Читать книгу Stick Shift - Mary Leo - Страница 9

“THIS FOOD should not be fed to a dog!” the deep voice beside her growled.

It had been a miserable, turbulent flight so far and now Garlic Guy wanted to complain about his breakfast. Lucy wished he would just shut up.

Actually, she thought her tiny omelette du jour, filled with some kind of unrecognizable cheese-like substance, was rather tasty.

She didn’t want to even look at him, even give him the slightest indication she recognized his presence, but he poked her in the arm to get her attention.

“How you eat that? It’s not food. It’s plastic. That’s what it is, plastic food.”

Despite herself, Lucy had to answer. “I think it’s wonderful! Best eggs I’ve ever eaten.”

He made a dismissive gesture, and called for an attendant.

Lucy continued to enjoy her breakfast, making little yummy sounds as she chewed. She had to admit there were parts of the omelette that tasted like dishwater, but she would never say it out loud.

“Take this away. I should eat my shoe rather than smell what you call an omelette,” Garlic Guy said to the male flight attendant who stood in the aisle. “Look,” he continued as he pulled off his black leather sandal. Everybody around him turned to watch, even Lucy. “This shoe, my shoe, tastes better.” He took a bite.

Ironically, part of his sandal came off in his mouth. Lucy sat there, gawking. The flight attendant, a tall Harry Potter look-alike, stood spellbound, until some kid said, “Gross!”

Lucy couldn’t believe her eyes. Mr. Garlic was actually chewing his own shoe.

Disgusting.

Fine, she thought, I’m destined to be tormented by this shoe-eating, garlic-toting idiot. I must have done something bad in a past life, or the current one, and he’s my punishment.

VITTORIO had to admit he amazed himself when a piece of leather came off in his mouth. He never actually meant to eat his own shoe, but there it was, sliding around, mixing with saliva, breaking into pieces. The taste was rather interesting, certainly better than the omelette. Would he actually swallow?

But the girl next to him was waiting. Watching. So, he swallowed. And just like that, Vittorio Bandini had eaten a piece of his own shoe.

“It is good,” he said, beaming.

“I’ll need you to calm down, sir. And if you want to eat your shoe, please wait until the plane has landed,” the attendant said as he removed the offending breakfast tray.

Vittorio put his shoe back on his foot, a concession he went along with because the leather had immediately upset his stomach. And if he didn’t relax he would vomit all over the pretty, brown-eyed beauty sitting next to him.

She was the type of girl Vittorio was attracted to, the type of girl who made his heart race; a beautiful, brown-haired Penelope Cruz type. His dream girl. He would not vomit on his dream girl.

He refused to believe it was the leather, the fine Italian leather, that made him sick, so he blamed it on the foul-smelling breakfast instead. The rotten eggs kept him from making a move on the Madonna next to him, not the shoe leather.

Vittorio unstrapped his seatbelt, pushed himself up from his seat, and stepped over the Madonna, squishing her toe as he climbed out.

“So sorry, signorina,” he mumbled about a dozen times. She shot him a nasty, pained look and he headed up the aisle toward the toilets.

Never again, Vittorio thought as his stomach churned and flipped. Never again would he eat shoe leather, even if it was Italian.

LIMPING UP the aisle, Lucy found another seat a few rows away from the shoe eater. She wondered what the hell was wrong with her? Why was she being so silly? Who makes yummy sounds over airplane food?

She couldn’t come up with an answer.

A young kid in the aisle seat concentrating on his electronic game paid absolutely no attention to Lucy as she crawled over him. He was the perfect traveling companion. She could do anything she wanted and he would never notice.

She popped a couple of Tums, tucked her sore foot up next to her butt and detached the phone in the seat ahead, to call Seth.

When he didn’t answer, she left a long-winded message about work and obligation and how much she missed him already and not to worry. She would be back in plenty of time for the wedding.

Their wedding…in exactly six days from that very moment. The vision made her smile: a church filled with family and friends, her dad walking her down the aisle, her white dress (the one her mother made her get…the one that looked like an exploded marshmallow, but she wasn’t going to dwell on negatives) shimmering in the sunlight that beamed in through the windows and fell on Seth’s face…dear Seth…dear, sweet Seth.

