Path of Love

by M. L. Buchman

  * * *

  Erica’s glare answered that question.

  “Okay, not my most tactful. But you’ve got to admit that it’s pretty funny.”

  “Bridget thought so as well. Personally, I’m having difficulty finding the humor in the whole mess.” Ridley supposed he could see why.

  “Glad you’re okay.”

  “Why?”

  She was the strangest woman he’d ever met. Even such a simple pleasantry was taken apart and investigated. She’d practically run a Spanish Inquisition—and not in some comedic Monty Python sense of the word—about his relationship with Clarence and Evangene. He’d never told anyone so much about them. The hurt at them shutting him out when he was little. Which had grown into anger at how they’d dismissed Bibi no matter how hard she tried to be nice to them. And finally active hatred—though he hadn’t even realized that was there inside him until he told Erica about them burning his grandfather’s motorcycle.

  “I’m just glad you aren’t hurt. Shaken, not stirred.” Again with the dumb line. That Conrad guy had gotten under his skin, poking him about why he cared. Though it no longer felt like an idle question. Picturing Erica wracked up and alone in an Italian hospital was a foul image. Especially when compared to the lovely woman who ate so neatly that he felt like a pig in his wallow, getting so self-conscious that he’d ended up with a pomegranate-soaked pastry-thing—which hadn’t been a good combo.

  It made him think of Bibi, or rather her shattered remnant, lying in the hospital bed and wired to the myriad machines that had sustained her for so little time. When the doctors had deemed her case hopeless, he had insisted on pulling the plugs himself.

  No one, absolutely no one—especially not his brothers—were ever going to touch Bibi’s life or death in any way ever again. He’d buried her beside Father and made it clear to his brothers that if they ever tried to change that, he’d first burn the winery to the ground and then he’d hunt them down personally. With good reason, they’d believed him and left her to lie beside the man she loved. To be sure, he had his lawyer check the graveyard once a month and leave flowers—perhaps the most expensive flower delivery service ever and worth every penny.

  Bibi and Erica had both gone over cliffs and it was suddenly very important that Erica hadn’t been injured or worse by her descent. Protective was not a verb he’d ever applied to himself about women, at least other than his mom. He was fast growing attached to the idea.

  “I’m an expert at vacationing,” he announced. “Let’s go.” They’d talked. She’d kept him talking until the sun was well up and the carruggio was lively with the first tourists.

  She followed him reluctantly to her feet. “I was thinking I would go—” He could hear the word “alone” coming to the fore.

  “None of that,” Ridley cut her off. “First rule of vacations: no thinking.” He held out an arm.

  She eyed him like he was a lunatic.

  “It’s Italy. Even friends often walk arm-in-arm.”

  “And we’re friends now?” Her tone was amused rather than acerbic. Progress!

  “Sure. You know all about my evil half brothers. Now you can tell me about your evil stepsisters.”

  After another hesitation, she slipped her fingers around his elbow, and he barely resisted the urge to lay his free hand over them. He liked the way her light touch made him feel. Again that word “protective” wandered by uninvited.

  He stopped them at the threshold. “Which way?”

  “I thought you were the expert on vacationing.”

  “Sure, done it my whole life, I guess. On vacation, the direction doesn’t matter. There’s an adventure waiting along every path. It’s just a matter of choosing one.”

  “But how do you know which…” She trailed off before completing the question. Then she looked up at him.

  She barely reached his shoulder. Yet when that smile went bright and lit her eyes, she made him feel ten feet tall.

  “That way,” Erica pointed to the right along the carruggio. “I went off that way last night, but I didn’t see much. What with it being dark…and all.”

  “And all,” he acknowledged her softening tone. In the state she’d left their table, she probably could have walked square into a wall and not seen it. But asking why? Even he knew that would be a bad move at the moment. Instead he prompted her with, “Evil stepsisters.”

  “Cindy, Cin for short, is the oldest and the only one to remember her real mother before the cancer took her. Her nickname is like a stupid joke, but she could never shed it. She’s the straightest-laced girl you can imagine. She has the sense of humor of a rock.”

