To Tuscany with Love (27 page)

“Love?” Rune asked. “That’s touching, isn’t it? We haven’t seen the man in thirty years, and he still loves us. Hell, I’m used to the kind of love that disappears before morning.”

“Not everyone has your emotional dysfunction, Rune,” Bella said. She felt her cheeks flush but couldn’t stop herself. “Stillman cares about people. When he arrives, maybe you can learn something from him.”

Rune saluted her with an index finger.

Phillip stared at her.

“
Signora?
” The Italian had stepped toward Bella.

“
Prego?
”

The Italian phrases tumbled from his smiling mouth, a lilting description of their dinner arrangements. Bella responded in Italian, promising that the group would adjourn soon to the rooftop garden.

“
Prego
.” The man tilted his head sideways and accented the all-purpose word with a flip of his hand.

Bella felt the others’ eyes on her.

Hope spoke first. “You learned Italian. After being here, I wanted to. But there was never time for taking classes.”

“Are you fluent?” Lee asked in Italian, his voice tentative.

Bella shook her head. “Am I fluent? Not really. I understand conversation better than I speak.”

Lee smiled at her. “You’re modest, Bella. Your accent sounds like a native.”

She felt their eyes locked on her and shrugged in response. She addressed her answer to Hope. “I lucked out. An Italian grandmother who refused to speak English lived next to me when I first had my own apartment in New York.” Bella turned to Lee. “How about you?”

Lee’s smile widened. “I dabbled with lessons over the last couple of years. Even toyed with the crazy idea of spending a year here.”

Bella lifted her head to the view beyond the courtyard. A smile drew up the corners of her mouth. “Not so crazy.” She turned back to the group. “A dinner has been set up for us in the rooftop garden. It’s ready for us now.”

“Thank God.” Hope moved toward the archway of the building. “The last time I ate was on another continent.”

“I did damage to the Chianti and Parmesan in my room,” Rune said. “Rustic, but a nice touch.”

“I wish I had,” Hope said. “When I got here, I had no appetite.” Her eyes bounced between them. “Travel stomach, I guess. Not that it’s such a bad thing.” She slapped her hips. “Hear that, hips? You can shrink any time now.” She linked arms with Meghan and pulled the slight woman along. “Let’s go renew our love affair with Italian cuisine. Remember the ribolitta and tortelloni we had in that little trattoria by the Duomo?”

Meghan laughed. “Remember it? It took me six months after going back home to lose all the weight I’d gained.”

Hope plowed through the group to the courtyard entrance. “Which way to the roof?” She looked at the man who waited in the doorway. The Italian smiled at her and gestured up the stairs to the left of the doorway.

Phillip and Lee motioned Bella ahead. Behind her, she heard Phillip’s voice.

“How was your flight, Lee?”

“Noisy. My luck to finally fly first class and have a screaming child behind me. How ’bout you?”

“Long. I couldn’t sleep. Luckily I brought an E.V. Tate thriller with me to pass the hours.”

Bella’s hand tightened on the wrought-iron railing that flanked the narrow, curved stairs to the roof. She forced herself to keep moving upward.

“Are you a fan?” Lee’s baritone echoed up the winding stair.

“They’re entertaining. I travel a lot and prefer Tate’s novels to the economic reports that fill my briefcase.”

Bella ran up the stairs to escape the sound of Phillip’s voice. Hearing him talk sent her spiraling back to that summer. The searing memory of standing in JFK airport with his typed message in her hand pummeled her, filling her churning stomach with acid.

31

A
massive square lookout tower at the far corner of the rooftop courtyard overshadowed the rectangular dining area. Through the rooftop’s railing, Bella saw the edge of the palazzo’s garden down below. The lights of Florence peppered the distant horizon. “Amazing.”

Hope’s breath came in loud, short bursts as she tried to catch her breath from the trip up the stairs.

