“I’m Tancredi. I ran this place for twenty years while Ivowas alive,” the man said, taking a drag on his cigarette. “I used to come by to make sure the roof didn’t cave in. But now I’m too old to do much more than put a bucket inside when it rains.”
“My apologies. I didn’t know that there was a caretaker here,” Andrea said, opting to show respect to the old-timer in the hopes that he could share some information. “Do you have time to show us around? We’d be grateful for a few stories.”
“I’ll show you some things,” Tancredi said, pointing a gnarled finger at them. “No promises on the stories, though.”
He led Andrea and Nico around the property, pointing out different rooms and buildings, what they were used for, or which horse lived in which stall. Some of his thoughts were precise, like his recollection of the riding trails he’d marked out up in the hills around the sea. Some thoughts were muddled, like which years Ivo was traveling and which years he was there training the orneriest of their horses and practicing tricks. The property itself was massive, and in an area that was mostly rocky and hilly, the expanse of flat land alone made it invaluable. Even if someone wanted to buy it and only return half of it to its former glory, it would be worth it.
“I knew this day would come,” said Tancredi, looking fatigued as he leaned against an old section of fence. “I know there’s no one left to care about this place anymore. But remember that it still has a soul. Most people won’t see it. They’ll bulldoze it all for money.”
“I assure you that we do not wish to sell this property to someone who is going to tear it down and build condominiums.”
“Especially now that Ivo’s daughter is here. I doubt that she will want that to happen,” added Nico.
Andrea flinched. Lora would lose it if she knew that her name had been thrown around out here. He should have told Nico not to say anything, but maybe the old man hadn’t heard him anyway.
“Ivo’s daughter?” Tancredi seemed to perk up a bit, his clouded eyes glowing brighter. “From America?”
“Yes,” Andrea said, curious. “Did you know about her?”
Tancredi nodded. He looked down, thinking, it seemed. He pulled a cigarette that had already been rolled out of the top pocket of his overalls and placed it between his lips. Turning to the sun, he said, “I have some things. She should have them.”
“What kind of things?” asked Andrea.
“Some things Ivo left. Others were sent back here after the accident. His parents didn’t want them, but I couldn’t throw them away. I knew that eventually”—he broke off, lighting the next cigarette with an ancient-looking silver Zippo—“someone would come.”
They decided that they would drive Signore Tancredi back up to his little hut up in the hills above the ranch to retrieve whatever it was that he wanted Lora to have. Andrea tried to keep small talk going with the old man in the front seat while Nico was folded into a pretzel in the back, but the road was so steep and rocky it required almost his full attention. He couldn’t understand how this man was able to get up and down this hill at his age when he was tired just hauling the little Panda up the road. Andrea didn’t know what to say when the man went inside and returned with a box of Ivo’spersonal effects. He only thanked him, promised to pass it on to Lora, and waved as they drove away.
“What the hell just happened? Who even was that guy?” Nico turned back to look at the box sitting on the back seat. “What do you think is in there?”
“I’ve honestly never seen him before. And I don’t know what’s in that box, but I know Lora’s not going to want to deal with it.”
Among the many things that had made Lora feel like an utter ass the other day outside of the police department was her comment about not napping since she was ten. She had written entire papers in college about the unfortunate effects of grind culture in America and how people were universally sleep-deprived to the point that it had become a cultural status symbol. Yet here she was, spewing judgmental commentary about a practice that was not only healthy, but tied to cultural norms in the country that she was currently asking to accept her. What kind of a person invited herself to live with someone, then got judgmental of what her host loved? Why not walk around Italy declaring that the coffee sucked, Ferraris were ugly, and Sophia Loren was a hard six? After Giada and Vivi left the night before, she couldn’t sleep at all. She kept turning everything over in her head, wondering about her mother, Ivo, the money. It felt like her entire sense of self was rolling through a storm, trying to keep itself upright and failing. She didn’t intend to be some kind of hungover emotional ogre, raging Shrek-like while other people ducked out of her way. That was not what she wanted to be. In fact, quite the opposite.
So, she made a plan. The next morning, she would go for a walk, come back to do some writing, and as soon as she felt even the slightest twinge of tiredness, she would go upstairs, change into pajamas, and slide into bed. As she saw it, sleeping would take care of two issues: first, her obvious exhaustion, and second, her discomfort with taking time to rest in the middle of the day. With any luck, she’d wake up feeling brilliant and become a convert to the napping lifestyle. And she kept her word.
The next day, after writing up a summary of a meta-analysis, she found herself reading the same paragraph over and over while her eyes got heavier and heavier. So, she got up, got into pj’s, and got supine. Shimmying around in the sheets to get comfortable, she placed the pillows just so and closed her eyes.
Of course people who were against napping were unlikely to have considered the effect of daylight in a bedroom with no window treatments. Lora opened her eyes again, wondering how the hell it was suddenly so bright in there, and nothing but freshly painted white walls glared back. She turned over onto her side and tried to cover her face with her hand, but her wrist began to cramp from the awkward position. Pulling one of the pillows over her face, she tried to settle deeper into the bed. She gave up after a few minutes of near suffocation and got up to see if she could find a dark scarf or shirt to wrap around her face. She could not find anything dark that wasn’t too large or heavy until she opened up the top drawer of the bureau and spotted her black bra. She held it up, looking at the lightly padded cups, and decided it would be worth a shot. Back in the bed, she lay onher back and turned the bra upside down, then placed the chest band above her eyebrows so that the cups covered her eyes. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t half bad. She tried to relax by making a mental list of the things she would need to buy to make this room more conducive to naps, but somewhere aroundsilk eye maskandpedestal fan, her drowsy shopping stalled out and she settled into slumber.
Yet another mistake of the newbie napper was to forget to put the phone on “Do Not Disturb,” an error she realized when her phone both vibrated and chimed several times in a row. She jerked awake, fumbling for the phone, which was somewhere out of reach. Pulling it up to her face, she peeked under the cup covering her right eye and squinted.
Andrea:
Are you busy?
I’m coming by
Shoving up the bra, she texted back as fast as her fingers could go.
Lora:
Just working
Give me 5 to finish
Lora shot out of bed, yanked off her pajamas, threw on the cotton dress she’d had on earlier, then pulled the sheetsback up. She was fluffing the pillows to erase all evidence of her snooze session when her phone chimed again.
Andrea:
