Sheila Connolly - Reunion with Death Page 2

  “There are information packets with updates on the table there, plus name tags for all of you,” she said authoritatively.

  I felt a spurt of relief that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t recognize everybody. Name tags would be a blessing.

  She was still talking, so I had to focus. “There’s also a sketch map of the property, with the various buildings labeled on it. Your room assignment is in the packet. Some people arrived yesterday and others will be here later. Find your place, unpack, chill out, and we’ll all meet at the big building down the hill, at the opposite end from here, for drinks and dinner at seven.”

  I checked my watch: it was already six o’clock. Midday for me back home, so I should be alert, right? I found my packet and pulled out the map, which showed a lot of small buildings.

  “Hey, Brenda, can you point us in the right direction?” I asked.

  “What? Oh, sure. Where are you assigned?”

  I pointed to a blob on the map.

  “Right, the back end of the villa. Go around this building, follow the drive past the tennis court and around the next building, then go down the stairs. Your room is at the back. There’s a key in the door, but nobody bothers with them here. Once you get there, you’ll see where we’ll be eating, right down the hill.”

  “Thanks,” I said dubiously. We all went back outside, dragged our suitcases from the back of the van, and set off in different directions. The wheels of my suitcase left twin tracks in the neat gravel, and I felt like I ought to apologize to someone. I concentrated on keeping my footing—the paths kept shifting from gravel to flagstone to brick to grass, in no particular order. I passed the tennis court, which clearly hadn’t hosted a tennis game in quite some time; passed the next building, went around to the back and down a short flight of stairs, and found myself in front of two heavy, ornate wooden doors, one of which had a key in the lock. This must be it. I set down my suitcase with a sigh of relief and turned to check out the scene.

  Oh my God. From where I stood I had a one-hundred-eighty-degree view of rolling Tuscan hills, stacked up against the horizon. Small villages nestled in the valleys below; here and there a plume of smoke rose. Clouds drifted across the blue, blue sky. On both sides, more olive trees marched down the slopes. In front of me lay two buildings; the larger one must be where we would be eating. No one was in sight; the only sounds were natural. No cars, planes, electronic devices—just blessed silence. Except for a low buzzing: I looked to my right to see a large tree covered with small yellow blossoms, and when I approached it I realized there were bees feasting on all of them. The whole tree buzzed. I retreated a respectful distance and inhaled the sweet scent of the tree, tinged with a hint of wood smoke and maybe a dash of pine—or was it rosemary? It didn’t matter; it was all wonderful.

  And it was my home for the next few days. With no little regret I turned my back on the spectacular views and opened the door.

  Benvenuti in Italia!

  Chapter 2

  Once inside the room, my first impression was that it was dark, and I realized that it had no windows. I fumbled for a light switch on the wall next to the door and pressed it, turning on a lamp across the room. It must have had a forty-watt bulb, which didn’t help much. The ceiling was high, crossed by massive wooden beams that looked authentic and old. I parked my bag and wandered through a doorway on the right that led to a second, smaller room, dominated by a desk surrounded by bookshelves; there was a high window over the desk. A narrow hall to the left led to a bathroom at the rear. The floors throughout were made of richly ornamented glazed tiles, as were half the walls in the bathroom.

  Back in the larger room I contemplated what to do next. There was no sign of Cynthia, my intended roommate, but that didn’t surprise me. I didn’t want to leave my suitcase in front of the door where we would trip on it, so since I had arrived first, I claimed the sole luggage rack and set it next to the door in the smaller room, out of the way. I opened my suitcase, and as I expected everything was squashed and wrinkled. It didn’t seem worth hanging anything up, which I assumed could be done in the high armoire at the end of the hall, and I knew from experience that after a few days the jumble in the suitcase would only get worse. I left the mess as it was. People would just have to take me in wrinkled clothes.

