Chapter 1 #2
“Well, we’re lucky that we don’t have to worry about any of that.
We are too temporary to have to consider end-of-life preparations,” said Lora, swiveling her head from right to left.
The two- and three-story town houses lining the road had gigantic wooden doors flanked by pots of succulents, aloe, and bougainvillea.
Clean laundry hung out of a few of the windows, perfuming the air with the unmistakable scent of fabric softener.
A gray cat with one white boot scampered by, then hid under a stairway.
“For ourselves, anyway. Is it weird that no one is walking around?” She found herself whispering.
“I don’t know, but this isn’t where my people are from, it’s where yours are from. If this was my family’s town, we would have been greeted with a plena band and someone holding a tray of tembleque,” Vilmari whispered back.
“These are not my people. Just because my father was from here—” Lora stopped at the sound of a hammer clanging against metal not too far away.
She turned to Vilmari, and both cocked their heads waiting to hear it again.
They walked forward until the street finally met the edge of a tiny piazza.
A pastry-cream-colored church rose up to their left, the front walkway paved with small black and white stones set in a floral design.
At the opposite end of the square, café tables were scattered in front of a coffee bar.
Dark green umbrellas cast shade on the tables, but not one was occupied.
In fact, all of the shops lining the piazza were closed, their metal shutters shut tight as if the whole town was on vacation.
Forever. “It could be some kind of a holiday. Let me check and see where city hall is.”
Lora searched the map on her phone and squinted at the Gothic-style stone building directly across from where they were standing.
The only light gray building on the piazza, it was tall and square, adorned with notched battlements along the roofline and a large clock flanking a small central tower.
Seven rounded-arch windows spanned the top two stories, but the ground floor had three smaller windows on each side of a massive iron door that was very much closed.
The marble arch above was carved with the word MUNICIPIO, and three flags hung down to what looked like spikes inlaid into the metal of the door.
“That’s it.” She pointed up at the sign.
“Look at the size of that door knocker!” Vilmari pulled down her sunglasses to get a better look. “And don’t ask me to go near it. Someone’s coming out of that place with a sword, for sure.”
“We must be missing something. I checked the website so many times. It said that they are open every weekday and that the mayor—” Lora was cut off again by the clanging sound.
“See? Someone is here,” she said, gesturing toward the church.
“I think it’s coming from down that street. Let’s go check it out.”
“Maybe we should find the hotel first. That will probably answer a lot of questions—assuming there are other human beings there.”
But Lora had already dragged her suitcase across the piazza and to the street on the right side of the church to follow the banging.
She looked up at the street sign, VIA DEI GLICINI, affixed to the facade of the first building she passed.
The third building down was clad in scaffolding all the way up to the roof, and a man in a yellow plastic hard hat stood on a platform outside the second floor.
His body was twisted to whack away at something she couldn’t see.
Lora turned around and grinned at Vilmari.
“Let’s go see if he can tell us anything. ”
“What are you going to do? Roll up and ask for your citizenship from the guy banging on a pipe? You do remember that you don’t speak Italian, right?”
“I’m going to use the app. It works. You’ll see.” Lora marched toward the scaffolding, still pulling her suitcase behind her. She paused, holding up her phone, and called up to the man.
“Scusi! Scusi!” she called until her words found enough space between the hammering that the man stopped and turned to look down at her.
He was younger and far less grizzled than she would have expected a construction worker to be, but still clearly not thrilled to be heckled into pausing his task.
A lock of brown hair spilled out from under the hard hat, and his dark eyebrows drew together.
He was wearing a white T-shirt that looked like it had been washed on the hot setting a few times too many.
Lora was therefore not spared from seeing the outline of a sculpted chest and a smooth set of biceps under the too-short sleeves.
He was gorgeous. He was also looking at her like she was interrupting a surgical procedure.
She pressed on, typing a message into the English side of the English-to-Italian translator.
“Mi scusi, signore, può dirmi se la città è in vacanza?” was what the app indicated that she should say if trying to ask if there was some explanation for the absence of people in town, but what the guy in the hard hat probably heard was “Mi skoo-si, seeg-nor, poo durmie say la sita ee in vaycansa.”
He squinted harder, this time with a lift of his lower lip that dimpled his chin in an expression that she could only characterize as Are you serious?
“No, the town is not on vacation.”
“Oh! You speak English! Great. I—uh, we,” she said, gesturing back at Vilmari, who likely read the same story through the white T-shirt and was grinning like it was her birthday. “We just got here and it seems like everything is closed. We thought maybe it was a holiday.”
“It’s not a holiday,” he said, glancing down at his watch.
It had a silver metal bracelet and, even from where she stood, looked too nice for manual labor.
“But it is one in the afternoon, which is normally a pause. The businesses close from 12:30 to 3:30 and then open again until about 7:30 in the evening.”
“That’s great, thank you!” said Lora.
“Perfect, see? We can find the hotel, hang out a little, and then come back to city hall this afternoon,” said Vilmari. “Come on, let’s go.”
“City hall is only open in the mornings, however.” He dropped the hammer into a toolbox.
“No! That means I have to wait until tomorrow morning to go,” Lora said, turning to Vilmari.
“Mornings every day except Wednesday. On Wednesday, they are closed completely.” The worker pulled up the hat slightly and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Wait. That can’t be. I’ve got to speak to the mayor urgently.
I even tried to email city hall and was advised to speak to the mayor directly.
Do you know where I can find him? It’s so important that I get started on my, um—” She paused, wondering how to sum up what she was about to attempt. “Project. My very important project.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help. You’ll have to get to the comune—ah, city hall, I mean—on Thursday morning. He’s usually there by nine.” He turned back toward the building and reached back into the toolbox.
“Oh, so you know him?”
He paused in his bent-over stance with a sheaf of sandpaper in his hand. “We’re a small town. It’s hard not to know people’s habits.”