  Ridley hadn’t seen much of that in Erica either, but kept his mouth shut. At the first storefront, he guided her toward the door.

  “What?” Erica ground to a halt.

  “Store. Shopping.” He knew women liked shopping.

  “Where?”

  He had to laugh. “See the purses?” Three leather purses and a nice sandal had been looped over a wire that had been tacked into the mortar of the stonework. The low door was cracked open against the cool morning. In the shadowed interior, he could see a narrow display counter. He swung the door open and tugged her along.

  “Buongiorno,” a blonde who looked more Californian hippie artist than Italian merchant greeted them. Then continued with, “Welcome into Italia.” Her accent and halting English said that she was authentic despite first impressions. Also that she was sharp-eyed enough to see that Erica was newly arrived and out of her depth.

  Along the stone walls were vertical racks of scarves, pretty tablecloths, and other girly things. Jackpot.

  “All Corniglia artisti,” the woman waved a hand over the jewelry in the display case.

  A little gaudy for Ridley’s taste, but there were one or two pieces that would look good on Erica.

  But she had drifted away and was inspecting a tiny purse of well-tooled leather that dangled from a long thin strap. Big enough for a wallet and a small tube of sunscreen. He kept half an eye on her as she hung it over her shoulder, twisted to look down at where it hung by her hip, then—after peeking at the price tag—hung it back up. He made a note of which one it was. Maybe he’d come by later and get it for her.

  He spotted a wallet clearly done by the same artisan. He tapped the display case, “S’il vous plaît.”

  The woman giggled at him, then corrected him with, “Per favore.”

  He still had France on the brain, if no longer French women. As a matter of fact, under other circumstances, the blonde shopkeeper could be interesting. She had an easy smile and began telling him about the leatherworker in a relaxed manner far more effective than any sales tactics.

  He also noticed how she slid her name, Claire, in very smoothly. Clair Dowar was an MP in Skyfall, but she’d kind of been a bitch, so he wouldn’t use that. Claire Danes had been serious eye candy, and not half bad in The Family Stone that some Silicon Valley tech heiress had dragged him into. They looked enough alike for that to be a memory jog.

  “Is molto belle.”

  He’d assume Claire was talking about the wallet being very good, despite her tone. It was well made, with a nice feel.

  “Need a new wallet?” Erica had slid up to his elbow without him noticing. There was a quietness about her that was intriguing. No flaunting, no begging for attention that was so easy to give. One moment she wasn’t there, the next she simply was.

  “Not really. But maybe something to remember Italy by.”

  “You only just arrived and you’re already leaving? Let’s see your old one.”

  He pulled it out. It looked brand new. It practically was. Belgian Cordovan leather, designer label, it reeked of money—like the Fendi jacket he’d left hanging in his room.

  She didn’t touch either one, just raised an eyebrow at him. Just one. Damn she was cute. She was also right.

  He handed the Italian one back to Claire, who put on a very Italian pout that she clearly knew looked good
on her.

  “Moving along?” he asked Erica.

  She nodded, and they stepped back out onto the street. He peeked through the unlit windows of a small restaurant. Seven…eight tables packed the narrow space from one stone wall to the other beneath an arched ceiling. Wine bottles lined every ledge. He couldn’t quite read the chalkboard, but it looked as if the upper half was wines and the lower half food. Definitely his kind of place.

  “What is it with you and wine?”

  * * *

  Ridley changed when he talked about wine. The casual charmer slid away as if he’d never existed. Without naming his family’s winery—which earned him points for not playing the obvious wealth card—he talked about growing up with the wine.

  “I was worse than a stray dog, following Father and Marissa from the moment I could walk.”

  “Let me guess. Marissa is beautiful.”

  “A gorgeous Latina. Having a serious crush on her may be one of my first memories.”

  And he appeared wholly unabashed by the admission. Erica felt she should be repulsed, but there was something genuine about Ridley admitting it so freely.

