Summer in Sorrento Read online

  Summer in Sorrento

  Melissa Hill

  Copyright Melissa Hill 2014

  The right of Melissa Hill to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  1

  A balmy breeze floated in the open window of the kitchen and tickled the back of Maia Connolly’s neck as she stood at the sink washing lemons she’d just plucked from the fruit trees languishing in the sunshine on the side of her farmhouse. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and allowed her senses to take it all in.

  She smelled the azaleas that had just come to life outside her kitchen window—their fragrance mixed with the scent of the saltwater spray that floated up distantly below from the Bay of Naples.

  Opening her eyes, the view that her husband Jim had loved so much welcomed her, and she dropped the lemon she had been holding in a colander, allowing herself a momentary respite to simply “be.” Glancing down at the ring on her left hand, she used the fingers of her right to twirl it longingly, remembering the day that Jim had placed it there.

  “I hope you can see what I see right now, love,” she whispered to the air—her Irish accent peppering her words. She imagined that Jim was standing next to her, remembering how much he loved to simply take in the view of Mt. Vesuvius and the gorgeous expanse of the bay spread before them. She felt a sense of sadness as well as peace wash over her at once and she had the overwhelming sense that she was quite close to heaven at that particular moment—safe inside the nineteenth century farmhouse on a steep Sorrento hillside that she and her husband had bought upon his retirement three years before.

  Smiling sadly, she gathered up the lemons. “And honestly my love,” she said to the air, “I hope that you like what I’ve been doing with the place.”

  Maia glanced around the kitchen that she, along with the help of some local workmen, had just finished renovating (along with the convenience of a modern Aga) the week before. Working on introducing the nineteenth century structure to the twenty-first century had been a labor of love at the best, and a heartbreaking endeavour at worst.

  She knew without a doubt that the entire process would have been much easier with Jim around. But fate sometimes had different plans.

  The house, aptly named Villa Azalea, had been Jim’s dream—and his one passion outside of love for his wife—right until the end. And as much as Maia missed her husband, she knew that she couldn’t blame the house for his heart attack.

  She stacked the freshly picked lemons on a ceramic bowl she had bought during a recent trip into Naples, and placed the lot in the center of the rustic oak kitchen table that she and Jim had brought with them from Dublin when they moved to Italy.

  “I suppose I can blame this place for some of my money problems….” she told herself ruefully, looking around the kitchen space and quickly calculating in her head how much of their savings had been spent on each part of the renovation.

  Fresh paint, twenty euro. New windows, three hundred euro. Granite countertops, priceless, she thought to herself. Now just to figure out how to pay off the credit card bills…

  As if providing an answer to her train of thought, Maia suddenly heard a car pull up outside the house. The sound of an engine idling lingered before stopping altogether.

  She smiled as she walked out the backdoor and found her way down the dirt path that led to the main road sweeping past where the house was perched. She walked through the lemon trees that bordered the walkway and unconsciously raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as made her way out of the shade and into the brilliant Italian sunshine.

  There she found an older couple; obviously tourists, peering at the mason jars full of olives that she had so carefully picked, cleaned and canned the night before—displaying them for sale inside a small wooden stand that her neighbor Giorgio, had so carefully built for her at the end of last winter.

  “Buongiorno!” she called out happily. “Grazie per l’arresto. Posso aiutarla?” Thanks for stopping by. Can I help you?

  The man, who appeared to be in his mid-sixties, looked to his wife before stating in stilted Italian, “Salve. Si. Hai belle olive. I limoni sono piuttosto troppo. Posso acquistare un pesce?” Hi. Yes. You have beautiful olives. Lemons are pretty too. Can I buy a fish?

  “I’m afraid I don’t have any fish to sell. But I can help you with the lemons and olives.” Maia laughed. “I can speak English if it’s easier,” she asked, watching relief immediately flood the man’s face.

  “Oh, er, yes. Well, that’s fantastic. Yes, English is good as we are - British, that is. Just here on holiday,” said the man.

  “Your accent,” called the woman. “Is it Irish?”

  Maia nodded an affirmation. “I am Irish. Welcome to Sorrento. You picked a great place to visit. Is it your first time?” she inquired.

  “To Sorrento, yes. Italy, no,” said the woman, walking forward to offer her hand to Maia. “Kent and Cora Beauchamp. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Maia Connolly, a pleasure.”

  “Do you live here?” Kent asked.

  “I have for three years now,” she stated simply.

  Kent smiled. “There are worse places,” he laughed. “And you can’t beat this weather, eh? We left London two days ago in drizzle and cold. Nothing beats an Italian summer.”

  “Indeed,” Maia smiled.

  Cora held two jars of olives and a bag containing five or six lemons. “Quanto?” she asked in Italian. How much?

  Maia did the math in her head. “Ten euro, please.”

  Kent reached into his pocket and extracted a note. “Thank you kindly.” He shot a glance at the house behind Maia. “And you live here alone? Do you feel safe? A woman in a foreign country?”

