To Tuscany with Love (24 page)

“You want to go to Italy? I’ll tell you what’ll happen.”

Hope visualized him leaning in closer to the door. She suspected that a sneer marked his face.

“You’ll go with your unrealistic hopes and wild ideas of a charmed reunion. But some won’t show up. Why? Because they have a life. They’re successful. Happy. So who makes the schlep to Italy? A couple of fat, balding old farts, either losers looking for an easy lay or con men after a quick financial score with a rich widow or a divorcee who earned her dough the old-fashioned way—on her back.”

Hope slumped off the toilet onto the floor, her back to the door as if she could turn off his litany.

“Enter Hope—fat, hopeless, a dame with no skills and only the money her hard-working husband gives her.”

Hope’s hand stifled a sob. He was right.

“Here you have a home. A purpose. You’re my wife. We have a life that works. If you go, you’ll be ignored by the men and jealous of the women who are skinny, the ones focused on catching a new victim.”

Her eyes bore into the itinerary in her hand. “A Firenze Reunion” in beautiful cream script danced across the top. Delicate, graceful and screaming with confidence. Everything she wasn’t. Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe she shouldn’t go.

“Hope.” Charlie’s voice had softened to a coaxing tone. “Open the door. Let’s put this foolishness behind us. If you don’t want me to use the money from the ticket, fine. I won’t. We could fly Grant, Erica, and the kids here with that money.”

Hope studied the itinerary. First class to Florence. Not just the overseas segment, but the entire flight, starting in Denver. Someone wanted her presence enough to spend a small fortune on this ticket.

“We’ll talk about how best to use the money. I’ll let you have input. OK? Now I have to go. My tee time with Bob is at ten, and I don’t want to be late. I’m going to tell him we’re on for hosting the company picnic again in September as usual.”

She heard him start down the stairs, then retrace his steps; he stood again outside her fortress door. “I’ll be home at eight tonight. We’re going to have a couple beers after our round, but you can plan dinner for me then.”

Hope studied the pale beige tones of the seashells she had brought to add life to this room. White, tan, beige. She thought of the clay-colored dome of the Duomo in Florence and the colors in the market. Three or four shades of green—artichoke, arugula, and fava beans. Ruby Roma tomatoes lined up in perfect formation. Purple eggplants the color of royalty. Pale yellow beans nestled next to golden squash. Hope remembered the tiny wine grapes kissed with dew.

Her thumb rubbed the glossy brochure that came with the itinerary. She looked down at her hand. The words printed on the slick paper seemed to swim before her eyes, never quite legible.

The girl inside her, long forgotten, screamed in protest. The girl from Colorado who had journeyed alone all the way to Italy for a summer. The very same girl who had made great friends because she had brimmed with confidence and embraced adventure.

That girl wanted to go. That girl
needed
to go.

27

Los Angeles, California

R
une stood underneath the marquee, two blocks off Hollywood and a world away from success. He waited for Steven. Rune wished the management had fixed the sign. The dinner theater’s marquee advertising his current production read “Pha–t–m of the –p–ra.” God knew where the missing letters had gone. He was grateful to Steven for agreeing to meet him at all.

Rune watched a red-and-yellow, jumbo-sized fast-food cup roll along the sidewalk, pushed by the wind. His latest script must have some merit, or Steven wouldn’t have agreed to meet him, right?

A yellow Lamborghini swerved to the curb beside him. The rumbling engine cut, leaving a sudden sound void in the early morning air. Rune’s ears focused on the scraping roll of the empty cup and the click of the Lamborghini’s door releasing.

Steven, dressed in blue jeans, T-shirt, and sandals, slid out of the car as if he owned the city, not just a fine driving machine. He tossed a crisp script at Rune.

Rune caught the script. It looked as if it hadn’t even been opened. No crease marked the edge to indicate someone had read it. He jutted his chin forward. “Great, huh?”

“It sucks. Just like the last twenty you insisted I look at.” Steven gazed up at the marquee. “Phat?” He chuckled at his own joke, and then brought his eyes to meet Rune’s. “What the hell happened to you, man?” He shook his head. “I read your crap because of Mick. The three of us were friends. But you know what? Those days are gone. I saw Mick yesterday. He’s in the hospital. First it was hepatitis, now he’s got liver cancer. Poor sucker.”

With one foot inside the car, Steven narrowed his eyes. “I won’t walk across the street for you, let alone read or, God forbid, finance your projects. I lost a fortune the last time I invested in your films. Not anymore. Stick to rundown dinner theater and call yourself lucky anybody still wants you.” He slid into the car and roared away.

Only the scrape of the cup against the sidewalk remained.

An hour later, Rune sat at the laminate-topped table in his furnished studio apartment. Grime-filled knife cuts from previous tenants marred the table’s surface, where unpaid bills fanned out in front of him. Directing dinner theater was hardly lucrative.

