by Diana Cachey
Who is Matteo’s wife?
Antonin dropped Louisa off a few docks down from Venice police headquarters, the Questura so they wouldn’t be seen together before she left.
“I will be in New York to see you,” said Antonin.
She opened her mouth to speak but stopped.
“Soon,” he said.
He told her that her bags would be waiting for her at the Questura because her sister, Barbara, and friend, Rouge, had taken care of everything for her. Yet, despite his assurances, she walked away with head hung low. She didn’t turn back. He stood and watched her leave, resisted the urge to call her back to him.
During her walk to the Questura, Louisa recalled what Antonin had said after he gave her his best good-bye on cushions in the cab of the boat. He’d spoken to her in his most elegant pure Dante’s Italian, not vulgar Venetian dialect.
“After all of this -- the lovemaking, my island, the mystery, our secrets, your ghosts -- do you need to go anywhere other than Venice? Once you’ve finished a brief interlude in New York?”
“Maybe not,” Louisa had said. She’d answered him in her twangiest, American accented, English.
But in her mind were unspoken words.
Nothing will do but Venice, after I return to you.
When she walked into the police station, she was surprised to see streamers, banners, cake, pastries, tons of sandwiches and other festive food. Everyone began congratulating her on her generous donation and on her new appointment to the New York office of somebody’s uncle’s law firm. They all expressed regret at her leaving and begged her to return as soon as possible. Double air kisses flew. Champagne, or rather, Prosecco, flowed.
Rouge was waiting there too. She’d already enraptured Detective Menetto, whose smile beamed at Louisa as if thanking her for having gifted him this wonderful, redheaded creature. They stood next to several suitcases, which Detective Menetto struggled with but insisted on carrying when they left the station.
He whispered something in Rouge’s ear and kissed her neck.
She giggled, nodded then stood up straight.
“He said to tell you about that bitch. You know, the perfect one?”
“What now?” Louisa noted that the police chief’s perfect little secretary wasn’t present. She should’ve been coordinating the grand farewell and soaking up accolades for it, as if it were she who saved Venice, not Louisa.
“Honey, she is Matteo’s wife.”
“That bitch is Matteo’s wife?”
“No, sorry, I misspoke. His baby mamma. They have two kids. We’re not sure if they got hitched yet.”
Louisa nearly dropped her champagne flute to the floor but recovered.
“No fucking way.”
“Yes fucking way.”
Louisa downed her Prosecco, laid the empty flute on a passing tray, grabbed another and chugged it too.
The perfect woman had birthed what should’ve been Louisa’s two daughters with Matteo. On top of everything, Matteo’s baby mamma had a figure that looked like no pregnancy had ever graced her jeans.
“She has my babies?”
“Those are not your babies.”
“Where is she?”
“She was given a brief, shall we say, sabbatical?”
Just like me, thought Louisa.
How was that fair? Life wasn’t fair. Did the perfect baby mamma’s sabbatical also come with a lucrative salary and penthouse perks like Louisa’s enforced departure?
“Honey, you are doing exactly what you should be doing in a situation like this one,” said Rouge.
“Yea, what exactly is that?”
“Leaving town.”
Detective Menetto nodded and hurried the two women out to the dock.
Louisa looked at the shadows across the canal, which were moving slowly with the changing sunlight.
Perhaps le fantasme moved about in the morning too, she thought. Perhaps they were part of the merchant dance for centuries.
“So we beat on,” she said.
“Boats against the current,” Barbara continued, quoting the final lines from the Great Gatsby.
“Borne back ceaselessly into the past,” Louisa said, finishing the quote.
“Born again, into the future, as ghosts, perhaps,” Barbara added.
Barbara linked one hand with Massimo’s and waved good-bye to her sister with the other. Louisa and Rouge stepped from the Questura dock into the boat, which the Captain powered up.
It soon vanished into the mist.
THE END
For Carnival, Ghost Parties or Dessert
40g (1 1/2 oz) beer yeast
500g (3 1/2 cups) flour
1/4 liter milk
100g (3 1/2 oz) sugar (1/2 will be used as garnish)
3 eggs (room temperature)
50g butter
70g raisins
30g pine nuts
lemon peel
2 tablespoons brandy or rum
1/2 teaspoon salt
Peanut or grape seed oil for frying (6-8 cups)
Wash and dry the raisins. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk and melt the butter. In large bowl, put half of the sugar and knead with the eggs. Add melted butter, yeast, raisins, pine nuts, lemon zest and rum. Stir until the dough is smooth. Slowly add the flour and salt.
Work the mixture vigorously and let it rest for an hour until it has doubled in volume.
