Chapter 1
Nera Cote
“This is it! Florence is our dream city!” Tiffany lets go of her vintage green Prada suitcase and twirls in front of the rented villa that will be our home for the next two weeks. “Aren’t you guys excited?” Her large, dark brown eyes are outlined in yellow eyeshadow making them appear soft and doe-like.
“Yes, we are, but after a ten hour flight can we please tone it down a little? I just want to sleep.” Adah toddles past Tiffany to push the code into the door while I hang back and take in the scenery.
The small villa that we will call our own is neatly tucked away between rows of Tuscan cypress trees framed by several spaced out wisteria trees behind them. The coordinating green and purple makes a lovely color combo and I can’t help but to lift my phone to snap a few photos to edit later. Tiffany and Adah argue good-naturedly behind me, and for the first time in quite some time, I take a moment to take a breath.
Really take a breath, center myself, and realize that my dream of coming to Florence, Italy is now a reality. We are in Florence for two weeks before moving on to Venice for a week, and finally in Rome for two more weeks before going home. A whole five weeks! No working, no excessive phone calls, no parents constantly hounding me about being home, just spending time with my girlfriends and relaxing, drinking endless glasses of wine.
“Hey homebody! You coming inside or what? You booked this place so you get the first room pick.” Tiffany calls out the door, and I turn to see her leaning against the teal blue frame smiling at me. “Florence is your dream, feels good to be here doesn’t it?”
Tiffany, Adah and I met in college. A trio of Spelman girls with one dream. Find a career that we loved, make a whole lotta money, and go to Italy. Very simple and after so long, with master degrees or PhD’s in hand here we were. Tiffany is an OB/GYN, a rising one in our home of Boston. Adah is chief operating officer for a large telecommunications firm and me? I’m a certified management accountant, which is a fancy way of saying I make sure everyone’s shit is in the proper place and won’t cause harm to the company.
Turning around, my hand clenches tight on my Steamline rolling trunk making my way into the house. It’s exactly like the pictures on AirBnB and for $3K for this two week stay it better be! Up the pristine, white stairs is a teal colored front door with two large brass handles, over one of those handles is a Nest Yale coded lock. The door opens outward showcasing terra cotta brick floors laid in herringbone pattern. The walls are creamy and with a soft wallpaper covering them. Red brick designs interrupt the repeating motifs of the wall leading into each room. There’s a wide patio connecting to the open space kitchen. A living room with a massive seventy-inch TV set into the wall. The downstairs bathroom is coated with thick white tile, and a mosaic tiled bathroom floor showing the birth of venus. The whole thing is made to get wet, which I adore.
Adah peers over the stairwell, winding iron attached to a black, wooden banister runs the length down the stairs. “The rooms up here are amazing, four of them and two have a balcony. There are three bathrooms, and the rooms with the balconies have an ensuite bathroom.”
Tiffany whistles still standing at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s it gonna be, Nera?”
“The one down here, so I can hear who y’all bitches try to sneak in.” I smirk and stare at the two of them, especially Adah.
“Damn bitch! Have a threesome one time in Canada and all of a sudden I’m the freak.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, and I make my way down the hall listening to Tiffany repeat our friends’ escapade.
The white wooden slat doors open inward revealing a small sitting room with a piano on one side and a massive tapestry featuring some renaissance painting on the other side. There’s a brick archway and through that the room widens into the bedroom with a circular king size bed in the middle of the room. The windows on one side of the room give way to glass doors that open to a veranda wide enough to eat on. The ensuite bathroom is just as massive, covered in white marble with red and yellow accent tiles forming small flowers and abstract shapes. A thought flows through my mind that I could buy this place. Rent it out and maybe spend some summers here, a few winters?
Setting my travel case to one side, I’m sitting on the bed laying back to stare at the ceiling. Florence, Italy, I’ve always been drawn here. Something whispering to me, calling me even in my dreams. Maybe I’ll find what I’m looking for here, some sort of trinket.
I don’t remember falling asleep, just comfort washing over me as I close my eyes with the soft smell of wisteria and grapes from the vineyard drifting in through the windows.
