Summer in Tuscany (24 page)

Gemma

Much later that morning, back at the San Pietro, we had established our territory of seafront loungers spread with fresh white towels. We rented rafts and floated out into that blue, crystalline water, paddling lazily alongside Livvie and Muffie, who were splashing each other and falling off their rafts, shrieking.

I thought it was a good thing Muffie had shown up, because Livvie had told me that last night Tomaso had not. I had caught the stunned look in her eyes that told me she was feeling bad about this, and I guessed she was wondering
why
she had kissed him. Now she assumed Tomaso didn’t want to see her again, and she was feeling just the least little bit “cheap.”

So I’d said as cheerily as I could, “Never mind, hon, there’s plenty more fish in the sea.” Livvie had given me a look I knew well (because it was so like mine) that said, Mom, give me a break, there will never be another fish like Tomaso. So Nonna had bought ice cream sundaes, which, as usual, was all she could think of to cheer Livvie up, and now she seemed to have, at least temporarily, forgotten him. I just hoped he hadn’t left a permanent bruise on her vulnerable young heart. But then, don’t we all learn about love the hard way?

I glanced up as a helicopter clattered overhead, hovering like a bright insect over the water. I held my breath as it made straight for the cliffside, then suddenly dropped and made a perfect landing on the helipad near the rose garden.
Wow,
I heard Livvie and Muffie saying. I noticed that they spoke the same language these days. Then I heard Ben say, “Well, what d’ya know? Guess who that is.”

I didn’t have to guess: even from a raft floating off the coast of Italy I could see the sun sparking off the diamonds.

“Hey, it’s Maggie,” Livvie yelled, and she and Muffie paddled rapidly back to the jetty to greet her.

Ben grabbed a corner of my raft. He swung it around until I faced him. Lying on our stomachs, we smiled up at each other, one of those deep, intimate smiles that passes between lovers.

Life was pretty good, I thought. In fact, it didn’t get much better than this, floating on an air mattress on a cool silvery-blue sea with your lover. I mean, what more could a woman ask? Especially one who was not thinking about her past.
Oh God, the past. And Cash. What was I doing?
I sighed. I knew exactly what I was doing.
I just couldn’t help myself
.

“Yoo-hoo.” Maggie waved at us from the edge of the jetty. “Stop smooching and get back here,” she called. “I heard you had all snuck away to Positano, and I’ve come to join you.”

We paddled lazily back, hands linked across the tiny stretch of water between us. That is, until Ben gave me a sudden shove and tipped me off. He dived right in after me and caught me just as I was coming up, spluttering, from the depths. I yelled at him and pushed him back, and then we were both under the water, kissing madly, arms and legs entwined. I couldn’t breathe, but I thought, Well, if I’m going to go, this is as good a way as any, just as we bounced to the top again, shrieking and laughing. I heard Livvie yell, “Oh come on, Mom, quit that,” and I rearranged my face from its silly grin because I could tell I was embarrassing her.

“So,” Maggie said, when we were finally all sitting around a table in the beach bar, sipping glasses of cold rosé and nibbling on fresh fruit. At least the grown-ups were. The girls were drinking Coke and eating fries and grilled cheese sandwiches. I envied them, but thought I had better watch my figure now that I was into lacy lingerie and sex.

“So,” Maggie said again, “the reason I am here is a little matter of arbitration.”

We looked inquiringly at her. As usual she was quite a picture, in turquoise and fuchsia stretch capris, a matching top, several gold necklaces plus a whopping pearl one—to say nothing of the usual glittering rings and the pins that adorned her hair.

“Arbitration?” Nonna looked interested.

“Reference the Villa Piacere,” Maggie said.

Nobody looked at each other. Nobody spoke. I picked at a piece of melon, glancing out the corner of my eye at Ben. He was sipping his wine, staring out to sea.

“We all know the facts, so there’s no need to go over them again,” Maggie said briskly. “What we need to do now is find out who the villa really belongs to. I’ve hired a detective to track down Donati.” She glanced at her diamond watch. “He’ll be reporting back to me this evening with the first of what you might call clues to Donati’s whereabouts.”

Livvie bit into her sandwich. “Wow, Muffie,” she mumbled, “we are gonna be, like, y’know,
spies
.”

I told her sharply not to talk with her mouth full, and she and Muffie giggled together. “Then what?” I asked, stealing a french fry.

“Then you and Ben will follow up the detective’s clues and track down Donati. I’m sure you’ll find him,” she added.

