Danielle Steel - Remembrance

“No.” Serena shook her head solemnly. “I want my breakfast.” She had only eaten bread and cheese at the station the day before. And she had forgotten dinner completely. But now she laughed at Marcella's earnestness, and the old woman dried her eyes and growled.

“You haven't grown up at all! You're just as impossible as you always were! Fresh … rude. …” The old woman grumbled and Serena stretched and got lazily out of bed with a grin.

“I told you. Princesses are a bad lot, Celia. Bad blood.”

“Stop making light of that!” This time the growling was for real.

“Only if you stop taking it so seriously.” Serena looked at her gently, but there was something very determined in her eyes. “I have better things to think about now.” The old woman made no further comment, but went back to the pantry to make a steaming pot of coffee, another precious commodity that was still difficult to get enough of, after the war. But from Serena she was hoarding nothing. She lavished it all upon the young princess with the modern ideas. Crazy, all this nonsense about not wanting the title, not using it, not … it was ridiculous, Marcella grumbled to herself as she made breakfast. She had been born to be a principessa. Imagine not using the title! Ridiculous! She had obviously been in America for too long. It was high time she came home and remembered the old ways. Ten minutes later she called Serena to breakfast and the striking young beauty appeared in a blue cotton bathrobe they had given her at the convent, and her hair was brushed until it shone like gold in the bright morning sun. “What's for breakfast, Celia?”

“Toast, ham, jelly, peaches, coffee.” A wealth of treasures some of which, like the jelly and the sugar, she had been saving for months. Serena instantly understood, and kissed the wrinkled old cheek before she sat down. She promised herself that she would eat sparingly, no matter how ravenously hungry she was.

“All of this just for me, Marcella?” She felt guilty eating all of the old woman's treasures, but she knew also that not to eat them would be to hurt her feelings. So she ate, carefully, but with obvious pleasure, and they shared the coffee, right to the last drop. “You cook like an angel.” She closed her eyes and smiled happily in the morning sunshine, and the old woman touched the smooth young cheek with a smile.

“Welcome home, Serena.” There was a moment of happy silence and then Serena stretched her long legs out in front of her and smiled.

“You make me want to stay forever.” But she knew that she couldn't, and she wanted to leave before the temptation became too great to venture into the rest of the house. She didn't really want to do that. Even if part of her did. The rest of her did not.

Marcella was eyeing her thoughtfully as she stood up. “Why couldn't you stay, Serena? You don't have to go back to the States.”

“No. But I have no reason to stay here.” Except that she loved it and it was home.

“Don't you want to stay?” Marcella looked hurt and Serena smiled.

“Of course I do. But I can't just move in. I have to have a place to live, a job, all of that. I don't know that I could find work in Rome.”

“Why do you have to work?” The old woman looked annoyed. She wanted to hold on to the past, Serena realized with a smile.

“Because I have to eat. If I don't work, I won't eat.”

“You could live here.”

“And eat your food? What about you?”

“We'll have plenty. The Americans throw away more than all of the Romans eat put together. There will be everything we need here once they move in upstairs.”

“And how do we explain me, Marcella?” Serena continued to look amused. “Resident principessa? Good luck charm? Your good friend? We just tell them they're lucky to have me, and I stay?”

“It's none of their business who you are.” Marcella looked instantly defensive.

“They might not agree with you, Celia.”

“Then you can work for them. As a secretary. You speak English. Don't you?” She looked at Serena with curiosity. After four years, she should, she was a bright girl after all. And as she listened Serena grinned.

“Yes, I do, but they wouldn't hire me as a secretary. They have their own people for that. Why should they hire me?” And then suddenly, her eyes began to sparkle. She had an idea.

“You thought of something?” Marcella knew that look only too well. It always made her faintly nervous, but often Serena's most outrageous ideas had been good.

“Maybe. Who does one speak to about jobs here?”

“I don't know.…” She looked pensive for a moment. “They gave me an address, in case I knew of any girls to help me with the house.” She looked instantly suspicious. “Why?”

“Because I want to apply for a job.”

“To do what?”

“I'll see what they have.” It was one thing to arrive, oblivious with exhaustion, and spend a night in Marcella's cozy servants' quarters. It was quite another to live eternally belowstairs in a house that had once been her own. And she knew that she wasn't ready yet to go upstairs. But if they gave her a job, she would have to. She would just have to tell herself that it was their house, that it had nothing to do with her, or anyone she knew, and that she had never seen it before, but she was still quaking a little inside as she rounded the end of the Via Nazionale and passed the Baths of Diocletian as she turned into the Piazza della Repubblica and found the address. What if they didn't give her a job? Then what would she do? Scrape up the last of her money and make her way back to the States? Or stay here, in Rome? But for what? For her heart, she told herself as she pushed open the heavy door into the American offices that had been established there. Rome was where she had to be. She smiled as she thought of it, and she was still smiling to herself as she stepped into the building and collided almost instantly with a tall man with a boyish grin and a headful of thick blond curls under his military hat. On him the hat looked jaunty and-he had it perched at a rakish angle, and his gray eyes seemed to dance with amusement as he looked into Serena's green eyes. For an instant she was tempted to smile at him, but her face grew rapidly serious, and as always when confronted with a uniform, she averted her eyes. No matter how handsome the man was, or how friendly, the uniforms always reminded her of her old nightmares, and she couldn't bear to look the men in the eyes.

“I'm sorry.” He gently touched her elbow as though to convey his apology in case she did not speak his language. “Do you speak English?” His eyes combed her face, and he was instantly struck by her perfect creamy satin beauty, the wheat-gold hair, the huge green eyes, but he noticed too the stiff way she pulled away from him after their brief collision, and then the chilly way she looked at him once she had regained her composure, caught her breath, and stepped back. She seemed not to understand what he was saying, and he smiled and said a few words to her in Italian. “Scusi, signorina. Mi displace molto. …” And then he faltered with a captivating smile. But Serena did not appear captivated, inclined her head, indicating that she understood and murmured, “Grazie.” Her attitude would have annoyed him except that in the brief moments he had watched her he had seen the pain lurking deep within the bright green eyes. He had seen others like her. Everyone had suffered in the war. The Ice Maiden, he dubbed her to himself as he went on his way.

He had noticed instantly her spectacular beauty, but chasing the locals had never been Major B. J. Fullerton's forte. He had managed not to do any of that since he had arrived. He had ample reason not to. The major was engaged to one of the most beautiful young socialites in New York. Pattie Atherton had been the most ravishing debutante of 1940, and now at twenty-three, she was engaged to be his wife. B.J. smiled to himself again, with a little whistle as he hurried down the steps to the waiting limousine. He had a lot to do that morning, and his encounter with Serena slipped quickly from his mind.