Summer in Tuscany (11 page)

Gemma

The three of us held an emergency conference over soothing cappuccinos, sitting around one of the flimsy little tin tables outside the
albergo.
Everybody else was still at the party, and I’d had to figure out the cappuccino machine by myself. I’d blasted enough froth into the cups to send espresso flying in a tidal wave over the edges, but, messy though Nonna said it was, it still tasted good.

“So what’s a little coffee in the saucer matter anyway?” I said grimly. “The Villa Piacere is at stake.”

“I just couldn’t believe it when that kid Muffie told me her dad had bought it,” Livvie said. “I told her she was a liar.”

“It seems she is not a liar.” Nonna poured sugar from a glass canister with a chrome top. “Rocco Cesani also told me Mr. Raphael owns it.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “So how can he own it when the count left it to you? Don Vincenzo saw the will.”

“Perhaps there’s a time limit.” Nonna shrugged helplessly. “Perhaps after a couple of years it reverts back to the estate and they are free to sell.”

“A will is a will, and I’ll bet that whatever country you are in, probate cannot be completed until the heir or heirs are found.
Nobody
can just give a villa away, not even a lawyer. And speaking of lawyers, where is that Donati anyway? He’s the one with all the answers, and you can bet he’s involved in this in some way. In fact, I’m going to call him right now.”

I jumped up from the table and ran to my room, shuffled through my bag until I found the piece of paper with the phone number Don Vincenzo had given me, then dashed back downstairs to the phone in the little booth in the hall.

I dialed the number in a town called Lucca and heard that sharp Italian trill as it rang. And rang and rang. My lips clamped angrily together. Where was the bastard? Out spending his ill-gotten gains, no doubt. And more important, where was that will? We hadn’t even seen a copy of it yet. All we had to go on was what Don Vincenzo had told us.

“Don’t you worry,” I said to Nonna. “I’ll work it out. Nobody is going to cheat you out of what’s rightfully yours.”

I called Donati’s number every hour on the hour for two days, but without success. By now I was good and mad. Nonna had taken Livvie to meet Rocco Cesani, an old friend of hers, and I mooched moodily around the village on my own.

I wandered into the little church and sat in a worn pew, listening to the hum of silence, watching the dust motes floating in a beam of sunlight, catching the glitter of the brass altar candlesticks.

My mother had been baptized here, I thought, at this very stone font. She had made her first communion here, dressed in white ruffles and a veil with a circlet of flowers in her hair, like a little bride of Christ. My grandparents were baptized and married here, and their parents before them…and who knows how many before that.

When I’d left New York, I’d been just Gemma Jericho, Nonna’s daughter, Livvie’s mom. Now I was suddenly part of a continuing chain of life I had never contemplated before, never known existed. It made me feel strange, different. As though I belonged.

I bowed my head in thanks, then stepped outside into dazzling sunshine. It was hot, and I needed a cold drink. The Bar Galileo was almost next door to the church, behind the bocce court. I ambled listlessly toward it under the shady umbrella pines. Even from outside the bar I could smell decades of draft beer, and inside was even worse. I stared through the pall of cigarette smoke and the steaming hiss of the espresso maker at the flickering TV tuned to a soccer game. I nodded shyly at the men in workmen’s blue overalls who turned to look at me, then backed quickly out again.

Maybe I’d have an ice cream instead. In fact, a
mocha granita
sounded so great I could already feel those tiny iced-coffee crystals sliding down my parched throat.

I was wearing only a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts, and flip-flops bought in the village grocery store, which seemed to sell everything. Nevertheless, I was hot and sticky by the time I got to the other side of the square and the
gelateria
. I let the glass door swing shut, breathing a sigh of relief as cold air wafted toward me from the freezers.

“Good morning.”

I stiffened like a hunting dog pointing a dropped pheasant.
Ben Raphael
. This was all I needed. I turned to look at him.

He was sitting at a table with his daughter, who was spooning up an enormous multicolored sundae. She got up politely when she saw me, and so did Mr. Raphael.
Always the gentleman,
I thought scathingly,
even though you are a thief!

“Good morning, Mr. Raphael,” I said, icy as the freezer.

“Miss Jericho—
Dr.
Jericho,” he corrected himself, “I think we have to talk. I’ve tried to get in touch with Donati to sort this situation out.” He shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. “So far, no luck. What can I tell you except that there must have been some terrible mistake?”

“You bet there has.”

“Could I maybe…buy you an ice cream? Muffie highly recommends the Everest.”

