Tracy set aside the ratty pink child’s denim jacket she’d been mending. “Tell me what’s happening.”
Isabel filled her in on last night’s party. When she was finished, she said, “I haven’t seen him since. Anna told me that he and Larry drove off around noon.”
“What about the L.A. parasites?”
“They left for Venice. Pamela’s nice.”
“If you say so.” Tracy rubbed her abdomen. “He has a pattern of taking the easy way out, which is why he married me. The only place he tolerates emotional messiness is on the screen.”
“It doesn’t get much more emotionally messy than being involved with me.” Isabel attempted a smile, but it wouldn’t quite take shape.
“Not true.”
“You’re just saying that to be nice. He thinks I’m judging him, which I am, but only about his work. I tried not to show it, because I know it’s not fair, especially since I have so many of my own flaws to deal with. The only reason I challenge him is that I care so much about him. Most of the time he comes out so high on my private rating scale that it shocks me.”
“Are you sure lust hasn’t clouded your judgment?”
“You’ve known him for so long that you don’t see the amazing man he’s grown into.”
“Shit.” Tracy sagged back in her chair. “You really are in love with him.”
“I didn’t think it was a secret.” Certainly not from Ren after she’d thrown her heart at him last night.
“I knew you were attracted to him. What red-blooded woman wouldn’t be? And every look he throws at you is X-rated. But you’re so wise about people. I thought you understood that any relationship with Ren has to stay at an animal level. The only thing he’s ever really serious about is his work.”
Isabel felt a pathetic need to defend him. “He’s serious about a lot of things.”
“Name one.”
“Food.”
“There you go,” Tracy drawled.
“I mean everything about food. He likes cooking it, creating with it, serving it. Food means community to him, and you know better than anyone how little of that he grew up with. He loves Italy. He adores your children, whether he’ll admit it or not. He’s interested in history, and he knows art and music. And he’s serious about me.” She took a deep breath, and her voice lost its assurance. “Just not as serious as I am about him. He’s got this maddening thing about how wicked he is and how saintly I am.”
“Ren lives in an alternate universe, and maybe it has made him wicked. Women throw themselves at him. Studio executives practically beg him to take their money. People can’t say yes fast enough. It gives him a distorted view of his place in the world.”
Isabel started to say that she found Ren’s view of his place in the world fairly clearheaded, if a little cynical, but Tracy wasn’t finished.
“He doesn’t like hurting women, but somehow he always ends up doing exactly that. Please, Isabel… don’t let yourself get sucked in.”
Good advice, but it had come too late.
Isabel tried to stay busy, only to find herself staring off into space or washing the same dish over and over. When she realized she was hanging around the farmhouse in case the phone rang, she was so angry with herself that she grabbed her datebook and began planning every minute. She visited Tracy, played with the children, and spent hours at the villa helping get ready for the festa. Her affection for Anna grew as the older woman told her stories about the history of the villa and the people of Casalleone.
Three days passed, and she didn’t hear a word from Ren. She felt rudderless, heartsick, and increasingly despondent about the course her life was taking. Not only had she failed to find a new direction, but she’d made the old one even more difficult.
Vittorio and Giulia took her to Siena, but despite the beauty of the old city, the trip wasn’t a success. Whenever they passed a child, Giulia’s sadness became almost palpable. Although she put up a good front, their failure to find the statue had devastated her. Vittorio did his best to cheer them up, but the tension had begun to take its toll on him, too.
The next day Isabel volunteered to baby-sit Connor at the farmhouse while Tracy kept her doctor’s appointment and Marta went up to the villa to help Anna with the cooking. As they walked through the olive grove, she concentrated on his happy chatter instead of the sharp wedge of pain that had poked a hole through her heart. Afterward they played with the cats, and when it began to grow chilly, she took him inside and let him draw at the kitchen table with some crayons she’d bought for him.
“I drawed a dog!” Connor held up his picture for her to admire.
“A perfect dog.”
“More paper!”
She smiled and pulled one of her empty notebooks from the stack of papers she’d left on the table. Connor, she’d quickly discovered, didn’t believe in conserving natural resources. How dear he was. She’d never thought much about having children, relegating them to the unspecified future. How casually she’d treated so much of what was important in life. She blinked away the sting of tears.
Tracy appeared just as Connor began to grow restless. She picked him up and blew into his neck, then settled at the table with him on her lap while Isabel fixed them a cup of tea. “Dr. Andrea is definitely a hunk. I still can’t decide whether it’s creepy or not to get a pelvic from a great-looking doctor. He asked about you.”
“He’s a serial flirt.”
“True. Has Ren called?”
She stared at the cold fireplace and shook her head.
“I’m sorry.”
A coil of anger singed the edges of her pain. “I’m too much for him. Too much of everything. Well, that’s just tough. I wish he weren’t coming back at all.”
Tracy’s forehead knit with concern. “I don’t think you’re too much. He’s being an ass.”
“Horse!” Connor shouted from the doorway, holding up another drawing.
While Tracy turned to admire it, Isabel tried to make herself breathe, but the coil of anger had lit a flame inside her that was using up all the oxygen.
Tracy gathered up Connor’s things, then gave her a hug as she got ready to leave. “It’s his loss. He couldn’t find a better woman than you, present company included. Don’t you dare let him see you cry.”
Fat chance of that, Isabel thought.
After they left, she grabbed her jacket and went outside to try to calm herself down, only to realize that anger felt better than pain. She’d been dumped twice in four months, and she was sick of it. Granted, getting rid of Michael had turned out to be a blessing, but Ren was a coward of a different sort. God had dangled a precious gift in front of the two of them, but only one of them had the guts to grab for it. So what if she was too much of everything? So was he. And when she saw him, she intended to tell him exactly that.
She stopped herself. She wasn’t going to tell him a thing. She’d challenged him once, but she wouldn’t do it again. And not because of her pride. If he couldn’t come to her on his own, she didn’t want him at all.
The wind shifted to the north. She was chilled and miserable by the time she got back to the house, so she lit a fire. After it caught, she went into the kitchen to make tea she didn’t want. While she waited for the water to boil, she busied herself cleaning up the papers Connor had left scattered on the table. He didn’t like drawing more than one figure on a page, she noticed. When he’d run out of the paper she’d given him, he’d commandeered the backs of the fan mail she still hadn’t attended to.
She made her tea, then carried the cup, along with the letters, back into the living room. She’d always been diligent about answering her correspondence, but she wanted to throw this batch in the fire. What was the point?
She remembered Ren’s disgust when she’d pointed out how few there were. “Saving souls is based on quantity rather than quality, is that it?” She’d seen the tiny pile as another symbol of how far she’d fallen, but he’d seen something else.