Chapter 14
“When I die,” Lora spoke into her laptop, “I want them to serve this at my funeral. That’s how good it was.
” Lora sat against the headboard at the hotel with a pillow on her lap supporting her computer.
She couldn’t wait to have a desk or a table to sit at again and was hoping she could rig up some kind of workspace at Andrea’s.
“But you’ll be dead,” said Vilmari, still in her pajamas.
“Yeah, but everyone else will remember me for sharing dessert pizza with them. What could be better?”
“Not being dead? You realize that when you said ‘Nutella,’ it didn’t really matter what came after that.
” Vilmari turned away from the camera and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Although I can’t believe the beginning part of the story.
Did your mother really not know that Ivo was sending money to you all that time? Why didn’t the bank try to find you?”
“I have no idea, but there’s no way my mom knew. I don’t think she would have ignored thousands of dollars sitting in the bank because she really loved being a hostess at Captain Barb’s Oceanside Grill, home of the Ooh-La-Lobster Dip.”
“I’m sure you’re right. She wouldn’t have stuck around. I didn’t know her, but you can tell from those old movies that she had something special—too special for Captain Barb anyway.”
“She was special. She never complained about her life, but I swear she breathed different air than other people. She still had that Hollywood vibe even though Vero Beach was about as far from it as you could get.” Lora laughed.
“And you’re right. Even in those tiny little parts she had, you could see she was really something. ”
Lora looked down, feeling the tears come again. She hadn’t cried about her mom in ages.
“Ahh, don’t cry, Mami! What’s making you sad?”
“It’s that we didn’t talk about Ivo, you know?
And I was OK with that. Now I’m out here practically asking the man who never was for help even though I never wanted her to think I was missing anything.
I wanted her to know I was always OK with just us,” Lora sobbed.
“She gave up everything for me. Am I betraying her now just to get what I want? Without me, she would have given Julia Roberts some serious competition. Or who else was famous back then? Uma Thurman? My mother would have been so good in Pulp Fiction!”
“You’re not betraying her! You can’t think that way. Besides, she loved you! Do you think she would have given that up for anything in the world?”
“I dunno, Mar, Kill Bill?” she wept.
“Mmm, that yellow jumpsuit was dope,” Vilmari said, suppressing a laugh.
“I don’t know what to think. And then—well, and then there’s Andrea.” Lora got up to get a tissue.
“Is there Andrea?” Vilmari cocked her head and grinned.
“We kissed,” she yelled from the bathroom.
“Nice.”
“Twice.” Lora sat in front of the camera again, blowing her nose. “And he’s been so sweet to me!”
“Even better.”
“You’re not excited!”
“Because I am waiting for the part where you tell me that it’s a bad idea, that it’s only temporary, that you don’t have time…” Vilmari trailed off.
“Well, all of that is true,” said Lora as her phone chimed.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Vilmari grinned.
“How do you know?” asked Lora. She looked down, flinched. Damn her, she was right.
“Because it’s not me,” Vilmari said, brushing her hair back behind her shoulder with a flourish.
“And you’re the only person who texts me?”
“Not anymore,” Vilmari said, taking a long sip of coffee out of her mug that said, KEEP CALM AND MANDALOS PAL’ CARAJO.
Lora glanced down to see the message.
Andrea:
Keys are ready when you are
Hope u slept well:)
“Am I wrong?” asked Vilmari.
“Are you ever?” said Lora, laughing.
In her entire life, Lora had only ever lived in two homes.
Andrea’s house would be the third. She kept trying to remind herself that it was only temporary.
Since she had planned on having time to get back to New York before the postdoc started, the little Bushwick apartment with the pink and black subway tile in the bathroom was still her real home.
She walked into the kitchen, smelling the new paint, and part of her wished her mom could see it.
She only hoped that Pamela would overlook her need for Ivo.
Pamela used to say that he was good with the horses because his mind worked the same way theirs did.
In all honesty, Lora thought that it sounded a bit cliché—the wild stallion of a man who could not be tamed and therefore was never going to change his life to go play family.
