“What?” she snapped, her voice thick with emotion. “Do you think it was fun sitting in that interrogation room all night and… answering questions about whether or not”-she could barely get out the words-“I really loved her?”
I looked at her profile, wondering when I had last seen my sister cry. With her mascara smeared and her clothes messed up from the fall, she actually seemed human, and almost likable, maybe because of the throbbing ankle, the grief, and all the disappointment. Suddenly realizing that, for a change, I would have to be the strong one, I took a better grip on her and tried to suppress all thoughts of poor old Aunt Rose for the time being. “I don’t get it! Where on earth was Umberto?”
“Ha!” The question gave Janice an opportunity to recover some of her zest. “You mean, Luciano?” She glanced at me to see if I was suitably shocked. “That’s right. Good old Birdie was a fugitive, a desperado, a gangster… take your pick. All these years, he’s been hiding out in our rose garden while the cops and the Mafia were looking for him. Apparently, they found him-his old Mob buddies-and he just”-with her free hand, she snapped her fingers in the air-“poof, gone!”
I stopped to catch my breath, swallowing hard to keep down Malèna’s Marescotti special that was supposed to make me happy but tasted like heartbreak. “His name wouldn’t happen to be… Luciano Salimbeni, would it?”
Janice was so flabbergasted by my insight that she completely forgot about not being able to put weight on her left foot. “My-my!” she exclaimed, removing her arm from my shoulder. “You do have a hand in this shit!”
AUNT ROSE USED TO say that she had hired Umberto for his cherry pie. And while this was true to a certain extent-he always did produce the most outrageous desserts-the fact was that she was helpless without him. He took care of everything, the kitchen, the garden, the general maintenance around the house, but even more admirably, he managed to convey a sense that his contribution was trifling in comparison with the enormous tasks undertaken by Aunt Rose herself. Such as arranging flowers for the dinner table. Or looking up troublesome words in the dictionary.
The true genius of Umberto was his ability to make us believe we were self-sustained. It was almost as if he had somehow failed in his endeavors if we were able to identify his touch in the blessings that came to us; he was like a year-round Santa Claus who only enjoyed giving presents to those soundly asleep.
As with most things in our childhood, the original arrival of Umberto on the doorstep of our American lives was veiled in silence. Neither Janice nor I could remember a time when he had not been there. When we occasionally, under the scrutiny of a full moon, would lie in our beds and outdo each other in remembering our exotic infancies in Tuscany, Umberto was somehow always in the picture.
In a way I loved him more than I ever loved Aunt Rose, for he always took my side and called me his little princess. It was never explicit, but I am sure we all felt his disapproval of Janice’s deteriorating manners and his subtle support of me, whenever I chose not to emulate her naughtiness.
When Janice asked him for a good-night story, she would get a brief morality tale ending with someone’s head being chopped off; when I curled up on the bench in the kitchen, he would fetch the special cookies in the blue tin and tell me stories that went on forever, stories about knights and fair maidens, and buried treasures. And when I grew old enough to understand, he would assure me that Janice would be punished soon enough. Wherever she went in life, she would bring along with her an inescapable piece of Hell, for she herself was Hell, and in time, she would come to realize that she was her own worst punishment. I, on the other hand, was a princess, and one day-if only I made sure to stay away from corrupting influences and irreversible mistakes-I would meet a handsome prince and find my own magic kingdom.
How could I not love him?
IT WAS WAY PAST NOON when we had finally caught up on each other’s news. Janice told me everything the police had said about Umberto-or rather, Luciano Salimbeni-which wasn’t much, and in return I told her everything that had happened to me since arriving in Siena, which was a lot.
We ended up having lunch in Piazza del Mercato, with a view of Via dei Malcontenti and a deep, green valley. The waiter informed us that beyond the valley ran the gloomy one-way road Via di Porta Giustizia, at the end of which-in the old days-criminals were executed in public.
“Lovely,” said Janice, slurping ribollita soup, elbows on the table, her brief sadness long since evaporated, “no wonder old Birdie didn’t feel like coming back here.”
“I still don’t believe it,” I muttered, poking at my food. Watching Janice eat was enough to relieve me of my appetite, to say nothing of the surprises she had brought with her. “If he really killed Mom and Dad, why didn’t he kill us, too?”
“You know,” said Janice, “sometimes I thought he was going to. Seriously. He had that serial-killer look in his eyes.”
“Maybe,” I suggested, “he felt guilty about what he had done-”
“Or maybe,” Janice cut me off, “he knew that he needed us-or at least you-in order to get Mom’s box from Mister Macaroni.”
“I suppose,” I said, trying to apply logic where logic was not enough, “he could have been the one hiring Bruno Carrera to follow me?”
“Well, obviously!”-Janice rolled her eyes-“and you can be damn sure he is puppeteering your little toyboy as well.”
I shot her a glare that she didn’t even seem to notice. “I hope you’re not referring to Alessandro?”
“Mmm, Alessandro…” She savored his name as if it was a chocolate caramel. “I gotta give it to you, Jules, he was worth waiting for. Too bad he’s already in bed with Birdie.”
“You are disgusting,” I said, not allowing her to upset me, “and you’re wrong.”
“Really?” Janice didn’t like being wrong. “Then explain to me why he broke into your hotel room?”
“What?”
“Oh, yes-” She took her sweet time dipping the last slice of bread in olive oil. “That night when I saved you from Gumshoe Bruno, and you ended up three sheets to the wind with the artmeister… Alessandro was having one helluva party in your room. You don’t believe me?” She reached into her pocket, only too happy to oblige my suspicion. “Then check this out.”
Pulling out her cell phone, she showed me a series of bleary photos of someone climbing up to my balcony. It was hard to tell whether it was really Alessandro, but Janice insisted that it was, and I had known her long enough to identify those rare twitches around her mouth as honesty.
“Sorry,” she said, looking almost as if she meant it, “I know this is blowing your little fantasy, but I thought you’d like to know your Pooh is not just in it for the honey.”
I flung the phone back at her without knowing what to say. There had been too much to absorb in the last few hours, and I had definitely reached my saturation point. First Romeo… dead and buried. Then Umberto… reborn as Luciano Salimbeni. And now Alessandro…
“Don’t look at me like that!” hissed Janice, usurping the moral high ground with habitual dexterity. “I’m doing you a favor! Imagine if you’d gone ahead and fallen for this guy, only to discover that he was after the family jewels all along.”
“Why don’t you do me another favor,” I said, leaning back in my chair to get as far away from her point as possible, “and explain how you found me in the first place? And what’s up with that stupid Romeo act?”
“Not a word of thanks! Story of my life!” Janice reached into her pocket once more. “If it hadn’t been for me chasing Bruno away, you could have been dead now. But see if you care. Nag, nag, nag!” She tossed a letter across the table, narrowly missing the dipping bowl. “Here. See for yourself. This is the real letter from the real Aunt Rose, handed to me by the real Mr. Gallagher. Make sure you inhale. It’s all she left for us.”