But, even as she was thinking this, Gwen’s breath caught in her throat as the water-bus rounded a bend in the canal and San Marco’s materialized like a fantastical mirage before her eyes. This wasn’t what she’d expected! Not because it didn’t look exactly like the photographs she’d seen in guidebooks in the past or on TV ... but because it did.
It was a medieval civilization coming alive. With no cars to dispel the illusion, the canals with their gondolas and gondoliers, the people meandering across the square—far enough away to be blurred and indistinct, the laundered fabric flapping from high windows and the flight and swarm of resident pigeons, all joined together to portray a scene that could have been from any generation in the past five hundred years. She may well have stepped into one of Canaletto’s paintings, like those she’d seen in Florence at the Uffizi Gallery, depicting the Venice of the 1700s. A two-dimensional, meticulously illustrated tableau cast in oils that had suddenly been brought to life.
To Gwen, it felt as though she had really entered a parallel universe. That she had, perhaps, gone back in time. The past and the present were connected here with a fervency that surpassed even her experiences in Rome and Pompeii. How many people had strolled in a lazy diagonal across the tiles of San Marco’s? How many people had seen the rise of Venetian canals, flooding the sloped pavement of the square, and watched it recede again? How many people had lived and died in this city built on more than one hundred islands? A place where its residents were so close to the sea that they almost slid into the water, too, much like the weathered paint from the buildings, bridges and poles ...
“What do you think of it?” Emerson whispered. “People usually either love Venice or hate it. It’s not a city that inspires tepid emotions.”
Gwen laughed. “No, it’s not.” She paused, trying to form words that could express what she saw ... heard ... felt ... upon finding herself in the middle of this extraordinary place. But she couldn’t pull those just-right words out of the wind or the water, so she just murmured, “It’s breathtaking, Emerson.”
He smiled at her. “Delighted you think so. Tomorrow we’ll have to explore it together.”
As part of the tour group, their itinerary included a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant that night and a planned outing on the Venetian Lagoon. Some kind of gondola-ride thing. Gwen had been, admittedly, lost in her own thoughts as she and Aunt Bea freshened up after dinner for their evening excursion. In her mind, always anxious to move on to the next major event, the night had sped by and it was morning already. She’d been making a mental list of questions she wanted to ask Emerson when they were alone and, thus, paid scant attention to her aunt’s chattering until Bea made a comment that pierced through her inattention.
“... of course, everything’s trickier when you’re juggling multiple men. I like them younger sometimes. Dated a few before I met your uncle Freddy. One boyfriend was five years younger. Thirty years old when I was thirty-five. But then, no one probably told you about that whole situation.”
Gwen shook her head. She’d heard a number of wild stories about Aunt Bea and her various boyfriends, but all of those were from Bea’s widow years, told with gusto by Hester or Zenia. Gwen’s mother died before she could reveal many tales from their childhood and her father wasn’t one to be talking about dating unless positively forced.
Aunt Bea’s eyes danced at the opportunity to enlighten her, however.
“Before I met Freddy, I’d been going steady with this younger guy for a couple of months. He was nice but, by the time I met him, I was pretty sure I’d always be a single girl. Your mom was nine years younger than me, but even she’d had more serious relationships than I’d had. Anyway, one day in early spring, I’m at the gardening store looking at hanging flower baskets. They were all full of blossoms, but none was exactly the color combination I was looking for and all were a little too expensive for me. This guy comes walking by carrying a bag of weed killer or something for his lawn. I can tell he’s older than me by a handful of years and not as handsome as my young boyfriend, but I smile at him anyway. He scowls in return and points to the hanging baskets. ‘They’re ugly,’ he tells me. ‘You want nice flowers? Grow ’em yourself.’ And he stalks off.” Bea laughed, her thin body shaking from the motion. “I thought he was wacko and was glad he’d left. But five minutes later he comes stompin’ back. ‘Got these for you,’ he tells me, and he hands me a couple of plain white flowerpots filled with rich black soil and a baggie of specialty hydrangea seeds. ‘You grow these first and then put ’em in a hanging basket later if you want.’ He doesn’t crack a smile the whole time, but he looks at me as though he really can see me. As though I’m someone he already knows.”
