Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,19

wouldn't know where my mother is by any chance, would you?" She got me into this mess. She could get me out.

"She's down in the lobby with those romance people," said Britha, nodding toward the enclosed staircase behind her. My room was at the top of the stairs, so all foot traffic from the ground floor would be passing by my door. Lucky me.

Barbro nodded. "I think their meeting's almost through, so stand right there and she'll see you."

I stared in awe. How did she do that? It was pretty clever, but it really set my teeth on edge.

"Look how pretty your room is," Britha said, jockeying with Barbro to eye the interior of my room. "We're hoping for a nice room like this at the next hotel, aren't we, Barbro? Is this what they call a deluxe suite?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. If this room looked good to them, what did theirs look like? Oh, God. I didn't want to know. "Is this your first trip abroad?" I inquired.

"It's our first trip anywhere," confessed Britha. "We're pretty much homebodies, aren't we, Barbro? Never been away from Windsor City in our lives, unless you count the time we attended the grand opening of the new Wal-Mart superstore outside of town."

"But once we went to Waterloo. Remember, Brit? You caught the flu."

Explosive clapping erupted from the downstairs lobby, nearly drowning out the sound of muffled chirruping coming from my room. "My phone," I announced, retreating back into my room. "Would you ladies excuse me for a moment?"

"Isn't that nice that you have a means of communication," Britha commented. "I don't believe we have a phone, do we, Barbro? Or a window. Or an armchair. Or a --"

I upended the contents of my shoulder bag into the chair and grabbed my cell phone. "Hello?"

"Emily, darling. Where are you? You said you'd call. What happened in Rome?"

"Um, the hotel burned down, and everyone's luggage got torched, so we're in Florence, settling into alternate digs." I smiled at the twins as they stood statue-still in the hallway, staring at me with hollow eyes. "We're all fine though, and the tour company plans to give people stipends so they can replace some of their belongings."

"I'm so sorry, darling. Did you lose everything? I regret not seeing you in the corset dress with the bra straps that you talked about." His voice dipped intimately. "I've been entertaining sinfully erotic thoughts about you in that dress."

My stomach did a little flip-flop as I watched the twins inch closer to my door, stalking my suitcase with their eyes. "Actually, I...uh, I didn't lose a thing." I regarded the eager looks on the women's faces. I regarded my obscenely overstuffed suitcase. I sighed as my conscience got the better of me. "Would you excuse me a moment?" I said to Etienne. "All right, ladies!" I waved my hand toward my suitcase. "I think there might be some slacks and jerseys in there that'll fit you."

They grinned in delight at each other before squeezing arm in arm through the door and approaching the bed.

"What was that about?" Etienne asked, when I returned to him.

"Girl talk." I watched one of the twins remove a few items from the top of my suitcase and place them carefully on the bed. Satisfied that they were as fastidious as I was, I turned my back on them for privacy and walked toward the bathroom.

"I'm impressed with your tour company, darling. It's usually impossible to find accommodation in Florence on such short notice. I wonder how they managed it."

I wasn't absolutely sure, but I guessed that someone had dialed 1 - 800 - FLEABAG.

"Have the complaints been wearing you down?"

"Not yet. Everyone seems to be rolling with the punches pretty well." But I suspected all that would change when they flipped on the lights in their bathrooms.

I heard feet stampeding up the stairs and a loud chorus of voices as the romance contestants stomped onto the landing and paused outside my door to schmooze with each other. I guess this meant the meeting in the lobby had broken up. Unable to hear myself think, I stuck a finger in my ear to block the noise, then stepped into the bathroom and closed the folding door behind me. "Enough about me," I said to Etienne as I leaned claustrophobically against the sink. "What's happening on your end of the phone?"

He laughed seductively. "My luck is holding at the casino."

"Maybe you should