He asked me about my assignments, and more about Liz and Marc; when and how I’d met them. And I told him about my little bungalow in Long Beach, and about Jenna, Alice and Nicole, and how they’d been among the first people I’d met when I’d arrived in New York.
I was relieved to see that he stuck to just the one bottle of beer, which also helped me to relax. I was putting off the moment when I’d have to tell him how much he scared me when he’d been drinking. But not now.
I stifled a yawn.
“Are you tired, Caro?”
“Yes, definitely ready to head for bed, Sebastian. To sleep.”
He smiled, but didn’t comment.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find. There were a couple of streets I saw online that are mostly pensiones. Should we try one of those?”
I liked the idea of staying in one of those small hotels: they were usually family run and, although modest, friendly and fun, too.
“Sounds good.”
Sebastian paid for the meal, waving away my suggestions that we take turns to pay, or split the bill. I was too tired to argue, but added it to my mental list of ‘things to talk about’. It was quite a long list.
There was, however, a tricky subject that I wanted to bring up, and I didn’t know how he was going to react.
“Sebastian, don’t get mad at me, and don’t read too much into this…”
His expression was already worried as I plowed on.
“…but I’d really like to have separate rooms tonight. Just…”
My voice trailed off as a kaleidoscope of emotions flitted across his face. The predominant emotion seemed to be hurt, but there was anger and frustration mixed in there, too.
My body tensed, a primal fight or flight reaction, but he nodded his head slowly.
“Whatever you need, Caro.”
I let out a long, relieved sigh.
“Thank you.”
But our relaxed banter had, predictably, vanished, and we walked in silence.
“This is the street,” he muttered, pointing towards a long line of narrow townhouses.
The first two pensiones were fully booked and the third could only offer a single room. It wasn’t looking too good.
“We could try going more upscale,” said Sebastian, obviously irritated, although whether that was with me or the accommodation, I couldn’t tell.
“Well, we have to walk along this street to get back to the main hotel area, so we may as well try a few more on the way,” I suggested.
“Yeah, okay.”
At the fifth pensione, we struck gold. Sort of.
“I’m sorry, signora,” said the owner, a stout lady of about sixty. “I have one room with two single beds, but that’s all. It’s the Festival, you see,” she said, gesturing helplessly. “You’re lucky – I had a cancellation.”
I could see out of the corner of my eye that Sebastian was willing me to take it. I turned to look at him.
“Pajama party,” he mouthed.
I couldn’t help smiling. “Si, we’ll take the room. Grazie.”
The pensione was narrow and old-fashioned, but clean and welcoming, too. Our hostess went by the name of Signora Battelli, and when Sebastian informed her that my surname was ‘Venzi’, she went off into paroxysms of joy that ‘Mr. and Mrs. Venzi have come home’, meaning we’d returned from America to the mother country. She had delightfully misunderstood him.
Our room looked like it was last refurbished in the 1970s, decorated with an astonishing clash of vivid patterns, and garish pictures of saints. But I was so tired I didn’t care. There was a small sink in the room, and the shower was down the hall, shared, she assured us, by just one other couple.
She bustled off, calling over her shoulder that breakfast was at 8 am.
Sebastian threw himself down on the bed and it groaned slightly.
“Not as noisy as last night,” he said, smiling up at me.
“I don’t think that’s even possible,” I agreed.
He unpacked our overnight bag and tossed my toiletry bag onto the bed.
“Thanks for packing up my stuff,” he said, looking over at me. “I thought I’d probably seen the last of these shirts.”
“What a tragedy,” I said, cattily. “You might have had to do something shocking, like buy T-shirts in different colors.”