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Reluctantly, I pulled it from my back pocket and handed it to her. She pushed buttons, then cast an incredulous look up at me. “It doesn’t even get internet!”
“It’s just for the basics.” Belatedly, I remembered our silly game. “Who needs all that stuff on a telephone, for Christ’s sake?” I added with a drawl.
Bella grinned at me. “Good answer.” She tucked my elderly phone into her own pocket, ignoring my protest, and gestured toward the iPhone. “Keep it. I’m always losing them anyway. I’ll just use yours for a while and see if I can survive on something less.”
She didn’t mean the slight sting. You learned to survive on whatever you had. Lucky Isabella, the one the gods had smiled on, wouldn’t even know what deprivation felt like.
“Are you ever going to tell me...” I began, but Bella shushed me, refilling my glass.
“Let’s wait till the pizza arrives and I’ll tell you everything,” she said. “I don’t suppose they deliver wine around here?”
“In this benighted country?” I added in her voice. “Only by the caseload.”
“Tempting,” she said. “Right now, I feel I could put away an entire case, but I suppose it would have to be moved along with everything else.”
Her unexpected concern was new too—she usually didn’t bother with how her high-flown actions affected everyone else. “You’re right. If I was leaving this place to the landlord, he’d probably be thrilled, but the bank is taking it over and I don’t think they’d be similarly appreciative.”
Bella grinned at me. “Probably not. Though I’ve known bankers who drink like fish.”
“Total sots,” I said in her voice. “But then, the bankers you’ve known are all Spanish. They’re used to their wine or sherry followed by a siesta.”
She laughed. “You’re way out of touch. Siesta has pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur in the cities of Spain. And I haven’t been in Spain in more than five years.”
This managed to shock me more deeply than anything else about her unexpected appearance. “But why? You love Mariposa. You love Marcus.”
“That’s old news, sweetie. Marcus and I broke off our engagement ages ago. He’s happy staying at Mariposa and charming everyone into buying our olives while I’ve been following my heart all over the world.” She rummaged in the huge designer bag beside her, then tossed her red passport to me. “Take a look.”
It was surprisingly thick, and then I realized that official pages had been added to document all her travel. Africa, South America, Australia, the Pacific Rim. She’d come into Boston a number of times over the years, I noticed blankly, and made no effort to get in touch with me. But that was Bella. She always had a clear agenda and anyone who didn’t fit in with it was easily discarded. But when she was there she was so sunny and charming that her innate selfishness was easy to forgive. You didn’t blame a butterfly for being fragile.
I flipped back, hoping against hope that like everyone else she’d have a lousy passport photo. And then I froze.
The passport photo was lousy indeed. It was a photo of me.
There was no missing the difference. My hair had been photo-shopped into blond, pre-Raphaelite curls, my eyes were now green instead of hazel, but I knew that photograph.
I looked up at Bella, who was watching me without a trace of nervousness, but charm could only get her so far. I cleared my throat, dropping her drawl. “Exactly what the fuck is going on?”
She was saved from having to answer by the sudden sound of the doorbell. “I’ll get it,” she said, uncurling her long legs before I could protest. I stayed where I was, looking down at the passport in disbelief. From a distance, I could hear her voice, my voice, flirting with Al, who ran the deliveries.
“Hey, you clean up nice, Ms. Whitehead.”
“Call me Kitty,” she replied in my voice, not bothering to correct him. “It’s all on my cousin’s tab, isn’t it?”
“Sure is, tip included,” he said with a cheerfulness he hadn’t shown in more than a dozen desperate pizza calls over the last year. “You take care, all right? Don’t forget us when you find your new place.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” my voice floated back from the hall, further increasing my sense of unreality. She returned to the living room, setting the box down between us, and dropped into a reasonable approximation of a lotus position with no trouble whatsoever. I looked at her in astonishment.
“I’ve got a few paper plates...” I offered hesitantly as she exposed the rich, gooey mess. Ray and Lucy’s made real New York pizza, to die for.
“Do you use plates when you order pizza?” I shook my head. “Then neither will I,” Bella said firmly, helping herself to a slice heaped with olives and prosciutto and peppers.
I had spent the day working hard, packing, and I should have been famished, but a cold knot had formed in the bottom of my stomach, and I wasn’t going to touch the stuff unless I could get some answers from Bella.
I poured another half glass of wine. I couldn’t begin to keep up with Bella’s input, but I was still drinking more than I was used to. The box of wine was, in fact, from a Spanish vineyard, and it had been quite decent when it was first opened. Even now, it didn’t taste the slightest bit vinegary. I would have hoped she hadn’t noticed what wine I had, but Bella had an impeccable palate. Even if she hadn’t read the box, she would have known it was a Spanish vintage.
“So, ’splain this to me, Lucy,’” I said in a fair approximation of Ricky Ricardo’s accent. “What’s going on? And what does it have to do with me?”
“You better settle back, kiddo,” she said, still not deviating from my voice. “It’s a long story.”
