Miranda was fine after they left the taverna, fine walking back with Andrea to the hotel, fine until she went into her bathroom, stripped off her shoes and clothes and stared at her reflection in the full length mirror. Then she didn't feel fine at all.
She looked at herself in the glass and for a split second remembered those moments in the church concert when she had not even recognised her own body, felt she was sliding into another personality even, definitely losing contact with the present day. It was with an all- encompassing sensation of terror that she wondered once again if she was going mad. But it only lasted just a second, like an after-shock, and when she looked again, her own face looked out at her perfectly normally.
"Get a grip, girl," she told herself, and steadied her finer feelings by doing something much more normal. She observed her naked body with a severely critical eye, and even pinched at the inch of flab at her waistline. Yes, definitely piling on the pounds there, Miranda. This orgy of ice-cream eating definitely has to stop. Being bossy, fashion and body image obsessed, "silly Mommy" Miranda again, actually made her feel much more cheerful. She would banish her anxieties about the weird stuff by not thinking about it any longer.
She took a quick hot shower, and then, having dried herself in one of the wonderfully luxuriant hotel towels, wrapped herself up in the provided robe hanging on the door. She scooped up the lovely Armani styled body lotion from the morning before, and went off to persuade Andy to keep her promise about a full body massage.
Andrea was doing floor exercises, nurturing already perfect toned abs, but as she saw Miranda's pretty feet walk past her head, she looked up, grinned and remembered what she'd pledged to do. She jumped to her feet, and tossed the pillow she had used to put under her hips back up onto the bed.
"Lie down here, on your tummy," she said, pointing to the bed, and went to relieve Miranda of her robe. She then pulled back the covers so Miranda could enjoy the smooth coolness of the high-count cotton sheet, and watched as she lay down on her front on the bed and turned her head sideways on the pillow.
"God, you're beautiful," she whispered, and then wickedly dripped a series of little drops of the lotion all down Miranda's spine. "Stay there, while I finish undressing," she said, for she was still in her bra and pants, and they suddenly felt superfluous. Then, as naked as her mistress, she gently sat on the top of her legs and leaned forward.
"I am going to make you feel very, very good indeed," she breathed, and rubbing her hands together a little to take away any chill, bent forwards and began to smoothly massage Miranda's back.
The groans and even moans of appreciation from the bed encouraged her no end, so when the neck and back were finished, she then scooted south, poured out more lotion and kneaded and massaged Miranda's very attractive bum and upper legs.
"Hmm, sighed Miranda, almost asleep and becoming totally relaxed. "I certainly needed this, after the evening I've had," she murmured.
"We're nowhere near finished yet," replied Andy. "I'm going to switch off the lamp while you turn over, so I can do your front without you staring up at me and distracting me."
Miranda protested, but turned as the room fell into darkness, and all she could sense was the teasing and terribly arousing hands of her lover, the scent of the perfumed lotion, and the quiet surety of both their breathing, rising and falling almost in perfect time with each other. By the time Andy finished, she had indeed given Miranda a full body massage. Then they both slept like babies right through until morning.
"It's our last day in Venice," announced Miranda next morning, unnecessarily really, but Andrea sighed dramatically and endorsed the feeling. "Our last day in Italy. This time tomorrow, we'll be waiting at the airport for the flight out. But we will come again, won't we?"
She hoped Miranda would be cheerful and say, yes they would, that the unnerving experience they'd had the previous evening, wouldn't make her stay away for the rest of her life. It was really too wonderful a country not to revisit.
"Of course we will," replied Miranda, "Perhaps with Charles, perhaps too with the twins next time. People like children here, and by this time next year, or when school is out in the summer, they will be of an age to soak up so much of the culture. We could come over to Verona for the opera festival perhaps."
