by Liz Newman
Skye examined her pinky for loose skin around the cuticle. She chewed around her finger, biting off the skin and gnawing on it, an old habit resumed from a childhood long since abandoned.
Chapter Seventeen
The bleak, murky rain poured down on her head as she walked up the front steps to Talon’s townhome on the West End. The downpour felt dirty on her head, and for a brief second an unwelcome September eleventh assaulted her senses. Tears shed for Gibbs and her father coursed down her cheeks. Under the awning, she wiped the water from her forehead with the back of a trench coat sleeve and rang the bell. She waited for a minute, then turned the handle of the door and stepped inside.
From the foyer, she turned in a circle as she surveyed a home decorated in masculine shades of brown and burgundy. A roaring fire burned in a fireplace big enough to roast a pig, and most of the walls housed bookcases. Groups of smartly dressed elders nodded to her, and a child darted in front of her, with another child in dogged pursuit, their shiny black loafers pounding on the Turkish carpets.
The child giving chase stopped at her pointed black high heels. He looked up at her, his wide blue eyes staring at her from under thick, long bangs. “Who’re you?” he said in English brogue.
“I’m Skye,” she said, bending over to his level. “Who are you?”
“Ronald,” he said. “Ronald Rolan.”
“Well, you sound like you’re going to be somebody famous someday.”
“Not Ronald Reagan! Ronald Rolan.”
“My mistake,” Skye said with irritation.
“You’re pretty. Can I have a kiss?”
She looked at him suspiciously as he puckered. She bent down and pointed at her cheek, and he shook his head. “That’s as good as it’s going to get, kid,” she said.
He stuck his tongue out and let out a wet raspberry straight into her ear, then he laughed and ran away.
“Ronald,” a stately, middle-aged man called after the boy. “Ronald. Come back and apologize.” Ronald disappeared into the crowd and the man followed him, his voice softly chastising. The two did not reappear. Skye dabbed at her face with a tissue.
She ran her hands over leather-bound books by authors such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, and Doyle. The titles seemed to belong to someone else. She couldn’t imagine her father reading these classics. She’d never seen him reading even a periodical in depth, only occasionally flipping through any form of literature present while waiting for her mother to tell him where to go and what to do. He flew to his various life tasks, on his way from one place to another. She imagined her mother must have kept him on his toes the entire time they were married.
Bocelli played at a low volume on speakers built into the ceiling in every room of the house, followed by Sange. Skye poured herself a drink and went in search of her father’s coffin.
The middle-aged gentleman who had gone after the boy appeared in front of her and stretched out his hand. “Good afternoon. My name is Dr. James Roland. Sorry about my grandson. He’s at a precocious age. Are you Talon’s daughter?”
Skye nodded and shook his hand.
They admired his book collection for a moment. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Very well-read man. Sometimes he wouldn’t let me move from that chair until he read a quote or paragraph to me. I never found the object of insistence unworthy of immediate attention. Well, perhaps once.” Dr. Roland smiled.
“My father…will miss your friendship,” Skye said, for lack of anything else to say, as she knew nothing about her father’s life after the divorce. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Dr. Roland replied. “Such a joy to meet you at last. Talon adored you. He would show us the tapes of your show.” Dr. Roland gently caressed a woman’s arm, and she turned around. A serene and pleasant smile beamed from her sweet face. “This is my wife, Diane. Diane, this is Skye.”
“Talon spoke so highly of you. So highly,” Diane said enthusiastically as she grasped Skye’s hand gently. “Let me introduce you. So many loved him.” Diane brought Skye from group to group, and Skye forgot their names immediately, but the crinkle of their eyes and the pleasant greetings in their voices made the hole in her heart not quite so empty.
An olive-skinned woman made her way from the kitchen carrying a large platter on which rested a tenderly roasted bird. “In honor of Talon’s Roast Turkey Day,” she said, and the group raised their glasses and toasted.
“Every year, when Americans observed Thanksgiving, Talon would throw a Roast Turkey Day. Brits aren’t much in celebrating that holiday, as you might imagine. We always hoped you would come.”
