Page 18 of The English Bookstore in Bologna

“Throw down twenty, Georgie boy,” said one of them.

George polished off the nuts, drew out his wallet, and coughed up the cash. Not a word said.

“Maybe it’s time you get some lessons,” another offered. “Quit hacking at it, let the club follow through.”

“I’ll let you know if I need any advice,” George replied, letting his leg bounce under the table. He’d be fine if he never swung another club. What in the ever-living hell had he been thinking, moving here?

Unable to take it another minute, he excused himself and scurried for the closest exit.

George had been emailing with the folks at Intel, mentioning that he’d be happy to keep contributing if there were any opportunities—perhaps consulting—but the microchip world had changed, and his expertise was now considered overpriced and dated. He’d fallen into management during the rise of AI chips and had lost his grip on the new technology. The young bucks understood tech in a way that made him constantly scratch his head. What could he even offer now?

Faith kept suggesting ideas to pass the time. Chess. Volunteering. “George, you’re not the kind of person that can sit around.”

If she only knew how much he agreed.

“Why don’t you pick up a musical instrument?” she’d suggested last week. They made better friends than lovers, and they’d been speaking on the phone even more lately.

“What the heck am I going to do with an instrument?”

“Play music! You always liked the saxophone. Or the ukulele? There’s an adorable group of retirees here who play at the farmers’ market. Bet you could find—”

“Faith. Please stop.” A horrid vision of himself playing the ukulele flashed before him. “You’re going to give me nightmares.”

“It’s not golf,” she kept on. “We both know that. I bet you could find a pretty woman in a baking class. Or build a boat!”

“In the desert?”

She wasn’t the only one who made these kinds of suggestions. Bianca did the same thing when she called him from Bologna—the city that she’d moved to on a silly whim. They had a call set up for tomorrow, which would indeed be the highlight of his day.

George was happy that Faith was enjoying life, even if it hurt sometimes, a reminder of how he’d let her slip away. And he was glad that his daughter was successful and happy too—no thanks to him. Maybe the one thing he had passed on to her was his work ethic.

If only she hadn’t screwed up and moved to Italy. He was still scratching his head over that one. Apparently, she went there to “find herself,” whatever the hell that meant.

He drove his golf cart back home, a place on the sixteenth green. Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to close that garage door, stuff a rag into the muffler of the tailpipe, and go to sleep in the front seat.

The funny thing was that his HVAC person had found mold in his air vents, so he was slowly dying by simply breathing, but it wasn’t fast enough to quell the pain of retirement.

Sixty-five was way too early to stop working. He would have kept going another fifteen years easy, had they let him, but Intel was scrambling to keep up in the industry, and the last thing they needed was an old codger like him. When it came to pleasing the board and shareholders, old men like him were easy pawns.

George poured himself a Scotch and sat down on the couch in front of the big television. He didn’t know what to watch. The news made his head hurt, and he didn’t have the patience for movies.

Noticing some movement out the window, he leaped from his chair with a curse. “Not today, you son of a bitch.” He raced to the door, nearly tearing it off the hinges as he pulled it open and grabbed the rake he kept within reach. His archnemesis, an evil squirrel he’d named Mr. Nutz, sat perched on the feeder, munching on the birdseed that George had put out earlier that morning. The little devil had been taunting him for a week now.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said through gritted teeth, scurrying toward his target with a focused determination.

The tree rat paused, looked over, possibly gave a wink, then went back to his meal.

As George drew near, he yelled and raised the rake like a baseball bat. Before he could get him, the squirrel leaped onto the grass. George swung at him, but the little bastard was too fast and moved a few feet away. The tines of the rake slashed into the earth.

The damn thing winked at him again, and George tightened. “You’re messing with the wrong guy. I’ve got nothing but time.”

The squirrel laughed, sounding like Rodney Dangerfield. At least, that’s what George heard. He made a few more attempts to get the squirrel before it finally disappeared behind a row of cacti.

Back in his chair, George flipped through Netflix, unable to find anything interesting. Then he took a shower and ticked off some items on his to-do list, killing time till he made himself a chicken breast, baked potato, and steamed broccoli for dinner.

After more channel surfing, he decided he might as well go to sleep, so he could fast-forward to something that mattered in his life: Bianca. But he stared at the ceiling for a good two hours, concocting ways to design a better bird feeder. He’d draw up some blueprints tomorrow. When he finally drifted off, at God knows what time, Mr. Nutz visited him in his dreams, teasing him, laughing at him, popping seeds in his mouth with an evil eye.

But George woke with the eagerness of a child coming upon a toy store. Unfortunately, they’d made plans to talk at seven and it was only five. After coffee, he texted her to see if she was available earlier.