Rent. Car payment. Medical bills. He could cover only one, even if he reverted to college days and ate nothing more than a cup of noodles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with an occasional fast-food burger. He shoved the bills away from him. He shifted on the metal-framed chair and stared out the dirty window at the building across the alley.

His cellphone rang. Rune answered it without looking at the number. The woman who jabbered at him on the phone made no sense. He asked her to repeat her request.

“When would you like to come in for more tests?”

Tests? Bits of her words punched him.

“Several of the biopsy sites were suspicious for malignancy.”

It was as if a kid with a toy gun had fired plastic darts at him. Rune could only focus on bits and pieces of what the woman said. Pop. As if a toy dart had hit him, he registered a phrase.

“An operation will be necessary.”

Pop.

“Possible issues with impotence.”

Rune dropped the cellphone to his lap. This was it. The Big “C.” He had cancer.

His hand rubbed over his chest. Hearing this kind of shit could give a person a heart attack, he thought. Papers in his breast pocket crinkled under his fingers. He pulled out the folded card. The reunion invitation.

His knuckles smacked the table. The invitation slipped from his fingers. Rune’s eyes bounced between the invitation and the mocking, unpaid bills.

He straightened in his chair, flipped open his temperamental old laptop, logged into his bank website, and studied the numbers once more. Rune’s eyes swept the studio apartment, imprinting the faded colors in his mind.

No money. No insurance. And now, since paying rent was only a pipe dream, no place to live.

28

Newport Beach, California

S
weaty and flushed from three sets of outdoor tennis, Phillip eased the Porsche convertible onto his Newport Beach driveway. After besting last year’s senior club champion, he planned a few laps in the pool before showering and dressing for the biggest night of his life.

Half a dozen pickups and one flatbed trailer jammed the drive, all labeled with the name of the area’s premier construction company. An enormous blue Dumpster camped in the extra parking spots. The pounding of jackhammers and buzzing of saws filled the normally serene air.

Plastic draped the foyer of the sprawling ranch home; cardboard covered the white marble floor. Phillip followed the sound of the jackhammers to the rear of the house. Plastic drapes hung everywhere.

He exited the house through the bank of sliding glass doors and found the source of the noise, or most of it, at least. No swim today. Fractured slabs of the pool’s concrete littered the backyard. Phillip stomped over to the apparent supervisor, a man who wore a golf shirt and carried a clipboard. Designer sunglasses covered the man’s eyes.

“What’s going on here?” Phillip had to shout over the noise.

The man extended a tanned hand to Phillip. “Are you Mr. Krueger? Nice to meet you. Harvey Casson.”

Phillip looked around. Dust flew everywhere. “What the hell’s going on?”

One cool eyebrow lifted on Harvey’s face. “I guess Angel wanted to surprise you.”

Phillip spoke with precise words. “Where is my wife?”

Harvey lifted one hand and gestured to the house.

Phillip stormed back inside. He found her in the exercise room, decked out in skintight white shorts and a sports bra. The music video channel played on a television. It entertained her while she pumped the elliptical machine. The vertical blinds that covered the plate glass windows facing the pool stood open.

Phillip glared at the windows and realized Angel had opened the blinds to give the workmen a view of her. Heat crept up his neck and then engulfed his face. He grabbed the six-hundred-dollar master remote off the elliptical trainer and turned the television off with one jab at the remote’s touch screen, then pivoted to face her. “What the hell is going on?”

Her feet continued their punishing pace. “I’m giving myself a birthday present. Harvey’s designed a fabulous new master suite for me—bed and bath, of course, plus a sitting room, study, and exercise room. The pool practically screamed for a redesign. Of course, now I’ll have my own access to the spa.”

Her words slapped him. “So that’s it? Your own wing? Your own bed?”

“Turn the TV on. I still have forty-five minutes left.” She prided herself on her movie-star shape, and after years of strenuous exercise, the rigorous pace did not even wind her.

“Tell me one thing. Did you deliberately plan this—” his arm cut the air in the direction of the windows and the pool, “—this construction project to coincide with my being named president?”

A tight smile crept onto her face. “That would have been delicious, wouldn’t it? No, it’s just a happy coincidence.”

“Don’t you think you need to get ready for the shareholders’ meeting?”

“I’m not going. Daddy will vote my shares. But I’ll show up for the dinner, since we’re at the head table. I want my own car there anyway. I’m leaving early. I have a morning flight for Maui.”

He clenched his fists by his sides. “We have a ten o’clock meeting tomorrow with the attorneys.”

She stared at the blank television screen. “I won’t make it.” Her tanned legs didn’t miss a beat on the elliptical.

It was as if she had punched him in the gut. He knew her answer before he asked the question. “Did you sign over the shares?”

She turned her head to look at him, expressionless. “I changed my mind.”

A wave of icy chill swept over him. “That was the deal. I make president and I get your shares. The deal your father made when he offered me the job. You agreed to this before we got married.”

She turned back to the blank television screen.