Andy was grateful how positive she sounded. They had ordered breakfast through the room service kitchen, and were now sitting by their balcony, wrapped up in their robes, enjoying the coffee and croissants, as well as a plate of cold meats and cheeses, and an enormous bowl of strawberries. Miranda, a reformed sinner when it came to calories, was working her way through strawberries without the suggested Chantilly cream, and drinking black coffee in a long glass cup. Andrea was eating crunchy white bread rolls, smothered in butter and cherry jam.
Weird stuff was over. Normal Miranda was on parade. Andy felt confident enough to talk about their wedding plans.
"You know we have less than four weeks from tomorrow until the great day. I want us to write our vows together, before we meet up with the celebrant, and we are supposed to go back up to the Cape to finalise arrangements."
They had decided to have the wedding and the reception at the Windhover Inn just outside Provincetown, the same venue where they had stayed, along with Emily and Serena, the first time they had visited Cape Cod together. There was a nice irony about that, when Serena had brought Emily along to 'out' them, and had ended up being outed herself. (A.N. As in Clued Up) It had sufficient rooms to accommodate every one of their friends and family, central to sharing their joy, and Andy had sweet-talked the two women who ran the Inn into making over the whole place to them for their wedding party.
Miranda didn't totally discourage her, but said firmly, "Look darling, all that belongs to the next few weeks. If we have just one day left here, I want to make it just about us, here and now. Give me one last day in enchanting Italy with my enchanting companion."
"O.K." laughed Andy, "So what's on the cards then?"
"Let's take the water bus over to Murano and the other islands near it. It's a perfect day for a trip across the bay, and I want to show you round the glass-blowers' studios."
"Do you think we'll hear again from Maggie McIntyre?"
"Oh, she's probably lost patience with us, so I wouldn't think so. She doesn't know how to contact us apart from leaving notes, and we don't have her number either, or her address."
Thinking about Maggie made Miranda a little twitchy, because it reminded her of Monteverdi and his far too powerful music. Maggie also reminded her of Gloria, and she certainly didn't want to bring her up again in conversation any time soon. Gloria was a wonderful woman, a fine writer, and a wise counsellor, but she and Andy had enough to think about, without bringing her old lover back into their lives just yet. Miranda wanted Andy to want to carry on being in a mood simply to kiss and cuddle her, not give her a well-deserved good telling off.
So they breakfasted, bathed, dressed and took the nearest bridge over to where the water-buses left for Murano. As the boat pushed off from the dock, the damp marks high up on the walls of nearby buildings showed where the earlier high tides of January and February had left Venice inundated in its by now far too frequent annual floods.
When they stepped off the bus at the second stop on Murano, they could see the island was even more vulnerable, being nearer the open ocean. Most shops still had sandbags piled outside ready, and also large wooden shutters which would be regularly closed against the winter storms.
They strolled down the main street, past a dazzling array of jewellery shops and art galleries, and amused themselves very much before entering one of the several glass making factories, still operating on a similar pattern to those of four hundred years before.
"Why are they concentrated on Murano?" asked Andy, and Miranda replied. "The blowers were told to go over here so Venice wouldn't be at such risk from catching fire. The furnaces are seriously hot! But in the Middle Ages the City fathers also wanted to keep all their secrets patented just for them, so they refused to let glass blowers move away to other parts in Europe. Quarantining them on an island made it easier.
"Did you know, by the way that Venice was the access point to Europe for several terrible plagues? In 1630 it lost a third of its population, 50,000 people in one year. The population plummeted down to 100,000."
"That was still a very big city for those days."
"Yes, and the hotel staff were telling me, it's now even lower, at around 65,000. People can't afford to live in the old palaces, the rents and property prices are just too high, and anyway who wants to get flooded all the time? People prefer to live in Mestre or other towns on the mainland."
"I wouldn't mind a cute cottage here. It's so beautiful with all the painted pastel coloured houses."
"Isn't it? I think they must have been either for the glass-blowers, or for fishing families. Now let's go in here to see how the glass is spun into vessels and all the other things."
