Page 26 of Palazzo
She washed up as best she could at the garden faucet. The water was turned off in the house, as was the gas. They went to the closest trattoria and had a simple dinner, which tasted delicious. She’d been living on apples, salami, and bread crusts all weekend.
They went to the airport together after dinner. He took the last flight to Florence, and she took the last one to Rome.
“When am I going to see you again?” he asked her before he left.
“I’m going to Milan next week for Fashion Week. We’re doing a pop-up store on the Via Montenapoleone. Allegra is in charge of it. I’m sending her to Paris Fashion Week too.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“I might. I have a lot of work to do in Rome, and Allegra seems to be very eager to get to Paris these days.” She smiled at him, and he hugged her.
“And I’m eager to see you.” He was flying back from Florence to Paris. He had meetings in Paris that week too. “Will you try to come to Fashion Week in Paris?” he asked her.
“I don’t want Allegra to feel like I’m checking on her.”
“We can leave them alone. I’ll try to come to Rome for a night in a couple of weeks.” They’d both been busy since the summer, but she was always on his mind. In some ways, she was always so warm and welcoming, and at other times, he could feel her holding back, and she still hadn’t explained it. There didn’t seem to be an active man in her life, but there was something stopping her, and he knew it. He didn’t know if it was Gian Battista or an old ghost, and he was afraid to ask her.
—
Allegra had stars in her eyes when she came back from Paris the following weekend. It was obvious she was in love with Basile.
“How was it?” Cosima asked her when she stopped in for coffee with her on Monday morning. Allegra had returned late the night before.
“He’s incredible,” she said dreamily, “and he’s such a good artist. He really has talent.”
“So do you,” Cosima reminded her.
“I’m a designer, he’s an artist. There’s a difference.”
“Talent is talent, it just gets expressed differently by different people.”
“What about you and his father? I thought that was going to turn into a big deal at first, but I have the feeling you put the brakes on. You always do. He’s such a good guy, and he’s crazy about you. Basile said so too. Why do you stop? What are you afraid of?” Allegra worried about her sister.
“Everything. Men, people, making a mistake, getting hurt. And I have you and the business. I’m busy.”
“Don’t be too busy to have a life. Why don’t we go to Paris to see him sometime?”
“That’s what Olivier said. Maybe I will one of these days. He said he’d come to dinner here in a few weeks. I saw him in Venice last weekend for a quick dinner after I cleared the house.”
“You need more than that,” Allegra said. She loved her big sister and wanted her to be happy, the way she was with Basile. They felt made for each other.
Cosima thought about what she’d said when she got to her office, and then the calls started, and emails and meetings, and conference calls, everything that gobbled up her day.
She got a call from her realtor at noon.
“I cleared the house last weekend,” Cosima reported to her. “All the debris is gone, all the burned curtains and broken things. The guardians cleaned it thoroughly last week. They said it looks prettygood. I’m going to board it up now, and get ready for winter, and we can talk about it again in the spring. It needs work, and I just can’t do it right now.”
“Let’s talk about it now. I’ve got someone who wants to see it,” Francesca Viti said with determination.
“You shouldn’t show it the way it looks now, before it’s restored. I won’t get a decent price,” Cosima insisted.
“I’m not so sure. I have a new client, from Qatar. He’s got a French lawyer looking for him. He seems to be rolling in money, and his lawyer says he doesn’t care if the place needs work. He only wants a historic palazzo, whatever the condition. Supposedly he’s got great taste, and a decorator and an architect, and would be willing to do the restoration. Should I show it to him?”
“He’ll be sadly disappointed. The walls are burned, the floors buckled, there’s water damage, one of the big chandeliers exploded and fell. I cleaned it up, but it needs a lot more than that, and I don’t want to lose a fortune by showing it in this condition.”
“How much do you want for it now?”
“The same amount the Johnsons were willing to pay me before the fire. It’s the right price, but not with a lot of work to do.”
