by Susan Wiggs
“Got it,” said Isabel. “I’ll have the caterer pretty it up with fresh flowers, but no sculpting. No sugar dough blossoms.”
“Right. Oh, Isabel, thank you.”
“Welcome.” The loud grind and whir of an air hammer disturbed the quiet of the patio and pergola area. This was followed by a crash and some cursing in rapid-fire Spanish. Isabel cringed, then yanked off her apron and went outside. “What happened?” she asked the foreman.
He waved a hand, indicating a pile of coping stones that had apparently fallen from a forklift down a side slope. “It’s okay, senorita,” he said. “The walkway is steep, though. We might have to re-grade it.”
“All right,” she said, answering him in Spanish. “Do what you have to do.”
“The surveyor is coming this evening about the excavation for the pool,” he reminded her. “You can meet with us, yes?”
“Of course,” she said.
“La piscina?” asked Tess. “Doesn’t that mean swimming pool?”
“We’re getting a pool. Crazy, right?”
“Crazy good. When did this genius idea come about?”
“It was an impulse, and it won’t be ready in time for the grand opening, but it’s in the plans for Phase Two. Mac’s suggestion, actually.”
“So, a pool?” Tess shaded her eyes and studied the area, currently a terraced slope spiked with surveyor’s stakes. “That’s exciting. But you look stressed out.”
“You think?” Isabel wiped her brow with the edge of her blouse. “It’s the hottest day of the year so far, I’ve been working nonstop, the car service for Annelise was late, something’s going on with the plumbing in the teaching kitchen, and oh, yeah, I added a pool to this insane project.... What was I thinking?”
“That everything is going to be fantastic,” said Tess. “Deep breath.”
“Got it.”
“So, you and Mac....”
Isabel planted her hands on her hips, pretending she hadn’t thought about him every waking moment since the night in the plaza. “Stop it. He’s here for Grandfather. And we’re becoming friends. End of story.”
“It doesn’t have to be the end. Honestly, Isabel, I’m desperate for you to have a little romance in your life. You haven’t dated anyone since I’ve known you.”
She brushed a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead. “If you must know, I had a date with Mac the other night.”
“Seriously?”
“No, it wasn’t serious at all. We went to town for tapas and wine. That counts as a date, right?”
“Totally. Why didn’t you tell me? Was it wonderful?”
“It was nice, and the nicest part of all is that it wasn’t serious.”
“That’s a good start. I’m glad you got out for a little bit. He’s a catch, don’t you think?”
“He doesn’t want to be caught. And I’m not in the market for a boyfriend, anyway.”
“But you’re attracted to him.”
“Hello, he looks like Thor’s big brother. I’d be declared brain dead if I wasn’t attracted to him. Doesn’t mean I want him for my boyfriend, though.”
Tess beamed at her. “I think I’ll invite him to the wedding.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Watch me.” She grabbed her phone and tapped out a text message.
“He’ll be gone before the wedding,” Isabel said. “We’ll never see him again.”
“Miss Johansen?” The plumber approached her with a clipboard. “I have a quote for the repair in the new kitchen.”
“It’s brand-new,” she said, hyperventilating when she saw the estimate. “How can it need repairing?”
He launched into an explanation so technical that her eyes glazed over. Isabel approved the bid, then was pulled away to deal with a delivery of landscaping plants. As she stood in a jungle of potted honey locusts and Italian plum trees, checking inventory off a list, she had an urge to run away from home.
That was when Mac showed up. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.
“What? No. Why would you think that?”
“Tess said. I had a text message from her.”
“That’s right.” Tess took the plant inventory list away from Isabel. “You need to take her away from here for a while. She’s been working nonstop and has to decompress.”
“Hey,” Isabel said again. “I don’t have time to—”
“Actually, you do,” Tess said. “Trust me, I know how toxic stress is.”
Isabel knew she was alluding to the state Tess was in when she’d first arrived at Bella Vista. “I’ll be okay,” she said.
“Yes, but only after you take the afternoon off.” Tess grabbed Isabel’s phone. “Unplugged.”
Isabel scowled at her sister, then turned to Mac. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t go anywhere right now.”
“Sure, you can,” he said. “Let’s go.”
What part of no did this person not understand?
“Hey, Tess,” he added, “thanks for the other message you sent. I’d be honored to come to your wedding. I’ve heard the food is going to be incredible.”
“The guest list is closed,” Isabel said.
“There’s always room for one more,” Tess assured her. She turned back to the landscape delivery, officiously checking the plants.
“What makes you think you’ll still be here for the wedding?” Isabel asked.
“You,” he said easily. “You make me think that.” Just as he’d done the other night, Mac took her hand. “I have an idea. It’s a great one. It’s going to knock your socks off.”
“What—”
“I’ll show you. I was going to wait until we were further along, but today’s as good as any other.” Keeping hold of her hand, he started walking, but not toward the house. Instead, he took her down to the machine shop. It was dimly lit with slices of sunlight cutting through the rustic wood planks on the walls.