  “The first vines I pruned,” he went right back to the important topic, the wine, and looked a little dreamy about it. “I couldn’t even reach the upper branches—probably not the middle ones either. But I knew what to keep and what to drop before I hit grade school. By junior high I could tell most of our wines apart blindfolded right down to the year. Our merlot I could even tell you which field the grapes had grown in.”

  As he talked about things she’d never heard of from soil acidity to tensiometers (which had something to do with soil moisture and nothing to do with tension in any way she understood) to sling psychrometers versus capacitive hygrometers (whatever either of those were), Erica could see that there was structure to all of the elements. She’d never given any real thought to what went on behind a wine, but with each passing moment the complexity increased. She started to understand why they were twenty dollars or more per bottle whereas a six pack of decent beer was half that.

  They ambled past a cantina, little bigger than her bedroom at the B&B but lined with three television screens all showing different soccer games. Even at this hour, several men were crowded about the tiny tables, their cappuccinos forgotten at their fingertips as they watched the screens intently.

  “Isn’t it a little early for soccer?”

  Ridley looked around until he spotted the screens. “Season’s well started I’d think. The World Cup is June, July. Something like that.” So, he wasn’t one of those sports guys, which was a relief. With Dwayne she’d found it useful to learn all of the Boston teams, their lineups, and records. And their primary adversaries.

  “They seem awfully intent.”

  “It’s Italy.” Which was actually an interesting statement. It answered a number of questions. Why were Italian fathers pushing baby strollers at least as often as the women? It’s Italy. How did they both manage to look so elegant despite the baby and a toddler running loose? It’s Italy. She’d have to remember that.

  For a while, Ridley even joined in a game of what else was true, just because it was Italy. It passed the time as they wandered through a kitschy souvenir shop, past a café setting up tables around a small war memorial in a tiny square dominated by two olive trees, and a gelato shop that wasn’t open but would be soon. She couldn’t wait to have her first Italian gelato.

  The surface of the street was made up of thousands, perhaps millions of rounded beach stones all set on edge in cement. It might have been done a thousand years ago. Every stone, regardless of size, had been set so that the tops were level. The lines of stones struck patterns of light and dark, of angles and swirls. The incredible patience to do this was another thing she’d never really thought about.

  For the last twelve years she’d been deep in the hustle of business. More than that if she counted the summer internships during her undergrad work at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.

  And yet someone long ago had taken the time to painstakingly set every stone along the entire carruggio. It twisted back and forth as it narrowed toward the end. Another B&B, another shop. It was all starting to blur as the ancient stone buildings seemed to squeeze in, threatening to crush her for her presumption of coming to Italy. Or thinking she could have a life in the first place. These buildings had spanned so many centuries that her visit was less than the flap of a butterfly’s wings to them. So what purpose did her presence serve? Here? In her life?

  Up broad stone steps of slate, Ridley was still expounding on sugar content and refractometers. Was he even aware of how much he knew for someone who had never “had a job”?

  Or of how little she knew of how to be a woman? How to be human? She was a walking, breathing, business machine. That’s what she’d honed herself into. What possible purpose could she have here?

  Ridley’s hand rested easily over her frozen fingers, trapping them to his elbow. It was all that kept her from flight. Back to the B&B, back to Boston, all the way back to San Francisco. Where she would serve even less purpose than a single stone worked into this Italian street.

  She needed to be gone. To get away from everyone. Everything. Herself. She could just—

  “Now that’s seriously awesome!” Ridley came to a halt.

  Her trapped hand stopped her as well.

  She blinked away the darkness and saw that they had emerged from the narrow shadows of the carruggio. At the very end of the street there was a small patio. It had a stout stone wall barely waist-high—all that separated them from a fifty-story plunge down into the Mediterranean.

  She’d been here last night. In the dark. Sat on the wall unaware of the vast fall mere inches away. Oh, she’d seen the ocean, but she’d missed the drama. Edging up to the balustrade, she peeked over the edge. It was a sheer plunge down to the rocks and the pounding waves below. One slouch the wrong way…she shivered at the close call.

