“I have a tour book,” Christy said, reaching for her day pack. “I could read about some of the things to see in Florence, and then we could decide if we want to stop there.”
“We don’t need a tour book,” Katie said. “I’m sure Marcos can tell us what to see.”
“I’d like to see the tour book,” Todd said.
Christy felt relieved. Todd was on her side. The two of them could sit close and read about all the great sights awaiting them in these fabulous cities. At least that way they would know some of the history behind the things they saw.
With her sweetest smile, Christy handed Todd the tour book and hoped he was in the mood to snuggle with her while they read. That, more than anything else, would convince Katie and Marcos that Christy and Todd really were a close couple and that Christy wasn’t flirting with Marcos—subconsciously or any other way.
Todd took the thick, soft-covered book from Christy, thanked her, and placed it between his head and the glass window of their train compartment. “Perfect,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”
6
“So it is up to you,” Marcos said, staring at Christy. “Would you like to go to Firenze first? Or directly to Roma?”
“What do you think, Katie?” Christy was eager to get Marcos to stop looking at her.
“Rome, I guess. Doesn’t matter.”
“There’s a lot of art to see in Florence,” Christy said. “Like Michelangelo’s statue of David.”
“Are you saying you want to stop in Florence so you can see a statue of a naked guy?” Katie asked. Marcos laughed.
“Of course not!” Christy snapped. “You’re missing my point, Katie.”
“And what was your point?”
“We might be sorry later if we don’t stop to see Florence while we have the chance.”
“Fine. I don’t care. I think it’s all great. The only thing I really want to see is Venice. That is the place where they have the gondolas, right?”
“Right,” Marcos said. “That is where I live. Venezia.”
“You live in Venice?” Katie said.
Marcos nodded.
“Do you have water right outside your front door and ride around in gondolas?” Katie asked.
“Of course. Venezia is built on more than a hundred islands. Nearly everyone has water outside the front door. My father owns a jewelry store near the Piazza San Marcos. Carlo Savini Jewelers. If you go to Venezia, you must go to his store. Carlo Savini. Don’t forget.”
“That is so cool. Let’s definitely go to Venice,” Katie said.
“After Rome,” Christy suggested.
“Sure. After Rome and whatever that other ‘frenzy’ city was.”
“Florence,” Christy said, using the English pronunciation of the city.
“Firenze,” Marcos corrected her.
“There is one place I’d like to see in Italy,” Christy said. “I don’t know where it is. It might be in Venice.”
“If it is, I would know it,” Marcos said. “What is the place?”
“The Blue Grotto. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Of course. It is on the Isle of Capri. Not in Venezia.”
“Where’s Capri?”
“South. The way we are going. You take a hydrofoil over from Sorrento or Napoli. It’s only a few hours from Roma. It is best to see it in the morning. By afternoon there are too many people, and it’s not worth the trip.”
“That’s good to know,” Christy said. “Thanks.”
“You could go there tonight,” Marcos suggested. “Capri has some of the most expensive hotels in all of Italy, but I know a place you can stay. You would then take the first morning tour boat to the Grotta Azzurra. Then you go to Roma, and I can meet you in the afternoon.”
“That sounds like a good idea.” Katie can’t think I’m flirting with Marcos if I’m planning how to get away from him.
“What’s the Blue Grotto?” Katie asked. “And why do you want to go there?”
“It’s a cavern I’ve heard about,” Christy explained. “You take a boat in, and the refracted sunlight makes the water a unique shade of blue.”
“I remember hearing about that place,” Katie said. “Didn’t we know someone who went there and was always talking about it?”
“Rick Doyle,” Todd said without opening his eyes or giving any other indication he was awake.
“That’s right!” Katie’s green eyes sparkled at Christy. She reached over and slapped Christy on the leg. “Rick called you from Italy on your birthday. I remember you telling me. That’s why he took you out to an Italian restaurant for your big date—because he was in Italy the day you turned sixteen.”
Sometimes Christy wished Katie suffered from memory lapse. Unfortunately, Katie remembered every word Christy had told her so many years ago. And Katie seemed to feel compelled to recount every detail now in front of Todd and Marcos.
“And Rick went to the Blue Grotto that morning, on your birthday. You were in Maui, and he called you there and told you the water was the same color as your eyes. That’s where I’ve heard of the Blue Grotto.”
Todd opened one eye and turned his head toward Christy. She looked at him, knowing she had nothing to hide yet still feeling put on the spot.
“Rick was here in Italy when he called you?”
Christy nodded. Then she noticed Marcos was staring at her again.
“I think he is right,” Marcos said. “Your eyes are the color of the water in the Grotta Azzurra.”
What is it with Italian men and my eyes?
“Well, then,” Todd said, adjusting his position and handing the tour book back to Christy, “guess we better go to this famous Blue Grotto and compare the two for ourselves.”
Christy couldn’t tell if he was upset or teasing her.
“I’m going to find the dining car and get something to drink,” Todd said, standing. “Anyone else want anything?”
“I’ll come,” Christy said. She was glad for the chance to have a few minutes alone with Todd.
