A Year at 32 September Way Page 4

  “Agenda: 1st Day of September,” he wrote across the top in his neatest penmanship. The agenda would be made a little late today, but he wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Order would be restored, and Charles would feel better about things. He knew he would. He brushed an errant fiber from the right sleeve of his wool suit jacket, and then mopped the perspiration off his brow with a paper napkin.

  “Purchase cloth napkins,” he wrote on the day’s agenda, and then he paused to think about the other familiarities he would need. He would be okay in Verona once order was restored.

  ***

  Eva had fully expected to be settled into her apartment and snuggling in Marcello’s arms by early evening, yet here it was nearly 7pm and she wasn’t there yet. She had been to Verona plenty of times before and knew the ride from the train station to the center of the city should only take about ten minutes. But after they got into the taxi, the driver’s cellphone rang. He’d turned away slightly and spoke rapid Italian while gesturing with his free hand. After hanging up and mopping his brow with a cotton handkerchief he’d pulled from his pants pocket, he’d smiled sheepishly at Eva.

  An hour-long drive around Verona followed; each time Eva questioned the taxi driver, he responded in Italian. It seemed that, somehow or another, he’d lost all ability to speak English after receiving that phone call at the train station. Eva was tired, hot and sweaty as the taxi finally turned down the street. She looked around and realized there were high courtyard walls on either of the street, rather than the open courtyards she was used to seeing, or the doors and windows with geraniums that spilled over the flowerboxes like water from a waterfall. Then it dawned on her; they were driving down the alley that ran between the backs of two rows of buildings. This was where the residents parked their scooters at night and set their trash each week for the waste truck to take away.

  “Why on earth are we coming down the back street?” Eva wondered, struggling with a mixture of impatience and confusion. It was as if she was being snuck in like a spy. She opened her mouth to protest, but then the taxi came to a stop. The cab driver got out, opened the door for her and had her luggage out of the trunk before she’d barely gotten herself unstuck from the fake leather upholstery. He walked with her to a locked courtyard gate and knocked twice, then paused for a moment and knocked once more. She could hear a key turning in the lock before the gate slowly swung open.

  “My darling!” Marcello exclaimed as he pulled her into his arms and then quickly released her as he realized she was sweaty. “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting…no, longing to see you again.”

  Marcello placed his folded hand in the palm of the taxi driver, leaving behind a wad of cash that seemed to far exceed a normal cab fare. At that point, though, Eva didn’t really care. The trip from the train station to the apartment had been a fiasco, and she was ready to be done with it. Anger welled up inside her chest, making it difficult to breathe even in the cool evening air.

  “Bring me to my apartment,” she managed to say before a small sob escaped her throat.

  “Oh, my rose, you’re not sad, are you?” Marcello lifted her hand and brushed it with a gentle kiss, tasting the salt on her skin.

  “Please, Marcello. It’s been a long trip. I want to go to my apartment, take a shower and get settled. That’s all I want right now.” She wanted to question him about why he wasn’t there to pick her up like she’d expected. She wanted to know why the taxi driver had driven around for an hour before bringing her to the apartment and why, for god’s sake, they drove through the back street to get there. But Eva didn’t ask any of her questions because she just wanted to go home, wherever that was.

  “Of course, my darling. Let me carry your luggage and we’ll go right up to your apartment,” Marcello said as if everything were perfectly fine. “There’s no need to be upset. I’ve prepared everything for you and have made your apartment almost as beautiful as you are. In fact, look,” he gestured toward a tall enclosed staircase on the back of the building, “I’ve even arranged for you to have your own special entryway so you don’t have to be bothered with anyone else’s noise.”

  At that point, Eva was just thankful she didn’t have to carry the two heavy suitcases up the four flights of stairs. Marcello was fit but, by the time they reached the doorway, even he was huffing and panting. He turned the key and, between gulps of air, gestured into the room with a sweeping motion. “Welcome to Verona, my sweet rose. Welcome to your new home.”

  The apartment was indeed lovely, Eva thought as she stepped through the heavy wooden door. The white stucco walls revealed areas where various colors of stone were left uncovered to decorate the walls with spots of pale yellow, slate gray and other earthy colors here and there. Dark wood beams alternated with stucco to form the ceiling, and the floor was made with pale gray natural stone. Pastel-hued rugs covered the floor, adding to the softness and warmth of the room’s décor.

  Sunset was just two hours away, but the last of the sun’s rays shone through the windows and the sheer cotton curtains fluttered in the cool evening breeze. The kitchen was simple but functional, with terra-cotta and stone crockery containers decorating the countertop. One small oak table and two chairs sat near the window; next to the window was a pair of French doors leading to a small balcony where Eva could watch the whole city wake up as she drank her morning coffee.

  Beyond the kitchen was a comfortable sitting area with an overstuffed couch adorned with cabbage rose upholstery, a wicker chaise lounge with a pale goldenrod cushion and a wooden cocktail table in the middle. On the cocktail table was a large glass vase that held a few dozen pink roses, too many to count, and their sweet spicy fragrance filled the room. Between the sitting area and the bedroom stood a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with books by many of her favorite authors…a loving gesture Marcello had gone to great lengths to achieve just for her.

