Path of Love

by M. L. Buchman

  “The first floor flat, that one is ours,” Bridget had explained, then added in a conspiratorial whisper, “Snoop is so fat that we don’t have the heart to make him climb higher even if it would be good for him.” The building was only big enough to have one tiny suite per floor.

  She’d offered Erica the second floor, but she’d opted for the third—which would be the fourth in America. A three-flight walk-up however it was counted.

  The instant she saw it she was in love. The narrow stone stairs had twisted as darkly upward as any medieval turret. An incongruously cheery bright green door had promised a surprise within and had delivered.

  The small living room was awash with the golden glow of the settling sun—not quite plunging into the Mediterranean yet—streaming its last light in through the gauzy curtains fluttering in the breeze. The walls were painted in a pale blue with a rich red edging that made the room feel much larger than expected. The space was just sufficient to fit two chairs, a tiny writing desk, and the small couch meant for curling up on with a trashy novel. The only way they got the king-sized bed in the separate bedroom was so obviously an act of black magic that she’d decided it was better not to ask. Perhaps the massive four-poster had been built in place, after the trees had been grown there for a few hundred years before being felled and carved where they stood.

  After the shower, the black-and-white diamond-patterned tile floor was cool under her feet. The balcony, just large enough for a clothesline and two plastic chairs (if their occupants rubbed shoulders), was the ultimate treat. Her own personal fairy-tale tower. Because the building was perched at the edge of the carruggio, she could look down and watch the couples walking together looking for a restaurant. Stone buildings rose up from the other side of the walkway. A group of boys—the age that would just be figuring out tricycles at home—were indeed playing a game of soccer across the slanting cobbles of the narrow street. Each stray kick sending a tiny boy scrambling down into the one lower open area where any cars that had survived to make it this far had to turn around and go back.

  Doorways were marked by carved wooden signs that looked as old as the town. Small planter boxes abounded with great sweeps of more geraniums—each flower bigger than her whole hand. The stone might be gray and the buildings done in stucco painted in pastels, but flowers abounded everywhere. Great curving arbors of roses. Pots of petunias. Everywhere there were flowers.

  Laughter echoed up the rock walls. A third floor (or fourth in America—still explaining things to herself when no one was listening, bad sign) neighbor across the street, no more than twenty feet away, called out a friendly Buonasera—“Good evening.” That one she knew, now that she’d heard it. She happily returned the same.

  Looking in the other direction, vineyards and olive trees covered the vertiginous hillside. What would have been terrifyingly steep, if it was rock, had been softened by hundreds of sinuous, built-up terraces, each planted with dozens of grapevines. Tier upon tier of them covered the hillside. Like a green topographic map.

  And beyond. Beyond it all lay the vast sweep of the Mediterranean Sea. The blue really was as unique as all of the movies made it out to be. She knew the dark, turbulent waters of the Pacific and the smooth dark blue of the Atlantic. The Med was part turquoise and it shone as if there was gold hidden just below the surface. The sun, now gone into the sea while she’d watched the children below, cast a deeply orange glow upon the distant liquid horizon, giving it more colors and variations. It was an Italian water mosaic.

  Somehow, through all the challenges, she had arrived. Past cars wrecked in olive trees (a grove). Through leg cramps on the interminable flight—so bad she’d have screamed if she hadn’t feared being labeled as an in-flight nuisance.

  “Today’s movie selection is listed in the backs of your magazines. Beverage service will start in a few minutes. And the woman screaming her head off in seat 37F has been officially labeled as an in-flight nuisance. Please observe the little red warning triangles posted along that section of the aisle.”

  She giggled at her own joke. Erica decided that was a good sign. After the day she’d had, it was a freaking miracle that she could laugh.

  “Call the Pope!”

  Then she slapped a hand over her mouth. This was Italy, they probably could call the Pope. There was certainly a large church easily visible on the other edge of the narrow town. The big square clock tower rose upward, holding aloft its pinnacled steeple, which swept up even further.

  “Close enough for God to be listening.” And though she didn’t really believe, there was a serenity that seemed to emanate from the church and spread over the town.

