Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (19 page)

Farfalla was stunned. “Happy, healthy, free-spirited?” This was the last description she would ever have given about herself. She’d scarcely said a word to her hostess Eleonora, because the washed-up TV presenter was constantly moaning and whining about all her dark, imaginary troubles.”Eleonora said that about me?”

“Eleonora understands these things! My poor, darling Eleonora, she wasn’t always like you see her today... Once she was such a wild, clever, pretty girl, with her whole future ahead of her. Eleonora was such fun! You wouldn’t believe all the dirty mischief we got into.”

“Babi, listen to me. You know your way around here... and I need some advice. If you were looking for a statue in Capri — just a little bronze statue, about a hundred years old — how would you find something like that?”

Babi did not even blink at the question. “You’re smuggling antiques? Yeah, I used to do that, too.”

“Well, never mind. First, I have to find this statue of Cupid. I don’t know why, exactly, but I have this rich client who cares a lot about Cupid, and well...”

“Antiques can bring a lot of money in a hurry. That’s a very modern scene, antiques. Do you like gay guys?”

“Sort of.”

“Well, some people would tell you to query all the museums. Check out the old auction-catalogs. Forget that. You’ll have to root out the gay mafia’s antique closet. It’s a lost world in there.”

“I can do that! My geek hacker guys in Ivrea are practically gay guys, they’re just kind of different! How do I start?”

“Well,” Babi allowed, “Maybe I could ask around for you, a little bit, but first... Listen, I may be having some trouble with my final speaker. Do you think it would be a problem if I rescheduled your boyfriend for that slot, instead?”

“Well,” said Farfalla, at once, “Gavin might be unhappy about that, but I’m sure he would do his best. He cares about us, he listens. He wants to help.”

“That would be so good. Our American superstar author had security trouble in Rome. They found something bad in his carry-on bags, and he lost his mind about that. I can’t say that I blame him. These days, the jet-set people get treated worse than the gypsies.”

“Your star author can’t make it here to Capri? That’s too bad!” said Farfalla. “All the geeks worship his business best-sellers! I see his books in airports all the time, he’s just like ‘Harry Potter.’”

Babi sighed. “It’s a dark fate! Every time I run an event like this, I always get a couple of blind pigs! There’s that superstar Yankee prima donna in Rome with his stupid tube of hair gel. Then, there’s that cokehead that your boyfriend threw off the yacht!”

“What?”

Babi tramped her cigarette butt. “I hope you didn’t take that incident too seriously.”

Farfalla laughed. “What is there to be serious about? That rumor is ridiculous! Are you joking?”

Babi raised her brows. “The LOXY boys said that she scolded him — about
you
. So, your boyfriend just grabbed that blogger gossip-girl and he threw her overboard. Pitched her right into the ocean.” Babi snapped her fingers. “I’d be flattered, myself! It’s been ages since a man did that for me.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Babi? Gavin never does things like that! What a sick, evil fantasy! It’s that Brixie creature from Los Angeles, I bet. It
is
? I
knew it
! She’s on drugs! She’s skin and bones! Anyone who takes one look at that crazy broomstick can tell that she’s a stick of dynamite! I hate her.”

“Did you read her blog today? You’re in Brixie’s blog. There are pictures of you, with your boyfriend. Together.”

“Paparazzi pictures on some stupid blog? I could care less!”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Babi nodded. “Nobody believes what they see on the Internet.”

The conference crowd was shuffling into the venue. Farfalla joined them, and climbed into her glass translator’s booth. She shared it with Adriana, a Capri housewife, whose mother had been Portuguese.

It felt good to be under her headphones again, snug in her booth. There was hard work ahead for her, but to do a real job was reassuring. Farfalla was accustomed to translation work. A translator was a nameless voice in the center of events. A ghostly voice that told the truth, and could not be seen.

The jostling crowd picked up their plastic headphones and took their seats. Portuguese-to-Italian was on Channel 1, Portuguese-to-English on Channel 2.

