Chapter 1
Lora would have paid better attention to Vilmari’s explanation of the ingredients in a Hugo Spritz, but she was too focused on attempting to parallel park, with the help of RuPaul, on the steepest street she had ever seen. Living in New York City for the past decade, she had found herself in the driver’s seat fewer times than were necessary to master the task at hand— let alone in a rental car with a stick shift. But there was that video of Ru on the internet somewhere in a classic convertible explaining how easy it was to parallel park once you measured up to the— what was it? PSL? No, not the latte. The PSD. All she had to do was make sure the seam of the Passenger- Side Door was lined up with the bumper, then reverse at an angle, and she should be nestled in that spot like it had written her an invitation. At least according to RuPaul.
“It sounds so good, don’t you think? You know how much I love elderflower. Remember my St. Germain thing two summers ago? This is the first drink I’m ordering.” Vilmari swiped away her Pinterest board, then paused to glance out the window of the tiny Fiat 500, where a stone wall was the only thing visible. “If there is anywhere to order it.”
“I think we’re not quite in the town yet,” said Lora, glancing at the rearview mirror on the passenger’s side. She flicked her eyes forward to the car in front, which was another Fiat 500, identical to the one she was driving. How hard could this be if that person managed it? she thought as she eased her foot off the clutch and unfortunately felt the car roll back and straight out of the perfect PSD position. Sweat bloomed on her forehead as she contemplated the utility of taking parking advice from someone who also likely thought that both mastering winged eyeliner and walking in eight- inch platforms were child’s play. “Also, it’s only 12:30? Maybe we should get settled before we spritz anything.”
“It’s 12:30 here, but it’s 7:30 in New York. My body’s already on cocktail hour. You got this, Mami?” Vilmari peered over her massive Chanel sunglasses. “I’m sure we can find a parking lot somewhere.”
“No, no,” Lora said, gripping the steering wheel with her left hand. She reached down into the middle of the seats and wrapped her right hand around the parking brake, pressed the button with her thumb and jerked it up, holding on tight. Instead of emulating the elegant RuPaul maneuvering her Mercedes around Bel Air, Lora was going to have to resort to calling up her South Florida roots, where she learned how to yank a 4×4 out of a mud pit in pitch darkness with Tim McGraw on the stereo. She blew out a breath between pursed lips, centering herself. “I got it. I got iiit . . .” She trailed off, sliding her foot off the brake and pressing the clutch while easing the hand brake down. The Fiat rolled forward with a purr; then she cut the wheel and settled into the spot, bumping the back tire gently against the curb.
“Holy crap, that was insane. You nailed it. We have to celebrate!”
“Hold the balloons, Mar. We’ve got a lot more hurdles to get through before we start celebrating anything.”
“We made it here from Milan without getting lost once with a fourteen percent charge on my phone, and even figured out how to pay tolls in Italian. I’m feeling festive!” Vilmari grinned, her shoulders squeezed up to her ears. “Should we grab the bags? Let me GPS the B and B. What’s it called again?”
“Casa Coo- coo Zolo? I think that’s how you say it. But I want to head right to city hall first. Baia Santa looked pretty small on the map, so I think we can take the bags with us now and figure out where everything is later. What do you think?” Lora popped her door open and stepped out into the June heat. It wasn’t sweltering, but hot enough to let her know that August would likely come with fangs. The landscape was on the edge of arid, with short, scrubby bushes lining the road and two tall maritime pines rising up to frame the view of a deep blue wedge of sea. The road was too high up for them to get a good view of the water, but seeing only a piece of it made Lora feel a zing of excitement. Yes, she was here to complete a task, but she was also on the Italian Riviera with her best friend on their last summer trip for— well, for the amount of time it would take her to complete a postdoc in Zurich and figure out whatever was coming next. If she could get her citizenship paperwork filed as soon as possible, there’d be plenty of time for a Spritz— Hugo or otherwise.
“I think I’m ready,” Vilmari said, swinging her tote bag onto her shoulder. “Let’s get this woman a country!”
“I already have a country. What I need is grant money.” Lora laughed as Vilmari ducked her head back into the car, then struggled to push her seat forward. Her suitcase was so huge they’d had to shove it in the back seat instead of the trunk, laying it down like a sleeping toddler. “I think we need to get you a stevedore. How is it that you always pack like you’re going to be at sea for six months?”
