Tailwinds Past Florence

by Doug Walsh

  Edward sank into the chair and looked at the screen, speechless. His tongue felt as scratchy as the driftwood decor in the photo on Kara’s monitor.

  “It’s only a cottage, but it’s right near the beach. A perfect way to celebrate our cross-country ride.” She clicked through the photos to the bedroom and leaned her head on his shoulder. “We’ll be able to see the dunes from bed.”

  Edward kissed her forehead. He wanted to tell her it looked wonderful, but what was the point?

  “And we can go skinny dipping,” she said, giving his earlobe a lick.

  He shivered as a bead of nervous sweat ran the length of his back. He pulled the mouse and keyboard closer and searched for airfare from Boston to London, leaving the next day.

  “Oops, I think you meant to search flights leaving New York.”

  This wasn’t how Edward had envisioned this playing out. He didn’t expect to be working out the details and breaking the news—her heart?—simultaneously. He considered telling her about the contest, but couldn’t. She’d never understand. Not yet. He braced for her reaction.

  “Actually, I was wondering what you’d say about heading to London from here.”

  “Why would we do that?” She shot him a puzzled look.

  Because your husband … Nothing. He felt his mouth go dry as he opened it to speak. But it didn’t matter; he was tongue-tied even in thought.

  “So, we’d ride back to Boston after New York?” she asked, confused.

  He took a deep breath and worked the computer, clicking the mouse, trying to ignore her questions. Delaying, stalling, searching for a flight. His animal instincts were kicking in. Fight or flight, that’s what they call it. He was in line for both and knew it.

  “Tomorrow?” she asked, pointing at the screen. “No way. I’ve been looking forward to Cape Cod for months.”

  Edward stared in silence. They had to get moving. Tom was right. He sorted the fares by price and scanned the results. Kara swung her feet to the floor and leaned forward, her eyes burning into him.

  “Are you even listening? What’s going on? Answer me.”

  “Just let me look—”

  “This is bullshit. You know how much I want to take time off,” she said, her voice climbing an octave.

  “We’ll take it in London. Let’s get someplace new.” He couldn’t spend two weeks idle, but he knew he’d feel a hell of a lot better once they got across the ocean. And maybe once they were in London, Kara would be excited enough to keep moving. Preferably east, he thought.

  “We didn’t even get to the coast yet. Boston Harbor is hardly the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “Well, we didn’t exactly dip our wheels in the Pacific either,” he countered.

  “Puget Sound was close enough. Plus, it was March. And we live there.”

  “Seattle to Boston has a nice ring to it,” he said, as much for his own benefit as hers. Riding across the country was something he knew he’d look back upon with pride; he regretted not having left from the coast. He sorted by departure times and waited for the results. “This one works. It leaves tomorrow night, which gives us enough time to get the bikes boxed up.”

  “Edward,” Kara said, her voice cracking as she turned his chair to face her. She gripped his knees and stared at him. “London will still be there next month—”

  “And so will New York. If we go now, we’ll beat the crowds. Then we can get through France before the country shuts down in August.” He watched himself saying these words as if he was floating above, clinging to the fluorescent lights. He saw his mouth moving, the blank look on his face, and the shock and heartache in Kara’s response. “And the weather is supposed to be nicest in July,” he continued, knowing he could talk her into almost anything. It was an advantage he held over her. She trusted him. “You said it yourself, it will be perfect.”

  “This is anything but perfect,” she shouted.

  He hated doing this to her, but he had no choice. After all, what would he say? Hey babe, I know this is your dream, but I’ve got this job offer. How about we skip all the best parts and hurry home?

  Edward clicked on the tickets and left the mouse hovering over the purchase button as he dug out his wallet. Kara’s eyes followed his hand.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to do this.”

  Edward stayed quiet.

  “You’re not even listening to me.”

  He wanted to console her, to tell her he heard every word, and that he was in agony, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He propped the credit card on the keyboard.

  “I couldn’t wait to show you that cottage and now we’re not even going. No matter what I want to do, it’s never good enough for you.”