Okay, so he wasn’t exactly a “dear” or “sweet” kind of guy. He was more the logical Dilbert kind, who was absolutely perfect for her, if she overlooked his funky sex-only-on-Friday-night habit, and the fact that at twenty-seven she had never had an actual orgasm with him or any other guy for that matter, and the fact that he was obsessed with their careers in electronics.

Actually, she thought he was a lot like her dad—also a design engineer, who promoted working long hours and giving up personal time for the job. The dad-clone-thing traits were just what a girl wanted in a fiancé.

Weren’t they?

She dialed Seth’s cell phone this time, thinking she needed to apologize for last Friday night. She hadn’t been in the mood. “But it’s Friday. Sexday,” Seth had said, almost whining. Like, Saturday was actually Laundryday, and Sunday, Groceryday. Seth had worked out a daily schedule for his life, their life, but for some reason, lately, Lucy wasn’t able to keep up.

A perky blond flight attendant with a pasted-on smile interrupted the apology-call to offer her a cup of coffee.

Lucy snapped the phone into its holder.

“No, thanks,” Lucy said, thinking perhaps she’d make the call later, once she was settled in her room, once she could come up with a logical reason why packing had seemed like a better alternative to Sexday.

The shoe eater stood in the aisle directly behind the attendant, looking rather ill. He wasn’t particularly handsome, his nose was a little too long, his hair too shiny-black for his light olive skin, and he had the strangest colored eyes, some sort of a brown-hazel-green combination.

She couldn’t imagine what all the fuss had been about. Why she had to move in closer when she stood behind him in line. Why she had to watch him as he ate his shoe, or felt the need to tell him about her breakfast. He was just your typical, ordinary, unexceptional quirky guy.

Then he smiled. Smiled right at her.

A mischievous grin that required a return gesture. It was a natural reaction. A reflex. A totally spontaneous occurrence that gave her goose bumps and made her toes itch. The guy was so utterly charismatic. So completely awesome that she had no choice but to return his beam. With that smile, he looked like the type of guy who could have a hot babe draped on each arm.

Cufflinks, Sinatra used to say.

She smiled right back at him, a wide, toothy Julia Roberts grin.

Don’t stare, she told herself as he tried to make his way past the attendant, but Lucy was powerless. There was something about him.

Something in the way he moved.

She noticed his hands first, the long fingers with the manicured nails that grabbed at the backs of the seats for balance as the plane hit a pocket of turbulence. She wondered what they would feel like against her skin—soft and smooth or rough with calluses?

She liked the way his deep-green sweater clung to his trim body. Liked the way it made his skin seem to glisten. She even liked the way he wore his hair, cropped short, almost old-Roman style, but with skinny sideburns.

A great look, she thought. Seductive.

Lucy continued to stare as he walked right past her without a word. Without so much as a nod of recognition, as though he had been smiling at air.

She sighed and turned toward the window. Bright blue. Miles and miles of bright blue. As if the plane wasn’t moving at all. As if she were caught in a blue capsule, suspended in the middle of forever. The thought made her stomach roll as she searched inside her purse for a tranquilizer.

AS IT TURNED OUT, the shoe leather settled nicely inside Vittorio’s stomach and the walk to the toilets cleared away any lingering nausea. Perhaps it wasn’t the walk at all, Vittorio thought, but the bella signorina staring up at him. The girl he had been sitting next to, wearing a beautiful white pant suit with her shoulders wrapped in a red scarf. Now that he had dared to get a good look at her, he never wanted to look at another. Que bella!

He could not leave the airplane without officially meeting her.

By the time he decided to turn around with his new mission, a serving cart blocked any hope he had of meeting the beauty in red.

Attendants busied themselves with morning liquids, forcing him to wait.

Vittorio had come from Italia to San Francisco to attend a culinary conference at the Masconi Convention Center. Ever since he was a young boy, he had wanted to see San Francisco. It was only in the last year, when his small restaurant in Napoli had become a hit, that he could afford the trip. La Bella Note was a huge success due to Vittorio’s scrumptious recipes.

The conference had proved to be disappointing for Vittorio. He’d thought he would learn something new, something exciting, but instead he had taught the teachers. One man, who called himself an Italian chef, tried to make a pistachio pesto with nuts that came from North Carolina.

