Big Cherry Holler (26 page)

The shops in Bergamo are small and exclusive, but the prices are good. I am supposed to haggle with the shopkeepers; I even practiced the technique with Papa. He tried to drill it into my brain that the shopkeepers never expect the customer to pay the price on the tag, they want you to negotiate. But I am just too much of a people pleaser, and too chicken to haggle. I just want to pick and pay. So the shopping excursion turns into a chore almost immediately. I give up
and go for an espresso. There are cafés tucked in between shops and on every corner. I choose the largest one, with friendly red-and-green-striped umbrellas and small tables with curvy little chairs that face the Fountain of the Angels. The umbrellas look like a sea of wide-brimmed hats. I settle into my chair, propping my feet on the portable fence that protects the café from the street. I close my eyes and breathe.

“Hey, look who’s here.”

I open my eyes and look up at Pete Rutledge. My heart skips a beat, but I cover it nicely by swinging my legs off of the fence.

“How was Rome?” I ask, too abruptly.

“I bought some terrific marble from a middleman.”

“Good for you.”

“I have to get home and install it. We have a customer in Basking Ridge whose middle name is Rococo.” I laugh. Pete sits down. “When do you leave?”

I don’t answer him at first. I want to watch the white angels pour water from their pitchers into the seashells in the fountain. “The end of next week.”

“Me too.”

The waiter approaches. Pete orders for the two of us. We sit in silence; what is there to say? The waiter brings the espresso.

“I need your help, Pete. I have to buy a purse for Iva Lou and one for Fleeta. And I can’t haggle. Will you come with me and haggle?”

“Geez,” Pete says under his breath, and then he laughs. He pays for the espresso and leads me by the elbow through the umbrellas to the sidewalk. As we start down the street, I pat his back like an old dog, hoping that my platonic warmth will soothe him. “There’s a good leather place down this street. Papa told me about it.” Pete grabs my hand and stops me.

“This is my hotel,” he says, pointing to a simple white-brick building with a black-and-white-striped awning.
HOTEL D’ORSO
, it says on the brass plaque in black cursive letters.

“It looks nice.”

“It was.”

“It’s good to know: You know. Good hotels.”

I continue walking down the street. Pete stops me again. “Let’s go in,” he says.

I look up into his eyes. The blue of them is so clear, even though he squints. He leans down. His lips are so close to mine, I can practically taste them. If I kiss him, I know we will go to his room. I know it. My hands are deep in my pockets. I try to make the left hand into a fist. Did I remember to wear my rings today? I feel the cool gold metal against the fabric. I did remember!

“I can’t.” I step back.

“Why?”

“Because I’m married.” Now I know why there’s an ancient custom of wearing wedding rings. They’re there to remind you that you’re married and keep you out of trouble.

“Ave Maria! Ave Maria!” I turn to see Stefano, Etta’s future husband, on a bicycle. Great. Caught in the act. Perfect.

“Ciao, Stefano.”

Stefano looks up at Pete.

“This is Pete.”

They exchange pleasantries and I step back, relieved. Stefano’s interruption has given me a few seconds to regain my composure. I realize that Stefano could have easily been Etta; I have to stop this. This is wrong, and I don’t want any part of it. I almost went into that hotel, and I hate myself for it. Stefano pedals off.

“Come to my room.”

“No.”

“All right. Fine. But I want to know just one thing.”

I dread the next question, so much so that I close my eyes.

“Do you want to?” he asks me.

“Of course I want to. And I hate myself for it. I don’t even like saying it!”

“Stay with me.”

“I told you, I’m not going into that hotel with you.”

“No, I mean Italy. Let’s not go back. Ever. Let’s just stay here. Look at this.”

I look down at the cobblestones, and around at the buildings with their summer awnings, and at the people, who never rush, who always seem to savor the beautiful weather and the good food. The people move through the streets in this small town just as they do in Big Stone Gap. They look at us as they pass. And I shouldn’t kid myself; they know me. They may not know my name, but they see me, a married woman on the sidewalk outside a hotel, full of guilt, trying to resist the charms of a man who is not her husband.

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re crazy.” I tell him this, but I know it’s really me. I’m the one who’s crazy; I think I have this under control, and deep within me, I don’t.

