Chapter 12 #2
“I write historical fiction set in Italy. It’s a blend of my love for history and storytelling.”
“That’s fascinating,” he said. Then he grinned. “There is also another coincidence. I’m a bit of a historian too. What is
your specialty?”
“General Italian studies.”
“Ah, the same is true for me, general French history.”
Aida thought this answer was odd—and, like her own response, seemed to be an obfuscation. What were the chances that neither
of them specialized in some specific historical era like most historians did? Aida decided to probe a little.
“What era of French history have you found to be the most fascinating?”
He took a sip of his drink. “All of them! But I have been spending considerable time in the Baroque and Renaissance lately, with the chateaus of the Loire Valley. Have you been to the Chateau de Chambord?”
Aida shook her head. “No, but I hear it is magnificent.”
“There is a staircase there they think da Vinci might have designed!” Luciano began to describe the chateau in earnest, drawing
Aida in with his passion. As he spoke, Aida noticed that he often referenced other recent trips—the spa town of Aix-les-Bains,
the vineyards of Chateau Margaux, the beautiful carousel in Montmartre at the foot of Sacré-Coeur. The things and places he
spoke of were found throughout the country, of various eras, and seemed to have no common thread. Unless . . . She made sure the bartender was out of earshot, then said, “It sounds like a job where you’re always encountering happiness.”
Luciano was lifting his glass to his mouth but paused midair. “It’s a funny thing you should say that.”
“Is it?” Aida said, realizing that she had guessed right. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and showed him she was turning
it off. She indicated with a nod that he should do the same.
He raised an eyebrow, but reached into his pocket, removed his phone, and pressed the button to its side.
Once it was off, she asked him in a low voice, “Might it be accurate to say that you work for someone who is collecting happiness?”
Luciano gave a soft snort, then took a big swig of the cocktail. He lowered his voice a bit. “I suppose that is accurate.
Yes, it’s true. I like that. A Happiness Collector. But you ask this as though you too might be one.”
“I haven’t described myself that way, but yes, that sounds right.” She knew she was in dangerous territory even having this
conversation with her employers only a few floors away. She pulled a pen out of her bag and took up the napkin before her.
On it she wrote a single word in tiny letters: MODA.
Luciano laid a hand on her arm. Their eyes locked. He nodded his head. Then his hand went to the napkin. He placed his glass on it, tipping some liquid across the napkin. The ink blurred. Aida took the napkin and wadded it up.
Her arm tingled where his hand had touched her. “I need to take a trip to the ladies’ room. Will you be here when I return?”
She hoped he would understand she was making the trip to flush the napkin into the depths of the London sewer.
He looked at his watch. “If you’re not gone long.”
She reached a hand to his shoulder and squeezed—a message, she hoped, that he should stay. And maybe a message of something
more. “I promise.”
She took her phone from the bar and turned it back on. Then she made her way to the bathroom and ensconced herself in a stall.
She dumped the napkin into the bowl and flushed it down, then took a piece of paper from the little notebook she always carried
and hastily scribbled her name, a note that Luciano should download Signal if he didn’t have it, and her number.
She returned to the bar, relieved to see he was still there, his glass empty before him. When he saw her, he got up and stood
next to his chair. “I paid the bill,” he told her. “I have to go—an important quarterly meeting.” His tone and the look in
his eyes suggested he was about to head up that same elevator from which she had just come down.
Reaching out to take his hands, she slipped the paper between them. She hoped he wouldn’t notice her hands were shaking. “I
am glad to have met you, Luciano.”
He hesitated, then leaned forward and gave her a peck on each cheek. “And I you, Aida,” he whispered in her ear.
She watched him go, her heart swelling, euphoria at the touch of his lips against her skin surging through her.
Aida climbed back up on the barstool, her mind a whirlwind.
She downed her drink in one, seeking clarity in the burn of the alcohol, and ordered a gin and tonic.
As the cool glass touched her lips, a shadow of Graham’s memory momentarily darkened her thoughts.
She was only a couple of months removed from the raw wound of leaving him; was she ready for what was stirring inside her now?
Happiness Collectors. She turned the title over in her mind, thinking about how apt it was.
She had thought she was the only one, working on behalf of a miserable, eccentric billionaire. Yet here was Luciano, a mirror
to her own secretive existence. And the thought of that—of not being alone in this peculiar vocation—brought both comfort
and a new kind of longing. To feel such emotion was a shock, yes, but also an intrigue that was hard to ignore.
How many people she saw at the hotel on the days she visited were there also giving reports to MODA? How many hearts were
collecting happiness while nursing their own hidden sorrows?
And more importantly, what did it mean that she wasn’t the only one?
Later, Aida left her MODA phone in her room, then snuck out of the hotel using the stairwell to take a walk to a nearby park.
Trista hadn’t scolded her in the last few weeks, and she hoped, in this case, that they would assume she’d stayed in her room.
She settled in on a bench to video call Yumi on her personal phone. Her friend squealed with delight when she mentioned she
had met a handsome man at the bar.
