I take out a dress from the wardrobe, figuring it’s my last chance to wear one before I have to head back to gloomy Scotland with my tail between my legs. It’s a spicy orange red with spaghetti straps, fitted at the bodice enough so it compresses my girls and I don’t have to wear a bra, then flares out. I look myself over in the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles, and then tie my wet hair back into a bun. I don’t have any makeup on my face but it doesn’t matter at this point.
I take in a deep breath but it does nothing to calm my heart, which has been oscillating between slow thumps full of dread and skips and hops fueled by anxiety. When I was young, I had a stuttering problem, which caused a lot of grief for me. Kids made fun of me, and I had no friends. I spent all my time alone, lost in books, reading or writing, creating my own little worlds. I did whatever I could not to speak up in class, where my nerves would get the best of me and the stuttering would get worse, but of course my teachers were dicks and always called on me.
That continued for a while until my father made me go to a speech therapist a few years after my parents’ divorce. While my mother said my impediment made me unique, my father, who at that point had left us in Ullapool, starting a new family in London, said I’d never get anywhere if I didn’t change things. As much as I wanted to fix it, I always thought that perhaps his love hinged on me being “normal.”
The speech therapist changed everything for the better, though. I came out of my shell, just a little, just enough to get through high school relatively unscathed, enough to have a friend or two. My father, well he didn’t change toward me at all. I’m still terrible at public speaking, which is why I relied so heavily on Robyn during our book events, and if I’m especially nervous or stressed, I tend to slip back into old ways.
And even though being here is not my fault, I still feel like I’m a burden to Jana’s ex-husband and kid.
I don’t know how long I sit on the edge of the bed, repeatedly smoothing out the wrinkles in my dress like it’s a nervous tic, wishing Robyn was here to take charge of the situation, but eventually I know I have to go downstairs and talk all this over with Claudio. At least no cops have shown up in the meantime.
I cautiously open the door and step out into the hall, and then quietly latch the door closed behind me. The door to Vanni’s room is shut. The last thing I want is to be asked more questions. He seems exceptionally bright and his English is perfect and his accent not as thick as his father’s, but even so I’m unsure how to act around my agent’s somewhat secret kid.
Is that what this is? I think to myself as I quietly go down the stairs, holding on to the railing as I go. Is Jana trying to keep Vanni and Claudio a secret? Why?
“There you are,” Claudio says.
He gets up from one of the couches and comes over to me. “I was getting worried. Here, have a seat. Did you want a coffee?”
I do want a coffee, badly, and I know he’d probably make one from the espresso machine, but I don’t want to be more of a bother than I already am so I just shake my head. “No, thank you.” And then I sit down on the couch.
He pauses by the staircase. “Are you sure? I’m making one for myself.”
Well, in that case. “Okay. Sure. If you’re having one. I don’t want to be a bother.”
He tilts his head as he studies me, and even from across the room I can feel the weight of his gaze. “You’re not a bother. You’re just a mysterious stranger I found in my pool. I’ll be a minute.”
He goes down the stairs to the kitchen, and I immediately exhale when he’s out of sight. Funny how a room can feel completely different depending on the circumstances. Yesterday I was marveling at this living room, the sculptures, the stenciled roses on the walls, feeling like a guest in a hotel given free rein. Now I feel like I’ve broken into someone’s home.
I hear the whir of the espresso machine from downstairs, and it’s not long before Claudio appears with two coffees in hand. He places both on the giant coffee table and I take an appreciative glance at his forearms and biceps, tanned and muscled in all the right ways. He must work out. A lot.
He sits down in a plush white armchair across from me.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get the right amount of crema,” he says, gesturing to my coffee as he raises his to his lips. “The machine needs to be fixed.”
“It looks great,” I tell him, and it does look like the perfect espresso. I take a tentative sip and close my eyes in appreciation. I know the caffeine is going to make my poor heart skyrocket even more but it’ll be worth it. This is divine.
“Now, Ms. Harper,” he says, and I open my eyes to see him leaning back in his chair casually, dark eyes focused on me. “How about we start from the beginning?”
I clear my throat and get right to it. “Right. Okay. Well, as you know, I’m a writer. But more than that, I’m a writer on a deadline. There’s a difference between the two. It’s a pretty important book—the book that can make or break my career, and I signed with Jana because of this book. But it was only a proposal. I made the mistake of selling the idea and the outline before the book was done. Anyway, it’s a new genre for me and of course Jana is my new agent, and I just need everything to go right. I’ve been struggling with writer’s block for a while, and Jana suggested that maybe if I came here for a month I could get my writing mojo back. I’m from Edinburgh and the weather’s been awful and…” I’m lost in grief. “…I just needed a change of scenery.”
While I’ve been talking, Claudio has been listening intently, his brows knitting together in thought.
“I see,” he says slowly and then breaks eye contact to have a sip of his coffee. It’s only when he’s looking away that I get a bit of my breath back. “So Jana said this place was unoccupied?”
“She just said she had a villa in Tuscany and I was welcome to use it. That’s all. I swear.”
He glances at me. “I believe you.”
Another soft smile curves his lips, and for the first time it hits me that, wow, Jana was really married to this guy? He does seem a bit younger than her, in his mid to late thirties, while she’s in her mid-forties. And not that Jana is bad looking or anything—she looks like Anne Heche with her sharp glasses and short blonde hair, but their personalities have to be the complete opposite, at least what I’ve seen so far.
“I’m used to Jana doing…” He gestures into the air with his hand. “Stuff like this, though not exactly like this. You should feel special. You’re the only author to have stepped foot in here.”
“None of her other clients have ever, erm, borrowed the house?”
He shakes his head, which does make me feel a wee bit special.
Then it makes me realize that she must have more riding on me than I know.
Or maybe no other author has ever struggled like you have, I think to myself.
“Vanni and I were supposed to be gone all month,” he explains. “We have family friends that we go on a trip with every year. This year we were going to sail to Sardinia. Have you ever been? Bella. It’s beautiful. Alas, my friend’s son broke his leg falling down the steps of the boat, and we had to cut the trip short. The boy will be okay, but Vanni is a little crushed that our annual trip got cancelled.”