The Brazilian speaker tapped at her podium mike. She launched straight into her presentation. Farfalla was impressed. This stern, middle-aged woman was talking sense. She was nobody’s glamour-girl. This Brazilian woman was speaking about Brazil’s future in a very earthy, matter-of-fact, don’t-mess-with-me way.

So, the 2014 World Cup soccer matches, in Brazil. The 2016 Olympics, in Brazil. Brazil was improving the airports and the hotels for the future hordes of global visitors. Soon the whole world would gather in Brazil. All the South Americans, the Chinese, the South Africans, the Indians, and the Indonesians. Everybody.

The Brazilian official went into specific detail about the maneuvers required to satisfy all these world tourists. The Indonesians, Chinese, Indians and South Africans. Such-and-such about Brazil’s Ministry of Defense. This-and-that about the nine Brazilian regional governors. She had a very punchy presentation. Full of facts and figures. Nice graphics, too.

Filtering all this from Portuguese to English took intense concentration from Farfalla. Adriana was clearly having a lot of trouble keeping up, but Farfalla was right in the zone.

After twenty minutes of hard labor, Farfalla realized that this Brazilian Futurist had not said one word about Europe. The United States had never been mentioned, either. Europe and the USA did not seem to matter to the Brazilian official. To hear her tell her story of tomorrow, the next Olympics was all about a fresh, exciting world of young, eager, sporty Brazilians, Indians, Chinese, and South Africans.

Farfalla found herself missing Brazil. There was something so loose and roomy about a country big enough to contain twenty-eight Italys. Farfalla’s tender memories of Brazil made her insanely upset with Italy. Having two fatherlands was like having two men in your life.

Stunned by her translator’s trance, Farfalla thought back to the golden idol of her childhood. One of the greatest heroines of world history. Anita Garibaldi. Anita Garibaldi was the world’s most famous Brazilian-Italian woman.

Ever since her childhood schooldays in a raucous Sao Paolo public school, Farfalla had idolized Anita Garibaldi. In her girlish, Italian-Brazilian heart, she secretly wished to be Anita Garibaldi, boldly roaming the world with her handsome lover, and also a whole lot of swords, flags and guns. People who annoyed Anita got chopped down and burned in the flames of revolution.

Farfalla’s thoughts were wandering. Live translation took a serious toll on her brain. When she was translating, she had only a patch of brain left to think for herself. A small, exotic patch of her brain, like a Vatican City postage stamp.

A latecomer arrived for the Brazilian speech. He was hasty, overdue, and out of step. He grabbed up a leftover translation headphone set. Good-looking blond guy. Tall, and with such shoulders.

Oh, Madonna. It was Gavin. If not for the glass of the translation booth, Farfalla would have lunged out of her chair and grabbed him by the belt.

He hadn’t seen her, hidden there inside her booth. Nobody ever looked inside a translation booth. Translators were invisible in there, like Superman changing clothes.

Gavin did not know that she was staring at him. So, for once, she could have her fill of him, just take him in. Without being seen, without him knowing.

Gavin had showered, combed his hair, and put on a suit and tie for his speech. His clumsy American suit was so like him. He was who he was. The lost traveller...

A hot surge of chaste, nurturing tenderness swept over her. This suffusing wave of deeply felt, tender emotion rose from the basement of her being. She felt for him, this man. She wanted to take care of him. She longed to take care of him. She prayed that the world would take care of him, even if she died.

Farfalla dropped two sentences. She struggled to catch up with the speech.

Gavin worked his way through a crowded row to find an empty chair. He slipped the headphones on.

At once, he recognized her voice, inside his ears. He twisted in his chair and stared back at her.

He offered her a pale, unhappy smile.

She kissed her fingertips and blew them at him.

Just one little gesture, instant, spontaneous, throwaway, but it hit him like an anvil. That blown kiss whizzed through the glass and across three rows of conference seats. It knocked him into next week.

You kissed me,
his look shouted at her.

She looked back at him.
You have accepted my kiss.

That was a dark, occult and fateful act and you and I can never take it back!

We can’t help it.

Probably, she should not have done that. She should not have given this Futurist that sexy premonition of a loving kiss. Oh, heavens. What a fatality. Her life had changed forever.

