Callie's Christmas Wish

by Merline Lovelace

  Would she ever understand this man? Only this morning he’d admitted taking out an assassin, and now here he was, embarrassed to hear two women discussing udders and teats. Smothering a grin, she listened as their guide continued.

  “Once the milk stops flowing, the cups disengage and the udders are washed again, then sprayed with disinfectant.”

  They followed the chamber’s current occupant toward the exit. The buffalo entered another chute that led to the pasture, and Arianna and her guests emerged into the yard.

  “That was so interesting,” Callie said. “I had no idea cattle milking had become so mechanized.”

  “Not all farms are as progressive as ours. And there... Ah! Here is Papà.”

  Callie’s first, startled thought was that the gentleman who hurried toward them looked just like Rossano Brazzi, the hunky Italian actor who’d starred alongside Louis Jourdan in Three Coins in the Fountain. Tall, tanned, wavy haired and full lipped, he greeted Joe with a hearty handshake and Callie with a traditional kiss to both cheeks.

  “I’m so pleased you could join us, Signorina Langston. I see Arianna has been showing you a little of what makes our mozzarella the best in Campania.”

  “She has, and I must say I’m very impressed.”

  “You will be even more so once you taste it. Please, let us escort you to the house and introduce you to the rest of the family.”

  * * *

  Four hours, two dozen or so relatives, several glasses of wine, a ginormous platter of pasta and six different flavors of mozzarella later, Signor Audi asked his daughter to entertain Callie while he took Joe into his study for a private discussion. Not that she needed entertaining. She was so stuffed she could barely move. She was also beginning to feel jet lag creeping up on her. Comfortably ensconced on the sofa, she was more than content to listen with half an ear to the buzz of conversation conducted mostly in Italian and watch Arianna’s two young children setting candles into ornate ceramic holders to be lit in honor of Saint Lucia.

  “It’s a tradition for us,” their mother explained, her feet up and her ankles crossed on a hassock. “One that dates back almost a thousand years. Lucia means light, yes? She was martyred on this day in December, which under the Julian calendar was then the winter solstice.”

  “The shortest day of the year,” Callie commented.

  “Exactly! So for us the lighting of candles signals the end of the dark winter as well as the beginning of the twelve days of Christmas. When we light the candles, we sing her song and give the children sweets and small gifts.”

  “‘Santa Lucia.’ I know that song.”

  She should. The famous Neapolitan hymn had been recorded by everyone from opera greats like Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti to modern-day classical crossover star Hayley Westenra. Even Elvis Presley had sung it in one of his most popular movies, Viva Las Vegas. Movie buffs that they were, Callie, Kate and Dawn had watched the classic starring Elvis and Ann-Margret a half dozen times.

  “You have another interesting Christmas tradition.”

  Callie nodded to the A-frame crèche that occupied an entire corner of the room. It was the largest and most elaborate she’d ever seen. Five, maybe six feet tall, it contained several tiers of shelves filled with wrapped gifts, fragrant pine boughs, small candles and far more figures than she was used to seeing in a Christmas nativity scene. Some of the exquisitely detailed and gorgeously painted figurines wore the simple robes of shepherds and goat herders. Others were garbed in what looked like costumes from a dozen different historical eras, including modern-day soccer garb.

  “I’ve never seen soccer players in a manger scene before.”

  “That, too, is very Neapolitan,” Arianna told her. “We add new figures to our crèche every year, and the new addition doesn’t always have biblical significance. It could be a famous person from the past, a great opera star, even a president or politician.” Grinning, she pointed to a figure in modern clothing. “Do you see that grim gentleman there, on the far right? That’s our current prime minister. Papà added him this year. He feels the poor, misguided soul needs as much heavenly exposure as he can get.”

  “We have a few politicians in the States who could use more, too.”

  “You would probably see many familiar figures for sale on Via San Gregorio Armeno. That’s where the artisans who make the cribs display their wares. You must stroll down that street while you’re in Naples. You’ll see nothing else like it in the world.”

  “I’ll certainly check it out if I have time before we head back to Rome.”

