“Promise me there’s nothing wrong.” Oh, he’s pulling out the big guns now.
I swallow and lie to him. “I promise. It’s all good.”
A beat goes by, and I can picture him at his desk, his handsome brow furrowed with concern, his bright blue eyes a bit clouded, which happens when he’s worried. Finally, I hear him take a deep breath and let it out. “All right. As long as you tell me you’re okay. You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”
That’s the truth. Scott’s a good man and a good friend, and I probably should tell him the truth: that I’m blocked, that my passion for writing is currently nowhere to be found, that for the first time in my career, writing a story about two people fallingin love feels like a slog uphill along a muddy road in a blizzard instead of the joy it used to be, and I don’t want to do it.
But I don’t.
Instead, I force a smile onto my face so that it tints my voice because I want him to hear it. I want him to hear that I’m smiling and there’s nothing for him to be concerned about. “I know,” I say. “And I appreciate that so much. You have nothing to worry about. I’ll have something for you soon. I promise.”
God, Lily, so many false promises. Who the hell have you become?
I hang up with Scott—who seems pacified, at least for the moment—and fall onto my bed face first, apparently worn out from all the lying. Reggie lifts his head and gives me a look.
“I know,” I stress to him as I roll onto my back. “I know. Ugh.”
I have no idea how long I lie there staring at the ceiling. It must be a while, because when I tune back in to my surroundings, Reggie is snoring loudly. I absently wonder what it’s like to have such an easy, peaceful life. If only.
My phone pings near my hand, and I groan softly, thinking Scott has more to say. But when I pick it up and look at the screen, my stomach does a pleasant little roll.
Marina.
You free this afternoon? Around 3?
“I don’t know, let me check my very busy social calendar,” I say out loud to my empty room, then smile at my own sarcasm. I type back.I am.
The gray dots bounce, showing me she’s typing, then her text comes.Great. I’ll pick you up then.
She gives no details, and I surprise myself by not asking for any. There’s something about Marina, a comfort around her, and it doesn’t occur to me for a single second to question where she might be taking me. While I’m sure she’s not taking me to someremote location to murder me and leave my body splayed in one of the many fountains in Rome, the point is thatshe could be. I don’t know her well at all. I barely know anything about her. And yet I’ve agreed to go wherever she’s taking me, and I’m not even a little worried about it. That’s very unlike me, and I am kind of enjoying the mystery element of it. The excitement feels almost new to me.
Of course, instead of making me sit down and get some work done, having a plan in a couple hours makes me focus on my wardrobe instead. Anything to not write.
“Man, this is getting old, Reg. Very, very old.” I sigh as I stand in the spacious closet where I’ve hung the majority of the clothes I brought with me on the trip, not knowing exactly how long I might stay. There aren’t a ton of options, but I brought a lot of mix-and-match kind of stuff. Tops and jackets and tanks and short-sleeve button-downs. Since I have no idea where we’re going, I opt to stay fairly casual. I shower and dress in white linen pants and a royal blue and white patterned sleeveless top. A quick check of the weather app on my phone tells me it’s in the low nineties, so I decide no jacket is necessary. I style my hair, glad that Rome has slightly less humidity than the northeast part of the States. Adding a bit of jewelry always makes me feel like I’m dressing something up a bit, so I add gold hoop earrings, a couple bangle bracelets, and a necklace with a teeny-tiny replica of Reggie’s paw print that my niece had made for me for Christmas. Once my makeup is done, I stand in front of the full-length mirror and check myself out, looking with a critical eye before I give my head a shake.
It’s not like this is a date, Lil.
No. It’s not. At all. In fact, if anything, this is a business meeting. Marina and I never touched on payment, but my intention is to—obviously—pay her for her time. So, yeah, this is a business transaction.
“Nothing wrong with looking nice for business, though, right?” I glance over at Reggie, who looks like he wants to shake his head and roll his eyes at me. I sigh. “Shut up.”
I head down to the lobby around two forty-five, after loading Reggie up with some treats to tide him over, and I’m surprised to find Marina already here. She’s chatting with a woman maybe ten years older than me that I’ve seen helping set out the continental breakfast the hotel offers each morning. She has dark hair shot through with sporadic strands of gray, pulled back into a neat bun. Her brown eyes are kind and crinkle slightly at the corners when Marina makes her smile.
Marina sees me across the room, and—does her face light up? Maybe. She waves me to her with a rolling gesture of her hand, and just as she’s about to introduce me to the woman, it clicks in my head because their smiles are exactly alike. I mean, exactly. Like a painter painted one, then made a perfect duplicate on the other face. This is Marina’s mother I’m sure of it.
“Lily, I’d like you to meet Roseanna Troiani,mia madre. Mamma, this is Lily Chambers, the woman I told you about.”
Roseanna turns to me and holds out a hand. When I clasp it with mine, she closes her other one over them, holding my hand in both of hers. Her English isn’t as good as Marina’s, but it’s better than some Americans I’ve met. “So nice to meet you,” she says, her accent much thicker than Marina’s. “I hope you are enjoying your stay.”
I nod, my hand still sandwiched in hers. “I love it here. Truly. The rooftop terrace is my favorite.”
She looks to Marina, who translates what I said into Italian, I assume. Roseanna looks back at me with a big smile. “My idea.”
“A good one,” I commend her.
She and Marina have another back and forth in Italian before Roseanna lets me go and Marina takes my elbow and leads me to the door.
“Gotta get you out of here, or she’ll talk to you for hours,” Marina says quietly as we exit. “Americans fascinate her.”