Farfalla squeezed her eyes shut, and jumped back into the flow of spoken words.

In the intimate darkness of her closed eyelids, her heart was hammering. She felt her heart drum under the headphones.

What a strange, strange feeling this was. This was a tremendous, lofty sensation, more than a mortal woman could bear. Divine exhilaration. This is it, she thought, this is the feeling of belonging that was prophesied to me. Love has me in its power. Be kind to me, Love. I know that you are divine.

And yet, she was safe, safe behind her glass, with her eyes shut tightly.

When she opened her eyes again, Gavin was no longer looking at her. Her One was sitting there in the crowd, just some random guy, like everyone else. The Brazilian woman’s speech rumbled on, in its sharp, methodical way. Then, she finished it off. Thunderous applause.

A break. The crowd dispersed for snacks. Farfalla left her glass booth.

He rose and came to confront her. “So, we seem to have a little problem,” he told her, smiling politely.

“So, you heard about our keynote speaker, then?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Our final speaker can’t get here. He quarreled with security in Rome. He missed the last flight to Capri.”

“Oh, no! Hell! I know that guy,” Gavin said. “I really wanted to see him do his pitch! He screwed up at the airport? I thought he had more sense than that.”

“That means
you
are the final speaker. We had to re-schedule you.”

Gavin’s sunburned face went pale. “Oh, I see. That
is
a problem.”

“I read the speech that you sent me in email,” Farfalla told him. “I took notes, and we have your slides loaded. We will finish on time.” Farfalla laughed. “You’re the
only
man here who will
ever
finish on time.”

She had meant to give him a compliment. He was taking it badly, though.

“How do you
know
that I will finish on time?”

“I can foretell that.” She looked into his troubled, forlorn face. “You have stage fright! Don’t worry! Let’s get a glass of spumante.”

Gavin tagged along behind her, as she led him toward the refreshment table. “I hate my speech,” he grumbled.

“Why? It’s fine, it’s about accounting! You know everything about accounts. You know all about venture capital.”

“But that speech is not about the future! That speech is a phony lie! I
know
what is going to happen. And I can’t tell any of these people the truth. The future doesn’t even
speak their language
.”

“All right,” she said brightly, “then throw away that speech you hate. Say what you
want
to say! Say something from your heart.”

“Well, I can’t. I just can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. If you want to.”

“No, truly, I can’t do that. That’s a bad idea.”

“You could say it to
me,
” she said.

He leaned down to confront her. So close that his breath warmed her face. “The best-educated, most creative, best-financed people in the world have lost all control,” he told her. “We have panicked. We are losing our minds in public, and what about all the other people in the world, for God’s sake? What about them? What about the guys who’ve already lost their jobs? The ones who have lost their investments? The homeowners underwater?”

He was hissing in prophecy:
“The abandoned, the disrupted and the disbelieved, the decayed and surplus flesh, the obsolete, the vanished and the worthless, the hollowed-out and crashed-out? And the de-monetized, the failed and the unsustainable, the market externalities, the shameful collective insanity, the dead mechanical hand that kills every chance at happiness that we have?”

Farfalla drew in a breath. People were jostling all around the pair of them, so she had to speak low. In a secret whisper, from her lips to his ears:
“Ne trahite, uestros ipsa praecedam gradus. Perferre prima nuntium Phrygibus meis propero: repletum ratibus euersis mare, captas Mycenas, mille ductorem ducum, ut paria fata Troicis lueret malis, perisse dono, feminae stupro, dolo. Nihil moramur, rapite, quin grates ago: iam, iam iuuat uixisse post Troiam, iuuat.”

Gavin Tremaine jerked upright. He blinked at her in amazement. “Okay, I am not surprised to hear you say that,” he told her, at last. “I totally
knew
that
you
got it.”

“Gavin, I know. I can foretell the future, and I mean I
really
foretell it. So, I knew that you knew.”

“Well, you don’t surprise me
there
, either. Because I can
predict
the future. And I mean I can
really
predict it. So I knew that you knew,
before
that you knew that I knew.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “Because I knew that
you
would show up in my life when I was twelve years old.”