by Silvia Zucca
“Hmm . . . Let’s see . . . Not too tall; average, I’d say,” begins the saleswoman. “Average length hair, average build, eyes . . .”
“Average,” I finish her sentence.
“Who?” Paola asks, approaching us with her hands full of trinkets.
“Some guy that left us fifty euros to spend here,” I explain, giving her a hard stare, because I don’t want to speak about my personal stalker in the store.
“And what sign do you think he was?” asks Paola ironically while I drag her away, muttering, “Idiot. Move it.”
I enter the café impulsively, bursting through the door like a gunman in a saloon, but there’s not a damn soul inside.
“We’ve lost him,” I announce bitterly.
Meanwhile, there are a lot of people in the street and my psychotic benefactor could be any one of them.
“Well,” says Paola, stopping to lean against the wall and rub her foot. “Why don’t you take a chill pill? You can’t chase—this time literally chase—after every man who shows the slightest bit of interest in you. Come on!”
“Don’t you get it, Paola?” I explain that our mysterious banker is most likely not Prince Charming or Superman, but more simply the Riddler of the yellow roses.
“Oh, fuck!”
And for her to come out with a bad word is a sign of an epiphany indicative of an inner volcanic eruption.
Since we are both terribly upset, we see no other solution than to immerse ourselves in lingerie.
“Thong or Brazilian?”
I truly believe that a new outfit is just what I need to get me in the mood for an evening with Davide. Not that I want to go that far, really! I would never . . . Well, I mean, there’s always a chance it could happen . . .
“Didn’t you say after Alejandro that you wouldn’t buy anything sexy again until the next committed boyfriend? Are you hiding something from me?”
I head for the dressing room at full speed. “Like how my best guy friend is gay and my supposed best girlfriend knew all about it and didn’t tell me, causing me to make a complete ass of myself?”
I give the curtain a dramatic yank, hiding in the dressing room.
The truth is that I haven’t told a soul about my date tonight with Davide. Neither Paola nor Tio.
I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to hear words, judgments, advice . . . I want it to be just the two of us, me and Davide.
Outside, I hear Paola snort. “I already told you I was sorry, but I still think that it’s his business, and if he wanted to tell you, as ended up happening, he should be the one to do it.”
I open the curtain to show off the first lingerie set I’ve tried on.
She looks at me from head to toe. “Did you just get a wax?” she asks, squinting.
I roll my eyes. “Sometimes even I have to do it, Paola.”
“Mhmm . . .” I hear Paola again outside the dressing room.
I show her the second version of the outfit.
“Very sexy. It looks good on you. Now tell me, Miss Fifty Shades of Clutching at Straws, who are you going out with tonight?”
I pretend not to hear. As I’m putting my clothes back on, I try to come up with a plausible lie that I can spin for her. “Why does someone getting a wax necessarily mean she has a date? I love myself and take care of my body for myself.”
“Sure, and tomorrow I’m going to dinner with Brad Pitt.”
I wrinkle my nose while I pass her to go pay. “Giacomo and Angelina won’t be too happy about that.”
“Alice, I’m not prying into your business for no good reason . . .”
“Hmm . . . and knowing a name would put you at ease?” I take her hands. “Listen, I want to do this thing alone. He is too important for me, and I don’t want to spoil everything by filling my head with other people’s thoughts. I want to enjoy the evening and . . . really see how it goes; to stand on my own two feet for once.”
After a few seconds of looking at me puzzled, Paola hugs me. “Oh, honey. I’m so proud of you. Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
I smile at the clerk and swipe my credit card with nonchalance, under the sweet, proud gaze of my friend.
“Just a moment.”
The clerk stops us when we are at the doorway.
“When you were upstairs, a gentleman came in and asked me to give you these,” says the girl, reaching under the counter and taking out three magnificent yellow roses.
24
* * *
Torture Me, But Kill Me with Leo
If I thought that things would be simple this time and that the evening would run smoothly, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Davide’s note said eight, but I’ve been here, sitting on the edge of my sofa with my purse on my knees for over twenty minutes.
I glance at the phone, but there are no calls or messages. I give myself yet another once-over in the bedroom mirror, contemplating the possibility of calling him, or rather combating the possibility of calling him. But no, it’s better to play the busy, emotionally independent woman who has forgotten all about the date.
When I go out on the balcony, my eyes dart toward the street, and I see him. He’s double-parked across the street and is pacing from the car to the entrance of my building. The first time, I think that he’s forgotten something because he opens the car door again and is about to get in. The second time, I think maybe he hasn’t locked the door because he just goes up to the handle. The third time, he stops halfway, and I have to ask myself what the hell he is up to.
Between the leaves, I see him pull out his cell phone, and when mine rings, I crawl like a marine through the French doors to grab it from the coffee table.
“Hello?”
“Hello . . . Alice?”
I don’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone. I was expecting Davide, for heaven’s sake.
“Who is this?”
“I am . . . My name is Daniele. I’m a friend of Karin’s. I am a Pisces with Virgo Ascendant.”
“What? Oh, good.”
