Nobody Does It Better

“That’d be nice,” the woman said. “We’re just…what, Mark…two streets over?”

“More like one and a half.”

For someone with the Gorgon’s skills, tracking them again would prove easy, Gage thought to himself. She’d invite them to meet her for drinks. One, perhaps two, bottles of Valpolicella later, the wife would visit the loo and the Gorgon would make her move.

She’d lean in close and in her honeyed, slightly smoky, Southern tone, she’d ask if he’d ever had two women at once. She’d murmur of the pleasure to be had by two eager mouths to suck, nibble and kiss all around his world, four skillful hands to stroke and knead him, two of everything intent on pleasuring him. For one night, wouldn’t he like to be the center of attention of two women? No one knew them here. No one would know afterward. It would be their secret pleasure. Maybe she’d slide her hand over his thigh, brush her fingers against his cock, and Mark would convince his bride to play because there wasn’t a man alive, despite what he might tell his wife or girlfriend to the contrary, who wouldn’t want that.

But that would come later. Now the Gorgon merely shared pleasantries. Gage entered the lobby as the trio turned onto the street and quickly mounted the stairs. It would be interesting to discover what contact she’d make once she gained the privacy of her room.

SHE HAD A ROOM. YAY. One potential disaster averted. Holly couldn’t stop smiling as she climbed the wooden stairs behind the proprietress.

It had sounded as if she said her name was Signora Provolone. Holly was certain it was her horrible ear for foreign languages, combined with hunger that had her thinking the woman’s surname was a type of cheese.

After putting in hours studying Italian language tapes, Holly could manage. Proficient, however, was a stretch.

She followed Mrs. Cheese up a third flight of stairs. Despite her exhaustion, Holly was pleased with the hotel. Like everything else she’d seen since arriving, it struck her as enchanting and romantic. There was a faint shabbiness in the threadbare upholstery of the chairs in the lobby, but it suited Holly far more than one of the opulent palazzo hotels would have.

Simple, yet clean. She welcomed the underlying antiseptic aroma of cleaner and wood polish. She also appreciated the old-world courtesy of the woman showing her to her room rather than handing off a key and sending her on her merry way.

Using a skeleton key with a room tag hanging off the end, the other woman unlocked the door at the end of the short hallway off of the top of the landing. No encoded door cards at the Pensione Armand. She handed Holly the key and ushered her into her sparsely furnished, immaculate quarters.

The room itself was narrow with tall ceilings. An arched shuttered window stood opposite the door. Ochre plaster walls warmed the space under the glow of a vintage glass-globed bedside lamp. Hanging above the standard double bed with its simple counterpane, was an oil rendering of the Grand Canal choked with gondolas and other craft in a regatta. A small writing table and chair sat next to a chifforobe. No television. No phone. Lovely.

“Bathroom?”

Signora Provolone beamed and indicated the door next to the chifforobe.

While Holly had booked one of the least-expensive hotels, she’d splurged for a room with private facilities. The idea of a communal bathroom hoisted her germaphobe flag.

The woman’s fast Italian was lost on Holly, but it was easy enough to follow her to the door tucked in the corner. Signora opened the door and stepped back. A sink, toilet and an unenclosed shower—showerhead on the wall with drain in the floor, no shower curtain or glass walls—seemed as clean as the rest of the hotel. Holly’s relief, however, faded at the door opposite the one she stood in.

“This is a private bathroom, right?” What was the word? “Solo? Uno?”

“No, no, no.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out from the proprietress’s hand gestures that Holly would be sharing the room with another guest. The woman brushed past Holly and explained in heavily accented English with more accompanying gestures. The setup was sort of a Jack-n-Jill deal—her interpretation, not Mrs. Provolone’s. When she wanted to use the facility, she was to lock the door leading to the other room from the bathroom. When she was finished and the bathroom was available, she was to unlock the door from inside, close her door behind her and then lock her door from inside her room. Signora Cheese finished her instructions and beamed hopefully at Holly. “Yes?”

Howling in frustration seemed unlikely to get her anywhere other than tossed out. Thank goodness she’d packed a full supply of antiseptic towelettes. Packed. In her luggage. Which wasn’t here. Never mind.

She pasted on what she hoped passed for a smile. “Yes. Grazi.”

The woman left and Holly stood in the center of the room, rolling her head on her neck slowly to release tension. After nearly thirty hours of traveling, thanks to time changes and flight delays, she welcomed the room’s peace and quiet.

She longed for a hot shower, but first things first. She might be pushing the backside of thirty, but her father and her newly minted stepmother, Marcia, had insisted she call once she was safely ensconced in her hotel room. She and her father had always been close, but her decision to find Julia had strained their relationship, particularly once her father realized he couldn’t talk her out of going. Holly thought it was a combination of him not wanting her to get hurt, as well as his feeling as if her determination to find Julia was an insult to him.

She turned on the cell phone reserved for occasional use, thanks to the exorbitant prices per minute charged. Her dad answered on the second ring.