  Her sanity at least partially restored, though she could still feel the goofy smile on her face, she slid on a pair of lovely sandals. Not Italian-level lovely, but she liked them. Thankfully, her better judgment had won out and she’d bought the ones with flat heels back in Boston rather than the spiked monsters Dwayne had wanted her to purchase.

  They do great things for your ass. And you’ve got such a great ass, honey.

  She certainly should from all the stress she worked out on the stair stepper at the gym.

  That those sky-high sandals would also have broken her feet—and perhaps her neck—had been of no consequence in his opinion. It had all been about his pleasure in viewing her ass.

  Going down the B&B’s stone steps would be a challenge under most conditions. The iron handrails were frail and intermittent on the steep steps. In heels it would take a suicidal runway model to navigate them.

  She made it down the twisting, steep stairs in one piece in her flats.

  Oddly enough, it was these sandals and Dwayne’s comment that had been the first ripple in a still pond. When she’d surfaced, it had been with the speed of a breaching whale. Or maybe the reaction to getting whacked by a fairy godmother’s wand—really sharply on the nose. One week she’d been all safe and cozy in her dream of a splendid future. And the next she’d been single, unemployed, and had her car stolen. Maybe Dwayne had arranged that too. He hadn’t seemed the vengeful type, but then he’d also seemed to be the honorable type. Apparently she was a pathetic judge of men.

  At the bottom of the stairs she stepped onto the carruggio with all the ease she could manage and entered the café through the wide door, open to the warm evening.

  It was like being wrapped in the arms of garlic, basil, an oregano red sauce, and fresh baked bread. Pesto originally came from Liguria. Focaccia as well. It smelled like heaven.

  As Bridget had promised, the café was lovely.

  It was also full.

  Vibrant Italian poured out through the doors—some of it soft-spoken, some with laughter, and some with no real way to tell if it was a horrible fight or simply a good story well told. For now, she’d assume the latter.

  Done in dark reds, terracotta, and beiges, it felt warm and safe. Here the stone walls were left exposed in most areas, adding to the rustic feel. A large mosaic of a rumpled, dreadlocked Bergamasco dog graced one wall. He looked very Italian in his tiny gray and black tiles.

  The tables of dark wood appeared well used but were in good enough condition to also say they were well cared for. They were scattered about on the concrete floor. Simple, durable, but not unsightly concrete gray. It had thousands of small stones embedded in the surface. Some glittered with the promise of crystals, other with the warm colors and smooth surfaces of beach-washed gravel. All of it laid out in some intricate pattern that invited the eye to follow wherever it led—which didn’t appear to be anywhere.

  The bar wasn’t some long, forbidding oak or steel thing like in the US: a hard bastion for dozens, maybe hundreds of people to crowd close and demand a drink. It was a low affair, kitchen-counter high, made of dark wood, and scuffed with more centuries of service than the US had been a country.

  Next to the cash register stood a ceramic statuette of Snoop, so close to life-sized that for half a second she thought it was the real one. But it wasn’
t quite fat enough. Then she spotted Snoop curled up in a dog bed near the end of the bar.

  The requisite espresso machine wasn’t a multi-throated monster like the Starbucks one she’d learned to work as a college-age barista going through hell and poverty. It was for making one drink at a time. Even now a big man with a graying ponytail and a tie the color of the sunset was working its controls with an easy confidence.

  Bridget was carrying a large calzone and a stack of plates to one of the tables off to the side where a couple and two children were chattering away in Italian. Bridget’s responses were fluent and Erica could feel the warmth of them despite the language barrier.

  Bridget came up to her as the bartender finished making the espresso…then began to drink it himself.

  “Better?” Bridget asked her.

  Erica could only smile. “Whole new person. I can’t thank you enough. The room is perfect.”

  “Molto bene! Now, what can I get you?”

  “Um,” Erica looked around. All of the tables were full. “Where?” She didn’t want to go looking for somewhere else to eat.

