To Tuscany with Love

by Gail Mencini

  Phillip glared at the windows and realized Angel had opened the blinds to give the workmen a view of her. Heat crept up his neck and then engulfed his face. He grabbed the six-hundred-dollar master remote off the elliptical trainer and turned the television off with one jab at the remote’s touch screen, then pivoted to face her. “What the hell is going on?”

  Her feet continued their punishing pace. “I’m giving myself a birthday present. Harvey’s designed a fabulous new master suite for me—bed and bath, of course, plus a sitting room, study, and exercise room. The pool practically screamed for a redesign. Of course, now I’ll have my own access to the spa.”

  Her words slapped him. “So that’s it? Your own wing? Your own bed?”

  “Turn the TV on. I still have forty-five minutes left.” She prided herself on her movie-star shape, and after years of strenuous exercise, the rigorous pace did not even wind her.

  “Tell me one thing. Did you deliberately plan this—” his arm cut the air in the direction of the windows and the pool, “—this construction project to coincide with my being named president?”

  A tight smile crept onto her face. “That would have been delicious, wouldn’t it? No, it’s just a happy coincidence.”

  “Don’t you think you need to get ready for the shareholders’ meeting?”

  “I’m not going. Daddy will vote my shares. But I’ll show up for the dinner, since we’re at the head table. I want my own car there anyway. I’m leaving early. I have a morning flight for Maui.”

  He clenched his fists by his sides. “We have a ten o’clock meeting tomorrow with the attorneys.”

  She stared at the blank television screen. “I won’t make it.” Her tanned legs didn’t miss a beat on the elliptical.

  It was as if she had punched him in the gut. He knew her answer before he asked the question. “Did you sign over the shares?”

  She turned her head to look at him, expressionless. “I changed my mind.”

  A wave of icy chill swept over him. “That was the deal. I make president and I get your shares. The deal your father made when he offered me the job. You agreed to this before we got married.”

  She turned back to the blank television screen.

  His stomach churned acid; it burned and threatened to send his post-match protein bar north. “My deal is for ownership.”

  She didn’t trouble herself to look at him, apparently finding the blank screen more interesting. “So sue me.”

  He turned, afraid of throwing something at her. He stopped short of the door and spoke but didn’t turn to face her. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Three weeks. Maybe longer. All this dust and noise will be intolerable. I’m meeting Jewel and her boyfriend in Maui. With a friend along and a credit card that I pay for, she’ll be happy.”

  He ignored her comment about the credit card for his almost thirty-year-old daughter. He knew exactly who’d pay the bill, and it wasn’t Angel. He’d long abandoned the hope that Jewel would be inclined to get a job and support herself.

  “Who’s going with you?” He heard himself ask the question but knew he didn’t really want the answer.

  A rare thing, an honest laugh, came from Angel. “No one. But I’m sure I’ll find company.”

  Of course you will. Phillip spun away from her. He grabbed the fifty-inch flat-screen television and pulled. It didn’t budge.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Phillip glared at his wife.

  “I’m not doing anything you won’t do on that ‘come bang your old girlfriend’ reunion in Italy,” she continued.

  “I’m not going.”

  “Maybe you should. A good lay might loosen you up.” As she tilted her head back with laughter, she reminded Phillip of the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “I can’t imagine you’ve gotten any since the last time I let you do me. Not with the presidency on the line.” She cackled again. “Oh, my poor husband has had to be such a good boy. You lusted for my shares more than you ever did for me.”

  Phillip snorted air through his nose. He picked up a ten-pound pink neoprene-covered hand weight and threw it with anger-fueled adrenaline at the television. Whack. The screen crumpled under the force, listing sideways on its hinged bracket. He walked away without turning to face his wife. Her barrage of swearing followed him down the hall.

  29

  Fort Lauderdale, Florida

  Meghan turned to greet the incoming customer. One of the regulars at the natural food store, a tall, thin woman in her mid-thirties, stood in the entry. Meghan smiled at the woman, one of the many she had converted to healthful ways. The woman returned Meghan’s smile with a glare. Meghan moved a step closer to her, concern replacing her smile. “Are you OK?”

