The House in Amalfi (12 page)

That lock had always been a problem, he thought, which was why in the past the door had always been left open. Until Jon-Boy’s death, that is, after which the house had finally been locked up.

Telling the dog to wait, he strode through the gardens, up the steps onto the terrace. He stood for a moment, still unnoticed, watching them.

The dark one was obviously Lamour, Jon-Boy’s daughter. She had the look of him, and besides, Lorenzo remembered
her as a kid: a long-legged waif, skinny as a whippet, all big brown eyes and a floating cloud of dark hair. She hadn’t changed much. They had met once before, though he doubted she would remember.

She was still struggling with the massive iron key he knew Mifune must have given her. She shoved it in the lock again and gave the door another push. It creaked loudly but still didn’t open.

“Damn,” he heard her say. “It’s stuck, Jammy. It always used to stick.”

“Oh, thank God,” the blonde replied, sounding relieved. “It’s a sure sign we’re not meant to be here. Come on, Lamour, let’s just go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Lamour jiggled the key in the lock some more, then gave the door another mighty shove.

“Are you aware that you are trespassing?” Lorenzo said coldly.

Startled, they shrieked and swung round, clutching at each other. Wide-eyed they stared him up and down, taking him in, old shorts, paint can, and all.

“Who are you?” Lamour demanded. “And why are you here?” she added a little haughtily, trying, Lorenzo knew, to look confident, because they were women alone and he’d scared them.

“More important, who are
you
?” he asked. Of course he knew exactly who she was, but he wanted to put her at a disadvantage. “There are severe penalties in Italy for breaking into houses that do not belong to you.”

Lamour’s face turned an indignant pink and her big dark eyes blazed at him. “We did not
‘break in.’
” She dangled the old iron key on its string. “This is
my
house. It belonged to my father. I lived here when I was a child.”

Lorenzo looked steadily at her. It was as though he were
looking at a memory. “I knew your father,” he said at last. “You resemble him.” He turned and walked back down the steps. “A warning.” He threw the words over his shoulder. “It’s better not to go exploring here after dark. It might not be safe.”

And whistling for his dog, he was off, back through the garden to the stairs that he climbed as easily as any mountain goat.

Jammy and I stared after the arrogant stranger striding through my garden as though he owned the place. “What do you think he meant?” I asked nervously.

“I think he meant keep your nose out of Jon-Boy’s past and go back to Chicago.”

“But why? Who is he? And anyhow,
why
did he think I was trespassing?”

“Well, of course he didn’t know who you were until you told him,” Jammy said.

“And then he warned me off.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I was unnerved by that warning. I shivered; could it have something to do with Jon-Boy’s death?

“Hey, whatever,” Jammy said with a grin, “he’s surely a good-looking guy. Maybe you can hire him to paint the place; it looks as though it could use it.”

But I didn’t care what the man looked like; I was still thinking about what he’d said. I turned to look at the unmovable lock and sighed.

“Oh, the hell with it,” I said, suddenly dispirited. “Let’s just go get some lunch.”

The village of Pirata was only a ten-minute walk away. It looked like a movie set, with tall pastel-colored houses surrounding the medieval piazza, flanked by stone arcades and centered with an ancient fountain. A series of slender arches
framed the waterfront like a painting, and through them I could see the bluest of seas and the small harbor lined with traditional red and green wooden fishing boats. In the piazza was a greengrocer’s with fruits and vegetables displayed in crates outside, and a general store that I remembered had hams and salamis hanging from the beams on giant hooks. They also sold dozens of different kinds of cheeses and homemade delicacies straight from the owner’s kitchen: tomato sauces and pesto, the best meatballs, potato gnocchi, and ravioli so fine it was almost transparent. In fact, my mouth was watering just remembering the smell of the place.

They sold a multitude of other fascinating things too, like machetes and hammers and nails, patterned spaghetti bowls and olive-wood salad servers, tomato mashers and garlic presses, sewing needles and brooms and pestles-and-mortars, and all kinds of gadgets, as well as fresh-ground coffee.

On the other side of the square was the small pharmacy where I used to go for Band-Aids for my frequent scrapes and cuts and aspirin for Jon-Boy’s headaches after too much grappa. Next to it was the barber’s shop with a striped pole outside where Jon-Boy would occasionally get his hair cut.

Up on the green hillsides were little streets of white houses, their flamboyant gardens ablaze with color, and anchoring the tip of the inlet was a pretty tenth-century stone church. Below was the harbor, with its row of old fishermen’s cottages, a beautiful place to linger at sunset over a drink.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. Pirata had escaped the tourist invasion, most likely because there was no space for a grand hotel. Plus the main road ran a few miles inland, diverting passing traffic from this little section of the coast. Miraculously, it remained the village I remembered from my childhood.

“Follow me,” I said to Jammy, leading her unerringly
across the gorgeous little square and under the arches, turning left along the harbor to Jon-Boy’s old haunt, the Caffè Bar Amalfitano. Like Angelo’s place, it had been smartened up a bit, with a blue awning to shade its terrace tables and more comfortable chairs than the heavy wooden ones of old. But the tantalizing aroma of fresh pizza snaking from its tiled kitchen was the same, and from the bar came the familiar smell of the draft beer Jon-Boy used to enjoy. I noticed that the carafes of flowery local wine that miraculously appeared on the table as soon as you took a seat were the same, too, as were the frosted jugs of iced water and the stubby green glasses.

