That Winter in Venice

by Ciji Ware

  Jack eyed the formal sofa and nodded.

  An unreasonable rage had continued to boil inside her chest, but she forced a smile in an attempt to communicate that she wasn’t mad at him.

  “You’re being honorable and I’m being noble,” she said, somehow managing a chuckle that lightened the atmosphere. “But, man, are we missing one, all-time great, romantic opportunity!”

  Jack’s expression revealed his relief that she had stepped back from any further outburst. Then he startled her by seizing her hand and slowly inserting her index finger into his mouth, sending an avalanche of sparks up her arm and down her spine. Then he returned her hand to her lap.

  “You are absolutely right: we sure are missing out here,” he said, his voice husky with the same longing she couldn’t hide. “But we’ve both had a fair amount to drink tonight,” he added, one side of his mouth quirking upwards. “You might not feel the same about the ‘romance’ part in dawn’s sober light.”

  “It’s my choice how I’ll feel,” she said stubbornly.

  “Yes it is... but I feel I owe it to you, most of all, to officially break it off with Lauren before you and I launch this mad gondola into the waters of the Grand Canal, you know what I mean?”

  Serena tried to hide her disappointment and salvage her pride with another dose of humor.

  “Now you decide to be sensible. But you’re right.”

  “Yes... we both are.”

  “Do you want to use the bathroom first, or shall I?” she asked, relieved as well as disappointed that they both were being so levelheaded.

  “You go first, but before you do... come here,” he said gruffly and pulled her into his arms once more. His kisses soon became instant messages, telling her how much he regretted being such a gentleman after all.

  “This is totally nuts,” she whispered. “We’re here, in Venice, in my beautiful, Fortuny-festooned bed, kissing like... well, like crazy people!”

  “I know,” he said, looking miserable. “All I want to do right now is pin you on that mattress and—”

  “Now you just stop that trashy talk,” she whispered, bestowing a flurry of small kisses beneath his right ear. “But, if whatever has happened between you and me is to have any truth to it, your instincts, just now, are right.” She pulled away and shook her head sorrowfully. “We should be sensible.”

  “It’s killing me.”

  “Me, too. Maybe you should sleep on the couch in the lobby, after all? No one’s around until daybreak.”

  It was Jack’s turn to shake his head. “No. I want at least to be in the same room with you.”

  She leaned forward to cup her hands on either side of his face. “Okay. Let’s give our noble intentions a whirl. And now I’m going to brush my teeth,” she announced and quickly rose from the bed.

  Serena slipped into the bathroom where she donned her skin-tight flannel leggings and T-shirt that hung on a hook near the shower stall. She savagely grabbed her toothbrush, making the decision, as she gazed at her flushed reflection in the mirror, that she’d take her make-up off in the morning.

  After Jack’s turn using the facilities, he emerged from the bathroom, walked across the room to stand by the window and peered out. From the bed, Serena observed him gaze down at the narrow Traghetto della Madonnetta and, at the alley’s end, the tiny slice of the Grand Canal.

  “Mist and fog, now, too,” he announced over his shoulder. “And there’s no let up... it’s definitely still seriously snowing out there.” He crossed the room and once again sat on top of the covers by her side. “Sleepy?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “But tired?”

  “Exhausted.”

  He began stroking her hair and Serena felt her tense body beginning to relax.

  “Serena, I want you to know that I’ve loved every minute of the time we’ve spent here together.”

  Lying on her back, Serena smiled up at him, basking in the warmth beaming at her from above.

  “Me too,” she agreed. “Work and play. And Venice. What more could we ask for?”

  “Oh, I could think of a few things, but I’d better say goodnight.” He leaned over her and kissed her on each cheek, European fashion. “Sweet dreams, Contessa.”

  “Ah... promoting me to nobility for being so noble tonight. I like that.” And in that moment, she couldn’t bear for him to leave her side. Before he could pull away, she threaded her arms gently around his neck. “If I promise to be your good little Contessa, would you please sleep beside me tonight? You can be on top of the bedspread with an extra duvet that’s stored in the closet over there to keep you warm. And besides, look at how short that couch is.”

  Jack smiled but shook his head doubtfully.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”

  “We slept this close on the airplane coming over,” she cajoled him. “Surely we have the willpower to do it again.”

  Jack heaved a resigned sigh.

  “Fortunately for you,” he informed her, “that nightcap I consumed just before we left the restaurant is taking its toll... and you’ve just made me an offer that’s hard to refuse. Turn over on your side and I’ll get the blanket.”

  Jack rummaged in the mirror-fronted armoire for the extra white, down-filled duvet, and deposited it on the bed. She heard, rather than saw, him divest himself of his clothes, all but his underwear, she surmised. Then he extinguished the two wall sconces and the elaborate, gold-flecked Murano glass chandelier hanging over their heads.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” he announced and lay down on the bed, pulling the duvet over the length of him. He shifted his weight to snuggle against Serena’s backside, spoon-fashion, with sheets, blankets and a silk coverlet adding to the safety barrier separating them. He kissed her right shoulder.

