Breathing Room

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  The day was too cool for such a bare dress, but even as the sun disappeared behind a high bank of clouds, her skin burned. She made her way through the formal gardens to the back of the villa, where the villagers had already begun to gather. Some of them stood chatting beneath the canopy that had been erected, others gathered on the loggia. Jeremy and a few of the older boys were kicking a soccer ball through the statuary while the younger boys got in their way.

  She’d forgotten her purse. She had no money with her, no tissues or lipstick, pens or breath mints. She didn’t have Tampax, car keys, or her pocket screwdriver set—none of the objects she carried to protect herself from the messy reality of being alive. Worst of all, she didn’t have a gun.

  The crowd parted.

  Ren sensed that something unusual had happened even before he saw her. Tracy’s eyes widened, and Giulia made a soft exclamation. Vittorio lifted his head and muttered a familiar Italian phrase, but when Ren saw what had captured everyone’s attention, his brain lost its ability to translate.

  Isabel had set herself on fire.

  He took in the glowing conflagration of her dress, the heat in her eyes, the angry energy that radiated from her, and his mouth went dry. Gone were her tidy neutrals—all those comforting blacks, whites, and beiges that defined her world. And her hair . . . Disorderly curls blazed around her head in a style that Beverly Hills hairdressers charged hundreds of dollars to produce.

  Her lipstick was wrong and her shoes didn’t match, but she burned with a sense of purpose that put him on high alert. He’d spent a year on The Young and the Restless. He’d studied the scripts, and he knew exactly what was happening.

  Isabel’s evil twin had come to town.

  23

  Isabel watched Ren watching her. He was dressed entirely in black. Under the canopy behind him, bright blue linens covered the rows of tables, each of which held a terra-cotta pot spilling with pink geraniums. But the splashes of color did nothing to soothe her. Music played from the speakers Giancarlo had set up on the loggia, and the serving tables already held platters of antipasti, trays of cheeses, and bowls of fruit.

  As Isabel held Ren’s gaze, the flames of her anger crackled. This man had been her lover, but she had no idea what was going on behind his silvery eyes, and she no longer cared. For all his physical strength, he’d proved to be an emotional coward. He’d lied to her in a thousand ways—with his seductive cooking and winning laughter, with his furious kisses and soul-wrenching lovemaking. Whether he’d intended it or not, each had been an unspoken promise. Maybe not of love, but of something important, and he’d betrayed that.

  Andrea Chiara was coming toward her through the garden. She turned away from Ren with his black clothing and equally dark heart and went to meet the town’s doctor.

  Ren wanted to punch something as he watched Isabel greet Vittorio’s smarmy brother. He heard her say his name, her voice sounding as breathy as a 1950s starlet’s. Chiara gave her an oily look, lifted her hand, and kissed it. Punk.

  “Isabel, cara.”

  “Cara,” my ass. Ren watched Dr. Lovebutt take her arm and steer her from one group to the next. Did she really think she could beat Ren at his own game? She wasn’t any more interested in Andrea Chiara than he’d been interested in Savannah. So why didn’t she at least glance his way to see if her poison was working?

  He willed her to look over, just so he could yawn, which was all the proof he needed that he’d finally turned into a certified prick. He wanted to end it with her, didn’t he? He should be relieved that she was flirting with someone else, even if she was only doing it for effect. Instead, he felt like killing the son of a bitch.

  Tracy appeared and dragged him just far enough away from the others so she could give him hell. “How does it feel getting some of your own medicine back? That woman’s the best thing that ever happened to you, and you’re throwing her away.”

  “Well, I’m not the best thing that ever happened to her, and you damn well know it. Now, leave me alone.”

  He’d no sooner gotten rid of her than Harry ambled over. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Better than anyone.”

  He missed her passion, her kindness, her infinite sense of certainty. He missed the way she almost made him believe he was a better man than he knew himself to be. He gazed over at her gorgeous, messy doppelgänger and wanted his tidy, patient Isabel back, the same one he was trying so hard to get rid of.

