Sicilian Dreams (9 page)

‘Yes, well I’m thinking he may be ‘the one’’ said Kat dreamily.

‘Oh, not again,’ said Liz cynically ‘darling, you say that about every one of your boyfriends, remember David, the love of your life?’ Cassie laughed, she had heard all about David from Kat last year. Thank goodness for email she thought. It was possible to stay current with everyone’s lives even though they couldn’t actually get together very often.

‘But this time I’m sure,’ said Kat ‘we have so much in common.’

‘Like top hats and stilettos?’ said Liz

‘Be serious Liz, we both love classical music and books and walks in the park and dogs. He has a bulldog, Muffy, who is so adorable. When she smiles, and she does, she dribbles all over the place.’

‘That sounds charming,’ said Liz ‘two kooky animal lovers bonding over dribble. Is your goldfish still alive by the way?’

‘Otto? No, it was really sad. I noticed one morning a couple of months ago that he was listing to the right as if he had lost his balance. It got worse over that week until I found him on the bottom of the tank on his side, unable to move.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I knew his time had come, so to prevent any further suffering I put him in the freezer.’

‘As you do,’ quipped Liz. ‘Seriously Kat, you are a nutter, but we love you.’

‘Hear hear,’ said Cassie in agreement.

Liz looked at her watch and declared it was time to start the preparations for lunch.

‘Liz, relax, you don’t have to do all the cooking’ said Cassie.

‘Cass, you know cooking is therapy for me; I love it, especially with all these wonderful, fresh ingredients. Did you see the wedge of Parmesan I bought yesterday? It is begging to be shaved lovingly over those home grown lettuce leaves Marta brought over last night. Speaking of Marta, wasn’t that ravioli fantastic. It was so light and you could really taste the spinach and ricotta filling. I would love to find out how she does it. If I asked, I wonder if she would give me a lesson.’

‘I bet she would’ said Cassie. ‘You’re such a foodie and I know you love it, I just want to make sure you have a break from all the domestic stuff.’ said Cassie.

‘Cooking doesn’t even enter the realm of domestic drudgery in my book. I wake up each day thinking about food and what I am going to create with it,’ said Liz. ‘But I just need a wee dip in the pool to cool off first.’ She pushed herself off the lounger and went over to the wide shallow steps. ‘This is bliss,’ she said, sinking down into the pool with a sigh of contentment.

‘You’re turning pink Kat, put some more block on,’ she called out.

‘You sound like my mother,’ replied Kat.

‘I am a mother,’ responded Liz ‘this is what I do now, act motherly.’

‘Missing the kids yet?’ asked Cassie

‘Not in slightest, give me a few days and I’m sure I will change my mind and start missing them like crazy.’

‘Who’s looking after Doug then?’ asked Kat

‘Don’t worry about Doug, he’s got it easy,’ said Liz. ‘He’s got the nanny living in while I’m away and she’s a really good cook so he’s not going to starve. Besides, he’s so busy at the moment I imagine he won’t even realize I’m gone until I reappear with a tan and a whole new wardrobe.’ Even though she said this with a smile Cassie could detect a slight wistful note in her tone. Liz had mentioned last night that with Doug’s practice taking off there had been not enough quality time for each other in the last couple of years. He understood her frustration with his long work hours and had been the one really encouraging her to take this holiday with her old friends.

‘Well let’s make him sit up and take notice when you return this time.’ said Cassie ‘starting with some retail therapy this afternoon. What do you say?’

‘I’m in,’ said Kat, ‘Liz?’

‘Yes, why don’t we go into town at around 5pm when the shops re open after siesta and have a wander around. I don’t know whether Doug will notice or not, but he has a conference in October in Florida and partners are invited. I’ll need a couple of cocktails dresses for the functions.’

‘Great, we have a legitimate excuse to go wild and buy some party clothes for you girl.’ said Kat excitedly.

‘On that note, this party girl better get lunch underway. I’m starving and the focaccia is calling me. It will be all ready in about 30 minutes if you guys want to set the table under the loggia.’ She patted herself off with a large towel then wrapped a pretty coral colored sarong around her hips and padded off barefoot to the kitchen.

By the time Cassie and Kat had swum and set the table, there were wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. Liz emerged carrying two large platters.

‘We just need to take the focaccia out of the oven, and the bubbles out of the fridge and we’re good to go,’ she announced.