Her grandfather’s tractor was parked there, with the flail and rotary mowers nearby. There were a couple of bin trailers and a forklift, and stacks of bushels, bins and ladders. The gooey smell of motor oil tinged the air, emanating from the repair bay.
“What are we doing in here?” she asked, wishing for a breeze.
“I spotted something when your grandfather was showing me around. Major find. I think you’re going to like it.” He went over to the repair bay and pulled away a canvas shroud to reveal an old-fashioned motor scooter. “I don’t suppose you recognize this.”
She stood back and frowned. “Should I?”
He wheeled it out into the sunshine, and she followed, still mystified. The scooter was a neglected hulk of a thing, its seafoam-green paint furred with dusty grease. A headlamp rested atop the front fender, and what might have been chrome was pocked with black spots. Yet its homely, bulbous shape was curiously appealing. There was a triangular leather saddle with springs and a square one behind it, and both shone from a recent polishing. The tires looked new, incongruous next to the shabby state of the rest of the scooter.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Her jaw dropped. “How’s that?”
“She brought it over from Italy when she moved here.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. Magnus told me that when she and your father met in Italy, this was her ride to and from classes every day.”
She walked around the old bike, trying to picture a young woman riding around Italy on it. “My mother went to university in Salerno. I knew she and my father had met there, but I never heard a thing about a motorcycle.” Whenever she spoke of her parents, Isabel felt curiously ambivalent. She was speaking of two strangers she’d never known, yet without them, she would never have been born. A part of her yearned to find out more, yet ano
ther part held back in fear. What if she learned something disturbing about her mother? It had been hard enough to hear Annelise’s unbearable truth.
But a motor scooter? There couldn’t be anything sad about that, could there?
“Magnus thinks Francesca’s father gave it to her, so I guess she was keeping it for sentimental value. It’s a 1952 model. It was put away when she found out she was pregnant with you. And then, I assume, forgotten.”
That was understandable, considering the drama around the time of her birth. “So you’re saying this thing just sat in a corner of the shop until now?”
“That’s what your grandfather told me. There are some bicycles, too, including a tandem bike, but this is by far the most interesting thing we found.”
“And you just happened to pull it out.”
“Magnus and I were talking about his son, and the conversation got around to Francesca, and we found her old scooter stored under an old tarp in the machine shop. Said he never took the time to get rid of it, and even considered getting it restored, but then just forgot about it.”
“He’s always been a pack rat.”
“We’ve been working on the sly.”
“So this is where you’ve disappeared to every day.”
“Yep. We replaced the tires and a lot of other parts,” said Mac. “And there’s good news.” He dangled a key in front of her, then inserted it and turned the fuel tap lever. With one foot, he kick-started it. There was a backfire, and then a chugging sound. With a puff of exhaust, the thing started. “I got it working.”
She took another step back. “You did not.”
“Yep.” He gunned the engine.
“Wow. I’m impressed. I can’t believe you got it running after all this time.”
“Living in developing countries has its perks. You learn to fix stuff on your own.”
“Unbelievable.” She gave a little laugh. “One of these days, I want to hear about these countries.”
“Not today. It’s all Italy today. There’s a lot more work to be done, but this will do for now.” He mounted the scooter, his feet resting on the flat floorboard. “Vieni, signorina.”
“Is it safe?” she asked, raising her voice over the chugging of the engine.
“Why is that always your first question?”
“We don’t have helmets,” she said. “I’m wearing flip-flops.”
“You’re living on the edge,” he said. “Come on, this thing is so underpowered, we won’t go faster than thirty, tops.”
“I’m sure it’s not even street legal,” she said.
“Not even,” he shot back.
“It’s filthy.”
“Get dirty with me, Isabel.”
“But—”
“Get on.”
Despite her apprehension, she bunched up her skirt and slung her leg over the bike. Gingerly, she groped for the edge of the saddle.
“Hang on,” he said.
There was nothing to hold on to except him. She clung to his waist, grabbing a handful of his T-shirt with her fists. He smelled of sweat and exhaust, a combination she found wildly appealing. This was crazy, because she always assumed she was attracted to men who wore cologne, and long-sleeved dress shirts and knife-pleated trousers. Not—
“Here we go,” he said, and accelerated. The scooter lurched forward, and they were off. He drove down to the main road, turning left, away from town, and opened up the accelerator. Isabel held his shirt in a death grip, certain the contraption was going to fly apart at any moment.
The landscape of Bella Vista flowed past, a sun-drenched smear of color—lush greens, the purple of wild iris, poppies the color of egg yolk, all under a sky of the deepest, most promising blue. The scooter chugged, and then hit its stride, humming along with a steady drone.