She stopped, apparently lost in the colorful twists of times recollected.
“So, your boyfriend didn’t know you very well, but this stranger seemed to understand you better, right?” Gwen asked, feeling slightly unsettled at the notion of not really feeling known by one’s boyfriend. She and Richard might have differing viewpoints on a few topics, but she felt certain they were on the same page most of the time. Really, until recently, until she’d met Emerson, she’d never had cause to even doubt her connection to Richard.
“That’s right, yes, but I didn’t like it. The young boyfriend was a good fit with my family. This guy at the garden shop? I knew he would set your grandmother on edge if she ever laid eyes on him. There was just something really intense and irritated in his expression. I was drawn to him, but I didn’t want to be. I wanted to like the nice, polite boyfriend. I walked away from Freddy and that garden shop as fast as I could.”
“What happened next?” Gwen asked, surprised but certain there had to be more to the story since Aunt Bea had ended up marrying the man.
“I kept running into him—it was a small town. Happened when I was alone the first few times, then once when I was with your mother and even a time or two when I was out with my boyfriend. I remember this one night when my boyfriend and I went to see a movie and Freddy was there with a buddy he knew from his days in the service. We were all talking in the lobby and it was just so ... awkward.” Bea shivered as if some of the social discomfort still lingered. “He gravely shook my boyfriend’s hand then asked me if the hydrangeas had bloomed. I had to admit that, yes, they had. That he was right. That I liked mine better than those store-bought ones. And, though he was hardly prone to huge displays of emotion in those early days, he smiled at me that night in a way that nuked my nerve endings. Standing there, my insides quivered like a frightened bird. I remember that my boyfriend glanced over at me oddly but didn’t say anything right then, which was good ’cause I couldn’t speak a word after that smile. But later my boyfriend remarked, ‘I didn’t know you grew flowers.’ Now it was my turn to stare at him because I’d actually shown him the plants. I knew I’d mentioned them to him at least twice when he was at our house. Your mom was even with me outside with him when I pointed out the first few green sprouts.” She raised her eyebrows significantly. “He just wasn’t paying attention to me.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
Aunt Bea shook her head. “Not that night, but I talked to your mom about it. She made excuses for him. Said he was a real good guy and maybe I was just overreacting. I didn’t try to argue with her. What she said was reasonable, but it still didn’t sit right in my gut. And the next time my boyfriend came over to the house, I realized why.”
Gwen’s curiosity was definitely piqued. “Why?”
“Because he wasn’t the only one who’d been inattentive. When I really watched him and saw the way he acted around your mother, I realized he’d been looking at her and thinking about her the way I’d been looking at Freddy and thinking about him. We were both smitten by other people—people we didn’t want to let ourselves fall in love with. He and I didn’t want to admit this to each other or even to ourselves. It was a pretty honkin’ huge realization for me.”
Gwen blinked at her. She had most assured
ly not heard this story. “Wait, Aunt Bea. You’re saying your boyfriend fell in love with my mom? Did he ever go out with her?”
A funny smile crossed her aunt’s lips. “Why, yes, to both questions. He and I had a little chat. I told him I’d met someone else and wanted to see where that relationship might go. And I encouraged him to feel free to date any other girl he might want to go out with. At first he looked surprised, then relieved and then he said, ‘Anyone?’ I realized he knew that I knew who he was thinking of, so I said, ‘Yep. And my sister’s still single.’ He laughed. The next week he asked her out. Freddy and I got together and eloped about six months later. About a year after that, my old boyfriend and your mom ...” Bea paused, her eyes twinkling.
Gwen’s breath caught in her throat, suddenly understanding. “Got married?” Her aunt nodded. “You dated my dad?” Gwen squeaked.
“Just for a few months, dear,” Aunt Bea said. “It wasn’t ever serious. Steve was always more Madeline’s type than mine. Sometimes siblings can share things. Books. Music. Clothing. Sometimes not. This was one of those ‘not’ cases.”
“Erm, yeah,” she murmured. This was not a story that had come up at any family Thanksgivings! She wondered why, after all of these years, her aunt decided to reveal this to her now.