I found a gorgeous burgundy crocodile shoulder bag for Iva Lou and a buttery beige leather tote for Fleeta (perfect for candy deliveries). I look at all of my Italian vacation booty on the bed and am very proud of myself. I came, I saw, I haggled. Well, not exactly. I let the purse-shop lady haggle for me. I’d ask how much something was, then, instead of haggling, I’d shrug and she’d start driving the price down.

I bought a puffy black ski jacket for Jack Mac. And a pair of boots for me. Pearl will have a handmade white lace shawl to wear on her wedding day. We won’t have to do any back-to-school shopping for Etta; her grandfather has spoiled her with clothes, clogs, and even a gold chain with a dangling angel.

We haven’t seen Pete Rutledge since the day he almost kissed me. He begged out of dinner at Zia Meoli’s. He called once during the week to say he was checking out some marble farther into the Dolomites before he flew back to New Jersey. I don’t think about him.
That’s a lie. I do think about him, and to be perfectly honest, I imagine what would have happened had I decided to kiss him on the sidewalk in front of the Hotel d’Orso.

“Ave Maria!
Teléfono!
” Mafalda calls to me from the base of the stairs.

“Ciao?”

“Girl, it’s me, Iva Lou.”

“Hi, honey. How are you? Wait till you see the purse—”

“I don’t have a lot of time. James Varner has a summer cold he can’t shake, so I took over the Bookmobile run.”

“Okay. What’s up?”

“When are you gittin’ home?”

“Next week.”

“Damn. You’ll be too late. Honey, this is an emergency situation.”

“Is Jack all right?”

“He’s fine.” Iva Lou stretches out the word “fine” until it goes from a hum to a hiss.

“Are you all right?”

“Oh God, girl, everybody is fine. But you need to git home. You got to hurry.”

“Why?”

“The word up in Coeburn is not good.”

“What?” My legs give out on me. I sit down on the steps.

“Yes. I don’t want to hurt you, but honey, the word is that Jack Mac wants to divorce you and murry that low-to-the-ground little witch Karen Bell. We all think that he’s just goin’ through some silly midlife crisis or somethin’, and we don’t think it’s anything but loneliness. I think the man misses you somethin’ turr-ible. You need to git home and tend to yer business, honey. The barn is burning. Understand?” I hear Iva Lou taking a drag off a cigarette; she smokes only in times of complete duress.

“How could he do this? He said he’d wait.” This is all my fault. I’ve
been spending the summer with Pete while, thousands of miles away, Jack Mac sensed that I left him emotionally, so he has left me.

“I have got to figure out a way to get that sow out of the picture.”

“Iva Lou, don’t do anything.”

“A man never leaves a woman unless he’s got someone to go to. If she wasn’t around, you wouldn’t have a problem.”

I must have said good-bye to Iva Lou, but I don’t remember it. I hold the receiver like a tasting spoon. The buzz of the telephone line must have gotten Mafalda’s attention; she takes the receiver out of my hand and hangs up the phone.

“Where are the girls?”

“They went to the waterwheel.”

I go up to my room and sit on the bed. I have an amazing sense of calm all of a sudden. I believe in long leashes for men; if you give them space, they’ll find their way back to you. Maybe Jack Mac is testing the length of the leash, and if he is, that’s his journey. It was, after all, the point of our spending the summer apart. So we could make the journeys. Decide what we want. And there is nothing I can do about it until I get home. I am not going to poison my glorious Schilpario with schemes involving Karen Bell. I am not going to call Jack, either. I am going to remain calm. For the first time in my life, I am not going to panic and I am not going to worry about what I cannot control.

I slip out of my new pale blue suede loafers (how I love Italian shoes) and into my hiking boots. I’m going to climb the mountain. That will take the edge off any anxiety that might creep in. I tell Mafalda where I’m going, and she promises to watch the girls. I walk up the street, past the houses, and through the town square. The benches are empty, and the chess tables are plain checkerboards until
la passeggiata
, when they will be filled to capacity.

As I reach the path that will lead me up to the pastures above town, I see the door to the chapel La Capella di Santa Chiara propped open
with a can of paint. This is the very place where I married Jack MacChesney so many years ago (we had a second ceremony here in Italy so that my father could officially give me away). Something tells me to go inside.

