“Do you really want to know?” Her timidity was heartbreaking. What had Matt—or motherhood—done to his sister, the girl who had made him eat Ethiopian food in Harlem, who had gotten up and gyrated with the belly dancers after a bit of honey wine?
“Yes, Ray Ray! I want to know.”
“Well, Malta was all about bones, in a way. Those skeletons in the church. All the violent attempts to take over, to erase the past…but you can’t erase bones. You can’t even burn them fully, or it’s hard to. So I guess I’m thinking about that, and hearing about the volcanoes here, what they buried, what remained…” She stared into a middle distance, seeing something Cord could only imagine.
“That’s fascinating,” said Cord. She turned to him, seeming shocked to hear him take her thoughts seriously. She watched him quizzically, as if he were about to make fun of her. “It is. Really interesting,” he said, happy to surprise her by being kind, but also sad that she seemed desperate for such mild attentions.
She shrugged, flushed. “I’m going to start thinking about my art again,” she said softly.
Regan had once been a pink-haired student creating stunning collages—her large-scale images of genteel white Southern women made out of cut-up photos of slaves were brutal and brave. Cord didn’t know how to remind her of that student without making her feel embarrassed—didn’t know how to bring up the private investigator’s shocking photos again, since Regan had so firmly shut that door—so he was silent.
Matt had stayed onboard, and despite the appalling fact that he was a grown man who didn’t want to set foot in Italy, being on her own seemed to suit Regan. Maybe she’d still become a great artist, flowering in her later years.
Cord blanched. If Regan was in her later years, then so was he. While Cord was happy enough with his career, there was so much more he wanted to do. Marrying Giovanni seemed like the beginning of a fuller life; he was thankful to be so thrilled about what lay ahead. He just needed to stay sober. That was all. Cord knew that if he kept drinking, it would all slip away.
“Honestly, it’s just nice to have some space to think about all this again,” said Regan earnestly.
“Yeah,” said Cord. He turned to her. “Regan,” he said, “are you sure you don’t want to talk about Zoë’s email?”
“I’m sure,” said Regan. “Please. Just let it be.”
“But, Regan, he’s…”
She fixed him with a stare. “Cord,” she said, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear. “Please. Trust me.”
Trust her? Cord was confused. He’d always thought of Regan as a…well, kind of a sap. A doormat. It had never occurred to him for a second that she might be in control of her life. “But,” he said, “don’t you need my help?”
She laughed—she actually laughed! “No,” she said. “But thanks. Thank you.”
“Another town-a,” said Diana, standing again, her expression animated, her lipstick newly applied. “Very famous for the American people. They make-a the movie. Which movie? Al Pacino and the Godfather movie! Francis Ford Coppola, he comes here. You see some small towns and they are here. For example, Corleone? When he tastes wine? It is here. There is alsoGodfather Two.”
The view outside the bus was lovely: brushy hills, farmhouses, and sweeping views down to the ocean. The bus entered a tunnel, but this did not stop Diana. “Now you know how we eat here. We eat the appetizer, and the pasta,” she said, her face shifting in shadows. “Pasta, pasta, pasta! We eat-a the pasta!” Diana yelled, in the dark of the bus.
A man in a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt said, “Yeah, baby!”
Light spilled over them. “Now, Taormina!” said Diana. “Tonight, at the ancient theater, is Robert Plant. I will go. My husband, he pays, so I don’t know. I buy just something to eat and he does everything. It is right. I cook.”
“Oh, darn,” murmured Charlotte, poking Cord. “I bet you hoped she was single!” Cord winced, then saw that Lee was listening. She raised her eyebrows.
Tell her!mouthed Lee.
Cord turned away, pretending not to understand.
“I make-a the meatball-a,” Diana added. The man in the Jimi Hendrix T-shirt cheered again.
“Now I have to introduce you to our mama. Mount Etna!” said Diana, pointing out the window at an enormous mountain, steel-colored against the turquoise sky.
“Mount Etna,” said Charlotte reverentially. Cord gazed out the window at the slumbering volcano. Regan was sketching Mount Etna with aSplendidopen.
“The first two extinguished cones-a on the left-a. Part of the touristic stations was destroyed by the lava flow.” Diana pulled out laminated photos. “Nobody is listening?” she said, peering over her audience, who seemed largely to be asleep. Cord tried to meet her eyes and look engaged. He wasn’t sure why he felt it was his job to keep Diana from feeling slighted, but he did.
“You only care about the cooking, right?” she said, disappointed despite Cord’s best efforts. “Va bene. If you don’t know something, you ask-a. Now look,” she said. “Outside the window, some pine trees, coriander. More trees-a. Vegetation. Typical vegetation.”
Diana sat down.
“Vegetation,” whispered Charlotte, nodding, peering out the window. Regan wroteVegetationin her notebook.
They exited the highway and turned down a street bordered on either side by high, whitewashed walls. They passed what seemed to be a burned-out, vacant church with one of its three bells missing. Finally, the bus parked and Diana stood. “Here isil giardino di Villa Romeo!” she said. “Villa, what do you call a villa?”
