Amore and Pinot Grigio - a Guido la Vespa Christmas Tale [Guido la Vespa] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream) (2 page)

“I asked first,” said Sigrid, not sure what had taken hold of her to be so cheeky. Somehow she felt completely safe with this intriguing man, despite the sudden onset of butterflies in her stomach. This was probably because they were not the “I’m scared” variety of butterfly. They were more the “Oh my, he’s fine” species.

The corners of his mouth turned up, though it was obvious he was trying to prevent them from doing so. He shook his head. “You Americans are unbelievable. You think the laws do not apply to you.”

“I’m Canadian, actually.”

This time he really laughed. “Well then,
Signorina Canadese
,” he drawled. “I am Alessandro Totti. Sandro. And apart from your name, I would like to know why you are trespassing on my property. And the answer had better be convincing or I will call the police.”

“This is your property?”

“Yes, my family owns this restaurant. Just be grateful that I had not turned on the burglar alarm because if I had, the sound would have woken up half the neighbourhood and the police would already be on their way here to arrest you.”

“Well, I was just trying to help this kitty,
questo gatto
.” Sigrid gestured to the carrier she had left on the ground near the fence. It was rocking as though it had a life of its own, as the frightened creature inside of it tried to escape. “I saw it last night when I was out on my Vespa.”

“Your Vespa? You have a Vespa? You drive around Rome on a Vespa?”

“Yes, why do you sound so astonished? It’s better than public transit, what with all the strikes and it’s easy to whip through all the narrow streets and you can park it just about anywhere.” Sigrid realized that she must have sounded like a babbling, nervous wreck and tried to get to the point. “Last night, I was on my Vespa when I saw that cat and I saw he had a limp and I followed him as best I could to your restaurant. Unfortunately, there was no way I could get him last night. I didn’t have my carrier with me and so I went home to get it and then I came back but the area was completely blocked off by trucks. I would have asked permission, but your restaurant was closed and I saw no lights on and I just thought it was imperative to get the cat. I wasn’t going to steal anything.”

“Yes, yes, woman,” he said. “
Basta
. Do you ever stop for breath? You do carry on. Those trucks, for the record, were delivering linen supplies to our restaurant. This is normal.”

Sigrid made a face at him. “I carry on? Well you’re the one grilling me. I’m just answering your questions. If you want to call the police, go right ahead. I would love to tell them you are having me arrested for helping an injured cat.”

Dio
, she is beautiful, Sandro thought, though he still managed to wipe away any trace of a smile. He didn’t want her to think she could get away with anything she liked. In his best stern voice, he said, “And speaking of questions, your name is?”

“Sigrid.”

“Last name? Canadians have those?”

“Oh yes, yes we certainly do. It’s O’Herlihy.”

“You are joking,
si
? Your name can’t really be ‘Sigrid O’Herlihy,’ can it? This sounds like a pretend name. Don’t try and trick me.”

“No, no. I wouldn’t. Ever. My name is Sigrid O’Herlihy.”

Sandro surveyed the intruder’s blonde hair, tied up in a high ponytail, her height and her slim form, her blue eyes and pale, nearly translucent skin. “Sigrid is Swedish, yes? And you look Swedish, but O’Herlihy?” He started laughing again. “
Che nome
! What a name!”

Sigrid stuck her chin out. “Yes, I think I could work out what ‘
che nome
’ means.”
Who did this guy think he was, making fun of her name
? “I’m not Swedish. My mother is from Norway, and she moved to Canada and met and married my father, whose family left Ireland for Canada during the potato famine, circa 1845. Is that believable enough for you? Yes, it’s a mouthful, but Canadians come from all over the world and, by the way, ‘Alessandro Totti’ would be a mouthful for your average Canadian, you know!”

He began to reply, fighting back more laughter, when she added, “And Norwegians hate Swedes, so careful for mistaking us one for the other. My mom would be mortified if she heard you say I looked Swedish.”

“I extend my apologies
la Sua mamma
. If you like, you can tell her from me she has a lovely daughter. Now, first, what are you doing here in Rome and second, where are you planning to take that poor injured cat? It’s got quite an appetite, by the way.”