  “No, I’m not OK.” Anger underscored the woman’s words. “I’ll never be oh-kay again.” Her voice rose and quickened. “I should have never listened to you and believed your tree-hugging, hocus-pocus mantra. Breast cancer. I got the call yesterday.”

  Meghan sucked in a breath. That sick feeling that she knew too well returned. “Do you know—”

  “Do I know what? What kind? What stage?” The woman spit the words in Meghan’s direction. She stomped to the closest shelf and with one toned arm swept the contents onto the floor. The shelf above met the same fate. The jars and boxes crashed to the floor, sending powder and pills and glass everywhere. She lowered her arm to attack another, lower shelf.

  “Stop.” Meghan ran to her. She grabbed the woman’s arm with both hands.

  The woman wrestled her arm free. “Damn you.” She scooped the third shelf’s neatly arranged goods in one deft move to the floor.

  The angry act sent chunks of broken glass flying toward Meghan. A piece of glass stabbed Meghan’s leg. She jumped back and bent over. Blood oozed from around the shard. She pulled the glass wedge from her leg. With a body-fat percentage rivaling elite athletes’, she had no buffer of tissue to absorb the cut; the glass had sliced deep into her leg, and now blood gushed from the wound.

  The customer shouted at Meghan, her red face contorted with anger. “Damn you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Meghan said. She hated that this had happened to her customer, but she knew that a healthful lifestyle could only improve, not totally beat, the odds. “There’s no guarantee. You know that.”

  “Bullshit. I believed you. But it’s all a scam. A big fat scam to make you money.”

  “That’s not true. Studies have proven positive outcomes.”

  “I trusted you. But you don’t know anything.” Tears dropped from the woman’s eyes. “I have two young children. What happens to them when I die? You ought to be drawn and quartered for promising people that you can make them cancer-free.”

  “But I don’t. Promise.”

  “Oh, really? Think about it. What you say, how you act, the purer-than-thou way you live. Right. You damn well do promise.” The woman pointed her finger at Meghan. “And because of you, I’m dying.” Before Meghan could speak, the woman ran from the store.

  Tears filled Meghan’s eyes. Cancer. Her leg throbbed. She ran to the back of the store. She found the first aid kit but threw it to the floor at the sight of the puny band-ages. Meghan jerked open the cleaning cupboard. Her hand closed over a folded rag, and she jammed it against her calf.

  Her breath came fast and hot. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. She rushed to the telephone on the counter. Her finger shook as she stabbed out 9-1-1 on the keypad.

  Meghan opened her eyes and squinted at the bright fluorescent lights. Noise all around. People talking, paging gibberish overhead, and machines whirring. She was in a hospital. Her leg hurt. She remembered. Remembered the angry customer. The woman with breast cancer.

  Meghan knew she had never said that green tea and organic products and the right supplements could prevent a person from getting cancer. She passionately believed that they would reduce the odds, and that was all she ever said to customers. One in eight. One in eight U.S. women get breast can
cer. She always told them, “Do whatever you can to beat the odds.” But this customer was the unlucky “one.” Just like Karen.

  “Meghan? Meghan, love, I know you’re awake. Your eyes are open.” It was Talli, her store’s co-owner, a New Age hippy and the wife of a mega-wealthy hip-hop musician. Her tone was soft, apologetic.

  Meghan’s tongue felt fat and useless.

  “Hey, love, the doctor says you’ll be all right. Your leg’s fine, just a gash that needed stitches.”

  Meghan turned her head toward Talli. “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself.” Talli’s face lit up with a smile. “You should have heard the scrubbies tsk-tsking over your weight. I say they’re jealous bitches because you’re thin and they’re definitely not.” She chuckled.

  Meghan tried to smile, but she couldn’t. The memory of the customer’s swollen, angry face and the sound of the inventory crashing to the floor made her flinch even now. She closed her eyes. The woman’s accusations reverberated in the small, curtained-off space. The words pushed down on Meghan, trying to force the breath out of her lungs. They played over and over, sounding like an old vinyl record with a scratch.

