When he ignored me, I was safe. It was the teasing that I couldn't deal with. At one point it wore me down, and my self-confidence was on the verge of slipping away. In my teens, I'd had the unfortunate luck of having zits and the kind of body that could put on weight at the drop of a hat.
If Gage wasn't calling me pizza face, he was calling me Big Bertha. And if he wasn't doing that he was just plain old mean and pulling off all sorts of evil tricks on me like locking me in the drama club's storage room causing me to get trapped there all night. He didn't even come back to check on me.
It was the janitor who found me the next day. Gage did all sorts of things like that to me, and irritating things like telling people I always had head lice, taking my things and damaging them, and the one that sealed the deal was him telling people I was actually a man who'd had a sex change.
That lost me, my date for the junior prom and totally ruined my last few years at high school. It was his parting gift when he left for college. I was never able to live that one down and my only solace was my music.
He'd always been horrible, and the list of bad things was endless, it was like he'd made it some kind of mission to torment me. So, on my guard I would be. Who knew when he would switch.
"We're almost there." Lucy declared. She looked nervous as I gazed ahead and looked about their surroundings. "It's changed so much since I was last here."
"It would have changed a lot since nineteen forty-five." Their driver commented in a heavy accent. "But I think you'll still love it."
Lucy smiled and continued to gaze ahead. "It's just that ..." When her voice trailed off Gage looked over to her.
"Grams are you okay?" Gage leaned forward.
"Stop the car." Lucy cried.
I straightened up as the driver eased the car over to the side of the road and stopped. Lucy got out and moved with a speed I’d never seen before. Gage and I got out and followed.
Lucy stopped on the sidewalk and brought her hands up to her cheeks. "No," she cried shaking her head, "it's all changed. Everything has changed." Tears filled her eyes.
Gage gave me a worried look then put a comforting arm around Lucy.
"This was where Angelo used to live." Tears streamed down Lucy's cheeks as we all looked at the bakery before us. "I lived around the corner near the embassy. Now there are shops everywhere. This all used to be houses."
There was no real surprise here. Of course, the place would have changed. What were the chances of everything staying the same after seventy years?
It was wishful thinking. Serious wishful thinking.
Well now we knew the situation.
But, what now?
Chapter 3
Evie
* * *
"Grams, why don't we go check into the hotel, grab something to eat and then I can go have a look around."
I was surprised at Gage's suggestion. I thought he would be the first to suggest that they go home.
"I'll go find out what I can," he added. Surprising me further.
Lucy looked up at him and nodded with appreciation despite the despair in her eyes.
I helped Lucy get back into the car, and with that we made their way to the Massimo Palancia. I couldn't help take note of how truly stunning the hotel was and felt guilty for the excitement I felt as I got out of the car and beheld the sight.
The opulent exterior and interiors recreated a nineteenth-century feel, with marble columns, staircases, and chandeliers. Star Jasmine climbed along the walls creating archways inside and out, complimenting the frescoes and gilded frames on the walls and the floral patterns of pink and pearl-grey on the ceilings.
The beauty was just one of the best things. The very best thing about the Massimo Palencia was that it was just a breath away from the Vatican Museum, with the Sistine Chapel and all the other attractions.
I didn't know how I was even going to begin to try to contain the exhilaration I experienced knowing all those attractions were within my sight.
My room was another spectacular surprise. I'd say it was fit for royalty and couldn't believe that Gage had booked all of this, selecting the rooms he thought we'd like. He'd said so on the plane. The Gage I was used to would have been more likely to have booked my in a chicken coop or a pig sty, but this was definitely a shocker. My room was a thing of beauty and led onto an adjoining balcony that connected with Lucy's room, furnished with dahlia.
When we set our bags down they made our way over to the pizzeria across the street where they ate. The aroma of delicious food engulfed us on arrival and never left throughout the whole time we were there. I smelled garlic, basil, oregano, rosemary, and other wonderful herbs along with the sweet scent of ripe tomatoes.
While Gage had a massive calzone and I indulged on a perfectly sized Diavolo pizza on that brilliant Italian Romana base, Lucy barely touched her food. The grief wore heavily on her face, and she had that drained look again. She seemed to have only managed a nibble here and there of her garlic bread.
I wished things could have gone better for her, and right now I wasn't sure how we were going to proceed.
"Are you two going to be okay while I go check out some stuff?" Gage asked.
"What will you do?" I asked him, very curious to see what he had in mind.
"Just look around, maybe go to the library or information center to see what details I can get."
Lucy watched him with hopeful eyes as he explained. Those were all good ideas.
"Cool," I agreed.
"Will you be okay here? I could be gone for a while."
"We'll be fine," I assured him. "We'll hang out here for a bit. Then we'll go back to the hotel."
"Okay, I'll meet you back there." He got up to go. "I'll find out what I can, Grams." He promised Lucy, making his way around to her to give her a kiss on her forehead.
"Thank you," Lucy told him
"Gage," I stopped him before he moved to go. "My room, um. Thanks. It's nice. I love it." I thought I should say thanks, even though I was on my guard. It couldn't hurt. Also, because he'd insisted on not taking any money from me. The room alone had to have cost an extortionate amount.
