”
I slanted a curious look at Jackie. “How do all these people know you?”
“It’s called networking, Emily. Isn’t that what a good travel club escort is supposed to do? I attended the seminar last night, introduced myself to all the guests, and the dividend is —” She shot me a toothy smile. “They remember me.”
“Of course they remember you! You were wearing a leather bustier!”
“If you lower your voice, I’ll let you borrow it sometime.” She sidled closer to me and spoke in a whisper. “That man who just acknowledged me? He’s apparently a real biggie in the industry. Gabriel Fox. He’s a senior editor at Hightower and is supposed to be editing both Marla and Gillian. Boy, I wouldn’t want that job. Can you imagine the egos? Anyway, they call him ‘the book doctor.’ If there’s anything wrong with a book, he’s the guy who’s supposed to be able to fix it. But you know what I don’t get?”