Vittorio didn’t exactly know where North Carolina was located in the United States, but he did know it wasn’t anywhere near Sicily. Anyone who called himself an Italian chef would know there were no other pistachios in the entire world to compare with the flavor of the Sicilian pistachio. Its silky herbal oil, and its vibrant green color exuded an incomparable flavor experience. Vittorio had brought a bag with him and had remade the pesto sauce for the ricotta ravioli. The chef couldn’t believe the difference in taste and invited Vittorio to cook with him on his TV show the next time he came to America.

But it would probably never happen because Vittorio hated to fly. To him, it was like being trapped inside a moving tin can without any room for mingling.

It amazed him that people flew so often they actually accumulated enough miles to fly for free. A car was better, or a ship. At least he could meet people along the way, and meeting people, especially women, was something Vittorio made a career of, like the Madonna sitting alone in the last row of the plane.

“Can you believe this?” he asked the long-legged blonde reading a Dean Koontz thriller. “I pay all the money and I cannot sit in my own seat.”

“Please,” she said with a sultry, deep voice. “There are plenty of seats in this row. Be my guest.”

Vittorio smiled and sat down right next to his latest dream girl.

WHEN THE PLANE landed in Rome on Monday morning, Lucy let out a sigh of relief. She had been busy on her laptop writing memos and creating charts for work. She had also made up a list of last-minute wedding details she would e-mail her mother later. Now she genuinely looked forward to the three-hour drive to Naples. She would listen to some local music, drink in the atmosphere, and grab a sandwich somewhere along the way because she honestly hadn’t been able to eat another airplane omelette.

Lucy actually toyed with the idea of postponing the eleven-thirty meeting with Giovanni, the lead engineer at Subito, the satellite for B-Logic, her Silicon-Valley-based electronics company. What she wanted more than anything else at that precise moment was a hot bath in her sure-to-be-fabulous room at the Santa Maria, but the chip had to tape out in a week to come out of fabrication in time for a demo at the Design Automation Conference in August. B-Logic could not afford to miss the show. Perhaps if she made a beeline to the car-rental counter she could make up some time on the road and get that bath before the meeting. A girl can only hope, she thought.

But she still had one major problem to take care of…her mother. Lucy hadn’t had the courage to make the call on Friday afternoon when she’d first found out that her promotion depended on this last-minute trip to Italy. And on Saturday she was busy packing, and she most definitely couldn’t call on the freeway and SFO was just too hectic. The real reason she hadn’t called was pure terror. Her mother would probably pop a vein over this whole thing, and Lucy wanted to be as far away as possible. She flipped opened her cell phone and pressed 9.

It only rang once.

“It’s late. What’s wrong?” her mother demanded.

The woman had a sixth sense. “Is that any way to answer your phone?”

“I knew it was you. Something’s wrong. My feet are burning.”

“It’s a hot flash.”

“I don’t have those anymore. Not since I got on the hormones. My feet only burn when there’s something wrong with my daughter.”

“Go soak your feet. There’s nothing wrong.”

“You’re not telling me the truth.”

Lucy sighed and leaned up against a wall. “Okay, you’re right. I’m on my way to Naples for work.”

“Now you go to Italy? I could never get you to go to Italy and for work you can go a week before your own wedding?”

“Mom, calm down.”

“Where are you?”

“In Rome.”

“I knew there was something wrong all night with you. I kept dreaming about garlic. How’s what’s-his-name taking this?”

“His name is Seth. Shouldn’t you try to remember it if he’s going to be your son-in-law?”

“It’s a hard name to remember.”

“It’s four letters.”

“Not enough. If it were more, I could remember. Four is too few.”

“My name has four letters.”

“Lucia has five. It’s better.”

“Mom!” Lucy said, exasperated. Her mother had a way of making the simplest things into a major deal.

“You’re gonna miss the wedding. Your mother is gonna be ashamed because her only daughter is gonna miss her own wedding. I won’t be able to go out in public.”

“I’ll be back on Friday.”

“I know in my heart that you like to shame me, so there I’ll be, standing in church, in front of God, with your father in an expensive rented suit, a hundred angry guests and no daughter. I knew when you were born this day would come.”

“Mom, I can’t talk to you anymore. I have to go.”

“Bring back some good prosciutto. I got a taste for some prosciutto from Napoli.”

“I’ll see if I have time.”

