Page 27 of The Wandering Season

Week Three: Italy

Leaving Milan for Piozzano, Italy

As the plane from Bordeaux landed in Milan, the lurching in my stomach had little to do with the descent of the aircraft. Niall was on his way back to Westport, likely with half a day left in his journey, and I felt an emptiness that, over the past couple of hours, I’d come to resent. I knew better than to develop feelings for a relationship fling, so the heartache I felt now would be a good penance for my stupidity.

Shrieks greeted me as I walked off the Jetway and into the terminal. Avery and Stephanie, a bit travel worn yet chic, bounced up and down when they saw me, and threw their arms around me before dragging me to the rental car counter.

“Remind me why you rented a place three hours out of Milan?”

Stephanie shot an annoyed glance at Avery as she accepted the keys to the Fiat that would be ours for the week.

“First of all, don’t exaggerate. It’s an hour and twenty minutes at most. And second, because it’s where Veronica’s DNA records said she was from.”

Avery was smug as she punctuated the sentence with a beep from the car fob, letting us know which compact car was ours. “And don’t worry. We’ll come back to do some shopping. I’d be fired if I went to Milan and didn’t come back with a suitcase full of gorgeousness.”

“Thank God,”

Stephanie muttered as we shoved our bags in the minuscule trunk, and Avery and Stephanie endeavored to shove their tall frames in the car that was definitely not designed for American body types. “I love you both, but a week of living like the farmer in the dell is a lot to ask, even for the pair of you.”

Avery, the most accomplished big-city driver, was on driving detail. I gestured that Stephanie should take the front passenger seat since she was far taller than I. For once I was glad I’d never quite cracked five-foot-four and wouldn’t have to be miserable for the drive to the farmhouse outside the village of Piozzano, which Avery had secured for us.

“Small towns aren’t all that bad,”

I finally protested once we were settled in the car.

“Well, it seems your ancestors were fond of them,”

Avery quipped.

Stephanie snorted. “And the one thing they have in common is that they left.”

I summoned a smile but didn’t comment. They had no way of knowing the circumstances that led to their decisions to leave. If Aoife and Imogène were indeed my foremothers or had some other connection to me, it wasn’t mere boredom that had driven them from their homes. No one picked up and left a life just because she was bored. Not back then when it meant leaving everything and everyone she ever knew with little chance of ever seeing them again.

Avery’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “I feel bad sending you on a trip where you’re missing the highlights like Dublin and Paris. At the time, I thought you’d want to see the actual towns that popped up on your report, but I’ve been worried that I made a mistake. I hope you’ve managed to have some fun.”

My eyes took in the swirling city streets, so different from the antique cobblestones in Aquitaine. “Oh definitely. I mean, I can’t see myself spending months in a village like Beynac or anything, but I’m glad I saw it. The cottage you found was perfect, by the way.”

Avery and Stephanie seemed to be having a silent conversation in the front seat until Avery broke the silence as she turned onto the highway that led out of the city.

“We hoped you’d haul the sexy Irish castle keeper with you. We have plenty of room. He’d have been welcome.”

I stifled a grimace. “As the job description implies, he had to get back to keeping the castle. He doesn’t have a lot of time for extended holidays.”

Stephanie exchanged a glance with Avery. “As much fun as it would have been to give him the third degree, I’m glad you came solo. I want to spend time with you, not the rebound fling.”

I sat up straighter in the back seat. “He is not a rebound fling; he’s a friend. A good one. And Jonathan . . . Well, he’s an idiot.”

Stephanie craned her neck around from the passenger seat to meet my eyes. “That photo I sent you about two weeks ago was pretty sound proof of that. Do you have other evidence to further support this?”

I prattled off a summary of my last text exchange with Jonathan. By the end of it both of them looked ready to throttle him.

I ducked my head. “I was monumentally stupid to ever think he was a good person, wasn’t I?”

Avery glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. “Listen, Vero. I know you’re the big sister, but you’re not doing this again.”

“What do you mean?”