  I sat on one of the twin beds and leafed through the information package I’d picked up. Jean and Jane had kept us updated by email over the past couple of months, the excitement level of the emails ramping up steadily, but now it appeared that there were yet more changes, mainly additions to the already jam-packed schedule. We were going to be very busy campers, and I was glad I had brought my most comfortable shoes. This would not be a trip for fashionistas in three-inch heels. Or was I maligning my classmates? From what I’d seen of them so far, comfort had won out over style.

  I was afraid to lie down because there was a good chance I’d fall asleep and miss dinner, or at least the drinks and socializing before dinner. I wanted to get there while people were still wearing their name tags, if I hoped to have a chance of remembering anybody at all. I started to remove my jacket—I’d worn all my heaviest clothing on the plane, since the suitcase was bursting already—and then I realized how chilly the room was. Plastered walls, tiled floor—lovely but cold. There was a thermostat on the wall near the door, but when I poked at it nothing happened. Of course it didn’t: this was June. Who needed heat in Tuscany in June? No doubt it had been turned off for the season. I quickly abandoned any idea of putting on something fancier for our first dinner together and turned instead to thinking about what layers I could add. Thank heavens I’d brought socks.

  After a few more minutes of fidgeting, trying to kill time, I couldn’t stand it anymore so I went out in search of some sort of human activity. I armed myself with my camera—I might as well record the spectacular views when I had the time, and while the sun was shining. I stood in front of my door and looked around. Quick inventory, left to right: spectacular view, small building, large building, more spectacular view. I snapped a couple of pictures, then picked my way cautiously down the flagstone path in front of me, stopping every few feet to snap yet more pictures as the view shifted, or the clouds did. At this rate I’d fill my camera’s memory card with hills and sky. When I was about halfway down the hill I noticed other women drifting toward the larger building on the right below, and I hurried to join them. First I made sure I was wearing my name tag, in case people didn’t recognize me. I’d been half a person more slender forty years ago.

  It was clear when I reached the building that I was not the first to arrive—not even close. The double doors opened onto a small vestibule, with a bar on one side, where a forty-something dark-haired man with a five o’clock shadow was dispensing a complicated aperitif involving some red liquid plus slices of blood oranges; on the other side two men and a woman were bustling around cooking. On a table in front of the bar were set platters with appetizers—thin slices of prosciutto, small pieces of toasted bread spread with what I guessed was some form of paté, and more—and I realized how hungry I was when I started drooling like one of Pavlov’s dogs. When had I eaten my last meal?

  I decided to grab food first, since it was disappearing rapidly, and then a glass of wine. Thus supplied, courtesy demanded I get out of the way so that the next wave of hungry travelers could follow suit, so I followed the crowd up a short flight of stairs into the single large room above. There was a fireplace immediately to the left with a log fire burning briskly, and already a lot of women were sitting or standing around it, many still wearing jackets or windbreakers. A couple of long tables and a scattering of smaller round ones were set for dinner, all garnished with bouquets of wildflowers and grasses, and good smells wafted up from the small kitchen. I wondered briefly how that small cooking space could produce enough food for forty people, but I doubted that we’d go hungry.

  I had barely made it up the stairs, juggling a wineglass in one hand and a napkin wrapped around some of t
he tempting appetizers, when a woman bore down on me. “Laura! Is that really you?”

  I looked at her face and drew a blank. I sneaked a look at her name tag and the light dawned. “Connie! You look great!” I meant it: she looked nothing like she had forty years ago, when she had looked like a schmoo, a style not improved by the saggy jeans and sweaters she had favored then. “I saw from the list that you were coming. Let’s sit down and you can fill me in on what you’ve been up to.”

