A Year at 32 September Way (21 page)

Everyone agreed that it was a sad situation, no matter what had transpired. Carlisle and Eva told the others about their attempts to befriend Nicolette, explaining that all efforts had fallen flat. “There was one incident I never told you about,” Carlisle said, looking at Eva, “but I did talk to Josh about it.”

“What happened?” Eva asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh, I don’t want to gossip. It would be for Josh to say, if and when he ever wanted to talk about it.” She paused thoughtfully and took a sip of her wine. “Suffice to say that it may have led to their breakup. If so, I can understand how he might feel devastated.”

For the remainder of the evening, the five friends enjoyed the dinner courses they’d each contributed. Wine glasses were emptied and refilled so frequently it seemed the wine bottle never sat still for more than a moment before being passed to a different person. They laughed at one another’s cultural mishaps and language mistakes, and Carlisle had them all in stitches with her dating stories.

When the subject of Marcello’s rehabilitation and recent long-term prognosis came up, they all became quiet for a moment. Charles was the first to speak up and break the silence, “I just want to say how much I admire this man.” He gestured toward Marcello. “I’ve observed him now for months, and he never gives up. He’s an example to us all, no matter what we face.
To Marcello!”

“Hear, hear,” the other three responded as they raised their glasses.
“To Marcello!”

As the evening came to an end, the five friends made a pact to share dinner together once each month for the remainder of their year in Verona. They also vowed they’d keep in touch even after they parted ways and returned home at the end of the summer. But in the back of their minds and beneath the wine-induced haze, they knew how promises to stay in touch were often broken unintentionally. More than likely, the only thing that would remain at the end of their year in Verona would be the memories of the time spent and the friendships they’d made.

Chapter 17

The days were growing longer and the temperatures continued to rise, indicating the early arrival of summer was just around the corner. Carlisle and Eva had enjoyed a day of shopping together and had just returned to the apartment for dinner. “Do you have a date this evening?” Eva asked as they stood outside in the courtyard.

“Goodness sakes, no!” responded Carlisle. “I’m due for a break from the kinds of dates I’ve been having lately. What do you have planned?”

“Absolutely nothing!”
Eva smiled at her friend “Why don’t you come up, and we can cook dinner together at my place?” The previous days had been quiet and somewhat boring for the young woman from Germany. Marcello was in Venice with his family for the week as they continued to contemplate his living arrangements. Spending a little more time with her good friend would be a good diversion for Eva, giving her mind a break from the serious thought she and Marcello were putting into their future.

Together, the women chatted and laughed as they made a simple dinner of spaghetti with olive oil, basil, fresh garlic and braised cherry tomatoes, along with a fresh tossed salad. “I have the perfect bottle of wine to go with this,” Carlisle realized. “I’m going to run down and get it; I’ll be right back.”

When the pasta was al dente, the salad tossed and the wine poured, the two fast friends sat down to enjoy their meal together. “What are you doing with yourself these days while Marcello is in Venice?” Carlisle asked her friend.

“Not enough, apparently,” Eva responded. “I’m getting really bored.”

“My life has been a bit mundane this week, too,” Carlisle added, “although honestly, I cannot believe I’m living in Verona and saying that my life has become mundane.” She thought about it a moment and half-jokingly said, “We need an adventure, Eva. That’s what we need.”

Eva’s mind immediately found its way back to the secret door hidden behind the tall bookcase in her living room. Twice she’d been in there, but she still had no idea what was stored in the room beneath the layers of dust and the dingy, white sheets. “We do need an adventure,” she thought out loud, “and I have just the thing.” Eva went on to tell Carlisle about the night she discovered the hidden door behind her bookcase. She recreated the night and formed pictures in her friend’s head with details of moving the large bookcase out of the way, prying the secret door open and discovering the hidden room behind it.

“Wow,” Carlisle responded in amazement. “It sounds like something you’d read in a book. What did you do after you got the door open?”