  As Chiara set his hand on her shoulder, Ren forced himself to swallow his jealousy. He had a mission this afternoon, a mission that he’d been hoping would give him a bittersweet redemption. He wanted her to know that the emotional investment she’d made in him had been at least a little worthwhile. Maybe he’d even hoped to earn one of her smiles, although that no longer seemed likely.

  He’d originally planned to wait until the meal was over for his big announcement, but he no longer had the patience. This was something he needed to do now. He motioned for Giancarlo to turn down the music.

  “Friends, could I have your attention?”

  One by one, people stopped talking and turned to him: Giulia and Vittorio, Tracy and Harry, Anna and Massimo, everyone who’d helped with the harvest. The adults shushed the children. Ren moved into a shaft of sunlight next to the canopy, while Isabel stayed at Andrea’s side.

  He spoke first in Italian, then in English, because he wanted to make sure she didn’t miss a word. “As you know, I’ll be leaving Casalleone soon. But I couldn’t go without finding a way to show my appreciation for your friendship.” As everyone beamed at him, he switched to English. Isabel listened, but he could feel her anger coming at him in waves. The undertow sucked at his legs and threatened to swamp him.

  He pulled out the box he’d hidden beneath the serving table and set it on top. “I hope I’ve found the right gift.” He’d planned to build the suspense by making a long speech, teasing them a little, but he no longer had the heart for it. Instead, he opened the lid.

  Everyone moved closer as he pushed away the packing material. He slipped his hands inside and pulled out Shadow of the Morning for all of them to see.

  A few seconds of stunned silence ticked by, and then Anna gave a muffled shriek. “Is it real? Have you found our statue?”

  “It’s real,” he said.

  Giulia gasped, then flung herself into Vittorio’s arms. Bernardo lifted Fabiola off the ground. Massimo threw his hand to the heavens, and Marta started to weep. Everyone surged closer, blocking his view of the one person whose reaction he’d most wanted to witness.

  He held Ombra della Mattina high so everyone could see. The fact that he had no faith in the statue’s magical powers didn’t matter. They believed, and that was all that counted.

  Like Ombra della Sera, this statue was about two feet high and only a few inches wide. It had the same sweet face as its male counterpart, but the hair was a bit longer and a tiny pair of breasts marked it as female. The questions about how he’d found it began to fly.

  “Dove l’ha trovata?”

  “Com’è successo?”

  “Dove era?”

  Vittorio put his fingers to his teeth and whistled for silence. Ren set the statue on the table. Tracy moved a few inches to the side so that he could finally catch a glimpse of Isabel. Her eyes were wide, her fingers pressed to her lips. She gazed at the statue, not at him.

  “Tell us,” Vittorio said. “Tell us how you found it.”

  Ren began by recounting Giulia’s phone call to Josie for a list of the gifts Paolo had sent. “At first I didn’t see anything unusual. Then I noticed that he’d given her a set of fireplace tools.”

  Vittorio drew a sharp breath. As a professional tour guide, he understood before the rest. “Ombra della Sera,” he said. “I never thought . . .” He turned to the others. “The farmer who found the male statue in the nineteenth century was using it as a fireplace poker until someone recognized its value. Paolo knew this story. I heard him tell
it.”

  Ren had studied the list several times before he’d remembered how the other statue had been found. “I called Josie and asked her to describe the fireplace tools. She said it was an old set and very unusual. A shovel, some tongs, and a poker shaped like a woman’s body.”

  “Our statue,” Giulia whispered. “Ombra della Mattina.”

  “Josie had been trying to have a child. Paolo knew this. When she couldn’t get pregnant, he took the statue from the church and packaged it with the other things so she wouldn’t suspect what she had. He told her it was a valuable antique set, and that if she kept it by her fire, it would bring her good luck.”

  “And it did,” Anna said.

  Ren nodded. “Three months after she received the statue, she was pregnant with her first child.” A coincidence, but no one here was going to believe that.