“I’m here. Finally.” No need to mention the lost luggage.

“Thank God. Have you talked to your guide yet?”

“No. Not until tomorrow. The flight delay didn’t affect that.”

“No trouble getting to the hotel?” her father asked.

“I had some help,” she admitted, crossing to open the shuttered window and look out onto the curved street. She almost felt as if she were dreaming.

“Be careful.” Her father was a little on the overprotective side. Most likely from being a single parent all these years, and the fact that she was the youngest and a girl. He definitely wasn’t this way with her brother, Kyle.

“I’m always careful.”

“Just remember, you’re in a foreign country.”

“I’ll be extra careful.” The conversation felt awkward, but then, things had been awkward for a few weeks now. Her father had nearly come unglued at Holly’s decision to find her mother. And when he’d grudgingly confessed that he knew precisely where Julia was because he’d kept up with her whereabouts all these years but never shared the information with her or Kyle, things had definitely been tense.

Actually, tense was an understatement. Kyle had been pissed off that Daddy had left them in the dark all this time. Even Sherrie, Kyle’s sweet wife, who always gave people the benefit of the doubt, had thought it was a crappy thing for their father to do.

Once Daddy had divulged that Julia was still in Venice after twenty-seven years—and saved Holly a ton of search time—she’d declared her intent to travel to Venice, which yet again polarized the family, this time along gender lines.

Kyle thought her spending the time, money and effort to travel to Venice to find Julia was, as he so charmingly put it, “bullshit.” Her father was also dead-set against it.

Her stepmother, however, had supported Holly’s decision. Marcia saw it as a means for Holly to balance her heart chakra. Holly wasn’t sure she bought into the whole chakra thing, but she appreciated Marcia’s support. Sherrie had also thrown her towel into the “Julia meet-’n’-greet” arena, sending school photos of Holly’s niece and nephew and a Wal-Mart family portrait of Kyle, Sherrie and the kids for Holly to share with Julia. Even her cousin Josephine, who had been raised by their grandmother after rebel African soldiers killed her missionary parents, and who was often standoffish and prickly, had jumped in to support Holly’s decision. Josephine, a veteran traveler, was the one who suggested Your Way Travel, a private tour guide operation, given Venice’s winding, confusing streets and Holly’s terrible sense of direction.

Holly found it ironic that Julia had ripped their family apart at the seams years ago and was still tearing at their familial fabric even now. It would’ve been so much easier if Holly had simply abandoned her plans for the sake of maintaining family peace, but scaling this mountain was too important to her.

She had all kinds of conflicting emotions about Julia and what she wanted the outcome of this meeting to be, but in a weird way, the outcome was almost secondary. It was the doing that was so important. It was Holly taking a proactive stance and not waiting on the elusive “one day” when her mother might contact her.

“Are you going to see her tomorrow?” her father asked. Maybe if Holly hadn’t known him so well, she might’ve missed the quiet yearning, the silent heartbreak underlying his question. She hoped Marcia was in another room and couldn’t hear the same thing Holly did.

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet when I’m going to…” What? March up to her door? Introduce herself as Julia’s long-lost daughter, one who’d been deliberately lost? “…initiate contact.” Ah, that had a vague, euphemistic feel to it.

“I still think you should call her first.”

“I’m not calling.” They’d had this discussion countless times, as well. He’d nagged her to call, send a letter, something before she hopped on a plane and traveled across the Atlantic. She was equally adamant she wouldn’t. Celeste McKinney, one of the teachers at her school, had discovered she was adopted and spent years tracking down her birth mother. She’d called first, to give her mother time to adjust to the idea of meeting her daughter, and the mother had flat-out refused, informing Celeste in no uncertain terms it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. It had crushed Celeste. Holly was determined to face Julia one on one. She wasn’t giving her mother the opportunity to turn her down.

Her father’s heavy sigh echoed over the phone. “How about you just call us after you’ve seen her.”

“Fine. Does this time work for you?”

“Whenever you want to call is fine.”

She leaned against the window casing and tamped back a flash of homesickness. Venice was beautiful, but home was home. If she’d been home, she’d be in her chair with a book, with Ming curled up on the ottoman. She could do with a little kitty company right about now. And her own nice clean bathroom.

“You’re picking up Ming tomorrow?” She’d left her seal-point Siamese rescue at home with plenty of food, water and fresh litter. Dad and Marcia had offered to pick him up and baby-sit him at their house. She knew Marcia was behind the peace offering. “Be careful, he’s sneaky. He’ll get out if you’re not careful.”

“We’ll take care of him. Don’t worry.”

“I won’t. I’m not buying trouble.” The second the words left her mouth she recognized her mistake. She closed the shutters and latched them, propping the cell phone awkwardly between her shoulder and head.

“You bought trouble when you purchased your ticket and got on that plane.” Censure marked her father’s gruff voice. They’d had this discussion umpteen times since she’d made her decision. She was here and she certainly didn’t plan to enter yet another futile argument.