In heavy pot, heat the oil to 365° F (180° C). Using a spoon or ice scream scooper, make balls and drop into oil, then fry the Frittelle until they are puffed and golden (about 5 minutes). Don’t overcrowd pot or you will reduce temperature of oil. Remove with slotted spoon, drain and cool on paper towels, sprinkle with remaining sugar.
Variation: Frittelle Con Nutella (Louisa’s favorite)
Omit raisins, pine nuts, rum from dough recipe. Buy 1 large jar (26 ounces) Nutella. Prepare dough, fry the dough balls then cool and sprinkle with sugar. Poke a hole in each ball. Fill a round tipped pastry bag with Nutella and pipe some into each.
Eat while warm. Yum!
Traveling to Venice? Only have a short time to explore it? Here are some suggestions:
(1) Go in every church, no matter how humble. Great art lurks inside. Mind blowing art!
(2) Get a boat pass and ride it everywhere … night and day. Especially at night.
(3) See a violin concert in a church.
(4) Enjoy an expensive coffee or drink served by tuxedoed waiters at an outdoor café in San Marco when music is playing. Each cafe has its own music. The cafés alternate play so you can hear them all from one spot.
(5) Go to the top of the San Marco tower. Go at sunset if it is a clear day. It’s always worth the wait. When the bell gongs, you might weep.
(6) Go to San Marco around midnight to watch the “clock boys” (statues on top) gong the bell twelve times in an otherwise silent eerie square.
A word about San Marco: People complain that St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) is touristy, bustling and full of pigeons. Really? It is also breathtaking. Night or day, it always looks (and sounds) different.
(7) Walk in the afternoon parade of Venetians on the Zattere along Guidecca Canal. Sit in the sun on a terrace and get some ice cream. It’s always sunny on the Zattere, especially in the afternoon when everything else in Venice gets shadowed.
(8) Walk, walk, walk and walk. Explore, get lost, stop at shops and cafes.
(9) Remember to look up. All the good stuff is up.
(10) Ride the public boat to Murano (for glass), Burano (for lace and colored houses) and Torcello (for peace and the oldest churches in the lagoon).
(11) Hang out at any outdoor cafe in Rialto on the Grand Canal. Sure, some folk will say it is a tourist trap. Eat, drink, watch and hang there anyway.
(12) Drink coffee or spritz at wine bars and nibble on finger foods. Find the hidden ones then eat tramezzini and cicchetti (see recipes included in Lagoon Lure, Book Two).
(13) Lucky number thirteen: Pastry
Shop!
(14) Don’t forgot to RIDE IN A GONDOLA! Better yet, take a rowing lesson. Learn to row like a Venetian.
My personal favorite suggestion -- and it is my most important, shortest list of all -- go back to Venice again. Don’t try to see it all in one trip. Maybe I will be there to show you some secrets.
In What Happens In Venice, who might these characters be?
How about these characters?
Dear Reader,
If you’re so inclined, I’d love for you to REVIEW my novels and would enjoy connecting with you. I hope you had fun reading Magic Island, the third and final installment of What Happens in Venice: The Trinity. People often ask me what is the difference between The Trinity and a trilogy. The Trinity is a serial novel divided into three parts. In The Trinity, three parts make a whole, three make one. Mystery solved in the third book . . . because Venice is too rich to consume in one sitting.
When I published Love Spirits, the first book, readers thanked me for letting them travel to Venice in the book. As an author, I love feedback! The reason I describe Venetian magic, romance and ghosts floating through the mist — it’s YOU!
Reviews can be tough to come by these days with all of the new writers scrambling for them. You, my dear reader, have the power to make or break a book. If you have time, find the link to my author page on Amazon where you can post your review. If you are a member of Goodreads, please post it there and vote for my book in Venice categories — or feel free to create new ones. It’s fun to be a part of this new and lively universe of books.
I loved creating characters like sexy sleuth Louisa, clairvoyant Barbara, freewheeling Rouge and their Venetian hot-blooded charmers and I plotted a puzzle for them and readers to solve. Thank you for reading! —Diana Cachey
Diana Cachey is the award winning author of Amazon bestsellers, Love Spirits and Lagoon Lure. For more than a decade, Cachey traveled to Venice on extended trips several times a year and the Venetian cafés, restaurants, and other haunts play a prominent role in What Happens In Venice. Diana is also a licensed attorney, published academic and travel writer and holds a Bachelors Degree in English Literature.
She built a social media platform of over 100,000 Twitter followers and a popular YouTube channel that features secret Venice locations and has received over half million views. Find out more, www.dianacachey.com and www.whathappensinvenice.com.