A Year at 32 September Way (10 page)

“Oh, Papa, this is Charles, the wonderful, kind man I worked for at the bank. I’m going to show him a bit of Verona tonight.” Sofia gestured for Charles to come in, and he quietly stepped into the room and offered his hand to Marcello.

“Good to see you again, Sig
nor Benedetto. I wish you a quick recovery,” the younger man said, as Marcello remembered how stand-offish and businesslike Charles had been the day he arrived at the apartment.

“Going out on the town with my daughter, are you? She’s my princess, I hope you know….”

“Papa, don’t embarrass me,” Sofia cut in. “Why, it’s the least I can do after all the help Charles gave me in London.”

Marcello insisted Sofia drive him only as far as his preferred livery company in Verona so she could get on with her evening and he could be off to his home in Venice. Some quiet time alone to rest and reflect would do him good. But before parting ways, he and Sofia made plans to see each other the next day in Venice. Safely tucked into the livery with his daughter’s sweet kiss still lingering on his cheek, Marcello thought about Eva and all the mistakes he had made. “I wonder if it’s too late,” he thought out loud as the city of Verona faded into the distance.

Chapter 7

“I understand, darling. No, I’m not angry; don’t worry. I’ll see you next week.” Eva placed the phone gently back onto the cradle. She was disappointed that Marcello couldn’t make it to the dinner she’d arranged, but not devastated. No, she’d allowed herself to go down that road plenty of other times in this relationship and wasn’t going to do it anymore.

Things were quite different now than they were when she’d first arrived in Verona. Unfortunately, it had taken getting mad and hurt enough to consider leaving Verona to realize how clingy and dependent she’d allowed herself to become with Marcello. And how easy she’d made it for him to disrespect her and behave badly without any consequences. But that all changed after he’d been released from the hospital and had stood her up one final time.

In the past, Eva had always been strong in her relationships, sharing control equally with her partner, but certainly never giving him full reign. Why
had she
acted so differently with Marcello, she’d often wondered after that last difficult evening. She had some ideas but was never quite sure. One thing she was certain about: she would no longer behave like the submissive little mouse. He could love and appreciate the new Eva and behave more respectfully, or…well, she hated to consider the alternative. But she knew that if the time came to put an end to the relationship she would do it, no matter how sad it made her feel.

After he had stood her up the last time, Eva was so mad at Marcello that she wouldn’t answer his phone calls for a week. When he showed up at her door the following week, he got the cold shoulder and barely a kiss the entire visit. No amount of pouting, huffing or puffing on his part would break her resolve. She was determined to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that he’d gone too far with his bad behavior and she wouldn’t tolerate it any longer.

Eva could see that her new stance was a bit of a shock to Marcello. After informing him that she was too busy to see him again until the end of the week, she had sent him on his way while the night was still young, and then smiled to
herself
after closing the door. Turning Marcello away for the evening did require a certain amount of willpower and resolve. He was still the sexiest, most charming, handsomest man she’d ever met. But he needed to learn a lesson, and she was certainly going to do her best to teach him the right one. She was off to a good start and felt proud of her turnaround.

Since then, she had spent only a few evenings with Marcello and had allowed him to kiss her. The first two times he left in a huff, but Eva held her ground. The third time they got together
he didn’t even press the matter, although he did try to seduce her. Eva reassured him that she was still attracted to him, explaining that she needed to set some boundaries and refused to be disrespected any longer. Whether Marcello would live with the new rules of their relationship remained to be seen, but at least Eva was reclaiming her self-respect and dignity.

With more spare time on her hands, Eva indulged in some exploring and decided to find some new friends. She started her explorations inside her own apartment. Once she’d gotten over feeling sad and angry at Marcello, she’d decided to find out exactly why the large bookshelf was hiding a door. It had taken the better part of the next day for Eva to clear off the bookshelf and then slowly inch the heavy wooden shelving unit away from the door without tipping it over.

Once the area in front of the hidden door was clear, Eva anxiously prepared to discover whatever waited behind it. It was then she’d discovered the door had no handle and had been sealed shut. But she was determined to get it open; she’d come this far and wasn’t about to quit now. When a kitchen knife proved too weak to pry the door open, Eva used ventured further out of her immediate neighborhood in search of the Italian version of a hardware store.

Armed with the proper supplies, she returned home and worked at jimmying the door open carefully to cause the least possible damage to the door. Carefully, she inserted the end of the crowbar into the small gap between the edge of the door and the doorjamb. It barely fit, and Eva hoped she’d be able to get enough leverage to loosen the door from the jamb.

Eva pulled the crowbar toward her, then pushed it toward the wall, trying any movement that might help her find out what was on the other side of the door. After pushing the tool back and forth a few times, Eva heard a quiet cracking noise, and the gap began to widen. Stooping down to where the doorknob would have been, she tried to peer through the crack to see what was behind the door, but all she could see was darkness. “I have to get this thing open,” she said to herself and got back to work.

Persistence and curiosity paid off when the door finally broke free, sending Eva tumbling backwards to the floor. From her position on the floor she could see nothing but darkness, cobwebs and what appeared to be piles of junk.

“Well, here goes nothing,” she said to herself as she dusted herself off and slowly approached the opening in the wall. She hadn’t thought to buy a flashlight, so she pulled her cellphone from her pocket and used its dim light to help her see. Eva used her bare hand to swipe at the cobwebs blocking the doorway, wiping them off on her blue jeans. She entered the room one tentative step at a time, stopping for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

The room was filled with wooden crates and old furniture, all of which were covered by white sheets and some of which were covered by years’ worth of dust. Although she was interested in seeing what might be tucked away in the wooden crates, Eva’s attention was drawn to the door on the other side of the large attic-like room. It was clear no one could have ever lived up here. The room was hot from absorbing the day’s sun, and the bare rafters revealed that the space was strictly utilitarian in nature. But it also connected the apartment she lived in with something else—which Eva wanted to find out more about.

