The House in Amalfi (25 page)

“
Buona sera
, Mifune,” he said. “Will you come sit with me for a while? I need to talk to you.”

Mifune took a seat next to him on a stone bench at the side of the path. Affare lay at Lorenzo’s feet, alert for his next move.

“I told Lamour I couldn’t sell her the house,” Lorenzo said. “She was devastated. I hadn’t realized how much she cared.”

“Lamour remembers only happiness there, signore,” Mifune said. “The house brings back memories she treasures. It was a shock when she heard Jon-Boy did not own the house, but she still believed you would let her have it. And ask yourself, signore, if Jon-Boy were alive, would he not, after all, still be living there?”

Lorenzo acknowledged that he would.

“Then you must see that the idea that she could live in her father’s house is valid,” Mifune said. “You and I both know the reason why she should not, signore. But so much is forgotten in the flow of water in the river of time, surely now you could bend just a little and allow her this small happiness.”

Lorenzo heaved a deep sigh. “Mifune, you always manage to put things straight in my mind,” he said. Getting to his feet, he bowed to the old man.

Mifune smiled. “It is merely a process of logic and meditation,” he said calmly. “Everything has a solution. You must let it float into the clear mind, then grasp it while you are able.”

“I’ll do that, Mifune,” Lorenzo promised, and with Affare at his heels, he strode back to the Castello.

He thought that unlike him, Lamour had nothing to hide. She was simply an innocent woman searching for happiness. He had no right to keep her from that.

After a restless night facing up to the truth that I could no longer live in my little house, I was wakened with the dawn by Mr. Rooster, bellowing fit to bust, and right outside my window, it seemed.

I leaped out of bed and ran to look. There he was sitting on the tiled bench, pecking at the bougainvillea. His harem shuffled around him, messing on my new cushions and squawking contentedly.

Obviously I hadn’t latched the gate securely last night after I’d fed them. Damn, oh damn, damn, damn! . . . I’d never get those stains off the cushions. I didn’t stop to think that it wouldn’t matter anymore anyway, nor would the battered washer and dryer sitting at the bottom of the
scalatinella
, like in a white-trash-family backyard.

I flung on an old gray T-shirt and shorts and ran downstairs barefoot. The hens glanced up, then went back to their pecking, but Mr. Rooster tilted his head sideways and gave me a nasty one-eyed glare. He left no doubt in my mind that war had been declared. It was him or me.

Ignoring him, I grabbed the first hen, tucked her wings under, and held her fast. The nasty little creature still managed to give me a series of hearty pecks as I ran to the coop and shoved her in, slamming the gate and securing the loop of wire that held it shut. I ran back to the terrace. One down, four to go.

The hens were smarter than I’d thought. They’d gotten wise and scattered throughout the garden. Only Mr. Rooster still perched angrily atop the bench, Lord and Master of all he surveyed.

I picked out hen number two, herding her in front of me in the direction of the coop. All was well until she made a sudden sideways swoop and I swooped right after her. I landed in the dust, clutching the screeching hen by her ankles—if hens have ankles, that is; anyway it was the bit above her horrible yellow feet.

“I hate you too,” I yelled as she flapped and struggled, “but you’re going back in there if I have to kill you to do it.”

I heard laughter. I looked up and saw Affare bounding toward the chickens, yelping in delight, and Lorenzo standing on the
scalatinella
, watching me. It was all I needed!

Lorenzo called Affare off, and she sat hungrily watching the chickens. “Still haven’t gotten the knack of corralling those hens, huh?” he said.

I scrambled to my feet still clutching the furious hen. “They escaped,” I said icily. “But there’s no need to worry; I’ll have them back in there in no time.” I was lying of course, but I wasn’t about to allow him to get the edge on me again. I was the independent woman, right?

Lorenzo grabbed the chicken from me. He tucked in her wings and held them down, and dammit if that mean piece of poultry didn’t just sit there in his arms, as though she had never squawked and pecked at me in her too-long life.

“I wouldn’t even
eat
that damned chicken,” I said, disgusted.

There was a smile in Lorenzo’s eyes as he looked at me and I remembered I was straight out of bed, hair uncombed, face unwashed, teeth unbrushed. I wasn’t even showered, and now I was covered in dust and feathers. It was the story of my life, having him see me at my worst and just when I
needed to present a strong image, the cool, perfect woman.

Tears of frustration lurked behind my eyes, but I was damned if I’d let them flow. I was drained by the past few months, exhausted and ready to admit defeat. I couldn’t do battle with the Pirata family; the house was theirs, and with it went all my dreams. Had it not been for Mifune, always there to offer advice and consolation, to regenerate my spirit, I would have called it quits long ago. Now I had no choice.

I watched Lorenzo pen the rooster. “So why are you here?” I demanded. “I thought you’d never want to see me again, now you’ve finally managed to get rid of me.”

Lorenzo put the last two chickens in the coop and latched the gate. “I’ve come to make peace, Lamour,” he said quietly.

“What d’you mean,
peace
? You expect us to be friends now?”

Lorenzo pulled a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his shorts. I stared suspiciously at what looked like a legal document, sealed with red wax and stamped with the Pirata crest with the battlemented tower and the skull and crossbones. I looked warily at him.

“This is your new lease,” he said. “The Amalfi house is yours for as long as you wish to live in it.”

I gasped. I didn’t believe him. It was some kind of joke. “It’s not true,” I said, sounding childlike instead of like the smart cookie I prided myself on being.

“It’s true.”

