Elisa’s face whipped toward her friend. “You like a boy? Who?”
Fatima blushed. “I don’t want to say.”
Elisa was bewildered, “Why? Who can it be?” She thought about the boys in their class. “It’s Mario, isn’t it?”
Fatima’s open mouth confirmed Elisa’s hunch. Fatima gasped, “How did you guess?”
Elisa shrugged. “You look at him a lot, but you never say anything to him.”
Fatima ventured, “Do you think he likes me too?”
Elisa sat back and closed her eyes, scanning her memory. Opening her eyes she said, “Yes.”
Fatima beamed, “Really? Why?”
Elisa grinned at her friend and shrugged again. “He smiles a lot when he sees you.”
Fatima beamed and sat back, staring without seeing over the distant hills.
Elisa was glad her friend was happy, but she did not understand why Fatima would care about boys. Her thoughts darted to Stefano’s hand brushing her behind as she walked away. She shivered. Boys were awful. And a little scary.
Fatima drained the last of her tea and handed the pizza back to Elisa, “Mamma will kill me if I don’t eat my whole dinner. She says I’m so thin I’ll blow away. Can you finish it?”
“Sure. Okay,” Elisa took the last quarter of the pizza and concentrated on not wolfing it down. She finished, and licked her fingers before using the napkins to wipe her hands clean.
Fatima leapt up, “C’mon! Do you think we could play in those trees and pretend they are rosemary? I want to be a wood princess with a crown of leaves.”
“I’ll be a traveling mushroom seller! And I come with my mushrooms and you aren’t sure to trust me or not. Too bad there aren’t any porcini around, but look! I see some moss, we can use that!”
The playground was empty, as it often was when there was a nip in the air. Pork and boys and money and grades were left behind as the girls filled the park with their laughter. They chased each other around the pomegranate tree, then used the fruit to stain their lips. They stood on the swings, pretending to be flying goddesses. Elisa was showing Fatima how to do a cartwheel on the small patch of grass, rubbed almost to dirt by the attempts of small boys to play soccer, when their conversation was cut off by a yell.
“Elisa!”
They both looked up.
A woman hurried into the park, oily hanks of hair escaping the scarf she’d tossed over her head, a coat buttoned haphazardly over her loose flower print dress. Elisa’s face went white against the pomegranate juice smeared across her mouth. She backed up like a crab.
The woman grabbed Elisa by the arm and yanked her to standing.
“What do you think you are doing? I wake up and you are gone with this . . . this note! What do you think your father would say if he came home and found it?”
“I’m sorry, Mamma, I’m sorry! I didn’t think about him finding it, I thought you would find it.”
“You thought! You thought! If you thought for a moment it would be a miracle worthy of Santa Lucia herself. How dare you! How dare you leave! After everything we’ve done for you!”
The woman’s hand flung across space and time, connecting to Elisa’s face with a cracking sound. Elisa’s hand cupped her cheek and she sobbed, “I’m sorry, Mamma! I’m so sorry! Is he home?”
The woman looked at her child, and sagged. “No, not yet. I found your note as I got up to go shopping. I panicked. Oh, Elisa. I hurt you.” She reached out her hand to touch Elisa’s face.
“It’s okay, Mamma. We’ll go shopping now. We’ll go shopping together. It will be okay.”
But the woman stopped moving, she was staring at the angry welt on her daughter’s face. “Elisa?”
“Come on, Mamma, let’s go. Quickly, now.” Elisa pulled her mother forward, out of the park. She didn’t look back to see Fatima, arms wrapped around her skinny knees, watching, as Elisa and her mother stumbled out of the park.
Fatima rubbed the red from her lips, finally using her arm to wipe across her mouth. She stood up, brushed the seat of her pants free of dirt, and slowly walked home.
“Chiara! Did you hear?” Arturo blew into the bar, his cheeks flushed from the wind and his news.
Chiara wiped the bar free of a scattering of sugar from the teenage boys that just left. “About what?” She hoped it wasn’t fresh evidence against his gorgeous wife, who was, truth be told, probably having an affair. But Chiara hated to see Arturo spinning like a decapitated chicken rather than making a move to extricate himself from the situation.
