The World Before Her by Deborah Weisgall

Author:Deborah Weisgall [Weisgall, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

GILBERT PRYCE was late. Annoyed, Caroline paced from the hotel entrance to the dock and back again. She decided to give him another five minutes. The waiters watched her covertly; she wasn't wearing ordinary jeans, but white Italian denim that had not been cut to fit a cowboy, and she wore a Japanese T-shirt with an asymmetrical hem and cutouts under the arms.

The T-shirt would make her mother laugh; Margaret did not approve of messing with the basics. If her mother were here they would speculate, as they used to on the vaporetti. Who was the man eating alone and wearing a suit of fine wool with a silky sheen? An art dealer? No, a professor who bought his clothes with inherited money, a professor of linguistics, here for a conference. Mom, a linguistics conference at the Gritti? She could see her mother shrug, cheerfully conceding. That couple—the round ones with dark hair. Don't they look like salt and pepper shakers? They're Turkish. How do you know? I just know. And that elegant Japanese woman sitting alone, looking out on the canal—did you see? Perfect—she waved to the gondolier, and look what he's doing—he's making his hand into a telephone. He's telling her to call him. No! I'm afraid so. It used to be that Caroline denied similarities with her mother, but here she was carrying on both sides of their conversation.

The five minutes were up. As she started inside, she saw Gilbert Pryce coming out. He ambled; he was wearing the same blazer he had on the night before. His hair was wet. "Good morning," he said, without apology.

"I'd given up."

"Sorry. Massimo and I play tennis most mornings before he goes to Padua. I'm not that late, am I?"

"It's twelve after eight."

"You haven't set your watch to Venetian time, have you?" He smiled, and Caroline felt foolish.

"What is that? Ten minutes behind mainland time?"

"Twenty. I'm early."

"I'll tell my husband you're here." The phone in the living room was busy; she tried the bedroom and let it ring until Malcolm picked up. "I can't make it," he said.

"So what should I do?"

"Take him to breakfast and talk about Tiepolo. Or was that with the other one? I'm on another call. Do whatever you want. Say you're sorry and come back to the room. It doesn't matter. He'll be fine."

Gilbert was sitting at a table for three. "He's not coming," she said. "Something having to do with yen. Money—not desire." She blushed.

His expression reflected her frustration. He stood.

"Don't leave," she said. "If you don't mind having breakfast with me."

"Actually, I'm starving."

She sat down. "Is Massimo a lawyer, too?"

"A professor. He's working on a book about Renaissance eroticism. The love poems of Aretino and Giulio Romano's dirty woodcuts. He's having a good time."

"I bet. I've seen the woodcuts."

"Massimo was impressed with you. Not too many people guess that those frescoes are by Tiepolo."

"It's like learning a language when you're a kid. It's in your brain. It's what I know."

"You're an artist?"

"I make sculptures, small things in silver.

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