Domenica rolled over in her bed. At least she knew how her closest friends felt about the captain. It had been a long day. As she said her prayers, the convent life took on a patina in her imagination that she found comforting. She thought again, as she went off to sleep, about becoming a nun. With the world outside in turmoil, was it such a sacrifice? Domenica craved serenity and the peace that came from knowing her own heart. She was soon to find out whether it belonged to the Sisters of Saint Joseph or the captain.
* * *
The bell rang three times on the fourth floor of Fatima House, indicating there was a guest in the lobby. The attendant called up to the fourth-floor house phone and summoned Domenica to the front desk. She had been cleaning the room on her day off, wearing faded dungarees and a cotton blouse. Stephanie had put Domenica’s hair up in rags to curl it, so her head was covered in the mismatched bows. “You have a visitor, mademoiselle,” the attendant said.
Captain McVicars stood up. “Good morning, Miss Cabrelli.” He was out of uniform. He wore a somber gray suit and blue tie.
“Is there a funeral?”
“No, this is my good suit.”
“You look well,” she offered.
“I’ve been in Marseille for the past week.”
“Eleven days,” she corrected him.
“Has it been that long? Been working right here in the harbor. Around the clock, of course. Trying to get the old Boidoin seaworthy again.”
“Is she?”
“Quite.”
Domenica processed his litany of excuses carefully. When she’d left him after breakfast eleven days earlier, she was hopeful she would see him again, and soon. But patients who got well and were discharged rarely, if ever, returned to the hospital.
McVicars offered another excuse. “This is a strange time for merchant seamen. Some of our routes are shut down or compromised—”
“I understand.”
“I took leave and remembered you had a day off on Saturdays. Clearly you’re not on duty.”
Domenica patted the rag bows in her hair. “This is the only day I have to do my hair,” she said sheepishly.
“I see.” McVicars went on: “I thought you looked a little pale when we were last together, and I wondered if you’d like to go for a drive? I borrowed a car. A convertible. It won’t go more than thirty miles an hour, but we’re not going thirty miles so we should be fine.”
“All right.”
“All right that I borrowed a car or that you’ll come for a drive?”
“Both. Let me get my hat.”
Domenica went upstairs to her room. She stood inside the door of her room and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Josephine looked up from the book she was reading.
“The captain is here. And I accepted an invitation to go for a drive.”
“Stephanie!” Josephine called out.
Stephanie entered their room with her laundry basket resting on her hip. “What?”
“Domenica has a date with the captain.”
Josephine pushed Domenica into a chair. Stephanie dropped the laundry basket. She and Josephine went to work. Josephine untied the rags in Domenica’s hair and brushed out the curls, while Stephanie went through Domenica’s closet and pulled a madras sundress and sandals. The girls helped her into the dress. She slipped into her sandals while Stephanie knelt and buckled the ankle straps. Domenica leaned into the mirror and applied her lipstick.
“Here’s your purse.” Josephine placed it into Domenica’s hands. “There’s cash in the side pocket. You may need it. Go.”
“Wait!” Stephanie said, reaching for her bottle of Joy perfume. She gave Domenica a spritz on the neck. “Scram.”
Domenica returned to the lobby, leaving a trail of vanilla and roses on the staircase. The captain stood and took her in.
“Am I all right?” She touched her hair.
“A vision.”
“Thank you.”
“But you forgot the hat.”
* * *
The Route de la Gineste unspooled like a silver ribbon laced between green hills on one side and a free fall of white rocks on the other. Whenever the road bent into a hairpin curve, a patch of the blue Mediterranean peeked through the vale beyond the rocks.
McVicars passed an ornate castle before continuing up the mountain road. “Napoleon stayed there.”
“Napoleon came to my village too, so the legend goes. His sister Pauline lived on the beach in a villa with her Italian prince. Napoleon made another sister, Elisa, the grand duchess of Tuscany.”