They entered a prominent studio and joined a small party for a tour of the museum and a demonstration of the glass-blower's skill. It was very warm inside, and the blowers were stripped off to the waist, manipulating the long pipes down which they blew the glass into perfectly round or oval glassware, vessels. To amuse everyone, the chief blower then made a little flying horse out of glass, something he must have done a thousand times, but Andrea was still delighted. She turned to Miranda and saw that she'd had exactly the same idea. "Cassidy would love one of those!" they both said simultaneously.
In the inevitable gift shop next to the studio, they bought the twins an animal each. Cassidy's little flying horse was carefully wrapped in a cocoon of bubble wrap, and for Caroline, Andy chose a delightful leaping dolphin in blue glass, which was also securely parcelled up.
Then Miranda pulled Andrea off on another quest. She had recently featured Italian jewellery makers in an edition of Runway and remembered that there was an especially elegant studio, using glass and crystals, and gold leafed copper, based in Murano. She talked to the owner on the phone and asked for a range of good photos for the article.
Andy looked ravishing in the emerald and gold necklace she had bought her in Florence, but if one was good, why not buy another? She pushed Andrea before her into the shop, and was gratified to be recognised by the owner-craftswoman at once.
The pieces were of as high a quality as she remembered, and she bought one on the spot. It shimmered against Andrea's red dress, and Miranda was sufficiently mellow at being allowed to spend her dollars so easily that she agreed to a selfie with Andy and the maker, who reminded her she was called Claudia. Yet another Italian jeweller would have a happy end to their day, as Miranda was then in the mood to add ear-rings to the purchase as well.
The two Americans walked round the circumference of Murano with their parcels, and then took the water-bus over to a smaller, even prettier island, where there was a street market. Andy provoked Miranda by buying the twins a folksy humorous Tee shirt each, and a fringed muslin shirt for herself. It was a ridiculously cheap little rag of a garment, but Miranda held her tongue, because she could see that it would be delightfully see through when Andy artlessly wore it.
Andy also bought her mother a pretty little wooden box with a painting on the lid of the Venice skyline, and a gondola sailing into the distance. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was cute, and Jenny could keep buttons in it or something. She finally bought Miranda a string of gaily coloured glass beads, in the mille-Flores design, and despite protests hung it round her neck where it looked pretty against her white linen top.
"We're being proper tourists now," she said to Miranda. "Shall we stay over here for dinner, or do you want to get back? We have an early start tomorrow, to take the car to the drop off point by the airport don't forget."
"I see a wonderful sea-food restaurant is recommended here in the guidebook, and do you know, I have a sudden desire to consume something other than pasta."
"Well, let's do it."
Later that evening, after the sun had set behind the hills on the mainland, and the moon shone down over the lapping sea, they floated home to their hotel in a waterbus, transformed into a Venetian vessel in their imagination, navigating by the shimmering road of moonlight across the waves. Miranda leant back against the gunwale and looked up at the stars.
"You know, the weird thing last night . . . "
"Yes, is it still troubling you?"
"No, that's what I wanted to say. I feel completely OK about it. It was what it was, but you were there. You and I, we are who we are. Time, space, place, it's all relative. Look at all those stars above. Most of them have actually burned out already probably, but for us they still shine. However many dimensions there are, things we're not aware of, like we can't hear radio waves without a receiver, it doesn't really matter. We exist. Here and now. And I love you."
"And I love you back."
"And you love me back. It really has been an enchanting April, hasn't it darling?"
"Yes, Miranda, it certainly has."
And as the lights of Venice grew larger and brighter the boat took them and the other day trippers safely back towards the city.
Author's Note:
This brings us to the end of Miranda and Andrea's little idyll in Italy. I hope you have enjoyed it, and its reminder of how many wonderful treasures there are to visit there, when good times return. Wikipedia has excellent articles on all the places and artwork mentioned, and a very long explanation of why Monteverdi's music was so special, with short sound clips as well. The next and final story in this series will come along shortly, in time for their much anticipated May wedding. Thanks for all your kind comments and favouring. It's good to know one is not writing into a void, but into a wonderful community of special people. You are all invited to the wedding!