“It’s calming, isn’t it?” The view soothed Bella. Her shoulders relaxed. “Look at that tower,” Rune said as he approached the women. “This is even more radical than the ones we used in
Knights of the Blood Order
. How thick are these walls, do you think?” He patted one dust-covered stone with his palm.

“Two meters. Same as the cornerstone.” Phillip slid by Bella without even a glance in her direction. “
Knights of the Blood Order?
I must have missed it.”

Rune coughed and cleared his throat. “You and the rest of the free world.” Rune’s voice dropped lower. “But we had great numbers in a handful of up-and-coming locations.”

He looked back at the group clustered by the stairs and shook his head. “Hell, you guys are my friends. It bombed. Big time. But we had one radical castle, complete with five towers. I should have kept the bloody towers. Those five—not four, like everyone else gets by with, but five—monster towers lapped up the last of my funds quicker than a high school cheerleader sucks off the quarterback following a big game.”

Hope chuckled. “I bet your towers looked grand, Rune.”

Rune grabbed his crotch. “Sweetheart, they were an instant hard-on.”

Hope linked her arm through Rune’s and guided him toward the table. “Come on, Rune. I want to sit by you so I won’t feel intimidated by our wildly successful classmates.”

Bella chewed the inside of her lip. “Who says we’re all wildly successful?”

Hope’s smile inched across her wide face. “Honey, I have a sense about these things. That’s what made me a wicked fundraiser for the school. I can smell who’s got the money.” She chuckled.

Bella shook her head in denial. She realized that Meghan wasn’t at the table. Her eyes turned back to the stairway and then peered through the dusky light. She thought that Meghan must have stopped short of the dining area. Her eyes paused on Phillip. He tipped his head to the left, nodding to the wall behind her. He could still read her actions, damn it. She looked over her shoulder. Meghan stood away from the back wall, studying the subtle-hued fresco painted on it.

Bella moved beside Meghan. In her soft, querying mother’s voice, she asked, “What moves you about the fresco?”

Meghan smiled but didn’t cease her methodical study of the painting. Her voice came slowly, in an awed whisper. “That it’s here. Still. That once people valued art and chose to live surrounded by beautiful creations.” Her bony shoulders raised in a shrug. “It warms me.”

Bella placed her hand against the center of Meghan’s back and matched Meghan’s whisper. “Me, too.”

Meghan turned to look at Bella. She offered silent thanks. Bella gave a tiny nod in return and took in Meghan’s eyes. Eyes that looked like they were searching for something.

The women turned in tandem. Bella copied Hope’s gesture that the girls had adopted during their summer here—she linked arms with Meghan and led her to the table.

Sienna-colored runners straddled the wooden surface of the table, which was laden with trays of antipasto. Olive branches with silvery green leaves framed the platters. A large bowl of fresh produce—shiny purple eggplants, crimson plum tomatoes, burgundy and white radicchio, yellow squash, and indigo grapes—decorated one end of the table, occupying the space rightfully belonging to Karen.

“Do we go ahead and eat without Stillman?” Rune rubbed his hands together and looked as anxious to start dinner as Hope.

“We can all eat together,” Stillman said from the top of the stairwell. In his black Armani clothing, he looked tanned, rested, and oozing with the confidence that success brings.

Bella rushed to Stillman and wrapped her arms around him. She whispered in his ear. “I’ve missed you. Thank you, both for this trip and for coming back into my life.”

He pulled back and brushed his lips against hers. “It is truly my pleasure.”

Bella percolated with an excited, nervous joy, as if she were a fifteen-year-old on her first date. She smiled. “I’m glad you’ve forgiven me.”

“What makes you so sure?” He punctuated his words with a boyish grin.

Hope’s booming voice rang out. “Quit hogging him, Bella. The rest of us would like to say hello, too, you know.” Stillman stepped away from Bella and extended both arms. “I’m all yours, ladies.” Hope and Meghan hugged Stillman. Their quiet laughter and words were interspersed with his. Lee remained beside the table, in a conversation with Rune about the teams headed for the World Series.

Bella’s head turned to meet Phillip’s scrutiny.