“I am here on vacation. It’s the Eternal City, you know. And how do you know this cat has ‘quite an appetite’?”

“I fed it earlier today. I am not cruel.” Sandro was misrepresenting things somewhat. The cat had been fed largely because his father had insisted, but somehow, he wanted to make himself look good to this interloper. “It has been limping about our patio. Even though it is winter, we keep the patio open. Some Romans like to have their espresso outdoors on the warmer December days. And though we are closed on Sundays, we had some cleaning staff in, setting up the Christmas decorations, and they informed us that we had a little visitor.”

“Then why haven’t you trapped it?”

“We tried. We all did, the staff, my father,
especially
my father. He is very soft-hearted. I even tried, though I had better things to be doing, but I am not cruel.”

“Yes, you mentioned that. So why didn’t it work?”

“The cat was not trapped because it was too, I don’t know the word in English, but we could not get close to it, even by tempting it with our best salmon. So we left the salmon out and went inside. It made a meal of what we left pretty quickly, as soon as it saw we were at a safe distance.”

“Skittish.”

Sandro surveyed Sigrid’s casual clothes. She was wearing black leggings, a long-sleeved and very long t-shirt, a cardigan and a winter jacket thrown carelessly over it all. Still, he thought there was something appealing about her. He imagined her in designer silk. He imagined her in nothing at all.

“Skittish,” she said again.
Is this guy even listening to me?

“
Che cosa
? What?” said Sandro.

“Skittish. The English word for the cat’s behaviour toward you.”

“Ah,
si. Si
. Well, I must say, you have a gift. You got it to come to you. In Italy we would call you a
gattara.
”

Sigrid sighed. She knew that the word he used meant cat lady.
Yep, that is my fate.

“Well yes, I do volunteer work for a cat rescue back in Canada. And now that you know I am a
gattara
, can I leave with the
gatto
? It’s getting colder and I’d like to get home.”

“The cat needs a veterinarian.”

“Yes, obviously,” she said, letting out a sigh of frustration and impatience.
Boy, this guy is cute, but kind of obtuse
. “That is where I’m planning to take it. But there isn’t one open late on a Sunday night, so I’ll keep him in my bathroom till the morning.”

“You will do no such thing. There is a veterinarian open, a 24-hour emergency animal hospital. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive from here, maybe less at this time of night.”

“Okay, well, if you could draw me a map I would appreciate it.”

“No map. I’ll take you. You cannot take that cat on a Vespa.”

“Yes, I can. I take all kinds of things on the Vespa. You have no idea.”

Sandro threw his hands up, exasperated. “Sigrid!
Signorina
O’Herlihy. Please stop being so stubborn. It is late, you have an injured animal in a carrier, and you don’t know the way to the animal hospital. Let me take you, if only to make my father happy. He was so worried about this animal.”

“What about Guido?”

“Who is Guido?” Sandro sounded like a jealous suitor. “Ah yes, of course. Guido is your Italian lover. That’s why all you foreign women come here.”

Sigrid burst out laughing. “No!
Guido is my Vespa. Guido la Vespa.
I don’t want to leave him for much longer where he is. I mean, I thought I was just pulling off a quick kitty heist and I’d be out of here in a matter of minutes. If we’re gone for hours, he might get stolen. And I need him. Plus, I’ve worked hard to be able to have him.”
Though I do sometimes think of him as my Italian lover, what with his soulful little headlights. Wow, too much anthropomorphizing, Sigrid.

Sandro stared at Sigrid, long and hard.

“What?” she asked. “Why are you staring?”

“You should do that more often.”

“What? Name my Vespa?”

“No, laugh. You are not a bad-looking girl, but you are a bit too serious.”

“Thanks for the suggestion, but one is generally not in a laughing mood when one is being interrogated.”

“Oh no, now you are too serious again.”

“Okay, look. Let’s just take the cat to the hospital. But what can I do about Guido?”

