Pasta Imperfect

by Maddy Hunter

  Okay. So maybe I’d been a bit premature.

  Gillian didn’t miss a beat. “But you have to agree, Marla, dear, that she looks like the kind of woman who would be smart enough to know that no matter the size, it wouldn’t throb.”

  Gabriel tented his hands over his face. “Kee-reist.”

  “Okay, Philip,” Marla snarled, “I know what you said back at the hotel, but you need to settle this for us. When you’re in the act, does it throb or not?”

  Gabriel dropped his head to the table and huddled beneath his crossed forearms. “Kee-reist.”

  “Really, ladies,” Blackmore said, chagrined. “I’m not in a position to —”

  “I’m warning you!” Gillian raved. “You need to sign her up for a course on basic human anatomy. She just doesn’t get it!”

  “Come to think of it, it doesn’t actually throb,” Jackie said, angling her head in thought. “It kind of…” She flipped her hand back and forth, searching for the right word.

  “Quivers?” I asked excitedly.

  “Nope. It’s more like…” She snapped her fingers with sudden inspiration. “Imagine you’re a steam locomotive that’s chugging uphill. Slowly at first, then a little faster, throttle wide open, whistle blowing, smokestack steaming, boiler blazing, faster, hotter, faster, hotter, until…BOOM!” She smacked her palm with her fist, knocking everyone back in their seats. “You hit the crest of the hill and explode like a volcano. BOOM. BOOM. KAPOW. WHOOSH.” She nodded with satisfaction. “It’s kinda like that.”

  Gabriel lifted his head, joining the others around the table who were gawking at her, mouths open, eyes wide. They looked really stunned, but I couldn’t tell if they were reacting to the content of her presentation or the fact that she’d mixed her metaphors so badly.

  “You know this…how?” asked Philip.

  Jackie paused, her smile inching into a grimace. “Um…Reader’s Digest?”

  This elicited a bout of restrained laughter from everyone except Sylvia, who was slouched with relief, looking as if she’d just dodged a very large bullet.

  “I don’t think they bought the Reader’s Digest thing,” Jackie lamented an hour later. “I mean, I’m not trying to cover up my procedure, it’s just a whole lot easier if people don’t know. Then I’m spared having to answer all their dumb questions. I just think it works better if I keep a low profile, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah. You have low profile down to a science.” We’d run into an open-air market on our way back to the hotel, so we were making our way down a narrow street that knifed between two cramped rows of merchant tents and stalls, bumping and grinding with men who had cell phones grafted to their ears and women sporting skintight pants, spike heels, skinny tops, bare midriffs, and overinflated bosoms. The Miracle Bra was obviously a big seller in Florence.

  Chirrup chirrup. Chirrup chirrup.

  I fished my phone out of my bag. “Hello?”

  “Did you mean to cut me off last night?” Etienne asked with mild amusement.

  “Hi, sweetie. I’m so sorry!” Jackie rolled her eyes and gathered all her packages out of my arms, then scissored two fingers at me to indicate she was going to wander around while I talked. I gave her a thumbs-up and cradled my phone more tightly against my ear. “I should have called you back, but I had all these…fires to put out.”

  “More fires?” A pause. “I don’t mean to alarm you, Emily, but —”

  “No, no. Not real fires. That’s just an expression. Like ‘kicking the bucket.’ ” I smiled with sudden inspiration. “Or ‘jumping your bones.’ ”

  Another pause. “ ‘Jumping your bones’? I’ve never heard that before. Tell me what it means.”

  “Unh-uh,” I whispered seductively. “I’d rather show you.”

  “You…KRRRRRRKKK…me, darling.”

  “Your voice is breaking up. Hello?”

  “…in Italy. Tell me quickly, are you enjoying the people in the tour group?”

  “I’m running into some real characters.” Some of whom I might trust more if I knew a little more about them. Which prompted a brilliant idea. “Etienne, would you be willing to do me a huge favor? We’re conducting a contest, and we’d like to make sure all the contestants are playing by the same ground rules, so could you run a few background checks for us?”

  “That’s highly irregular, darling.”

  “Yeah, but we don’t want anyone taking unfair advantage. It’s really important. There’s a substantial cash prize involved.”