He was my enemy, even if he was too cute for words, and I couldn’t allow myself to consort with the enemy. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m the kind of girl who buys her own ice cream.”

I heard him sigh as I turned away and ordered my little tub of
mocha granita
. I paused on my way out the door. “For your information,” I added, “I have also been trying to contact
signor
Donati. And when I do, he’ll be serving notice on you to stop work on the villa. He’ll have you out of there before you even know it.”

The door didn’t exactly slam behind me, but the bell did tinkle very loudly. And then I stubbed my toe on an extra-large cobblestone, and my tub of
granita
flipped out of my hand and splashed onto the ground. I gritted my teeth, staring angrily at it. Then I scooped it quickly up and flung it into the trash can.

I heard the bell tinkle again as the door opened and Ben Raphael stuck his head out. “Like me to get you another one?” he asked, grinning.

“No, thank you,” I said, tossing my head like a teenager and stalking huffily away. Damn it, why couldn’t I
ever
make a great exit?

There was an invitation waiting for me when I got back to the
albergo,
written by hand in peacock blue ink and an elaborate flowing script. The thick cream-colored paper had those crinkly-cut edges that told you it was expensive, and there was a crest at the top: a peacock with its magnificent tail spread and wearing what looked to be a diamond tiara.

The Contessa Marcessi requests the pleasure of the company of la signora Jericho, la dottoressa Jericho, e la signorina Jericho at the festivities to celebrate her forty-ninth birthday.

Wednesday July 10 at 7
P.M.

Dinner and dancing. Black tie.

Maggie Marcessi had not forgotten me.
Dinner, dancing, black tie
. What on earth would I wear? I hadn’t danced in years. Still, didn’t I used to be the Dancing Queen? Who else would be there? I wondered. Surely not Ben Raphael? But yes, of course he would, Maggie Marcessi had been at
his
party, hadn’t she? Plus she was his neighbor and had known him for years. Well, that did it. Of course I couldn’t go. War had been declared between the Raphaels and the Jerichos, and I was definitely not going to consort with the enemy.

“
Why
can’t we go?” Livvie said. “It’s a party. There’ll probably be hundreds of people there, just like the one at the Villa Piacere. Oh, Mom, come on, I
want
to go.”

“I don’t see why not,” Nonna said, surprising me. “After all, it’s only a party, and it’s a chance for Livvie to meet some of the local young people.”

“
Young
people? Maggie Marcessi must be having her thirtieth forty-ninth birthday. How many
young
people do you think will be there for Livvie?”

“I think we would all enjoy it,” Nonna said firmly. “And in fact, I’m calling the
contessa
right now to accept, and maybe I’ll ask her if I could bring a friend.”

“I didn’t know you had anyone special enough to want to invite to Maggie’s party.”

“She means Rocco Cesani,” Livvie said with a knowing little grin at her grandmother. “She’s hot for him, y’know.”

“Livvie!” Nonna flashed her a warning glare. “Rocco is an old friend. We were at school together. He took us to look at his olive groves and his
frantoio
this morning,” she added.

“Bor-ing,” Livvie said.

“He produces the best olive oil in the region. He even exports to the United States.”

“He lives on a farm,” Livvie said, “with a cow and a dog that looks like a pink-and-white sausage that sniffs out truffles. He showed me a truffle.” She wrinkled her nose. “It was disgusting. How can people put that stuff in their mouths?”

“Truffles are gourmet delicacies,” Nonna said severely. “People in New York pay a fortune to eat them in restaurants.”

“More fools them,” Livvie said, and I grinned because secretly I thought she was right.

“Anyhow,” Nonna said briskly, “it’s settled. We’re going to the party.”

“You
shall
go to the ball, Cinderella,” I muttered, still determined not to. I would just have to wriggle out of it somehow.

Meanwhile, Bella Piacere was working some kind of magic on me. I found myself slowing down—so slow, in fact, it was almost a crawl, and soon I expected to be at a total standstill. But I was finally taking the time to taste life.
Real
life. To enjoy dinner in the piazza and go for walks alone in the hills and explore the neighboring villages.

Right now I was in the old graveyard, where the tombs were built into the walls, and stone plaques were carved with their names and dates and angels and cherubs. Framed photographs of the deceased were attached to some of them, and there were little bouquets of real flowers as well as plastic ones, and mossy stone walks and a bell tower.