  Knowing that this line of questioning usually came eventually, she nodded and slipped the ten euro note in her pocket. “Quite safe. And yes, I do live alone. You see my husband passed away two years ago. This was his dream. To buy an Italian farmhouse, restore it and make it our own. Unfortunately Jim had a bad heart.”

  Cora put a dramatic hand to her mouth, as if to cover up her shock. “Oh, you poor thing. And now you are left here all alone?”

  Maia smiled. “Ah, well, there are worse places,” she nodded ruefully at Kent, having stolen his words from the moment previous.

  She exchanged pleasantries for a few more minutes with the couple before bidding them farewell and providing them directions for driving to the ruins of Pompeii, about a half hour or so away. Waving goodbye as they got in their rented Fiat and drove down the winding hill that was essentially her front yard, Maia turned her attention back to the house. She made her way back up the pathway, only to find Camilla, the twenty-two year old local girl who helped her with household chores, standing in the doorway.

  “Well?” Camilla said in heavily accented English, hands on her hips. Accusation was thick in her voice.

  “Well what?” Maia said innocently. “They wanted to buy some fruit and olives. Ten euro.” She took the money out of her pocket and waved it in Camilla’s face before walking past her and back into the house. There, she placed the bill in a jar on the kitchen counter, where she typically kept the money she made from the roadside stand before heading to the bank in Naples once a week.

  “You know what I mean,” chastised Camilla. “Did you tell them you hav
e rooms to rent? They looked like tourists.”

  Maia turned around to face the young woman, leaning against the counter. “Yes, they were tourists. British. But I am fairly sure they have somewhere to stay.”

  Camilla tisked. “They might have somewhere to stay right now, but if they don’t know it exists, how will they know to return to this place, and stay here? Sorry my friend, but you aren’t going to be able to keep this place going just by selling lemons and olives.”

  Maia frowned. It was true, she knew that. But she also knew that the house wasn’t ready yet to house visitors.

  “Camilla please, I just don’t think it’s up to scratch.”

  But the young woman was already shaking her head. “You have a working kitchen. You have several bedrooms. You have indoor plumbing. You are set on a beautiful cliffside in Sorrento.” Camilla motioned to the scenery that lay beyond the kitchen window, as if Maia had forgotten where she was. “And you have friends. People like me and Giorgio, to help you. What else do you need?”

  Grimacing, Maia couldn’t deny the truth in Camilla’s words. She had been trying to figure out how to make money off of the investment that she and Jim had made in the farmhouse—and the fact was she needed money more than ever now if she was going to keep this place—and not have to return to Ireland and to her work as a graphic designer.

  Admittedly, living with the spirit of Jim on a hillside in Italy was a more attractive idea. But this idyllic dream unfortunately didn’t pay for itself. And Maia was almost out of savings.

  “Maybe you’re right Camilla,” she began.

  “Of course I’m right,” tisked the other woman. “But how are you going to fill up rooms and find guests if you keep your mouth shut when people drive by and stop? This is how I know you have no Italian blood. If I were you, I would shout the news from the rooftops.”

  Camilla stared Maia down, challenging her.

  But thankfully, Maia already knew an answer to Camilla’s conundrum, one which thankfully didn’t involve shouting.

  ***

  “So what do you think?” she asked Camilla a few days later, turning her laptop screen around in the direction of the other woman.

  Camilla, who had been standing at the kitchen counter arranging freshly-picked azaleas in a glass vase, turned in Maia’s direction and approached the wooden table that her friend was sitting at. Pulling a chair out and placing herself in it, Camilla leaned in close and examined what Maia offered on her screen.

  “It’s um, how do you say it? Semplice,” she commented, looking unimpressed.

  Maia smiled. “Simple? Yes, I would say it is. But I’m not designing a website for the Ritz Hotel after all. We’re a private guesthouse. Or at least intending to be. Not exactly a multi-national conglomerate,” she remarked watching Camilla’s face fall.

  “You are thinking too small,” her friend scolded, standing up again and returning to her place at the counter.

  “I’m just thinking realistically.I’ve put up pictures that show the house honestly. They are beautiful pictures mind you, but I also have to express that the farmhouse isn’t finished yet. That yes, there are civilised comfortable areas, but if I want to make a long-term go of actually establishing a business—and not just getting bad reviews on TripAdvisor, then I need to be upfront from the start. L’onestà è la miglio politica.”

  Camilla smiled and placed the bouquet of flowers in the middle of the kitchen table. “Honesty is the best policy?”

  Maia nodded. “Indeed it is. Okay, the site is live. Villa Azalea is open for business. Let’s see what if anything, we get.”

  2

  If Maia was being honest with herself, she wasn’t expecting to suddenly be an overnight success in the hospitality industry—in fact, she was struggling with simply wrapping her head around the idea of hosting strangers in her home.

  She had been watching the website nervously all week, so much so that she even worried that her website design skills were more than a little rusty. First, she decided to Google herself in order to make sure the website did show up—but then certain that the fates were working against her somehow, called Giorgio her neighbour and friend who lived just down the road, and asked him to do the same thing.