  KRRRKKK. “…I’m getting into, but, I’m not sure how to refuse you.”

  “I knew I could count on you. Thank you so much. Do you have a pencil? Here are the names and this is what I need to know.”

  When I finished, he waited a beat, then sighed. “I’ll see what I can do but —” KRRRRRRKKKK. KRRRKK.

  “Etienne? Hello? Are you there?” I winced at the static and held the phone away from my ear, staring at it dismally. It wasn’t my imagination. No matter what we tried to do, we were constantly being interrupted. Aargh! I was too rational to call it a curse, but “hex” was a definite possibility.

  I stuffed the phone back into my shoulder bag and rotated in place, looking for Jackie, but instead spied Fred Arp hanging out in front of a stall layered with pallets of leather briefcases, shoulder bags, handbags, clutch purses, and backpacks in every jellybean color except tutti-frutti. He was holding two handbags in the air while a fierce, beefy guy with wild hair and bristly eyebrows barked Italian at him from behind the counter. I shivered at the clerk. If he was green, he’d be mistaken for the Incredible Hulk.

  “Hi, Fred,” I said, coming up beside him. “Buying something for your wife?”

  He jumped at the sound of my voice and shot me a frightened look from beneath the brim of his hat. “I don’t have a wife.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “No girlfriend either.” His cheeks flushed pink. “I’ve never really dated much.”

  No surprise there.

  The clerk growled something unintelligible that caused Fred’s nerves to fray even more. “I want to bring something home to my mother, but I don’t know how practical a handbag is. She doesn’t get out much anymore. And I’m not sure what this guy is trying to tell me, but he’s getting spittle all over his merchandise.”

  “Maybe I can help.” I made eye contact with the clerk and smiled. “Do you speak English?”

  He made a broad gesture toward the street, then made a hook of his right index finger and stuck it between his teeth.

  “Scandinavian languages?”

  He bit down harder on his finger, which told me nothing other than he was probably current with his ten-year tetanus booster.

  “Uff da,” I tossed out, trying to dazzle him with my multi-lingual expertise.

  He stared at me, looking a tad confused.

  Okay. Maybe French. “Sacre bleu,” I said with authority.

  He made a guttural sound in response.

  Having exhausted my entire vocabulary of Norwegian and French, I resorted to my only remaining option. “You betcha,” I said in flawless Minnesotan.

  Another hand gesture. Several animal growls. I grabbed Fred by the arm and ushered him toward the adjoining stall. “How about a nice silk scarf?”

  Fred’s chest collapsed with disappointment. “But I wanted something made of leather. Never mind. I’ll look someplace else.”

  “Are you all by yourself?” I made a visual scan, looking for other tour members.

  “What’s wrong with that? I do lots of things by myself. I don’t need to be part of an entourage. I like my own company. Besides” — he straightened the tilt of his hat and assumed a stoic look — “no one invited me to join them.”

  I flinched at the hurt in his voice.

  “Amanda and Brandy Ann hinted that we could hang out today, but they left without me this morning. Women shouldn’t do that. They shouldn’t say one thing, then do something else.”

  �
��I bet you anything they simply forgot,” I said in a placating voice. “You know what women are like when they have serious shopping to do. Pouf! Everything goes out of their heads.”

  He regarded me in silence, jaw stiff, eyes unwavering.

  Yup. This was going well. “Tell you what, Fred, you’re welcome to hang out with me. I could help you find something for your mom and —”

  “I don’t want to spoil your afternoon. I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll run into Keely. No one likes her either. Say, have you seen any pet stores around here? I want to find something to bring back to my cats.”

  “Like a little leather collar? That would be so cute! Maybe in a variety of rainbow colors. How many cats do you have?”

  His face cracked with a smile as bright as a quarter moon. “Twenty-three.”

  Click clack click clack click clack. “Emily! You’ve gotta see this!” Jackie whipped off a quick, “Hi,” to Fred before snagging my arm and leading me several stalls down to a green - and - white - striped tent hung with leather vests, belts, neckties, and some of the most adorable leather jackets I’d ever seen. “Oooh,” I said, my gaze leaping from color to color. Root beer. Bubblegum. Tangerine. Grape. “How much?” I asked, pointing to a waist-length zippered number in bright raspberry.