  One week later, Talli drove her to the airport for the reunion she had insisted Meghan attend. “This will do you good.” Talli’s cheery voice didn’t match the worry that crinkled her waxed eyebrows.

  Meghan stared out the window. She thought about the trip. Should she go? If she didn’t, what would she do? She didn’t think she could work in the store anymore. How could she? What if someone else came in with accusations? Meghan couldn’t stomach the thought.

  Words formed inside Meghan and she blurted them out. “I may not come back.”

  Talli coughed out her stunned reaction. “What?”

  Why had she said that? Meghan repeated her words, slowly, to hear them herself. “I may not come back.”

  Talli blinked. “Shut up.” Her head pivoted between Meghan and the interstate traffic. She leaned on the horn. “Dammit, asshole. Drive.” She glanced at Meghan. “What do you mean? To the store? Or to Florida?”

  “I think I may stay in Italy.”

  “Why? To eat cheese? To find love? Need I remind you that you’re vegan? You don’t even eat most of the food they cook in Italy. And as far as love goes, I’ll bet there are more hotties here on the beach than where you’re headed.” Her tone was flip, but Talli’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. She leaned her palm on the horn again.

  Meghan felt a mounting urgency to insist on her new plan. It was as if she were racing to beat a train to the intersection. “I’m leaving Fort Lauderdale. I can’t bear the thought of another customer coming to me with cancer. I want you to have the store. My computer has the phone number of my lawyer. Call him. Set it up.”

  “Really? Are you sure? Just like that?” Talli looked at her with worry written on her face.

  Meghan whispered her answer. “Yes. Just like that.”

  “You’re probably still in shock or something. We can laugh about it when you get back.” Talli’s foot slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor. She swerved right, cut through three lanes of traffic, and darted down the exit ramp toward the airport.

  Meghan shook her head at Talli’s fearless driving antics. Maybe her partner was right about her being in shock. Where did that thought, and her own words, come from? Perhaps she, deep down, wanted to do something fearless herself. She doubted Talli's boldness would ever be her style.

  What was her style, anyway? One word slammed into her head. Afraid.

  Meghan couldn’t imagine something worse than being afraid. When it came to business, she was proud that she had been willing to take risks and twice been rewarded with success. When first Karen, and then April, died, Meghan had been convinced that she would soon follow them. That fear had propelled her into opening the store with Talli and had driven her to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

  After all the suffering she’d endured, she thought she deserved more than a life governed by fear.

  “Do it,” Meghan said. “Call my lawyer.” Staying here was no longer a choice.

  “Look, if you change your mind when you come back from the reunion, however long you stay, I’ll tear up the papers. I swear, I will.” Talli’s voice echoed with calm reason. “I don’t want you to rush into anything you’ll regret later. This is emotional for you, seeing everyone.”

  Without Karen. Talli didn’t say it, but to Meghan, it was if she had screamed it through one of her husband’s microphones. Without Karen.

  Meghan nodded. “Do it.”

  “What’s in Italy for you?”

  Meghan couldn’t say it, but she had a hunch that what she needed was an escape from her cautionary life. Now, her focus was on avoiding death rather than living. Could Italy help her embrace life and all of its roller-coaster ups and downs once again?

  30

  Florence, Italy

  Bella leaned against the cool, timeworn stone wall that flanked the interior marble steps to the courtyard. The palazzo, her mansion residence for the reunion, occupied a hilltop perch less than an hour south of the old city of Florence. The arched doorway that led to the outdoor patio loomed ten paces ahead. She stopped and closed her eyes. Bella could hear their voices—murmurs and laughter.

  “Anybody heard from Stillman?” A baritone voice clipped out the words.

  Bella waited for the response.

  The man continued. “I was really looking forward to hooking up with him again. Counting on it, actually. Did you know he abandoned med school and took up law? I heard this from someone—maybe Bobby. You know,” the voice paused as if for emphasis, “Bobby DeNiro. Stillman specializes in creative rights. He’s a player in the entertainment world. Would love my new project. You all would.”

