Today the tiny cafe was as deserted as the frozen piazza. There was a pretty young girl behind the counter but she looked tired and careworn. He sat on a stool pouring sugar into a double macchiato and knew: those times would never come again. They were locked in the past. A part of him had understood that would happen all along. Kids grew up, invented their own lives, went away in the end. But his own stupidity had hastened the process irreversibly, sent them scattering north to Tuscany, where he’d never be anything but a stranger to them now.
He finished the coffee and ordered another. On days like this the system needed caffeine. Then he tried to distract himself by focusing on Laila, racking his brain again about where she might have gone. Something didn’t make sense. He had established a bond with the kid. It just didn’t add up that she should flee the house like that, without a word, without a good reason. He was out of options too. Short of pounding the streets aimlessly, hoping for some rare good luck-and surely that was a waste of time-he might as well give in, call Leo Falcone, get some sleep, then rejoin the team. Maybe even pat the surly American on the back and say sorry a little more loudly if that was what was needed.
The girl behind the counter came with the second coffee and said, to his dismay, “I know you from the summer. Where are your kids?”
“It’s not ice-cream weather,” was the best he could offer.
“It’s not anything weather,” she complained. “I don’t know why I bothered opening the doors. Waste of time.”
“Thanks. I’m flattered.”
“Oh.” She laughed and the sudden burst of amusement brought back the memory of her, not much more than a kid herself, piling up ice cream generously as they waited and watched under the bright, burning July sun. “Sorry. I was just feeling a bit down.”
Everyone did from time to time, Peroni reminded himself. You just had to stop it slipping into self-pity.
“Gimme an ice cream, then,” he said.
Her lively eyes opened wide in amusement. “What?”
“You heard. A tub. Those cones are too damn difficult for an old guy like me. Coffee. Pistachio. And another flavor, too. You choose.”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. “In this weather?”
“Yeah. In this weather. Me customer, you waitress. Work on the relationship, kid.”
The girl disappeared out back for quite a while. When she returned she’d taken off the white uniform and was now wearing a short red skirt and a black sweater.
She sat down next to him. There were two dishes in her hand, each with a selection of multicoloured blobs of ice cream.
“It’s on the house,” she said. “I’m calling it a day.”
“Wise move,” he answered and tried the chocolate. It was exquisite, though the cold made his teeth hurt. “What is it? Boyfriend trouble?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Oh, per-lease. Is that really the best you can do?”
“It’s a start,” he objected. “You see a pretty young girl. She looks miserable. Nine times out of ten it’s boyfriend trouble. Old men like me understand that. We were young men once. We used to cause these problems.”
She licked the pistachio. It gave her a creamy green tongue.
“Well?” he persisted. “Am I wrong?”
“No…” Her voice had that pouty, caustic edge he recognized growing in his own daughter.
“Well?”
“He never calls!” she cried. “Never! It’s always me. I’m always the one who has to phone him. What is it with men? Do they hate phone bills that much?”
He shrugged. “It’s not just men. That happens in relationships. It’s how it is. Like old-fashioned dancing. One person leads, the other one follows.”
“It’s not like dancing. So why do they do it?”
Her face had that frank, questioning intensity you got from teenagers.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because…” He couldn’t go on. There was no answer. It was a stupid question. He couldn’t think of a single good reason to support what he’d just said.
“Do you call your wife?” she asked. “Or does she call you?”
“My wife calls me. Only rarely and with gleeful updates on how well the divorce is going and what new bills dropped through her mama’s door.”
She didn’t know whether to believe that or not. “Really?”
“Really. No need to feel sorry. Crap like this happens.”
“You’ve got a girlfriend, then?”
Peroni was beginning to wish she’d put the uniform back on. It made her easier to handle somehow. “What is this? I’m the grown-up around here. I ask the questions.”
“So you have got a girlfriend?”
He shifted awkwardly on the tiny metal stool. “Yeah. Sort of. Now. It’s not what you think. I didn’t have then.”
“Sounds a deep relationship,” she commented. “This ”sort of girlfriend.“ Does she call you? Or do you call her?”
Peroni swallowed a huge chunk of gorgeous lemon sorbet, which stuck at the back of his throat and made him gag for a moment. Once the coughing stopped he was dismayed to find some of the gelato was dribbling down his chin. He never would get the hang of eating this stuff.
The girl handed him a napkin. He dabbed at his face, then said, “Bit of both. What’s it to you?”
It was a lie. Teresa always called. He had just never faced the fact till then.
“You’re eating my ice cream for free, mister. I can ask any damn thing I like.” She poked the front of his coat with a long fingernail. “Men who don’t call piss me off.”
“I am getting that message.”
The green eyes narrowed. “Are you? Are you really?”
He thought about it and wondered how he’d come to develop this habit of having weird, half-jocular arguments with strangers in cafes. Nothing like this ever happened in Tuscany. People were too polite there. The Romans just spoke a thought the moment it entered their heads.
“I am hearing what you say, my girl. It doesn’t mean I intend to act on it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
She took his ice-cream dish, even though it was only half-eaten.
“Hey!” Peroni objected. “That’s mine.”
“No it isn’t. I gave it to you.”
“OK.” He threw some notes on the counter. “How much?”
She threw the money back at him. “I told you. It’s free. I just don’t think you phone her. You’re a man. Why would you?”
“That’s my ice cream,” he repeated. “I want it back.”
She waved at the door. “Go outside and call your girlfriend. Now. You can have some more when you come back and say you’ve done it. And no lying. I’m not as dumb as I look.”
“Jesus Christ…” Peroni cursed, and added a few more epithets under his breath that it was best the girl didn’t hear. “What is this?”
“Christmas,” she hissed. “Almost. Hadn’t you noticed?”
Damn teenagers, he thought. You never got an ounce of respect from them. Though maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Not that he would tell her so.
“I was going to do it anyway,” he objected, heading for the door, trying not to listen to her muttering, “Yeah, right,” straight into his big back.
It was crazy. Now that he thought about it he never called Teresa. He had to look up her mobile number in his address book because he hadn’t even programmed it into the phone.
Teresa answered on the third ring and was quiet for a moment when she heard his voice.
“Gianni?” she asked eventually. “Are you OK?”
“Of course I’m OK! Nothing wrong with me phoning you, is there?”
The pause on the line said otherwise. “Not exactly. Though I have to tell you I am in a very strange apartment right now dealing with a stray head. That lady you met earlier, if you remember. I think we have all the pieces at last.”
“Jesus,” he swore quietly. “Listen, Teresa. There’s something I need to know. About Laila. What happened this morning? Why’d she leave like that? Have you any idea?”