“Wait for me,” Katie said, joining them.
Christy gritted her teeth. Can’t you tell I want to be alone with him, Katie? We haven’t had a chance to talk privately this whole trip.
Leading the way down the narrow hall, Christy didn’t turn around to look at Katie and Todd until they were in the dining car. Rather than a simple snack bar with a few booths, like the snack car where she and Katie had eaten on a train in England, this dining car had cloth-covered tables and uniformed waiters who seated them and brought the food to them. She had been in a dining car like this last summer with her friend Sierra when the two of them had visited the school in Basel.
Christy sat first, and Todd slid in across from her. Katie slid in next to Todd instead of sitting next to Christy. He leaned across the table and said, “So you’re the Blue Grotto girl, huh?”
Christy wasn’t sure what to say. She reached over and brushed her fingers along Todd’s unshaven chin and said, “And are you the mountain man?”
“I thought I’d let it grow. What do you think?” He leaned back and turned his chin to the right and then the left to allow Christy a thorough evaluation.
“I guess it might take a little while,” she said cautiously. Todd’s hair was so blond it barely showed unless the light hit it just right. Most of the time, she had noticed, it looked like a faint shadow or as if he hadn’t washed his face. “Ask me again after it’s been growing for a week.”
Todd laughed. “I haven’t shaved for a month.”
Christy laughed with him. “Oops! Sorry.”
Todd rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I guess growing facial hair isn’t one of my talents.”
“Try a goatee,” Katie suggested, reaching over and touching Todd’s chin.
“You think?” he asked.
“Sure,” Christy agreed. “Try shaving all of it but this part.” She reached across the table and rubbed the soft fuzz across his
chin. “It’s actually a little darker there.”
“Really?” Todd held up the back of a spoon and tried to catch his reflection. Then, without looking up, Todd asked, “Do both of you want to go to Capri?”
“I do,” Christy said.
“Sure,” Katie agreed. “Does this mean we have a plan?”
“I guess so,” Todd said, putting down the spoon and ordering a mineral water from the waiter who now stood before them. Christy ordered the same.
Katie shrugged and said, “Okay. Another one of those.”
The waiter looked unclear as to what she was telling him.
“Tre aqua minerale,” Todd ordered for them.
Christy was impressed and gave Todd a look of admiration.
“It’s so close to Spanish,” he said. “When I was in Spain last year I picked up a few key phrases.”
“Good,” Katie said. “Teach me how to ask, ‘Where is the bathroom?’ ”
“Out that door and to the left,” Todd said. “We passed it on the way in.”
“That doesn’t do me any good,” Katie said. “I’m serious. Teach me whatever phrases you know. I get nervous when I can’t communicate.”
“And I get nervous when you do communicate,” Christy said under her breath.
“What was that?” Katie leaned forward, her arms resting on the white tablecloth.
Christy hesitated before deciding honesty was the way to go with her friends. “I’ve been having a hard time not getting upset at you all day, Katie.”
“Why? What did I do?”
“First, this morning you had all those accusations outside Antonio’s house after breakfast. I think you’ll notice from the way things are going that those assumptions weren’t completely accurate.”
Katie tilted her head back and forth as if weighing Christy’s words. “I still see some potential, but you’re right. It doesn’t appear to be what I thought it was earlier.”
“I can assure you, from my perspective, it is not.” Christy glanced at Todd.
“Am I supposed to know what you guys are talking about?” he asked.
“No,” Christy said quickly. She went right on to her next point. “And the whole thing about Rick was more than needed to be said, Katie.”
“Why? What did I say wrong? Todd didn’t mind. Did you, Todd?”
Todd shook his head. “We all go through different stages in life. Some relationships last and others don’t. That’s reality.”
Christy thought his evaluation was a little too down-to-earth, even for Todd. It sounded as if he could be referring to another relationship, a larger one than the brief handful of dates Christy had with Rick.
Maybe he’s talking about his relationship with Rick. The two of them shared an apartment in college with some other guys, but now Todd and Rick never see each other.
“Can you let me out, Katie?” Todd asked. “I’ll be right back.”
“Nope. Not until you say it in Italian.”
“I don’t know how to say it in Italian,” Todd said.
“Then too bad. You’re stuck.”
As Christy watched, a little-boy grin appeared on Todd’s face. It was the same look he and his buddy Doug used to get at the beach when they were about to pick up one of the girls and throw her into the ocean. Todd reached under the table, and Katie immediately gave in
“Stop squeezing my knee,” she said with a giggle as she swatted at Todd.
How did Todd know her knee was so sensitive? I didn’t know that.
He exited as the train swayed back and forth. “Katie, I mean it about the flirting stuff you said this morning,” Christy continued. She didn’t feel she had been able to say everything she wanted to earlier, since they had been talking in code in front of Todd. “That really upset me, and I don’t want us to communicate like that on this trip.”
“Fine,” Katie said. “What else do you want to say to me before Todd comes back? Because if you don’t have anything else to yell at me about, I have something I think I should mention to you.”
“I’m not yelling at you, Katie.”
