The Villa(13)
Another thing that is, I have to admit, perfectly Chess.
“Soooo?” she asks now, lacing her fingers together and lifting her hands under her chin.
“I can’t believe someone got murdered in this house,” I reply, and she laughs.
“All right, that’s your first mention of the murder, you only have four left.”
“I’ll save them,” I promise, because standing in this front hallway right now, light pouring in through an arched window at the top of the stairs, murder is the last thing I’m thinking about. Besides, Chess was right—it sounds like it was more of your typical drugs and rock ’n’ roll fiasco of the seventies, not exactly the kind of Gothic story that spooky legends are built around. A musician beaten to death by some lowlife, in an argument that got out of control because everyone involved was high out of their minds. And anyone who was there that night is long dead.
“Besides,” Chess adds now, guiding me farther into the house, “people get murdered in all kinds of houses, so why not gorgeous villas?”
She has a point, but it isn’t the elegance of the house that I was thinking about. It’s that this place exudes a warmth, a serenity that feels totally at odds with someone getting their brains bashed in.
But I don’t want to think about any of that right now.
Right now, I want a shower, a glass of wine, and at least two hours of sitting on that patio outside, thinking about absolutely nothing at all.
“Do you want the big tour?” Chess asks, sweeping a hand out in front of her.
I don’t, really. I think it might be fun to explore the house completely on my own, finding out its secrets and surprises for myself.
But I can tell that Chess has been looking forward to this, playing Lady of the Manor, so I smile. “Go for it.”
She claps her hands, then threads her arm through mine, pulling me along.
It’s smaller than I’d thought it would be, cozier. You hear “villa,” and you start thinking of some sprawling mansion with wings and secret passageways. But Villa Aestas is homier than that. There’s an appropriately grand staircase just past the front door, leading up to a landing with a hallway on either end, bedrooms branching off in both directions. There are at least four bedrooms that I see, and Chess leads me to one on the right, opening a door with a flourish.
“Obviously if you don’t like it, you can pick one of the others, but this room felt the most Em-ish to me,” she says. She’s leaning against the doorframe, smiling her Chess-iest smile, and, as always, she’s right.
This bedroom is small, but it faces the pond and the sloping back lawn, and in the distance, I can just make out the walls of Orvieto.
There’s a white desk under the window, and the bed is done up in shades of blue, calm against the white walls with their framed prints of bucolic Umbrian scenes. Lace-trimmed curtains float in the breeze. The room is perfect, down to the details, like it’s a movie set.
“Admit that I’m good,” Chess says, and I turn to her, my throat suddenly tight.
“You’re the best,” I reply, and I mean it. Not just because she’s invited me here, or because she picked out this lovely space for me, but because, for all the weirdness that’s happened between us over all the time I’ve known her, she really, truly is my best friend.
She hugs me again, her grip tight, and then pulls back. “You’re going to write so many brilliant words at that desk, I just know it.”
I give a slightly watery laugh, rubbing my nose. “You have more faith in me than I do.”
Chess shrugs, drifting back toward the door. “I always have.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I end up getting that glass of wine and those hours to myself, sitting in a padded lounge chair on the patio, eventually drifting off, awakening to the sun setting and the mouthwatering smell of roast chicken, lemons, and garlic drifting from the open door to the kitchen.
I find Chess there, a dishcloth tucked into her belt as she stirs a pot on the stove, her own glass of wine in one hand. Her phone sits on the counter, and I hear music playing from hidden speakers somewhere in the house. It takes me a minute to pick out the tune, and when I do, I laugh, making her turn around.
“Are you seriously cooking and listening to Avril Lavigne?” I ask her, and she gestures at me with her spoon, dripping some kind of viscous sauce on the stovetop.
“I am listening to my incredibly special ‘Em and Chess BFFs Playlist,’ thank you very much.”
She nods at her phone, and I pick it up. Sure enough, she’s got a playlist pulled up called “JessieC+EmmyMac4Eva (1998–2018)” filled with songs that bring back an avalanche of memories from all the years we’ve known each other, from singing into hairbrushes in her bedroom to drunken karaoke the night before my wedding.
Even the title is nostalgic. “Jessie C” and “Emmy Mac” were old nicknames for each other. I stopped using hers because she never liked people referring to her as any normal offshoot of Jessica, and she’d stopped using mine once I’d become Emily Sheridan instead of Emily McCrae.
But it’s nice, seeing those old versions of ourselves side by side again.
Touched, I put the phone back down and push myself onto the counter, feet dangling as I watch her cook. “Why does it end in 2018?” I ask, and she turns, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows.