The House in Amalfi Read Online Free Page B

the table. “You’ve gotta take chances in this world, kid. No guarantees.”
    I thought for a second, then I took it on the chin. “No guarantees,” I agreed, “I promise I’ll think about it.” But as she linked her pinkie with mine in a wish for the trip to become true, I knew what I was wishing for. To have Jon-Boy and Alex back again.

THREE

Jammy
    When Jammy got back from dinner with Lamour, her husband, Matt, was sitting on the flowered chintz sofa with Bramble, their ancient black Labrador, sprawled next to him. Matt’s eyes were closed, and he was listening to the Stones playing loudly on his Bang & Olufsen.
    “Remember we danced to this the night we met?” Jammy said. She patted Bramble, then sank into the cushions on Matt’s other side, snuggling her head into his shoulder. He slid an arm around her neck and pulled her closer, dropping a kiss on her windblown hair.
    “Didn’t know you remembered,” he said, but she heard the grin in his voice.
    “There’s a lot you don’t know that I remember,” she said with a tone of such dark foreboding that he laughed.
    “And what exactly does that mean, dear Jammy?”
    “Well, I remember we didn’t have a honeymoon.”
    He pushed her away. “Are you gonna hold that against me forever? I was a poor business school student. You knew it when you married me. And you were a poor nineteen-year-old art student.” He scowled suspiciously. “So what’s the point of this little scenario, Jammy? You’ve got something up your sleeve; I can tell.” She smiled too brightly at him and he groaned.
    “I have no secrets from you,” she said.
    “For god’s sake, tell me the worst.”
    “We’re going on a trip to Italy this year. You and me. And Lamour.”
    “Lamour
’s coming on our honeymoon?”
    “This is not our honeymoon. It’s our ‘getting Lamour over the bereavement’ trip.”
    Matt closed his eyes and leaned his head against the flowered cushion. Jammy watched him anxiously. She could tell he was mulling over what she’d said and that he wasn’t happy.
    “You and I both know there’s only one way to get Lamour over the bereaving ‘hump,’ ” Matt said at last. “You have to tell her the truth about what happened with Alex.”
    Jammy had been afraid he would say that. “But how can I?” she asked, her voice strangled with desperation. “It’ll kill her for sure.”
    “Or cure her,” Matt said.
    Jammy sat up and looked at him. She stared into his honest gaze until she could bear it no more and she turned her head away. “I don’t want to be the executioner,” she muttered, clutching his hand.
    He held it to his lips. “Jammy, my love, did you ever think that you might in fact be the
liberator
? Tell her; then let’s see if she wants to go on this trip to Italy.”
    She suddenly spotted a loophole in his reasoning. “You mean if I tell Lamour and she says yes, the Italian trip is on?”
    Matt’s laugh was muffled in her tumbling blond hair as he said, “I thought I was winning this round.”
    But Jammy was still thinking about Lamour and her heart was full of dread because now she had committed to telling Lamour about Alex. “I almost wish you had,” she whispered. “Oh, how I wish you had.”

FOUR

Jammy
    Serge, the concierge, was his usual surly self, keeping Jammy waiting, her foot tapping, as he took his time about dialing Lamour’s apartment on the house phone, but this time Jammy didn’t even spare him a conciliatory smile. Fuck you, Serge, she fumed silently. I have more important things on my mind than keeping you happy.
    “Ms. Harrington says to go right on up, Mrs. Haigh,” he said, full of self-importance as usual. Jammy gave him a brief nod of thanks as she hurried into the elegant mirrored elevator and pressed the button for the twentieth floor.
    The elevator opened directly into Lamour’s private foyer, something both she and Jammy had considered incredibly grand in the early days of Lamour’s marriage to