Chapter Seven
For much of the night, Jade tossed and turned, her mind too crowded to let sleep in. Would Rosalie and Erin let her buy them out of the pensione?
If so, with Pensione Three Sisters secure . . . would she want her half-sisters in her life? Would they want her?
Remembering Gran saying, ‘Make plans for your future in pencil,’ Jade snorted into the darkness.
‘It was easy for you to be wise, Gran. You knew what was coming at me.’ But if only she could have Gran back for even an hour .
. . not to blame her for her silence, but for a hug.
Those last few days in hospital, they’d hugged a lot.
It was a damned shame that nobody had invented celestial text, to get messages between this world and the next.
As sleep continued to feel as far away as the moon, she began rehearsing how things would go when she approached Erin and Rosalie to ask if they would let her buy them out. She formulated Plan A. She formulated Plan B. Reluctantly, she came up with Plan C, for if the first two failed.
When her phone’s alarm sounded at 5.45 a.m., unfairly, after so many wakeful hours, Jade was in the depths of slumber. Tapping the stop button, she closed her eyes again and toyed with slithering back into the inviting arms of sleep.
But as it wasn’t a realistic option, she forced herself awake and stumbled from her bed.
Showering and dressing, she mentally reviewed yesterday’s interactions with Erin and Rosalie, and, in the light of a new day, told herself she must improve.
Today, she would be friendlier. Today, she would lead the conversation.
Today, she’d focus on her goal of making Pensione Three Sisters her own rather than indulge in pointless emotional moments.
Once downstairs in the catering kitchen, she took in the bakery delivery at the back door, enveloping her in a fresh-baked, sweet aroma.
Swiftly, she transferred sugar-dusted cornetti, golden biscotti and warm rolls from flat cardboard trays to the tiered stands on the carved-wood buffet in the breakfast room.
Beside the breads and pastries, she placed salami, ham and pecorino cheese, apricots and apples, walnuts, wraps of butter and miniature jars of confettura – jams and preserves – the tiny red or yellow jars providing a splash of colour.
It was usually the Brits who ordered eggs or avocados on toast from the small hot-food menu, but guests of any nationality were delighted with the limitless supply of espresso, cappuccino and a variety of teas.
Carlotta arrived, as wiry as Vittoria was voluptuous, her hair and eyes about as dark as hair and eyes could be.
‘Ciao, ciao.’ She began chattering in rapid Italian about her girlfriend, Ludovica, whose mother wasn’t well.
It hadn’t been long after Carlotta’s divorce from Simone, the father of her children, that she’d come out as preferring women.
‘Shall I fill up?’ She indicated the row of coolers ready for water bottles, to be set out beside fruit-juice dispensers.
‘Sì. Grazie.’ Jade carried out a stack of white plates to the buffet and checked each table had its proper complement of cutlery.
Just after eight, Rosalie and Erin strolled into the breakfast room, Erin in smart, tailored blue shorts and Rosalie the same ripped, two-tone, cut-off denims as yesterday, teamed with a turquoise vest embroidered with the words summer bunny and exhibiting a butterfly tattoo on her upper arm.
‘Buongiorno,’ said Erin, evidently having made an early start on her Italian lessons.
‘Buongiorno,’ Rosalie echoed.
Jade smiled. ‘Buongiorno. Choose a table. Cappuccino, espresso? Tea?’ And, remembering Rosalie’s comment about caffeine the evening before, ‘We have mint or lemon, as well as breakfast and Earl Grey.’
A crease formed between Erin’s eyebrows. ‘I’d love a cappuccino. But I feel awkward about you waiting on us.’
At least she was direct. Jade shrugged. ‘For now, at least, you’re guests and it’s my job. There are a few hot things available from the menu card. Or please help yourself from the buffet.’
Eyes widening as she surveyed the beautifully arranged food, Rosalie sniffed the air like a dog. ‘Mm. What are the pastries?’
‘I suppose they’re not called croissants in Italy.’ Erin looked thoughtful.
‘People do, because tourists understand it,’ Jade answered. ‘Or cornetti or brioche. Today we have cornetto alla marmellata, which is with jam or marmalade, alla crema, which is custard, and al cioccolato.’
‘Ooh, cioccolato.’ Rosalie obviously needed no translation of that word.
When Jade returned with a steaming cappuccino for Erin, they’d already helped themselves to sharp-smelling apple juice and pastries that left flakes on their fingers.
Erin thanked Jade. ‘I don’t suppose you can join us?’ She gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table.
Jade shook her head. ‘I am hoping we could talk again now we’ve all slept on things, though. I have both Carlotta and Vittoria today, so I’m not needed to service rooms. Could we meet at about eleven in the apartment, when the after-breakfast clearing and relaying is out of the way?’
‘Of course,’ Rosalie said.
‘You’ve got it,’ Erin added.
