“So you drank a whole bottle of champagne together, and then you sent him home?”
“Yes,” Iris said. “Well, we talked, too.”
“What did you talk about?” Beatrix said.
“Mostly about him. About his work as a freelance cameraman. Though he’s really more a filmmaker than a cameraman, you know? Whenever he works on one of those projects for RAI, the director is off making phone calls, or having leisurely lunches on the production tab so it’s Max who takes control and decides what to shoot. He says the only input he gets from the director is disruptive, at best, if not downright disastrous.” Iris spoke with conviction, as if she had long been indignant at such a talented person enduring such injustice on the set. “I saw it myself, when they did the shoot at the hotel. Max was really the one in charge.”
“And is that all you talked about?”
“Well, no.” Iris smiled. “Every once in a while, he would just stop, mid-sentence. I’d ask him what was wrong, and he’d say nothing, he was just distracted by my lips, or by the way my tongue flicked when I pronounced certain words. He finally asked me to show it to him.”
“What, your tongue?”
“Yes! He expected me to stick it out, right there, on the terrace. Can you imagine that?”
“And did you?”
“Just the tip. After I made sure no one was around,” Iris said, laughing. “But I refrained from showing him how I can touch the tip of my nose with it.”
“And how did that make you feel?” Beatrix said.
“A little embarrassed, at first,” Iris said. She paused to take a sip of whiskey. “And a little amused, as if we were playing a game, like when I was a kid, and my sister Lily and I used to touch tongues to gross each other out.”
“And is that all you felt?”
“No,” Iris said, looking her friend in the eye as she took a drag on the Muratti. “I felt excited. Like I wanted him to ask for more.”
“And did he?” Iris often thought Beatrix should have been a therapist, rather than a headhunter. She had a way a pulling the words out of Iris like magicians pull rabbits from a hat.
“No. Thank God, no.”
Iris cleared some space on her desk, and spread open the first printed proof of the new, improved brochure of the Dimora Baia dell’Incanto. Although it had been printed on plain white paper and glued to flimsy cardboard backing, the draft was enough for her to see she had finally managed to get her ideas across. She approved of the layout, and had been able to scrape up enough decent photographs of the resort to make it work. She knew the results could have been better, but her hands were tied. Whenever possible, Signora Mangiagallo made it a point to engage the services of people she knew, often thwarting efforts already made by Iris to contact suppliers and compare estimates, then neglecting to advise Iris until it was time to sign off her final approval. In this case, the beneficiary was an old friend of the Mangiagallo family, a gentleman with a fairly large printing business in Turin, who was going through a period of financial hardship, having overextended himself to upgrade his equipment. Iris had nothing against the man, but a graphic designer he was not, nor was he a photographer. The first brochure had been a haphazard production featuring generic shots of Portofino and the coast, printed before Iris had been hired, and before there had been anything to photograph in the hotel’s unfurnished guestrooms and barren garden. Fortunately, the hotel was located in a destination that sold itself on fame and beauty alone, and that had been enough to start with, but now it was time to get serious.
The only thing missing from the brochure at this point was the copy. Iris had been mulling over some ideas she wanted to develop and had taken it upon herself to put together the text. She had always enjoyed writing, even when it had been the technical prose crammed with maritime jargon back in her days at the Transoceanica office. She had made her first foray into writing more creative material at the Stella di Levante, where she was eventually relied upon to come up with all the copy for the hotel’s first website, and for all the special offers promoted throughout the year, including print advertising and radio spots. For the Dimora’s new brochure, all she needed were a few finely crafted sentences to convey the sensations she knew today’s sophisticated travelers were seeking. Who in this age of Internet would be impressed that Guglielmo Marconi had conducted experiments with his telegraph invention in this very gulf? Who, on the cusp of the third millennium, really cared if two international treaties had been signed in nearby Rapallo in the 1920s? Those who wanted history could read a book. Her clients craved romance. They lusted after sensual pleasures. They yearned to live out a dream. She had to find a way to let them know they could have it all, right here.
“Permesso, Signora Iris?” The secretary knocked softly at the half-closed door which Iris rarely shut all the way, preferring to keep an eye and ear on what was going on, and to emphasize to her staff that it was literally always open to them.
“Yes, Rachel, come on in,” Iris said, looking up and smiling. She considered herself fortunate to have hired this lovely young woman, who was half-Italian, half-French. Like all the front office staff, she spoke at least three foreign languages.
“I’ve brought you the correspondence. There is also an email for you. It was sent to the general email address. I printed it for you.”
“Thank you, Rachel.” The girl placed the stack of envelopes, letters, faxes, printouts and forms for Iris’s review on her desk. When she failed to walk away, Iris looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Is there something else?”
“About that email, Signora Iris. I thought you might like to know, I eliminated it right away. I’m the only one who saw it.”
“What email are you talking about?”
“It’s in there,” she said, indicating the stack of papers. “I just wanted to reassure you.”
“Thank you, Rachel. I’ll have a look.”
The girl smiled, nodded, and walked away.
