A beautiful smile

I

Florence.
Finally, she was in Florence. She was staying in a luxurious bed and breakfast on Via del Parione. She was happy with her room: from the window, she had an incredible view of Piazza Santa Trinità, with the column rising in the centre - the Colonna della Giustizia, as it was called.
Directly in front of her stood Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, and to the right Palazzo Buondelmonti, now home to the Ferragamo Museum.

It was February 10th, a Saturday afternoon - a beautiful, sunny day, with a golden light spreading over that living painting that was Piazza Santa Trinita, unfolding beneath her window as she watched.

When she had arrived, in the lift — very old, with unsettling lateral movements — she had met a young Italian gentleman, well dressed, elegant. Blue‑eyed.
He had offered a polite “Buonasera, signora” as he stepped out on the third floor.
Lucy had replied “Buonasera, signore”, letting the doors close before pressing the button for the fourth.
She couldn’t forget those eyes as she looked out of the window, down toward the column.

A few hours later, she was sitting at Caffè Rivoire facing the Palazzo Vecchio.
A few tourists, passing, met in little knots of conversation, then dispersed.
She sat there, fully immersed in that surreal atmosphere, savouring the beginning of a new life. She had moved to Florence after a year of thinking about it, turning the idea over and over in her mind.
Signora, il suo cappuccino, the waiter said, setting the cup on the table.
Finally, here she could almost lose the sorrow that for so many years had been a constant of her life.
Her husband above all.

He had left her after so long together. She had moved to Italy because of him. She still loved him; she wanted to forget him.
He had a lover. He never confessed it. He had lied to her for such a long time…
She had followed him one night — it was her job to tail suspects — and she trailed him by car until he stopped in front of a house. He parked, got out, climbed the steps to the door, and let himself in.
It was child’s play to find out who lived there. Christine Taylor. His boss at the company where he worked as a legal expert in construction matters. She was ten years younger. And beautiful. Really beautiful.

When the plane touched down in Florence, it was midday. Francesca was waiting for her at the passenger exit. She kissed her on both cheeks and said, “You look great!” — the kind of thing one says out of routine.
She spoke Italian faster than Lucy could follow in her bleary condition after the long flight.
Francesca helped her load the bags into her miniature car and went careening around the perimeter of the city and into the centre. Into via del Parione.
She rang the bell at a massive wooden door, was let in, and waited for the lift. From the threshold, Francesca called out, “See you later, in Piazza della Signoria!” “Okay, see you later,” Lucy replied.

                                                                            II

How had it all started? With a murder. Her husband’s lover was found dead in a wooded area outside the city — her head wrapped in a plastic bag, her hands and feet tightly bound.
But what made Lucy furious was the moment, during a squad briefing, when the chief inadvertently let something slip: “She was three months pregnant.”
He stopped mid‑sentence, looked at Lucy, and stammered, “I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking…” Then, confused, he walked out of the meeting.
“That’s fine,” Lucy replied, speechless.

There are moments in life when a line is crossed, and once you cross it, everything changes. And everything changed when Robert began his affair with Maddy.
After they lost Juliette — their six‑year‑old daughter — in a car accident, that was the first line they crossed. Robert had been drinking; he wasn’t fully lucid when he reached the traffic light. He didn’t see the red and drove through it…
Lucy never forgave him. They lost each other. They lost their beautiful years together. Forever.

Lost in those thoughts, she saw again the image of the young man she had met in the lift: his eyes, his smile.
He seemed to be smiling at something beyond her.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Francesca. “A smile. A beautiful smile…” “Whose?” Francesca asked, giving her a knowing look.
“When you left today, I took the lift, and I met a young man. When he stepped out, he said ‘Buonasera, signora.’ He said it so beautifully that I looked straight at his face. He smiled like a god, and his eyes… they were so intensely blue, almost cobalt.”