“I’m glad you have such confidence in us,” Ben said dryly, and my mouth twitched at the corners.

“New careers,” I said, “the entrepreneur and the emergency doc, chasing a thief across Italy.”

“Just like in the movies,” Muffie said, breathless with excitement, plus the fact that she too had a mouthful of sandwich. I sighed and temporarily gave up on the mom and manners bit.

“There’s just one thing.” Maggie looked sternly at us over the top of her extra-large, extra-dark sunglasses with the Versace logo in gold on the sides. “If you find the will, and the Corsinis are named as heirs, the villa belongs to Sophia Maria. If you don’t find the will, it belongs to Ben.”

“Winner takes all?” I looked questioningly at Nonna.

“Winner takes all,” she agreed.

“Maggie,” Ben said, exasperated, “you are a rich forty-nine-year-old woman who misses the action and loves interfering.”

“Right on every count,” Maggie agreed.

“Winner takes all?” I said, pinning him down.

He sighed. “I guess so. But believe me, you’re never going to find that will.”

After lunch the chairs had been turned away from the sea to face the latest angle of the sun. We sank into them, each lost in our thoughts, and perhaps because I’d had so little sleep the previous night, I dozed off.

I awoke a couple of hours later feeling great. Thanks to Maggie, the problem with the villa would be solved one way or the other, and thanks to Ben, I felt like a woman again. Life, I decided with that little smile that seemed permanently stuck on my face, was pretty good. Right now.

Always that little get-out clause, I reminded myself. And always the memories of Cash, my true love. Which also reminded me that reality and my job at the hospital were almost around the corner. Time was passing: our summer vacation in Tuscany was almost over. And when it was, what then? I decided quickly I wasn’t going to worry about that now. I was going to take what I could get, while I still had it.

We gathered our scattered belongings and trailed slowly up the steps to the elevator carved into the cliff. It was too small for all of us, so I went first with Ben and Nonna, and Maggie came up next with the girls. Ben went off to make sure there was a table large enough for us all for dinner, and then I heard Nonna say, “Well, well, just look who’s here.”

I turned and saw Tomaso walking toward us, just as the elevator doors opened again and Livvie stepped out.

I held my breath. I wanted to run to her, to hold her hand. But Livvie didn’t need me. She stuck her chin in the air and gave him the kind of look I knew so well: sideways, lids half lowered, yellow head tilted arrogantly back.

“Like, what are
you
doing here?” she said.

“I came to apologize,” Tomaso said, and I guess somebody had told him the correct phrase to say in English. “Last night, there was work to be done, with my father.”

“Sure. That’s okay,” Livvie said, obviously not meaning it.

Muffie hovered at Livvie’s side, staring at the golden-tan vision. Livvie put an arm around her shoulder and said, “This is my friend Muffie. She goes where I go. Right?”

“Right,” the sea god said humbly.

“Okay then, eight-thirty,” Livvie told him. “We’ll meet you at the same café. Right?”

“Right,” he said. “See you then,” and with a funny little bow in our direction, he turned and walked away.

“Wow,” Muffie said, her eyes sparkling. “Like, y’know, we’ve got
a date
.” And giggling, the two of them linked arms and hurried away to talk over the latest developments.

“Somehow,” I said to Nonna, “I don’t think I have to worry about Tomaso anymore.”

“Thank God for that,” Nonna said, crossing herself.

Ben and I had decided to take up the detecting business on our own, and Livvie and Muffie, who fancied themselves as the latest incarnation of Bond girls, were left indignantly in Positano with Nonna and Maggie.

We drove back to Tuscany in the bone-rattling Land Rover, with me complaining all the way about why a rich guy like him had to drive such an ancient vehicle, and him asking why a poor woman like me drove an expensive rented Lancia.

Maggie’s detective had given us an address in Lucca, where Donati had supposedly been sighted. Lucca is a charming walled city northwest of Florence, all alleys and piazzas, famous for centuries for its silk manufacturers. In fact, some of the mulberry trees that had fed those silkworms still grow on top of the old walls, which are wide and grassy as a city park. But the address Maggie’s detective had given us turned out to be an antiques store, and no one there had ever heard of Donati.

Our next clue was that he was in Gali, a small Tuscan town set in the middle of Chianti country. There was a central square with narrow streets leading off it like spokes of a wheel, fancy tourist-oriented grocery stores selling wild boar, the specialty of the region, and a scattering of cafés. This time the address turned out to be an ice cream parlor. And of course, there was no sign of Donati.