I sipped icy spring water from the little drinking fountain, then sat on a stone bench with my eyes closed, listening to the birds sing and thinking that this wasn’t a half bad place to call your final home. Behind my closed lids I saw a haze of red smudged with purple, like the colors of the big sunsets around here. Bees buzzed in the lavender, cicadas did whatever they did with their little cricket legs that made that summer sound, and something rustled in the undergrowth. I felt myself drifting, sliding gently into sleep.

“Ah,
dottoressa
Jericho…the very person I needed to see.”

I sat up with a jolt and looked into the pink, smiling face of Don Vincenzo. I managed a startled smile as I brushed back my hair. I hated being caught sleeping; it was so
revealing
somehow. “Why, Don Vincenzo, what a surprise. How nice to see you,” I said in scrambled Italian.

“
Dottoressa,
I have what you need,” he said mysteriously. At least it was mysterious to me because he was speaking Italian, but I thought that was what he had said.

He fumbled in the pocket of his soutane, which close up and in the strong sunlight shone green with age, with a few spots of what was probably spaghetti sauce dotted here and there. He brought out a crumpled bit of paper, unfolded it, and smoothed it carefully over his knee.

“Here it is,
dottoressa,
” he said, still in Italian, of course. “Donati’s new telephone number. I spoke with him this very morning, and I have arranged a rendezvous between the two of you. You are to meet him in Firenze, at the Caffè Gilli in the Piazza della Repubblica, at ten
A.M
. next Tuesday. Then all will be explained to you.”

“Wait a minute.” I held up my hand to slow him down. “Are you saying I have
a meeting
with Donati?”

“
Sì, con Donati,
the attorney.”

“In Florence?” I quickly ran through the names of the days of the week in Italian in my head. “On
Tuesday?
”

“Sì.”

“Really?”
I was delighted.

“
Sì, dottore
Jericho. Tuesday at ten at Gilli’s in the Piazza della Repubblica.
Signor
Donati assured me there must have been some mistake and that he will explain everything to your satisfaction.”

“He’d better,” I said grimly, thinking of the Villa Piacere in Ben Raphael’s hands. Signed, sealed—and delivered by that same
signor
Donati. But I thanked Don Vincenzo warmly and raced back into the village to find Nonna and Livvie and tell them the good news.

The days to Tuesday seemed to tick by slowly, I was so impatient to sort things out and make sure Nonna had her inheritance. We went out sightseeing, saw Nonna’s friends, dined under the stars on pasta and tomatoes still warm from the sun with fresh local mozzarella and olive oil that tasted of Tuscany, and ate endless variations of zucchini from the inn’s overburdened garden: sautéed, souffléed, broiled, grated, the little flowers stuffed and crisped.

Meanwhile, I seemed to bump into Ben Raphael everywhere: at the daily market, at the
alimentaria,
sipping Campari outside the Bar Galileo, filling up at the Motto station. And each time we encountered each other, we nodded coolly, antagonism crackling between us. But the annoying thing was that now I found myself looking out for him everywhere I went.

Of course, I was not about to tell him I had a meeting with Donati. I knew that would be playing right into the enemy’s hands.

At last it was Tuesday and we were on the
autostrada
heading for Florence. It was early, the traffic was light, and the sky already a hard bright blue, promising heat. Livvie and Nonna were talking clothes, planning yet another shopping session for Maggie’s party after the meeting with Donati. And I was concentrating on the road signs and worrying about what Donati was going to say.

Don Vincenzo had told me that, as attorney for the old count,
signor
Donati had the original, and as far as he knew, the only, copy of the will. It had not been filed in the probate court because at that time they had still been searching for the heir. Or the heiress, as I’d come to think of Nonna. Funny how I had so not wanted her to come here on such a wild-goose chase, and now I was the one determined to save her inheritance for her. I vowed that whatever it took, the villa was going to be hers. Only trouble was, without a copy of the will we didn’t have a leg to stand on.

The beauty of Florence takes your breath away. It’s everywhere around you: in the old streets and the stone buildings, in the piazzas dotted with statues, in the markets piled with fruits and vegetables, in doorways draped in jasmine and wisteria. Even Livvie was silenced as we walked down narrow arcaded streets lined with buildings so old, we finally understood how new America really was.

We strolled along the banks of the River Arno, admiring the statues of the Four Seasons on the Ponte Santa Trinità that had been rescued from the riverbed after the War, when the bridge had been destroyed. Now the bridge had been rebuilt, perfectly copied from the original.