  “Great,” Connie beamed. She waved to a couple of other people. “Hey, Pam, Ginny, come join us.” As they approached, she said helpfully, “You remember Laura, right? Art history, wasn’t it?” Pam and Ginny gave hopeful smiles, and I was pretty sure they didn’t remember me any better than I remembered them. At that point I made an executive decision to forget about learning everyone’s surnames and try to keep their first names straight in my head. Luckily, Pam and Ginny sat down with us, and when someone on the staff came around and poured another round of wine, nobody said no. Our chatter followed predictable paths: you look great (did anyone ever say you look like hell?), are you with anyone (apparently it was politically incorrect now to ask if someone was married or even about the gender of a partner), do you have any kids (no pictures, please), what are you doing (more PC talk—it wasn’t cool to ask do you now hold or have you ever held a paying job). But as the talk went on, I relaxed. Nobody was here to judge or to claim superiority in her lifestyle choices—and there was a pretty good range, based on what I was hearing. This might actually be fun.

  After half an hour of talk, the volume escalating as the drinks flowed, someone suggested that we find seats for dinner. Our group of four filled one of the smaller round tables, so we stayed where we were. I watched the dynamics of the crowd: obviously some old friends had reconnected, or maybe they had never disconnected, but there was nothing cliquish about the seats people chose. All good. And then food started appearing and the talking died down—fast. Everything tasted wonderful—not fancy, but clearly fresh and local. We dug in with healthy appetites, whetted by travel and by the clean fresh air of the Tuscan hills.

  Halfway through the main course, out of the corner of my eye I noticed some new arrivals, including my wandering roommate, Cynthia. Past and present roommate, that was. We’d shared an apartment in Cambridge for a few years right after college, surviving each other’s company without killing each other, and we’d kept in touch since. But life had taken us in different directions, both geographically and professionally, so we were no longer as close as we had once been. I hoped that this sojourn to Italy would help us reconnect.

  The latecomers were greeted by Jean and Jane and made laughing apologies for their tardiness, claiming they had gotten lost, more than once. Not for the first time I wondered how we’d ended up with leaders whose names were so similar, which was bound to cause confusion. This was the first time I’d seen them in person since the official reunion at the college a year ago. I’d known them both but not well.

  Cynthia spotted me and made her way over to our table.

  “Laura, there you are! Are you all settled in already?”

  “I got here a couple of hours ago. You remember Connie and Pam and Ginny?” I waved vaguely at the other women at my table.

  Cynthia cocked her head. “I think so, but my head is swimming right now. I’m a terrible navigator—can’t tell north from south. Can you squeeze me in at your table? I’ll go cajole some food from the hunky staff.”

  We found an extra chair just as Cynthia returned with a full glass of wine, followed by the guy who had been tending bar carrying a laden plate. She gestured to her seat and he set it down with a grand flourish. “Grazie mille,” Cynthia thanked him, and he bobbed his head and all but blushed before retreating. Cynthia dropped into the chair. “Isn’t this great? Tell me what I’ve missed so far, while I stuff my face.”

  While Pam and Ginny obliged, I studied Cynthia. Back in the day, when we were both young, we’d struck a good balance: tall blonde Cynthia was the charmer, the social butterfly, but with a sharp mind and an eye for long-term strategy. I was shorter and darker, and I was the steady plodder, dutifully collecting footnotes and polishing my thesis. Cynthia had dated a lot of guys, none for long; I had dated not much at all. After we’d gone our separate ways, Cynthia had married twice—that I knew of. The first marriage, for which I’d been a bridesmaid, had ended in a nasty divorce; I wasn’t sure what had happened with the second. She did something I didn’t begin to understand for a high-tech firm that she’d joined when it was a start-up, and if I remembered right she was now an executive vice president for the same firm, thirty-plus years later. She should have great tales to tell about the evolution of the electronic universe during that time. But she was looking stretched thin now, speaking a little too gaily, focusing high beams on whoever she was listening to at the moment. We clearly had some catching up to do, but there was time enough for that later, when we weren’t in the middle of a crowd.

  We were halfway through the dessert course and many people’s eyelids were just beginning to droop, when there was the sound of a metal utensil clinking on a glass. Announcement time, apparently. I turned in my seat to see Jean and Jane standing at the far end of the long room.