  “Why did Paolo go to all the bother of making the statue look like it was part of a set?” Tracy asked. “Why didn’t he just send it to her as it was?”

  “Because he was afraid she’d mention it to Marta, and he didn’t want his sister to know what he’d done.”

  Marta twisted her apron and began telling everyone how much her niece had wanted to have a baby and how it broke Paolo’s heart to hear of her sadness. Even though her brother was dead, she still felt a need to defend him, and she insisted that Paolo would have returned the statue to the town after he’d learned of his granddaughter’s pregnancy, but he’d died too soon. The crowd was in a magnanimous mood, and they all nodded their agreement.

  Giulia picked up the statue and held it in her arms. “It’s only been a little more than a week since I got the list from her. How were you able to get this so quickly?”

  “I asked a friend of mine to go to her house and pick it up. He shipped it to me at my hotel in Rome two days ago.” His friend also had efficient methods of bypassing customs.

  “She did not mind giving it back to us?”

  “She has two children now, and she knew how important it was.”

  Vittorio grabbed Ren and kissed his cheeks. “I know I speak for everyone in Casalleone when I say that we can never thank you enough for what you’ve done.”

  From then on it was a free-for-all. From men and women, old and young—he was smothered with kisses. From everyone but Isabel.

  The statue made its way from one set of hands to another. Giulia and Vittorio glowed. Tracy shrieked good-naturedly as Harry tried to draw her closer to it. Anna and Massimo gazed with pride at their sons and with love at each other.

  Ren was too miserable to enjoy any of it. He kept glancing at Isabel, trying to see if she understood that, at least in this one thing, he hadn’t failed her. But she didn’t seem to be getting the message. Even as she smiled and laughed with the others, he felt her anger scorching him.

  Steffie leaned against his side. “You look sad.”

  “Who me? Never been happier. Look around. I’m a hero.” He wiped a dab of chocolate from the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

  “I think Dr. Isabel’s mad at you. Mom says . . .” Little pucker marks formed in her forehead. “Never mind. Mom’s cranky. Daddy told her she has to be patient with you.”

  “Here, have a breadstick.” He pushed it into her mouth to shut her up.

  Anna and the older women started herding the crowd to the tables. As the statue was passed from one family to the next, the toasts began, all of them directed at him. An unaccustomed tightness gripped his throat. He was going to miss this place, these people. He hadn’t planned it, but he’d somehow managed to grow roots here. Ironic, since he couldn’t come back, not for a very long time. Even if he waited until he was an old man to return, he knew he’d still see Isabel walking in the garden, her eyes shining just for him.

  She’d seated herself at the opposite end of the table, as far from him as she could get. Andrea sat on one side of her, Giancarlo on the other. Neither could take his eyes off her. She was like a film running on fast forward. Her curls skipped about her head as she gestured. Her eyes flashed. Everything about her was charged with energy, but only he seemed able to feel the anger behind it.

  The excitement had stirred appetites, and the soup quickly disappeared. The wind developed a chilly edge, and some of the women reached for their sweaters, but not Isabel. Her bare arms glowed with angry heat.

  Oversize bowls of linguini with a red mussel sauce appeared on the table, along with a creamy risotto, and everyone dug in. This was the kind of occasion he most enjoyed, surrounded by friends, good food, great wine, and yet he’d never been more miserable. Giulia and Vittorio stole a kiss. Judging from the expression on Tracy’s face, Harry was groping her under the table. Ren wanted to grope Isabel.

  Clouds rolled in, and gusts of wind rattled the trees. Isabel’s angry energy kept her from sitting still, but every time she jumped up to grab a serving platter, he expected it to shatter in her hands. One person after another demanded her attention, drawn to her as if her skin had been magnetized. She splashed wine on the tablecloth when she refilled glasses. She knocked the butter dish to the ground. But she wasn’t drunk. Her own glass had barely been touched.

