27. Maggie
27
maggie
13 years and eleven months since Paris
1 month and 4 days since Colt listened to me and stopped texting.
3 ⒈／⒉ months since the note.
Flipping nightmare. That’s what this is. “House of horrors!” I scream in the front of the house then head back inside the villa.
I waited for this place. I waited months, but then it lined up perfectly with my new teaching job. But I forgot, I don’t get perfect. Oh, man, I messed this up. The best thing about this place is the damn lemons. I like lemons. They smell amazing and perfume the air but of course there’s giant Italian bees. I summoned the caretaker to ask about the bees and he handed me another basket of lemons. And that’s when I got a good look at the caretaker and his housekeeper wife.
They might be the biggest obstacle in this falling down villa. Bigger than there being no glass or screens in any of the windows. Just quaint, ill fitting, rustic shutters that don’t keep the hive of bees out of my kitchen.
The ancient couple are shuffling across the kitchen floor and it’s taken them a good twenty minutes to get their feet to work. I’m not sure if they’re coming or going since they’re moving so slowly. They have such kind eyes I can’t possibly ask them to do things for me. And they don’t speak English. She slowly lifts her arm and I wait in anticipation to figure out what she’s trying to do. I could probably pop some popcorn and settle into the couch before she’s done raising her arm. I wait with bated breath when finally she points at a rag on the counter. I hand it to her and she nods.
I point to the bees again and he walks away, grumbling about something. It’s boiling outside and I’m terrified that man is going to get heat stroke on my watch and the ancient car that came with the rental won’t be fast enough to drive the fifteen minutes into the city of Lucca. I don’t know where to look up that kind of conversation. Do I ask if they have health care or allergies I need to know about should I have to run them to an emergency room? I need an action plan.
The housekeeper, who I think is named Affamata, keeps pointing at me and saying her name. “Affamata? Affamata.” I point to myself and say, “Maggie.” We do this dance four or five times, then I point outside to her husband. And ask, “Come si chiama?”
“Rocco.” I toss my hands up because finally we’re getting somewhere. She turns away and wipes down the counters and snaps a towel on the edge of the sink. I jump at the noise. But then she fills a bucket. She can barely lift it out of the sink when I rush over to take it from her.
Rocco’s in the front hall shuffling and grunting, but I focus on his wife. Affamata grabs a sponge and a scrub brush and snorts as she attempts to squat. She’s going to hand wash the floors. No. That’s not a thing this woman can do. There’s dirt piled up in the corners. There’s no flipping glass in a lot of the windows in this dusty old ruin of a building that looks perfect but is, in fact, a nightmare.
I pull out a chair and point to it, taking the scrub brush from her and I wash the tile floor. She chatters on and on and tries to get out of the chair, but I pop up every time, thank god for my pickleball quickness, and put her back. I can’t have this woman on her knees for me.
When I’m done with the little kitchen area, I dump the bucket in the sink. And wander to the front of the house. There’s intense clanging in the kitchen and Rocco appears in front of me. He hands me two sets of keys then yells for Affamata. “Venga, la moglie.” It comes out strained and again I worry about him. I call after her too. “Affamata!” I don’t know if either of them has heard anything in decades. He laughs at me, and I just grin not knowing what kind of joke I made.
She scurries, which takes about twenty minutes for her to go from the back of the house to the door. She’s muttering the whole time. I hand them a lemon from the basket, but they shake me off.
They pat me on the shoulder, turn and leave on the word, “Domani.” Which I quickly look up.
“Tomorrow.” What the hell do they think their job is? And what am I supposed to do with them?
I wander into the kitchen, and there’s a warm plate of what appears to be risotto with mushrooms and chicken on top. It’s piccata because of the lemons and capers but when the hell did that antique fairy sprite make this? Maybe she’s the magic.
I eat quickly and clean up. And now, after a full day of traveling and working around the house, I want to fade into bed.
I take the elastic out of my hair, whip my bra off, and drag my body upstairs. I only saw the room briefly this afternoon when I tossed some of my things here and opened all my suitcases neatly onto the bed. At the top of the stairs, there’s a flurry of something to my left and down the hallway toward one of the other bedrooms. More bees, I assume until the swooping.
Fuck.
Are they birds? Please be birds in the house. Please be birds. Diane Lane got birds. Can I just have birds? I glance at my bedroom, but then there’s a rush of sound before a cloud of black and twisty rats are in the air. I shiver as they swoop low enough to ruffle my hair.
“ No ma’am! Not at all. This is not at all. Fuck.” I scream, throwing my bra at one and missing completely. They don’t like that at all, because now there are more of them. I tighten my hand around my hair and pull my shirt up over my head. I slam the bedroom door closed and the dominant hallway bats are doing loops through the bathroom and into the front bedroom. I scream again and run toward them, hoping they’ll scatter like squirrels as I make my way back to the stair.
I don’t stop screaming until I’m in the little office downstairs, the only place other than a bathroom with a door on the first floor. And the only place without windows. The rest is some kind of open floor plan from the Middle Ages. Where is the freaking glass in the windows? Why is it all open like I’m camping in a defective tent? At least glamping would have a bed and netting of some sort.
I shake and shimmy like they’re on me. I check and recheck my body and the room. Gathering printer paper, I quickly stuff it all around the door. There’s no way Rocco, the decrepit caretaker can even climb those stairs, let alone deal with all that. I sit in the only chair in the room, a carved wooden chair that looks like it’s original to a medieval villa throne kind of thing. My adrenaline crashes and there’s zero way I’m leaving this room. I can’t stay awake so I curl up on the desk and pray I can sleep. Just before I drift off I say out loud like someone can hear me.
“I may have made a giant mistake.”