The tall German woman told her American friend about the contents of the room, the boxes, crates and dust-covered odds and ends. She regaled her with the discovery of another door on the far side of the room, which ultimately led her to discover that other people lived in the building.

“What? You never knew there were other neighbors in the building?” Carlisle was dumbfounded by Eva’s admission. “How could anyone possibly live in the building and not realize there were others here?”

Eva told her friend about the lengths Marcello had gone to at the time to keep her isolated from everyone else so his antics wouldn’t be found out. The two friends shook their heads together in disbelief and disappointment at the memories. “Our relationship at that time was
not a healthy one,” Eva admitted. “But we have come a long way and, at this point, I’ve chosen to forgive him many things…for him and for me. Whether we stay together or not remains to be seen.”

Slowly, they redirected the conversation back to the topic of the hidden room. Carlisle’s overactive imagination conjured up a thousand possibilities for what might be hidden in the boxes and crates. When Eva asked her if she might like to see the hidden room, Carlisle pounced on the opportunity like a cat on a mouse. 

“This is absolutely amazing!” she gushed as Eva opened the door so they could step into the dimly lit room. She held up the flashlight they’d brought in with them and made a slow sweeping motion with it, from one side of the room to the other. “I can only imagine what’s in these boxes and crates,” Carlisle thought out loud, “Does Marcello know what’s in them?”

“No, he has no idea. Only that it’s something his in-laws needed to store here for their business,” Eva responded. “He knows I’ve been in the room and wasn’t too happy about it. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Eva chuckled.

The two looked around the room, trying to decide where they should start. After a moment, their eyes settled on a large container sitting in the corner, off to their right. Made of some sort of plastic to protect the contents, the box stuck out like a sore thumb in comparison to the wooden crates stacked around the room. This particular box also had less dust and cobwebs covering it, indicating that it was a recent addition to the storage space.

“I hope we don’t find a dead body in there,” Carlisle said in a spooky voice.

“Don’t say that!” Eva retorted, and her friend laughed.

Carefully, they removed the tape sealing the edges of the lid. A small cloud of dust rose into the air as the lid was released and banged against the dust-covered studs behind it.

“Papers?” questioned Eva. “Is that all that’s in here?
Only papers?”
She and Carlisle glanced over several stacks of papers, holding onto the last shred of hope that they might find something exciting in the hidden room.

“They seem to be some kind of financial papers,” Carlisle murmured as she glanced over the pages with their neat columns of words and numbers. “But my Italian isn’t good enough to know what they say. Must be some kind of business records,” she surmised.

Disappointed, the two placed the papers back in the box and took care to seal the cover. Eva fetched some tape from her kitchen drawer and was just getting ready to wrap it around the edge of the lid when her cellphone rang.
“Oh, hi darling.”
She moved the phone away from her face and mouthed Marcello’s name to Carlisle. “Not too much.
Just enjoying a late dinner with Carlisle.”

The two quietly tiptoed out of the hidden room, hoping none of the floorboards would squeak while Marcello was on the phone. The hidden room had turned out to be a bit of flop for the
two adventurers. “Some things are best left to the imagination,” Carlisle mused as they wished each other a good night’s rest and parted ways.

***

“Papa, there’s no need to be unpleasant. The
DeFrancos
were only expressing their happiness about your return to Venice.” Sofia chided her father gently as their neighbors walked away. Since their arrival in Venice, there’d been a steady stream of visitors coming to see Marcello and welcome him home. At first it was a compliment to know people were taking the time to come by to greet him and wish him well. Four days later, the constant procession was beginning to wear on Marcello, and it showed.

“I appreciate the thoughts of our sincere neighbors and friends,” he responded to his daughter’s admonishment. “But some of these people are only surfacing because they want to know what a man in a wheelchair looks like. And I’ve had enough of that!” Marcello turned his wheelchair and rolled himself out onto the balcony. Since leaving the rehabilitation center a few weeks earlier, it seemed as if he’d lost all purpose. Rolling around from room to room and making niceties over tea was not a fulfilling way to spend the day, and it grated on his nerves.