“No one…invited me,” Skye stammered.
“Oh, dear,” Diane said. “There must have been a miscommunication. In any event, I hope you enjoy Talon’s special recipe. He would rub the turkey with Dijon mustard and baste it with butter while roasting. Heavenly!”
“Has my father been buried already? I thought we would be going to the cemetery.”
“He wished to be cremated, and his ashes placed in an urn and set on the fireplace mantel. Right here.” Diane gestured to a marble urn. “The urn embodies Talon. Silent, strong, unmoved. Such a wonderful man.”
Silent, strong, unmoved? Skye thought. Those words certainly didn’t match the description of the father she knew. Jitterbug was a far more accurate description.
Mrs. Grace Charles sang at the top of her lungs, while her husband, Allen Charles, a concert pianist, played somberly on the piano. A light feeling hung in the air, a sense of melancholy. Skye felt she kept the company of fellow revelers who celebrated a life., A crowd of mourners filled their plates, but the guests picked up after themselves, and the home remained immaculate. Only Millie quietly unwrapped trays of homemade food from the kitchen and placed them on the dining room table.
Hours passed, and still the guests remained, speaking softly among themselves and occasionally laughing together. They wanted to remain in Talon’s company for as long as possible, and if they stepped outside these walls, the sense of his presence would disappear forever. Skye sighed at the sight of Talon’s friends, who shared stories about the man over games of chess and bridge. This man they described, who she never knew, sounded like someone everyone had liked. She’d never known him to have friends or interests outside her mother, and in many ways once he escaped from her shadow, the man she knew of as her father ceased to exist for her. When free from the shadow of Carolyn, Talon somehow became a man of dignity and talent, if friends indeed defined the truth of who a person really was.
Millie looked like a woman who had frozen to a sculpture in the prime of her life. Her unlined face emanated maturity, and her eyes were deep-set with heavy eyelids that were sultry, not bug-like. She sat beside Skye on the brown leather sofa and began to speak. “He tried to contact you and invite you to London. For years. Carolyn insisted you were too busy and too hurt to see him. Here are the letters he wrote to you that were returned.” Millie handed Skye dozens of envelopes marked Return to Sender, some in Carolyn’s pristine handwriting, and some imitating the scrawly, bubbly script of a teenager.
Skye examined the writing. “I didn’t ask for these letters to be returned. I swear I never saw them before today.” On closer examination, the characteristics of her mother’s handwriting in the imitation of Skye’s teenage script jumped out at her. Skye wiped tears from her eyes.
Millie grasped Skye’s hands gently in hers. “He thought it best, after a long time, to respect your wishes and let you go.”
After their conversation, Skye uttered polite goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. She returned to her hotel room and read and slept, calling down to the hotel’s restaurant for toast and tea, then reading and sleeping again. She could not finish one article or one chapter of any book she attempted to read. Her conversation with Millie disturbed her. She forced the memory away, deep down inside where Gibbs lay buried.
Yet deep in the chasm of her mind, Millie’s words echoed. He
thought it best, after a long time, to respect your wishes and let you go.
***
The morning sun reflected off the glittering pavement at Aero Puerto Leonardo da Vinci. Skye removed her sunglasses and squinted in the daylight. Her father’s funeral had taken place three days before in London, and she still hadn’t adjusted to the time change. She waited for a cab, lost in the shadows of painful memories.
The sound of a backfiring taxi tore Skye from her memories, bringing her back to her present state of waiting out on the sidewalk at the airport for transportation. A traffic guard gestured her over to a taxi, and Skye threw her handbag over her shoulder and rolled her bag to the waiting clunker, which resembled a miniature jalopy. A jovial, fifty-something year-old driver in a brown newsboy cap wobbled out and greeted her. His squat rump waddled from side to side with his arms and legs bowled outward, looking like a human ape undertaking a tedious, routine task. Despite her grogginess and dismal mood, a chuckle wiggled up beneath her ribcage. She suppressed it quickly and from the smoothness of her forehead and her intense expression, to the outside world the momentary desire to laugh never existed.