Next there was word he would be at a roadside fruit stand near Montepulciano. Wrong again!

We were sitting in the Land Rover, axle deep in grass and weeds, outside a ruined olive mill that had been the latest Donati clue. We stared despondently at the pile of gray stones; it was obvious nobody had been there in decades.

“Where the hell is this detective getting his information?” Ben asked.

“Where did Maggie get the detective?”

“We’ve driven all over Tuscany looking for Donati,” Ben said. “I’m tired. I need time to be alone, with just you.”

“Just me?” My eyes sparkled, and he leaned over and kissed me, long and lingeringly.

“I want you, Gemma Jericho,” he whispered, nuzzling my ear.

I shivered with delight, but at the same time I was asking myself why he wasn’t telling me he loved me. Of course, I didn’t
want
him to tell me, because that meant commitment and I could never commit to anybody. It was better this way: companions, friends, lovers.

“Do you think this is right?” I said wistfully, still thinking, the way a young girl does, that sex equals love. “You know I can never fall in love with you,” I added, because I needed to make my position clear, to myself as well as Ben.

“Gemma, give me a break,” he said. “What’s wrong with our falling in love?”

“Oh…it’s just that…I’m never really going to do that again.”

His golden-flecked eyes stared deep into mine, as though he were trying to divine my mixed-up thoughts, my guilts, my past.

“You’re crazy,” he said after a long moment. “How can I love you when you are really
so damn crazy
?”

“I don’t know.” My voice sounded small, terrified, even to myself. “Yes, I do know. And it’s just better not to.”

He took his arms away, and it was like the end of the world: I knew he was finished with me, at a loss with what to do with me.

He got out of the car, walked around to my side, and opened the door. “Come with me,” he said, holding out his hand.

And I went with him, the way I had that first day when he took me to buy milk, and to the market, and to Florence, and then to bed. I would trust him with my life, I thought. Except my life was not mine to give.

We walked, fingers loosely linked, past the old mill and the giant olive press, now a rusted tangle of metal and broken wheels, to the crest of the hill. Tuscany lay below us in all its green and gold beauty, the same as it had for centuries. Timeless, ageless.

The wind tugged at my hair, and I had the feeling that nothing here would ever change: that the grapes would always be grown in long symmetrical rows on the hillsides, and that they would be picked in October, and the wine would be made and celebrated. That the olives would be plucked from their burdened silvery trees and their oil pressed, tasted, and admired. That milk would be taken every day from the pretty white Chianina cows, and it would always taste of cream and sweet grasses. That there would be concerts in the piazzas, and big family weddings in the local churches, and
bambini
would be born and baptized and confirmed and married, all in that same little church, and then they would raise their own
bambini
, in exactly the same way. A life without change, Amen, I thought wistfully. And oh, how I loved it.

“Gemma, tell me what’s wrong,” Ben said.

I felt myself choking up, and shook my head. He took my chin in his hand and kissed me gently. I clung to his mouth. I didn’t want him to move away. I didn’t want to talk. I only wanted to kiss, to feel the warmth of his arms around me, his body next to mine.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “dear love,” and he stroked back my hair, kissing me endlessly until we were drowning together, helpless against the tide. We sank to our knees, still kissing, his hands still on my face, and I felt myself sinking back into the soft springy grass.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, inching his lips down my neck, “so beautiful, Gemma.” And this time I had no jokes to hide my fear. I was alone with him, lying face-to-face on that grassy hill, with all of Tuscany stretched below us and only the azure sky above. Alone in our own paradise.

Our kisses were gentle, tender, questing; searching for each other and finding it in our linked mouths, in the matched passion of our bodies. He unbuttoned my shirt and slid it off, tugged at my skirt, unhooked me, slid me out of my underwear until I was naked and vulnerable under that blue sky. And then he was naked too, and we were rolling together, like Adam and Eve, and I was thinking how beautiful he was, how hard his body, how smooth his skin, how gentle his touch, how wonderful his mouth was as he tasted me.

And even as he took me over the edge, I wanted him again, I wanted more; immediately. “Now!” I cried, and I heard him laugh.

“You’re wanton, shameless,” he whispered, running the tip of his tongue around my ear as he thrust himself into my welcoming body.

“Oh yes,” I cried, “oh yes, yes, I am.” And then I was falling into that wonderful fathomless place where only lovers can go; where my body and his fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; where what he was doing to me sent shudders of passion through me.

And I knew then that soon I would have to tell him the truth: exactly what had happened with Cash that had turned me into an ice maiden, unable to love a man.