“With a fourth sure to follow,” I conclude. I decide it’s best I don’t tell her about tomorrow morning’s secret rendezvous.
33
Michael
The note was a tad middle school, as in, “Do you want to be with me? Checkyes,no,maybe,” but I didn’t want to leave things unresolved.
Did she find it? Did it work?
I wondered about it all evening, thinking about the bad timing of it all; if she hadn’t had to supervise Linda’s sleepover, we could have ended the night here, in my bed ... Finally, just as the sun is rising, I hear a light knock on my door.
“Come in,” I say to Elisa, as I settle down to welcome her, the sheet barely covering me. “I was waiting for you.”
“I highly doubt that,” says Donatella, surprising me with her aplomb.
“Shit!” I exclaim, pulling the sheet up to my chin. “What are you doing here?”
“There are visitors here for you, Mr. D’Arcy.”
“I’m not expecting any visitors,” I reply dryly. I can’t handle another sister, cousin, or tenth-degree relative of the three Cozzi cousins. I’m done with that.
“Your girlfriend is here with your other girlfriend,” she says, unfazed.
Her sentence sends me scrambling to sit up, alarmed. “Whaaat!”
“Miss Sheila and Miss Danielle are waiting for you in the living room.”
Exactly as I feared. But how is this possible?! Grasping for words, I find myself speechless. If Elisa finds them here, it will be such a mess! Shit!
“Shall I tell them the gentleman will come down, or shall I send them up to your room? And in the latter case, do you prefer to receive them one at a time or both together?” I seem to detect a vaguely sadistic streak in Donatella’s serious and competent tone.
“I’ll go down,” I grumble.
“Very good. I’ll make some coffee.”
“Donatella,” I call her back before she disappears. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” I say.
“Okay, then you should probably share that information with them.”
I quickly pull on my clothes and go downstairs to the foyer, where I find Sheila and Danielle sitting next to each other on the sofa, arms crossed and livid.
“I’ll just be taking this,” Donatella announces, entering and snatching away a vase from the coffee table. “It’s a Ming.” She must have noticed things are looking ominous. “Would you ladies like anything?”
“Cyanide,” Danielle says through gritted teeth, staring at me.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Donatella hands me over to the firing squad.
“Surprise, darling,” Sheila greets me sourly.
“Yes, quite.” This isn’t the time for sarcasm, but my nerves get the better of me.
“Did you think we were idiots?” she attacks me, surprising me with an aggressiveness I’ve never seen from her.
“No, I just didn’t imagine ...” I didn’t think they’d ever cross paths.
“That we’d find out you were screwing two women at once?” finishes Danielle. “You nearly got away with it too. Except my sister gaveme a voucher for a massage at a new spa near her place in Maida Vale, and guess who gave me the treatment?”
“Me,” Sheila replies, raising her hand. “You know, Michael, it’s quite normal for masseuses and clients to chat about this and that during a session, and it turned out we both had a boyfriend named Michael, they both worked in asset management and that—get this!—they were both in Italy for a month to close a real estate deal. A few too many coincidences.”
