“Yes, it’s me. Luciano, what happened? With Massimo?”
Luciano mouth twitched as he thought for a moment. “I . . . the cobblestone and the water.”
Patrizia frowned. “The water?”
Luciano sagged.
Patrizia pulled him up. “Luciano, when did you last eat?”
Luciano just shook his head.
Speaking softly, Patrizia said, “Maestro, you need to eat. Here, come to the shop. Let’s find you something.”
Luciano shook his head again, more forcefully. This seemed to clear some of the cobwebs. “I couldn’t.”
Patrizia scoffed, “Of course you can! The porchetta just arrived, let me make you a sandwich.”
Luciano ducked his head, a gesture that hearkened back to his old charm. “Patrizia. Such an angel.”
As he walked down Via Romana, Edoardo nudged his hair forward from the crown of his head, gathering up the front like he’d seen in Uomo Moderno. Approaching Bar Birbo, he practiced smiling, trying to loosen the tightness in his cheeks. He wished for some gum. Or even a mint.
Several calls of “Edo!” met him as he opened the door.
“Ciao, ciao, ciao,” he waved and called to the collection of coffee drinkers, dropping a kiss on the cheek of his aunt, Chiara, and murmuring an affectionate, “Buongiorno, cara.” Chiara smiled up at her nephew and patted his artfully stubbled cheek. She saw so much of his baby sweetness in him, still, at 19. It was sometimes shocking to notice his wiry frame and arresting features and recognize him as a man almost fully grown.
Edoardo opened a drawer with a swift motion and withdrew a freshly laundered apron. He snapped it open with one easy tip of his left hand, while his right plucked the string out of the air. He clicked his feet together as he rested the apron over his trim hips, crossed the strings in the back, and then swiftly knotted them together at the level of his navel. The florist’s daughter, Ava, who had lingered in Bar Birbo in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Edoardo, sighed inwardly at his fluid movements. No longer able to pretend to be savoring the last few bubbles in her cappuccino, she reluctantly abandoned her place at the bar.
As Chiara was frothing milk for the two newly arrived police officers, Edoardo turned sideways to slip past her to the register.
“Il solito? Your usual?” he asked Ava with a smile.
Ava fought the image of herself leaning over the copper plate and running her fingers over that full lower lip. Instead she stammered, “Sì, grazie, Edo.”
Edoardo’s hands flew over the cash register, but it didn’t open. He sighed and tried again, calling out, “Chiara! When are you going to get a cash register built this century?”
Chiara looked up at her nephew’s words laced with uncharacteristic bitterness. She bit the corner of her cheek, as she took in Edo’s clenching jaw. He scowled and avoided her gaze, punching at the yellowing button again and again. The register finally flung open with a homely binging sound. The patrons released their attention back to their conversations. Ava scrambled through her purse, looking for exact change, as Edoardo drummed his fingers on the bar and whistled tunelessly to the tinny music spooling out of Chiara’s faded radio. Fumbling, Ava found the coins that rolled infuriatingly around her purse and handed them to Edoardo, who caught them with a tight grin. Ava jolted a bit when her fingers brushed Edoardo’s palm. But he didn’t blink as his hands closed around the coins and dropped them in the till.
Magda tugged the door behind her. She started to turn away, but then stopped and pushed one more time against the solid wood. Satisfied, she wrapped her cardigan around her narrow frame to ward off the morning breeze, cool as a lizard’s belly. She considered watering the pots of flowers that lined the rental property beside her apartment but, squinting at the sky, decided it would likely rain and save her the trouble. Besides, she wanted to get to Bar Birbo and show Chiara the article. Eagerness propelled her steps down Via Romana.
Despite that anticipation, she couldn’t help but stall when she saw tourists on the steps that led to the dilapidated castle. A quick survey established that these weren’t the renters staying in her larger apartment. She seemed to remember that those were Australian. She wondered where these were lodging. A scowl crossed her already furrowed face as she thought about her other rental property standing empty, this one with a terrazza overlooking the deep valley to the rolling hills and stark mountains beyond. Why didn’t these tourists book with her?
She ran her hands over her face to iron out the creases and approached the couple as they took turns pointing into their guidebook.
“I am afraid you will find little information about that castle in any book!” she called gaily.
Startled, the tourists looked up.
“How did you know we spoke English?” the man asked.
Magda briefly flirted with the idea of pointing out their running shoes, the bags strapped to their waists like udders, their shorts, or his wife’s flyaway hair, but instead doled out a measured laugh and said, “Lucky guess. I am always looking for a chance to practice my English. You see, I have a rental property in Santa Lucia and I know how valuable it is to have an English-speaking host.”
The woman nodded companionably, but the man shifted his weight and frowned.
Magda’s smile stretched further as she asked, “Are you staying in Santa Lucia?”
Ah, that’s where this was going. Even just knowing Magda in a cursory way, one probably should have known.
The woman, however, did not know Magda even in a cursory way. Or, at least she didn’t remember that she did. “No, unfortunately. We wanted to stay here, but the room we were interested in didn’t have a dryer.” The man nudged his wife’s foot with his own.
Magda made the connection just as the wife blushed faintly. Magda barked in a way
