Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
End of June
Positano, Italy
T he little stucco house on a hill had a bunch of trash in the side yard and three chickens, bucking around and cawing.
It was quaint, like it could have been a site from any time in Italian history over the past fifty years.
Was this really the birthplace of the elusive CAT?
Julia hung back, double-checking the address for Lucia’s mother’s home, and looked up to find Charlie, similarly nervous.
It wasn’t like them to storm into a stranger’s place like this.
They were kind, soft-spoken, and artistic Nantucketers.
What if the Italian people behind that door got the wrong idea?
What if they thought they were after CAT’s fame and money?
(If that money was even here, which Julia guessed it wasn’t.)
When they finally gathered the courage to approach the front door, Julia took a deep breath and prepared to knock.
Before her knuckles could land, a dog started barking so fiercely that it made Julia’s teeth grit.
An Italian woman’s voice echoed through the house as she angrily scolded the dog.
When they reached the foyer, the dog still thrashing and growling, she peeked through the shadows and spoke to Julia and Charlie in Italian, a language they didn’t understand.
Despite her extensive European education and love, Greta hadn’t taught French to her children and had never learned Italian.
Julia raised her hand and said, “No Italiano. English?” She felt pathetic.
The woman scowled and remained a foot or so away from the door. “Why?”
Julia thought she understood. Why are we here?
That was what she wanted to know. It was what anyone would have wanted to know.
She reached for her phone, hoping to use technology to translate that she came in peace.
(But did she actually come in peace? It was her mission to destroy the credibility of this woman’s daughter!) Into her phone, in English, she said, “We’re looking for Lucia Colombo.
We met her in the United States. We’re colleagues of hers and need to talk to her about something of a professional matter.
” The phone translated the words back to Lucia’s mother, and her face transformed.
Slowly, she opened the door and beckoned for Charlie and Julia to enter.
Maybe she was a murderer , Julia thought. But because she was four feet and ten inches tall, Julia was sure that both she and Charlie could take her.
Lucia’s mother didn’t speak any more English than “why,” apparently, which meant that Julia’s translation device was required throughout the entire conversation.
Eventually, she let the mother, whose name was Barbara, keep talking into the phone as she led them around the house, pointing out relics of Lucia’s childhood.
There was the corner where she’d first drawn a picture.
There was the mural she’d first painted on the wall.
(The mural looked like it had been done when Lucia was nine or ten and was incredibly crude but cute, Julia guessed.
She remembered thinking that what Henry, Anna, and Rachel made was pure brilliance, even if it was only made of crayon.) Into the phone, Lucia’s mother babbled.
“I’ve been waiting for reporters to come by all day.
I’ve been eager to give our side of the story.
We’re famous. Lucia made us famous! But I’m worried she will be misunderstood! There is so much gossip in our world.”
Julia tried to fix her face into a smile. From the woman’s expression, she understood that she genuinely believed Lucia to be CAT herself. (Again, there was no reason to suspect she wasn’t, not yet, no matter how hard Julia searched for a clue.)
“We love Lucia’s work,” Julia said. “It’s why we wanted to work with her.”
Beside her, Charlie nodded as Julia’s words were translated into Italian.
Barbara grinned wider and kept up the tour for a little while longer, until she led Julia and Charlie to a collection of paintings done by Lucia herself.
The paintings depicted the Italian coastline, including the Amalfi Coast, its gorgeous buildings perched on the cliffs, and the nearby beaches.
Just like the server had said, they looked like every other painting Julia had seen for sale around Positano.
She took a breath. From the intensity in the room and the way Barbara was now looking at them, it was clear that she wanted them to buy one of the paintings.
Julia leafed through her wallet to draw out the requisite cash of eighty euros each.
It was too much, given that they were prints.
And they were prints of subpar paintings, at that.
But she wanted something that belonged to Lucia, because she wanted Gregor to analyze it.
The only way forward was to debunk Lucia and perhaps remain at peace with never finding CAT.
As Julia paid, she managed to snap another few shots of the other prints of Lucia’s paintings, all lined up in a row.