  “Is that why you brought us here, Rune?” Another man’s voice, quieter, asked.

  “Outstanding,” Rune said. “Fly everyone first class to Italy to put together a backer group. Hell of an idea, man. Wish I’d thought of it. Simpatico with West Coast style. Hell of an idea.”

  Bella’s eyes dropped to her watch. Her entrance would be at exactly fifteen minutes past the appointed hour, fashionably late, but no more. The new curve-clinging red blouse and skirt showed off her figure and legs—both still good. She pushed aside the panic about the reunion that had blanketed her during the flight. Too late for that. It’s now or never. How about never?

  Bella considered her options. Then she remembered the invitation and its taunt about cowards. She’d come this far, all the way to Italy. Bella patted her black, shoulder-length hair, lifted her chin and sauntered down the stairs with fake confidence.

  Rune, facing the mansion, saw Bella first.

  “Bella. Bellissimo.” Rune rushed to her, folding her in arms hairy enough to vie for an honorable mention in a Ripley’s book.

  Bella returned the hug, and then pulled back to kiss his bronzed cheek. “Hello, Rune. Great tan. Is it faux, or are you competing for the melanoma hall of shame?”

  Rune’s head flipped back, and laughter erupted from him. “You haven’t changed a bit, sweetheart. Still as sassy and foxy as ever.” He squeezed her again, this time ensuring that her breasts smashed against his chest. “It’s 100 percent fake, you’ll be happy to know. Goes with my nose job, tummy tuck, and lid work.” He cocked his head to the right. “That’s your specialty isn’t it, Lee? Plastics?”

  Bella followed Rune’s gaze to her left. Lee slouched in a colorful chintz chair, a sweating glass of pale white wine in his hand. Silver streaked the fringe of drab gray hair anchoring his bald scalp. Thick-lensed glasses perched on his nose. Bifocals, Bella silently bet. Even without his curly hair, she found the Lee she remembered in his kind eyes and receding chin.

  “Yes,” Lee said. He pushed up from his chair. “But I specialize in reconstructive and medically indicated surgeries.” He held open his arms. “Bella, you are a walking testimonial as to why people do not need plastic surgery to age with beauty and gra
ce.”

  Bella stepped into his embrace. “Lee, you can pitch a line of malarkey with the best of them.” She clicked the tip of her tongue. “But I appreciate the compliment.” His warmth made her think this might not be so terrifying after all. Only five classmates left, but the thought of the two men she had yet to see set off her internal panic alarm.

  Lee chuckled. “Bella. I meant it. Seriously.” He draped his arm around her waist and escorted her to the white-linen-covered table a few steps beyond the chairs.

  Bella saw a tall, white-haired woman standing at the edge of the courtyard with her back to them.

  “First things first.” Lee reached for a bottle of wine. “Pinot Grigio? We’re waiting to break into the Prosecco until everyone arrives.”

  “Lee,” Rune said, apparently determined to stay in the conversation, “are you crazy? ‘Medically indicated surgeries?’ The tits and ass market’s a gold mine. No shit. Plastic surgeons may not be top of the food chain, but damn close. Models and actresses start under the knife when they’re still jailbait and keep on until they croak.”

  Lee flicked away Rune’s argument with his hand. He smiled and offered Bella a wineglass, which she declined. “Bella,” his voice raised in mock drama, “our aged group awaits.”

  The woman with the head of brilliant white hair walked over to join them. Rounded in frame, she looked stout enough to be a high school heavyweight wrestler. A worry line creased her forehead, and her makeup couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes. A smile, at first tentative, then honest, brightened her face. “I’m Hope.”

  The two women embraced. “Fabulous hair,” Bella said. Wow, had Hope changed. She looked at least ten years beyond their calendar age.

  “I turned early,” Hope said. “White as snow by thirty. Dyed it for a while, until it started falling out in droves. Then I surrendered.” She shrugged.

  “It’s distinctive,” Bella leaned back, inspecting Hope further. “Memorable.” One eyebrow perked up. “Sexy.”