"Thought you might." He replied and winked at me before he left them.
I watched him leave, and when I looked back to Lucy I found her already staring at me. A soft expression lifted her face, temporarily diluting the drained outlook she previously had.
"He's changed a lot hasn't he?" Lucy commented.
I offered a kind smile. There were a lot of things I could say about Gage, but not to Lucy's face. She had a pretty good idea of what Gage had been like in the past, so there was no need to go into details. He definitely had seemed changed, and since I liked my room, I'd agree.
"I guess."
Lucy looked away and stared ahead to the bougainvillea plants that wrapped around one of the archways in the restaurant. "You must think I'm crazy, don't you?" Her slender hands unconsciously twisted together.
"No. I don't."
She looked back to me. "Maybe it was foolish to come out here. Maybe I... this is crazy Evie. It's going to be an impossible task." She bent her head down in dismay.
I sat forward and leaned my elbows on the table so I could rest my chin in my hands. I looked at Lucy intently and asked, "does your heart still tell you that Angelo's alive?"
Lucy nodded and placed her hand at her heart. "It's always told me that. Always, and never stopped. It was almost like a nagging feeling I've had all these years, and now it is even stronger now than before."
I reached out and clutched her hand. "Well, then we need to find him." As dull as things looked I was trying to be positive for Lucy.
In reality, I was wondering what we were going to do. We had no information. None, zero. What were we supposed to do with that?
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about all this before. There's a lot I want to tell you, but it's hard to talk about."
"I understand. Besides, I don't expect you to tell me everything." Eve
ryone deserved their privacy. Just because we had this closeness between us didn't mean Lucy had to share every single thing about her life. There was a line of respect that shouldn't be crossed. "I think it's remarkable though that you were here during the war."
Lucy nodded. "I've lived a very long time. Very long. My father brought my family to live here when I was fourteen. I met Angelo the summer of that year, and I fell in love with him the minute I saw him. He was a year older than me. He'd always listen to me try to play the violin. I say try because I was terrible when I first started." She chuckled. I couldn't imagine Lucy being terrible. When she played, it sounded like music straight from heaven. "We spent every moment we had together, and I really thought we'd spend the rest of our lives that way too. When he turned eighteen he was drafted into the army, and that was the day my world changed. I just knew something bad was going to happen to him. I just knew, and it destroyed me when the officials came and told me he'd died. The news devastated me so much I had to be sedated, and I was kept in the hospital for days."
The emotion that filled Lucy's eyes gripped my heart. It gripped my and got to me in such a way that made my determined to search every inch of Italy until I found Angelo.
There were certain people in this world who you just wanted to be happy. Lucy was one of them. There was so much good to her, so much love, kindness, and warmth. She deserved every ounce of happiness there was to have.
"I can't imagine what it all must have been like for you. I just can't." I offered. Having heard the story for myself I thought I would have been completely devastated if it had been me.
"After that, it was no longer safe for us to stay here, even after the war. So we went back to the States. I closed that chapter of my life when we left and I never spoke about it again. I didn't even tell Gage. Anything he knew about Italy came from my parents. I think as he got older he realized I must have had a bad experience here. Most people tend to make assumptions anyway when you tell them you lived in a place that was affected by that war."
I nodded understanding. "We'll do our best Lucy. We'll try and find Angelo."
"Thank you, and thanks for being here. I honestly don't know what I would have done by myself."
I didn't even want to think about how that could have turned out. It would have been a disaster.
"Well, here's to finding Angelo as quickly and easily as possible." I offered, raising my glass of orange juice as if I were toasting.
"Me too." The color returned to Lucy's cheeks.
"How about you have some more of that garlic bread. You need to keep your strength up." I smiled pushing Lucy's plate closer to her. Lucy nodded agreeing, and picked up a slice.
I thought a change in subject was in order, so I started talking about the piece of music I was currently composing. One sure way to distract Lucy was talk of music and composing. When it came to writing, she always had some great advice to offer. We talked for hours and continued our conversation into Lucy's room where we waited for Gage.
Hours had passed since he left them and I was starting to worry. Lucy was also starting to get that faltering look again.
Night had fallen too and I just hoped Gage hadn't gotten lost or something. I'd tried to distract my mind by flicking through some travel brochures that were in the room, and Lucy read her letters from Angelo. I had just picked up the fifth brochure when the door opened and Gage came in. He was smiling like he had news.
"Sorry I took so long. Are you both okay?" he asked rolling the sleeves up on his long-sleeved black T-shirt.
"We're fine. Are you okay?" Lucy asked. She stood up and clasped her hands as if she were praying.
"I'm good, and I have news." A satisfied smile lifted the corners of his mouth as Lucy's whole face brightened.
I straightened up on the wicker chair with keen interest. "What did you find out?" I asked.
"I managed to find a restaurant that was established from nineteen fifty. I had to wait for the owner to return, that's why I took so long. The owner knew Angelo's sisters."
Lucy gasped. "Anna and Vanessa?"