‘Yum this looks like a feast,’ said Cassie, grabbing her camera and start to snap away, taking shots from differen
t angles and a close up of the Insalata Caprese that Liz had whipped up. ‘Fresh mozzarella, my favorite’ she cooed. ‘I could eat like this everyday, only it never tastes the same at home. I don’t think our tomatoes are as sweet.’

‘It’s buffalo mozzarella,’ said Liz, it’s so cheap here that it’s a crime to buy it back home, and the basil came from the little kitchen garden here at the villa. It’s full of gorgeous herbs, including sage. Remind me to buy some veal next time
we are in town and I will make Veal Parmigiana and the burnt butter sage sauce that goes over it. It is to die for.’

Liz had used the fresh mixed lettuce leaves from Marta’s garden to make a big green salad to which she had added olives, tiny cherry tomatoes, flaked, tinned Sicilian tuna with sliced hard boiled eggs on top. She had also sliced the melon into thin wedges, removing the rind and wrapping wafer thin slices of prosciutto around each piece. A bowl of red cherries completed the picture.

‘This looks divine,’ said Kat joining them with the bottle of chilled champagne tucked under her arm and three long stemmed champagne flutes. As she tore the foil off the bottle, Cassie returned to the kitchen to get the focaccia. She brought it to the table on a wooden board. The bread was steaming hot and was dusted on top with rock salt and dried flakes of rosemary.

‘Rip it and dip it,’ said Liz, pouring some of the estate’s olive oil into a shallow bowl, ripping a chunk off the end of the rectangular shaped flat bread.

‘Mm, that tastes like heaven,’ she said between bites. ‘I read about this kind of food back home all the time, and I make it sometimes, but everything tastes so much better here.’ She sighed with pleasure.

Kat gently eased the cork upwards and it popped softly, the light golden champagne bubbling to the surface. She quickly poured them each a flute and then held up her glass to propose a toast.

‘To our alter egos, Cassius, Moons and Slash, may we continue to party like it’s 1999.’

‘Here, Here.’ said Liz and Cassie, clinking flutes and sipping with pleasure. Cassie felt a wave of happiness roll over her. Here she was with her BFFs, drinking champagne and eating delicious food on the terrace
of an enchanting villa, in a fairy tale setting. It doesn’t get any better than this, she thought smiling like a Cheshire cat at her friends.

‘You know when we started talking about doing this last year I didn’t think it would really ever happen. I mean, we all lead such busy lives, and we each live in different parts of the world, but we made it. Cin cin.’ She raised her flute again in another toast.

‘I, for one, wouldn’t have missed it for the world’ said Liz ‘the last time we were all together was at my wedding and that was eight years ago. The time has gone so fast, hasn’t it?’

The sun was reaching its zenith by the time they finished lunch and even in the shade of the loggia it was becoming unbearably hot. It had become apparent to them why a siesta in the afternoon was so necessary in this climate.

‘It’s nana nap time,’ said Kat, finishing her champagne and standing up from the table.’

Cassie offered to stack the dishwasher and as she put in the last glass, she felt a huge yawn coming on. Not surprising she thought, with the heat, the jet lag and more importantly, a morning full of adrenaline and passion. It was time for her to get some rest. She closed her shutters in her bedroom and used the remote on her bedside table to turn on the air conditioner. Bliss, she thought, stripping off and laying on the top of the covers.

She was woken up from her deep slumber by knocking on her door and Liz saying ‘Cassie wake up, it’s nearly 6 o’clock and we need to get going soon.’ Cassie yawned and opened her eyes. It could have been any time of day in the gloom, but she couldn’t believe she had been dead to the world for nearly four hours.

‘Okay, I’ll just take a shower and I’ll be right out,’ she replied.

Stretching her arms above her head, she realized how refreshed she felt and tried to figure out the time difference in her head. Conceding to herself that this was too difficult at the moment, she slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom to turn on the shower. Returning to open the shutters and letting in the golden, late afternoon light, she looked around her properly for the first time and admired the wonderful blend of modern and old interior design. Someone very talented has designed all this she thought, admiring the smooth white stucco on the walls, broken up by a patch of exposed golden brickwork above the head of her bed. The effect was stunning and the old cotta floor shone with a burnished brilliance. The ensuite was large, again blending the old with the new. A tiled frameless shower area, which contained a large rain showerhead and sexy looking hardware, gave onto a vanity area with a solid Carrera marble vanity and large, antique gilt framed mirror. The whole effect was understated yet luxurious thought Cassie slipping into the shower with a sigh of pleasure as the water cascaded down over her head and shoulders. She decided to blow dry her hair and as she was running the straighteners through it she thought again about what to wear. It was still hot outside and she couldn’t bear the idea of anything tight and restricting like jeans, even summer weight ones. She had been applying a self tanning moisturizer for the last week before she left so she wasn’t lily white and spending a couple of hours in the sun today had turned her skin a light golden color.