  The middle-aged salesclerk was tall and rangy with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His eyes were ink black. His skin as leathery as the jackets he sold. “Six hundred thousand lire.”

  Drop three zeros. Divide by two. “Three hundred American dollars?” I winced. It was cheaper than the twenty-five-hundred-dollar coat I’d seen earlier, but it still wasn’t the bargain I wanted. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  The clerk whipped it off its hanger so I could see it up close and personal. “Six hundred thousand lire, but for you” — he removed his cigarette and blew a mouthful of smoke in the air — “five hundred thousand lire.”

  “Four hundred thousand,” said Jackie.

  “No, no!” the man complained. “Two hundred American dollar? You ask me to give it away.” He plugged his cigarette back into his mouth. “Two hundred and fifty American dollar.”

  “Too high,” Jackie argued. “There’s a man in a stall farther down who’ll sell us the same thing for two hundred. Come on, Emily.”

  Oh, I got it. We were dickering! My only other dickering experience had been with my nephews over how much Nintendo time they’d earn if they refrained from lacing the dog’s food with gummi worms.

  “What man?” The clerk threw a contemptuous look down the street. “Antonio? Testa di merda! You no listen him. He a snake. His jackets” — he made a spitting motion — “no good. His leather…bad. You no do business with Antonio. You do business with Vincenzo!” He slapped himself on the chest. “All right. I sell you for four hundred thousand lire. What size you need, signorina?” He looked me up and down. “Small size.”

  Wow. Two hundred dollars. I could actually afford that, but I wondered…“A hundred and fifty dollars,” I demanded.

  “One-ninety.”

  “One-sixty.”

  “One hundred seventy American dollar. You take that or go buy from Tony the Snake.”

  “One-sixty-five,” I countered.

  “Sold,” he said, looking proud to have cheated his reptilian competitor out of a sale. “You want this color, I no have in small, but I take you to my shop. Many more choices. Angelo!” Vincenzo yelled, summoning a younger man from the back of the tent. He spouted some instructions at the teenager in rapid Italian, then led Jackie and me through a narrow maze of booths onto a street called the Via Canto di Nelli and a shop named Giorgio.

  Inside, the smell of leather hit me in the face, which wasn’t surprising considering the place was practically wallpapered with leather goods. Vincenzo grabbed a hooked pole, lifted a raspberry-colored jacket off a twelve-foot-high rack, and motioned me into an anteroom with mirrors on all sides. He lit a fresh cigarette before removing the plastic covering from the jacket and holding it out for me. “This size forty-two. This be good for you.”

  Hardly able to contain my excitement, I dumped my shoulder bag at Jackie’s feet. “Watch that like a hawk.”

  Scurrying back to Vincenzo, I slid my arms into the silky lining of a leather jacket that felt smooth as whipped butter. “Wow.”

  “You like?”

  Chirrup chirrup. Chirrup chirrup.

  “It’s your phone, Emily. You want me to answer it?”

  “Appreciate it,” I said to Jackie, as Vincenzo did the honors of zipping up my jacket. He stood back to assess me, smoke swirling around his head.

  “Very pretty. Va bene.”

  I turned this way and that in the mirror. “The sleeves are a little long.”

  “I mark them. We shorten them in one hour. You come back and pick up.”

  “Really?” This was better than fast food at Blimpie’s.

  “Emily’s phone. Jackie speaking.” A pause. “Oh, hi, Etienne. Yeah, she’s here, but she’s tied up at the moment. Can I give her a message?”

  “This the best leather in all Italy,” Vincenzo attested as he pulled a butane lighter from his pants pocket. He flicked the striker wheel then waved the flame down the length of my arm.

  “EH!” I snatched my arm away. “ARE YOU NUTS? What are you doing?”

  “Bad leather burn,” Vincenzo claimed, grabbing my arm back and reapplying the flame to my sleeve. “Good leather not burn. This good leather.”

  “Okay, I believe you!” I stared at the flame licking my elbow and could feel my skin heating up in protest. “Hey, I can feel that. You can stop anytime.”

  “Etienne is sorry you were cut off,” Jackie announced.

  “The leather good everywhere,” Vincenzo droned around his cigarette. He swung the lighter flame toward my shoulder.