“Okay, tell me everything. Is he single?”
Aida paused. It wasn’t something she had considered, but a little anxiety crept in now that the question had been proposed.
She’d assumed he was single. More importantly, she wanted him to be single. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“We didn’t talk about that. But I found out something else even more important.”
Yumi looked skeptical. “And what might that be?”
“We have the same job. We decided that we should be called Happiness Collectors.”
“Wait, there are more people like you?”
Aida filled her friend in on the limited interaction she’d had with Luciano, including the whisper of her name and pecks on each cheek at the end. She also mentioned the woman she had seen going up the elevator with Mo. “She knew Mo. I wonder if she’s also a Collector.”
“Okay, so this is turning out to be bigger than some rich old lady whose eccentric hobby is having you catalog all this Italian
stuff,” Yumi said.
“I know. It makes no sense. Why would she need other people to do this? How many Collectors are there? And why bring us together
in the same place at the same time? Wouldn’t that be a risk?”
Yumi looked thoughtful. “They’re probably relying on the NDAs you signed to keep it quiet. You know . . . I could see about
hacking the hotel’s database and getting the records of people who stay there on the days you have your interviews. If there
is a lot of overlap with other people, we’ll have a good idea of who the other Collectors are.”
At that moment, an old man sat at the other end of the bench. He looked harmless, but she hastily stood and moved on.
“Gah,” Aida said when she lifted the phone back up to see Yumi. “It gives me no small amount of anxiety every time you mention
hacking something.”
“I won’t get caught, Aida. Don’t worry.”
“I do worry. It wouldn’t be a little slap on the wrist. They’d lock you away. Don’t do it. Maybe I’ll learn more if Luciano
gets back to me.”
The conversation turned to Yumi and her recent string of bad dates. Aida tried to appear interested, but her mind was simultaneously
racing with two things: the thought of Luciano’s smile and the implications of a world with more Happiness Collectors than
just her.
Aida returned to Rome the next morning. She didn’t hear from Luciano for another three days, at which point she had reluctantly given up the hope that he might find her on Signal.
Then, one morning when she was out for a walk to enjoy the early summer air before it became too stifling, she felt the buzz in her pocket.
She almost dropped her phone, her excitement was so great, when she saw the text on her personal phone from an unknown number.
Aida, sono io, Luciano.
Ciao! she texted back.
Sei libera? Puoi parlare con me? è sicuro?
Aida’s stomach fluttered. Yes, I’m free to talk. It’s safe, she wrote back in Italian.
She flipped off her MODA phone, then climbed the stairs of the nearby closed church. It was the perfect vantage point to see
if anyone was coming. Her phone screen came to life just as she leaned back against the centuries-old stone.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t continue talking in London,” he said. He was also outdoors, walking along what looked like the Seine.
He stopped at a bench and sat. His hair was tousled with the wind, which gave him a wild look that made Aida’s heart jump.
“Mo is such an asshole when I’m late for my interviews. Tell me, how long have you been working for them?”
“Not long. Six months. I thought I was their only historian.”
“Ahh, just getting started. I’ve been with them for nearly four years. I thought I was the only one for a long time too. But
there’s a man I keep running into in London, and over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re always at the hotel
at the same time because we do the same thing. But I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with him.”
“Have you ever met Lady Ozie?” Aida asked.
He shook his head. “No. I asked Disa once if I ever would and she told me I never wanted to. I’ve the impression she’s a miserable
sort.”
“Mo told me the same thing. It sounded almost like he despised her. Do you know why we’re collecting . . . happiness?”
Luciano scoffed. “I wish. When I began working for them, I was so desperate for money and a job that let me use my degree
that I didn’t question my incredibly good fortune. I had concerns but was determined not to let them think I was ungrateful
with too many inquiries. But since I realized there might be more than one of us, I have to admit that there are too many
strange things to ignore. Why all the secrecy? What we do isn’t illegal. And we’re collecting places that are already familiar
to people.”
Aida was giddy with the knowledge that someone else felt the same as she did about MODA. “I don’t understand either. I hate
not being able to talk about my work with people close to me. My friend set us up with Signal to talk, but I worry I might
be found out at any time. I feel like a child; if they catch me, they will take my phone away—or worse, my job.”
“My aide, Dolores, always has her eye on me. It’s tiring.”
“My aide too. I wonder how many Collectors there are,” she said.
“I collect happiness all over France. You collect it in Italy. Maybe it’s country-specific?”
It was an intriguing idea, but of course, they really had nothing more than ideas to go by. They spoke for a little while
longer, comparing stories about Mo, their aides, and their experiences at their London interviews. Finally, they both reluctantly
had to admit they should go before they were missed by their respective handlers. Neither of them had answers, just more questions.
But as they ended the call, Aida found it had been a profound relief to talk to another who understood the MODA weirdness
so exactly, and who had the same misgivings as she did.
Mixed in with that relief was the butterflies she had when she thought of Luciano. No one had stirred these feelings in her
since Graham. The wisdom of that experience had tempered her expectations, but her heart didn’t seem to know the difference.