Page 13 of House of Clouds


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She sighed. It was bad enough that he’d paid for her flight to New York, and now he wanted to add the taxi too. “It’s fine, Giancarlo. I’d better go now. Will you be there when I arrive?”

“I should be,” he said and paused. “I’ll try.”

She understood the meaning of his words, the hidden reality of its dependence on his mother. “Okay,” she said. “Ciao.”

“Ciao, bella.”

She ended the call and slipped her phone into her bag. It seemed heavier now, the laptop feeling more like Sisyphus’s boulder, only instead of rolling it up a hill, it was on her shoulder. She shifted the bag to the other shoulder and headed toward the train station.

* * *

Kate sank gratefully into her seat and glanced out of the train window. Outside, people still crowded the entrances, struggling to board the train, lumbered down as they were with all manner of suitcases and bags. She closed her eyes against the mayhem, her body seizing the respite automatically. She was beyond tired. The journey and the tension of her visit, only made worse by drinking, had combined with the late nights, to leave her wrung out. Last night, especially. Though she hadn’t sung any more songs on her own after the Shawn Colvin rendition, the night had continued with offerings by Ethan, Tom, and even Simon. She’d finally crawled into bed sometime past three, only to wake again a few hours later to ensure she caught her train to New York to make the early evening flight.

Now, it wasn’t only her suit that was crumpled. She was crumpled all over, inside and out.My God, she thought, and the visit had only been a few days. She couldn’t imagine what she would feel like if she had extended it to a week as her father had requested. The strain of the old life. The old self. A self she’d managed to put away, even forget at times. Now it clung to her, just like the hangover that had raged yesterday and was subdued to a dull throb this morning. She leaned over and retrieved the bottled water she’d bought at a kiosk in the train station and, uncapping it, drank deeply from it.

The water tasted good, but it did nothing to stop the jumbled memories from the weekend crowding her overtired mind. She tried to put her tearfulness and confusion down to her fatigue, but that didn’t make it any easier to cope with the feeling of alienation and loss that she hadn’t been able to shake since she’d arrived at Somerton Lake. The strange interaction with Ethan at O’Connor’s and her father’s odd friendship with him, not to mention her brother’s relationship with Tamzin and Tamzin herself. Tom had always been easy going growing up, even a bit of a dreamer, despite the moments he’d tormented and teased her, but it had always been with a good humor and an undercurrent of brotherly affection. But this Tom, the Tom who ran the furniture shop, who crafted the beautiful dining room set, this was a Tom who didn’t fit into her idea of him. Even his interaction with her was different. Less indulgent brother and more…she struggled to find the words and abandoned the search in the end. She was just too tired. She dug out her phone and earbuds, automatically selectingLa Boheme,one of the operas Giancarlo had put on the playlist they shared. They were going to see it in Verona soon, and it wouldn’t hurt to refresh her memory.

The opening notes of the first aria played, and Kate felt her eyes close.

* * *

Kate put down her Fendi tote on the small, elegant antique table by the apartment door. Light from the French doors in the living room ahead spilled into the small foyer where a few tiny dust motes danced in the air. Against the far wall of the living room, she could see that the nineteenth-century inlaid walnut dresser held a large vase of calla lilies. Were they for her? The arrangement was expensive, the vase unfamiliar. She smoothed a wayward strand of hair from her face. She’d tried her best to tidy it up on the train, but the lack of styling tools had defeated her in the end. At this point she was too tired to care how she looked, really. She sniffed. Espresso. Giancarlo always had an espresso at nine and another around noon. Was it noon already?

Giancarlo emerged from the small study next to the living room, his dark hair exquisitely cut and styled as always, his casual shirt and pants still elegant yet understated, again, as always. His lips, full and sensuous, broke into a smile.

“Tesoro,” he said, pulling her into an embrace and kissing her.

She slid her arms around his neck and sank into his kiss, his welcome a comfort after so much travel. He deepened the kiss, his hand moving to cup her head, his other hand sliding farther down, pulling her closer into him. His desire was evident, and for a moment she could imagine responding, but fatigue washed over her. She pulled back.

“Sorry,” she said in English, smiling feebly. “I’m exhausted. Do you mind if I lie down for a little while?”