  She felt relieved when Giorgio confirmed that yes, he had found her website.

  Feeling that she had accomplished something, even though she was likely not to worry about bookings for some time, she opened a bottle of Chianti, poured herself a glass and headed to the back patio overlooking the Bay, with the intent to sit in the quiet and watch the sunset over the clear, crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean.

  Settling back in a wooden deck chair that Jim had built when they first moved to Italy, Maia thought back over the journey that had brought her to where she was today. Jim had said that it was necessary to enjoy this view before all other things, including a finished or renovated house.

  The breeze ruffled the branches of the lemon trees around her and she felt an instant wave of calm wash over her. It was here, in this spot, drinking wine and simply relaxing, where she felt closest to Jim. She had been truly devastated when he passed—she had never expected to be a widow while only in her mid-forties, and the idea of being alone in a foreign country without the benefit of family or an extensive network of friends had almost set Maia running back to Ireland.

  But then she realised something.

  Italy and the experience that she and Jim had in this country together, had been uniquely theirs, albeit a short one.

  Her life in Ireland had other dynamics at play—and she worried that if she went back that she may risk losing that part of Jim—that essence—that had made him so happy in the days before his heart attack.

  Her sister Joyce in Dublin had told her that by staying in Italy she was pursuing an impossible dream, and living in the past. But Maia disagreed—and instead committed herself to living the reality that Jim had dreamed of, but had sadly missed out on.

  She breathed in the scent of citrus that floated around her nose and looked out over the horizon. She watched as an ocean liner made its way steadily out of the Bay, and toward the open sea.

  “Floating hotels Jim, that’s what you always called them wasn’t it?” Maia smiled, talking to the air. She laughed at the memory; Jim could never understand how tourists believed that this was “visiting” another country, taking a boat from place to place, disembarking to hit up the souvenir stalls in order to buy a fridge magnet so that they could tell the people at home that they had “seen” Naples or “been to” Sorrento.

  “Do you think I’m likely to get visitors like that here?” she asked the sky, only to be greeted by silence. She took a sip of her wine and paused for a moment to close her eyes and relish the fragrant bouquet that tickled her tongue. “No,” she whispered. “It’s not likely I will get cruise-goers, not if they want to stay overnight. But I wonder who will visit me.”

  She opened her eyes and looked back over the Bay then stood up and wandered toward the hillside, feeling a sense of wonder and history all at once.

  “It really is a magical place,” she sighed. “Jim, you were right about that. How many people through the ages have stood in this spot, and have seen this view?” Maia had a tremendous sense of longing for her late husband and wished so desperately that she would feel him walk up behind her, right at that moment and wrap his arms around her. She tilted her head up to feel the last rays of the sun on her face and focused on remembering what it felt like when Jim kissed her throat, making his way lazily up to find her lips.

  “Oh I hope I’m doing the right thing honey. I really do. I know you loved this place, and I want to make it work, so I can stay here always,” Maia whispered to the Italian sunset. Suddenly feeling desperate, and totally worried that she didn’t have the business ability to pull off an Italian villa-style guesthouse, nor the necessary skills needed to entertain groups of people and make them feel like they were in their home away from home, Maia said urgently, “Jim,
give me a sign. If I’m doing what I should be doing—opening our place up to visitors—let me know.”

  She sucked in her breath, as if waiting for a bolt of lightning to crisscross the pale pink sky, but nothing came. Maia bit her lip and shook her head, feeling chagrined at her own silliness when suddenly Camilla’s voice trilled from the house.

  “Maia! Maia! Presto!” Come quick!

  A moment later, Camilla tore from the house, skirts fluttering behind her. When she came into view, her face was flushed with excitement; her tanned cheeks were a burst of rosy color.

  “Camilla? What is it? What’s happened?” Maia asked, her thoughts immediately turning to believing there was a disaster of some sort—something was on fire, or a pipe had burst. “Where’s the emergency?” Maia thought of her bank account and the reserves she had on hand to cope with whatever tragedy had befallen them. Or rather, the lack thereof. Panic engulfed her.

  But Camilla was shaking her head. “Nessuna emergenza!” No emergency. “It’s the website. I was on your computer. And someone just contacted you via email! It’s official! We have our first booking!”

  A wave of relief flooded Maia’s body. There was no emergency, she thought.

  But I did get my sign. My first booking. Thank you my darling.

  3

  However, if Maia thought she was going to have time to go to hospitality school ahead of seeing guests arrive at her door, she was sadly mistaken. A week later, working with Camilla to fluff pillows and make beds in the guest rooms, she brushed a lock of errant hair out of her face and wiped a bead of sweat as it formed on her brow.

  “I suppose this is what you might call a trial by fire,” she said as she turned to the window and threw it open to welcome in the Mediterranean breeze. “When did Giorgio say he was going to come up and take a look at the air conditioning unit? Of course it’s our luck that it decides to banjax itself at just the right time,” Maia fretted, feeling a wave of panic grow in her stomach.