  He shook his head, willing Kara to disavow her own feelings.

  “You don’t care at all about me or what I want. What did I do to make you stop caring?” Her tone had turned desperate, her words tapped out in code as her fists beat atop her thighs.

  “Of course I care. It’s why we’re here. This whole trip was your idea, wasn’t it? New York City is only a five-hour flight from Seattle. We can visit anytime. But London? How often will we get to London?”

  Kara shot him a disgusted look, then looked away.

  “I’ve seen enough of North America. I want you to show me around London and Paris.” He put his arm around her, pulling her closer. “Show me where you went on your semester abroad.”

  She bit her lower lip, but didn’t face him.

  “Let’s get some fish and chips. Wuddya say, guvnor?” It was his first attempt at a Cockney accent and it sounded awful. What a dork, he thought.

  Kara shot him a look he deserved. One that said he was an incorrigible asshole, but she was relenting. When she spoke, it was only to express a whirlwind of concerns about packing the bikes, navigating in London, and finding accommodations.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he assured her.

  “We can’t even go for one week?” she asked, motioning at the beachfront cottage on her screen. Edward could practically hear the seagulls in the photo.

  He shook his head and squeezed her knees softly between his own, his hands on her hips. “I love you so much, Kara. I’m sorry I make you mad sometimes.” He fixed his eyes on hers, ignoring the deception tearing his insides to shreds. I’ll make this up to her.

  Kara’s lips drew tight and pinched upwards ever so slightly. If it was a forced smile for his benefit, he’d take it. He knew he didn’t even deserve that much. But her hands remained balled into fists, the tendons contracting on her forearms. This wasn’t a disappointment he could hug away. She wouldn’t give in quickly.

  Now or never.

  Edward typed the credit card number into the form. He felt the heft of Kara’s stare with each press of the keyboard. It was done. They were booked on the red-eye tomorrow night.

  “Aisle or window?” he asked, smiling.

  Kara stood, gently slid her chair under the desk, and left the room without saying another word.

  Chapter 17

  Friday, April 3 — Florence, Italy

  Alessio emerged from the dimly lit shed, anxious to escape the festering scent of fertilizer and rotten lawn clippings. He raised a gloved hand to his brow and squinted, scanning the campground for Hiromasa as a cobweb dangled from his thumb, tickling his nose. Pruning shears hung holstered to his belt, a bucket of gardening tools and chemical miscellany knocked against his leg.

  Six weeks had passed since he accepted Hiromasa’s offer of work at the campground. Six wintry weeks spent painting bathrooms, stitching tears in canvas tent-cabins, and cleaning more windows than he cared to remember.

  He once looked forward to spring, especially the fanciful floats of Carnival that ushered in the season of Lent on Malta, but here at the campground, trapped in his current situation, the drudgery persisted. Today’s chore: pruning rose bushes.

  Alessio shuffled along the path leading to the main gate, his shoulders slumped, feeling like a prisoner forced to toil fo
r his room and board. The seasons changed, yet he idled no closer to understanding how he’d come to live in modern Florence—or why. He only knew he wasn’t cut out for this world, this life. An artist—a gallery owner at that—had no business laboring away at mundane maintenance tasks. Even the prospect of trimming flowers held little appeal. But what choice did he have? Not an hour passed without some new discovery startling him; not a conversation shared without words and meanings soaring over his head, like the mechanical birds he’d seen birthing trails of clouds in the sky.

  Hiromasa called them airplanes.

  Hiromasa always seemed to know what things were called. How customs changed.

  Alessio set the bucket down at the far end of the shrubbery and withdrew the snips. He started high, removing the winter damage, pruning the interior, ensuring the rose buds had plenty of light. He went about his task in a daze, his ability to focus lost in the fog of his thoughts. He sought refuge in the memories of his life in Malta, the when he knew.

  “Be sure not to snip the buds.” It was Hiromasa’s unmistakable accent, approaching from behind.

  Alessio looked at the clipping he felled, a thin branch with a bud on the end. He shrugged, turning to see Hiromasa.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Hiromasa reached for the clippers.