  “Ah, yes. Papà tells me you are to work with Carlo di Lorenzo.” Her voice took on a cautious note. “You’ve met him before?”

  “Several times.”

  “Bene. Then you know to expect the most extravagant offers to jet away with him to Casablanca or Hong Kong.”

  “His last offer was Dubai,” Callie confirmed.

  “And Joe?” Arianna asked curiously. “He knows this about Carlo?”

  “He does.”

  Callie didn’t realize she was fingering her ring until it drew the other woman’s gaze.

  “That amethyst is gorgeous, and the setting so unusual.”

  “Thank you. I’m still not quite used to it.”

  “I begin to understand.” Arianna’s dark eyes danced. “If Joe Russo gave you that beautiful ring, not even Carlo di Lorenzo can mistake its message. Whether he will choose to heed it, however, is another matter altogether.”

  “Sounds like you know the prince pretty well.”

  “I, too, have been invited to fly away with him. But,” she added on a merry laugh, “that was before I settled down with a husband, two bambini and three hundred water buffalo.”

  When Joe and Signor Audi returned, Callie confessed she was starting to feel the combined effects of her long flight, the delicious dinner and several glasses of wine. They made their farewells a few moments later and left with invitations to visit again, an exchange of phone numbers and a promise from Arianna to call Callie the next time she was in Rome. They must do lunch, the buffalo rancher declared, and shop at some of the city’s elegant little boutiques.

  “I hope she does call,” Callie said as she settled in the soft leather seat. “It would be nice to hit the shops with a friend.”

  * * *

  She wanted to stay awake for the short drive into Naples. She would really like to experience the city for the first time bathed in moonlight. She was also eager to see the colorful Christmas lights Arianna said were strung from building to building in alleys so narrow that second-and third-story residents could almost shake hands with neighbors living across the street.

  She remembered clicking her seat belt. Remembered her head lolling against the back rest. The next thing she knew Joe had opened the passenger side door and was unclicking her belt.

  “Whrarwe?”

  “At the hotel. C’mon, sweetheart, let’s get you to bed.”

  The parking valet took the SUV, and Joe took her arm. While he checked them in, Callie registered sleepy impressions of a lobby with more marble than the pyramids of Giza, a wide circular staircase draped with exquisitely decorated garlands and a Christmas tree that soared three or four stories.

  Once in their suite, her jet lag hit with a vengeance. Close to comatose, she left a trail of clothes from a sitting room graced by a massive sofa to a bedroom dominated by a four-poster bed draped with shimmering, champagne-colored silk. In bra and panties, she crawled under the covers. A sleep-starved corner of her mind registered the small thud of Joe placing their carryalls on the bench at the foot of the bed. The faint whisper as he undressed. The dip of the mattress when he slid in and pulled her against him. His chest was warm against her back, his thighs hard under her butt. With a sound halfway between a sigh and a whimper, she snuggled close
r and sank into oblivion.

  * * *

  She woke to thin shafts of sunlight sneaking through the drapes and hazy realization she was still spooned against Joe. She smiled in perfect contentment and went back to sleep.

  It could have been moments or hours before she blinked awake again. Pushing up on one elbow, she discovered the other half of the bed was empty and the covers neatly smoothed. The only sound disturbing the stillness was the faint honk of a car horn outside the draped windows.

  “Joe?”

  No answer from either the bathroom or the spacious sitting room visible through open double doors. Tossing back the covers, Callie padded to the bath. Each step brought the delicious sensation of her feet sinking into inch-thick silk carpet. The room itself stopped her in her tracks.

  The decadent bath was a symphony in marble—gleaming black-and-white squares on the floors, dove-gray patterned with what looked like real gold swirls on the walls, a matching slab of gold-toned stone on the countertops. The walk-in shower was as large as the kitchen in her Boston apartment, and the claw-foot tub sat in regal splendor on a raised dais.

  Good grief! This hotel suite must cost a fortune. She felt an uneasy twinge thinking back to yesterday, when she’d insisted on paying her share of expenses. Then she remembered Joe saying his prospective client would pick up the tab. The mozzarella business must be booming.