“Go and get Guido and meet me back here. We’ll park him right here on the patio and take this poor creature to a doctor.”

* * * *

Fifteen minutes later, Sigrid was sitting next to Sandro in a car, looking over at his profile and wondering if she should have gotten into a car with a stranger in the first place. Why hadn’t she grabbed kitty and run? Why had she been so quick to take this chance? Oh right, his looks. The streetlights bounced off his dark hair, prominent cheekbones, and Roman nose. She had decided that was what it was, or at least, that was what she would call it. It all made for a striking man, though not really a classically handsome one. But what she really could not stop looking at and responding to was his thigh, filling out his black jeans so perfectly, so close to hers in the front seat of the dark, metallic-gray Lancia.

She began to go off into romantic fantasyland, or at least lustful fantasyland, and reprimanded herself.
Stop it, Sigrid. You’re off men, you’re through with them. Don’t you remember?
She decided to focus on something else and looked instead at his hands on the steering wheel. They were large with long fingers and handled the wheel with confidence and ease. She started to imagine them handling her in the same way.
Stop it, Sigrid
!

“It’s okay, Pinot Grigio, it’s okay,” Sandro cooed, all of a sudden.

“What?”

“I am talking to the cat. It is upset, poor creature.”

Sigrid had been so distracted she had barely heard the poor kitty, meowing in fear, no doubt. And she even had the carrier on her lap!
Ugh, men are no good for me
.
Here I am, the world’s biggest animal lover, and I didn’t notice the cat crying.

“Sigrid? You seem distracted.”

“Oh no, I was just wondering what you called the cat.”

“Pinot Grigio,” he said.

“That’s what I thought you said.”

“That’s what my father and I have been calling it, because it is all gray, which in Italian is ‘grigio,’ and we have a vineyard that is famous for its Pinot Grigio.”

“You have a vineyard?”

“Yes. Do you like wine?”

“Absolutely, I like wine. Especially white wine. I can’t drink red, it gives me migraines. But white wine, I love, and also ros
é
and sparkling, of course. I love Prosecco. As far as I’m concerned that is one of the best things about Italy, the availability of cheap wine in corner stores. Just the other night, I bought one of those Tetra-Pak thingies full of wine, for like, not even two euros.”

“Tetra-Pak?”

“Yes, you know, those little cartons that come in multiples, wrapped together in cellophane. They fit so nicely in my little fridge at my bed-and-breakfast.”

“
Dio
! That wine is terrible! You Americans have no taste!”

“Canadian.”

“Same thing. You have no taste in wine. None. The wine my family produces is not cheap, as you say.”

“Well then, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.”
Who did he think he was, telling her she had no taste? He is a little too sure of himself, this Mister Roman Nose.
“Anyway,” she added for good measure. “Cheap Italian wine in Tetra-Paks is better than most average wine available in Canada.”

“You bought a Vespa, and you are only on vacation here. Vespas are not cheap. So you can’t afford a nice bottle of wine, here or there?”

“Yes, I’m on vacation, but a long vacation. Canadians can stay here three months without a visa and I figured Rome was a nice place for Christmas, what with the Vatican and all.”

“Three months? You have a nice employer.”

“Well, it’s a long story. Anyway, I got the Vespa relatively cheap from my landlord,
Signor
Palumbo, at my B&B, but even if I had bought it at full price, things like bikes or cars are an investment, right? You need them to get around.”

“So you like your Vespa? It’s 150cc, I noticed.”

“Yep, Guido’s a 150, and I love him. I had never been a motorbike person back home, although one of my brothers had one when I was a teenager and I learned to ride it pretty easily. When I came here and got the chance to have Guido in my life, it was relatively simple to pass the Vespa license test. And he has converted me, really, to being a motorcycle chick. It’s the best way to get around.”

“A chick?”

“Slang for woman.”

“Ah, all right. You realize that Vespas are not exactly Harleys. More like scooters.”

“Perhaps, but technically, they are motorcycles. They are bicycles with a motor. Anyway, ‘scooter chick’ doesn’t sound as glam as ‘motorcycle chick’.”