  “Benvenuto, viaggitrice!” Jean said cheerfully. “I’m so glad you’re all here, and I hope you’ve settled in. I know this place can be confusing, and maybe if I give you the short history it will make more sense. I hope most of you have met the owners, who have so graciously made their place available to us. Please, Barbara and Gerald, stand up so everyone can see who you are!”

  A couple only a few years older than our own age stood and waved. American, from what I’d overheard, although apparently they had lived in Tuscany for quite a while. He was a professor, I thought, and I couldn’t remember what she did—other than run the place where we were now staying.

  Jean went on, “I hope you’ll all have a chance to get to know them while we’re here. They won’t mind if I tell you about the place. This used to be a working farm, but Barb and Gerry were driving around this area years ago and saw it, and they fell in love with it, just like that. They bought it only a few months later. Now, when they first saw it, only the villa up where we parked was habitable. Believe it or not, all the rest of the buildings here, the ones you’re staying in, were farm buildings. This one was the hay barn—that’s why the brickwork outside the windows is open, to let the air move through so the hay won’t rot or explode. The smaller building next door, where several of you are staying, was where the animals were kept. So, yes, some of you lucky ladies are living in a stable for the next few days. Barb has spent years fixing the place up. Now they take guests and some educational groups—and people like us. Let’s give them a round of applause for making us feel so welcome!”

  Everybody in the room, fueled by wine and good food, clapped enthusiastically.

  Jane took over. “Just a few details and we’ll let you go for the evening. Rest up, because tomorrow will be a busy day! If you recall your schedule, we’re planning to visit several Medici villas in the area—we thought we’d give you an easy day before we took you to Florence and all its wonderful museums. But first thing in the morning we’ll be visiting a small monastery that was supported by the Medici. And don’t forget—tomorrow night is our murder mystery dinner! Several of our members have been working hard to put this together, and we hope you’ll have a good time!”

  I’d seen the description of the evening’s entertainment on the earlier schedules and I’d carefully avoided volunteering for any part of it. I’m a lousy actress—too self-conscious. Once I thought I would outgrow that, but now I just accepted it as who I was. Let others strut their stuff; I’d watch and applaud.

  “Oh, and one last-minute addition that we’re very excited about,” Jean hurried to add before we all scattered. “Wellesley College Professor Emeritus Anthony Gilbert, who retired to Italy several years ago after more than forty years teaching Ita
lian literature at the college, has agreed to join us on Friday evening and present a lecture on the Renaissance poets of Tuscany.” She beamed at the group as if she had just handed us a Christmas present with bows on it.

  Maybe it was the wine, or maybe the fatigue, but I wondered if there was just the tiniest moment of silence when Professor Gilbert’s presence was announced. I remembered the name vaguely, although I’d never taken a course with him. I had a fuzzy picture of a young man (young—hah! He must have been in his thirties at the time we were on campus) with long legs, who dressed in open-collared shirts and blue jeans, in a day when that was the exception rather than the rule among faculty members. Maybe I was wrong about that lull, for the murmur of conversation resumed immediately.

  “We have a lot to look forward to,” Jean said, or maybe it was Jane this time, “so I suggest you all get some rest. Breakfast will be served in this building starting at eight o’clock, and the vans will be leaving at nine, from the main house at the top of the hill. Buona notte!”

  Most people took the suggestion, standing up and drifting toward the front door. There would be plenty of time for talk later, with the luxury of days spreading before us. I looked at Cynthia. “You ready to go? Have you seen the room yet?”

  She smiled. “No, I came straight here—just dumped my suitcase outside the door. I didn’t want to miss anything. Where did they put us?”

  “Just up the hill. I’ve got a flashlight.”

  “Ah, Laura—always prepared. Then I’m ready to go crash. Pam, Ginny, Connie—great to see you, and I’m sure we’ll see more of each other.”

  We followed the crowd out into the dark. For once I could lead Cynthia, and I guided her through the dark to our temporary home.

  Chapter 3