  Joe’s business, too, if he catered to such super-wealthy clients. He and Callie had never discussed either the size or the financial base of his company. They’d had no reason to. Just one more aspect of the Joe Russo enigma she knew nothing about.

  Thinking of the gaps in their knowledge of each other, she padded to the shell-shaped sink with its gold faucets and arching swan’s neck spigots. None of the fixtures showed a single water spot despite the obvious signs Joe had used them earlier—his razor, shaving cream and aftershave were lined up in precise order beside a leather shaving kit. He’d even folded back the top sheet of toilet paper, she noted with some amusement.

  Her immediate needs attended to, she snuggled into one the hotel’s plush robes and headed back into the bedroom to discover that Joe had picked up the clothes she’d discarded the night before. He’d also unpacked the rest of her things. They hung beside his at evenly spaced intervals in a wardrobe of ornately carved burled walnut.

  “Well,” she murmured to her reflection in the wardrobe’s mirrored doors, “whatever else the man’s done in his checkered past, he learned to pick up after himself.”

  Evidently you could take the man out of the military. Much harder to take the military out of the man, she mused as she surveyed the sitting room that he’d left in the same neat order. Newspaper folded. Glossy magazines aligned on the monster coffee table. Room service tray with its contents stacked, placed on a hall table near the door. Note folded and propped against the vase centered on a round table inlaid with a dozen different kinds of wood.

  The message in the note, like the man himself, was short and succinct.

  Checking out film festival venues with Sig. Audi. Back by 3:00 p.m.

  A glance at the mantel clock above a fireplace faced with green marble indicated it was almost 10:00 a.m. She’d been out cold for thirteen hours. The basic need for sleep taken care of, she now had to deal with another. She’d left Audi Farms last night convinced she’d never eat again. Her stomach was now singing an entirely different tune.

  She’d call room service, she decided, and grab a quick shower while waiting for breakfast to be delivered. After that she’d go explore. But first...

  She searched the brocade curtains covering the entire wall, hunting for their pull cord then realized they operated electrically. She hit one switch, and the heavy brocade whirred back. A second switch opened the blackout curtain underneath. As soon as it parted, brilliant sunlight flooded in. Momentarily blinded, Callie took a step back and squinted through the glare.

  “Oh. My. Lord!”

  Stunned, she fumbled for the latch of the double doors that opened onto a wide balcony. A brisk breeze tugged at her hair. The balcony’s marble tiles were cold against her bare feet. On the street below, traffic honked and diesel fumes tainted the air. What sounded like a jackhammer was going at it somewhere not too far away. Callie didn’t see or hear or feel any of it. The view from the balcony utterly and completely enthralled her.

  Naples in all its chaotic glory spilled down the hill below and spread its wide, sprawling arms to embrace the impossibly, incredibly blue Bay of Naples. Vesuvius towered above the far side of the bay. The clouds that had shrouded its peak yesterday had dissipated. Today the cone wore a wreath of glistening white snow.

  Enchanted, Callie leaned her elbows on the stone baluster and reveled in her bird’s-eye view of jumbled streets and narrow alleys strung with washing and ropes of colored Christmas paper. Far below was what she guessed was the main piazza. A majestic cathedral dominated one side of the square. To its left was a 1890s-looking building with a fanciful glass dome. And facing the cathedral was a mile-long structure with a facade interspersed with dozens of statue-filled niches.

  Whirling, Callie rushed back inside. The heck with breakfast. She’d grab a croissant or a roll and some coffee on the go. She had to get out and explore.

  She scrambled into slacks and a lightweight sweater, bunched her hair into a scrunchie, slapped on some lip gloss and added a quick postscript to Joe’s note. Then she was out the door.

  Chapter Six

  Callie was almost through the lobby before she remembered Arianna mentioning a street she shouldn’t miss. A quick detour took her to the concierge’s desk.

  “But yes, madam,” he said when she asked about a street where they sold crèches. “It is the Via San Gregorio Armeno. Let me show you where it is.”

