Follow That Blonde Page 2

  I edged closer. The artist was speaking now to a red-faced man in a clerical collar. His dulcet voice, smooth and luxurious as cashmere sounded lovely. I thought Bert must have pointed Nancy and me out to him, because as the priest answered, the artist's dark eyes moved occasionally toward us, wearing a gleam of interest. Nancy, being only five feet, one inch, couldn't see over the intervening heads.

  “A lot of this stuff is sold already,” she pointed out. “And look at the prices! Of course it's quoted in lire, but even so..."

  “How did Bert ever latch on to this man?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Nancy answered, in a huffy voice.

  “What do you mean? Bert was always a go-getter. He was voted the most likely to succeed in our yearbook."

  “He was voted the most likely to become a millionaire or end up in jail,” I reminded her. I trust she needed no reminding of the reason for the addendum. When Bert, the crook, was Treasurer of the Student Council, there were invariably shortfalls, which he disguised by some accounting cosmetic surgery. Mysterious entries appeared in the books. Like entertainment for advertising purposes, but none of the local stores or companies were accustomed to being wooed into their twenty-five dollar contributions to the yearbook. Transportation suddenly appeared in the accounts. (Bert's usual transportation was a bicycle.) Certainly he pocketed part of our money, hard earned by selling chocolate bars door to door. And now he had graduated to cheating this beautiful, innocent artist of part of his earnings. As sure as God made green apples, Bert was running some scam.

  “You never did like Bert,” she accused.

  “Neither did anybody else."

  The awful truth was out before I remembered that Nancy had gone out with him for a while. I've already indicated our tastes are different. We were never best friends, but as cousins in the same grade through school, we saw a lot of each other. And now that we were both teaching at Ben Franklin, we were together five days a week. Which still doesn't explain why she went out with Bert. I never could understand it, although he lived on her block, and since he was a little older, maybe she had some carry-over of hero worship. She could have had anyone, but she went out with Bert for about a month, and even then I think he broke it off. It was around the time Bert graduated.

  The cleric wandered off. Bert got hold of the artist's elbow and began rushing him over to meet us. I felt suddenly shy. I wished I had paid more attention to the dog-eared Berlitz phrasebook in my purse.

  “Gals, this is my man, Nickie. A regular Michelangelo.”

  Nickie—Niccolò. A fine old Italian name. "Piacere della—" Oh lord, what came next? I smiled and hunched my shoulders apologetically.

  “Pleased to meetcha.” Niccolò smiled, and pumped my hand firmly. Not a trace of Italy in his accent, although he had been speaking Italian earlier. There was something different, possibly an echo of Boston. Was this languorous Adonis an American?

  Bert continued with the introductions. Nick Hansen. That was the man's name. From Boston, Massachusetts. Via Paris at least, to lend him an aura of glamour.

  “Your work is just fabulous, Nick,” Nancy told him. “I'm green with envy. I'm an artist, too, sort of. I teach the plastic arts in Troy."

  Nick's liquid eyes performed a surreptitious examination of her charms, and a soft smile of admiration lifted his lips. “We'll have to get together and compare notes. Bert's told me so much about you."

  I mumbled a mild compliment. “Your painting is lovely, Nick."

  “Thank you,” he said politely, and even pried his eyes loose from Nancy long enough to flicker a quick, disinterested glance over me. Bert, it seemed, had not told him anything about me.

  “Hey, it's nearly five bells,” Bert said. “What do you say we leave the shop to Alberto, have a few drinks, and chow down? Show the gals some cucina romana. I know a place, ladies..."

  “Our group is meeting at seven-thirty to go out for dinner,” I explained. “We really should be getting back to our hotel."

  Bert wagged his head knowingly. “I know these tour meals. Do yourselves a favor and skip it. Clip joints. By the time the proprietor and guide have taken their slice, you end up paying twice what a plate of pasta's worth."

  “We could phone the hotel,” Nancy suggested. Nancy would cancel a trip to the moon for a date.

  “We really should get back. After dinner and the Sound and Light show tonight we're catching a bus with the group to our hotel in Naples,” I explained to Bert and Nick.