She exchanged a glance with Steph. “Browbeating yourself for someone else’s mistakes. Someone else’s selfishness. I’ve seen you do this a lot over the past few years, and the only one who deserves your low opinion is him. Not you.”

“I don’t browbeat myself.”

Another shared glance between Avery and Stephanie, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit excluded. They’d always been friendly, but they seemed to have bonded further over my life implosion. And that was great. Few people could say that their best friend and little sister got along so well, but I didn’t love this new third-wheel experience.

This time Stephanie spoke. “It’s sort of your specialty. But the good news is, you can cut it out immediately and feel a million times better. Now repeat after me: Jonathan Phillips is a massive jerk and is beneath my notice.”

I obliged.

Avery gave an approving click of the tongue. “Attagirl You’ve been through some crap, and you need us to be your support squad.”

“That’s nice, I suppose.”

My voice sounded flatter than I’d realized.

“Come on, now. When the tables have been turned, you’ve said way worse things about our exes who deserved it far less than that moron.”

Stephanie craned her head to give me a wink. “But enough of the trash talk about undeserving men. We’re here to have a stellar girls’ week.”

“I’m glad. It seems like forever since I got to hang with either of you for more than just a couple hours without a crisis.”

“Being an adult is so overrated at times,”

Avery said. “The lack of slumber parties is a serious drag.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. Being able to drive, buy alcohol, and vote are decent trade-offs.”

Avery scoffed. “Taxes? Bills? Accountability? Having every waking minute spoken for? I don’t think it’s quite as good of a deal as you think it is.”

Stephanie shot me a pointed look in the rearview mirror. There it was, their chief personality divergence and sometimes bone of contention. The extra two years Stephanie had on Avery sometimes felt like fifteen. Stephanie was doggedly independent, while Avery had no compunction about leaning on Mom and Dad for help as she established herself. And it wasn’t like she was mooching without holding up her end of the bargain. She was working her tail off, and Mom and Dad, in their wisdom, considered her a worthy investment.

Stephanie, on the other hand, hadn’t taken a dime from her widowed mother from the moment she got her first work-study job on the CU Boulder campus. Not because her mother was struggling financially, but because she’d been determined to find success without having to give anyone else credit. There were times I worried that this level of independence wasn’t entirely healthy, but to suggest she could lean on people for support from time to time was akin to suggesting she was incompetent—at least in her view. And in the grand scheme of things, I fell closer to Stephanie’s philosophy than Avery’s, which partly explained why we’d ended up so close.

The rest of the ride was filled with bright chatter—mostly between Stephanie and Avery—but I didn’t mind the opportunity to look out at the countryside that passed by in a blur, thanks to Avery’s lead foot. They talked about their high-profile jobs, their vibrant dating lives, and all their big-city exploits, taking breaks to ask me about my adventures the past two weeks. I found my answers more terse than usual. Neither of them were foodies, though both didn’t mind checking out the latest hot restaurants just to “be in the know.”

I doubted very much they wanted to hear about the truffle market in Périgueux or the amazing Polish food in Ballyhaunis. I didn’t feel right opening up to them about whatever it was Niall and I had shared. And telling them about Aoife and Imogène? That was something I just wasn’t ready to share with my nearest and dearest yet.

But as we drove through the small town of Piozzano and then pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse, I felt my pulse slow back to its usual state of relaxation. I could breathe more deeply and didn’t mind that my own little world was so different from theirs. The farmhouse was expansive and rambling and full of light in a way that neither Blackthorn nor the cottage in Beynac could ever pretend to be. The main structure had to be at least two hundred years old but had clearly been expanded and extensively remodeled in the subsequent decades. It lacked the aura of history that the other two vacation rentals had possessed in abundance, but it felt warm and welcoming, despite the brisk January air.

Niall would have loved it, but I pushed that thought away. He was on his way back to his life in Westport, and I had two weeks of travel still ahead. I would not waste them by wishing away my present moment and losing myself in a frivolous dream.