“My credit card,” she replied. “I’ve kept up with the payments, and they keep increasing my limit. And we’ll be getting the deposit back on our apartment when we finish the lease in May. It’s almost as if the stars are aligning for us—as if this is meant to happen.”
He regarded her with amazement. “You’d actually do that for me? Give up your job and max out your credit card?”
“Of course I would, because I believe in you, and I want you to finish the damn book so we can get pregnant.” She nudged him playfully.
They sat and watched the sun dip below the horizon.
“This is crazy,” Freddie said.
“Maybe it is,” Lillian replied. “But something about this feels right, don’t you think? Can’t you feel it?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“It’s the setting for your book, which means everything to you,” she reminded him. “You need to go there, Freddie.”
“Maybe.” He exhaled. “I’m just worried about how much it’ll cost and how much work it’ll take to organize a trip like that.”
“Don’t worry about any of that,” she said. “I work in the hotel industry. I know a bunch of travel agents who can help us. I’ll take care of all the details.” She gazed out at the water and watched the whitecaps in the distance. “I don’t know why, but I have a really good feeling about this. I think it’s going to speed things up for you.”
She couldn’t deny that she had her own ulterior motive—to help him feel more ready to start a family. To beat down the excuses.
Freddie leaned toward her and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll make a promise to you right now. If we go to Tuscany and I finish my book, you can go off the pill the minute I type ‘The End.’”
Lillian laughed. “I’m going to need that in writing.”
She tackled him on the blanket and straddled him for a kiss.
Two months later, Lillian was bent over a gigantic map on her lap, trying to make sense of the narrow, twisting Tuscan roads as they found their way from a tiny apartment in Montepulciano to her new job at Maurizio Wines. It was her first day of training as a tour guide and front desk clerk at the inn. She had landed the job as soon as she and Freddie touched down in Rome, jet lagged from an overnight flight. While he was waiting for their bags at the carousel, she had wandered sleepily toward a bulletin board near the exit doors.
There it was—an advertisement for the most perfect job on the planet. Maurizio Wines was looking for an English-speaking American or Canadian for the summer season to cater to the North American tourists. Lillian knew right away that she was the perfect person for the job, having worked the front desk at a resort in Florida for the past four years. She ripped off the phone number, found a pay phone, and called for an interview.
The manager at the winery asked her a few questions and hired her without even checking her references. She ran back to Freddie, who was lifting their bags off the carousel, and shouted, “I got it!”
Three days later, they were on their way to the winery in a secondhand car they had purchased from an old repair shop.
“Take the next left,” Lillian said, looking up from the map and scanning the rolling green countryside. They had just circled around the medieval hilltop town of Montepulciano and were now barreling down another twisty road at a terrifying speed. “And slow down!”
“It’s not my fault,” Freddie replied, glancing repeatedly into the rearview mirror. “It’s that knucklehead behind me. He doesn’t understand the concept of personal space.”
The knucklehead—who drove a shiny red European sports car—roared into the opposite lane, ignoring the fact that they were on a curve. He sped past them and disappeared around another bend.
Freddie took his foot off the gas pedal. “Good riddance to you, buddy.”
“He’s going to get himself killed,” Lillian said.
They continued up a steep, sloping road overlooking vineyards in all directions until they spotted what appeared to be a cluster of stone buildings at the top of the hill.
“That must be it.” Freddie craned his neck to see out the side window, and that was all it took—a moment’s distraction as they reached another hairpin turn.
“Freddie!”
He was too slow to respond. He didn’t make the turn in time and overcompensated with a desperate tug at the steering wheel. Their tires skidded across the pavement, and they flipped sideways. Over they rolled, tumbling and bouncing down the steep, grassy mountainside.