  The sun settled lower in the sky, the clouds darkened, but the town had its statue back, and the mood grew more festive. Giancarlo turned up the music, and some of the couples began to dance. Isabel leaned against Andrea’s side, listening to him as if each word coming from his mouth were a drop of honey she wanted to lick up. Ren cracked his knuckles.

  As the bottles of grappa and vinsanto appeared, Andrea rose. Ren heard him address Isabel over the music. “Come dance with me.”

  The canopy snapped in the wind. She stood and took his hand. As they began walking toward the loggia, the points of her fiery skirt sparked at her knees. She tossed her head, and her curls flew. Andrea’s eyes nudged her breasts as he lit his cigarette.

  Just like that, she plucked it from his mouth and stuck it between her own lips.

  Ren jumped up so quickly he knocked over his chair. Before she could cough out her first inhalation, he’d covered the ground between them. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She took a mouthful of smoke and blew it in his face. “Partying.”

  He shot Andrea the look he’d been saving up all afternoon. “I’ll have her back to you in a few minutes, pal.”

  She didn’t fight him, but as he dragged her away, the heat of her skin made his fingers burn. He ignored the amused expressions of the people they passed, and towed her behind the farthest statue. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Fuck you, loser.” She hit him with another cloud of smoke.

  He wanted to wash her mouth out with soap, except he was the one who’d done this to her. Instead of kissing all the anger out of her, he drew himself up like a pompous asshole. “I’d hoped we could talk, but you’re obviously not in a mood to be rational.”

  “You’ve got that right. Now, get out of my way.”

  He never defended himself, but this time he had to. “Isabel, it wasn’t going to work. We’re too different.”

  “The saint and the sinner, right?”

  “You expect too much, that’s all. You keep forgetting I’m the guy who has ‘No Redeeming Social Value’ tattooed across his forehead.” He clenched his hands at his sides. “A reporter found me when I was in Rome. He’d heard a rumor about us. I denied everything.”

  “You want a Boy Scout badge?”

  “If the press finds out that we’ve had an affair, you’re going to lose what little credibility you have left. Don’t you understand? It’s all gotten too complicated.”

  “I understand that you make me sick. I understand I gave you something important, and you didn’t want it. And I understand I don’t ever want to see you again.” She flicked the cigarette at his feet, then stalked away, her dress flaming around her in a bonfire of rage.

  For a few minutes he stood there trying to get his equilibrium back. He needed to talk to someone with a clear head�
��get some advice—but a glance toward the loggia told him that the wisest counselor he knew was dirty dancing with an Italian doctor.

  The wind cut through his silk shirt, and his sense of loss nearly brought him to his knees. Right then he understood. He loved that woman with all his heart, and walking away from her was the biggest mistake of his life.

  So what if she was too good for him? She was the strongest woman he knew, tough enough to tame the devil himself. If she put her mind to it, she’d eventually whip him into shape. Hell no, he didn’t deserve her, but that only meant he’d have to do everything in his power to keep her from figuring that out.

  Except Isabel was smart about people. She wasn’t some emotionally needy female who was taken in by a pretty face. What if the things she said about him were true? What if she was right, and he’d grown so used to seeing himself through an old, worn-out lens that he couldn’t see the man he’d become?

  The idea made him dizzy. The freedom that a new view of himself could bring opened up too many possibilities to think about right now. First, he had to try to talk to her again, tell her how he felt, and he had a sinking feeling she wouldn’t make it easy.

  Until today he would have sworn that she had an unlimited capacity to forgive, but he was no longer so certain. He studied her as she danced. There was something different about her tonight that went well beyond the chopped hair, the dress, even her anger. Something . . .

  His eyes settled on her bare wrist, and the panic he’d been trying to hold off hit him like a sucker punch. Her bangle was missing. His mouth went dry as all the changes she’d made in herself suddenly fell into place.

  Isabel had forgotten to breathe.

  Isabel’s hands curled into fists, and she couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs. She pulled away from Andrea and stumbled through the dancers to the edge of the loggia. All around her, faces shone with happiness, but instead of calming her, their joy became gasoline to her anger.