No Ordinary Home

So, he had secrets. Fair enough. She had hers, too.

Going slowly, she finished her meal. When she got out of bed, her legs gave out and her ankle ached.

She’d let herself go too long without nourishment.

Taking baby steps and small movements, she retrieved her knapsack from a chair then got back under the blankets and opened it. She didn’t have much time. Austin could be gone for a few hours, or as little as one, and she had work to do.

First, she took out her notebook and snagged the room service menu from the bedside table. She calculated how much the meal had cost Austin and then added what she thought he would tip.

Men tended to tip better than women, and he was a generous guy, so she guessed the tip would have been good.

She added the total to the sum she already owed him and returned the book to the outside pocket of her knapsack.

Shoving aside her old clothing, she pulled her laptop from the big inner section. Crazy to own a laptop, even if it was ancient, and not sell it for food, but this machine fed her soul. It also brought in the only bits of money she earned while on the road.

With a little luck, the room would have Wi-Fi. Most did these days.

She booted up her computer and opened her blog then eased herself out of the harsh reality of her life and into her fantasy world.

When she was ready, she started to type.

Dear readers,

I’m sitting here in (Where should she be today?) the Langhe region of Italy on a stone terrace looking out on (she glanced around the generic hotel room, bland by anyone’s standards) the Nebbiolo vineyards with their soft hillsides in the distance, the evening sun turning them to gold. I’m sipping a glass of the excellent local Barolo, which is made from the grapes grown below. Heavenly. Day after day, grapes bathe in the warm, magical sunlight particular to the Mediterranean and scent the region with their sweetness. Then the little darlings are plucked and made into the delectable wine for which the region is known.

I sit here contemplating how good life is, how one needs little more than the sun on one’s face and a glass of wine for all to seem right with the world. The ennui of daily life fades to nothing and one is left in a state of bliss.

She cast long tentacles into her memory to fill out the post, unearthing details of her own trips to Italy years ago, memories flowing from her fingertips like old friends. Those were the days. Only they weren’t. All of the beauty of the land couldn’t erase everything around those trips. The people. The circus atmosphere. The dreadful hoopla. Here, in her blog, she shared only the best. When she felt she had shared enough, she closed off.

Tomorrow will find me in La Morra and the day after in the Barbaresco wine region, where I will visit Neive, a picturesque town, and later will sample the delightful Spumante in Alto Monferrato.

Until then, fellow travelers, be well. Arrivederci.

Lina Vittorio

Gracie Travers posted the blog—yes, the room had Wi-Fi—turned off her computer and sighed.

Thank goodness for her alter ego, Lina, who gave her a rich pretend life. Where would she be without her fantasies to lighten the unrelenting darkness of her reality?

She had once traveled those very roads in Italy, but that was a long, long time ago, with the few golden moments committed to memory. She’d been a girl then. Now she was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, alone, with no one to depend on but herself. That suited her just fine, most of the time, except for those rare moments when it wasn’t enough. When she wanted more. When loneliness could no longer be kept at bay.

Stop it, Gracie. Save the pity party for a night when you aren’t sitting cozy and warm in a soft bed.

If wishes were horses, she would either really be in Italy, or she would live in the home of her dreams, nothing grand, just a roof over her head and regular meals. Despite her upbringing, she wasn’t spoiled. She really did need very little, only the basics. Food.

Now so close to the end of her odd, self-imposed lifestyle, she had reached her limit. She could no longer tolerate the moving, having no place to call home, without anchor, companionship or loved ones. In her travels, she’d envied each and every couple she met and the homes they lived in, whether large farmhouses on rural land, or tiny urban bungalows on postage-stamp lots.

She wanted to belong, but on her own terms, and so she kept on traveling.

She’d been on the move for too long and it exhausted her, but what else could she do? She had only one talent and had already tapped it dry. Too early. A burnout and she wasn’t even thirty yet.

Crap, she was tired. She closed her eyes to rest. Just for a minute.

* * *

“WHAT THE HELL are you doing?” Finn eyed Austin across the restaurant table with the mulish jut to his jaw that had been there since Austin had picked up Gracie. Finn was a good guy in general, solid, salt of the earth and all that, but he could get mad like nobody’s business. “Haven’t you had enough of taking care of a woman? You need to cut yourself some slack and just have a good time.”

Austin figured Finn had a right to be angry. This was their buddy fishing vacation. They’d both needed this for a long time and had turned themselves inside out to make sure it happened, Finn by getting a veterinarian from the next county to cover his calls, and Austin by dealing with his mother.

“Let it go, Finn.”

“I can’t. You’re being irresponsible.”

Austin couldn’t have heard that right. “Irresponsible? Me? I’m the most responsible guy on the planet.”

“Yeah, okay, maybe that was the wrong word. How about impulsive?” Finn amended.

Impulsive fit. It never had before, but it did where Gracie was concerned.

Her hunger, her need, resonated with him, but there was more. He liked the fight within her, her drive for independence and her refusal to give in. He even kind of understood why she’d stolen from him. But, cripes, the woman needed a long-term goal to get herself into a safer life.

“You shouldn’t be doing this, man.”

No, he shouldn’t, but Finn had his own thing going on, too.

“What about you?” Austin asked.

“What about me?”

“We’re on vacation, but you’re going to see a girl you knew nearly twenty years ago. Why?”

“She needs help.”

“So does Gracie.”

“Gracie is a stranger.”

“So’s your friend.”

“Nope. We’ve been in touch for ten years.”

“But you haven’t seen her in twenty.”

“So what? When I told her we were going to Denver, she asked me to stop in on the way.” He picked at his food. “Don’t you remember how great she was?”

“I wasn’t in your orbit at that time. I was a year younger than you and you were new in town. I heard a bit about it, but not much.” He’d been too busy trying to find sustenance and keep body and soul together.

“But you know the story, right? It was huge. The paper carried it for a week.”