“Oh, for strangers you have plenty of time, but for your mother you’ll see?”

“You know, this is why children never call their parents.”

“Be safe, and always keep your purse close to you. Those Neapolitans are crooks and thieves.”

“Dad’s family is from Naples.”

“I know what I’m talking about. Tie a bell on your toe in case you sleepwalk.”

“The bell never worked. Besides, I don’t do that anymore.”

“How can you know? You’re asleep.”

Lucy could feel the agitation building. Could feel the back of her neck tense until she could barely move it. “All right!” she said. “I’ll get a bell.”

“Why you want to yell at your mother like that? I’m just trying to keep you from getting hurt.”

Lucy sighed again. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Your father wants to say something.”

Lucy waited with her eyes closed while they argued over what he was going to say. Her mother kept telling him not to talk too long because this was costing Lucia money. In the meantime, Lucy stood there waiting, calling, “Mom! Just let him talk. Mom!”

Finally, her father got on. “Lucy, honey, have a productive trip. Don’t be afraid to show those people who’s boss.”

She pictured her dad holding on to the phone, her mother standing next to him counting the seconds. Her dad would be wearing his Sunday outfit. He believed in uniforms and wore the same thing every day. The color of the shirt varied, but the pants were always black Dockers, except on casual Friday, then the Dockers would be changed for his one pair of Levi’s. “I’ll try, Dad.”

“That’s all anyone needs to succeed, the right attitude and you’ve got it made. Go get ’em.”

Her mother told him, “that’s enough,” so he said his goodbyes and her mom got back on the phone.

“I want you to look up the Donicos while you’re there. I hear the boy is a big shot.”

“Mom, I really don’t think I’ll have any free time.”

“Is this how I raised you? To be so selfish to your own mother?”

Lucy gave up. She couldn’t argue anymore. “Okay, I’ll look up the Donicos. I’ll find a bell. I’ll keep my purse close, and I’ll get the pound of prosciutto. Can I please go now?”

“You should have gone a long time ago. What do you think? I got all night to be on the phone with you? I got things I gotta do for the wedding. I gotta order some nice red carnations for the altar. Love you,” she said, kissed the air two times and hung up. Lucy collapsed in a nearby chair.

When she finally regained her composure about fifteen minutes later, she was gliding down the crowded escalator in Leonardo da Vinci airport, spotting Eurocars International and a feeling of accomplishment swept over her. Even with her phone call to her mother, she was ahead of her own schedule.

Then she saw the line of people standing in front of the counter. It was all that secretary’s fault at the Italian office. She had made the travel arrangements. Lucy had told the girl that she wanted to fly directly into Naples, but the girl, probably an airhead, couldn’t get her on a connecting flight. She could book it on the return, but not on the arrival. So this was the result.

Sigh.

San Francisco and Leonardo da Vinci airports might have different names and be on different continents, but the lines were all the same. Long.

So much for hot baths and sandwiches.

It was a beautiful morning, from what she could see out the huge windows surrounding her, but each person in line had to quibble with the staff behind the counter over silly things like the color of the car, or the quality of the radio or the size of the engine. Lucy thought it was insane. Rome waited a few steps outside these walls and all anybody seemed to care about was the color of paint.

She let out a series of yawns. Her ears crackled, then popped. She could hear again. The crowded airport was unexpectedly loud, and the people in front of her seemed to be setting the pitch.

She had to restrain herself from jumping into the fray, from yelling out her own innocuous frustrations, like a cranky kid unhappy about a purple sucker when she wanted a green one.

Was it something about Italy? About the culture? It seemed as though when a non-Italian arrived, and there were plenty of non-Italians standing in front of her, they suddenly developed the Italian instinct to argue. Your normal, average, calm Brit or Spaniard or Frenchman abruptly found themselves whining over every last detail. Every minute inconvenience. And the irony was, everyone seemed to enjoy the banter. She thought there was something wonderfully liberating about public bickering and no one noticing.

When it was finally her turn, Lucy wheeled her suitcase up to the counter, calmly reached into her purse, took out her driver’s license and smiled at the chubby, short woman standing behind the gray counter. “Hello,” said Lucy. “I have a reservation for a compact, automatic.”