I grabbed the document and skimmed it quickly. It really was a lease, and in my name. It was signed by Lorenzo
and
witnessed. “But why?” I asked, puzzled.

“It’s for you—in memory of your father,” he replied, suddenly serious. “But it comes with one condition.”

My hackles rose; surely he was not going to play the old-fashioned squire and say what I thought he was going to say.

“That you agree to have dinner with me tonight, at the Castello,” he said.

I laughed with relief that he wasn’t going to pull the old squires’ rights thing on me. “I’d love to. And thank you. Thank you, thank you, oh,
thank you
.” I was brimming with gratitude; I’d have done anything for him at that moment. Well, almost
anything
.

“Then tonight at eight,” he said, walking away, with the ugly dog running after him.

He turned at the
scalatinella
to inspect the wreckage. “Some new form of modern sculpture?” he asked, and I could hear him laughing as he ran lightly back up the stairs, like the young man I knew he believed he was in his heart.

It was a perfect night, soft as cashmere, with a pale sliver of a moon and stars like sequins sewn onto the dark blue sky. I took my time dressing for dinner with Lorenzo Pirata. This time it wasn’t to be about “business”; we were moving from enemies to cautious friends. I wondered what we would talk about now that we were no longer fighting over the house.

I slipped into my pretty coral dress, my
only
dress, the one I’d bought with Jammy in Rome. My skin had acquired a peachy glow from the sun, and checking in the mirror, I thought I looked pretty good. A spritz of the Jo Malone honeysuckle and I was ready.

Carrying my expensive red-suede mules so as not to get them dusty, I walked up the hillside, through the trees, and along the sandy path, lit by perfect Art Nouveau iron lamps in the shape of lilies. I was thinking about the man I was about to have dinner with. He was interesting and definitely attractive, older and experienced. Lorenzo knew his way around the world and was sure of his place in it.

Massimo was waiting by the open door and this time he smiled as he said,
“Buona sera,”
and ushered me through the hall onto the terrace. Lorenzo was there, with Affare at his side.

Smiling, he came toward me, arms outstretched. He took both my hands in his. “Welcome,” he said, and he looked deep
into my eyes. I fluttered my eyelashes, embarrassed; then he offered me a glass of champagne. We strolled to the edge of the terrace, looking at the coast, strung like a queen’s necklace with diamond lights. There was only us and about a million crickets, a tree frog or two, and the twitter of a late-to-bed bird.

“This is the kind of ‘silence’ I remember from when I was a child,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful sound in the world.”

“To me, it means home,” he said.

Soon Massimo came to tell us dinner was ready. We sat across a table draped in pale green linen with rustic burnt orange chargers, amber goblets, and tiger lilies in a silver urn. Lorenzo poured the wine, a Barolo from Tuscany, while Massimo served.

I was so caught up in the magic of the setting, the perfect starry night, and the man opposite me, I hardly noticed the food. I drank my wine and smiled at Lorenzo.

“I’ve met you before,” he said. I raised my brows in a question. “When you were a child.”

“Really?” I didn’t remember him at all.

“Of course then, I didn’t really know Jon-Boy. I’d see him occasionally in the village, usually at the Amalfitano.”

I leaned an elbow on the table, cupping my chin in my hand, interested. “So how did we meet?”

“It was on a hot summer evening. I was climbing down the steps to the cove when something out at sea caught my eye. At first I thought it was a dolphin, but then I realized it was a head bobbing in the water, far out in the bay. I looked through my binoculars and saw it was a child. I raced down those steps and fired up the speedboat—”

“It was silver,” I remembered, laughing, “and faster than a speeding bullet—just like Superman. And there was always a yellow rubber dinghy with an outboard motor moored next
to it at the jetty. I used to take that out when no one was around.”

“Then I’m only glad you didn’t also have a go at the speedboat,” Lorenzo said drily.

I grinned. “So what happened that day?”

“I circled you in the boat, yelling what did you think you were doing, alone in the water, so far from shore?”

I could remember the coolness of the evening sea and how infinitely strong I had felt, strong enough to swim to Pirata and back if I’d wanted. . . . I was queen of the sea. . . .

But Lorenzo didn’t think so. He said, “You were yelling at me to go away. ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to swim across the bay?’ you yelled back at me. I thought you were filled with way too much sass and self-importance for such a skinny little whelp of a girl.”

“I put my thumbs in my ears and wiggled my fingers at you.” I snickered, remembering.

“You also stuck out your tongue. But by then I was so mad I just grabbed you by the arm and hauled you in like the dumb little fish I told you you were.”

“Of
course
! I remember you now!” I saw him clearly as he was then: young and handsome, with dark hair and blue eyes. “I remember your eyes,” I said. “They fixed me like two lethal steel points. They haven’t changed,” I added.

“And I remember your ratty red bathing suit; it was full of holes.”

“That was my favorite,” I said indignantly. “I’d had it for a couple of years, it was way too small, but I wore it every day that summer.”

“The holes showed your skinny bottom,” he said, and I groaned.

“My entire wardrobe consisted of a pair of shorts, a couple of T-shirts and a pair of sandals that were too small, so I just
went barefoot. I can’t even recall any underwear,” I added without thinking.

He laughed and I blushed.

“Jon-Boy never had much money,” I explained. “Of course when he got some he’d spend it in style: dinner at good restaurants in Rome, wine and grappa for everyone at the Amalfitano. I guess he just didn’t think too much about my clothes as long as I seemed happy. And I certainly didn’t care. After all, there was no mother there to complain about the way I looked.”