veins. But the others-Dante, Bella, Basilio-were members of the de Grazia family merely through marriage, the most technical of loopholes.
“Oh, I understand, all right,” Francesca shot back. “I understand you hated it here so much you didn’t leave until you were twenty. And you ran back soon enough with your tail between your legs; you and your husband both.”
Bella’s eyes bulged. Although it seemed impossible, the great bosom distended even more. “If you think for one minute-”
“You know what? I believe I’ll stand up for a while,” Basilio announced out of the blue.
The others watched him stand up.
“There, that feels better,” he said, waggling his arms. “It gets the circulation going. Dr. Luzzatto says we should all stand up and move our limbs at least once an hour. At work, I make sure that my secretary lets me know whenever I’ve been sitting at my desk for more than an hour. It’s very easy to lose track of time when one is constantly busy. Of course, if I’m in a conference that can’t be interrupted, well, then, it simply has to wait. Work comes first. But other than that, once an hour, Basilio Barbero is up and about. By example, I try to encourage our employees to do the same thing, but I’m not always successful. One of these days, I’m going to get a conditioning room put in, so that our office employees can use their breaks for healthy, enjoyable exercise. Personally, I’d be in favor of allowing everyone twenty minutes for exercise, over and above any other breaks. Well, not the construction workers, of course; they get all the exercise they need, that goes without saying. People think that such a policy would reduce work output, but in reality the opposite is true.”
Phil was beginning to remember what it was about the essentially harmless Basilio that got on his nerves. It wasn’t merely that he was too anxious to please, too quick to laugh at your jokes, too relentlessly cheery, too scatterbrained. Those were mild annoyances compared to the way he had of gabbling away like a chimp on amphetamines. Whenever he got nervous, or agitated, or anxious (all of which occurred frequently), his tongue would start flapping, and once he got started, it was impossible to shut him up.
Basilio took a breath-a quick one, not long enough to give Bella and Francesca a chance to start taking whacks at each other again. “Look at the clock, it’s fifteen minutes past eleven,” he rattled on. “Wasn’t he supposed to be here at eleven? I understand that the man is a carabinieri colonel with a good many responsibilities and you can’t expect him to be prompt down to the minute, but aren’t our responsibilities to be taken into consideration too? Ah, well, I suppose I might as well sit down again. Standing’s not going to make Colonel Caravale get here any sooner, is it? Still, you would think that if he knew he was going to be as late as this, he would have had the common courtesy to have us telephoned. But common courtesy is hardly as common as it used to be, is it? It’s all push and shove and go and run nowadays. People have forgotten-”
Phil shot out of his chair and ran for the pantry across the corridor, where the tea and coffee had been set up on a trestle table. “Jeez,” he said as opened the tap of the coffee urn to fill an espresso cup, but he was laughing as he said it. “What a- damn!”
“Oh, excuse me, signore!”
In turning away from the buffet he had collided with a thin, sallow, worn-looking woman with limp, mouse-brown hair and indistinct features unenhanced by makeup. He had juggled and caught the espresso cup before it hit the stone-tiled floor, but not before it splattered some of its contents over his T-shirt.
“I’m so sorry, signore. I wasn’t looking where I was going…” Her near-colorless eyebrows went up. “Oh, my God, it’s Fili, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”
He stared at her, open-mouthed. “Lea?”
She smiled. “Have I
“Oh, I understand, all right,” Francesca shot back. “I understand you hated it here so much you didn’t leave until you were twenty. And you ran back soon enough with your tail between your legs; you and your husband both.”
Bella’s eyes bulged. Although it seemed impossible, the great bosom distended even more. “If you think for one minute-”
“You know what? I believe I’ll stand up for a while,” Basilio announced out of the blue.
The others watched him stand up.
“There, that feels better,” he said, waggling his arms. “It gets the circulation going. Dr. Luzzatto says we should all stand up and move our limbs at least once an hour. At work, I make sure that my secretary lets me know whenever I’ve been sitting at my desk for more than an hour. It’s very easy to lose track of time when one is constantly busy. Of course, if I’m in a conference that can’t be interrupted, well, then, it simply has to wait. Work comes first. But other than that, once an hour, Basilio Barbero is up and about. By example, I try to encourage our employees to do the same thing, but I’m not always successful. One of these days, I’m going to get a conditioning room put in, so that our office employees can use their breaks for healthy, enjoyable exercise. Personally, I’d be in favor of allowing everyone twenty minutes for exercise, over and above any other breaks. Well, not the construction workers, of course; they get all the exercise they need, that goes without saying. People think that such a policy would reduce work output, but in reality the opposite is true.”
Phil was beginning to remember what it was about the essentially harmless Basilio that got on his nerves. It wasn’t merely that he was too anxious to please, too quick to laugh at your jokes, too relentlessly cheery, too scatterbrained. Those were mild annoyances compared to the way he had of gabbling away like a chimp on amphetamines. Whenever he got nervous, or agitated, or anxious (all of which occurred frequently), his tongue would start flapping, and once he got started, it was impossible to shut him up.
Basilio took a breath-a quick one, not long enough to give Bella and Francesca a chance to start taking whacks at each other again. “Look at the clock, it’s fifteen minutes past eleven,” he rattled on. “Wasn’t he supposed to be here at eleven? I understand that the man is a carabinieri colonel with a good many responsibilities and you can’t expect him to be prompt down to the minute, but aren’t our responsibilities to be taken into consideration too? Ah, well, I suppose I might as well sit down again. Standing’s not going to make Colonel Caravale get here any sooner, is it? Still, you would think that if he knew he was going to be as late as this, he would have had the common courtesy to have us telephoned. But common courtesy is hardly as common as it used to be, is it? It’s all push and shove and go and run nowadays. People have forgotten-”
Phil shot out of his chair and ran for the pantry across the corridor, where the tea and coffee had been set up on a trestle table. “Jeez,” he said as opened the tap of the coffee urn to fill an espresso cup, but he was laughing as he said it. “What a- damn!”
“Oh, excuse me, signore!”
In turning away from the buffet he had collided with a thin, sallow, worn-looking woman with limp, mouse-brown hair and indistinct features unenhanced by makeup. He had juggled and caught the espresso cup before it hit the stone-tiled floor, but not before it splattered some of its contents over his T-shirt.
“I’m so sorry, signore. I wasn’t looking where I was going…” Her near-colorless eyebrows went up. “Oh, my God, it’s Fili, isn’t it? What are you doing here?”
He stared at her, open-mouthed. “Lea?”
She smiled. “Have I
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