The smell of paint sails over musky notes of church incense. I climb up to the choir loft, and it’s as though I lost something and all of a sudden remembered where to find it. I look up and around, hoping my memory serves me well. And it does. There she is, the Blessed Lady in her turn-of-the-century ankle-length coat and a hat with stars pinned to it. This is the stained-glass window my great-grandfather made—I climb up and touch the grooves of each pane of stained glass, murky blues and brilliant burgundies; the pieces fit together perfectly. But it is only when you stand back that you can see what the picture means. I remember my namesake, Ave Maria Albricci, who took care of my mother when she was pregnant with me and on her way to America. I must never forget what I was before I married Jack MacChesney. I was a work of art. My mother’s work of art. All the things I thought I was—simple and plain and sometimes funny—are very small words. They do not begin to describe me. They do not begin to express what is inside of me. I have value, and I have worth. I cannot be replaced like old shoes or taken for granted like tap water. I am more than Jack MacChesney’s wife, the woman he tired of and traded in for a smart and sexy lumber supplier. Come on, Jack, you can do better than that. You married
me
, remember! So you think I’m a terrible wife. Well, maybe I am. Maybe I stopped making love to my husband, but give me a break, it slipped away from me after Joe died, I was mourning. I couldn’t tend to Jack’s needs when I was suffering. I couldn’t even take care of myself. And then it became a habit; I started to avoid intimacy. I was hurting too much. I wanted to retreat and be alone. I couldn’t share myself. If I made love to Jack, it would have been like I was cheating on myself. I wanted to control the only thing I could when Joe was taken from me. And the only thing I could
control was who I let in. If Jack MacChesney doesn’t understand that, if he is so shallow and so selfish, then he is not the man I thought he was. Karen Bell. Honestly.

I kiss the window of the Blessed Lady. I am not thinking of sacred relics but of my mother. She would know what to do at a time like this; she could talk some sense into me. In a way, I hope that wherever she is, she doesn’t know about how I’ve been spending my summer. (How appropriate that I should have a little dose of Catholic shame in this perfect chapel.)

As I leave the vestibule, the midafternoon sun hits my eyes, so I close them. When I open them, Pete Rutledge is at the bottom of the path, leaning against his rental truck from the quarry. At first I don’t think he’s real. Why am I running down the path to him and throwing myself into his arms? And why am I crying?

“What happened to you?” he says, holding me away from his body and looking me over from head to toe.

“I haggled and got a good deal on a purse for Iva Lou,” I say as I quickly wipe the tears from my eyes.

“Good girl. Sorry I couldn’t come and help you drive down the prices.”

“You came back.”

“I had to see you again.”

“Why?”

“You owe me money,” he says with a straight face. “Forty-seven bucks. The train tickets to Florence.”

“I’m sorry. I have the money at the house.”

“I don’t want the money,” he says with a slight smile, pulling me close and burying his hands in the back pockets of my jeans. The timing of this is too perfect. I could have him and it would be only fair. My husband is carrying on with a woman thousands of miles away. Who would ever know?

“Do you want to see the field of bluebells?” I ask him.

“Okay.”

So, surefooted and strong, my legs like sculpted stone from a month of climbing around these Alps, I lead Pete Rutledge up the path to the ridge above Schilpario. I kneel and watch him as he looks at the field of bluebells for the first time. The hum of the bees drowns out the way my heart is thumping from the climbing (or, more likely, from my nerves). I catch my breath.

“God. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“And look. Look. Goats.” I point to a far ridge, where goats mill around a pasture and a boy herds them from the edge. “Doesn’t that look like something out of the Bible?”

“It does,” Pete says, squinting.

I want to tell Pete about Karen Bell, but I can’t. If I tell him that, he’ll think Jack is terrible, and I don’t want him to think that. I want him to think that I am going home to a husband who cherishes me. A husband who worked hard all summer and missed me every night and dreamed of the sex we would have upon my long-awaited return. A husband who can’t look at other women because none of them measure up, not even the young ones or the beautiful ones or the ones who flirt madly. A husband who wants sex only with me, even in his fantasies. A husband who pictures my face when he’s putting up a Sheetrock wall and finishes the job perfectly in my honor. A husband who, when I have fantasies about another man, dismisses it as healthy, normal, and good for our relationship. A husband so dutiful that I could treat him badly and he’d love me anyway. A husband who doesn’t expect me to put up a fight when I go ahead on vacation without him, as though he’s a blow dryer I accidentally forgot to pack.