“Because my style contains multitudes,” she said, gesturing one arm toward the heavens. She clasped both hands around the handle and pulled hard. “I like options. You know me, I can’t be confined to a capsule wardrobe. I need variety, I need expansiveness, I need abundance!” Her suitcase landed on the sidewalk with a thump.
“I know, I know. You’re probably the only reporter in New York who shows up to work with a costume change. It looks like we just walk straight down this hill, according to the map,” Lora said, staring down at her phone. “It shouldn’t be too bad. Can you make it with that thing?”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m as strong as my fashion game. I am thirsty, though. If drinks are down the hill, that’s where I’m headed,” Vilmari said, pushing her sunnies up and starting to walk.
Lora pulled her smaller suitcase out of the trunk and locked the car. She ran her fingers through her bangs, sensing an Italian frizz already threatening her New York shag. Maybe it was hotter than she’d thought. Vilmari was already disappearing behind the row of cars, determined as one could be wearing wedge espadrilles and pulling a sixty- pound Samsonite.
“Mar. Mar? You’re walking so fast!” Lora took off behind her, but approximately six minutes later, they were both reasonably certain that they had somehow missed the town. They were coated in a gleaming sheen of perspiration, their wrists aching from trying to keep their bags from rolling downhill into either each other or any random urn of geraniums they had passed. Lora squinted down at her phone, not ready to accept defeat, and turned her body trying to get a better sense of what direction the blue GPS arrow was pointing.
“How does an entire town hide?” Vilmari searched in her bag, unearthed a hair tie, and began gathering her dark brown waves into a bun on the top of her head.
“I don’t think it’s hiding. I think we missed a turn,” Lora said. She turned to look back up the road, where she could see a small white sign about fifty feet away with a symbol of concentric circles that read centro. “That’s it. That’s the road into town,” she said, twisting her suitcase around to edge back up the hill.
“Are you sure? I will not appreciate an unnecessary uphill at this point.” Vilmari fanned her face with the hand that wasn’t pulling on the suitcase handle.
“Promise. The road is here,” said Lora, pointing.
“That’s not a road. It’s a hallway,” Vilmari said, reaching Lora with her suitcase trailing behind. She turned to look down the tiny walkway paved with large gray stones. It was lined with sherbet- colored buildings and more urns of pink, red, and white flowers.
“The center of town is pedestrian- only, according to this. Wait,” she said, holding her phone up so that the camera captured another white sign with black lettering nailed to the same pole that held the centro sign. “I love this translation app. ‘Zona Pedonale.’ It means ‘pedestrian zone.’ This must be it.”
“The whole town is pedestrian- only? What if someone needs to move something big? How do you get a truck down here when you want to buy a couch?”
“I’m sure they have ways. Maybe they take things in pieces.”
“What if you’re the thing in pieces? I can’t imagine an ambulance having an easy time getting through here either.”
“Well, we’re lucky that we don’t have to worry about any of that. We are too temporary to have to consider end- of- life preparations,” said Lora, swiveling her head from right to left. The two- and three- story town houses lining the road had gigantic wooden doors flanked by pots of succulents, aloe, and bougainvillea. Clean laundry hung out of a few of the windows, perfuming the air with the unmistakable scent of fabric softener. A gray cat with one white boot scampered by, then hid under a stairway. “For ourselves, anyway. Is it weird that no one is walking around?” She found herself whispering.
“I don’t know, but this isn’t where my people are from, it’s where yours are from. If this was my family’s town, we would have been greeted with a plena band and someone holding a tray of tembleque,” Vilmari whispered back.
“These are not my people. Just because my father was from here— ” Lora stopped at the sound of a hammer clanging against metal not too far away. She turned to Vilmari, and both cocked their heads waiting to hear it again. They walked forward until the street finally met the edge of a tiny piazza. A pastry- cream- colored church rose up to their left, the front walkway paved with small black and white stones set in a floral design. At the opposite end of the square, café tables were scattered in front of a coffee bar. Dark green umbrellas cast shade on the tables, but not one was occupied. In fact, all of the shops lining the piazza were closed, their metal shutters shut tight as if the whole town was on vacation. Forever. “It could be some kind of a holiday. Let me check and see where city hall is.”
