CHAPTER SIX

By the time she’d collected her case and emerged out into the arrivals lounge, Keira’s daydreaming mind had gone into overdrive. She’d merged the Romeo of her dream with the tour guide she was about to meet, turning him into a fully fleshed out character who would sweep her off her feet with his fiery, passionate personality. She just couldn’t wait to meet him!

She stood with her case, looking around at the busy Naples airport. There were people all around holding signs and when Keira saw hers, her heart soared. The man holding it was a hunk.

Keira felt a charge of electricity race through her as she rushed over.

“Hi, I’m Keira,” she said, pointing at the sign with her name on it.

The man looked at her, confused, then looked at the sign. “Oh? This?” He started to laugh. “I was just holding it for some guy while he went to the bathroom.”

Just then, Keira caught sight of a man exiting the bathroom and heading in her direction. He was short, rotund, slobbish, badly dressed in a stained gray shirt and ill-fitting jeans, and what little hair he had left on his head looked like a messy bird’s nest. She willed him to walk by but realized, her heart falling, that he was heading straight for them.

The hunk with the sign noticed him. Once he drew up to them, the hunk handed him the sign and hurried over to where a stunning gorgeous girl had emerged into the arrivals lounge. They proceeded to pack on the PDA. Keira grimaced.

“Young love, eh?” the guide said, scratching the strip of exposed skin that his shirt wasn’t quite covering. “You Karla?”

“Keira.”

He checked the sign and shrugged. “American names sound the same to me.”

As he spoke a whiff of onion and coffee came off his breath, making Keira’s stomach turn.

“Come on,” he barked at Keira. “The car’s this way.”

He turned on his heel and strode off quickly, disappearing into the crowds of people and leaving Keira floundering in the middle of the airport. She grabbed her case and looked about frantically for the exit sign.

She saw it, and the back of the guide’s head as he swiftly walked through it. He hadn’t even turned around to check she was still with him!

With a grimace, Keira followed in the direction of the slobbish man, lugging her heavy case after her.

As she was knocked around by the jostling crowds, her excitement at the prospect of an Italian romance healing her broken heart was well and truly dashed. Instead of being whisked away by a handsome man she was going to have to endure onion breath and a rude tour guide.

So much for Romeo, she thought with a heavy heart.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Did you know that you’re late?” the tour guide, Antonio, said as he led her through the parking lot. The frown lines in his forehead were so deep it appeared as if he was scowling at her.

“It took a while for my bag to show up,” Keira replied, still reeling from the fact her hopes of meeting Romeo had been dashed.

Antonio made Keira feel very uncomfortable in his company, and not just because of the round, hairy belly that protruded over his waistband. His attitude was harsh, like a school teacher she could already tell she’d never be able to please.

The air was very hot, almost oppressively so, but that didn’t seem to slow him down. They hurried along, Antonio keeping a few paces ahead of Keira, who struggled to manage her cases. She was already becoming sticky with sweat.

“My back is bad,” he said, as way of an explanation for not helping her.

As they walked, Antonio spoke, his words coming out in a huge, fast stream, his voice like a barking dog. Keira thought of her dream Romeo. Antonio could not be further from that!

“Twenty-one days, huh?” he said, striding ahead so that Keira had to skip to keep up.

Already, she was dreading them.

He led her to a car. Keira had been expecting something nice, but instead was confronted with a small, old, rusty-looking vehicle.

“This is it?” she asked.

“There’s no room for the case in the back seats. Put it in the trunk,” Antonio ordered.

Keira popped the trunk and found that the car was filled with shopping bags. As she rammed her bag in beside Antonio’s groceries a waft of cheese stench emanated toward her. One of the bags fell open and some pecorino tumbled out. Keira put it back in, realizing with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and disgust that all the grocery bags were full of pecorino cheese. Was that all the man ate? she wondered. Then she realized, additionally, that the smell was probably going to leak into her case and permeate all of her clothes. She was going to smell of cheese for the next three weeks!

She grimaced and shut the trunk. As she did so Antonio started the car’s engine, making a cloud of fumes sputter over her legs.

Furious, Keira climbed into the front seat beside him, discovering with horror that they were so close their knees were touching. She looked over at Antonio’s clammy, hairy hands clutching the steering wheel. The smell inside was a combination of cheese, sweat, and humid air.

Before she’d even had a chance to get her seatbelt on, Antonio gunned it. The car lurched forward and she gripped the sides of her seat as he drove, so tight her knuckles turned white. Antonio drove like a maniac.

“So tell me, New York,” Antonio said. “Bad place, huh? Lots of crime?”

Keira looked over at him, shocked. “No. I mean, not really. It has its problems, like all cities, but it’s wonderful.”

“Cold though, no?” Antonio pressed. To Keira he seemed to really be wanting to find the worst in her home city. “Like now it is cold. While we still bask in glorious sunshine.” He laughed wheezily, showing off crooked yellow teeth.

“Have you ever been?” Keira asked, a little offended by his comments.

“No no no,” Antonio replied, shaking his head as if the suggestion was ludicrous. “Never will I go to a godless city like that. Here we’re good Catholics.”

If Antonio had set out to rub Keira the wrong way he had certainly achieved his aim.