  “Enough with the lighter!” I said, shrinking away from the flame.

  “Every panel good.” I eyed Vincenzo in the mirror as he circled around to my back with the exposed flame. “Some people mix the bad leather with the good leather, but Giorgio only use — Merda!” Up flew his hands as his cigarette fell from his mouth. “Oy!” He caught it in midflight, bobbled it in his hand, then cursed loudly as he dropped it to the floor and stomped on it.

  “What’s that?” Jackie asked. “Can you speak up a little, Etienne? There’s a lot of background noise where you are. One-armed bandits? Euw. That’s not good. How much is that in American dollars?”

  I felt a little palpitation in my chest. He’d lost money. I knew that would eventually happen. I just didn’t want to know how much.

  “Scusi,” said Vincenzo, airing out his hand.

  “Did you burn yourself?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, massaging his palm. “I get chalk to mark your sleeves.”

  I preened before the mirror as he disappeared into a back room. The jacket didn’t look terrific with my Laura Ashley dress, but with a pair of black leather pants, it would look sensational.

  I wrinkled my nose. Phew! The air stank of Vincenzo’s cigarette. Italian tobacco was powerful stuff. Little streamers of smoke still floated in the air above my head. They could use a better air-filtration system in this place.

  Jackie’s voice rose in volume. “I’m still having a hard time hearing. Hold on. Maybe if I walk out —” A pause. “Holy shit!”

  I spun around to find her charging at me full throttle. “EHHH!” I screamed.

  WUFF! She tackled me around the waist. BOOM! We crashed onto the floor. I bumped my head and cracked my elbows. Air escaped my lungs in a painful whoosh.

  I beat at her with my fists, trying to fend her off. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shrieked. “ARE YOU CRAZY?”

  “Your hair!” she yelled, slapping my head with her hands. “It’s on fire!”

  Chapter 7

  How bad does it look?” I fretted, as we dashed into the lobby of the Hotel Cosimo Firenze.

  “You don’t wanna know,” Jackie replied. “And that
awful garbage smell? It’s not garbage. It’s your hair.”

  Great. This was just great. I thought I’d had problem hair before. I couldn’t imagine the styling challenge I faced with half of it missing!

  “Vincenzo was crushed you didn’t buy the jacket,” Jackie anguished. “Losing that sale really hit him hard. I felt sorry for him.”

  “HE SET MY HAIR ON FIRE!”

  “Still. You might be sorry later on. You don’t find bargains like that every day. Hold up a minute.” She unloaded her packages on the floor at the front desk and smiled at the unshaven desk clerk. “Cuscino?” she asked.

  He regarded her through half-lidded eyes, then snaked his gaze toward me and sniffed the air unpleasantly. “Si.”

  She made a gimme gesture with her hands. “Per favore.”

  Looking put out, the clerk heaved himself off his stool and shambled around the counter toward the lobby. “What’s he getting?” I questioned.

  “I asked him for a telephone book. We need to find a listing for hair designers and get you to a salon pronto.”

  I watched the clerk disappear down the hall and heard a creak of hinges as he opened a door. I eyed Jackie skeptically. “Shouldn’t ‘telephone book’ have the word ‘telephone’ in it someplace?”

  “ ‘Phonebook’ is an idiom.”

  “So?”

  “So Italian idioms don’t sound anything like what they mean. Just relax. I have the situation under control.”

  No cause to worry there.

  A moment later the desk clerk rounded the corner by the staircase and with a churlish look on his face handed Jackie a bed pillow.

  I rolled my eyes. Obviously, not the right idiom. “Tell you what.” I dug my key out of the pocket of my shoulder bag. “It looks like you might be a while down here, so I’m going up to my room, and when you’re done, give me a holler. Okay?”

  Jackie stared at the pillow. “But cuscino is the right word. I know it is.”

  I trudged up the stairs, brightening a little when I saw the heap of clothing piled in front of my door. All right! Did I know how to get results, or what? I unlocked the door and shoved it open an inch, then hunkered down and scooped my clothes off the floor. My black silk cardigan. My rosebud dress with the ruffled hem. My lemon yellow sundress with the thin shoulder straps. Capri pants. Blouses. Looked like a pretty good haul! Straightening up, I shoved the door wide with my hip and —