Page 366 of Marcello

“You okay?” Anna asked kindly when she arrived.

I tried to nod…

But broke down in tears and had to turn away.

I was sleepwalking through my shift when a young kid came in. He couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

“Are you Emilia?” he asked shyly.

“Yes – why?”

“I’m supposed to give you this.”

He slid a piece of paper across the bar, then ran out of the café.

I turned the piece of paper over to see words scrawled in pencil.

Emilia,

PLEASE come to Via della Scala 16 as soon as possible.

I have to see you –

PLEASE. I’m begging you.

Giorgio

I stood there in disbelief, my entire body shaking.

Anna came to see what was wrong and read the note over my shoulder.

I looked at her, tears blurring my eyes. “What should I do?”

She clasped my hands in hers. “Go.”

“But you would have to handle everything yoursel– ”

“GO.”

I took an Uber to the address and got out, my heart hammering in my chest.

As the car pulled away, I stood there in surprise.

The narrow street was nothing special. A small restaurant across the road, lots of construction tarps and scaffolding everywhere.

The building in front of me was old, yes, but nothing particularly noteworthy. It must have been a store, because there were window displays –

And inside them were works of art.

There was a beautiful wheel of geometric shapes that looked like someone had taken the patterns from peacock feathers and turned them into three-dimensional objects.

In addition to the artwork, four small stands displayed beautiful bottles of perfume.

In another window, every surface of the interior was lined with tufts of light pink tissue paper. It looked like rose petals were covering everything, even the ceiling. Once again, in the middle stood a display of beautiful perfume bottles.

Intrigued, I walked through an arched doorway into a small atrium with domed ceilings and tiled floors. There were medieval doors on both sides of the hall.

To my left was an old Roman statue in an alcove. It made me think of my first ‘official’ date with Giorgio, and his hilarious made-up tour of the Boboli Gardens.