He stroked her hair. “Of course. And I apologize for not collecting you from the airport.”

She nodded. The gist of the words, spoken in Italian, had filtered through. He took her hand and led her toward the bedroom. At the door, he kissed the top of her head. “Go, lie down. I’ll make us a light lunch.” He kept speaking, the words faint against her head, the Italian rapid.

She nodded, made her way over to the bed, kicked off her shoes will and lay back on the bed. It was only a few moments later that she made sense of the words he’d spoken after he’d told her he’d make lunch. He would take her to the gallery so she could see the exhibition space. She knew there was a reason she should question that, but she dozed off before she could discern it.

* * *

Kate stepped back from the wall, creating even more distance from her work than she would if she hadn’t had to keep her emotions in check. Beside her, Giancarlo talked intensely with Francesco, the stout, swarthy gallery manager. She was grateful that the two were so deeply engaged, because it gave her time to look at the exhibition on her own.

He’d told her months ago he would let her hang her art pieces. The thought kept echoing in her head as she moved around the mostly white space along the panels that discreetly signaled to the left and eventually to the right in the exhibition journey. Carefully, she examined the images on the white walls surrounding her, the spotlights tastefully and professionally directed to show the details of each framed image on display. It took a few moments for her annoyance to clear, but in the end, after reviewing Giancarlo’s arrangement, Kate had to concede it was good. She should trust him to know. It was his job, his craft, after all. And, she reminded herself, it was his space, too, connected to his auction house. She took in the images one by one, evaluating them yet again.

The frames were sleek, modern, set off by pristine white mats. Kate still felt that the framing and mat choices might be at odds with her work, but Giancarlo insisted they were perfect for the tone and message of her art. Simple, expensive, yet still beautiful. Old world yet modern. Perfect for Rome. Her instinct had been to create special frames with herbs and vines carved into them, to highlight the narrative contained in the various photographs she’d taken of Messina, overexposed, tinted in magenta tones and printed on artist rough rag paper with fragments of Boccaccio’s story of Lorenzo and Isabella contained in theDecameron, written in her careful calligraphy in the work’s original Tuscan. And she would have begun with the image of the herb pot, to set the story front and center, instead of Giancarlo’s choice of the ruins of Messina, which really didn’t have anything to do with the story, but Giancarlo had argued it was such a significant identifier of Messina it was important to include it. And it would sell quickly for the high price he’d set.

She’d come up with the kernel of the idea several years ago, when she’d studied photography at the Arts and Culture School in Paris. It had prompted her to take some art classes, along with mastering calligraphy well enough to execute the project. The project had been put on the back burner by the need to support herself while she’d finished art school, and afterwards, when she’d decided to stay on in Paris. It had been difficult and the apartment she’d shared with a motley crew of other American girls looking for ways to remain in Paris had helped her eke out the money for a few years. Until she met Giancarlo.

He’d been attending one of the school’s exhibitions to scout out potential new artists and happened to overhear her comments to one of her friends explaining one of the techniques used in a particular piece. His manner, as he inquired whether she was one of the professors in his accented English, was elegant, easily charming, and she’d felt herself incapable of resistance. The dark sultry eyes studying her intensely as she answered his questions, along with the high cheekbones, long aquiline nose, full lips, evoked a response that she instantly understood was more than an artist’s appreciation of good looks.

It had been an understanding that he’d shared and had become a relationship by the end of his week-long stay and had her following him back to his home in Rome to live with him and develop her art under his patronage. To call it something as trivial as “help” didn’t seem to encompass all that he was doing for her. Even the work she occasionally managed to secure as a photographer was through his connections, and they were limited to the occasional wedding or birthday event that didn’t earn her enough to afford the lifestyle that she now lived. She owed Giancarlo everything.

Giancarlo came up behind her and rested his hand on her shoulder.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked her in Italian.

She turned and smiled at him. “Bellisimo. Mille grazie, Giancarlo.” Or was itbellisma? Was exhibition feminine or masculine, or was that even how it was calculated in this case? She was just too tired to remember, if she did know.

Giancarlo kissed her lightly on the neck. “Good. I’m glad you like it. See, you didn’t need to be here. We managed perfectly. And now you don’t have to worry about it. You can relax until Friday.”

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