His face showed no emotion, and his tone was equally flat. “Looks like you and Stillman got to know each other better after we left Italy.”

Bella flicked her hair back from her face with a shake of her head. Her voice lifted in affirmation. “We did.”

She returned to the table and reclaimed her wineglass.

Bella tipped it up to wet her lips and watched the strained greeting and stiff handshake extended by Lee. Stillman clapped Lee’s shoulder and bet that collecting fees with a JD, rather than an MD, behind one’s name met with greater success. Though their razzing seemed like standard water-cooler fare, the pained expression on Lee’s face never wavered.

Phillip asked Stillman why he ended up choosing law instead of medicine.

“Bombed Organic Chemistry,” Stillman said, “and for a semester, I thought it was the end of the world. It was a freak thing, actually,” he said, looking at Lee, “but ended up being a blessing in disguise. I love what I do.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t cut out to be a doctor, anyway.” He clapped Lee on the back. “Not like Lee, here. He’s nationally renowned, you know.”

Lee’s face relaxed. “Thank you.”

Stillman gazed straight at Lee. “I’m glad it worked out the way it did, with you in medicine and me in law. Besides,” he laughed, “we have law to thank for this reunion.” Stillman admitted to hosting the trip, saying he’d come into a windfall on a film on which he’d taken his fee as a percentage. With a fiftieth birthday approaching and having no family, he told them, he couldn’t imagine a better way to celebrate than with them at this reunion.

As if she sat in a theater seat watching a performance, Bella felt removed from the banter around her. Her mind was muddled by the surreal nature of the week ahead with people, other than Stillman, whom she hadn’t seen for thirty years. Bella relished the idea of being with her old friends again—that is, except for Phillip. The prospect of spending a week in his company was as enticing as being thrown into the belly of an outhouse.

At Stillman’s urging, they limited their conversation to suggestions on how to spend their time in Italy. He insisted that the sharing of their personal histories occur throughout the days ahead. The unveiling would be as if they were unwrapping cherished gifts. Until all was known, he claimed, they could be as they were thirty years ago when they first met, before they had their own families, successes, and failures.

The evening unfolded with course after course of Tuscan comfort food. Antipasto gave way to pasta filled with squash and amaretti cookie crumbs. Wine and herb-infused roast chicken melted on their tongues. Crunchy roasted new potatoes sat largely untouched, except by Hope, who vowed to sample everything. Field greens dressed in wild strawberry vinaigrette finished off the dinner.

Even Hope had to put up her hands in defeat when the Roman who brought plate after plate of food produced an enormous platter of almond pastries, pine nut cookies, cheeses, and fruit. They all declined espresso and limoncello in favor of sleep after their twenty-four hours of travel.

“Say,” Lee said, tapping four fingers against the wooden tabletop, “what are the plans for the morning?”

“Breakfast will be available in the courtyard from 8:00 to 9:30. Then,” Stillman added, his eyes crinkling as he grinned, “I’ve arranged a hidden treasures tour of Florence.”

Curious murmurs accompanied the group down the stone steps and echoed through the stairwell.

They reached Bella’s room first. She unlocked it and turned to face the others. “Good night, all. Sleep well.”

Stillman lifted her chin with his fingertips and lightly kissed her lips.

The others filed past, offering hugs and kisses on the cheek before following Stillman down the hall.

Phillip drew up the rear of the group. He watched them move around the corner before he turned to Bella.

“I owe you the apology of a lifetime,” Phillip said, “and an explanation.”

You pompous ass, Bella thought. She kept her face expressionless and said, “
That
is the understatement of the year.”

Phillip pulled her hands into his.

“Is that an attempt to prevent me from slapping you?” Bella removed her hands from his grasp. “If so, you needn’t worry. Slapping you might be temporarily satisfying, but it wouldn’t come close to paying you back for what you did to me.”

Meeting her gaze, he said, “I know. I will never forgive myself for what happened. Even though you have a right to despise me, please let me explain.”