“Massimo is getting married!”
“Ah, yes.”
“You knew?” Arturo’s face fell. He’d been sure he held the keys to this news. Anna, Massimo’s mother, had proudly told him just this morning.
“Anna came in this morning.”
“Oh, well. Can you believe it? Giulia died, what? A year ago?”
Chiara measured her response. It didn’t seem like Arturo knew the juiciest part of this gossip, and on the off-chance that it was all in her head, Chiara wasn’t daring to say anything. “Not exactly a year.” She ducked to check the number of bottles of water on the shelf.
“Well, I say it’s not normal.”
“What’s not normal?” asked Patrizia, unwinding the scarf from her head as she walked in the door.
Arturo whipped toward Patrizia, and before Chiara could rise, he said, “Massimo is getting married!”
“Yes, I heard.”
Arturo was crestfallen. “How did you find out?”
“I saw him with Margherita at the park when I was there with my grandson. He told me.”
“He did? He told you? Did he say anything about his fidanzata?”
“The usual. She’s wonderful, smart, beautiful.” At this Chiara stood, a confused expression furrowing her eyebrows. She swallowed, then crouched down below the counter again as Patrizia continued. “Oh! I think he said she’s from Florence. A city girl. I wonder how she’ll cope with the quiet here.”
“Florence! I didn’t know that part. I wonder how he met her?”
“Met who?” said Edoardo, entering the bar from the door behind the counter.
Chiara turned and faced her nephew with a carefully neutral expression on her face, “Arturo and Patrizia were talking about Massimo getting married.”
Edoardo felt a hook pulling him into the conversation, but one look at Chiara’s still face and he stalled. He took his time closing the door, then latched it softly before turning to the bar. “Ah, yes. Wonderful news.” He glanced over at Chiara and saw her nod in approval. Edo ran his teeth over his lower lip, and then passed his aunt with a pat on her shoulder before opening the drawer to pull out his apron.
“Wonderful?” shouted Arturo. “Isn’t anyone else shocked that he’d be getting married with his wife hardly cold in the ground?”
All heads turned. Chiara murmured, “Now, Arturo . . .”
Arturo looked chastened, “None of you think it’s strange? Un caffè, by the way, Chiara.”
“Sure, un attimo.” Chiara washed her hands, and when she turned to dry them, everyone was studying different corners of the bar, not speaking. “You want one, Edo?”
“Yes, thanks, Zia.”
The bar was quiet as Chiara prepared the coffee. All heads faced the door as Bea swept in, “Fa un freddo cane! It’s so cold out there!” She removed her coat and hung it by the door. “Did you hear? Massimo is getting married!”
Arturo’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think that’s a little soon?”
“Yes! Giulia, bless her heart, died just a year ago! And we all thought he was pining for her. Ha! He was making moves on another woman. Maybe loads of women, for all we know.”
Chiara set Arturo’s coffee in front of him and gestured toward it to Bea. Bea nodded, and then said, “Wait, no make it un cappuc
cino.” She reached for a sugar packet and started shaking it by the corner as she looked around, “It’s disturbing, no?”
Arturo nodded, “Yes! That’s just what I was saying!”
Chiara, Patrizia, and Edoardo tried not to look at each other—Chiara pulling shots for Edo and Bea, Edo retying his apron, Patrizia studying the drink menu she’d no doubt memorized since it had rarely changed in her lifetime.
Bea shook her head. “Poor Giulia must be rolling over in her grave.”
Arturo shot a look at Chiara, but she focused on filling the metal pitcher with milk. He pressed on firmly, “Esatto. What do you know about the woman he’s marrying?”
Bea sighed as she ripped open her sugar packet. “Only what the men were saying in the piazza. She works at the bank. I think she has a big family in Florence, though no one recognized her surname.”
Chiara handed the espresso to Edoardo and the cappuccino to Bea, who thanked her before asking, “Chiara, you must know something. Dai, come on, tell us!”
Chiara shook her head, “No, that’s more than I knew.”