Gage nodded. "He didn't have any information on Angelo but said the sisters moved around nineteen eighty. Angelo didn't appear to have come back around these parts. The sisters both moved to Tuscany, but the problem is they don't know where, and Vanessa got married, so her surname changed to Rossi. They think Anna could have gotten married too but they weren't certain."
Lucy sighed on hearing that and looked from me to Gage.
"Tuscany is a big place, and we don't even know if their still there. Rossi is also a very common name." She commented.
That was the first thing I thought, but my excitement peaked at the thought of going to Tuscany. My mind raced over all the pictures I'd ever seen of it, and the movies I'd watched like Under the Tuscan Sun. Again I felt guilty for my excitement.
"I'm sure there's a way of looking for them." I offered. "We just have to try."
"Exactly," Gage added. "It's worth trying. We can get a list of phone contacts and just call around. I suggest we get the train there tomorrow and start cracking at it."
"Are you sure? This all sounds like too much. Maybe you and Evie should go home and I'll take over from here." Lucy looked worried. "This could all take days, weeks even. You already changed your busy schedules for me."
"Grams don't be ridiculous. There's no way we're going to leave you here." Gage smirked.
"Yes. I'm definitely staying. It's a win-win for me. Make you happy, and see the best of Italy. Lucy, we're going to Tuscany." I smiled wide. It was a simple attempt to make Lucy feel better. Lucy indulged me by returning the smile.
"I'll go plan out our route." Gage beamed.
"And, I'll look at hotels." Or villas. I'd look at everything. There was no harm looking.
* * *
Gage
* * *
Damn. What a long day.
The walking around reminded me of camping with the Scouts and going on one of their expeditions like trekking through some forest or hiking the Rockies. But unlike back then when I was eager to see how far I could hike, trying to catch rabbits, or foraging the forest, the worry of going back to Grams with nothing had played heavily on my mind. I swore she looked like she was about to wither away when she discovered that Rome had changed dramatically.
While I knew we still basically had nothing, I was grateful for the lead.
Now we had something concrete to work with. How we were going to work with the info we had was another matter entirely. Right now I was just thinking of gathering all the phone numbers listed in Tuscany that matched the sisters’ names.
It was a starting point and a far easier task than calling all the Angelo Romano's listed in Italy. That was actually my first plan, but the idea went out the window when I chanced a quick glance at the Yellow Pages Index on my phone and it produced over one million results. There was no harm in contacting a few Angelo Romanos, but I felt that looking for the sisters first in one focused area would narrow the search and hopefully lead us to the right Angelo. If that didn't work, they would have no choice but to then look at a wider search and just focus on Angelo.
I was trying to approach this all with a positive attitude, as if it was doable. At the same time, I tried to keep in mind the obstacles we could come across. Obvious obstacles, like the fact that the sisters could have moved from Tuscany long ago, and that both surnames were common whether it was Romano or Rossi. Those names could have also changed if the sisters remarried. My least favorite thought, however, was that they could have all died. I dared not mention that part, at all. It would have saddened Grams even more.
When Evie left us, I helped Grams get settled into her room and unpack what she needed for the night. I talked to her for a little while about what I had planned and left when I was sure she was comfortable and okay.
I then thought I'd go check on Evie. I knew she'd most probably get all worked up and would be thoroughly annoyed to see me, but I did it anyway
. Her being here was a massive help. For that I was grateful.
I decided to go across the adjoining balcony from Grams’ room. I thought I'd find her at the desk tapping away at her computer, looking for hotels but instead I found her sitting on the floor on the balcony. She was writing something in a notebook and humming. Evie was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't even notice my presence. She hummed loudly as if she was going to sing, then stopped and wrote in her book. She was writing music.
Smiling to herself she gazed out to the beautiful city before us, stared at the array of lights and turned to focus back on what she was doing. That was when she saw me.
Just like I preempted annoyance filled her fine features and she drew her brows together. "Gage are you trying to give me a heart attack by sneaking up on me like that?"
I walked closer and leaned against the wall. "No, just checking on you."
"I'm fine. Just taking a break from hotel search." She answered dismissively, turning her face away from me and bending her head back down to focus on her book.
"I didn't know you could sing." I didn't know why but I found myself wanting to talk to her. She clearly seemed to prefer that I didn't, but that wasn't enough to stop me.
"I wasn't singing I was humming." She bit down hard on her lower lip and still didn't look up at me.
"Sounded like you could sing if you wanted to."
"I can, but I don't want to." There was that dismissive tone again, highlighted with an unwelcomed frankness. The wind picked up the ends of her ponytail and whipped it up. She smoothed it to the side so that all that luxurious hair would flow down her shoulders.
"What are you doing?" I decided not to take the cue and leave.
She raised her head slowly and looked at me with a stern- faced expression.
"Gage, since when did you take such interest in my activities, and what's with the sudden urge to talk to me. I've known you for nearly twenty-five years give or take, and you choose to talk to me now. Why? Have you suddenly realized that I'm a person? Or, are you seriously that bored? They have TV’s in all the rooms you know. And I even think they have cable."
Play of Love: The Gladiator Players Box Set Page 35