“No automatic. Stick,” the woman said as she reached for Lucy’s driver’s licence and read her name out loud. “Signorina Lucia, only stick.”

“I can’t drive a stick shift. I’m sure the reservation was for an automatic,” Lucy replied in a calm, clear voice.

The woman’s voice went up an octave. “We no got no automatic. Just stick. You want or not?”

Lucy spoke in Italian. “I want the car I ordered.”

The woman responded in Italian, “I’m sorry, miss, but they’re all gone. If you want a car, you’ll have to take a stick. That’s all I have.”

“You’re not listening. I can’t drive a standard. I need an automatic. Surely you can understand—”

“You want a car? I give you a car. So you have to learn something new. So what!”

Lucy hesitated, counted to ten and thought of Sister Gregory; stern, unemotional Sister Gregory from ninth grade. It’s time you learned something new, young lady. Time you learned how to swim. Lucy remembered the shock as she hit the cold water and the silence as she sank to the bottom of the pool like a schoolhouse desk. The only good memory of that day was Sister Gregory, brown habit and all, jumping in after her.

“Look, I have to drive all the way to Naples and I don’t have the faintest idea—”

“I can drive you,” someone said in English. It came from behind her. Lucy turned to see none other than Mr. Garlic.

“Not you again,” she said, dismissing his offer.

“Perdona, but have we met?”

Lucy realized just how rude she must have sounded, and how unimportant she must have been to him because he didn’t even remember her. She softened her voice. “No, we haven’t actually met. Not officially, but I remember you from the flight. I was in your seat and you ate my shoe…your shoe. You ate your shoe, not mine…I mean.”

“Ah, I am famous!” he said, full of himself.

“For fifteen minutes.”

He smiled, and once again Lucy felt the heat of his attraction. Her toes itched. She wiggled them inside her shoes, trying to get the itch to stop, but it wouldn’t, not as long as he stood in front of her, smiling.

He was taller than she had first thought, at least six feet, but then she had never been this close to him, at least not facing him. And the scent of garlic was gone, replaced now with the scent of basil. How odd, she thought, for someone to smell of herbs.

“Thank you for the offer, but I can drive myself,” she said.

“Nobody with a brain wants a car in Napoli,” he answered.

She didn’t like the implication. “You have a car. What does that make you?”

“No brains. My mamma, she always say I got no brains, so I buy a car. Please, allow me to drive you to Napoli in my brainless car.”

Lucy had to smile at his innocent chivalry.

“You want the car or not, miss?” the woman roared.

Lucy stood unnerved in the midst of airport chaos and tried to decide what to do with his offer. If this were the U.S. and some eccentric guy volunteered a ride, she would absolutely refuse. He could be some crazed killer. But this was Italy.

Her Italy.

Her heritage.

And for the most part, Italian men were romantics, lovers…she noticed the head of garlic sticking out of his shirt pocket.

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” she said thinking this man was some kind of food-kook.

“Buona fortuna!” he said and turned abruptly away. She watched as he joined the mix of travelers roaming through the airport. He stopped to wave goodbye as if they were old friends and he was leaving on some trip. She wiggled her toes and caught herself waving back, feeling sad. There was something intoxicating about him, but she couldn’t think about that now. There wasn’t any time to question her emotions. She’d think about it later, while she was soaking in a hot tub, scrubbing her toes.

For an instant, she regretted never having taken the time to visit Italy, but she was always so busy with work, and before that there was college, then grad school. Not that she didn’t love Italy. She did. She loved hearing stories about it, reading about it, learning the language, but she could never justify an actual visit, and yet here she was. Alone. On a business trip. A week before her wedding. At least she could enjoy the scenery from the car, even if she would have to learn how to drive along the way.

“I’ll take the car,” Lucy told the woman behind the counter.

The woman looked at her and spat, “Sorry, I gave your car away. No more cars.”

“What? You must have misunderstood. I’ll take the car now.”

“All rented. No more cars, miss. Come back tomorrow. I can get you an automatic tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! What do you mean tomorrow?” Lucy’s voice went up an octave, but she caught herself. She refused to get into a shouting match. “Thank you,” she said in a tight, subdued tone. “I’m sure you did your best.”

The woman behind the counter didn’t reply as Lucy ran off after Mr. Garlic, hoping his offer was still good, when suddenly she realized she didn’t know his name.