Later, after the last guest had departed breakfast, Jade and Carlotta worked quickly to clear, floating laundry-fresh white cloths over the tables before setting a pink one diagonally on top.
Carlotta, though aware of Erin and Rosalie’s relationship to Jade, asked no questions.
She seemed to understand the keeping of one’s business to oneself, perhaps because she’d hidden her sexuality from her conservative family for years.
Instead, she rolled her eyes and told Jade a story about how her two teenage sons had embarked on an enterprise accompanying tourists on hikes, and yesterday had lost one.
‘Not for ever,’ Carlotta clarified. ‘Luckily.’
After giggling at Carlotta’s wry exasperation, Jade sent her to join Vittoria in cleaning rooms and making beds while she did the final sanitising of the kitchen.
When she finally whisked back through the now-immaculate breakfast room to Reception, it was bang on eleven.
She found Rosalie chatting easily to Yara about Switzerland while Erin was glued to her phone screen, in what seemed a habitual connection.
‘I’m here,’ Jade said unnecessarily, before showing them once again through the apartment door marked Privato, along the tiny passage and into the kitchen.
Erin took her laptop from her bag. ‘I thought I’d make notes.’
‘Very efficient.’ Rosalie gave a roguish smile that made Jade remember Gran saying Joey could be charming. Maybe he’d passed that on to Rosalie because Jade was sure if she’d made the same remark, it would have sounded snarky.
She reached into a drawer for a pen and pad to make notes of her own.
‘Now,’ she began, before anyone else could take charge of the meeting.
‘There’s no etiquette book for our situation.
’ She added a smile. ‘So, we must decide what to do once the property taxes are paid ready for you to formally inherit. Probably Mary has to put everything through the general registry office – ufficio del registro.’ She took a breath and kept her voice even as she launched into Plan A.
‘When the paperwork’s in order, I’d like to buy you out.
Converting your inheritance to liquid funds makes more sense for you both than owning a third of a business you know nothing about in a country you can’t live in.
Of course, we’ll get several valuations to be fair and businesslike.
’ When they only stared at her, one pair of eyes whisky brown and the other honey, she added, ‘I hope you won’t want to outvote me and sell to someone else while I’m raising the finance, but I acknowledge that possibility.
’ She’d come up with that phrase while rehearsing her pitch last night.
Acknowledging possibilities reassured people that you were prepared to negotiate.
‘But I don’t want to sell to you. Or anyone,’ Erin said calmly, as if she were merely casting a vote for a different brand of coffee in the workplace. ‘You said yourself that the pensione is about more than money.’
Rosalie’s gaze was sympathetic, yet she was no more co-operative.
‘I don’t want to sell either, I’m afraid.
Mairead was my grandmother too. I didn’t have the chance to know and love her, but I love the idea of inheriting something that’s part of her.
Dad waived his right to inherit and we’ll all own a greater portion of Three Sisters because he did. ’
Though Jade’s heart grew heavier with every word, she hung on to her smile.
‘I understand, Rosalie. It would be more expensive if I had to buy him out as well.’ She could be generous in acknowledging this, as it was moot, but she realised with a flutter of panic that Plan A had been so summarily dismissed that Plan B might have little chance of success.
Still, she licked her lips and tried again.
‘How about if I could offer you above market value?’
Erin and Rosalie were already shaking their heads, looking awkward but determined.
‘We could have suggested getting a chain interested, if inflating the price was important,’ Erin pointed out gently.
Rosalie nodded. ‘We just don’t want to sell.’
Hot tears bloomed at the back of Jade’s eyes and disappointment crushed her ribcage.
Why couldn’t they have greeted her ideas as the precursor to lots of dosh to enjoy their lives with?
She blinked several times. ‘In that case,’ she said unsteadily, bringing out Plan C with a sense of inevitability.
‘I suppose that I continue to manage and take my salary, and we share profits equally.’
Without probing further or suggesting Jade’s share be adjusted because she lived in the apartment rent-free, Erin nodded straight away. ‘As I mentioned last night.’
Rosalie agreed. ‘It’s fair.’
Numb with disappointment, Jade tried to process the magnitude of her plans turning to dust.
A knock fell on the apartment door, then Vittoria popped her head into the kitchen. ‘Scusa, Jade. The laundry’s on the phone about Monday’s pick up.’
She’d spoken in Italian, but ‘telefono’ was easy to translate, and Erin and Rosalie both rose. Rosalie turned back and gave Jade a hard hug. ‘See you later?’
Jade could only nod.
After she’d taken the telephone call in the front office, she stared sightlessly through the window at an orange bus rumbling along the street and remembered Rosalie’s hug, feeling the slender arms around her again. Warm. Friendly.
Gran would have approved of that hug. She would have returned it with interest and probably tried to swing Rosalie off her feet, giggling if they both nearly toppled over.
She sighed. ‘OK, Gran,’ she said aloud. ‘I can’t pretend Rosalie and Erin aren’t going to be in my life. They’re here. Happy now?’