The House in Amalfi (38 page)

“Not if I can help it,” he said with his usual happy grin, and I knew he’d been putting on the sulky-spurned-suitor act specially for me.

Still, I could tell something else was bothering him and I wasn’t surprised when he said, “I’m sorry about Jon-boy,
cara
. I didn’t want you to know the awful details because of Aurora and, besides, I didn’t want to cause you pain.”

I took his hand. “You’re a very kind young man, you know that? And it must have been awful for you; after all, you were there that night, and you were just a boy.” It was only the second time since I’d known Nico that I’d seen him completely serious.

“That night took away the innocence of childhood,” he said. “One minute I was just a kid, worried I might be getting the measles or losing my boat; the next I was thrown into an adult world I never knew existed. I suddenly learned that grown-ups were not just there for us children; they had lives of their own and there was anger and violence. I never
looked at the world in quite the same trusting way again.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt.” I patted his hand gently.

“Of course Papa did his best to help me. He was devastated I’d witnessed such a thing. He explained it all as best he could, and eventually I got over it. It seemed a kind of reward when we got the baby and I got a sister.”

“Me, too,” I said.

He looked at me and smiled. “She’ll be okay,” he said confidently. “She’ll pull through; I know it.”

“I do, too,” I agreed, crossing my fingers. Aurora had the best help, and with the proper medication we all hoped her demons would be kept under control.

Our relationship resolved, Nico and I toasted each other with beer again. We enjoyed our lunch and being together, and afterward Nico carried my basket back to the marina, where my little boat was moored near his grand but still wounded Riva, where it had scraped along the fishing boat.

This time I kissed him on the cheek as I said good-bye. “Just a sisterly kiss,” I said, laughing, before I jumped into my own little blue boat and sped off.

The phone was ringing when I got back. It was Jammy. “I’m on an Alitalia flight to Naples via Milan,” she said briskly. “I’ll be there at six
P.M
. Can you pick me up?”

“Are you for real!” I gasped, astounded and thrilled.

“You think I’m gonna leave you alone at a time like this? God, Lamour, I almost lost you—and you’re my best friend. Besides, I need to keep you out of more man trouble.”

I laughed. “Oh, Jam, I’m really not in man trouble—not like before, anyway. I just needed a shoulder to cry on.”

“So now you’ll have mine,” she said. “See you in Naples, honey.”

We took Lorenzo’s helicopter to pick her up. He piloted it over my little house so that I might see it from the air. With its glittering tiled dome and fluted arches, it looked like a sultan’s minipalace, tucked away in its folds of greenery.

“I can see how in love you are,” Lorenzo said. I caught my breath, but then I realized he meant in love with my house.

“I’m the kind who falls in love for life,” I said, then bit my lip because I knew that also had a double meaning. “I mean I loved the house as a child and I love it now and I’ll love it when I’m old and gray.”

“I hope I’m around to see that,” he said.

I thought that could be interpreted in two ways. The first was that we might still be together when I was old and gray
and he would like to see that. The second . . . well, I couldn’t bear to think about that.

The blue and green coast drifted away under us; then the cone of Vesuvius shimmered in the distance and we were descending into a quiet sector of Naples Capodichino Airport.

The flight from Milan was late, so we hitched up at the bar to wait. Lorenzo drank espresso and I drank my usual cappuccino, managing as always to get foam on my nose and blaming it on the small cup. “I like to get the very last little drop,” I explained as he took a napkin and wiped it away.

“I wish you’d licked it away,” I whispered, and he grinned and said, “
Cara,
so do I.” He kissed me anyway, just a light little kiss, but I felt such a glow come over me, I was afraid people might notice.

Jammy’s flight was finally announced and we hurried to the gate just in time to see her shoot through the door like a minirocket.

“Jammy always does everything at high speed,” I explained, running to her. We were wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing, hugging some more, until finally she pushed me away and said, “Let me look at you.”

I stood back for inspection while she took a long critical look.

“O-kay,” she said, “I expected a frail little waif beaten down by the travails of life, and what do I have here? A hearty, well-fed girl who looks as though life is treating her pretty well.”

“That’s because Lorenzo’s with me,” I said, leading her to where he stood, discreetly waiting.

She inspected him quickly up and down. “It’s the painter man,” she said. “I’m glad to meet you again, Lorenzo.”

“And I’m happy to meet you again, Jammy. Lamour’s told
me so much about you, I feel I already know you,” he said, hefting her bag and leading the way out.

Jammy was stunned when she saw the helicopter. We sat in it, holding hands like schoolkids, marveling at the passing scenery laid out below. When we landed at the Castello, Lorenzo asked us in for a drink—a Bellini made with Prosecco and peach juice, a drink Jammy had taken a liking to the last time she was here. She looked wonderingly around the beautiful rooms, then whispered in my ear, “Whoever it was that said ‘the rich are different’ was right.”

Lorenzo was at his most charming. He asked us to stay for dinner, but Jammy was tired, so he sent a man down to the house with her bag, then personally escorted us through the gardens to the elevator.

“Sleep well, Jammy Mortimer Haigh,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “I know Lamour will take good care of you.”