Lora searched the map on her phone and squinted at the Gothic- style stone building directly across from where they were standing. The only light gray building on the piazza, it was tall and square, adorned with notched battlements along the roofline and a large clock flanking a small central tower. Seven rounded- arch windows spanned the top two stories, but the ground floor had three smaller windows on each side of a massive iron door that was very much closed. The marble arch above was carved with the word municipio, and three flags hung down to what looked like spikes inlaid into the metal of the door.
“That’s it.” She pointed up at the sign.
“Look at the size of that door knocker!” Vilmari pulled down her sunglasses to get a better look. “And don’t ask me to go near it. Someone’s coming out of that place with a sword, for sure.”
“We must be missing something. I checked the website so many times. It said that they are open every weekday and that the mayor— ” Lora was cut off again by the clanging sound. “See? Someone is here,” she said, gesturing toward the church. “I think it’s coming from down that street. Let’s go check it out.”
“Maybe we should find the hotel first. That will probably answer a lot of questions— assuming there are other human beings there.”
But Lora had already dragged her suitcase across the piazza and to the street on the right side of the church to follow the banging. She looked up at the street sign, via dei glicini, affixed to the facade of the first building she passed. The third building down was clad in scaffolding all the way up to the roof, and a man in a yellow plastic hard hat stood on a platform outside the second floor. His body was twisted to whack away at something she couldn’t see. Lora turned around and grinned at Vilmari. “Let’s go see if he can tell us anything.”
“What are you going to do? Roll up and ask for your citizenship from the guy banging on a pipe? You do remember that you don’t speak Italian, right?”
“I’m going to use the app. It works. You’ll see.” Lora marched toward the scaffolding, still pulling her suitcase behind her. She paused, holding up her phone, and called up to the man.
“Scusi! Scusi!” she called until her words found enough space between the hammering that the man stopped and turned to look down at her. He was younger and far less grizzled than she would have expected a construction worker to be, but still clearly not thrilled to be heckled into pausing his task. A lock of brown hair spilled out from under the hard hat, and his dark eyebrows drew together. He was wearing a white T- shirt that looked like it had been washed on the hot setting a few times too many. Lora was therefore not spared from seeing the outline of a sculpted chest and a smooth set of biceps under the too- short sleeves. He was gorgeous. He was also looking at her like she was interrupting a surgical procedure. She pressed on, typing a message into the English side of the English- to- Italian translator. “Mi scusi, signore, può dirmi se la città è in vacanza?” was what the app indicated that she should say if trying to ask if there was some explanation for the absence of people in town, but what the guy in the hard hat probably heard was “Mi skoo- si, seeg- nor, poo durmie say la sita ee in vaycansa.”
He squinted harder, this time with a lift of his lower lip that dimpled his chin in an expression that she could only characterize as Are you serious?
“No, the town is not on vacation.”
“Oh! You speak English! Great. I— uh, we,” she said, gesturing back at Vilmari, who likely read the same story through the white T- shirt and was grinning like it was her birthday. “We just got here and it seems like everything is closed. We thought maybe it was a holiday.”
“It’s not a holiday,” he said, glancing down at his watch. It had a silver metal bracelet and, even from where she stood, looked too nice for manual labor. “But it is one in the afternoon, which is normally a pause. The businesses close from 12:30 to 3:30 and then open again until about 7:30 in the evening.”
“That’s great, thank you!” said Lora.
“Perfect, see? We can find the hotel, hang out a little, and then come back to city hall this afternoon,” said Vilmari. “Come on, let’s go.”
“City hall is only open in the mornings, however.” He dropped the hammer into a toolbox.
“No! That means I have to wait until tomorrow morning to go,” Lora said, turning to Vilmari.
“Mornings every day except Wednesday. On Wednesday, they are closed completely.” The worker pulled up the hat slightly and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Wait. That can’t be. I’ve got to speak to the mayor urgently. I even tried to email city hall and was advised to speak to the mayor directly. Do you know where I can find him? It’s so important that I get started on my, um— ” She paused, wondering how to sum up what she was about to attempt. “Project. My very important project.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help. You’ll have to get to the comune— ah, city hall, I mean— on Thursday morning. He’s usually there by nine.” He turned back toward the building and reached back into the toolbox.
“Oh, so you know him?”