Iris turned back to the writing pad in front of her, on which she had jotted down then crossed out several phrases, salvaging only certain words that struck her fancy, which she had copied in a separate column at the right side of the page. The brief interruption had broken her concentration, and all that gibberish about an email was making it difficult for her to get it back. She might as well attend to the correspondence first, and come back to this later when she felt the inspiration. Iris found the email a couple of sheets down from the top. She picked it up and read.
Da: [email protected]
Data: lunedì 24 maggio 1999 23.47
A: [email protected]
Oggetto: eyes and tongues and champagne
ciao capo!
how are your eyes doing these days? i can’t seem to forget them i even printed another copy of the pic i gave you. i know what sad is that’s why i recognize it so easy don’t get me wrong there still beautiful like sad is beautiful but i got a charge seeing the way they sparked to life when you saw me out on that terrace and by the time we killed the whole bottle of champagne they were really starting to shine. the other thing i keep thinking about is your tongue it was so pink and pretty with that pointed tip and i bet it tasted like champagne. when are you going to decide to give me a taste we both know you want to.
pax,
max
How dare Max write such a message to her? How dare he compromise her reputation by sending it by email for everyone to see? Was he really that stupid, or was he playing cat and mouse with her? She would have to set him straight immediately, before he created some serious trouble.
She logged in to her personal webmail account and sent off a reply:
From: [email protected]
Date: martedì 25 maggio 1999 09.57
To: [email protected]
Subject: This is not funny!
Max,
An employee just handed me a copy of the message you sent to the hotel email! ARE YOU CRAZY? I would like to think it was unintentional and you
may not be aware that the general email account [email protected] is accessed by all the front office staff. PLEASE DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER WRITE TO THAT ADDRESS AGAIN!!!!
Iris
She certainly couldn’t make herself any clearer than that. Even if he were incredibly stupid, there was no way he could misunderstand the message. She picked up his email again and reread it. If its content and method of delivery enraged her, the form irritated her. The increasingly common habit people had of using only lowercase characters annoyed her to no end, as did spelling errors. Max was guilty of both; he was even worse than young Peter Ponzio. And the sloppy way he had of letting his words tumble and fall where they may, without the benefit of structure or punctuation to warn the reader of where one thought ended and another began, was unnerving. She had already noticed the same thing in the handwritten note he had left her. He wrote exactly how he spoke, jumping hither and thither, blurting out whatever came to mind, ambushing her with disarming comments. He was uninhibited, you could say that for him, and spontaneous. A rarity these days, especially in fully grown men, at least in the kind she knew.
Iris tapped some keys on her computer and accessed the hotel’s email account on the server to eliminate the message permanently, just to be on the safe side. She glanced down at the printed copy of the note, to read it once more before destroying it. The man’s impertinence was unbearable. Impertinence? Listen to her! She sounded like that old English spinster again. She poised her fingers at the edge of the page, but stopped them before they could tear the sheet. The truth was, she was flattered that he had looked closely enough and understood enough to read the sadness in her eyes. That he had been intrigued enough to notice the shape of her tongue. That he had been cocky enough to assume she wanted him to kiss her. She unlocked the top drawer of her desk and slipped the email inside the envelope containing the photographs and the handwritten note, then locked it again. Inspiration kindled within her, she turned her attention back to the brochure.
“Piccolina! Aren’t you coming to bed?” Gregorio’s voice traveled from the bedroom, down the hallway, and into the living room, where Iris sat at the walnut desk which had belonged to the father-in-law she had never met.
“I’ll be there in five minutes, I promise! I’m just answering Violet’s email,” Iris called back.
She and Gregorio had gone out to dinner, nothing fancy, just a pizza Margherita and a Peroni; Iris preferred the simple fare of low-key, no-fuss restaurants when she was not working. After a busy day of meetings, it had been relaxing to let Gregorio do all the talking, and he had plenty to say, having been on the team handling a challenging surgical procedure that day. Everything had gone even better than expected, the prognosis for the patient was optimistic, and Gregorio was elated. Iris loved happy endings. She thought about how wonderful it must be to work at a job that really mattered. Her husband was literally out there saving people’s lives, and she was proud of him. At the same time, she was slightly saddened to see how his responsibilities were starting to take a toll on him, thinning his hair, now more grey than sandy, and sucking the intensity from his watery blue eyes which now depended upon half-glasses to read the menu.
“All right, but don’t keep me waiting!” Gregorio replied. Despite the tired look on his face, he had been on an adrenalin high all evening, and acting rather randy for a Thursday.