Suddenly Isabel found herself imagining her mother, in a way she never had before. She had always pictured Francesca as a two-dimensional image—a smiling young bride, carefully coiffed and posed in the yellowing wedding photos pressed in Bubbie’s fat, musty-smelling album. Now she could see someone vibrant and alive, someone who rode a motor scooter. Rather than a smiling woman in a fading photograph, Isabel could now envision her mother as an adventurous soul—young and in love, bravely leaving everything she’d ever known in Italy, all for the sake of an American named Erik Johansen.
Perhaps that was why she’d had her scooter shipped to Archangel, to have something familiar, something from home. Isabel wondered if Francesca had ridden these byways as a new bride, maybe stopping at a farm stand here or there to bring something home for supper, her parcels nestled in the willow basket behind the seat.
They skimmed past the sprawling Maldonado estate, heading north. “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked, shouting into the wind.
“Not a clue. Take me somewhere,” he said.
Take me somewhere. No one had ever said that to her before. Suddenly she wanted to take him everywhere, to show him everything. The warm breeze eddied through her hair and caressed her skin. It felt wonderful. It felt like freedom.
“The vineyards on both sides of the road belong to the Maldonado family,” she said.
“As in Ramon Maldonado?” As he spoke, he turned his head to the side, and she had the sensation of his words flowing past her on the wind.
“Grandfather’s friend from the war years, yes. It was the Maldonado family who granted Bella Vista to Grandfather after the war,” she said. “Did he tell you how it all came about?”
“Not yet.”
“He will, I’m sure. They’ve been friends ever since.” She thought about the recent trouble with Lourdes, who was Ramon’s granddaughter, but that situation couldn’t be blamed on Ramon. “I can take you to see some incredible views. Do you think this thing will make it up a hill?”
“Yes, but it’ll be slow.”
“I don’t mind taking it slow,” she said.
They crossed the single lane arched bridge that spanned Angel Creek, a winding, stony waterway of worn rocks, flanked on both sides by farms and vineyards. The landscape turned wilder as the road narrowed and wound its way gradually up Angel Peak, the highest hill of the Archangel valley. She tipped up her chin to look at the sky, fringed by the boughs of eucalyptus trees along the roadside The air cooled, and a part of Isabel was amazed that she was actually riding on the back of a scooter, like a carefree teenager running off with some guy she barely knew.
She pointed out Elsinore Pond, where as a girl she used to play amid the reeds or crouch at the water’s edge, collecting frogs’ eggs and bringing them home to watch the tadpoles hatch. The pond had been named by her grandparents after they settled in at Bella Vista, and only now did Isabel understand the significance of the name. It had never occurred to her to wonder about it.
Through the stories Grandfather was telling Mac, the past was taking on a life of its own. It didn’t just sit frozen like an old photograph. She was finally getting a true sense of the drama her grandparents had survived. It was one thing to run her finger gently across the numbers tattooed on her grandmother’s inner forearm, as Isabel used to do, aching for the suffering Bubbie had endured; now she could picture little Eva, yelling out in pain and terror as the numbers were gouged into her tender flesh. Yet Isabel could also picture a girl who played in the garden and sang songs, and once had a friend named Annelise.
On the north slope of the peak was a redwood forest with branches arching over the roadway like the buttresses of a cathedral. The timeless sentinels added a curious hush to the coolness. The last thousand feet of the climb gave way to grassland and oak savannah, and the crest of the peak itself was covered in grass and wildflowers. There was a gravel parking area and then a final walk up a path to the highest point.
The scooter chugged along, emitting a backfire when Mac cut t
he engine.
She dismounted, stepping back while he set the kickstand. “Well. Honestly, I think it’s amazing that you found the scooter and actually got it to run.”
“Vespas are awesome,” he told her. “The word vespa is Italian for wasp.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yep. The body is built like an aircraft, made of a single piece of metal. These scooters can run forever if you take care of them. Your granddad and I have big plans for this one. I’ll take it apart and polish up each little piece, and put it back together. It’s going to be better than new.”
Why? she wanted to ask. Why would you do something like that?
“Your grandfather and I will finish the restoration together,” he said. “Guys talk better when they’re busy doing something with their hands.”
She nodded. “It’s not just guys. I’m better talking in the kitchen, preparing food. That’s why the cooking school is such a good project for me. Cooking and talking are my two favorite things. I love everything about preparing food.”
“It’s in your blood,” he said. “Erik and his state fair pies. I found another folder of his recipes in his room.”
She frowned. “Really? I thought I’d found them all myself, years ago.”
“They were in an old travel book. I’ll show you when we get back.”
“All right. My grandmother said she used to cook with Erik when he was a boy. Could be that’s why I loved cooking with her, too. She was incredible in the kitchen. The things she could do with apples could make a grown man weep.”
“I have a feeling she’d approve of what you’re doing with Bella Vista.”
“She loved having people over, fixing food, laughing and talking. Knowing what I know about her now, what she survived and the life she made for herself afterward, I’m even more in awe of her. We’re going to call the herb garden ‘The Garden of Eva’ in her honor. Too hokey?”
“Not at all. I like it. Would Eva have liked it?”