  To the left was a full-sized bed with a wrought-iron headboard and footboard and a fluffy feather bed. Pink rose petals decorated the top of the bed, trailed over the nightstand and ended to form a path on the floor. Marcello had outdone himself, Eva thought as she felt her disappointment and anger dissipating. It was clear he’d gone to a great deal of trouble to make the apartment perfect for her. She’d even noticed her favorite brand of coffee on the countertop.

  “Marcello, I’m sorry I was angry. I was just so tired from my trip and so sad that you didn’t come to meet me yourself. The apartment is beautiful, and I know I will be so happy here.”

  “My darling, it pleases me to hear that you are happy. I know I’ve disappointed you. But I will make it up to you. I promise to make it up to you.” Marcello drew her into his arms, letting one hand get lost in her silken blond hair. He kissed her, gently at first, and then more fervently as the passion welled up inside him. Eva returned his kisses with her own rising passion until she broke away from him, beckoning him toward the bed with her eyes. They made passionate love as the sun set over Verona and cast shades of pink and violet over the inside of the apartment.

  The apartment was all but dark when Eva lit a candle next to the bed and asked Marcello if he would spend the night with her. “I have an appointment first thing in the morning at the bank, so I have to leave early. But nothing would please me more than to be with you your first night here and wake up next to your beautiful face.”

  Marcello climbed out of bed and strode naked across the room toward the bathroom. Eva watched him in the glimmer of the candlelight. “God, he’s gorgeous,” she thought, noticing the movement of his muscles and the glistening of his golden skin.

  Thoughts of making love to Eva again and again consumed Marcello as he retrieved his cellphone from his pants, which were draped over the sofa. There was one text message from Carlotta’s brother:

  Cancel any appointments you have tomorrow morning. In fact, clear the whole day. You’ve been seen and now the family wants to see you. You’re expected in Bardolino at 9am.

  He returned
the cellphone to his pants pocket and glanced over toward Eva to make sure she hadn’t seen his reaction. Marcello slowly ran his left hand through his hair—a gesture he made out of habit whenever he was nervous. He climbed back in bed and lay with his back turned to Eva, who moved closer to him until he could feel her breasts pressed against his back. Her hand caressed his arm and moved toward his inner thigh.

  “Sweetheart, I’m afraid you’ve worn me out tonight,” he said as he lifted her hand to kiss it, and then moved it away from his body. “I have to sleep now; we have so many more nights together.”

  He turned enough to kiss her goodnight and could see the smile on her face as she leaned over him to blow out the candle. Within minutes she was fast asleep, and Marcello could hear the rhythmic sound of her breathing. But he couldn’t sleep a wink. Salvatore summoning him to a family meeting was rarely a good thing. By the time he rose at 5am, Marcello’s pillowcase and side of the bed were drenched in sweat; he had spent the whole night tossing and turning, vacillating between nervousness and fear.

  Chapter 4

  Marrying Carlotta had been a fruitful venture in many ways. Aside from the fact that she was a much-sought-after beauty in the Lake Garda area, Marcello knew her family connections would help him get a more secure footing in the business world. Sure, the Benedettos had been well-known in Venice for decades and enjoyed modest success with their hotel business. But they wanted to expand…needed to expand, and were counting on their son Marcello to make that happen for them with business dealings in Verona and around Lake Garda.

  Initially, there was quite a bit of competition vying for Carlotta’s attention. But, eventually, none of them could compare to Marcello’s ability to romance her, hold her interest, keep her guessing with his mysterious side and make her laugh with his playfulness. Most importantly, her family approved of and accepted him. They also offered a substantial dowry—a detail Marcello hadn’t overlooked—that included partial ownership of Via del Sol, the family-owned vineyard in Bardolino.

  But not long after their wedding that crisp fall day thirty years ago, Marcello discovered that along with the benefits of marrying Carlotta, there were also definite disadvantages. The greatest one by far was the short leash her family kept him on. If her father wasn’t cornering him to discuss the future of the vineyards, her brothers seemed to make part-time jobs out of doing surveillance on him, whether he was in Lake Garda, Verona or Venice. Salvatore, Carlotta’s older brother, quickly became a thorn in Marcello’s side; because of him, Marcello was called to his first family meeting eighteen months after he’d married Carlotta.

  In Italy it was common to flirt and admire the beauty of other women, but Salvatore took it as a personal affront when he caught Marcello doing just that. They’d just recently announced to Carlotta’s family the impending birth of their first child when he was summoned to meet with the family. Marcello had every reason to believe he was about to be congratulated as a father-to-be. In fact, he even suspected there might be a monetary gift coming his way.

  When he left the closed-door meeting in the rear wine-tasting room on the vineyard property, Marcello’s neatly slicked back hair was disheveled, his lower lip was split, and large purple and blue bruises were forming along his left temple and across the top of his left hand. He’d been seen winking at a young woman on the piazza and had waved at her before rounding the corner. The penalty had been mild, he’d been informed. But was just enough to leave him imagining how much worse it could get. The bruises from the gut punches wouldn’t show, but he would most definitely feel them over the next days.