He paused in his bent- over stance with a sheaf of sandpaper in his hand. “We’re a small town. It’s hard not to know people’s habits.”
“Would you happen to know where his habits might take him at lunchtime on a Tuesday? I will only bother him for two minutes. I need to ask him for the tiniest favor— urgent, but very quick. It’s not even enough to make an appointment really.” She smiled, making sure to bring it all the way up to her eyes. The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was trying to be manipulative. It was only a question of trying to be expeditious. Waiting two extra days to get started when the whole process could take up to six weeks seemed so wasteful.
“He’s not available right now,” he said, beginning to run the sandpaper over a section of the wall that looked freshly re- cemented.
“Are you sure?” Vilmari called up to him. “Because my friend and I came all the way from New York City at nine last night, and it’s almost twenty- four hours later. We’ve flown and driven all the way here to have a conversation with the mayor. What did you say his name was?” She turned to Lora.
“Andrea Garibaldi,” said Lora.
“Right, Andrea Garibaldi. And I will tell you something— I am hot. My feet hurt and I know it’s the wrong time of day, but I need a cocktail. So, if you know this guy or know where to find him, can you please help us out? Because you don’t know my friend Lora here, but she is one of the most determined people I know and will stand here until she wears you down enough to take her to him personally. So, let’s maybe make this quicker for all of us. Lor?” She gestured to Lora and stepped back.
Lora gazed up, clasping her hands together. “I would be really, really grateful if you would please let me know where I can find the mayor.”
He paused to look down at them again.
“Now,” whispered Vilmari behind her.
“Now would be great,” said Lora, her face upturned and smiling.
He sighed, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of it. He then lowered himself to sitting on the platform, grabbed the crossbar next to him, and, in one smooth movement, twisted and lowered himself to hanging a couple of feet above the sidewalk. The insufficient T- shirt lifted, revealing a swath of toned torso, and Lora heard Vilmari gasp. He let go of the bar, dropping gracefully onto the stones in front of them. “Follow me,” he said.
Lora turned back to Vilmari as they gaped at each other. “What was that?” mouthed Vilmari silently.
Lora’s eyes went wide as she shook her head. They grabbed their suitcases, composing themselves enough to follow him silently as he walked toward the piazza. He passed the main entrance of city hall and took a left down a side street, pausing in front of a normal- sized door, then pulled from his pants pocket a heavy metal ring that looked like it held keys to every building in town. He was probably a very in- demand contractor. No wonder he knew everyone. Unlocking the door, he stepped aside, gesturing for Lora and Vilmari to go through first.
“You can leave your bags here. No one will take them,” he said. “This way.” He nodded his head, turning left down the hall.
“This is really so generous of you,” said Lora, trailing behind his long strides. “We wouldn’t want to keep you any longer from your work. If you tell us where his office is, we can take it from here.”
“It’s OK. It makes more sense for me to stay at this point.” He turned to the right, pausing in front of another door that was closed, but not completely. Shoving against it with his hip, he gave the handle a quick twist and popped it open. “I’ve got to come back and fix this.”
“You do work for everyone in this town, I guess,” said Lora, following him inside the office. Vilmari pulled up behind her, removing her sunglasses and blinking at the room. It was bigger than Lora would have guessed and crammed with furniture from every decade, it seemed. A ’60s- ish metal- and- Formica desk stood in the middle of the room, one ’70s- looking chair behind it and a couple of ’90s- looking chairs in front of it. A giant wooden armoire from some undetermined epoch stood against one wall, its doors having lost their ability to close ages ago. It was packed with reams of paper and booklets. A large oil painting of a seaside landscape hung on the wall behind the desk.
“You might say that,” he said. “You can have a seat.” He gestured toward the two chairs in front of the desk, pulled an eyeglass case from the cargo pocket of his pants, and slid on the black frames. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked as they scooted over to sit on the dark plum upholstered chairs.
“I’m Lora Brooks. And this is my friend Vilmari Colón,” she said, her eyes flicking up to the hard hat he was still wearing inside the office. His eyes drifted up as he seemed to realize it at the same moment and quickly removed it.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” he said. Walking around to the opposite side of the desk, he extended his hand to Lora. “Andrea Garibaldi. How can I be of service?”
Copyright © 2026 by Jill Francis