From the window, I see Davide still pacing, his phone pressed to his ear.
“And you?” says Daniele, Pisces with Virgo Ascendant.
“Daniele, you’ll have to excuse me. This isn’t a great time for me.”
After a quick goodbye, I’m able to hang up. Now what do I do?
I run to the intercom as soon as I hear it ring.
“Alice are you home?”
Where else does he think I would be, given that I answered?
“Are you here?” Since we seem to be competing for the world’s stupidest question, I might as well catch up.
• • •
We park near the Porta Venezia gardens. It’s one of the first really warm evenings here in the city, and strolling between ponds and flower beds, you don’t even feel like you’re in Milan. Luckily, I’m wearing a comfortable pair of boots, but my feet are the least of my problems, given that just being beside him makes me feel like I’m walking on air. The thing that really makes me suspect that this is a dream is that for the first time, he is speaking freely.
“I realize that I have always been a bit aloof, but I prefer to really reflect on situations and understand what the consequences of my actions could be.”
In fact, that’s one of the things that I like about him, that he seems like a real strong and protective man.
I steal a glance at him and secretly ask myself what sign he might be and what his astrological chart is . . .
The question is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it.
Just like I didn’t want to say anything to Paola, I’ve made up my mind that I don’t want to know anything about his zodiac sign and the various possible planets.
A bicycle whizzes by inches away and Davide instinctively moves me out of harm’s way, sliding his arm around my waist. The heat of his fingers burns through my clothing to my skin, spreading throughout my body. I want those hands everywhere on me, and fo
r a second, I’m afraid that I’ve spoken that wish out loud, because he looks at me with wide eyes, embarrassed.
His hand starts sliding away, and I stop him.
I keep my eyes firmly focused on his as our fingers come together.
“Don’t do that . . .” I hear him whisper. It’s almost imperceptible, but we are very close.
“Do what?” I ask, trying to provoke him, pushing myself a step forward.
The tip of his tongue moistens his lips, then Davide steps back.
“What is that?” he asks, abruptly diverting our conversation.
I whirl around. “The Planetarium.”
“Really! We could . . . Do you want to go there? It might help with the show.”
The show. OK. But he hasn’t let go of my hand.
We sit on the benches in the back while the lights fade and the audience hushes at the sound of the opening music.
“Davide, I just don’t understand you . . .” I whisper as the presentation begins.
His hand squeezes mine even tighter. “It’s beautiful,” he murmurs. I see his profile rise toward the dome where a sky is slowly illuminated with an infinite expanse of planets and then filled with falling stars.
“. . . and these so-called falling stars are not really stars at all. They are called Perseids, and they are only dust that burns because of the speed, like when we light a match,” says the lecturer. “It never hurts to make a wish, and here at the Planetarium there are tons of falling stars.”
I turn toward Davide, longing to tell him that my only wish is to have him, but I am tongue-tied.
“Zodiac signs and astrology don’t really make much sense either,” continues the lecturer. “Constellations are drawn by man two-dimensionally, but if we look at the sky from another perspective, we see how the figures change geometrically; how stars that are a great distance away from one another are part of the same constellation.”
Davide chuckles next to me. “Andrea hasn’t used these arguments on Tio yet.”
“Mmm . . . I think he’s brought out plenty of others.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing . . . I mean there are so many things that you can say against astrology . . . on closer examination, we shouldn’t rely on it too heavily.”
“Are you changing sides? And to think that even I am starting to trust it a little bit. For example, I’m a Leo.”
Oh god. No. This can’t be happening. He’s not actually telling me.
Cover your ears, I tell myself. Blablabla. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know.
“August twenty-second, 1978, at eleven twenty in the morning. And I have to say, ever since we started working on your show, I’ve found some accuracies, at least in terms of my character.”
He said it. As much as I try to forget it, my interior voice keeps obsessively repeating his birth date.
“This is all bullshit,” I say drily, more to myself than to him, and out loud, to try to quiet that interior voice still obsessively repeating the date.
August 22, 1978. 11:20 a.m.
I try to distract myself by looking at the sky of the Planetarium.
“It would be nice to really be able to look at the sky like this,” I say. “Perhaps in the mountains, where there is true darkness.”
“It would be nice . . .” he repeats, and I hear him sigh.
I gather my strength and with the excuse of getting a better look at the stars, I lie down, resting my head on his knees.
His hand removes a lock of hair from my lips with a caress. “It would be really nice,” I hear him repeat. “If only it were possible.”
Like all dreams, the magic of the Planetarium won’t last forever. Unfortunately, and at the most beautiful moment, the lights come back on, transforming the magic into sheer awkwardness.
When we go out, he turns on his phone again and walks away to the corner of the foyer to make a phone call.
“Sorry. There was no reception . . .” I hear him say. I smile at him but he turns his back. “I’m out . . .”
I look at him and then stare at my own phone, which is switched off.
August 22, 1978. 11:20 a.m.
What if Paola is trying to reach me? She was really worried this afternoon, so you never know. I should turn it back on. Definitely. It’s not an excuse, I swear.