“Okay, is there anything else you want not to yell at me about?”
“No.”
The waiter arrived with their bottles of mineral water and the bill on a small tray.
“I’ve got it,” Christy said, pulling some money from her pocket and placing it on the tray. He gave her some change, and she thanked him in Italian.
“I’ll pay for something next time,” Katie said. “Now, do you want to hear my observation?”
“Yes.” Christy meant it. She really did appreciate Katie’s insights. She always had. But she didn’t always like them when she first heard them.
Katie leaned forward. “Okay. First, I should tell you that Todd and I got into a big discussion on the plane. We talked about how he and I are more the outdoorsy type. We were talking about camping, and he said he wasn’t sure you would want to do much roughing it on this trip. I told him he didn’t have to worry, that you could handle anything we threw at you.”
“Guess I proved you both wrong, didn’t I?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Katie said. “Todd and I talked about it yesterday while we were washing our clothes and you were in the bathtub.”
“You and Todd talked about me again?”
Katie swished the air in front of Christy with her hand as if to brush away any misunderstandings Christy might be formulating. “I told him we should be sensitive to you and try not to do anything that would push you over the edge. He said you were probably still stressed from school and working at the orphanage and everything. We both know it’s been a difficult term for you.”
“Well, you know what? I don’t know if I appreciate your analyzing me whenever I’m not around.”
“It was no big deal, Christy. I think you should be glad that Todd feels comfortable enough to talk with me about you.”
Christy wasn’t sure she agreed with that. She sipped her bubbly water and reluctantly listened as Katie continued.
“Can I just say that I think you have way too many expectations of yourself, of me, and of Todd for this trip? Either that, or you’re living too much in the past.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“If you think about it, Christy, you could be having some kind of weird flashbacks to our trip to England, but this is nothing like that trip.”
“You’re right. It isn’t.” Christy felt certain this trip couldn’t be compared in any way to that one. In England they were with a group on a short-term missions project. At the beginning of the trip, Christy had been dating Todd’s best friend, Doug, because Todd was long gone from her life. Or so she thought at the time. Christy had ended up seeing that she and Doug were incompatible but how perfect her friend Tracy was for him. Christy broke up with Doug during the first week of the trip, and now, a year and a half later, Doug and Tracy were married.
“I don’t see how the two trips compare at all,” Christy said.
“That’s my point exactly,” Katie said. “This is a completely different trip, and all the circumstances are new. You shouldn’t allow yourself subconsciously to make any comparisons to the challenging stuff that happened to you on that trip and think it’s all going to happen to you again just because you’re in Europe with your friends.”
Christy didn’t follow Katie’s thinking until she delivered her last line, which was a zinger. “I mean, it’s not like you and Todd are going to break up on this trip or anything.”
The dining car door slid open, and Todd entered with Marcos behind him. “I went back to get the tour book, and I talked Marcos into joining us so we could a make a plan for the next few days.”
Marcos slid into the booth next to Christy. Katie scooted over, and Todd sat next to her.
Christy felt her heart pounding so hard it throbbed in her ears. Katie’s words bounced off the inside of her head with each pound of her heart. “It’s not like you and Todd are going to break up on thi
s trip or anything.”
All the odd little pieces began to fit together. Todd had been happy to see Christy at the train station and had given her a sweet hello kiss, but since then he had barely touched her. Except for when they sat close by the campfire.
Todd didn’t agree that I was his girlfriend in front of Antonio’s father. Why? Has he realized we’re an uncomplimentary match? He loves roughing it, and I fall apart when it starts to rain.
Christy remembered how, during the England trip, she had seen clearly that she realized she and Doug weren’t a good match. She wondered if Todd had made that same discovery about her.
Is he just waiting for the right time to tell me? Knowing Todd, he wouldn’t break up with me for good unless he was convinced God was telling him to. . . . Christy’s mind raced through a number of facts. Todd was nearly finished with college. He had only a few more credits to go, and they both were planning to attend Rancho Corona in the fall. A year from now, Todd would be graduated and twenty-four years old. That was old enough by anyone’s standards to be married.
But where is it written that he has to marry me? I was the girlfriend of his teen years. He’s a man now. Definitely. Facial hair and everything. He can have any woman he wants. Why wouldn’t he marry someone more outdoorsy and easygoing like he is? Someone who is fun to be around and a good friend. Someone like . . .
Christy’s heart pounded wildly, deafening all her senses as she stared across the table at her red-haired best friend.
Someone like . . . Katie.
7
Christy felt numb all the way to Rome. As the others in the dining car talked and planned, she barely responded. When the group discussed going straight to Naples and skipping Florence, Christy merely nodded in agreement.
Everything inside her felt shaken by the thought that Katie could be a better match for Todd than Christy was, just as Tracy was a better match for Doug than Christy. When the earthquake inside her stopped, all the pieces were in places they didn’t belong. She scrambled emotionally to pick up whatever wasn’t shattered and to find a safe place to store her feelings in her heart.
Why would Todd have kissed me at the train station in Basel if he’s been thinking about our breaking up?