She finally settled on a
cream-colored swing dress in silky chiffon, which fell in layers to her mid thigh. She added her diamond pendant necklace and studs and dusted some light golden bronzing powder on her cheeks. A touch of mascara, some sparkly lip-gloss and she was ready, not in five minutes, but in under thirty which Cassie considered speedy.

Carrying her strappy gold wedges, she wandered out into the open plan kitchen and sitting room. Liz and Kat were applying lipstick in the big mirror, which hung above the granite mantel of the large fireplace.

‘Isn’t this villa spectacular?’ said Cassie ‘I must have been so jet lagged last night I didn’t really take a good look around, but I love the open plan layout and the understated elegance.’

‘I know’ said Liz, dabbing a tissue onto her lips, ‘I’m going to take some photos because I want to show my interior designer back home. The kitchen is a divine space to work in and I love the solid marble bench tops.’ She turned away from the mirror and saw Cassie.

‘You look gorgeous Cass, that is a beautiful dress. Mind you, you would look good in a sack’ she added.

‘Yeah, right, that coming from Miss World is quite a compliment,’ replied Cassie. ‘I love your dress too. Liz had put on a mint colored silk halter neck, which came down almost to her ankles. To this she had added gold sandals with a small wedge. The effect was stunning.

‘You look like a Greek goddess,’ said Kat, patting her wild curls once more in a vain attempt to tame them. ‘I love the way you’ve done your hair too.’ She had put on a slinky black tube dress in jersey silk which clung to her lean almost boyish frame, black wedges, chunky gold bracelets with red lipstick completing her look.

‘Kat, you look like you’re about to hit the catwalk for Prada. Is that a Prada by the way?’ asked Cassie.

‘Yes, thank you for noticing. I got it on Net a Porter for quite a steal a few months ago.’

‘Right, let’s hit the road, I’m ready to do some damage to my credit card’ laughed Liz, grabbing the car keys to the red mini convertible which she and Kat had picked up from the airport when they had arrived.

‘You are the tallest Kat, I’ll sit in the back’ said Cassie, using her hand for balance on the edge of the car and vaulting neatly into the back seat.

‘Very ‘MacGyver’,’ said Kat ‘ it’s a good thing the top was down.’ Kat had owned an old VW golf convertible at University and one of Cassie’s party tricks had been vaulting into the back like a gymnast.

‘Just wanted to see if I could still do that’ said Cassie, laughing. ‘How on earth did you fit all your luggage in here?’ she asked.

‘Basically we piled it all on the back seat where you are now sitting’ said Liz. ‘Keeping the top down really helped because we were able to stack the cases higher. I think a convertible is obligatory in this climate,’ she added, as she put her foot on the accelerator and took off like a rally driver.

‘Still driving like Stirling Moss I see,’ yelled Cassie. She adjusted her sunglasses as they tore down the white gravel road, grabbing an elastic band from her handbag and pulling her long hair into a ponytail. With the way Liz drove, it would resemble a bird’s nest by the time they arrived in Cefalu. Near the main house, Liz slowed down until they past it then sped up again. She always had been a lead foot thought Cassie, smiling to herself. She gazed at the big house as they passed. She couldn’t see Marco’s X5 parked on the circular driveway in front of the house and she wondered where he was. She felt quite relieved about this because that fact was that this morning now seemed like a dream; and every time she thought about it, which had been almost non stop except when she had been sleeping this afternoon; she felt herself go hot and cold all over. I still can’t believe we did that she thought. What must he think of me? I hate to think. But then, just as quickly, she reprimanded herself. It takes two to tango and the chemistry between them had been electric. She had never experienced a feeling like that before and had been literally swept off her feet. She didn’t know whether to feel ashamed, or delighted, and these conflicting feelings were doing a war dance in her head. Well, it doesn’t have to happen again, she consoled herself. It was a mistake and I don’t want to spend my whole holiday feeling guilty about it. The next time I see him, I will be polite, but cool so he gets the message that what happened this morning cannot happen again. She felt much better after rationalizing it this way and relaxed back in her seat, determined to enjoy the drive into town.