She gingerly made her way through the narrow walkway someone had left between the stacks of crates and piles of furniture. Eva looked around and wondered where it all came from and who it belonged to. Somewhere amongst all this old stuff was somebody’s story. For now, that curiosity would have to wait for another day because the central focus of her mission was opening the door on the other side of the room.

After a few minutes, Eva finally stood face to face with the cobweb-covered door on the far side of the room. Thankfully, this one had a doorknob. She doubted that she’d be lucky enough to simply turn the knob and open the door, but it was worth a shot. No luck; the door was locked. “Who would have the keys, and where could they possibly be?” she wondered out loud.

Eva stood there for a minute contemplating her options. She could pry the door open with the crowbar, but that might be pushing her luck with Marcello too far. As she scratched her head and got ready to turn back, Eva felt something move beneath her feet. She squinted in the dimly lit room and looked down to see a well-worn rag rug on the floor. A
lightbulb
went on in her head. What were the chances that the key to the door was tucked away under the rug, just like in the movies?
Pretty good, in fact.
She peeled the rug back to find an old skeleton key tied to a nail head that barely stuck out of the floor.

The rusted old key slid into the keyhole with minimal effort, and Eva turned it. A clunking noise sounded from within the doorknob as the lock sprang loose for the first time in who knew how many years. All that was standing between her and whatever was on the other side was a simple turn of the doorknob. Eva rotated the knob slowly to the left and eased the door open just a crack. “What if someone lives on the other side?” she thought at the last moment.

Peering through the slit in the door, Eva could see the top of a stairway and sunlight streaming in from the window above it. She stepped through, leaving the door open behind her. For a moment, she stood at the top of the stairway and listened for signs of life. When there were none, she proceeded down the stairs. Two flights down she came to a door labeled with a number three. Continuing down the stairs she came to another door labeled number two, and then at the bottom of the steps there was one last door, labeled with a number one. Four more steps and she was out the front door and standing in the front courtyard at the end of a very anticlimactic adventure.

That was all. Somehow, at some time, someone had chosen to block off that small apartment at the top of the building and separate it from the rest of the building. Eva doubted it was Marcello because everything she’d discovered today had been the way it was for much longer than they had been together. But he had clearly chosen to capitalize on the separate quarters by keeping her apart from whoever lived in the other apartments. Trudging back up the stairs, Eva shook her head. She had no idea why Marcello would do that and, at this point, it really didn’t matter anymore. There might not have been anyone around the building at the moment, but she was sure people lived in the other apartments; there were letters sticking out of the mail slots in the foyer.

“Well then, I know what my next mission will be,” Eva said out loud as she washed the grime and rust off her hands at her kitchen sink. “I think it’s time to get to know my neighbors.”

***

Tenant Get-Together and Dinner in the back courtyard.

Tonight at 7pm.
Bring
a dish to share.

____ Salad

____ Bread & Cheese

____ Dessert, Wine

The handwritten paper sign hung inside the foyer where everyone could see it as they walked in or out the front door. Carlisle was just getting ready to check off bread and cheese when the first-floor apartment door opened and Nicolette stepped out, groggily scratching her head. Carlisle had looked for her and knocked on her door several times the past couple of weeks, but to no avail. Now was her chance to catch up with the neighbor she’d inadvertently stood up a while back.

“Oh, Nicolette, I’ve been hoping to bump into you. I’m so sorry to have stood you up a few weeks back. Something happened; if you’d let me buy you a cappuccino one morning, I’d love a do-over. I’d really like to be friends” Carlisle offered.

Her tall, beautiful neighbor seemed barely coherent, which Carlisle thought was odd given the late hour.

“Sure, we can try again,” Nicolette responded before glancing at the sign. She looked at Carlisle. “What’s this?”

“A potluck, I guess,” Carlisle answered.
“Tonight, in the back courtyard.
I’ve never even ventured back there. But I’m going to go.
How about you?”

“Why not?”
Nicolette responded as she grabbed the pencil that dangled from the sign and checked off bread and cheese. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Thank goodness for second chances, Carlisle thought as she marked off dessert and wine before heading out for a morning walk. The past several weeks had been all about second chances and, after a shaky
beginning,
she’d done her best to view them as the gift they were. The fact that Will and Anna were never coming back had been the most excruciatingly painful truth she’d ever had to face, and she was certain that running from it for seven years had only compounded the pain of finally accepting it.

In the weeks that followed, it had all caught up to her. Each day was filled with a mixture of tears, remembering happy times with her husband and daughter, more tears and the slow rebuilding of her inner strength. By the end of her first month in Verona, Carlisle vowed to make a new start, no matter how slowly she needed to move with it. She owed it to herself to live life in the present instead of always running from the past. Will and Anna would have wanted that for her, too.

Slowly, she resumed her daily walks to explore different parts of the city. She spent her days working on a new novel, and she was amazed at how inspired she suddenly felt—the words flowed. Carlisle had even started working with a tutor once a week to learn the language. Maria was both a patient teacher and kind person, which helped Carlisle build her confidence.

Sometimes, as she sat by her kitchen window and worked on her writing, Carlisle saw Nicolette and her husband coming and going. She’d also seen a man about her age with wavy brown hair come in and out of the apartment building, occasionally accompanied by a beautiful, young Italian woman. He must be the neighbor upstairs, she’d guessed. Maybe his Italian girlfriend had posted the sign about the potluck dinner. Carlisle looked forward to meeting her other neighbors and getting to know all of them better. She’d had enough of her self-imposed solitude and knew that making friends was the next step in her second chance at life.