AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Olivia suddenly caught sight of a man in a white linen jacket with a waxed mustache on the other side of the street holding a big golf umbrella over an elderly woman swathed in a bejeweled headscarf. A few paces behind them walked two security guards in dark suits and sunglasses.
“Oh, it’s Mordecai! I have to have a word with him about tomorrow’s excursion!” Olivia dashed out of the shop before Lucie could say anything.
Lucie took her time leisurely trying on different styles, chatting about New York with Alvina, and getting her foot measured by Antonio. In the end, she chose two pairs of sandals for herself: one in the rose gold, but done in a dramatic gladiator style with the leather cords wrapping all the way up her calves, and a classic T-strap in pale pink suede accessorized with two matching suede tassels. Antonio would custom-make them to fit her feet perfectly and have them delivered to the hotel. She also bought tan leather flip-flops for her brother, Freddie, and a faux-leopard-print pair for her mother.
Thirty minutes had passed, and Olivia had still not returned. Deciding not to wait any longer, Lucie paid for her purchases and walked out onto Via Roma. It was half past four, and the street was wall-to-wall packed with tourists dashing about in a frenzy doing last-minute shopping, catching buses, or heading for the funicolare that would take them down the mountain to catch the last ferries.
About fifty Japanese came marching along, trying valiantly to maintain an orderly line behind their tour group leader, who was holding up a stick with a yellow rubber duck on the end of it. Lucie was jostled along with the crowd for a few minutes before she darted quickly into the vestibule of a vintage jewelry shop for a moment’s respite.
She was a little annoyed that Olivia had abandoned her and wondered if she would be able to find her way to the hotel along the back lanes again. The crowd thinned out for a moment, and Lucie managed to make it to the piazzetta without incident, where she found the last available table at the Gran Caffè. She sat down gratefully, placing her shopping bag on the wicker seat next to her and poring over the leather-bound menu.
A silver-haired waiter in a dapper white blazer approached the table and said with a bow, “Konnichi wa!”
Lucie stared at him in confusion for a few moments before reali
zing he was greeting her in Japanese.
“Er…Ni hao ma??” he tried again.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Chinese,” she said, turning up the volume on her American accent.
“Ah, Americana! Easy peasy. Let me guess, you want Diet Coke with ice?”
Lucie forced a smile. “Actually, I think I’ll try the granita al limone.”
“Lemon granita! Perfect for this hot day,” the waiter said jovially.
The sun was just cresting over the mountaintop directly in Lucie’s sight line, so she put on her sunglasses. In her short white Erdem shirt dress with the cute Bresson lace sleeves and her dark glasses on, she somehow felt very European and grown-up at the moment. This is what she loved doing the most whenever she traveled to Europe—sitting at an outdoor café, watching the world go by. Whenever they visited Paris, she always insisted on dragging her mother and Freddie to an outdoor table at La Palette, her favorite café in Saint-Germain, and she wished that they could be here with her right now.
Lucie glanced covertly at the people seated around her. She loved checking people out and making up stories in her mind about them. On her left was a young, attractive Italian couple, looking longingly into each other’s eyes—on their honeymoon, possibly? To her right were two smartly dressed men: an American guy with dark blond hair in a blue-striped T-shirt and navy blazer talking to an Asian guy with a goatee wearing a pair of round 1930s retro-style sunglasses. They looked like they worked in fashion and were here on business. She overheard the Asian guy saying, “I need to remember to get sandals made for Alexandra and Jackie,” and she wondered if it was because he noticed her shopping bag from Da Costanzo. Behind her were two middle-aged women smoking and having an intense discussion in German while a humongous Great Dane sat quietly at their heels. Were they sisters rehashing an old family feud?
Within a few minutes, the waiter returned and placed a large glass bowl on her table containing a mountain of slushy lemon granita, accompanied by a single thin slice of cantaloupe wedged onto the rim of the glass. Lucie smiled in delight at the dessert before her. It reminded her of the desserts she loved getting at Serendipity when she was a kid, although this presentation looked decidedly more elegant.
She sat at her table sipping the granita contentedly from the straw. It was deliciously icy, and the freshly squeezed lemon juice was so refreshingly tart as it went down her throat. She was wondering if she should take a nibble of the cantaloupe now or save it for after she finished the granita when out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall, elderly white-haired man enter the piazzetta, wobble slightly, and then stumble against the table where the Italian couple was seated. The Italian man sprang up from his chair and helped the man to his feet. The old man stood for a split second, took a step forward, and then went crashing down again, his head landing right on Lucie’s dessert, breaking the glass bowl and splashing lemon granita all over her.
Lucie found herself glued to her chair, unable to move. It seemed as if time had stopped. No one did a thing. The Italian couple stared helplessly at the old man, the Germans just sat there, and the waiters stood like statues. All around them were dozens of glamorous-looking people, frozen at their tables and gawking. She heard the American beside her say, “I think he’s dying,” and then somewhere behind her, a lady with a British accent cried, “We. Simply. Must!” The man’s eyes rolled back, she heard a rattle deep in his throat, and his face turned blue, but all she could see was red—the red blood vessels in the whites of his eyes, the red gushing from his head onto the white tablecloth. She finally stood up, and then she felt the ground beneath her spin and everything went black.
* * *
—
Lucie had no idea how long she had been unconscious, maybe it was just seconds, but when she came to, she felt something warm and soft cradling her neck. She looked up and saw George Zao looking down at her and realized that his hands were cushioning her head.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, and then she turned and saw a waiter hovering over the old man, who was now lying on the ground in front of her. The waiter was pounding on the man’s chest repeatedly as the Great Dane started whimpering.
“Just stay here. Don’t try to get up,” George said, jumping up and heading toward the man on the ground. “Stop hitting him like that.” He pushed the waiter aside. “Someone call a doctor!” he shouted, as he bent down, lifted the man’s chin, and gave him two quick rescue breaths.
Lucie got up from the ground slowly and began backing away from the scene. George was now frantically pumping the man’s chest and yelling, “Fucking call a doctor!” Something within her told her that she couldn’t look anymore. She couldn’t stand there and watch this man die. She turned around and started walking away. The minute she rounded the corner, out of sight of the piazzetta, she started to run.
VII
Arco Naturale
CAPRI, ITALY
George found Lucie sitting on a stone bench, staring out at the Arco Naturale, a gigantic natural limestone arch that rose out of the mountainside 650 feet above the sea.*1