Love and miss you to death, Iris, she typed, then hit the “send” key. Just as she was exiting her email, she noticed a (1) next to the inbox header, indicating there was a new message. Maybe it was from Lily. She had written to her a week earlier, and still had not heard back. It would only take a second to check. With a click she accessed the inbox, where she saw the name “Massimiliano Vanesi” staring back at her. Over two weeks had gone by since she had received his email at the hotel, and there had not been a peep from him since her scolding. She had assumed he had gotten the gist of her message and would leave her alone. Her pulse quickening, she glanced quickly over her shoulder, then turned her eyes back to the screen and opened the message:
Da: [email protected]
Data: giovedì 03 giugno 1999 22.33
A: [email protected]
Oggetto: are you still mad?
pantelleria. it’s one of those nights that make me wish i knew something about stars. out of all those zillions i can only make out a dipper not sure if it is the big or small one but it doesn’t really matter what matters is knowing there is someone like you out there who i wish was here gazing up at them with me. but you are so far away right now like over 1000 km i’d say you might as well be up there with the stars. wait, i think i might even see you winking at me. so maybe your not mad at me after all. i want to talk to you capo. send me your cell unless you want to find another email from me when you get to work. better yet come here i’m staying til next week.
pax,
max
Her heart slammed against her ribs, a mad monkey banging its head against the rails of its cage. She looked over her shoulder again, read the message again and, on an impulse, hit the “reply” key.
“Piccolina!” Gregorio called in a playful voice. “Are you playing hard to get?” The fine hairs on her forearms stood on end. Her skin tingled.
Da: [email protected]
Data: giovedì 03 giugno 1999 23.01
A: [email protected]
Oggetto: are you still mad?
my cell is 353776292 but I can’t talk so don’t call!!!! And don’t you dare write to me at the hotel again!!!!! EVER!!!!
Iris
She would write more tomorrow. She would point out that just because they had a chat or two didn’t mean she was interested in anything more than a casual friendship. She would remind him that she was a married woman, though she doubted that would make much difference to a man like Max. And she would look up Pantelleria to see where exactly it was. Just for curiosity.
“I’m coming!” she said, shutting down the computer and switching off her cell phone. She went to her husband and the bed they shared, where thoughts of Max helped her through the next fifteen minutes, then kept her awake until the church bells sounded twice.
18. Lily
After her encounter with Owen, Lily spent her days struggling through a haze of confusion and fear. She couldn’t eat; she couldn’t make it through a workout. Her imagination conjured up a variety of chilling scenarios in which Joe discovered her secret. She imagined the violent outburst that would follow, the screaming, assorted items flying through the air, the boys cowered under the kitchen table, or up in their room, crying and clutching each other under their red, blue, and green bedspreads with the dinosaurs on them. For as many times as she’d recalled the utter ecstasy of being in Owen’s arms - the way he grazed the skin of her back with his fingertips, how he swept her hair away from her eyes and urged her, “Open them... look at me,” - for each time Lily relived the memory that sustained her during the interminable stretches between her mornings at the studio, she punished herself with the terrifying fantasy of getting caught. Yet the prospect was not enough to dissuade her. Just imagining Owen’s face sent shocks of electricity through her body, awakening the numbness from years of indifference and neglect. In his arms, she’d found an oasis, and nothing - not even the prospect of poisoned water - could keep her from gulping it down.
She and Owen had made love two more times since that first day - both opportunities created when Donna called to say that she couldn’t make it to the studio, due to last-minute tasks or delays.
“Uh-oh,” said Owen. “There’s that cloud coming over your face. What is it this time?”
“I’m just thinking,” said Lily.
“You do way too much of that,” said Owen with a chuckle.
“Let me ask you a question,” said Lily. “Do you value loyalty?”
“Yes, sure I do.”
“And yet here you are with me - making love with me - someone who is proven to be a person lacking in loyalty.
”
“Lily, loyalty is not an absolute. It has to be reciprocal. It’s all relative anyway. What you might do in one situation - married to Joe, for instance - you might not necessarily do in another one.”
“That seems really convenient,” Lily replied. “You can justify just about any sin using that logic.”
“Using your logic,” said Owen, “You can justify just about any punishment.”
They stood silently looking at each other.
Owen zipped up his fly and cinched his belt into place. “I also find it interesting that you didn’t bring this up until after we made love,” he said. “If you are so worried about the morality of this, why don’t you ever bring it up before, while you still have the opportunity to choose?”
Lily felt a grinding in her gut, and the acrid taste of denial in her mouth as she struggled to hold down the truth of what he said.
“Because,” she began, considering the thought for the first time. “Because it doesn’t feel like a choice until after.”
He took Lily into his arms and held her cheek against his chest. “Just for now,” he said, “Just for this small space in time, try to be happy.”
Lily tilted her face up toward his.
“Please,” he said, looking down at her. “Just for now.”
Owen kissed the tip of Lily’s nose and her body swelled with renewed arousal, flushing out thoughts and feelings of self-incrimination. In his arms, she was drenched in passion; there was nothing else. She smiled.
“That’s better,” said Owen. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Another one?” Lily giggled and nibbled on Owen’s ear lobe.
Owen took her hand. “A different one,” he said, laughing. “C’mere.” He led her further down the hall away from his office. They entered a room with a long table that hosted endless rows of knobs and levers, a larger version of the sound board he operated in the back of the sanctuary at Christ Covenant Church. Just above the table was a picture window that looked into a separate room that was set with microphone stands, a piano, a few music stands and a complete drum kit.
[Iris and Lily 01.0 - 03.0] The Complete Series Page 99