Read A Year at 32 September Way for Free Online Page A

was draped over the back of the couch in Charles’ Verona apartment. “What will I use them for?” Charles asked himself. The nerves and anticipation that had filled him on the plane this morning were gone, but they had been replaced by fear, uncertainty and emptiness.
    “Who am I now?” he whispered. He thought of the suits he’d carefully hung inside the garment bag. Memories of the meetings he’d worn them to filled his distraught mind as he struggled to soothe himself with a familiar thought. The charcoal gray lightweight wool suit was Charles’ favorite; he had worn it for his last promotional meeting. He’d been the last one to enter the mahogany-paneled meeting room that day after the bank’s board members had discussed the various candidates for executive branch manager. A few other candidates had been summoned in before Charles, but he’d felt unusually calm that morning.
    As he’d walked past the mirror on his way into the boardroom, he’d caught a glimpse of himself and had been surprised at the confident, successful-looking man peering back at him. The man looked so sure of himself, as if he could take any circumstance and turn it into a smashing success. Charles had quickly dismissed such thoughts about his own image and chalked it up to the suit. Since then, if he sought success in a situation, he always turned to his favorite charcoal gray suit. It had never let him down.
    In a flurry of movement, Charles jumped from his chair, knocking it backwards to the floor with a thunk . He leapt toward the garment bag and unzipped it with trembling hands.  Normally he removed his suits gingerly from the bag, but this time he yanked them out one after another until his lucky suit was in his hands. “Thank god, thank god you’re here!” he exclaimed, clutching it to his chest. It would be fine now; everything would be fine now, he thought as he stripped down to his neatly pressed boxer shorts and white dress shirt. One piece at a time, he put on the suit: the pants, the vest and finally the jacket. Calmly, he walked back to the table and righted the fallen chair. Before sitting down, Charles removed a leather-bound booklet and pen from his suitcase, and placed them side by side on the kitchen table. He sat down and opened to the first page of the yet-unused booklet.
    “Agenda: 1 st Day of September,” he wrote across the top in his neatest penmanship. The agenda would be made a little late today, but he wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Order would be restored, and Charles would feel better about things. He knew he would. He brushed an errant fiber from the right sleeve of his wool suit jacket, and then mopped the perspiration off his brow with a paper napkin.
    “Purchase cloth napkins,” he wrote on the day’s agenda, and then he paused to think about the other familiarities he would need. He would be okay in Verona once order was restored.
    ***
    Eva had fully expected to be settled into her apartment and snuggling in Marcello’s arms by early evening, yet here it was nearly 7pm and she wasn’t there yet. She had been to Verona plenty of times before and knew the ride from the train station to the center of the city should only take about ten minutes. But after they got into the taxi, the driver’s cellphone rang. He’d turned away slightly and spoke rapid Italian while gesturing with his free hand. After hanging up and mopping his brow with a cotton handkerchief he’d pulled from his pants pocket, he’d smiled sheepishly at Eva.
    An hour-long drive around Verona followed; each time Eva questioned the taxi driver, he responded in Italian. It seemed that, somehow or another, he’d lost all ability to speak English after receiving that phone call at the train station. Eva was tired, hot and sweaty as the taxi finally turned down the street. She looked around and realized there were high courtyard walls on either of the street, rather than the open courtyards she was used to seeing, or the