The jalopy shook and rattled as the vehicle made its way onto the expressway. Skye examined the flecks of gray streaks in the thick, coarse brown hair peeking out from the driver’s cap, extending so far into the driver’s collar she determined his hairline had no end. They passed a billboard advertising an orange soda pop called Mega Babul. Big bubble. Skye made a mental note to ship a case to Denny before her trip ended.
The driver watched her smile in the rearview mirror. “Americana, no?”
“Si,” said Skye.
“Myself, for a time, too. I live for eight years in New York, as a much younger man. I work at the sandwich shop on Canal and West Broadway.” The driver pronounced the English language well enough, with a hint of leftover Yankee brogue in his pleasant Italian accent.
“A fellow New Yorker. I feel fortunate,” she said. They exchanged names and pleasantries. A few moments of silence passed by with the distance traveled.
“So, you are going to Villa Pastiere. Are you a relative of the Signora?”
“A friend,” said Skye as she watched another billboard advertising a local restaurant.
“A close friend?” The driver watched in the rearview mirror for her response.
“Not really.”
“She and I were once very close friends. Very good friends. I was a much younger man then; much more handsome. Very, very close friends. I call her my girlfriend, but she never belonged to me. So she said afterward.”
Skye appraised the man’s hooked nose and head resembling and smelling like a bulb of peeled garlic and decided the man could have never been handsome, no matter how young. “Truthfully, I’ve never met her,” Skye said.
The man took this admonition as an invitation to speak candidly. “A devastating, scandalous woman, the Signora Luciana. When I was a boy, she would run out to the gates of the villa, calling to the boys and dancing in circles with her top cut very low, showing us her first brassiere. How we would crowd at the gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. She acted strange, so her father locked her away at the villa. He told the neighbors she was unfit even to attend school. The women of the town said demons possessed her. Di oil mio.” He crossed himself and kissed the rosary hanging from his neck.
“When her father moved back to his estate in Puglia,” the driver continued, “and left her in the care of the housemaid, she became very drunk and ran away from home. Jumped into the Trevi fountain in a white see-through dress with no undergarments, surrounded by locals and tourists alike, all taking pictures. Fourteen years of age.” He laughed heartily. “I believe she had just watched Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita. The police pulled her out and brought her home, and when her father arrived, he roared all the way across the banks of the Tiber.” Skye nodded, encouraging the driver to continue, as her interest in her hostess piqued.
“The elder Luciana shouted so loud at times. He threatened the young boys of the neighborhood, warning them on pain of death to stay away from the impressionable young girl. It is said that her day of freedom came when he passed away from a heart attack. She had snuck away to Sardinia with the son of the cook. They sold some of the elder Signora Luciana’s jewelry and lived lavishly for almost a year. She returned home to Roma, destitute and very pregnant. Her father took one look at her, clutched his hand to his chest, and died. Many said she remained alone with him and waited for him to die at her feet before summoning assistance. The town tends to talk of these things. You will find many Romans have the most wonderful stories, most true.”
Skye, unsure of how to respond, simply nodded politely and stared out the window at the passing fields, attempting to decipher the symbols on signs dotting the expressway, only vaguely familiar words written on them. In New York, evening would have already blanketed the sky. The brightness of the sun shining into the cab caused Skye to shy away from it, making her feel like a vampire exposed to the burning daylight.
“Great tragedy plagues the house of Luciana,” the driver went on. “Shortly after the father’s untimely death, his lovely wife and firstborn son were killed in a plane crash. The ItaliAir accident.”
“I remember reading about that perusing the archives, when I was an intern. People speculated that a bomb blew up the plane,” Skye mused.
“Many perished. Cecilia adored her older brother, and he doted on his sister. She wished to find a man who would take the place of him in her broken heart.”