“Ha! What a crock,” snickered Bea. “You forget, I dated your uncle before he married your aunt. I know this bar is the hotbed of gossip. The stories he told me! It’s one of the reasons I refused to marry him, you know. I would hate to hold everybody’s secrets. I don’t know how you do it, Chiara.”
Chiara smiled and began stacking cups in the dishwasher.
Arturo groaned, “Oh, no, here comes the German.”
Bea rolled her eyes. “I wonder what we’re doing wrong today. Last week she told me I should be feeding my chickens leftover potato peels like they do in Germany. How many potatoes does the woman think I eat?”
The door swung open and Magda strode in. “Did you hear about Massimo? He’s getting married!”
To the silence that greeted her pronouncement, Magda added, “To a woman who is the spitting image of his dead wife.”
This had the desired effect. All faces swiveled to her like sunflowers. She smiled roundly at everyone, looking for all the world like the cat that got the cream. She stepped between Arturo and Bea and announced, “I’ll have my usual, Chiara.”
Finally, the parade of customers ran out of ways to recycle their limited facts about Massimo and his betrothed. One by one, they filed out into the hastening dusk.
The stranger looked up from his paper and caught Chiara’s glance. “Pardon me, but if you don’t mind my asking—that woman who just left, where is she from? I can’t place her accent.” He gestured with his chin towards Magda’s back, receding down the street.
“Magda? She moved here from Germany, oh, twenty years ago? Now she lives around the corner. She owns ‘Villa Tramonte.’ I assumed you were staying there. You’re not?” Chiara couldn’t figure out why she added that last part. She only knew she wanted the conversation to continue.
“Ah, no.”
Chiara bit her lip to keep from asking where he was staying. She looked up from putting Magda’s coffee cup into the dishwasher and saw that the stranger was watching her. A smile crept across his face until he was chuckling.
“What?” Chiara asked, smiling too, despite herself.
“You want to ask where I’m staying, don’t you?”
Chiara set down her towel. “And why would I want to know that?”
“Oh, Chiara, even with just the couple of weeks I have been in Santa Lucia, I can see that you are at the center of everything. No problem is too great or too small for people not to come in here and lay it at your feet. For there to be information you don’t have, it must kill you, no?”
Chiara toyed with indignation and protest. But there was something about this man that made her not want to adopt any artifice. Instead, she leaned forward on her elbows and grinned. “It is true that you are a bit of a mystery. We don’t get many mysteries around here. I’m afraid I’m out of practice.”
The man chuckled and folded his newspaper along the creases. “What do you want to know?”
“We could begin with your name. It’s rather unfair that you know mine.”
“It would be impossible not to know yours. But mine is Fabrizio,” and with this the man gave a mock bow, which was more of a flirtatious head tilt.
“All right then, Fabrizio. Where are you staying, if not at Magda’s?”
“At the apartment of a friend of a friend, on the edge of town.”
“Do you know what family owns the apartment?”
“Yes, Benito di Pasqua. Do you know him?”
“A little. I knew his grandparents when I was small, before they moved. Now the family rarely visits. Sometimes at Ferragosto or when it’s hot in Rome.”
“Yes, that sounds about right.”
Chiara leaned back and debated asking another question.
Fabrizio smiled his slow grin again. He said quietly, “Go ahead, Chiara.”
“So why are you here? With your notebooks and papers. Some people have said—oh, never mind.”
“What have they said, Chiara?”
Chiara shook her head and turned her back. She began polishing the flawlessly shiny La Pavoni.
Fabrizio hazarded, “I bet I know at least two theories. They think I’m either a private investigator hired by Arturo to see if his French wife is in fact cheating on him or a government agent sent to check to see if properties match what they pay in taxes.”
Chiara whirled around, her face confused, “How . . .”
Fabrizio stood and tucked his paper under his arm. “It’s a small town, Chiara. That everything is public is Santa Lucia’s worst kept secret. You should know that better than anyone. But I’ll let you in on a little truth.” He walked to the bar.
Chiara leaned toward him, eyes drawn to his.
