A Hidden Fire

She nodded with a smirk, and took another sip of the coffee he’d brought her.  It had just a touch of cream, exactly the way she liked it.  “Sure you are.  I’m a skeptic until I see the rubber suit.  You’re not fooling me.”

He looked at her, smiling mischievously.  “You really want to see me in a rubber suit?”

His seductive grin brought her to a halt.  “What?”  She blushed.  “No, I was just—joking, Gio.  Sheesh.”

He laughed at her uncomfortable expression.  Giovanni blew on his coffee, holding it in his hands and smiling at her over the edge.

“What are you working on?” he asked, setting down his drink.

She shrugged.  “Medieval Lit paper.”

“Dante, by any chance?”

She cocked her head.  “Not my area.”

“Sorry.”

They looked at each other for a few moments before she relaxed again.  “It’s fine.  Valid question, I guess.  A lot of people thought I would follow in my dad’s footsteps.”

“But you chose not to.”

She shrugged at him.  “I like the library.  Information science is…kind of like solving mysteries.”

“So you’re a detective?” he asked with a smile.  “Do you like mysteries?”

She rolled her eyes.  “I have no illusions of grandeur.  People need information.  I find out what they need to know and help them find it.  It’s satisfying.”

“That’s somewhat like your father.  Isn’t that what he was doing in Italy?  Solving mysteries?”

Her eyes narrowed.  “Maybe.  You’re awfully interested in ten-year-old research.”

“I’m quite fond of Dante.  I am Italian, after all.”

“That’s true.”  She paused.  “I don’t know what he was looking for.”  She took another sip of her coffee and couldn’t help but notice the avid interest he was trying hard not to show.  “He told my grandfather he thought he had a line on some previously unknown letters connected with the Alighieri family.  Some missing collection of correspondence.  You know how they used to take a collection of letters and bind them in correspondence books?  I think he was looking for some of those.”

“What?  From Dante himself?”

Beatrice looked down at her computer.  “Maybe.  He wasn’t specific.  No one in the family was really as interested in literature as he was.  I mean, I am now, but at the time…”  She smiled as she remembered the last call her father had made to her from Italy.  He had run into an old friend from school and was bubbling with excitement.

“You were twelve when he died?” Giovanni asked.

She looked up sharply.  “How do you know how old I am?”

“I just assumed,” he said.  “You mentioned you were a senior.”

She didn’t know why, but she felt like he wanted something from her.  She had an uneasy feeling prickling at the back of her neck and a strange energy suddenly seemed to buzz around her.  She didn’t feel unsafe, just like there was some piece of a puzzle she was missing, an angle to him she couldn’t quite see.  She looked at the pale hands he had folded across his chest and a headache began to grow behind her eyes.

“Of course,” she said.  Pausing for a moment, she took another drink of her coffee, noting his cup still remained untouched on the table.  “Don’t like your coffee?”

He shifted slightly.  “It’s just not the way I ordered it.”

“So take it back,” she said quietly.  “Not that you’ll drink that one, either.”

He stared at her.  “Why do you say that?”

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.  A slight vibration filled the air and he looked down, seemingly fascinated by the back of her laptop as his eyebrows furrowed together.

She felt a strange pressure around her, like the air right before an electrical storm.  “You just don’t seem to like coffee all that much.”

“I don’t,” he said in a low voice, still staring at her computer.

“So why do you always order it?”

He looked up at her, his green eyes seemed darker the longer she stared into them.  Beatrice saw his arms unfold and a hand began to creep across the table toward hers.  The hairs on her wrist rose.

“Gio?” she whispered, confused by his odd behavior.

He sat back suddenly, as if shaking himself out of a trance.  “I like the way it smells—coffee, I mean.  I just don’t like the taste.”  He stood, grabbing his messenger bag from the floor.  “I should be going.”

“Oh?” she asked, still confused by the strange exchange and the sudden clearing of the air.  She felt her ears pop as when she spoke to him.

“Yes, I need to speak with Caspar.  I forgot.”

“Well,” she cleared her throat, attempting to lighten the mood, “have fun at the bat cave.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, frowning.

She shook her head.  “Never mind.”

“Oh yes, the bat cave.”  He chuckled.  “I’ll be sure to tell Alfred you said hello.”

“Yeah, you do that.”