I bought the postcards for Dad, of course.
To send to Dad.
Mr. Stenner was still at the desk, signing in, and asking the clerk whether it was necessary to leave his camera in the hotel vault. The clerk, in perfect English, said that it might be a good idea, if it would not inconvenience the signore. The signore was Mr. Stenner. In Italy, the word for “mister” or “sir” was signore and the word for “Mrs.” or “madam” was signora. But the plural of signore was signori, and the plural of signora was signore. So you had to be careful when you went to the toilet, otherwise you could walk into the wrong place. In France, when I was there with my mother and my father, we went to some towns where the men and women used the same bathroom, would you believe it? I was washing my hands at the sink in one of those bathrooms — this was in the Loire Valley, when we were looking at all the castles — and a man came out of one of the stalls! I almost dropped dead right on the spot. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said to me, and smiled, and proceeded to wash his hands at the sink next to mine.
In France, when I took the trip with Mom and Dad, I slept in the same room with them wherever we stayed. I wanted to do that in Italy, too, with Mom and Mr. Stenner, but he said absolutely not.
“Why not?” I said.
“Because we all need privacy,” he said.
“It’s cheaper with just one room.”
“We can afford two rooms,” he said.
“Then they have to be right alongside each other, and there has to be a door between them, okay?” I said.
“We’ll ask for connecting rooms. If we can get them, fine. If not, we’ll have to take what we can get.”
“Well, I don’t want to be on a different floor.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d be afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That somebody would kidnap me.”
“If somebody kidnaps you, just yell and I’ll come rescue you,” he said, and smiled.
That’s what I was really worried about, you see. That he wouldn’t come rescue me. Because he wasn’t my real father. I knew my real father would throw himself in front of a bus for me, but Mr. Stenner was only my stepfather. With your natural father you could assume that he and your mother wanted to have a baby, and got together, you know, and had one nine months later. But with your stepfather, you had to assume that what he wanted was to marry your mother. Period. The rest came along with the deal. If he wanted to marry Mom, well — you see, there was this gorgeous little eleven-year-old brat who was part of the bargain. You took one, you automatically got the other.
So why should he worry if anybody kidnapped me?
Why should he come to the rescue?
He was still at the desk when I walked over from the postcard rack. In the middle of what he was saying, I asked, “Are they connecting?”
“Just a minute, Abby,” he said. To the clerk, he said, “Is someone always here at the desk?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” the clerk said.
“Mr. Stenner? Are they...”
“Then perhaps I could just leave the camera in my box,” he said. “Instead of going through the business of opening the vault each time.”
“As you wish, signore,” the clerk said.
“Mr. Stenner, are they connecting?”
“Yes,” he said. “They’re connecting, Abby.”
He was silent all the way up in the elevator. The rooms were really terrific. I wanted the biggest one, which had a little balcony outside the window, but Mom said the other one was mine.
“How come you get the best one?” I said.
“In this case, second best is only magnificent,” Mom said.
“Yeah, but...”
“When you take your daughter to Italy,” Mr. Stenner said, “you and your husband can have the biggest room for yourselves, okay? Meanwhile, Abby, let me tell you something about this trip, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “What?”
I didn’t know he was about to yell at me. In fact, he didn’t yell at me. That is, he didn’t raise his voice. But there was no question about the fact that I was being bawled out for something I didn’t even know I’d done. Flabbergasted, I listened to him.
“I told you before we left home,” he said, “that we’d requested connecting rooms in all the hotels. I also told you we’d take whatever was available because we’d made our plans late, and this was the height of the tourist season. Now, Abby, when I’m talking to a desk clerk, I want you to keep out of it. I don’t want you hanging around the registration desk while I’m giving the man our passports, and filling out cards, and what-have-you. And I especially don’t want you interrupting with stupid questions about whether or not the rooms are connecting.”
“I don’t think that’s a stupid question,” I said. “It happens to be very important to me. Whether or not the rooms are connecting.”
“I understand that. It’s important to us, too. I can only tell you that the first question I asked the clerk was whether or not the rooms were connecting, and he assured me they were. If he’d told me they weren’t, I would have asked whether or not it was possible to get connecting rooms, and if not, I would have asked for at least adjoining rooms. And if I couldn’t have got any of those, only then would I have settled for a room down the hall or, as a last resort, on another floor of the hotel. The point is I can handle it myself, Abby, I don’t need any assistance from an eleven-year-old girl. From now on, keep out of it. I am perfectly capable of registering my own family.”
“Nobody was trying to help you register,” I said. “And I didn’t know you’d asked the clerk about connecting rooms because, if you didn’t notice, I was buying some postcards.”
“I did notice,” Mr. Stenner said. “And I’m also noticing the look on your face right this minute, and I’m hearing the tone of your voice, and I can’t say I appreciate either. Mom and I told you this vacation was important to us. We’ve been through a lot in the past several months, and now we want to relax. Italy is a beautiful country, the people here are marvelous, the food is delicious. All I want is for us to enjoy ourselves. We’re not going to enjoy ourselves if you try to run the show.”
“I wasn’t trying to run the show.”
“You didn’t trust me,” he said.
“I trusted you,” I said.
That was a lie, of course. I hadn’t trusted him. I just didn’t think he cared whether the rooms were connecting, or adjoining, or across the hall from each other, or down the hall, or three floors apart, or separated by the Atlantic Ocean or the continent of Africa. I just didn’t think he gave a damn.
“You can trust me,” he said.
“I can trust you to yell at me for nothing,” I said.
“Let’s all take a nap now,” he said. “We’re exhausted, we’re...”
“I’m not exhausted,” I said. “I want to write some cards to Dad.”
“Fine,” he said, and went into his own room, and closed and locked the door behind him. Through the closed door, I could hear him and Mom talking.
“Was I too rough on her?” he asked.
“No,” Mom said.
“I just wanted to get it straight from the beginning, Lil.”
“You did the right thing.”
“It is a hassle coming into a hotel, and when she stands around sniping...”