  “I know how,” Alessio said, dropping the tool into the bucket. “But I’m glad you’re here. You once said you might have answers, but have been stalling for weeks, avoiding me except when others are around. It’s time you explain.”

  Hiromasa cocked his head. “What would you like to know?”

  “Don’t be coy. You’re hiding something, aren’t you? I watch you. You’re quite skilled at pretending, but I see the surprise in your face, the curiosity. You act like this is your world, that you’re like these other people, but you’re not. You have this.” Alessio grabbed Hiromasa’s gloved hand and, with his other hand, pushed Hiromasa’s shirtsleeve upward, exposing a fringe of shimmering blue light, an essence that arced like miniature flames that nipped at Alessio’s skin.

  Hiromasa sighed. “I have no explanation.”

  “I’ve waited long enough,” he said, his voice rising. “Tell me where you came from. Tell me what you know.”

  “Why ask questions whose answers only necessitate dozens more questions?”

  Alessio’s nostrils flared as he looked away in anger. Though he had yearned to share his secret, to admit aloud that he somehow traveled through time from the nineteenth century and woke up naked in a strange bed, he had to be careful. He suspected Hiromasa had a similar story, but what if he didn’t? If I’m wrong about him, he’ll claim me a lunatic. Alessio’s mind flashed to the asylums of his era, the unspeakable horrors he heard described in whispers, stories too coarse to be repeated in the company of women. He shook his head, refusing to risk it.

  When he turned back, he saw that Hiromasa’s face had relaxed, as if he was relieved to be changing the subject. But then, with a wink, he said, “Florence has changed considerably, has she not?”

  Alessio knocked the bucket aside stepping to Hiromasa and grabbed him by the arms. “What do you know? Tell me.”

  The smaller man’s ease vanished as his eyes went wide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Alessio glared at him, then released his grip, suspecting he wouldn’t get anywhere through intimidation. Hiromasa smoothed his shirtsleeves and took a deep breath.

  “You do know.” Alessio said. “When are you from?”

  A spark of understanding flickered in Hiromasa’s face. When. The magic word.

  “I knew it. You’re from the past too.”

  He nodded. “Like you, I also woke up one day in this strange new world.”

  “In February?”

  “Yes.”

  Alessio stared at him as he digested their similarities, wondering how deep their connection went. “Where?”

  Hiromasa blushed as his lips parted in a smile, revealing his crooked teeth. “One moment I was an old man in Rome. Next, I was young, completely naked in the street, freezing on the ground. Not far from here …” His voice trailed off as he spoke, as if the thought was too painful to fully recall.

  A feeling of weightlessness permeated Alessio’s being, the burden of his predicament lessened through sharing. He wasn’t alone.

  “I woke in a similar predicament.” Alessio recalled the room’s barrel-shaped ceiling, the brick floor, the hint of linseed oil used to polish it. He thought of the nights spent in that room—with Sylvia. “In a guesthouse that I used to stay during my travels. I would visit several times a year to collect work from my gallery in Malta.”

  “Interesting,” Hiromasa said, his face scrunched in thought.

  “Why do you say?”

  Hiromasa turned to the rose bush and pinched a branch between his finger nails, snapping it from the cane. “Tell me, what were you feeling when you woke up?”

  “I was scared. And confused. Weren’t you?”

  “Of course. But that came after I realized I was in a strange place and time. How did you feel when you first woke?”

  Alessio thought back to the moment when he first stirred. When his hand padded the empty space beside him on the mattress, before he realized Sylvia wasn’t there. That moment when the pang of his broken heart and the anger of being made a fool rushed in, mixing, swirling and coating him in humiliation. The shame.

  Alessio shut his eyes to the memory as his hands went clammy inside the rubber gardening gloves.

  Hiromasa nodded and said, softly, as if the recollection still caused him distress, “My heart, too, was quite heavy when I woke.”

  The comment landed like a thunderclap, sending Alessio’s hair on end. For nearly two months he’d puzzled his fate, doubted his faith, and admonished his Lord over the absence of a sign. And yet the answer may have been working and living alongside him all this time, bottled up within the shoulder-high enigma named Hiromasa.