“I can see that something’s not okay,” his daughter said. “What’s going on, Papa? You’ve made such progress. Why are you so unhappy?”

“At the risk of sounding like a spoiled child, Sofia, I find there is nothing meaningful to fill my days now that I’m no longer a resident at the rehabilitation center. And the emptiness in my schedule gives me too much time to think and far too little activity to tend to. Something has got to change,” Marcello said, half answering his daughter and half thinking out loud.

“Perhaps it was too soon to come to Venice for a visit,” Sofia offered.

“No, no” her father dismissed quietly. “It’s not the location, darling. Lack of purpose is my problem. I’ve been productive my entire life. Why, I used to roam the halls of the hotels as a young boy, helping guests here and there.” A warm breeze swept up toward the stone balcony where he sat, surrounded by the greenery of potted palms and geraniums bursting with red blossoms. He’d always enjoyed seeing the geraniums come into bloom each spring as he walked to work in the morning.

“That’s it!” Marcello announced. “I’ve solved my own problem. It’s time for me to go back to work, my dear.” He looked up at Sofia with new purpose in his eyes. “I don’t know how I’m going to handle the same work load; I’m not as mobile as I once was. But that will simply become part of the challenge.”

“Are you’re certain you’re ready?” Sofia asked, hopeful that her father could transition back to the work that had always been an important part of his life.

“Yes, I’m ready to go back to work. I must. It’s time, don’t you think?”

***

Decorating was never his forte, but Charles looked forward to getting the apartment ready for Sofia to move in. As he shuffled clothing from one small dresser to another and made room for her in the giant wardrobe, he relished the calm feeling that enveloped him. It was the first time he would be living with a woman for longer than an occasional overnight or weekend. If he felt the slightest bit nervous, it would have been understandable. But Charles felt calm and peaceful in the knowledge that he would be able to spend more time with the woman he loved.

A quiet creaking noise rose from the old floorboards in the middle of the room, halfway between the sleeping area and the kitchen. “Hopefully, that won’t bother Sofia,” Charles thought. Once he’d grown used to the noise in the old floorboard, it became somewhat of a comfort to hear its creaky sound.

Standing in front of the opened cupboards, Charles had to admit they were a disorganized mess. An organized kitchen had never been his strong point, but he knew Sofia would take over in that area. In the meantime, he could hardly have her arrive to a kitchen in disarray. To the best of his ability, Charles organized the kitchen using a bank-like system of sorting cans, boxes and pouches by size. If it came in a small container or pouch, it went in the narrow cupboard closest to the window. From right to left, the pantry items were shelved by size, with the last ones filling the cupboard directly above the coffee machine. The kitchen suddenly looked better than it had the previous eight months.

“Only four months left,” Charles said to himself as he shook his head in disbelief. The time would fly, especially now that he and Sofia would be together more often. “Don’t let it go by too fast,” he said out loud to Father Time. A single knot of nervousness formed in his stomach. The couple hadn’t yet made plans about what they’d do when it was time for Charles to return to London. The thought of leaving Sofia behind in Verona and returning to monthly visits was unbearable, so Charles simply shut it out. Shortly after her return from Venice, Charles knew he’d have to talk with Sofia about their plans for the future. It was one very important loose end he wouldn’t and couldn’t leave untied for the entire summer.

***

Josh looked out the window as the livery turned the corner and passed the Porto
Nuova
train station as it entered the city of Verona. Throughout the drive and the entire week before it, he’d contemplated what he should do over the next four months. It didn’t make sense for him to remain in the Verona apartment when he spent the bulk of his time 350 kilometers away in Tuscany. Somehow, what should have been a simple decision had become exceedingly difficult.