  He pulled out a tourist map and circled what looked like a short alleyway but warned her it was difficult to find.

  “It’s best to take a taxi, madam. And may I suggest other sites nearby worthy of a visit?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Here, just a few blocks away, is the Museo Cappella Sansevero, with its magnificent statue of the Veiled Christ. And here is the Basilica of San Lorenzo Maggiore. It’s located at the exact center of the ancient city of Neapolis. There is a new museum here that gives the history of this area, from the Greeks to the Angevins and down to the present day. You can also visit the excavation of the Roman market once located on this spot.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  “But be careful, madam. These spots are very popular with tourists, and thus with pickpockets. I suggest you drape the strap of your purse across your chest and keep it in front of you, yes?”

  Callie thanked him again and studied the map while the bellman summoned a cab. Not that her studying did much good. She gave up even trying to read street signs as the cab rocked through a series of hairpin turns and zoomed down the hill. With each turn the streets got narrower, while the buildings got older, darker and a little grimier.

  The taxi driver let her off at the head of the street of the crèche makers. As the concierge had warned, the narrow lane was jammed with tourists. Callie kept a careful hand on the purse she’d looped across her chest and plunged into the throng.

  Via San Gregorio Armeno was everything Arianna had said it would be! In shop after shop, brightly lit windows displayed crèches made of wood or cork or gorgeously decoupaged cardboard. Some were small, some huge and multitiered. A number of them featured mechanical windmills or waterfalls or baaing sheep. Artisans were hard at work in many of the shops, hand-painting terra cotta shepherds and oxen and angels.

  Other artisans crafted the figures from different eras that fascinated Callie as much as they did the other tourists. Arianna hadn’t exaggerated. Statuettes of famous political figures, rock stars and athletes crowded next to the holy family, the
magi and the shepherds. Callie recognized a good number. William and Kate with their own little angels. The US president. The Irish musician and world-renowned philanthropist Bono.

  As one shopkeeper explained in excellent English, it was the ultimate goal of all Italian entertainers to find themselves on the Via San Gregorio Armeno.

  “As soon as they become famous, they want the statue. Here is the great Pavarotti. And the young Anna Tatangelo, who sings like an angel. And this is Giuseppe Fabiano, the footballer who goes to jail for not paying taxes.”

  Callie dutifully admired the array of modern figures but decided to go traditional on a gift for Joe. The beautifully crafted four-inch statue of Joseph, Mary’s husband and protector, depicted both strength and nobility of character. A fitting start to the crèche—and family—she and her very own Joseph might build together.

  In another shop she found a Kristoff, the iceman from Disney’s Frozen, for Tommy, and a flame-haired angel for Dawn. For Kate she chose a wicked caricature of a former US presidential candidate her friend had heartily despised. She left the street pleased with her purchases but not quite sure she fully appreciated the irreverent sense of humor that would juxtapose the sacred and profane so exuberantly.

  The tantalizing scent of something hot and yeasty lured her to a bakery halfway down the next block. Since it was already past noon, the cases displayed both pastries and open-faced sandwiches. A slab of pizza bread tempted her, but she decided she’d rather share a real Neapolitan pizza with Joe and settled instead for coffee and a ricotta-filled pastry. Flaky and topped with powdered sugar, the roll melted in her mouth. She lingered over the coffee, people watching and enjoying the hustle of the busy street. She would’ve stayed longer if not for the desire to be back at the hotel when Joe returned.

  Once out on the street, she headed for her next stop. After several wrong turns and an appeal to a passerby for assistance, she found the entrance to Cappella Sansevero tucked off a side street. The printed brochure that came with the entrance fee explained that it had once been the private burial chapel of the prince of Sansevero, who’d hired some of Italy’s most famous artists and sculptors to embellish his family tomb. The statues and frescoes and painted ceiling were magnificent, but the life-size statue of Christ draped in a thin shroud transfixed Callie. The veil was carved from the same marble block as the statue and was so seemingly transparent that the wounds on Christ’s hands, feet and side showed plainly.