“Your dad was a very good man, Gwennie. He just wasn’t the right one for me. Freddy on the other hand—” She laughed. “He was a challenge, but a worthy one.” She pointed out the window at the closest canal. “He and I came to Venice together once and took a gondola ride by ourselves. Made out like teenagers in the back of a car park.” She smacked her lips. “Don’t know who I’d do that with tonight, though. Maybe we’ll get a real cute gondolier, eh?”
“Aunt Bea! Now you’re starting to sound like Zenia.”
“Well, a woman can hope. What about you, dear? You got some man in mind to make out with?”
“Of course not,” Gwen lied, gulping away any thoughts of kissing a man like Emerson. “And certainly not in public.” She shook her head vigorously for emphasis. Perhaps too vigorously because her aunt shot her a very amused look.
Bea rummaged through her bag for a light sweater and regarded her niece with continued amusement. “I think our actor friends would say, ‘The lady doth protest too much.’ ” But before Gwen could attempt to defend herself, her aunt all but pushed her out the door. “We don’t want to be late for this excursion. It’s gonna be a fun one.”
As Hans-Josef had promised them earlier in the day, a trio of gondolas awaited their group, along with three gondoliers of varying ages. All had donned those black gondolier hats, the brown poles for steering and the distinctive navy-and-white striped shirts that marked these men as official tour guides of the Venetian waterways.
Matilda, Dr. Louie, Connie Sue, Alex, Kamesh and Ani piled into the first gondola, manned by a twenty-something Italian with enormous biceps, dark eyes and a lopsided grin. Aunt Bea, Colin, Sally, Peter and Davis trailed Zenia onto the last gondola, with a thirty-something Tom-Welling-as-Clark-Kent lookalike at the helm—square jawed with a twinkling blue-eyed gaze—but with flowing brown hair. And Hans-Josef shepherded Gwen onto the middle gondola, along with Louisa, Cynthia, Emerson, Thoreau and Hester, their forty-something gondolier very stout but experienced-looking and capable.
“Buona notte, Antonio,” Hans-Josef said in greeting to their man, clearly a friend of his from tour groups past.
The gondolier smiled in acknowledgment, returned the greeting and snagged their tour guide’s attention long enough for Cynthia to take control of the seating arrangements. Deftly sliding behind Gwen, the British woman steered her to a comfortable seat in the gondola that could accommodate one other person, but when Emerson moved forward to join her there, Cynthia very sweetly but firmly stepped between him and Hester and directed the older woman to the spot instead. She put Louisa between Thoreau and the seat nearest to where Hans-Josef was standing, and propelled Emerson to a cozy seat next to herself on the opposite side of the gondola.
“Oh, my! This is going to be deliciously romantic, don’t you think?” Cynthia chirped as Hans-Josef finished his conversation with the gondolier and looked pleased that everybody in his boat seemed ready to set sail.
It was all Gwen could do to keep from glaring at Cynthia. While the woman hadn’t been venomous in her maneuverings, she certainly wasn’t stepping graciously out of the game. Thoreau shot her an arch glance over his shoulder and whispered, “The chess match continues, my American friend. Are you going to be a pawn or a queen?”
And Emerson, who was sitting across the watercraft from Gwen and Hester, facing them, looked momentarily perplexed at Cynthia’s antics, but he didn’t seem especially angered by them. Of course, he probably felt there was nothing to get too ruffled about anyway. All Gwen and Emerson had done was talk like the casual acquaintances they were, flirt a little and, in a peculiar moment of connection, hold hands once. While this was most unusual for her, he probably behaved like that with lots of women. Hardly a reason for him to be upset or even mildly inconvenienced, she thought.
“Nice and snug in here,” Hester commented. “Bet’cha it’d be easy to stab someone in one of these contraptions. Or at least hold ’em at knifepoint.”
Gwen reluctantly agreed that might be true, but she wasn’t prepared to help the elderly woman come up with strategies to murder her hapless characters. Wedged between Hester’s angular body and the padded side of the gondola, she forced herself to listen politely as their gondolier Antonio regaled them with historical tidbits about the Venezia of old. She studied Cynthia as she scooted unnecessarily close to Emerson on their bench. And she gazed out at the other two gondolas, wondering if other people were experiencing any of the socio-relationship dramas she’d been dealing with on the trip.