The proprietor was new, though. He was young and fresh faced, giving the pair of us the flirty eye as he greeted us. He announced that he was Aldo, plunked the carafe of wine on the table, then flourished his pencil over his pad and raised an eyebrow, waiting for our order.

“Buona sera, signore,”
I said, giving him a smile as I ordered a pizza Margherita—large size—and a plate of
calamari fritti,
also large size.

Aldo hurried away, then came quickly back with a bowl of Parmesan cheese, a dish of olives, a plate of tiny orange-colored tomatoes—picked this morning, he told us—plus a bowl of garlic-and-lemon
aoili
for the calamari, and a hunk of rustic bread.

I poured wine into our green glasses and lifted mine in a toast. “To my house in Amalfi,” I said to Jammy.

“Oh God, Lamour, you
cannot
be serious.” Jammy’s face was pinched with anxiety. “You
can’t
live there. Besides, you don’t know how much work the house needs.” She looked at my smiling face and saw she was getting nowhere. “Anyhow, you have to at least forget about the cow,” she added with a sigh.

“Daisy is already in my future,” I said, tasting the wine. “And let’s not forget the chickens.”

She groaned. “You’ve
got
to come home, Lam,” she pleaded.
“Please.”
She took a sip of her wine. “This is quite good,” she added, sounding surprised.

Then Aldo arrived bearing a basil-scented cartwheel-sized pizza and a huge platter of fresh calamari still sizzling from the frying pan.
“Buon appetito,”
he said, flashing us a smile.

As I bit into that first hot, aromatic slice of pizza a sense of well-being came over me. I
loved
this place. I
loved
this
caffè bar
. I
loved
the pretty harbor and the charming medieval piazza. I
loved
my hillside and my little golden house and the food and the wine. Of course the house would need work, but I looked forward to it, as I did to re-creating the garden with Mifune. And I looked forward, as I had not looked forward to anything in years, to being on my own and completely self-sufficient. I knew it was only when I had achieved that independence that I would find myself again as a woman. And a woman with no need of help from any treacherous man.

We made short work of the
Calamari
and I was already on my third slice of pizza when we heard the roar of a speedboat coming into the harbor. We turned to admire the sleek silver Riva as it slid alongside the stone jetty. We saw the young man piloting it, and we watched, interested, as he leaped nonchalantly ashore, tied the rope around the bollard, then pulled an old pink T-shirt over his head. Running his hands through his dark blond hair, he sauntered along the harbor toward us. Well, not exactly toward
us
but to the Amalfitano anyhow.

“My God,” Jammy said, taking him in, bug-eyed, “this place is lousy with good-looking guys! Where do they all come from?”

I had no idea, but I had to admit he was a vision, gorgeous and golden. I also noticed the triangle of sweat on the front of his shirt and the sexy tangle of blond chest hair peeking above the V. He looked interestedly at us and I felt that old pull of attraction that I hadn’t felt since I met Alex. But I forgot, I was not going to think about him.

The vision made a little bow to us.
“Buona sera, signore,”
he said, and I saw his eyes were alight with mischief and admiration as he looked at us. Of course I recognized at once that he was a practiced flirt. Still, I couldn’t resist that smile and I smiled back. And so, I noticed, did Jammy.

“Buona sera, signore,”
we chimed, sounding embarrassingly like a chorus in a bad Broadway musical comedy.

The vision lingered by our table. “My name is Nico,” he said. “Too bad you have already eaten, or I would have asked you to lunch with me. May I offer you more wine, though? Or perhaps a glass of
limoncello,
our local drink? Then you could tell me all about yourselves.”

Jammy gave me a quick little sideways glance that said,
What are you waiting for, girl?
Then, sounding all charming and genteel and even
southern,
she said, “Well, that would be just delightful,
signore,
though of course, you’ll need to tell us all about yourself, too.”

The vision pulled up a chair, waving the proprietor over.
“Ciao, Aldo,”
Nico said, shaking his hand. It was obvious they knew each other well, and I guessed Nico must be a local. Jammy and I each primly accepted a glass of the
limoncello
. With it came a plate of tiny almond cookies. I didn’t think I had room left for another morsel, but I nibbled on my cookie, looking through my lashes at our new “friend.”

He raised his glass to us, suddenly serious. “To two beautiful women, whom I am most fortunate to find in my little village,” he said.

I could have sworn he meant it, but even if he didn’t, it was charming and so was he.

“And to our delightful new friend Nico,” Jammy said, filling in the gap because I was trying not to choke on my
limoncello,
which had the bite of a shot of neat tequila. “I’m Jammy Mortimer,” she said, “and this is Lamour Harrington. We are staying at the Santa Caterina.”

I thought I saw a flash of surprise as he shook my hand. “Lamour, such a pretty name,” he said, and, foolish woman that I am, I let my hand stay in his for a moment longer than I should have. I smiled right back into his eyes and found myself
telling him the story of my namesake New Orleans great-grandmother. “Who was probably no better than she ought to be,” I finished, taking another sip of the
limoncello,
startled by the way it seemed to fizz all the way from my mouth to my brain like rocket fuel.

“Then your great-grandmother was probably a very wise woman,” he said, smiling. “And how did Jammy come by her name? Not another wicked great-grandmother?” And giggling, Jammy told him the story.