Meet Me in Venice (14 page)

Preshy was enjoying it all, laughing with her friends, when she noticed Bennett involved in a serious conversation with Aunt Grizelda. “Aunt G’s reminding him of his responsibilities as her ‘son-in-law,’ “ she said, nudging Daria and laughing. “I’m surprised she hasn’t had a little talk with me about the birds and the bees.”

Much later, full of good food and wine, she and Bennett decided to walk back alone to the Palazzo Rendino. Arms around each other’s waists, they strolled through the narrow cobble-stoned
calli
and over the many little bridges, while Preshy talked about her plans for their future life together.

At the street door of the Palazzo, she turned to her future husband. He held her close and she twined her arms around his neck, smiling up into his handsome face. “Tomorrow, my love,” she whispered as she kissed him good night.

“Tomorrow,” Bennett promised, with a final lingering kiss. “I can’t wait.”

Preshy watched him walk away, a tall, elegant, handsome man in a dark suit. He turned at the corner and lifted his hand in farewell. He was every woman’s dream and, for her, that dream was about to become a reality.

H
ER
wedding day dawned clear and ice blue. The tranquil lagoon shimmered under a pale sun, ruffled here and there by the froth of a
motoscafo’s
wake. Preshy stood for a moment, alone in her wedding finery, on the Palazzo’s embarcadero. She thought she had never seen Venice look more beautiful. Her gondola awaited, moored to the striped pole, its festive canopy swagged with garlands of greenery, intertwined with tiny white blossoms. The ribbons on the gondolier’s straw boater floated on the breeze as he came to help her on board and his hand was as cold as the north wind.

She smiled her thanks, settling on the white cushions, arranging her long mist-colored chiffon dress and adjusting the cape’s fur-trimmed hood over her upswept hair. She clutched
the small trail of honey-colored orchids tighter. She was nervous but happy.

People turned to stare as the gondolier poled along the Grand Canal. At the
vaporetto
stop, the crowd waiting for the water bus waved and yelled good luck and Preshy waved back, smiling. She felt like Cleopatra entering Rome.

Since her uncle Oscar had long since ascended over the mountains to the place he’d assumed heaven was, there was no close male relative to give her away and, despite Aunt Grizelda’s protests, she had chosen to ride to her wedding and walk down the aisle alone.

“I’m not a child,” she had told Aunt G an hour earlier as they sipped a fortifying glass of fizzy Prosecco in the Palazzo’s
piano no-bile,
the first-floor drawing room where the party had been held the previous night. This was before Grizelda and Mimi left for the church in their own gondola, complete with the yapping berib-boned dogs and a flurry of old friends, all fluffed out in enormous hats and gauzy scarves and furry muffs, glinting with old jewels and shrieking with laughter at shared old jokes.

“I’m thirty-eight years old and I can surely make it to the church for my own wedding,” she’d said.

And Aunt Grizelda had sighed, recognizing defeat, something she was not too familiar with. But she had finally given in and now she was waiting in the front-row aisle seat at the gorgeous Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, along with Bennett and their guests. However, there were no personal guests for Bennett James because he had no family and no close friends. That was why Daria’s Tom had agreed to be his best man.

As the gondola slid alongside the Basilica, Preshy stared up at its great glimmering dome. It was her favorite church in all of Venice, a city with surely more churches than any other. There seemed to be one around every corner, each more beautiful than the last. But for her the Salute was special.

She had first been brought there by her parents when she was four years old. She’d been told many times that there was no way she could possibly remember that visit, but she knew she did. She remembered the soaring height of it, a giant’s church to a small child. She remembered the rich colors and the glitter of gold and the paintings and the mosaics. And she remembered her mother holding one hand and her father the other as they walked down that aisle to inspect the great altar. It was the only true memory she had of them, and it was because of that memory that she was there today, for her wedding.

Her gold brocade cape billowed behind her as she stepped from the gondola, her face half-hidden behind her soft fur-trimmed hood. A mystery bride, she thought, smiling and feeling like a heroine in a romance novel.