  “Naples,” Bert scoffed. “They'll stable you at Capua and commute you to Naples for the tours. Cheaper."

  “No, we'll be staying at Naples, and we've already paid,” I pointed out. “Our reservations have been made. We already missed the Sound and Light show at the Forum once,” I added.

  “We've seen the Forum—in passing, I mean,” Nancy reminded me. “It's just another old shambles."

  “We'll take you to the Forum after dinner,” Bert said. “I know the place inside-out. I must have been trailed through it umpteen times with the guide when I was touring with my group."

  Maybe if Nick had been a real Italian, maybe if he'd been smiling at me instead of Nancy, maybe if the old friend had been anyone but Bert Garr, whose offer to show us the Forum wasn't worth the paper it wasn't written on, I might have gone along with it. No way was I going to spend the next four hours listening to Bert boast and abuse the Queen's English.

  “Well, that's that then,” Nancy said, with a commanding glare at me. “Bert will show us the Forum after dinner."

  I glared her down. “Everything is arranged with the group."

  Bert wasn't listening. His attention had strayed to the doorway, where a slender beauty had just entered. She wore her long, honey-colored hair in a chignon. As I stared, she reached up a hand with long, blood-red fingernails and removed a pair of yellow-tinted glasses, which seemed redundant in Italy, but looked interesting. Her dress was elegantly simple, a gray linen sheath with white piping, and she breathed class and money. About ten fine gold bracelets tinkled discreetly on her left arm. At the end of her shapely legs she wore high-heeled green snakeskin sandals designed to destroy her arches forever. There were no Band-Aids on her toes.

  “Holy Christ, that's the Contessa! She's come back!” Bert exclaimed. I had to accept that I'd misjudged him again. A contessa really had attended the opening of this show. She had probably drunk champagne and eaten caviar, and Bert apparently really was the artist's manager. “She's always in the papers. She's a collector. If we could palm one of your pix off on her— What's her name, Nick? Fettuccini, Linguini—something to do with pasta."

  “Lingini,” Nick said, with a tolerant smile at Bert's butchered pronunciation.

  “Right, Lingini,” Bert said, and pelted forward to glad-hand her. Her questioning, aristocratic look of surprise deterred him not a whit. He went on chatting and grinning as if he were paid by the smile.

  Nick said, “I'd better help him. Bert's Italian is—primitive."

  “So's his English,” I muttered to his retreating back.

  “So are we going or not?” Nancy asked.

  “Not."

  “Honestly, Lana. Why did we come on this trip if you don't plan to have any fun? We agreed we'd do everything interesting that came up.” But the only thing she considered interesting was going out with strange men, and now with Bert Garr.

  “I didn't come to meet up with that creep of a Bert Garr. Contessa Linguini!"

  “You're so judgmental! It's a natural mistake. I think we should accept."

  It had been a grave mistake to come on this trip with Nancy. I should have believed all the magazine articles that told me women could travel alone. You suit yourself. I'm going back to the hotel."

  CHAPTER 2

  For the next five minutes Nancy and I argued out the pros and cons of the date. “It'll be fun,” she urged. “We wanted to have some glamour and romance. Nick's a dream, and I'll be with Bert."

  That was her ace. The joker
in the deck was, would Nick like me? A Nick devouring Nancy with his eyes didn't promise me much fun. A Nancy sulking for the next week was even less appealing, since we shared a room. We continued walking around, looking at the paintings, but half our attention was on the doorway and the beautiful Contessa, and in my case, Nick Hansen.

  “This is the real Italy,” Nancy said. “Just look at the people. Isn't this better than our tour, with old Ivor complaining about his bile, and that Miss Jamieson that wrote a book about Italy a zillion years ago always correcting the guides about everything?"

  “But then there's Ron Evereton,” I reminded her. Our tour guide was no match for Nick, but he left Bert far behind.

  “He'll still be there tomorrow."