  “No fair,” she murmured.

  “Just saying Buona notte.”

  “Buona notte, caro... sogni d’oro.”

  “Translation, please?”

  “Sweet dreams. Literally, ‘May you have golden sleep’.”

  “Golden sleep...” he whispered into her hair. “I wish you golden, golden sleep, too, Contessa.”

  Serena barely nodded, gently lulled to a state of semi-consciousness by the wine she’d consumed, the soothing warmth of Jack’s arms around her ribcage, and his whispered endearments in her ear.

  At dawn, Jack rose and for the first time, took in the sight of the room’s cascade of gold brocade curtains flanking the tall, balconied window and the matching brocade spilling from a gilded, ornately carved wooden crown attached high on the wall above the bed where Serena lay sound asleep.

  She does look like a Contessa... a Sleeping Beauty I could awake with a kiss...

  With a hollow feeling of regret, he donned his clothes and stadium coat, and then tapped out a text for her cellphone. In it, he reassured her that he would call her in two days when he got back from visiting three sets of massive, moveable gates being built underwater that were engineered to hold back any future storm surges into the Venice Lagoon. That is, if their builders could ever get all of them to function correctly in concert, he considered with the cynicism of a reporter long accustomed to promises never kept.

  Within minutes, he tiptoed from her room, down the staircase, and slipped out the front door even before proprietors of the guesthouse could suspect that he’d stayed the night.

  Serena put her cellphone on silent mode and hurried into Allegra’s main office just off the Calle Frezzaria behind the Piazza San Marco that was currently filled with about nine inches of tidal water. Several teams—nearly thirty people in all—from the costume atelier, the ball production group, and Allegra’s retail store managers had assembled for an emergency meeting.

  “I called you all together here,” Allegra began, speaking slowly in Italian for Serena’s benefit, “to get your thinking about a problem that has developed.”

  Those present exchanged worried glances, which served to heighten Serena’s appre
hension.

  Allegra explained that the previous week, she’d received a letter from a city official who made sudden, insistent demands that certain repairs be made at the palazzo she had rented “in order to assure the ‘safety of the event,’” she related. Her look of skepticism signaled to everyone that what was happening might simply be an old-fashioned Italian hands-out-for-a pay-off ploy.

  “I have not been able to reach the palazzo owners who are residing in their other home abroad,” Allegra explained, “but clearly, we must find a way to satisfy these officials and comply with the red tape in a manner that will not eat up all the profits from the ball—most of which I use, as you well know, to pay those of you in this room, along with nearly three hundred temporary workers that help us create Il Ballo di Carnevale each year.”

  Serena arched an anxious eyebrow at Rosa sitting next to her. The head seamstress nodded in silent agreement that their employer had never been involved in producing the extravagant night of entertainment solely for profits. Allegra’s business had prospered throughout financial ups and downs, subsidized to an extent by her costume sales and rentals and the success of her retail stores that sold luxurious women’s clothing accessories. Il Ballo was the manifestation of her own dream, an event to delight and dazzle the senses in the spirit of the original Carnevale. Serena had become convinced, now that she was working in Venice, that her mentor created the fantasy that was the ball purely for the love of her city and its history.

  “Our first step is to assess in more detail any legitimate claims of damage wrought by flooding over the years, as well as the unusual amounts of snow this year,” Allegra continued. “If the lower floors of the palazzo weren’t properly repaired in the aftermath of these previous extreme winter conditions, and if the waters rise again just prior to the ball... this could seriously threaten Il Ballo itself.”

  Everyone listening to her description of the possible dangers to their enterprise exchanged troubled glances.

  “Even though I don’t own the palazzo, we must learn the extent of what we may be facing and make a plan to fix anything that could thwart our holding this event,” Allegra urged, as those surrounding her began to nod in the affirmative. “I’ll need all of your help and any personal contacts you may have with government officials, as well as the names of any friends and family members in the business of repairing water damage.”

  Her words settled heavily in the room as her staff absorbed the ominous portent of her solemn pronouncements.

  Allegra then cast a glance at Serena, announcing to the assembled, “Our American colleague, Serena Antonelli, may have some connections that could be of significant help evaluating the problem, and perhaps even provide a way to approach certain high-level bureaucrats within the Ministry involved, yes, Serena?”

  Serena felt all eyes upon her and quickly lowered her gaze to the notes she’d been taking. She had totally forgotten even to bring up the subject with Jack, given their highly charged dinner date and the discussion that followed in her bedchamber. She struggled to compose herself and marshal her Italian vocabulary.

  “M-my American friend is a trained hydrologist and environmental journalist,” she began. Then to Allegra she said, “Right now, he’s on a field trip for several days with some high-level Italian colleagues, learning about the most recent advances in the construction of your mechanical water gates, but I will find out from him the names of people he knows that might be of help in a practical way to repair any damage—if the palazzo owners will agree—and see if he has any useful contacts within your government to help... ah... facilitate any permitting that may be required.”