  “Hmm… Ah!” Bridget snagged her arm. Not a mere grip, but looping her arm through Erica’s like they were old friends. Bridget turned her about and guided her back out the front door to one of the tiny round tables facing the carruggio just as it vacated.

  “Perfect!” Erica couldn’t believe her luck.

  “Perfetto!” Bridget filled in.

  “Perfetto!” she agreed and took a seat. The last brilliance of the multi-colored sunset lit the golden stone walls of the buildings across the street with warm red.

  Bridget was waiting. Oh, for her to order. And the place was very busy. Yet she didn’t act hurried.

  “Could I have something local? Authentic?”

  Bridget just glowed. “I will have Hal make you an espresso and then I’ll make you a dish to welcome you to Liguria.” She whisked away, pausing to admire a child, tease a man, and admire a new scarf of airy silk that was amazingly Italian-elegant. She looked down at her good blouse and jeans and then searched for something else to look at.

  The cobbled narrow street lay before her.

  Carruggio!

  It was the word that had always made her dream of Italy. Towns that knew being a pedestrian was a good thing. Interactions, impossible while zipping to suburban malls in traffic-jammed lines of cars, suddenly happened on quiet, shadowed streets. (Not shadowed like dark and dangerous. Shadowed like cool spots tucked away from the hot sun so that warmth was always just a step away, her internal voice clarified.) Even as a little girl she’d dreamed of the slow pace and easy friendliness. Perhaps she’d watched too many movies, but she wanted all that. That and more.

  It was all so peaceful. So Italian. So—

  A big American motorcycle came thudding up, close beside the building. With an arrogance that proved the rider was also American, he barely pulled it to one side before parking. Another six inches and he’d be on the carruggio. It was a monster of a machine, like the kind that rode on big American highways.

  She knew nothing about motorcycles, but this one looked old in style yet brand new. It had a little Indian-head lamp mounted on its curved front fender that appeared to be searching for a tomahawk to scalp her with—if it only had arms. The metal was a glossy burgundy accented with white pinstriping. The fenders covered the top half of each wheel in a manly swoop. Large saddlebags hung at the rear, but the bike was all about the massive, bright-chromed engine that dominated the machine.

  When the man pulled off his helmet, he revealed a dark tan. His near-black hair fell to the collar of his Fendi jacket, which emphasized his broad shoulders. Entirely too handsome for his own good, just like the fair-haired Dwayne. He didn’t remove his sunglasses despite the descending evening, giving him a dangerous look as he climbed off the machine and stood there as if he owned the world in his faded jeans and black boots.

  What would that feel like? That easy surety? She couldn’t imagine.

  Erica felt that the motorcycle needed little-girl streamers off the ends of the handlebars to complete the picture. The thought made her smile.

  * * *

  Ridley now knew exactly why he’d come to Italy. He was even willing to bless the stupid chiuso sign that had turned him back.

  She wasn’t his type: he had a major weakness for tall, leggy brunette models with hair down to their ass and a chest that never stopped giving. The woman at the small table couldn’t top five-six or a hundred and ten pounds. Her neatly collar-long hair had a deep auburn red that the sunset only accentuated. Her face was nearly elfin in its fineness, with just a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Her wide brown eyes should be too big for her face, but they weren’t.

  She sat at a small table aiming a smile at him that could put the Italian sun to shame.

  Then she turned that same electric smile to a woman, who was much more his type, as she set an espresso on the tiny table before disappearing back inside.

  The smile didn’t diminish, but neither did it turn again in his direction. Instead she was looking up at the wall of stone buildings and offering them her radiant attention. He looked up, but saw nothing special that could so hold her attention—towering stone that nearly touched from either side of a slit of dark sky.

  When he looked back down, she was inspecting him, but the radiance had gone away leaving behind a pretty woman with freckles across her nose. He’d moved several steps closer without realizing.

  “Parle…” No. “Parli…” What had the old guy said? Shit! He really had to learn some of the language. If this one slipped away because he had no Italian, he was gonna be pissed.

  She watched him steadily with those big browns.

  He’d settle for pidgin to keep her engaged. “Corniglia?” Ridley waved a hand at the town.