  I had saved for three years for this trip. My grandiose plan of going unescorted through Europe had eventually dwindled to the tour package, and last Christmas, Nancy decided she'd come, too. We were too inexperienced to tackle the exchange of monies, the reservations, the awful mountain of luggage that would accompany Nancy. Her cup Z bras alone would fill a suitcase. Clothes were her passion. At school, she often changed at lunch hour, although she wore a smock over her dress. She had smocks in five pastel shades, one for each day of the week.

  Our trip had been broadening and educational, but no magic had seeped in. Meeting Bert and coming to this art show were the first unusual things that had happened, unless you could call getting lost on the Paris subway unusual. Maybe I was too hidebound. You had to give life a little push once in awhile, or at least not dig in your heels and resist fate. “All right,” I agreed. “We'll go out with them, but remember you have the pleasure of fighting with Rome's telephone system to notify the group."

  “We'll go to the hotel and change instead,” she suggested. “I should explain to Ron in person."

  Considering the state of our hair and clothes and my toe, this wasn't a bad idea. We strolled through the crowd, listening to the Babel of foreign voices that still thrilled me after two weeks in Europe. The rough gutturals of German erupted incongruously from a pretty young girl. A Japanese couple conversed apologetically in light, staccato bursts. The throng moved about. Behind me, a man was speaking French. This sounded less strange after just being in France. French was my minor at college, but I still couldn't understand every word. They don't often use the phrases found in textbooks. I turned around, and noticed the Frenchman was speaking to the Contessa, detached from Bert and Nick now. She answered in flawless French. The Frenchman was uninteresting. He was small, middle-aged and his nose was a little askew.

  Nancy got lost in the crowd. I looked around and saw her just walking away from Bert and Nick. She'd probably told them we had accepted. I began working my way toward them, concealed by the throng. “It's agreed then, you take Lana Morton off my hands,” I heard Bert say.

  “But she's so tall, and so bad-tempered!” Nick objected, in the peevish way of a child objecting to wearing galoshes.

  “You can sweet-talk her, you old Casanova, you,” Bert laughed. “I owe you one, buddy."

  “A very large one."

  My heart shriveled. I wanted to run and hide my head in a corner, but I stayed riveted to the spot while they continued talking.

  "Signore to signore, isn't that Nancy something?” Bert asked.

  Bert, the traitor, spotted me and came forward smiling. Nick followed, sizing me up as his evening's entertainment. I read the familiar, assessing, tentative look, tinged with resignation, and my shriveled heart swelled with self-righteous indignation. Let the sweet-talker try his line on me and I'd reduce him to a pulp.

  “Lana,” Bert said, grabbing my shoulder. I wrenched away and glared. “Here's the setup. We're all going to Nick's villa for a drink. Nance will phone the hotel from there and let them know you two are going AWOL on tonight's activities. We drive you to your hotel to change into your gladdest rags, and we all hit the town. Have dinner, then we take you for a quick peek at the Forum. Does it work for you?” He leaned forward and said out of the side of his mouth, “You've got to get a load of this dude's villa. La dolce vita, Italian style. Ain't nothing like it in Troy."

  Over his shoulder, Nick attempted a seductive Latin smile. “If that's what you've all decided, I won't spoil your fun,” I said, with as much disinterest as humanly possible. “Nancy is so eager."

  “You won't regret it, and that's a promise."

  “You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Bert,” I told him.

  “Want to meet a real contessa?” he offered, to appease me. He looked around for the trophy. Her gray linen back was just gliding out the door. “Oh, she's gone. She'll be back. Can't make up her mind between the gray pic and the one with sheep."

  I looked to see how Nick liked these descriptions of his paintings. I expected to see an ironic smile curve his lips. His dark eyes were lit with conspiratorial laughter. My anger stopped growing. It didn't shrink, but it didn't grow.

  “They're all too expensive for me,” I said, meaning to imply they were grossly over-priced.

  “Hey, no freebies,” Bert laughed, and lifted an arm to beckon Nancy forward. “Quitting time,” he said. “I'll tell Alberto to keep an eye on things here, and lock up the store later. Where's the Alfa-Romeo parked, Nick?” His tongue caressed the car's name lovingly. Bert enjoyed having this bit of glory to show off to me and Nancy. “Luckily, Nick has a two plus two,” he explained.