Was Matilda thinking more about her fondness for Dr. Louie than about the ride through the Venetian Lagoon?
Was Aunt Bea missing Uncle Freddy that night and wishing she could relive their kiss on the canal?
Was Hans-Josef wondering about his pet Rolf or wishing he’d had more friends on tour? Maybe a girlfriend upon whom he could shower his affection?
It seemed a shame to waste such a romantic atmosphere on simply a boat ride.
The gondoliers took turns singing songs in Italian, offering up harmonies to support each other. When it was Antonio’s turn to take the vocal lead, Gwen found herself falling under his musical spell. Not that she understood the words to his song—she didn’t. But she understood the longing in the melody laced with the lyrical verses.
As they sailed under the famous Rialto Bridge, lit up at night along with the rest of the city, the bridge’s crisp white paint appeared to be a classic cream in the soft light. Gwen found herself glancing again at Bea, a look of rapturous delight on her aunt’s face at the twinkling bulbs that illuminated the antiquated buildings and set the water sparkling. She tried to imagine her dad dating the young Beatrice while secretly loving the even younger Madeline. It was a piece of her parents’ history she’d never known, and it brought a certain weight to her dad’s friendship with Aunt Bea, even after both her mom and Bea’s husband died. They had been more than just in-laws. Even more than just friends ... if only for a short time. Her dad had once said that he’d been introduced to her mom by Aunt Bea, but he’d never hinted at any further significance, and Gwen hadn’t thought to ask if there’d been one. Was his hesitance to divulge that history because he’d wanted to keep the primacy of his relationship to Bea to himself? Because he worried the knowledge might reflect poorly on her aunt, her mom or himself in some way? Gwen thought of all of those S&M gatherings her dad had driven to in the years before his heart attack. Might Aunt Bea or her father ever been interested in rekindling that first relationship?
No. Gwen suspected not. Her dad showed not so much as a flicker of interest in ever dating again after her mom died. Not even in unguarded moments. The problem with having something special—some really deep and true romanti
c connection—was that it made every other relationship pale by comparison. She knew this intuitively, having spent years poring over the attachments of literary lovers like Shakespeare’s Benedick and Beatrice, Austen’s Darcy and Elizabeth, Brontë’s Rochester and Jane. Once you knew how powerful something could be, you didn’t want to settle for something lesser.
Gwen knew this was true of other things, too. She’d always enjoyed her CD player until she got her first iPod. She’d liked the creaminess and mild flavor of ice cream well enough until she tasted her first gelato cone. And she’d thought her physical attraction to Richard was perfectly adequate until she met Emerson and began questioning it.... Just the awareness that there might be a real difference changed everything.
She breathed in, letting the warm Venetian air fill her lungs. How bad would it truly be to explore her relationship with Emerson in the context of this trip? She shot him a look. Across the gondola, his gaze met hers and locked. He smiled at her, seemingly oblivious to Cynthia’s chattering for a moment. Time was put on pause, as if their shared glance happened in the space between the seconds. Gwen returned his smile but swiftly looked away in an attempt to quiet the fluttering deep in her abdomen. Bad, she murmured to herself, in answer to her own question.
She wasn’t allowed to wallow in this realization for long, however. In the first gondola, a startling burst of sound drifted across the short expanse of water and crashed like a discordant wave against Gwen’s eardrum.
Dr. Louie.
With his gondola mates held captive and the receptive indulgence of his young gondolier, the retired vet had launched into the enthusiastic opening verse of “That’s Amore.” Matilda (of course), Alex and Connie Sue gleefully joined in, and the madness spread from one boat to the others like a rampant case of the Black Plague in the city’s dark history. All three gondoliers were rowing in time and, soon, almost everyone was singing along. The only holdouts were Ani, who didn’t know the lyrics because he listened only to Indo-Euro rap and alternative punk, and Gwen, who couldn’t bring herself to be so exhibitionistic.
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