19
Would you like chocolate cake or cherry pie?” Isabel stopped at the edge of the villa’s garden and watched Brittany extend a clay saucer toward Ren.
He gave the assortment of leaves and twigs all his concentration. “I believe I’ll have the cherry pie. And maybe a glass of scotch if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“You can’t say that,” Steffie admonished him. “You have to say tea.”
“Or a Slurpee,” Brittany said. “We can have Slurpees.”
“No, we can’t, Brit’ny. Only tea. Or coffee.”
“Tea will be fine.” Ren took an imaginary cup and saucer from her, his pantomime so skillful that Isabel could almost see it in his hand.
She lingered for a few moments to observe. His concentration when he played with the girls was oddly intense. He wasn’t like that with the boys. When he tossed Connor around or poked under the hood of the recently repaired Maserati with Jeremy, he did it casually. Equally odd was the fact that he seemed willing to play whatever game the girls decided to force on him, including imaginary ones like this tea party. She’d have to ask him about it.
She headed for the farmhouse to see if they’d made any progress since yesterday with the metal detectors. Giulia spotted her and gave a weary wave. She had a smudge on her cheek and shadows under her eyes. In the background three men and one of the women were methodically scanning the olive grove. Others stood around with shovels, ready to dig whenever the detectors beeped, which was much too frequently.
Giulia handed off her shovel to Giancarlo and came over to greet Isabel, who immediately asked for an update.
“More coins, nails, and part of a wheel,” she said. “We found something bigger about an hour ago, but it was only part of an old stove.”
“You look tired.”
Giulia rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, spreading the dirt. “I am. And my business is suffering because I am here all the time. Vittorio, he does not let this affect his work. He takes his groups out right on schedule, but me…”
“I know you’re frustrated, Giulia, but try not to take it out on Vittorio.”
She gave Isabel a wan smile. “I have been telling myself the same thing. Vittorio, he has to put up with so much from me.”
They moved into the shade of one of the olive trees. “I’ve been thinking about Josie, Paolo’s granddaughter,” Isabel said. “Marta’s talked to her about the statue, but apparently Josie’s Italian isn’t very good, so who knows how much she understood? I was thinking about calling her myself to see how much she knows, but maybe you should call. You know more about the family than I do.”
“Yes, this is a good idea.” She glanced at her watch, calculating the time difference. “I need to get back to the office. I will call her from there.”
After Giulia left, Isabel took her turn with one of the metal detectors before she handed it over to Fabiola, Bernardo’s wife, and returned to the villa. She fetched her notebook, then tucked herself away on one of the chairs in the rose garden.
The seclusion of the garden made it one of her favorite places. It lay on a narrow terrace of land below the formal gardens but was sheltered from view by a small grove of fruit trees. A horse grazed in a field by the woods, and the late-afternoon sun made a golden halo around the ruins of the old castle on the hilltop. It was warm today, more like early August than late September, and the scent of roses hung in the air.
She looked at the notebook in her lap but didn’t open it. All the ideas she jotted down seemed to repeat her earlier books. She was getting the uneasy feeling that she’d already written everything she knew about overcoming personal crisis.
“There you are.” Ren ambled toward her, wearing a blue-and-white-striped rugby over a pair of shorts. He propped his hands on the metal chair she was sitting in, and leaned down to give her a long kiss. Then he cupped her breasts. “Right here. Right now.”
“Tempting. But I don’t have the handcuffs with me.”
He abandoned her breasts and sprawled in the chair next to her, looking sulky. “We’re doing it in the car tonight just like everybody else in this town.”
“You’re on.” She turned her face to the sun. “Assuming, that is, your female fan club doesn’t find you.”
“I swear those little girls have radar.”
“You’ve been amazingly tolerant. I’m surprised you’re spending so much time with them.”
His eyes grew chilly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said.”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
She raised her eyebrows. He knew how to distance people just as effectively as he knew how to charm them, although she couldn’t imagine why he felt the need to do it now. “Somebody’s in a cheery mood.”
“Sorry.” He stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles, but the posture seemed more calculated than carefree, almost as if he were forcing himself to relax. “Did Tracy tell you she and Harry were going to rent a house in town?”
She nodded. “That apartment in Zurich was contributing to their troubles. It’s too small for all of them. They decided it would be better if she and the kids stayed here, where they feel more at home, and let Harry commute on weekends.”
“Am I the only one who finds it unnerving that my current lover is doing marriage counseling for my ex- wife?”
“It’s not as if there’s much confidentiality involved. One or the other seems to tell you everything we talk about.”
“Something I’ve been trying my best to discourage.” He picked up her hand and absentmindedly played with her fingers for a while. “Why are you putting yourself out like this? What’s in it for you?”
“It’s my job.”
“You’re on vacation.”
“I don’t have the kind of job that allows vacations.”
“Every job allows vacations.”
“You can’t punch a time clock on what I do.”
He frowned. “How can you be sure you’re helping? Isn’t there something arrogant in assuming you always know what’s best for other people?”
“Do you think I’m arrogant?”
He gazed off at a row of ornamental grasses drifting in the breeze. “No. You’re pushy and opinionated. But no, you’re not arrogant.”
“You’re right, though. There is a kind of arrogance in thinking you know what’s best for other people.”
“Yet you persevere.”
“Sometimes we focus on others’ flaws so we don’t have to focus on our own.” She realized that her thumbnail had crept toward her teeth, and she dropped it back into her lap.
“Is that what you think you’ve done?”
She didn’t use to, but now she had to wonder, didn’t she? “I guess that’s what I came to Italy to find out.”
“How’re you doin’ so far?”
“Not too well.”
He patted her leg. “If you need any help finding your flaws, you’ll be sure to let me know. Like your neat fetish and the way you try to manipulate everything so you’re in charge.”
“I’m touched, but this is something I have to sort out for myself.”
“If it’s any consolation, I think you’re a damn fine person.”
“Thanks, but your standards are lower than mine.”
He laughed, then squeezed her hand and gave her a sympathetic look. “Poor Dr. Fifi. Being a spiritual leader’s a real bitch, isn’t it?”
“Not as much as being a clueless spiritual leader.”
