Every Boy's Got One (21 page)

Oh my God, we’re HERE. Villa Beccacia!

And it’s GORGEOUS.

I will admit, at first I had my doubts. That Frau Schumacher— I think she might actually be as old as some of those castles we zoomed by. And, um, she’s just SLIGHTLY in love with Large Appendage. It’s sickening! Just because he speaks German! We got out of the car to meet her on the shoulder of the exit, and she was all, “Vich vun is Cal?” and when he raised his hand, you could practically see her melt onto the asphalt.

And she’s got to be a hundred if she’s a day! Who knew Large Appendage’s magic works on centenarians?

The next thing I knew, the two of them were totally chattering away in German, leaving the rest of us out of the conversation.

Fortunately she had her great-grandson with her, Peter, who’s fourteen and speaks English… well, pretty well anyway. Don’t ask me why Peter is living with great-granny in Italy and not attending school, either here or his native Germany. Possibly she’s home-schooling him? He does look a bit like he’d get the you know what knocked out of him in an American high school. I mean, he’s a little on the chubby side and very soft-spoken, with an
X-Men
T-shirt under his jean jacket.

In any case, I didn’t think it would be polite to ask. About why he wasn’t in school, I mean.

Anyway, Peter asked us non-German speakers how the drive was, and if we were hungry, and said he and “Grandmuzzer” had stocked the fridge at the villa, so we should be all right until the “shops” opened again tomorrow, they’re all being closed today on account of it’s Sunday.

Mark asked him about liquor—you can tell sitting shotgun while Holly drove had worn away his last good nerve—and Peter said, looking confused, “Vell, I zink zere are many bottles in the house now.”

Mark looked visibly relieved.

Then Frau Schumacher said for us all to get back in the car and follow her. So we did. And we were driving along, me not being able to help notice that there was a big wall of clouds climbing over the nearby, castle-crested hill, and realizing I probably wasn’t going to be able to squeeze in an evening swim, when all of a sudden Holly went, “Look! The Adriatic!”

And there it was, this beautiful slice of sapphire blue, right there! There was no one on the beach, because being the middle of September, it’s off season, of course… even though it’s still in the 80s, temperature-wise (or the twenties, if you’re going Celsius, like the Italians).

But somebody had still put out all of these white-and-yellow-striped lounge chairs, just in case.

And we drove through this adorable little seaside town, Porto Recanati, filled with the sweetest shops—a gelateria, and an Italian Benetton—and something called the Crazy Bar and Sexy Tattoo Shop, which I’m not sure really qualifies as sweet—and then hung a left onto a road I’m not even sure, technically, really IS a road. I mean, it’s DIRT, and all of this dust was flying as we went down it, so that we had to close the windows.

Still, it was tree-lined, and through the spaces between the trees, we caught glimpses of the Centro Ippico—a horseriding center down the road from Villa Beccacia… although not far ENOUGH down the road, if you ask me, since even as I write this I can hear neighing.

And there’s a slightly horsy odor in the air when the wind shifts.

But whatever. We followed Frau Schumacher to this electric wooden gate, and waited while she hit a button and it slid slowly open….

And then we saw it. Villa Beccacia, Holly’s uncle’s house, which has been around for a really long time… hundreds of years, since it was built in the 1600s!

Of course, it’s been remodeled since then.

But not so you’d notice from the outside. As we drove down the long driveway, past fruit trees around which bees were humming and butterflies were flitting, past a deep green pond, its surface covered with lily pads, past rolling, grassy hills, the stone house, with vines creeping up all over it, came into view.

And it was just the way I’d pictured it!

Well, okay, there weren’t any turrets. But really, it’s LIKE a castle. I mean, it’s really old, and inside, there are these darkly beamed and vaulted ceilings. And there are tapestries hanging on the walls, and in the old-fashioned kitchen, there’s a brick oven.

You can’t USE it… they put in a modern stove to cook on. But the brick oven is still THERE.

The casement windows are sunk into these deep walls with sills you can sit on, and open out like shutters. There are no screens, because if there were, you wouldn’t be able to open the windows.

And out back, the pool is just steps away from the covered stone patio—the
terrazza
, according to Peter—with the ancient built-in grill/fireplace. This is apparently where Zio Matteo spends most of his time when he’s home, since there was wax all over the wrought-iron table from the many candles that had dripped onto it while he was enjoying what Frau Schumacher intimated was one of his many enormous meals (from the photos I’ve seen scattered around the house, ZioMatteo definitely enjoys his food). There was lots of firewood in the pile for the future, and a few sad-looking fly-strips hanging from the rafters.

The pool is gorgeous, 50 by 20 feet at least, with blue-and-white-striped lounge chairs all around, and palm trees at each end, the fronds swaying gently in the breeze (which is picking up, thanks to the approaching rain clouds). I am going to be so glued to the side of that pool as soon as the weather clears up.

Oh, and the whole wedding thing is taken care of.

Holly broke the news to Frau Schumacher as we were following the old lady around the house, listening to her rattle on in broken English about how there were plenty of clean towels but she’d just finished washing them and they were still drying on the line over at her cottage farther down the driveway.

“You vill need lots of tovels,” Frau Schumacher was saying, “for the svimming and the beach.”

“Well,” Holly said, glancing sweetly at Mark. “We aren’t really here for the watersports, Frau Schumacher. Mark and I plan on getting married this week, over in Castelfidardo.”