  “Sì,” she nodded.

  “Il Cane?”

  She shrugged. She wore a shining walnut-brown blouse that would have put lesser eyes to shame. It flowed over her trim figure in gentle waves. Nice shoulders accented by the light blue shawl that had slipped down around her upper arms.

  Stumped, he looked around. The only other directions he had was carruggio and it was obvious that part he’d already achieved.

  A sharp snarl drew his attention to somewhere around his feet. A knee-high brown-and-white spaniel with bulging eyes glared at him. Not quite to bared teeth yet, but definitely not welcome.

  “Snoop, shhh,” the woman reached out a hand and the dog shifted to her side for a scratch.

  “Hell of a guardian.”

  * * *

  “Sì.” Erica was going to find out where to buy doggie biscuits and make sure that Snoop was set up for life. However, there was only so long she could keep the motorcyclist at bay with that one word of Italian.

  Then it registered—past her inattention—the man had spoken English: “Hell of a guardian.” She even knew the accent. It was American English, not England English. More, it was Northern Californian…and she was doing the justifying things in her head again. But it was like hearing a voice from home, even if it was a decade in her past. Still, staying safe behind her one word of Italian seemed like a good idea. Actually she had more than that: buonasera, and Bridget had given her perfetto and mia amica. That had been her first real Italian word: “my friend.” How portentous. It boded well for her vacation. Or trip. Or last hope. Or whatever this was.

  “Mia amica,” she told Snoop as she pet his head. Or, since Snoop was male, was there supposed to be some other ending: Mio amico? Mio-myo ami-mayo? She needed to learn the phrase for “my hero.”

  Quite why she didn’t want to reveal herself to the motorcyclist—definitely ignoring any unintended innuendo of that wording—was baffling. He was just your typical, full-of-himself male and she’d had more than enough of that with the man she’d never think of again.

  Then he pointed at Snoop, “Il cane.” Ca-nay.

  She had no idea.

  “The do
g.” He twisted to look at the café and nearly flattened Bridget along with Erica’s dinner. “Excuse me. Is this The Dog Café? Ist es— No, that’s German. Crap!” He finally just pointed at the café. “Il Cane?”

  Erica couldn’t help herself and laughed aloud. “Yes, Snoop is a dog.”

  “You speak English. Thank god!” The fervency of his relief had her laughing again. He shoved up his sunglasses and dropped into the seat across from her without even asking.

  It would have knocked their knees together if he hadn’t sprawled in the chair and stuck his legs out to the side, perhaps hoping to trip any unsuspecting passersby thinking it was safe to walk the carruggio.

  His dark hair and deep tan only accented his blue-grey eyes. They were so unexpected that it gave her a jolt. What else was unexpected about him?

  “Is this place Il Cane? The dog? Or is only the dog the dog? Wow, that didn’t make much sense.”

  Bridget set a bowl and a monstrous glass of white wine on the table. The wine captured the reds of the fading evening and the golds of the café lights. But that wasn’t what riveted Erica’s attention. It was a large white bowl filled with an enormous portion of cheese tortellini, liberally mixed with shrimp and mussels, all drowned in a pesto so deeply green that she wanted to dive in like it was a magic sea. A chunk of focaccia big enough to use as a life raft in case of emergency water landings was tucked at the side.

  “Oh my. Bridget, there’s no way I can eat all this.”

  “Trust me. You will walk it off. Tourists in Cinque Terre burn many, many calories on our steep hills.” Then she turned to the motorcyclist. Erica could feel the sudden temperature drop and looked back up in surprise.

  Snoop hadn’t liked the stranger either.

  “Yes, this is Il Cane.” No effusive welcome. No mia amica.

  “Great!” The guy appeared to be too oblivious to notice the lack of welcome. “This guy, name of Conrad, said you might have a room. I hit that stupid road-closed sign a couple hours back. At least it seems like a couple hours. I need a room for the night. I can’t imagine riding back out of here; I could barely follow that twisting excuse for a road in broad daylight. I’m Ridley, by the way. Ridley Claremont.” He said it all in one breathless American rush.