The church was cold and the scent of two thousand roses flown in from Colombia filled the air. Aunt Grizelda hurried to meet her, a flamboyant ageless redhead in a pearly white suit and a vermilion cartwheel of a hat that clashed marvelously with her red hair. She was wearing a diamond brooch Queen Elizabeth might have envied, but Preshy saw there was a frown on her face instead of a smile.

“Come here, darling.” Grizelda grabbed her hand and pulled her to one side.

Preshy glanced, astonished, at her. The organist was playing Vivaldi and she knew he was simply marking time until he could segue into the Haydn she had chosen for her walk down the aisle.

“He’s not here,” Aunt Grizelda said.

“Who’s not here?” she asked, bewildered.

“Bennett. My dear, he’s not here.”

“Oh . . .” She stared, surprised at her aunt. “Well, of course it must be the traffic. He’s held up in traffic, that’s all.”

“We’re on the Grand Canal not Madison Avenue.” Grizelda gripped her hand even tighter. “And anyway, Bennett’s not at the hotel either. I called, Preshy. They said he checked out last night.”

Preshy stared, bug-eyed, at her aunt. She clutched her honey-colored orchids in a death grip. Grizelda unhooked her fingers and threw the orchids to the floor. She took both Preshy’s hands in her own. They were cold.

Tears stood in Aunt Grizelda’s eyes. “There will be no wedding,” she said. “Bennett’s gone.”

Preshy felt as though she were floating somewhere in space. She was aware of Mimi, pale as a lily, and of the shocked faces of Maurice and Jeanne; of the flutter of old friends, glamorous in their big hats, quiet now, watching. Her bridesmaids, Sylvie and Daria hovered, lovely in pale apricot with big anxious eyes. Tom was holding the silent Super-Kid’s hand and even the beribboned dogs had quit their yapping.

She looked at them and then at her aunt, still clinging to her icy hands. “There must be some mistake,” she whispered. “Surely he’ll call, tell us what’s happened . . . . We can wait . . . .”

No one said anything.

“We can check the hotel again,” she said desperately. “They’ve made a mistake.”

“Oh, my dear . . .” Tears spilled down her aunt’s cheeks.

Preshy had never seen her cry before. “Don’t,” she said, suddenly calm. “Don’t cry, Aunt Grizelda. Your mascara will run.”

“Oh,
merde
to my mascara,” her aunt yelled, suddenly furious. “How
dare
he do this to you?
I’ll kill him, I’ll castrate him, I’ll wring his neck with my bare hands.
. . .”

Daria and Sylvie came quickly and put their arms around her, murmuring that they were sorry, that it was unforgivable, that they loved her; that it would be all right soon.

Preshy said nothing. She was the eye in the center of the storm of anger and sorrow whirling around her; the shamed bride left at the altar. And such a beautiful altar where once upon a time her mother and father had escorted her down the aisle.

She looked around her, thinking of what to do. The guests had converged from all over the world for her small intimate wedding. A reception was to be held at the wonderful Hotel Cipriani across the canal on the island of Giudecca. There was champagne and a wedding cake and more roses flown in from Colombia, and later there was to be a celebratory dinner and dancing.

She got to her feet, icily calm. “It’s all right, everyone,” she said. “Remember the old saying, ‘The show must go on’? The water taxis are waiting to take us to the party, so let’s go.”

And followed by Daria and Sylvie, she led the way out of the great church and to what, when she thought about it afterward, felt more like a wake than a wedding.

PART TWO
RAFFERTY

PARIS

I
T
was the thought of winter with its long dark days closing in on her, all alone in her now empty-feeling apartment that got Preshy on a plane to Boston, and to Daria.

She had been home for a couple of weeks, fending off smiling inquiries by neighbors and friends as to how married life was with the curt answer that she wouldn’t know, since she was not married and didn’t plan to be, and people were either too polite, or perhaps just too kind to ask why, and what went wrong.