  “What do you know? Please tell me now,” Alessio urged, grabbing Hiromasa’s arm.

  Hiromasa took a step back, his palms out. His smile didn’t waver, his deep brown eyes didn’t flinch. His was the practiced calm of a man used to easing runaway emotions. “I have only a theory. I cannot be certain, but let me ask you—”

  “No. No more questions, I want answers.”

  “What was her name?”

  Alessio recoiled as if slapped.

  “You cannot expect answers if you’re unwilling to assist in the solution.”

  Alessio tucked his hair behind his ears and crossed his arms in front of his puffed-out chest, the veins of his arms pulsed with the resolve of a man willing to kill to protect his claim. He glared at Hiromasa, challenging him, refusing to say a word about Sylvia until Hiromasa came clean, and shared all he knew.

  Hiromasa stared back for seconds that stretched like hours, then, at once, his shoulders went slack. His eyelids fell shut like feathers falling from the sky. He took a deep breath and when he began to speak, he looked at Alessio with the sorrow of a man forced to relive the worst day of his life.

  “I knew her as Isabelle …”

  Chapter 18

  Saturday, June 6 — London, United Kingdom

  Edward slumped against the wall near the doors of the oversized baggage area, his handlebar bag between his feet. Their panniers and duffel bags stacked alongside him, creating a yellow and red vinyl wall he now hid behind. Their plane landed over an hour ago. Across the room, three suitcases lapped a squeaky carousel in perpetuity, forgotten.

  He wouldn’t normally trust an airline with his bicycle, given the paltry sum for which they insure them, but he had little choice. There was no time to have the bikes shipped ahead, not if they were going to make the flight.

  Now, as he sat waiting at Heathrow, a slice of him secretly hoped the bicycles had gone missing, jettisoned somewhere over the Atlantic. It’d be so easy then. Of course, he’d have to feign outrage and hurt in equal portion to Kara’s, but she’d get
over it. A quick trip to the tropics would soothe her pain. Then, back home to start his new job. After all, despite her fib back in Montana, the bikes held no sentimental charm. Least of all to him.

  He didn’t even like them.

  They were reliable, his and hers steel beasts of burden that didn’t begrudge any load or road surface. But, in Edward’s eyes, they were donkeys. Ugly ones. Quality components were important, he’d say to friends looking to get into cycling, but never underestimate the value of aesthetics. The key to getting into better cycling shape was to ride every day. And the only way to do that was by buying a bike you yearned to ride every time you caught sight of it.

  Their touring bikes didn’t pass that test. With their indecorous frames, overbuilt wheels, and middling components, the bikes were utilitarian. Strip away the panniers, fuel bottle, and various adventure-themed accessories and the bicycles were as unremarkable as the family minivan.

  Edward watched as two golf bags emerged from behind the doors. He sighed. As much as he wished for a shortcut home, he didn’t really want the bikes to go missing. Though it might get him back to work sooner, he knew stolen bikes were a commute paved in too many of Kara’s tears. Feeling guilty for having thought it, he counted down from twenty-nine, his age, a childhood trick to make the wait tolerable.

  Kara approached carrying a single cup of coffee as Edward resorted to counting down fractions, stalling for time. “Still no bikes?”

  “Nope.” His eyes shifted to her cup. “Didn’t get me one?” Edward asked, feeling a pang of guilt as he surveyed the distance she kept between them.

  “Didn’t know you wanted any.”

  Edward forced a disarming laugh. “When have I ever not wanted coffee?”

  “We don’t always get what we want. Do we?” Kara arched her eyebrows, then turned away.

  Two gray doors swung open in time to save him from putting his foot in his mouth. Their boxes slid out, the large THIS SIDE UP arrows pointing at the floor as an attendant called their name. Edward could see one of the corrugated bicycle boxes had a gaping hole in the side. The corner of the other, personally sealed by Kara with at least five layers of packing tape, had also been torn.