  Serena felt guilty for having promised, before Jack even knew of her request, that he might reach out to his Italian counterparts. Fortunately, Allegra appeared satisfied by Serena’s answer and instructed her office assistant, Francesca, to start phoning a list of construction workers and Venetian officials she’d already been told by friends and colleagues might also be of help.

  Serena leaned back in her chair and tried to remember exactly when Jack had said he’d return from visiting the three water gate locations on the barrier islands on the far side of the lagoon. Hopefully, she’d hear from him as soon as he returned since most outlying areas he was visiting were unlikely to have reliable mobile phone service.

  Jack stared at his cellphone in frustration. No text message from Serena appeared despite his frequent messages to her informing her that he had returned from inspecting the vast project known as MOSE, short, as he had learned on his trip into the lagoon, for the Venetian Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico. He had spent the entire time inspecting the three sets of hinged gates built on the sea floor that were planned to be operational by 2016 to keep unusually high tidal surges from swallowing up one of the most beautiful cities on earth. On this latest research trip, he’d been told that date was likely to be bumped once again, perhaps two to four more years down the road.

  He was bursting to tell Serena that the same sort of red tape, corruption, and sheer incompetence that he’d reported on regarding New Orleans’ efforts to hold back the waters at home were mirrored almost exactly in the thirty-year project he’d surveyed with Maurizio Pigati and Stefano Fabrini as his guides.

  The biggest obstacles were not the engineering challenges of building the gates, which Jack determined were actually going to work, but “getting past the political partisan bickering and sheer graft in this city,” as he’d written his editor at the Picayune. The most recent web of alleged bribes and kickbacks involved the diversion of MOSE funds to Venice’s mayor to finance his recent campaign for office.

  Jack had to wait to dispatch his email to his boss until he returned where there was Wi-Fi at Chioggia, a coastal town in the province of Venice at the far end of the lagoon. He’d described a row of eighteen mammoth metal gates connected to concrete housing structures with pivots that allowed them to rise and lower from the seabed, according to weather conditions. A modified version could possibly work in Louisiana and so he’d also sent his editor at the newspaper iPhone pictures he’d snapped of the entire operation.

  Meanwhile, not only were there no text messages from Serena, there was nothing in his laptop’s Inbox from her either, nor had she answered any of the voice calls he’d made.

  Perhaps she’d concluded that his gentlemanly behavior when last she saw him was just a further example of what she might have imagined were his deeply-felt ties to Lauren, or—even worse—that he fit the description his sister had given him at the New Orleans Airport on the day they’d met.

  Elusive, Marielle had called him to his face. Well, maybe he had been like that in the past...

  When Lauren had slammed out of the restaurant New Year’s Eve, declaring she’d take a taxi home, she’d shouted over her shoulder, “You’re just a fucking commitment-phobe!” so loud, he figured half the Garden District had heard her.

  Was he? Was he always in the act of seeking an escape route from the ties that bind?

  For a brief moment, he allowed his mind to ponder his on-again-off-again decade-long relationship with Lauren Hilbert and wondered if—should he and Serena draw even closer—he would eventually have the same feeling of suffocation he’d experienced over the years with Lauren and several other women he’d known who also had made it clear they’d like him to ask for their hand in marriage?

  Did he have a problem with commitment, or had he just not met the right woman?

  Unsettled by these thoughts, Jack thrust his cellphone into his inside coat pocket and bolted for the door of his hotel room. Maybe he had felt cornered by certain women of his acquaintance in the past, but right now, he sure as hell wasn’t looking for the exit where La Contessa was concerned.

  Where was Serena? And why wasn’t she answering him?

  Striding down the hotel’s hallway, Jack pushed the button to summon the elevator. He watched various floor numbers flash over his head as dozens of images of Serena drifted through his mind, memories h
e hadn’t even realized he had stored after such short acquaintance. He pulled out his cellphone once again.

  No messages.

  What if she’d met some handsome Italian who was drowning in that woman’s smoldering dark eyes, just as he had?

  What if—?

  He dialed her number for the seventh time, but his call went straight to voicemail. His watch noted that it was late, even for Italians to have supper. Even so, he punched a button to re-summon the elevator, hoping the damn snow had finally tapered off.

  Serena folded her arms on top of a pile of crunched-up muslin left on the cutting table and allowed her head to sink down, closing her eyes in complete exhaustion. Allegra had approved of the sketches and pattern she’d made of her very first design for her mentor, but she was just too tired to cut the cheap fabric to first test her conception on a mannequin.

  The sewing crew had finally gone home for the day following a marathon of work. Squeezed around the room, several additional mannequins clad in eighteenth century costumes in various stages of completion offered evidence of how hard the team had been working during the week.

  Serena’s eyes still closed, she finally had a moment to consider the thought that had constantly been present, despite the last two days of frenetic activity: Jack hadn’t called.

  Despite her previous resolve to keep a safe distance from devilishly attractive but unavailable men like Jack Durand, he’d constantly been in her thoughts since they’d chastely spent the night together. She found herself fighting a crushing sense of disappointment that she hadn’t heard from him when he returned from his field trip to see the MOSE gates. The only explanation was that he’d had second thoughts—again.