Fabrizio rested his arms on the bar and let his face drift down to Chiara’s, until his warm breath bushed against her cheekbones. Fabrizio touched her hand with his forefinger and murmured, “I’m not sure how sinister this will seem to you, Chiara, but . . .”
“Ciao! Chiara!” A voice hailed from the doorway. Chiara reflexively stepped back from Fabrizio who immediately straightened, dropped a two euro coin in the copper plate and nodded his goodbye to her, stepping briskly out the door.
Chiara gaze lingered after him. When they drifted to the counter she noticed the uniformed figure before her. “Ah, ciao, Marcello. How is your mother?”
Marcello’s scowled. “Improving. She just returned home Thursday. What was that?”
“What was what?” Chiara widened her eyes and shrugged.
“That man. Why were you so close to him Chiara? You looked like you were kissing.”
Chiara attempted to laugh this off while she ground espresso beans.
“I’m serious, Chiara. That man is dangerous, I don’t even think you should be alone with him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Were you kissing him?”
“Mind your place, Marcé.” Chiara chided. The effect of the statement would have been stronger if both she and Marcello hadn’t noticed the blush beginning at the base of her neck. She swept on, “I am your elder, one of your mother’s oldest friends, not your peer. But to avoid fanning flames of gossip, I’ll tell you that no, I wasn’t.”
Marcello scratched his chin and approached the bar. “Chiara, no disrespect, but you looked awfully friendly. I’m telling you, you need to watch yourself. I know it’s your nature to be welcoming, but that stranger is no good for you.”
Chiara pretended a level of nonchalance she did not feel. “Oh, really? Why?”
“Ma dai, I can hardly discuss that with you.”
“Has he done something illegal?”
“Not exactly. He’s perfectly polite. Too polite if you ask me. Like he has something to hide. Chiara, trust me. Between the two of us, who is the more
trained to spot derelicts? Stay away from that man.”
Chiara let her eyes drift out the door. She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay away, and the foreignness of that feeling concerned her more than Marcello’s warning.
The morning sun hung weakly in the mid-October sky when Fatima stepped onto the cobblestone streets of Santa Lucia, money for couscous pushed deep into her pocket. She trailed her fingers along the walls, letting them wind into the greenery that erupted from the mortar. The stones had warmed a bit in the afternoon sun, and she enjoyed the emanating heat against the coolness of the tickling fronds.
She hoped the alimentari had couscous. Time was they never did, but after a few months of her family living in Santa Lucia and asking for it periodically, Giovanni had begun stocking it. Not a lot, and sometimes it disappeared from the shelves just when her family was craving a taste of home, but Fatima appreciated the effort. She’d even been inveigled into conversations about how her family prepared the dish. She liked it topped with good Umbrian lamb, which her tastebuds insisted (as much as her parents vociferously denied) was even tastier than what they ate in Morocco.
Her mouth watered in anticipation of dinner. The smell of the sauce had wafted out with her, and still clung to her sweater. As she was wondering what shape pasta she would choose if the alimentari was out of couscous, she caught sight of Luciano walking out of San Nicola. He raised his head and blinked at the sudden sunshine. Fatima noted that he wasn’t listing to the side as did on bad days, and his cane was nowhere in sight. She ran up to him and tugged at his coat as he walked to the piazza.
“Ah, Fatima, buon pomeriggio.” Was it her imagination, or was Luciano’s voice rusty from disuse? How long had it been since he’d talked to anyone?
“Ciao, Maestro. Come va?”
“I’m well, Fatima.”
“You were in church?”
“I was.”
“For services?” Fatima could never keep track of Catholics’ praying schedule, even though she snuck into the church often enough to study the paintings. Those saints were enigmatic, she wished she knew their stories. She debated coming out from the safety of the wall’s obscurity and asking the priest to explain the Catholic cast of characters to her. He had been so nice and engaging that time he saw her staring at the Madonna in her niche, she knew he would be happy to share his knowledge. But the thought of what her parents would say if they found out she’d even set foot in a Catholic church kept her tucked in the shadows.
Book One of the Santa Lucia Series Page 14