The Ponte Vecchio, though, was still the real thing, with its lavish displays of gold jewelry in shops that looked much the same as they had in the fourteenth century—a century I admit never having given much thought to before now.

Lured by the glitter of gold, we paused outside a tiny shop, peering at the antique jewelry displayed in the window. A ring caught my eye: two bands of gold twisted together, centered with a cabochon of clear crystal surrounded by pinpoint-sized diamonds. It was obviously very old, and I wondered if long ago it had been given to a beautiful young Florentine aristocrat by her beloved. For once in my life I coveted something, but I put that desire behind me. I knew it would be too expensive, and anyhow, I had business to take care of.

The Piazza della Repubblica was once Florence’s marketplace. Now it’s lined with cafés, with tables arranged under blue and yellow awnings. Gilli’s had been there since 1793, when it was just a small bar and tearoom. Now it’s Florence’s meeting place. It was already thronged with Florentines, taking their ease and their morning espresso and
dolce
while browsing through the newspapers and watching the world go by.

At the opposite end of the square, the Rinascente department store was open and doing business. I saw Nonna’s eyes light up. No doubt she was remembering the friendly saleswomen who had “put her together” so nicely in the emerald silk and the pearls and the Begonia lipstick. I got the sinking feeling that she was ready for a second go-round and steered her quickly away.

We were looking for a small, very thin man with dark hair and a pencil mustache who was, so Don Vincenzo had informed us, always well dressed. He’d said that at this time of year
signor
Donati would be wearing a summer suit of white linen. “The
signore
is always impeccable,” he’d said, “always in the best money can buy.”

That little piece of financial information had sent a thrill of apprehension up my spine. Exactly whose money was Donati spending on smart summer suits? I wondered, though I was already willing to bet it was the zillions Ben Raphael must have paid him for the Villa Piacere. Money that definitely did not belong to him.

We checked out every man in Gilli’s, both in the old-fashioned mahogany and mirrored interior and under the awnings on the piazza. Of course there were a dozen mustached Italian men in white linen suits, all impeccable and all expensive-looking. I walked along the rows of tables, gazing into their sunglassed eyes. These Italian guys were really good-looking, and every one of them gave me the eye. I’m sure it’s just a reflexive thing, a national trait, so to speak, almost like a sort of tic. And I have to admit I kind of liked it. I even smiled back, just a little. I mean, it was enough to give a woman carnal thoughts. Except when that woman was me, of course; the woman who had adopted celibacy three years ago in a promise to myself I would not go back on.

“He’s not here yet,” I said, returning to the table under the awning.

“He’s on Italian time,” Nonna said, looking, I thought, far too relaxed for the tense situation. “He’ll be here. Don Vincenzo promised.”

I wished I were as certain that he would show up, but I ordered that double espresso with the cream on the side, and little sugary pastries topped with raspberries, plus an enormous chocolate sundae and a Coke for Livvie, who was drinking so much of the stuff I feared her teeth would rot in her head before we got her home and to the dentist. Nonna drank coffee and nibbled on a pastry, placidly scanning the morning newspaper while I scanned the piazza for Donati.

Half an hour passed. Forty-five minutes.

“We’ve been waiting a whole hour,” Livvie complained. “So where is he?”

I shrugged as I grabbed my bag. “Beats me,” I said as calmly as I could because inside I was really fuming. “I’m going to call him right now.” And I marched into Gilli’s, found a pay phone, and dialed the number Don Vincenzo had given me. I gave up after the tenth ring.
Signor
Donati was as elusive as a ghost.

Back at the table I chewed reflectively on my bottom lip, thinking about what to do next. “We can’t go on like this,” I said finally. “I’ll just have to speak to Ben Raphael. He’s going to have to work it out somehow.”

Nonna heaved a sigh that seemed to come from her boots. “And if Mr. Raphael doesn’t,” she said quietly, “I think I know of another method that might stir him into action.”

We waited for her to tell us exactly what action she was talking about, but she quickly changed the subject. “Don’t women say that when all else fails, go shopping?” she said. “Come on,
bambini,
we need to buy ourselves a party dress.”

“I really don’t want to go to this party.”

Livvie glared at me, and I suddenly thought she looked exactly like her grandmother: same hands-on-hips stance, same exasperated look flashing from her brown eyes and aimed at me.

“Aw, come on, Mom,” she said impatiently. “It’s only shopping. It’s, like, just a girl thing, y’know.”

“Oh,” I said meekly. “A girl thing. Right.”