At Logan Airport, when she emerged from the tunnel into arrivals, Daria took one look at her, a sorrowful, stringy-haired waif with only one small carry-on bag, and they both burst into tears.

In the car on their way to Cambridge where Daria lived, she handed Preshy a box of Kleenex, glancing at her out of the corner
of her eye. “You can’t go on like this, you know. You’re not the first woman to be dumped, even though yours was at the altar.”

“Don’t remind me.” Preshy gave a little sob and stared blankly out at the rain. “He’s never contacted me, you know. Not even a phone call, or an e-mail, to explain. And I’m too proud to try to contact him. Not Aunt G, though, she’s had detectives searching for him.” She giggled through her tears. “Maybe I’d better hope she doesn’t catch him or she’ll kill him.”

“Castrate
is a word I also seem to remember her using.”

“Anyway, they came up empty-handed. There is no Bennett James living in Shanghai. There’s no grand apartment; no James Export Company. And nobody ever heard of him at Dartmouth. Bennett James really doesn’t exist. Exactly who he is and why he did what he did, is still a mystery to me, though Aunt G says he was after my money.”

“What money?” Daria slammed on the brakes, squealing to a stop at the red light. She turned to smile at the cop in the squad car who’d pulled up next to her. He glared at her. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she mouthed at him and he raised his eyebrows and shook his head, wagging a finger at her.

“Oh shit,” she said, moving more cautiously as the light turned green, “I’m so caught up in that bastard Bennett I’m not thinking what I’m doing.”

Preshy seemed not to hear; she just went on. “That’s exactly what I said to Aunt G.
What money?
I don’t
have
money. All I have is my shop from which I make a fair enough living but nothing extravagant. But Aunt G said well I looked rich, with my diamonds and my Paris apartment. She said Bennett
thought
I was rich, especially
when he found out she was my aunt and I was her only living relative. ‘Add it up, girl,’ she said to me. ‘Ask yourself, as I’m sure Bennett did, exactly
who
is your dear Aunt G leaving her fortune to?’ “

Preshy turned to look at Daria, who was concentrating on her driving. “I told her I hadn’t ever thought about that. I mean her dying and . . . well you know. Aunt G said it was a good thing I hadn’t, because she had no plan for an imminent departure. But then she said she had a confession to make.”

Daria took her eyes off the road for a second to look at her. “A confession? What on earth had she done?” She swung the car into the brick driveway—if eight or so feet in front of the small Federal-style house could be given the grandiose title of “driveway.” She put the car into park and turned to face Preshy again, waiting for her answer.

“Remember the night before the wedding, when we all had dinner at the lovely little trattoria on the Fondamenta Nuevo?” Daria nodded. “Remember, we were all having such a good time, making silly toasts and laughing at each other’s jokes . . .” Daria nodded again. “All except Bennett,” Preshy said. “I noticed him deep in conversation with Aunt G, and this is what she told me that conversation was about.

“She said she was telling Bennett how some madman almost sideswiped her off the Grande Corniche a few weeks previously. She told him she thought she was going to die and her first thought was that she was damned if she was going to miss my wedding. Bennett laughed, and then he said, ‘Maybe it was Preshy, trying to get you out of the way so she could get her hands on your money. ‘

“Aunt G said she was a bit surprised but she put him straight right away. ‘Oh, no,’ she told him. ‘Preshy knows she won’t inherit. She’s a strong girl, and she’s clever. I want her to make her own way in the world. Everything I have will go to my favorite charities: to the Princess Grace Foundation, and children’s cancer care, and to take care of retired racehorses. Mimi’s doing the same thing,’ she said she told him. ‘Only with her it’s retired racing greyhounds. ‘

“Bennett became very quiet after that, and I remember now, he did fall kind of silent on the walk back to the Palazzo as well. It was I who was doing all the talking, making all the plans.”

“The bastard.” Daria reached out so they could hug across the center console. “You’re like that heroine in the Henry James novel. What was it called?
Washington Square?”