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04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.26
What do you think? Would you be interested? Do you know anything about the hospitality sector?
Chantal stared at the monitor for ages. She couldn't believe it. She'd sent off dozens of copies of her CV without managing to get an interview. In fact, no one had even bothered to reply. And here she was, chatting with some guy she'd only met two days ago, and he was offering her a job.
Hardly local though, was it? Tuscany, for goodness' sake.
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.29
Done another disappearing act, have you? If you're not interested, there's no need to turn off your PC! You can just tell me :-)
Chantal chastised herself for taking so long to reply. She took a deep breath.
04/02/2016
SadChantal 10.30
Sounds incredible! A B&B! I did some bar work for a few years...is that any good?
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.31
Perfect. It's not quite the same thing but at least you wouldn't be starting from scratch.
04/02/2016
SadChantal 10.32
If your B&B was in somewhere in the Brescia area, I could come for a trial. But Tuscany...blimey! That's a hell of a long way...
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.33
I know it's quite far. But it's not as if you'd have to go back to Brescia every night. You'd have board and lodging on top of your salary. A bedroom and bathroom all to yourself.
04/02/2016
SadChantal 10.35
I'd have to drop everything...leave my hometown...
Chantal realised what she'd written was total bollocks. It may have been a throwaway comment, but more likely she was lying to herself about the tragedy of the previous twelve months. Drop everything? She didn't have anything to drop.
She wondered if he'd figured as much. Right from the off, she'd spilled her guts and basically let him know that she was on her own.
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.38
It might do you good. Draw a line in the sand, turn over a new leaf...
Look, I don't want to pressure you. I know it's a tough decision. You'll need time.
04/02/2016
SadChantal 10.39
You're right...it's not an easy decision. Give me a couple of days, OK?
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.40
Take all the time you need.
Chantal reflected on what had just happened. It was a great opportunity, but she'd need to be brave. Drop everything (even if it was nothing) and go to Tuscany.
She had been on several trips with Giulio, all fairly far away. She'd been to some beautiful places, some on the other side of the world. But Tuscany, which was just down the road in comparison, was somewhere she'd never been.
04/02/2016
SadChantal 10.42
I'll just say thanks for the offer at the moment. I'll have a think about it and let you know as soon as possible. Is that OK?
04/02/2016
AlfreDario77 10.44
Like I said, there's no rush. Take as long as you need, within reason! The season gets under way in about a month's time. People start to arrive at the beginning of spring.
Chantal closed the chat window and decided to treat herself to some peace and quiet and a smoke before heading to the shopping precinct to buy some lunch. Trouble was, there was no peace and quiet to be had: a voice inside her head kept asking the same questions over and over.
Do I? Don't I? Do I? Don't I? Do I? Don't I? Do I? Don't I? Do I? Don't I?
She may have told this guy she needed a few days to think it over, but Chantal knew deep down that she'd already made up her mind.
CHAPTER 5
The key turned twice in the lock and the door opened.
She entered her flat, food shopping in one hand and purse in the other. She raised one foot behind her and kicked the door shut, before dumping her shopping bag in the kitchen and heading towards the bathroom. But as she walked through the living room, something caught her eye.
She froze and stared at the photo.
Her mouth turned down at the corners and she began to weep.
She made no effort to wipe away her tears as she drew nearer the photo frame. Her stomach tightened.
She took another two steps closer to the photo of the woman, who appeared to be smiling right at her, and swallowed tearfully. She raised her hand to her mouth and bit down on her knuckles.
"Mam..." she sobbed. "Mamma."
She sniffed and turned once more to face the woman in the photo, as if she could hear her.
"I miss you so much, you know?"
She gave in to the anguish and broke down in floods of tears, leaving herself drained but somehow liberated.
As the torment began to subside, her lips forced themselves into a wry smile as she remembered how much joy her mother had brought her.
Chantal was in Year 6. Until that year she had always been shy around boys, but in Year 6 everything changed.
There was a knock on the door during Maths. It was the caretaker, and with her was the most handsome boy Chantal had ever seen. He had fair hair and blue eyes. Just looking at his smile made her feel good.
"This is Davide," the caretaker announced.
The teacher nodded at the caretaker and took up the story. "Davide has come from Veneto. He'll be joining our class from today."
From that moment on, Chantal learned nothing more about decimals, fractions, multiplication or division. From the minute he entered the classroom, she didn't take her eyes off that boy for a second.
Within weeks, it was as if they'd known each other all their lives, grown up together and played the same games in the same playground.
One breaktime, he asked her to follow him. So she did. He led her almost to the bottom of the park, where there stood two enormous trees. He told her to close her eyes and count to ten before opening them again.
"Why?" she asked, bursting with intrigue.
"I have a surprise for you," Davide announced, flashing her that smile of his.
"You're not going to play a trick on me, are you?"
"No! Trust me. Just close your eyes."
Chantal closed her eyes and began to count.
One, two, three...
Just as she reached nine, her voice was smothered as something pressed against her lips. She was startled and wanted to open her eyes, but she realised what was happening and kept them closed.
Not only that, she reciprocated.
It was her first kiss. Their magical moment was rudely interrupted by the sound of the school bell. As she opened her eyes, he said: "I like you."
They returned to class in silence, totally wrapped up in each other, and as the lesson unfolded Chantal was certain that she knew less then than she had when she'd first laid eyes on Davide.
At the end of school, she got on the bus and went home. She couldn't eat a thing: her stomach was so full of butterflies flitting about that there was no room for anything else.
Her mother asked her what the matter was, and suddenly she had a crazy thought. Her expression turned sullen and her mother urged her to get whatever was bothering her off her chest.
Chantal was afraid her mother would shout at her, but eventually she decided to speak.
She said she was worried she was pregnant.
"Pregnant?" her mother repeated, with eyes as wide as saucers. "And what makes you think you might be pregnant?"
Chantal hesitated.
"You know the friend I've been telling you about over the last few days? The new kid?"
"Yeeeesss."
She looked down at the floor to avoid her mother's gaze.
"He kissed me today. On the lips."
Her mother waited a few seconds and, once she was sure her little girl had nothing more to add, asked:
"And then what?"
"Nothing. That was it. We kissed on the lips for five minutes. Non-stop. And with our eyes closed!"
Her mother smiled affectionately at her, but it was a smile that also betrayed a ruefulness that her little girl would soon become a young woman. She took her daughter's face in her hands and explained to her, calmly and in very simple terms, what needed to happen for a woman to get pregnant.
"Pregnant because of a kiss?" she finished, "oh Chanty!"
"But Mamma, I thought th..."
Her mother smiled at her warmly. "You're so naive, Chanty. Just like your mother. "You and me, we're like two drops of water."
As Chantal opened her eyes, she raised a finger to her lips and smiled. She wiped her cheeks dry and looked once more at the smiling face of her mother, who had been right yet again.
CHAPTER 6
He looked in the mirror.
His eyes were so lifeless that the blue of his irises appeared as black as the pupil inside them.
He opened his mouth slightly and stared at the prominent cavity on one of his incisors. Goodness knows how many years the tooth had been blighted by that hideous brown mark.
He couldn't care less. He was on a mission.
If he didn't smile, no one would see it - simple as that. He had begun to use his dental defect as a way of passing the time and relieving tension. The thrill - or perhaps it was pain - he experienced when he flicked at the cavity with his tongue was arousing. Sometimes, it even gave him a hard-on.