“That’ll make a change,” Jammy said. “It’s usually the other way around. I hope I’ll see you tomorrow?” she added, and he nodded and said that if we agreed, he would meet us at the Amalfitano for lunch at one o’clock. Then he took my hand and kissed it, too. Our eyes linked as he smiled good night, and I felt that little pang of loneliness, even though I knew I was soon to see him again.

“I’m like a teenager in love,” I told Jammy on the way down in the elevator.

“And so is he,” she said.

“How can you tell?” I asked eagerly.

“It’s all in the eyes, Lam honey,” she said. “And I wonder if the guy who said that about the rich being different also said, ‘The eyes are the windows to the soul.’ ”

Laughing, we went home. We sat on the terrace with the
breeze blowing our hair, and the wild scents of the garden, the rustle of the waves on the rocks, and the smooth fall of water down from the cliff. A tree frog croaked fit to bust and the crickets chirruped like gangbusters.

“I thought it was going to be quiet around here,” Jammy complained, making me laugh because to me these were the sounds of silence.

I showed her my newly painted apricot room, which she was to share because I hadn’t yet been able to bring myself to do anything about Jon-Boy’s.

Jammy sipped a glass of wine. “I couldn’t bear to think of you alone here, remembering the terrible way Jon-Boy died. And then the terrifying scene with Aurora. Oh, hon, I was so scared for you. And so sad for Jon-Boy.”

I concentrated on the ham and cheese sandwiches I was fixing, telling myself I wasn’t going to cry again. But then I remembered I’d hardly cried at all for Jon-Boy, so I just let myself go and had a good sob, huddled up with Jammy on the old blue sofa.

When the crying storm was over, we sat late into the night, eating our sandwiches and drinking wine, talking about the events of that stormy night until it was all out in the open and there were no more secrets.

“And Lorenzo?” she finally asked.

“What do you think?”

“Gut reaction? I think he’s a great-looking guy. I think he’s a nice person. I think he’s rich and well connected, a man of the world. Actually, I think he’s great. I also think he’s too old for you.”

“Jammy!”

She shrugged. “Well, you asked.”

“Let me tell you this, Jammy Mortimer,” I said heatedly. “
You
are one of the lucky ones. You met the right guy when
you were both young. You fell in love, got married, bought a house in suburbia, had a child, got a life.
You
got it right, Jammy, but for some of us life turned out different. I married the wrong man and look what happened to me. Now I’ve met the right one and I admit the circumstances may not be all perfect, but . . .”

“But?”
Her brow rose.

“But I love him.”

“So—marry him,” she said, yawning with fatigue.

“Oh, Jam, he hasn’t asked me,” I said, so mournfully I made her laugh.

“Then why don’t
you
ask
him,
” she said. And she went off to bed leaving me to mull over what she’d just said.

Jammy stayed for only three days, which was long enough for her to fall in love. With my Amalfi house, that is. Of course she also managed to completely charm Lorenzo.

She told him she’d never met anybody as rich as him and that while she was impressed with his possessions and his business and his society friends, she wanted to know what he was really like. “When you’re alone at night, and it’s just you and your thoughts,” she added.

I knew she was putting him through her personal security detector, but Lorenzo said, “Come with me, Jammy Mortimer Haigh, and I’ll show you.”

He opened the door to his tower. “This is who I am when I’m alone,” he said, ushering her in.

I waited outside because I didn’t want to hear Jammy’s interrogation, but she told me later that as soon as she saw inside the tower she knew Lorenzo was okay. It was absolutely him, from the interesting personally chosen art to the well-thumbed books and the simple furnishings.

“Okay, you pass,” she told him, and he shouted with laughter and threw his arms around her and kissed her.

Time flew by and too soon Jammy and I were back at the airport saying good-bye. “Lorenzo passed muster,” she said.
“Now it’s up to you to work out the rest of it. And don’t forget what I said. Why not just ask him?”

I didn’t forget. In fact, I kept it at the forefront of my mind. I’d never imagined I would be the kind of woman to ask a man to marry her, but if he wasn’t asking me, what else could I do?

I laid my plans carefully. For once, I decided to behave like a real woman. Telling Lorenzo I had to be away for a few days, I drove to Rome. I had my hair cut at the same wonderful place I’d been with Jammy and I emerged looking brand-new, with a cloud of shiny dark hair that curled softly onto my shoulders.

I shopped on the via Condotti for a new outfit, explaining to the saleswoman at Alberta Ferreti that I wanted to look simple but sexy. Roman woman that she was, she knew exactly what I meant and soon had me in a slender silky dress with just the teeniest ruffle that swirled from the neckline to the split hem. The dress was a soft green color and so gorgeous I wondered how I had ever lived without it. Strappy silver sandals completed the look. When I viewed it in the mirror later, I realized that I looked the way the women Lorenzo knew looked: chic, elegant, cosmopolitan.

I dined alone that night at Da Fortunato, savoring the delicate sea bream and the ethereal pasta, enjoying the evening
passeggiata:
the Romans doing what they did every night, dressed to the nines, strolling their wonderful ancient city, enjoying one another. I lingered late, never feeling like “a woman alone,” as I had so often before. Perhaps this time it was because I was a woman in love.