As my phone loads everything, I see that I’ve received a message, not from Paola, but from Tio.
Everything OK?
There. Maybe it’s a sign.
Yes, I know I said that I wouldn’t do it . . . but right now Davide is in the corner, muttering into his phone. And I am here alone, puzzling over my destiny.
I lift my gaze back to Davide. “. . . with friends,” I hear him say.
I might feel more comfortable if I knew that I had some hope, right? I would be able to enjoy the evening a little more.
I hurriedly type into the display.
August 22, 1978. 11:20 a.m.
Send. Without a note or even a name, but I know that Tio will understand in an instant.
“How about we go eat something?” says Davide, putting away his cell.
Well, it must be said; it is a perfect evening.
Walking through the alleyways, we end up at a small bistro, ordering wine and salumi plates. Davide smiles at me, looking into my eyes, and asking me questions about my life.
When the waiter comes up and lights a candle on the table for “A touch of romance . . .” I smile at him, thinking they really know how to pander to their customers, while Davide leans back, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Um, thank you . . .” he says. Then, when the waiter walks away and we are alone again, he peers at me, almost with suspicion. “I feel like this isn’t real,” he murmurs.
“You think so?” The fact that he also feels that this is a moment of pure magic is really more than I could hope for.
I close my eyes, trying to hear some inner bell, a consciousness, a change, a shift of the Earth, in short, a signal that I am living a historic moment.
My stomach grumbles.
Davide bites his lip, and he, too, has a somewhat lost expression when he takes my hand.
“Alice, listen . . .”
There, now I know what it’s like when Mr. Right is about to make his declaration of love. It’s not a volcano or an earthquake, it’s much simpler than that: it’s a song. I hear it start to play in the background, the first luscious notes, as Davide’s gaze sends a shiver down my spine.
Now I’ve had the time of my life.
Patrick Swayze was so hot in that movie.
No, I never felt this way before.
In front of me, Davide is frozen with his lips parted, evidently too overcome with emotion to speak.
Yes, I swear. It’s the truth, and I owe it all to you.
I ask myself if he, too, is hearing a song, to seal this moment, and what it might be.
“Alice . . .”
“Tell me . . .”
“I think . . . I think . . . isn’t that your cell phone?”
I turn toward my purse. Of course I’m hearing the song from Dirty Dancing, because I recently made it Tio’s ringtone. His name and picture are flashing across my screen now. I grab the phone and end the call. Sorry, Tio, but now is not the time.
“You’re not going to answer?” asks Davide, perplexed.
“Oh, no. No . . . it’s nothing important. You were saying?”
Now I’ve had the time of my life.
“It could be important,” Davide says, releasing my hand and leaning back in his chair to drink from his wineglass.
No, no, no! Tio, didn’t you clearly see written in my horoscope for today: Do Not Disturb.
I sincerely hope that this is a matter of the utmost importance.
I try to smile at Davide without losing my composure. “Hello . . . ?”
“Leave. Immediately. Get. Out. Of. There.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Alice, find a
n excuse. Goodbye. Thank you. And leave.”
“But . . .” I lift my eyes to Davide. He’s fiddling with the glass of Nebbiolo that we ordered, with an absent gaze. “I can’t.”
“Alice, now listen to me. That man, whoever he is, has charm to spare. OK. But he is terribly dangerous for you. Do you understand? Terribly.”
“No. I understand, but no,” I reply stubbornly.
“Honey, listen up. First of all, Leo is the most self-centered sign of the Zodiac. Virgo, which this guy is on the cusp with, squares him, enhancing his charm and making him even more determined. So, if he’s made up his mind to conquer you, he will.”
“Exactly. Subject closed.”
“No, listen! He has Mercury in Leo and Venus in Libra, and this makes it difficult for him to be constant in his affections.”
“Have you finished?”
“You wish! He has Uranus in Scorpio squaring his sun, which makes him virtually indecipherable.”
This time I blink, focusing again on Davide. Touché, I think to myself, because I’ve always considered this man as decipherable as the third secret of Fatima.
“And then he has Venus in his twelfth house. Do you know what that means? I’ll tell you what it means . . . He is extremely independent and doesn’t want any stable bonds. Go on, ask him if he wants kids, I’m curious.”
“Listen, I’m having dinner and it’s rude of me to be on the phone.”
I end the call and discreetly put the telephone back in my bag, apologizing to Davide for the interruption.
“Don’t worry,” he tells me kindly, and then narrows his eyes. “It seemed important.”
“Oh, well . . . yes . . . a friend!” Why did he narrow his eyes? It’s as if he is trying to read me more deeply. Oh, shit. “Um, a friend who’s having problems with her . . . boyfriend . . . she wants to have kids, but he doesn’t even want to consider it . . .”
“Well, he’s not entirely wrong,” he says. “Bringing children into the world is pretty irresponsible these days.”
Do they give out antipanic bags here?
My phone rings again, and by now I’m so flustered that I answer without hesitation. “What now?”
“Look, I also checked out the affinity and it sucks!” Tio says, but his voice is increasingly interrupted by other noises.