Frau Schumacher reacted the way a NORMAL—read, not Cal Langdon—person would react upon finding out a young and attractive couple like Mark and Holly were getting married: She clapped her hands for glee and wanted to know all the details, like what Holly would be wearing and did her uncle know and when were her parents coming.

To which Holly replied, her face getting red, “Well, I didn’t tell Zio Matteo or my parents. We’re eloping, actually—”

Which threw Frau Schumacher into a tizzy of excitement— once Cal translated, since neither Peter nor she was familiar with the word
elope
. She exclaimed, in her broken English, that she knew the mayor of Castelfidardo very well, and that if any problems developed, she was to be consulted immediately. Where was the wedding breakfast going to be? What? We hadn’t planned for a wedding breakfast? Well, there had to be a wedding breakfast. She would supply it—

Then Frau Schumacher’s gaze fell on Cal (it never actually strays away from him long, I’ve noticed) and she glanced from him to me quickly and asked, no longer smiling, “And you two? You are having vedding, too?”

Both Cal and I hastened to assure the housekeeper that we were not—Cal a little more hastily than I think was actually polite, to tell you the truth. I mean, he may not know it, but he’d be LUCKY to be married to a girl like me. At least I can support myself without Daddy’s—or some investment banker’s—money, unlike SOME women he might know.

And I am at a completely normal body weight, and don’t have to stick my finger down my throat to maintain it.

Plus, I have two television sets. How many does Cal have? Oh, that’d be none. I asked. Yeah, Cal doesn’t “believe” in TV.

Right. You know what I don’t believe in? People who don’t believe in TV.

And then there’s The Dude. Any man would be lucky to get to share a domicile with The Dude.

But whatever. His loss.

Not like I WANT to marry him. Or anybody. I mean, I have a development deal. What do I need a husband for?

Anyway, Frau Schumacher insisted on making us some snacks while Peter helped us take our bags upstairs. Mark picked up Holly’s bag plus his own and Cal had his stupid backpack (Queen. That’s the only CD he travels with. QUEEN. Although come to think of it, I sort of like Queen. But I’ll never let HIM know that) so the only bag left was mine and when Peter went to pick it up he stiffened suddenly and said, “Vundercat?” in this astonished voice, staring at me.

Then Holly, halfway up the stairs, called down, laughingly, “Yeah, Peter, didn’t you know? Janie’s the creator of Wondercat.”

And Peter—to my everlasting gratification—cried, “You are Jane Harris, the artist of Vundercat?
Vundercat
is my favorite comic of all time! I have all of the Vundercat collection! I have Veb site dewoted to all things
Vundercat
!”

“Oh, do you?” I couldn’t help stealing a look at Cal as he was following Holly and Mark up the stairs. Was it my imagination, or was he smiling a little ruefully? Yes, you BETTER feel full of rue, Mr. I Never Heard of Wondercat. Wondercat is INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED. Oh, yes. Even strange, apparently home-schooled German boys in Italy have heard of Wondercat! I may not know what
carabinieri
means, buddy, but at least I can draw something that has INTERNATIONAL appeal.

“Well, while I’m here,” I said, mostly to get Cal’s goat, “I’ll be happy to draw you some original Wondercats, Peter, for your Web site or whatever.”

A look of total joy suffused Peter’s round-cheeked face, and he raced up the stairs with my bag, chattering a mile a minute about his favorite Wondercat cartoons. I made sure to keep him talking too, so that Cal Langdon heard every word.

Villa Beccacia has seven bedrooms. Holly told Cal and I to pick whichever ones we liked best. Six of the bedrooms are huge, with ancient canopied beds with curtains around the sides, just like Scrooge’s bed in
A Christmas Carol
, and walls lined with dark panels and bookshelves, on which sit copies of everything from books on bird-watching to
Valley of the Dolls
in Italian.

The seventh bedroom is tucked away beneath a sloping roof, its single dormer window facing the pool. It’s clearly a boy’s room, with dark blue bedspreads on its twin beds, and matching dark blue tiles in the adjoining bathroom. All of the paintings on the walls are of ships. The oldest one has the words
A sua eccellenza il sig Cav Francesco Seratti
engraved beneath it. Whatever that means.

I knew at once this was the room for me.

Peter was horrified. He said, “No, you don’t vant this room. You vant the pretty pink room.”

But I said, “Cal can have that one.” (I know he heard me, too, because I heard a snort from the hallway.)

So Peter grudgingly put my bag down and went downstairs to see what his grandmother wanted, since she was bellowing for him (she has quite a set of lungs for such a tiny old lady).

And now I’m lying on one of the twin beds writing this, while everyone else is doing who knows what. All her life, Holly’s talked about Villa Beccacia, the money pit her eccentric uncle bought with his first million doing… well, whatever it is Holly’s uncle does. And now I’m finally IN it! And it feels as much like home as if Zio Matteo were MY uncle!

Oooh, Frau Schumacher is calling us. Authentic Italian (if German-made) snacks must be ready. Yum!

To: Jane Harris

Fr: Malcolm Weatherly

Re: Ciao

Hey! Where are you? I haven’t heard from you. Hope things are going good.

Listen, do you remember if I left my green ESPN hat at your place? Because I can’t find it anywhere. I know I could just go buy a new one, but that was my lucky one. If you remember, could you let me know? And when you get back, send it to me, if you still have it?

Cool.

Rock out.

M