Chapter 12
The second Jacopo’s mum gives us the all-clear, I rush to my room and drop on to the bed without even taking my shoes off.
I go straight to Google to see if I can get to Florence and back without anyone noticing.
There are loads of trains. Two hours each way on the fast ones.
My thoughts start sprinting. Maybe at the weekend?
Then I check the prices. The trains that make it possible would wipe out what’s left in my account. I know, because I check that too. The cheaper ones take four or five hours, with changes, which means being gone most of the day. No way to slip under the radar.
Right now, I’m wishing I’d accepted the science placement and saved myself the hassle.
My phone buzzes.
Griselda: Rethinking your life choices?
My mouth goes dry. Does she …?
Another buzz.
Griselda: Day one is brutal. But you’ll get an ear for the language and into the routine soon enough.
I sink back into the mattress, the panic draining off. I should be grateful. She’s trying, in her bossy know-it-all way.
Then she spoils it with another message.
Griselda: Paola just asked me if she has the right number. Did you get her texts?
I set my phone face-down on the bedside table. It rattles against the wood as more messages arrive, and it takes me a second to realize Leo’s doing his gondolier call – from my bedroom door this time.
I refuse to play. ‘What is it?’
‘Dinner’s ready.’
Oh no. Dinner. I haven’t had to face Veronica since the portrait reveal, and I’m dreading it.
Jacopo’s mum has cooked a fish that was probably swimming in the lagoon this morning. There’s also grilled veg, polenta chips and a green garlicky thing that smells amazing. It breaks my heart that I have absolutely zero appetite.
We’re back in the dining room tonight, but I miss the kitchen.
It isn’t any smaller, but it’s Jacopo’s mum’s space, and somehow that makes it cosy – even with all the fancy appliances and spotless marble worktops.
Real marble, not the fake stuff we have at home that curls at the edges and shows the flaky chipboard underneath.
I follow Veronica’s lead, picking at each dish separately instead of piling everything together. At least I’m learning table manners if not art.
‘So … Evie.’ Veronica peers at me over her glasses. ‘I’ve been so busy dealing with the Carnevale problem, I’ve barely asked anything about you. How did you come to be on the InterSTEAM project?’
Translation: After seeing your catastrophe of a portrait today, Evie, I’m now wondering why on earth Silvia picked you.
I need to tread carefully around the lies I’ve told, to my parents, to my school.
‘My sister did the science programme a few years ago and said I should apply too.’ I swallow. ‘I had a good chance of getting in because the requirements are very specific. Grades, Italian language, parental income and all that.’
Veronica frowns. ‘Your parents had to earn over a certain amount?’
‘Erm … no.’ I look down at my plate. ‘Under a certain amount.’
‘Ah. I see.’
I think she does. She sees the real me – the one who has no right to be in her fancy palazzo, eating her fancy food, and taking her fancy art classes.
‘Do you even go to art school?’ Veronica presses.
I’m vaguely aware of Leo paying attention for once, like he’s curious too.
‘Raeburn Academy has an art department, but my sister … sorry, my parents, wanted me to do science instead. The timetable wouldn’t allow both, so I dropped art last year.’
Veronica pauses. ‘Did you say Raeburn Academy?’
No. There’s no way she knows our high school. It’s rural, mostly kids from nearby towns and villages. The council’s always threatening to mothball it. Folk in Edinburgh won’t even have heard of it, never mind Venice.
Veronica pushes her glasses higher on to the bridge of her nose. ‘I think I know what’s happened. Silvia must have assumed the school was affiliated with Henry Raeburn.’
My face is blank.
‘The Scottish portrait artist?’
Oh. Those weirdly intense expectations Veronica had of me suddenly make sense.
She thought my school was a fancy art one.
That I was formally trained and had come up through the usual pipeline.
Not some underprivileged teenager blagging her way in with an ancient iPad and a hidden inbox full of intercepted emails.
‘I did send a portfolio,’ I say quietly. My eyes drift – anywhere but her face – and land on the massive portrait of her husband behind her. I still think I’ve seen it somewhere else. Or something close to it. A pose, a style, a familiarity I can’t place.
Veronica speaks again.
‘I’m sure you did everything correctly, Evie.
The mix-up is almost certainly on our end.
’ She reaches across the table, but it’s so massive, she ends up patting the gleaming wood instead of my hand.
I think it’s meant to be comforting. ‘That said, InterSTEAM has given us a great deal of funding, so we must make sure everything is … in order.’
My stomach clenches. What does that mean? Is she saying I shouldn’t be here, that I’ve put the whole Institute at risk by sneaking in? By not being good enough? What if Veronica – or worse, Silvia – double-checks my paperwork and notices the email addresses don’t match?
Leo disappears to log on to a livestream his dad’s doing from a different time zone, so at least I don’t have to deal with him after dinner.
I can’t face my parents either, so I fob them off with a text about being knackered after a long day in the lab.
Paola’s messages are still sitting there – but what can I even say?
I crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head. But my brain refuses to go dark.
What happens if I get booted off the course? Do I have to book a new flight? With what money? Do they charge more if you leave a country in shame? Would I have to refund the funding?
And even worse … no certificate. No art college.
I only have myself to blame, too. If I’d been any good, I wouldn’t be worrying about this. It was my stupid, awful portrait of Leo that got me into this mess.
I toy with the idea of messaging Rebel, but I feel too low, too empty, and have nothing worth sharing.
My phone stays silent.