Benny generally enjoyed drives on the motorway, especially in spring when rural Tuscany was blooming. Right now, however, she was stuck behind a little orange Smart that was going all of sixty kilometers per hour.
"
Porca madonna
, can this grandma drive any faster?" She pressed the horn.
"Easy, babe," Renato said. It was overcast now and he lifted up his sunglasses so that she could see the smile in his green eyes.
"It you were driving we would never get there," Benny said. She accelerated and changed lanes to pass the offending vehicle.
"If I were driving we'd be less likely to end up in a ditch."
Benny batted him on the arm but smiled. They continued up the gently curving road, always higher, through wooded areas and past mountainside communes until they reached their destination around four o'clock. Abetone was a town on the northern border with Emiglia-Romagna where Renato's timeshare was. The cabin was a bit separated from the rest of the commune, an old box of a building with white outer walls and a rustic brown roof, almost swallowed by the forest. Renato and Benny had it for a week. The front door opened into a sitting room. There was a single painting on the wall over the fireplace, a coffee table marred by carvings from past occupants in front of the sofa. Behind was a small kitchen and a dining room with a sliding door to the back garden; to the left was a hallway which led to the bedroom and bathroom. While Renato put their things away, Benny drove to the supermarket to get some supplies and when she returned began to put the pasta, vegetables, wine and cheese away. Someone had left a half-eaten strawberry yogurt in the refrigerator for them as a housewarming gift.
A shout from Renato and a barrage of shoes on hardwood tore Benny from her task. She hustled toward the bedroom, fearing the worst: an intruder, a dead body, an adventurous wild boar. Stopping in the threshold, she was relieved and perplexed to see none of those things.
"What is it, love?"
Renato indicated the bed. "A spider. I almost lied down on it."
Benny almost hadn't noticed it because it was only the size of a Euro coin, but a black spider did indeed occupy the left pillow. She couldn't help but giggle at the way Renato fixated on it, as if he were worried it might jump at him.
"It's kind of cute," she said, walking into the room.
He didn't join her. "Can you kill it? What if it's poisonous?"
Benny shook her head. "These are harmless. If you see a brown one shaped like a violin then you can worry. Besides, we don't want it to splatter on the pillowcase."
She patiently coaxed the spider into a glass and took it outside, freeing it a minute's walk from the cabin on Renato's insistence. Benny had never been afraid of spiders, even the bigger ones. If she didn't live with Renato she might even buy a tarantula from the pet store she worked at. Spiders were content to leave one alone if one did the same for them.
Just as they were sitting down for dinner around nine o'clock that night there was a knock at the door.
"I'll get it," Renato said, rising.
Benny continued to eat her rigatoni with while he went to check the door. She soon heard him speaking in a low voice and she strained to hear.
"Look, now's not a good time--"
"Why not?" cut in a raspy voice.
"My girlfriend's here right now. We're spending the week together."
Renato's mom? Benny hadn't met her before. Wiping her face with a napkin, she rose from the table and walked past the cupboards into the living room. Renato stood in front of the door obscuring her view.
"Just one night, please, Renato," the woman was saying. "It's been a long day."
Before Benny could add her input, Renato nodded. "Alright. Just one night."
His agreeing without her input annoyed and perplexed her, but Benny put on a friendly smile as she joined the two. "Renato?" she asked.
Renato flinched slightly as if he hadn't been aware of her approach before putting on a smile of his own. "Benny, this is Veronica, my mother. Please, Mom, come in."
Veronica stepped into the cabin, a worn briefcase in hand. She was a lean, severe-looking little woman with graying brown hair cut at the chin.