Too anxious to get the eighty euros into her wallet, Barbara didn’t notice.
She wrapped up the print in dark brown paper and handed it over.
With her hands clasped, she raised her chin and said in Italian, “Lucia will surely be home soon. You should stay in Positano. I’ll tell you when she comes. ”
Julia’s heart lurched. Was Lucia off the island and perhaps headed home to Italy? Did her mother know something that the Nantucket cops didn’t?
Unable to resist, Julia spoke into her phone, “Does your daughter have any friends from Eastern Europe?”
At this, Barbara’s face darkened. She muttered in a way that didn’t allow the phone to pick up what she was saying, then switched her face to a sunnier smile, almost as though she wanted to trick Julia into thinking she hadn’t said it.
It gave Julia pause. Was Barbara hiding something?
Did she know about the Eastern European men? Did she not approve of them?
“I didn’t understand that,” Julia told her. “Can you repeat yourself?”
But Barbara was already ushering them out the door, drawing them back into the startlingly warm late afternoon.
Sweat dripped down Julia’s back and dampened the waist of her pants.
In Italian, her mother continued to ramble, as though she were putting on a play and it was time for her character to leave the stage.
Just before Barbara slammed the door behind them, she called out in English, “She is brilliant.” Her eyes echoed her sentiment.
She wanted to believe that Lucia was everything Lucia claimed to be.
She needed to. Maybe Barbara clung to the prints and her own loving feelings toward her daughter because Lucia refused to come home anymore.
Or what if someone was keeping her from coming home?
“When will she be back?” Charlie piped up, asking a question Julia should have remembered to.
“Soon!” Barbara said, waving her hand to suggest they move farther from the house, farther away. “Soon!”
But there was so much emptiness in what she said.
As Julia and Charlie left the stucco house and snapped around the nearest stone pine tree, Julia felt her feet shift into a run.
Beneath the harsh Italian sun, she raced back to the road, her heart pounding.
Something about that place was off, something she felt she had to get away from.
It was only when she reached the street and clung to the sign near the turn-off that she gasped and realized she’d felt Barbara’s sorrow and loneliness back there.
It felt so powerful and oppressive, like a blanket drawn over sunlight.
Charlie reached the road, his eyes wide with panic. “Are you okay?”
How could Julia explain what she’d just felt? She parted her lips, searching Charlie’s face.
He took her hand. “That woman isn’t happy. Something’s off,” he said finally.
“It felt really off, right?” she asked, grateful to hear her own crazy ideas echoed back.
Charlie touched Julia’s ear gently. They held the softness of the moment, listening to the spooky Italian wind through the even spookier Italian trees.
Julia yearned to hop back on the ferry boat, hurry to the airport, and get out of town.
But she felt something was keeping them here, some urgent fact about CAT that they were missing.
Why had Barbara’s face taken on so many shadows at the mention of the Eastern European men? What did she know that she wasn’t telling them?
They returned to their hotel to rest up before dinner.
As Charlie slept,the air conditioner rattled on, Julia sent the photographs of Lucia’s coastline paintings to Gregor for his assessment.
In her message, she wrote: These were painted by the woman who claims to be CAT, the woman who wrote the memoir, the woman everyone is ridiculing online.
What do you think? I know that the murals and these coastline paintings couldn’t be more different, but are there any similarities between the use of color, tone, or line?
Any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks, Julia.
Gregor wrote back that he’d be happy to help, that he’d head back home in a half hour and assess.
Julia’s chest felt tight. Again, she checked her messages for signs from the Nantucket police and spent some time texting Henry, Anna, and Rachel, all of whom were busy with summer plans, business meetings, and socializing with friends and partners.
Henry reported that he was already heading back to Nantucket from Los Angeles tomorrow, and he couldn’t stay away.
There were no fewer than sixteen photographs of Anna’s baby, and Julia spent a long time looking at them, analyzing the subtle shifts in the chubby cheeks, wondering what she’d missed during her brief time away.