Nico shook his head. “They are very expensive and charge many euros for a coffee.”
“You only live once,” Edna said, flicking the ends of her orange scarf over her shoulders.
Ginny performed a double take, surprised at her new breezy attitude.
“I’ll join you, Edna,” Eric said, scrunching his shoulders at the number of people swarming around the square.
“That would be delightful. It’s a long time since I had a handsome young man on my arm,” Edna said.
Eric laughed.
Nico looked at his watch. “You will have to do these things later. I have booked the gondola ride for us.”
“A gondola?” Curtis raised a finger. “Seriously? We’ve just got off a boat.”
Nico led them toward a row of them, rising and bumping against each other on the tide. Each had red quilted seats that looked like small thrones. The gondoliers stood waiting on the sterns, wearing black-and-white striped T-shirts, black trousers and straw boater hats with trailing ribbons.
Whenever Ginny thought of Venice, she pictured the curved black boats that glided through the city. She’d dreamed of a sail with Adrian where she nestled her cheek against his chest while a gondolier crooned Italian love songs. Sharing a boat ride with the others wouldn’t have the same romance.
Heather lifted her camera. “Let’s get a photograph of us all together before we get on board, so I can show it to Mum,” she said. She handed her camera to a stranger and ushered their group closer.
Curtis stood in the middle, draping his arms around Heather’s and Ginny’s shoulders and pulling them toward him.
Heather shook the photos, watching the pictures emerging. “Something light coming out of the dark,” she said.
They sailed along the narrow back canals of the city where the decaying buildings were the color of verdigris and rust. The gondolier’s oar swished through the olive-green water and the sun broke through the clouds, making the ripples sparkle.
“I told you the sunshine would find us,” Nico said, pointing to the brightening sky.
Afterward, they arranged to meet back at the vaporetto stop at 4:00 p.m. Nico gave Eric and Edna his umbrella, in case it rained on their way to a café. Heather wanted to spend time alone taking more photos and Loretta wanted to shop. Only Curtis, Nico and Ginny remained.
“I’ll take a hike.” Curtis jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I know when I’m a gooseberry.”
“Don’t be silly—” Ginny started.
Curtis gave her a look that stopped her in her tracks. For a moment, his cocky bravado was gone, making him appear smaller and more vulnerable. His eyes looked bleary, as if he hadn’t slept properly in days.
As if realizing his facade had slipped, Curtis twisted his cap back to front. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said and strolled away.
“What does he mean by thegooseberry?” Nico asked.
“It’s an English saying. It means he feels like the odd one out.” Ginny didn’t add that it usually meant being with two people who’d prefer to be alone together.
“This is not true,” Nico said. “I am worried about him.”
Ginny was more concerned about Heather, Eric and Edna. Their problems (from what she knew about them) seemed bigger than anything Curtis had going on. “Why is that?” she asked.
“I see him talking into his phone a lot and making notes about my hotel. I am worried he is a hotel reviewer. Splendido has gone through a difficult time. What if he writes something that isn’t good?”
Ginny would be angry if that was the case. She’d invited Curtis on holiday because he was supposed to be heartbroken, not so he could critique the hotel. “I hardly know anything about him,” she mused, watching as he disappeared into a crowd. “The others are opening up while he’s still very secretive. I’ll try to speak to him alone.”
“Grazie,” Nico said.
They continued their walk through the city, heading inland where the hordes of people dwindled. Ginny strolled languidly, taking in all the details of her surroundings. Nico didn’t seem to mind her slow pace and pointed outmascaroni, stone faces adorning the keystones of arches, bridges and water wells that Ginny might not have noticed on her own. Most had deformed faces and looked frightening. “They are supposed to scare away demons,” Nico said.
Ginny stopped when they came to a mask shop. The hundreds of hollow-eyed faces looked beautiful and also eerie. There were Pierrot clowns with teardrops on their cheeks and other masks had huge hooked beaks like prehistoric birds. Some were topped with jester-style hats with gold bells on their peaks.
They were the kind of thing Adrian would grumble about, saying they’d gather dust. Ginny thought they looked theatrical and she was the one who did most of the housework anyway. “Can we take a look?” she asked.