The shaky trolley rumbled up to a decrepit stone wall. Each cobblestone on the road in front of the gate sent a bump through the car seat, tenderizing Skye’s tailbone. The driver punched in a number on the call box. An old woman’s voice answered, and the driver spoke in rapid Italian. The black gates opened wide, and the car puttered through. The driveway sloped downward steeply over the smooth, fresh pavement, and rose gently into a courtyard, the same courtyard in the picture with the cascading tiered fountain. Yawning arms of emerald green foliage beckoned the jalopy cab toward the house. The driver unloaded the vehicle’s trunk. “Bon Fortuna. I hope you enjoy your stay in this beautiful land.” He drove off, the engine puttering back out and up the steep incline, backfiring as the driver’s head bobbed back and forth with the force of the motion. Skye watched the car turn down the cobbled main road, leaving behind a billowing cloud of gray smoke.
Her eyes took in the wide, two-story villa, the balconies and carved stone boxes were overflowing with elegant annual flowers. Camellias and rhododendrons flanking the door charmed her, sprawling widely as if inviting her to come inside and make herself at home. The heavy wooden doors opened, and a thick, matron stepped out and bowed her head in greeting. She handed Skye a slip of paper that read My name is Annabelle. Welcome to Villa Pastiere. If you require anything, please let me be of service to you.
Annabelle had gray hair and parched, wrinkled skin. She grunted as she lifted Skye’s bags. Skye watched, amazed, as Annabelle threw a garment bag over her shoulder, hoisted a trunk under her arm, and walked into the house with a large wheeled bag clutched in one hand, rolling behind her stocky frame.
“Let me help you,” Skye protested.
Annabelle ignored her and lumbered into the grand foyer, stopping at a curving marble staircase, and yelling into the house. “Giuseppe! Vien. Andiamo!”
An elderly, stocky man trotted in through open glass double doors facing the rear gardens. His mottled skin hung loosely from his cheekbones. Dull blue eyes glanced at Skye and crinkled into a smile, and his bulbous nose filled his face. Annabelle spoke rapidly in Italian to Giuseppe, and pointed at Giuseppe’s back, signaling Skye to follow him.
Giuseppe walked up the stairs to the hallway, making turn after turn until Skye felt dizzy. Finally, he pushed open the door to a guest suite. A bed with majestic pillars and a stepladder dominated the of the room. Crystal lamps and ornate rugs added touches of elegance to the décor, and an oil paintin
g of a heavily tanned, platinum blonde wearing a large emerald necklace hung over the bed.
Giuseppe placed her bags down on the ground and asked, “Può io?” Skye nodded, and he unpacked her bags, removing dresses from their encasements and hanging them up in the armoire, placing folded shirts and pants into the drawers and neatly lining up toiletries on a vanity table. Skye inspected the bathroom and gaped at the vision of solid marble and gold leafed countertops and double sinks. Fluffy, stark white Egyptian cotton towels were stacked on shelves by the soaking tub, and a sumptuous robe and brand new shrink wrapped spa slippers hung invitingly from a cloth hanger on the far wall.
Giuseppe finished unpacking. Skye thanked him and attempted to give him a few Euros. He waved her money away and shut the door behind him.
Skye placed the bills back into her wallet. She opened the floor-to-ceiling drapes, revealing a set of glass double doors. Opening the doors, she stepped out onto a balcony and admired the rear gardens of the villa. From her vantage, Skye estimated the grounds surrounding the main house of the villa to be at least three acres. In the middle of the rear courtyard, crowning the vast garden, reigned a large fountain shaped like a double tiered urn embellished with carved, spouting lion heads, their expressions in a perpetual snarl. A gorgeous array of plants and foliage surrounded the fountain terrace and swept out into the sweeping green fields dotted with stone cottages beyond. There were areas of freshly tilled soil and spots of new plantings, but much of the glorious flora appeared to have thrived here for hundreds of years. Filling her lungs with deep breaths of the floral-scented air, she gripped the edge of the balcony; it occurred to her she could spend days exploring the villa and its gardens alone.