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Keefe
Keefe swung open the door to the Tuscan restaurant and stepped outside. A pleasant feeling of excitement and expectation grew within him. At last! After a late dinner, Papa had finally cut Keefe loose, given him leave to explore the streets . . . provided he made a few assignment-related phone calls to people in the states.
With the time difference, they often had to wait until evening to reach people. Keefe had made most of the phone calls in the restaurant lobby, though he’d spent more time speaking with Jarret, trying to talk him into going camping with Roland. It had taken a while to convince Jarret that Roland didn’t have ulterior motives. Then Keefe had to assure Jarret that he’d still have plenty of time for car shopping before they returned from Italy. The conversation ended on a sullen note, Keefe sensing Jarret’s residual jealousy over the trip.
Weaving around other pedestrians, Keefe scanned his surroundings.
Every hour of the day in Florence created its own unique masterpiece. At this hour of the evening, the two- and three-story, old-world buildings had turned to silhouettes, dark against a purplish sky. A crescent moon hung over one horizon, clouds painted orange with the last hint of sunlight over the other. Pleasant voices carried. People strolled along angled cobblestone streets, past shops and cafés with welcoming light and heavenly aromas.
Keefe inhaled slowly, letting the delicious air reach the corners of his lungs. Someone sold leather nearby and someone else coffee. He could go for a steaming cup of espresso right now. It just might hit the spot.
The aroma of sweet, fresh-baked bread traveled to him, and his mouth watered. Maybe he could get one of those savory loaves he’d tried the other day—What was it called? Oh yeah, a prosciutto bread. That stuff was good. He took another deep breath and sighed.
No, he didn’t want to eat. He wanted something, though. Needed something. He couldn’t quite put a finger on what he needed, but the feeling wouldn’t go away and even seemed to increase moment by moment. Perhaps the strange introspective mood that had struck him in the museums had deepened. The sights and sounds of Florence called him to explore not only what they had to offer . . . but also things inside himself.
Explore he would.
Keefe glimpsed his reflection in a tall window he passed. Silver mannequins in men’s designer clothing stood on the other side. Keefe stopped. Jarret. The shirt.
Men’s clothing stores lined both sides of the street. Since they planned to leave for Bagno di Romagna the next morning, this might be his only chance. Jarret would never forgive him if he didn’t come home with the shirt.
Keefe stepped through the columns that flanked the first clothing shop.
Four shops and an hour later, Keefe gazed at himself in a thick-framed, fancy triple mirror. He had finally found it, the white, slim-fit, button-front, designer shirt with the zippered chest pocket. It looked exactly like the one Papa had gotten Roland. It fit tighter across the chest than a standard dress shirt, emphasizing his broad shoulders. Jarret would like it. Roland had looked good in it, too, though he had probably worn a size too large.
“You look-a spectacular.” A meticulously dressed, gray-haired attendant stood behind Keefe, clasping his hands and smiling politely. “If-a this is not-a you, we have uh many other styles from which to choose.” He immediately produced a white shirt and held it up for Keefe to see.
The attendant was right. The shirt wasn’t Keefe style. In fact, standing before a fancy, triple mirror in a men’s designer clothing shop, with an attendant waiting on him, wasn’t him either. He had done it countless times with Jarret, but he had felt more like an attendant than a customer.
“Or-a this?” The attendant waved another shirt in the air.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just take this one. It’s perfect. Oh, and another one in the slate color.” Jarret wouldn’t approve, but he just couldn’t go home without something for Roland, too.
As he returned to the cobblestone street, he checked the time. He had spent more time in the shops than he realized. Thankful that he had a good sense of direction, he sped his steps back to the hotel.
Papa sat out on the balcony, smoking his pipe, the breeze carrying the fruity aroma into the room. Keefe tossed the shopping bags onto the bed and sat down to kick the tennis shoes off his hot feet.
A moment later, Papa stepped in, his gaze snapping to the bags. “Shopping, huh? What’d you get?”
“Uh . . . something for Jarret.” He should’ve just said some shirts.
Papa grimaced. “Get anything for yourself?”
Keefe ran a hand through his hair. “No. I didn’t really want anything, but I remembered Jarret asked for something.” He felt guilty, sounded defensive. What difference did it make if he bought something for Jarret?
“Did you make those phone calls?”
The two phone calls he had forgotten flashed to the front of his mind. “Oh, shoot.” Maybe that explained the feeling he couldn’t identify.
Papa shook his head. “Talk to Jarret?”
“Yeah.”
After a deep breath—Papa’s attempt to control his temper—he let loose. “No more phone calls to Jarret. I brought you along to help me. You’re going to help me.”
The muscles in Keefe’s forehead tensed. “But what if he needs to talk to me?”
“He doesn’t need to talk to you. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
Some of Jarret’s recent ideas played in Keefe’s mind. Jarret counted on Keefe to rein in his wilder impulses before they got him into too much trouble. In fact, Keefe could not recall a single time Jarret had independently turned his mind away from a bad idea.
“Jarret needs me.”
“Jarret doesn’t need you.”
“He does.” Without words or explanations, they had always understood each other. “We’ve always been together. It’s not the same with him and Roland. He’s probably lonely and—”
Papa whipped his cowboy hat onto the bed with a violence befitting of the scowl on his face. “I don’t care a continental what you think Jarret needs right now. You need to worry about yourself. As twins, you’ve always been hand in glove with him, so I understand if you’re having a bit of separation anxiety, but this has got to stop. You spent every waking hour of the first few days here trying to call him. Now that he’s talking to you, you’re on the phone with him more than a cow chews its cud. I don’t want to think I got me the wrong pig by the tail, bringing you instead of Roland. Are you even keeping up with your school assignments?”
Papa had a good eight years of college education and could communicate as intelligently as any doctorate-holding man, but when he got riled up, he had a tendency to use cowboy talk. His father and grandfather, both men of little formal education, had run a cattle ranch, so maybe that manner of speech came from them. Papa hadn’t followed in their footsteps when he became an archaeologist, but he held to the cowboy look and, when angry, the talk.
“My school assignments? Oh, yeah. Sure.” He hadn’t given them a single thought.
“Give me the list.” Papa stuck a hand out. “Who haven’t you called?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s what, two o’clock in California?”
Keefe fumbled through one pocket of his chinos then another. He found the list next to the receipt from the men’s store.
Papa snatched it from his hand and scooted out to the balcony.
Keefe flopped onto the bed and gazed up at the floral design on the high ceiling. Papa was right. He did need to worry about his own responsibilities. And he needed to find himself. If he only knew how to look, he would find something of himself here in Italy, of that he was certain.
Papa stuck his head back in the room. “You can talk to Jarret once in the evening before bed, and that’s it. No more shopping for him.”