Chapter Six #5
Jade flushed. However understandingly Rosalie stated that, it didn’t reflect well on Jade.
The waiter returned. She ordered trota salmonata al forno and Bock beer.
The other two ordered tagliatelle al ragù.
Erin ordered sforzato, which was noted in the menu as top local red wine.
Rosalie ordered water under its Italian name of acqua minerale.
Then Erin once again turned to challenging Rosalie’s comments. ‘Who the pensione goes to isn’t up to Jade. It’s Italian law.’
‘I get that.’ Rosalie flicked a fly away with a beringed hand, looking supremely unbothered by Erin’s frowns.
‘But that wouldn’t stop her feeling as if it was going to be hers and as if we’ve turned up to take it from her.
It was a shock to me, because I’ve never owned so much as a brick of a building, so it must have been worse for her. ’
‘Oh. I get it.’ Erin sent Jade a discomfited glance, taking out a pair of sunglasses and sliding them on, as the evening sun slanted over the constant boat traffic ruffling the lake.
‘I suppose Three Sisters must be worth a mint. Mary Smith said that Jade agrees to stay on and run the place, but we’ll be entitled to a share of the profits.
We’ll need to come up with a plan for how to formalise that, because I don’t want to work at the pensione. Do you, Rosalie?’
Rosalie unscrewed the cap from the water bottle and filled a glass as she shook her head. ‘It’s not that easy since Brexit, anyway. It’s all permits and crap.’
‘Even with an Italian parent?’ Erin tilted her head consideringly.
Jade broke in. ‘But it’s not about money.’ Sudden tears burned the backs of her eyes, and, despite her best efforts, her voice shook with a mixture of anger and anxiety. ‘Three Sisters is my home and my work and . . . and . . . my world.’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound dismissive.’ Erin proffered a paper napkin for her to blot her eyes.
Rosalie pushed Jade’s beer closer. In a mock-consoling voice, she said, ‘See. Told you that you hated us.’
Jade wasn’t sure whether she was meant to laugh. She settled for blowing her nose and drying her eyes. ‘I don’t hate anyone.’ She eased her throat with several sips of ice-cold beer. ‘I realise that we have a lot to discuss about how things are going to work out. I thought—’
‘Maybe we should just get used to each other, for today.’ Erin sipped her wine. ‘Let’s enjoy this gorgeous spot.’
Though Jade wasn’t keen on Erin’s apparent habit of making decrees and expecting others to fall in with them, she joined the conversation about the lake, and how it shone like mercury at this time of day when the sun ducked behind a cloud, how it would be to live in one of the villas clinging to the tree-clothed mountains, and, when it arrived, the beautifully fresh pasta.
Rosalie ate only half her meal, which might, Jade thought, explain her willowy shape.
Erin, with her small frame, didn’t finish all her tagliatelle either, but Jade, being neither willowy nor elfin, cleared her plate of baked fish and pasta.
She put down her napkin and said, ‘Twelve-hour days cooking, cleaning, climbing stairs and changing beds demands a good intake of calories,’ as if one of them had called her on her appetite.
They were interrupted by Erin’s phone. She frowned at it impatiently and then began typing with her thumbs. ‘Sorry. Must answer this.’
Tentatively, Rosalie asked Jade, ‘Do you still want to run Pensione Three Sisters? Say now, if not.’
‘Of course!’ Jade grimaced. ‘I wasn’t complaining about the work – only justifying clearing my plate.’
Rosalie looked relieved, then gazed out at the lake where the blues and pinks of sunset were combining into a lavender wash that turned the water the pinky-grey that Gran had called ‘ashes of roses’. Insects began to flit delicately around the twinkle lights above the tables.
Erin rose. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘Need to make a quick call.’ As she stepped away, she was putting her phone to her ear and was soon talking animatedly about a ‘pop-up activation’.
‘What in the world is “a pop-up activation”? She seems very work-centric,’ Rosalie said idly.
Jade agreed from what she’d seen of Erin so far, but could shed no light on what a pop-up activation was or did. ‘Coffee?’
The younger woman shook her head, making her hair flip around her shoulders. It was the kind of casual style that probably only needed an occasional trim. ‘Caffeine gives me migraines.’ Rosalie drank from her water glass, as if to emphasise her happiness with her coffee-less status.
Erin returned, looking distracted. ‘Would anyone mind if I went back? I need my laptop and the Wi-Fi.’
Rosalie got up as well. ‘I’ll head off too. I feel wiped out.’
‘Sure. I’ll hang on for coffee.’ Jade smiled politely as Rosalie grabbed her bag and trailed off in Erin’s wake.
She sat on, sipping the rich, black brew that she probably shouldn’t drink so close to bedtime, head and heart warring, emotions yanked this way and that – guilt that she was being prickly; resentment and curiosity about Rosalie and Erin.
Dismay and hurt at Gran, and apprehension about her future at Pensione Three Sisters.
And if being left with the tab at restaurants proved to be the preserve of the eldest sister, Erin and Rosalie could eat without her in future.