  “Look, there are the other towns,” Ridley was pointing down the coast. “You forget how close they are. Monterosso, Vernazza.” Then he turned the other way. “Hard to see Manarola, but I think that’s Riomaggiore peeking out down there.”

  She forced herself to look where he indicated. Slowly, so slowly, the dark spell cast on her by some evil wizard abated. The need to run back to America faded. Her desperation to lock herself in her cloistered tower eased. It took her some time, but finally she was standing in the Mediterranean sun, admiring the view, with her hand caught around a surprisingly handsome man’s arm.

  Erica finally managed a breath that didn’t sound as if it was trying to become a whimper. If she could just hang on to…

  “This gives me an idea. Stay here, I’ll be right back.” And Ridley was gone.

  Erica could feel herself wavering unsteadily, as if she was indeed perched atop Dwayne’s ass-enhancing stilt sandals.

  She could do this. Piece by piece she pulled herself together. She didn’t need a man. Not even one as unexpectedly pleasant as Ridley. She could look at the scenery and not think about how much of her life was on hold. Enjoying Italy didn’t mean that she wasn’t herself.

  But there was a dark canyon there that was hard to skirt around the edges…who was herself? She didn’t even know anymore. It was—

  “Chocolate or vanilla? They had so many flavors that I figured we better start simple and pace ourselves.” Ridley held out two small cones of gelato. “I’m thinking chocolate, it matches your eyes. They’re great eyes by the way.”

  She took the vanilla. He shrugged easily, bit into his chocolate, and made a loud yummy sound.

  “So much better, don’t you think?”

  Erica tasted the vanilla. It was good. And she wasn’t going to see it as a metaphor for the choices she’d made in her past. Plain vanilla.

  No!

  Instead, that was who she had been.

  Maybe she’d find a flavor of gelato to tell her who she’d be next.


  * * *

  Ridley sat on his tiny balcony long after sunset and cradled a half-finished glass of the Cantina Cinque Terre DOC. Banana and a touch of mint on the nose. A rich lemon on the palate with a mint and salt finish. Young, fresh, full of life.

  It reminded him of Bibi. Even when he was being a total shit of a male teenager, she’d never lost that gift—always finding the joy in everything. She’d laugh at his moods. Tease Father when he grew too grumpy about business problems or poor rainfall. Where had she found that endless supply?

  Only once, after they’d both had too much wine, had she told him about her past. She never told him her real name, her name before Bibi, so he couldn’t hunt down her bastard father and torture him to death for the abuse he’d heaped on a young girl. But he’d certainly thought about hiring a PI and doing it anyway. Except he knew it would make Bibi unhappy if he did.

  “I was born that day I snuck into the theater, a half-starved street urchin, to lose myself for a few hours in a James Bond movie. I chose my name and my future and I’ve gotten it beyond my wildest dreams. Tell me why I would waste a minute on the past.”

  And now he’d met another. How could a woman look so happy about vanilla gelato? And yet Erica had. Who would have thought that two euros of gelato could light up a woman that much.

  Yet despite spending the day together, earning him a handshake of thanks—of all ridiculous things—he still knew almost nothing about her. She was like a bottle of 1934 Private Reserve—too expensive to open and risk finding out what hid beneath the cork. Forever sealed. Traded in the blind from one collector to another but never opened.

  “Never had a job.” That one rankled. He hadn’t been able to shed it all day. The tiny scraps that Erica let out all pointed to a deeply committed workaholic. Had he ever dated one? Not that he could think of. He’d certainly never been one.

  Purpose? Drive? A dream?

  What was he lacking that he had none of those?

  He stared out into the night and pondered the dark hillside. Just beyond the edge of town, cliffs so steep that they’d be hard to walk soared up from the ocean. Yet every ten feet or so, a dry-laid stone wall with no cement or mortar made a little terrace. Each terrace had twenty or so vines in a tiny patch of dirt. Above it, another, then another. Stretching across the face of the hill as well. Hundreds of them were cultivated. A damn hard way to make wine.