  Over the course of the next two decades, there were never any more family meetings called in regards to romantic indiscretions. But, there were a few related to business mistakes. Each time he was summoned, Marcello spent the entire night praying that the punishment would be doled out by Carlotta’s father, who always seemed to be slightly more merciful. If one or more of the brothers rose from the table to deliver the punishment, he knew it would be long, painful and severe. The only brother that never participated in handing down the punishments was the youngest, Louis, who was almost like Marcello’s younger brother, too. But generally, after Marcello sat silently and listened to the family discuss his indiscretion for an hour or so, it was all he could do to pray the beating that followed would be swift.

  Carlotta never said a thing in response to his bruises or soreness, nor did she ever attempt to tend to them. Over time, this grew to be less of a surprise to Marcello, who’d begun to notice the increase in her erratic behavior and mood swings. It was almost as if someone flipped a switch inside of her during those childbearing years, and the Carlotta he had loved and married was slowly becoming someone else.

  Years after their youngest child—a daughter—was born, Carlotta’s father pulled Marcello aside and told him that an occasional romantic indiscretion would be acceptable now that Carlotta was getting older and the children were almost grown. Even so, Marcello was extra careful over the years and had never engaged in more than a few rendezvous with the same woman until Eva had come along.

  Then, his first night in the apartment with Eva, he’d been summoned to a family meeting again. There hadn’t been one in almost seven years. “Have I slacked off?” wondered Marcello. “Have I slipped? None of my people have reported anyone following me.” During the 45-minute drive from Verona to Bardolino, he continued to wrack his brain over the possible reasons for the summons. He arrived a full two hours before the meeting would start…plenty of time for breakfast, cappuccino and the newspaper. But all Marcello could do was pace up and down the boardwalk along the lake’s edge. He stopped and peered out over the clear blue-green water of Lake Garda and the villages that rose along the sides of the lake up toward the mountains. He wished he could escape into the scenery, somewhere high upon Monte Baldo where no one would bother to find him. But it seemed Carlotta’s family had eyes all over northern Italy, and one or more of them was always watching Marcello’s back, waiting for him to make a mistake. Maybe he’d finally made the worst one of all with his beautiful Eva.

  Chapter 5

  During her first two weeks in Verona, Eva saw Marcello only once after that first night. When he didn’t show up at her apartment the second evening, as promised, she became worried. He was habitually late, but never a no-show. In the past he’d said never to call his cellphone more than once, so she didn’t. But, by her third day, there was still no word from Marcello, and Eva was nearly sick with worry.

  The next day her phone rang early in the morning as she lay in bed. It was Marcello; he explained that he’d been hit by a speeding moped the morning he’d left her apartment and was in the hospital with broken ribs and bruises on his face. At first, he forbade her to come and see him looking the way he did. “I have to see you, Marcello,” she choked into the phone as she wiped away tears of relief.

  He relented to her tears but instructed her to come at the same time as his assistant, mumbling something about not being ready to deal with his family. Eva was disappointed and relieved all at the same time. She needed to see him with her own eyes to make sure he was going to be okay. But she couldn’t understand why he wanted her to come with his office assistant, as if she were someone he knew from his business dealings.

  “What is going on?” she wondered. The situation was odd, but there was no time to think about it. She pushed it toward the back of her mind to sit with all the other memories of situations in which she’d felt slighted by Marcello. Tucked away in a far corner she seldom chose to visit were a growing collection of memories— events, conversations and feelings—that led Eva to sense that something wasn’t right between her and Marcello. She could have delved further into each one but always chose not to. Most of the time she was happy…happier than she’d ever been in her life. Exploring a minor suspicion could bring an end to her happiness, and she wouldn’t take any chances with that. In the end, she always wondered how she could possibly have doubted Marcello in the fi
rst place. It was clear he was as madly in love with her as she was with him; she knew it and chose to focus on that rather than any silly little niggling feeling that tried to creep into her mind.

  In the meantime, Eva walked the nearby streets and explored central Verona repeatedly, becoming familiar with a few of the vendors at the markets she frequented. She never crossed paths with anyone else in the rear courtyard of the apartment, and the only sign of life she saw on the long stairway to her home was her own shadow. Surely, there must have been other people living in the four-story building. It would be a waste of space and loss of money if there weren’t. But if there were any other tenants, she certainly never saw or heard them. She’d even wandered around to the front of the building one evening, but there was no trace of anyone else. There was a front entryway, but it was locked. Through the glass in the door, Eva could see a staircase.

  It made no sense. “Why am I living on the fourth floor of an empty apartment building?” Eva wondered, feeling like Rapunzel hidden away in the tower. “There’s a perfectly good staircase inside, but my apartment is accessible only from a private door. Why is it so disconnected, like it’s a secret hiding place?”

  She cupped her hand over her forehead, peered through the front door and knocked on the wood. Nothing. She knocked again and waited. Still nothing. Eva was curious and had plenty of time on her hands to get to the bottom of the situation if she wanted. But it was probably better to wait; she’d be sure to ask Marcello about the locked door and the other apartments as soon as he was better.