  “Two plus two what?” Nancy asked.

  “A double-seater."

  “I'll bring the car around to the front,” Nick offered.

  We went out a side door and waited at the curb. Before too long there was a wheeze and clank, and a little sports car that had once been red, but was now mostly rusty dints, bumped to a stop in front of us. The front bumper was held on by baling wire. One windshield wiper sat at an irregular angle in the middle of the window, unmoving. Dreams of the villa faded to a hovel in one of those blind alleys. Nancy leaned close and said, “Uh oh, better get Maaco.” I didn't laugh.

  When I tried to open the door, it didn't move. Nick reached across and gave it a punch with the side of his fist.

  “It sticks a bit in the heat,” he said, smiling. Handy for torrid Rome.

  “Did you have an accident?” Nancy asked.

  “People are terrible drivers here,” he explained.

  I pushed the magazines and empty pop cans to the floor to make a space to sit down and said, “They're litter bugs, too, I see."

  I'm a neat freak. I not only keep my pens and pencils in separate mugs on my desk, I also have a cutlery tray in my drawer to keep the paper clips from seducing the elastic bands. I keep my shoes on shoe racks, and my pantyhose in little padded bags, with the summer ones in a separate bag from the winter ones.

  The surprising thing was that beneath the clutter, the interior of the car looked almost new. “Traffic's very hard on cars in Rome,” Nick explained vaguely. Bert and Nancy were soon settled in the backseat. I didn't think it was wise to try to seek verbal revenge during the death-defying business of driving in Rome. Nick clenched his jaw, leaned into the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckled hands, and, after a few hair-raising close calls, we pulled free of the lethal traffic of the Corso. He was heading up one of the hills of Rome, past the Porta del Popolo. Beyond an avenue of trees—not the phallic-like cypresses but a fuller sort—was an occasional glimmer of water, which Bert told us was the Tiber river. The houses looked like a set of ancient golden building blocks set close together. Many of them had red tiled roofs.

  Nick pulled into a driveway at one of the houses and squealed to a stop, avoiding by millimeters a motorcycle that was chained to a pillar. “This is it,” Bert announced. “What'd I tell you, ladies? Babylon on the Tiber. There's a terrace out back. You can catch the breeze, and from the side you can see the river."

  Nick leaned his head close to mine, black liquid eyes gleaming. “Did you bring your binoculars?” He grinned, and got out to hold the door.

&
nbsp; I smiled coolly. “My eyes work fine. So do my ears,” I added menacingly. I saw a question grow on Nick's mobile face.

  The house looked plain from the outside, and, of course, old. So much of Italy is crumbling to dust. The building had the consistency of a crumbcake. I felt if I touched it, chunks would fall off in my hand. But inside it was a charming blend of America and Europe, and not nearly as messy as the car, and much cooler. Persian rugs partially covered the tiled floor. On the whitewashed walls hung an assortment of art, some modern, some old. A weathered marble head of an ancient Roman sat on a chunk of Doric column in one corner. A palm tree at the window cast interesting shadows. The sofa was beige leather, low, squashy, piled with bright cushions which I itched to plump up and straighten out. An irregular-shaped piece of glass on a hunk of marble was the coffee table. A welter of magazines and a big pottery ashtray gave the place what is called a comfortable, lived-in look by decorating magazines and non-compulsive personalities.

  “Air-conditioning, what a relief,” Bert said,

  I was peering around this way and that, seeing what I could take exception to, and spotted a blind flapping in the kitchen. “Why are the windows open then?” I asked.

  Nick shook his head in frustration. “My cleaning lady has a cat. She lets it sit on the windowsill. I've told her to close the window after."

  The place didn't look newly cleaned. I wondered if Nick shared Bert's penchant for exaggerating his style of living. He went and closed the window. Nancy made the phone call and when she came back, Bert asked, “What's your poison, ladies?"

  “Campari and soda,” Nancy said.

  “Ditto for you, Lana?"

  I nodded. “Can we freshen up first?"