The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(82)

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It’s nine o’clock and darkness has fallen over the Piazza del Duomo. In the distance, thunder cracks. Lucy and I stand under our umbrellas at the foot of the stairs, looking up at Aunt Poppy. She’s huddled in the same spot on the steps, a hotel blanket on her lap. We’ve covered her in a cape of plastic to keep her dry. To anyone passing by, she’d be thought a homeless woman.

“Please take her back to the hotel,” I say. “I’ll wait here for Rico.”

“Forget it, Em. She won’t budge. We have to let her wait it out.”

“He’s not coming,” I say. “She’s getting sicker by the hour.”

“I know,” Lucy says, biting her lip. “But how do you make someone give up on something they’ve been waiting for their entire life?”

Her eyes are filled with sympathy, and something else . . . wisdom. It occurs to me that Lucy understands my aunt’s determination far better than I do. My cousin knows what it’s like, waiting a lifetime for a dream that others desperately want you to abandon.



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The twelfth bell chimes. We three make our way across the empty piazza. We reach the hotel. Poppy stops. She turns to face the cathedral one more time, as if still expecting to find Rico, as if somehow she had missed him.





Chapter 41




Emilia

The next morning, we drop our bags in the hotel lobby and settle Poppy onto an oversized sofa. We’ve got ten minutes before our driver arrives to take us to the airport.

“Anyone want coffee?” I ask.

Lucy lifts a finger. “Double espresso, grazie.”

“How about you, Aunt Poppy?” I squat in front of her. “Can I get you an espresso?”

She looks lost among the sofa pillows, a different woman from the one I watched just weeks ago, bustling around her house with a martini shaker. She’s ditched her wig for the first time, and turbaned a silk scarf around her bald head. Her skin is colorless today, her eyes sunken. Still, her beauty is unmistakable.

She shakes her head and raises a hand. A knot of sadness cramps my throat. Earlier this morning, Lucy and I discovered our aunt had not booked a return flight. She’d expected to remain in Ravello, with her love, for the rest of her life. We purchased her a ticket online. She hasn’t spoken a word since.

Unlike yesterday, I need sunglasses today, and from the east, a warm breeze laps my skin. I take a deep breath, hoping to shake the ashes from my heart, and trot across the cobblestone piazza toward Piacenti’s Bakery. Flowering trees and rosebushes scent the air. Below, the mountain dips to the sea, where foamy white waves lick the shore, a view so spectacular it stops me in my tracks. If only Rico had been at the cathedral yesterday. Instead, Poppy will live the rest of her short life absent a dream, knowing she’ll never see the man she spent her entire adult life yearning for.

“American girl!”

I spin around. A man in a white Panama hat rises from a table at an outdoor café. It takes a moment before I recognize him. He’s wearing dark sunglasses today . . . and a grin that could melt the polar ice caps.

“Avocado!” I say. “Buongiorno.”

He waves me over. “Come join us, won’t you? Meet my grandfather, Benito.”

An old man sits across from him, one side of his face droopy. His hand trembles as he tries to extend it.

“Piacere di conoscerLa,” I say, taking his limp hand.

He mumbles something incoherent.

“My grandfather is the smartest man I know,” the younger man says, gazing down at his nonno. “He taught me everything I know about law . . . and life.”

Benito lifts his misshapen face, his misty eyes brimming with love. He can’t speak, but he understood his grandson perfectly. Avocado squeezes his shoulder and calls to the waiter.

“Giorgio! Un altro caffè, per favore.” He begins folding his newspaper to make room for me.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’d love to join you, but I’m about to leave. I’m making a quick stop for coffee, and then I’m off.”

“Tomorrow, then?” His face is so hopeful that I almost believe he’ll be crushed.

“I’m flying home today, back to America.”

He seems to deflate. “No. Extend your stay. You must. I will show you the beautiful town of Amalfi, where I live and work. It is not far.”

I laugh and wave as I walk away. “Enjoy your day, Avocado.”

I arrive at Piacenti’s and place my order, all the while recalling Avocado’s beautiful smile, the compassion he showed to his grandfather, his disappointment when I couldn’t stay. After yesterday’s bitter defeat, the fleeting encounter feels like a sliver of hope. Maybe I’ll actually find love one day, a love like Poppy and Rico’s. And maybe, just maybe, the old memories that have surfaced during our trip, however bittersweet, will allow my dear aunt some closure.

Five minutes later, I turn to leave. I fumble with my sunglasses, trying to balance my latte and Lucy’s espresso, and practically collide with a woman entering the store.

“Mi dispiace,” we say in unison. We laugh and she points at me.

“You are the woman who came to the apartment yesterday.”