But if Antonio himself was a shock to the system, Naples was not what Keira was expecting either. The roads were very narrow, with terraced five-story apartment blocks towering up either side, with balconies made of rusting metal, clothes lines stretched between them covered in colorful linen that fluttered in the wind. There were next to no sidewalks, which meant people wandered into the road, often without looking, darting out from behind parked cars. Even the road signs and street lamps, Keira noted, were actually attached to the walls of the houses, since there wasn’t even enough space for a pole.

None of these obstacles made Antonio drive any slower, however. He just cursed loudly in Italian every time someone stepped into his path, swerving, sometimes honking his horn.

“Che cavolo!” he exclaimed loudly, gesticulating at an old woman who’d just stepped in front of him.

Despite not knowing exactly what Antonio was saying, Keira could tell it was some kind of expletive and felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment and shame for the old woman on the receiving end of his rage. But the woman just gestured rudely at Antonio. Clearly she was used to such occurrences.

Vespas whizzed past them. Keira noticed that the walls were covered with graffiti. There was so much that people had started drawing over the graffiti that was already there!

Keira lost count of the amount of pizzerias they passed. Her stomach grumbled. It had been hours since her bland airplane dinner.

They turned a corner and zipped past a stall set up at the side of the road selling fish. The smell made Keira gag and completely lose her appetite.

“Watch out!” Keira cried, as Antonio careened toward a filthy, mangy cat sitting in the middle of the road.

Luckily it ran out of the way just in time.

“Strays,” Antonio said, as if to explain why he hadn’t even attempted to slow down. “Pests. We’re infested with them.”

The cobbled streets made the car bump up and down. It was an uncomfortable journey to say the least.

“You’ll be able to see the mountain in a minute,” Antonio said. “Vesuvius.”

“Oh,” Keira replied, almost alarmed at what she perceived to be his first attempt to make small talk.

“There,” he said, suddenly, pointing to her left.

If the mountain had been visible it was only for a second, because Keira didn’t manage to see a thing.

“You saw it?” Antonio asked, rather aggressively. “Did you?”

“I must have missed it,” Keira mumbled in response. “We went by a little fast.”

“Fast?” Antonio scoffed. “Fast? I’m driving the pace of a snail thanks to this idiota in front of me!” He threw his arms toward the red car ahead of them, which they were practically touching bumpers with, then honked his horn over and over and swore again loudly.

He swung the car sharply down another side road. This one was filled with bags of garbage. The walls were covered in graffiti and many of the cars appeared abandoned, covered in dust and bird droppings. Here, several of the metal balconies above them were rusted and half falling from the walls. Many of the potted plants upon them were dead.

Antonio laughed suddenly and pointed at a huge billboard hanging over the entrance to what appeared to be a parking lot.

“A sexy lady, huh?” he said. “Our Italian women are goddesses.”

Keira squirmed even more. “Oh yes, they’re very beautiful,” she said.

“You looking at the trash?” Antonio said in his barking voice.

Keira guiltily turned her eyes away from the mountains of bags.

“It’s a big problem,” Antonio added. “Big problem. Here, they call it the Triangle of Death. All the waste causes cancer, birth defects, that sort of thing.”

Keira grimaced.

“The system does not do anything about it,” Antonio added.

“The system?” Keira asked.

“The mafia, you know?” Antonio added, again speaking in that way that made Keira feel like he thought she was a complete imbecile. “You will see them around. When there is a fight, they are there. They are the ones with the guns.”

With every passing moment, Keira felt more terrible. Had Elliot been aware of the conditions of this city when he’d arranged the assignment? She knew she was only supposed to be passing through but it still seemed like an oversight. Surely Heather would have known about the crime and poor conditions – she was so organized Keira couldn’t imagine such things evading her notice.

“Are there lots of fights around here?” Keira asked with trepidation.

“Sure, sure,” Antonio said. “Lots of bars and unemployed young people. It is a poor city. Always fights.”

Keira became increasingly worried about the time she’d be spending in the city.

“So, are we heading to the hotel now?” she asked.

“No time,” Antonio replied brusquely. “I am your guide. I am supposed to guide you.”

“Where are we going then?” Keira asked. She was exhausted and the uncomfortable interaction with Antonio coupled with her anxiety was making her even more tired.

“La Statua del Nilo,” Antonio replied. “Amazing statue. Ancient.”

He drove them at top speed through the narrow streets. Then suddenly he slammed on the brakes, making Keira jerk uncomfortably forward, the seat belt pressing painfully against her chest. She thunked back against the seat.

“There!” Antonio beamed.

Keira looked around her. The car was idling beside a stone plinth that was extremely weathered. Sitting atop was the statue, made of marble, depicting a man resting on his side, holding what appeared to be a bouquet of flowers.

“Amazing, huh?” Antonio pressed. “You do not get this in New York City! Culture! History!”

“Oh… um, sure…” Keira replied. “What is it?”

“The Nile God,” Antonio informed her. “With his decapitated serpent. People cut the head off the statue many times. This is not the original head.”

He seemed thoroughly amused by this fact. Keira, however, was not. It was an underwhelming attraction.