Maybe that wasn’t even it. Maybe Pam and Ivo weren’t right for each other and that was that.
It didn’t have to be dramatic. In fact, she’d assumed that it was not.
It was simply the case of a father who was not going to be a dad, end of story.
But she’d never imagined there would be a footnote.
“What do you think? Do you like the backsplash? I think it came out great,” Andrea said, setting her suitcase down in the entryway.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, running her hands over the green tile.
“I can’t believe it all came together this fast.” She looked around the open space of the first floor.
There was no real living room furniture, but there was a wood table and a few mismatched chairs by the kitchen.
Aside from dishes, a few pots and a moka had appeared inside the cabinets.
A stack of brand-new tea towels sat on the counter next to the sink.
“Those were extras from my place,” he said. “You have to come up and see the bathroom. I know it might be inconvenient to have the only bathroom on the second floor, but at least you won’t have to go too far in the middle of the night.”
“Actually, I’ve only ever lived on one floor, so it would definitely be much weirder to have to find the stairs in the dark,” she said, following him up the stairs.
The bathroom was bigger than her whole apartment back home, with a tile floor, glass-wall shower, toilet, and bidet.
There was a double vanity sink on the longest wall with brass fixtures and a deep ledge built out from the window that was just begging for an upholstered cushion.
Would she curl up in the bathroom to read by the window?
Certainly not in New York—but in Italy? Her mind drifted to other uses for a bathroom window seat.
Maybe a pet would perch there. Maybe it could be a great spot for plants.
Maybe Andrea would lean against it while watching her take a shower and then eventually take his clothes off so that he could—“Wow!” she exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than necessary. “It’s really more than I imagined!”
“I could have gone with the smaller vanity with one sink, but I would eventually want it to have two, so I went with the bigger option.”
“It’s perfect.”
“It’s functional,” he said, heading back out to the hallway. “You have a bed now. Nico brought the mattress over this morning.”
“It’s new,” she said, eyeing the plastic cover.
“Yes and no,” he said, pulling at the plastic to tear it off. “It was supposed to be for the guest bedroom at my parents’ house on the ground floor. But when my mom broke her hip, they decided to move their bedroom downstairs, and no one ever got around to setting up a guest room, so it sat there.”
“And they donated to my cause?” She laughed. “I’d like to thank them.”
“They aren’t aware that a donation was made in their name, but yes, when I get around to telling them, you can thank them.”
“I imagine it’s not on your priority list to talk about me right now, so don’t worry about it.”
“No, it’s not that. I just want to have a better idea of your timeline before I make a mistake and tell them too much about you while you’re here and then you’ll be forced to experience the onslaught of the Italian mother of a single son.”
“Got it. Better wait till I’m gone.” She smirked, even though she didn’t like the feeling of the words as they left her mouth.
His phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket to glance down at it.
“Excuse me,” he said. “This is important.” She could hear the formal tone in this voice, the one he used when he needed to be mayoral, so she figured he might be a while.
She wandered around the gigantic empty room, observing.
She’d need to buy sheets, at least, but not too much else.
Maybe she’d get a clothing rack to keep her things off the floor.
She could get an area rug too. It might be nice to feel something cozy underfoot when she stepped out of bed in the morning.
And maybe a curtain for the window to close if she needed to.
She shook her head. What was she thinking?
This wasn’t a real home. She only needed sheets, a towel, a coffee cup, that’s it—like she was in a military bunk.
Anything else was superfluous. This was a stop on the journey, not the destination.
“All good?” she asked when he returned to the room. His face was dark, as if he were turning something over in his mind.
“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, and her stomach sank. Never in the history of ever did a conversation that started out like that turn pleasant.
“OK. I can’t stay here, right? Something happened with the documents? Am I being deported?”
“No.” He smiled, light flooding back in. “I know that you don’t want to talk about your father, but I can’t lie to you, and this concerns him.”
“Go,” she said, waving her open palm in mock welcome.