An Astrological Guide for Broken Hearts

by Silvia Zucca

  “Weren’t you in Paris recently, honey?” intervenes the guy who, if he continues like this, in a short time will be my ex-steady guy or ex-photographer, because I will end up biting his hand off.

  “I, well . . . Not too recently. But I hardly had time to see anything.”

  “That’s what happens when you’re shut up in a hotel room,” says Barbara, staring at me grimly, and then she adds, “working.”

  Well, I’m really beating the crap out of them like Tio suggested. “I’ll let you all chat about work. I’m going to get something to drink . . .”

  I’ve barely turned around when Barbara announces, “I’ll come with you.”

  I make a mental note to not leave my glass unattended, so that she’s not tempted to play a little Lucrezia Borgia.

  Caught in god knows what strange state of momentary mental daze, I order a Sex on the Beach, leaving myself vulnerable to her comment, “Very apt.”

  I bite my lip as we both wait for our drinks in silence. Then, Barbara turns to me, saying, “You make me laugh, you know?”

  “Really? Happy to help you finally move a muscle in your face,” I reply. Now that the two of us are alone, there’s no need to pretend to be polite.

  She lifts a corner of her mouth. “It makes me laugh to see how hard you’ve worked, how much trouble you’ve taken to reach your goals, and yet you’re still here. A poor girl, who’s not even that cute, trying to ensnare the latest idiot so that she can move ahead in her career and become someone she could never have been on her own.”

  I put down the glass, and delicately remove the umbrella. For a second, I think of piercing it in her throat like the heroine of Kill Bill would do.

  “I imagine that’s how it worked for you. It’s all about who you know.”

  She warbles a laugh. “I don’t think you get it. I don’t have to prove anything; there’s nothing I need. It’s everyone else that wants something from me, who needs me. Davide wanted me in his bed from the moment he set foot on my husband’s property.” She stares at me intensely, waiting for the jab to penetrate straight through my heart.

  What she doesn’t know, however, is that her wound is already starting to heal. “You are, undoubtedly, very beautiful. It’s normal that you arouse sexual desire in men. But that’s not the same as love.”

  She shakes her head. “Ah, love! Davide tried that line . . . No, Alice, it’s not only beauty. What I have is class, and you can’t buy that at Zara, I’m sorry.” She clicks her tongue sharply. “You, with your tawdry clothes and your middle-class lifestyle. You think that all people are equal and should have the same opportunities. God, Davide tortured me with those speeches—amongst other things.” She makes a vague gesture with her hand after setting down her glass. “But I was tired of him anyway. He’s a fool if he thinks the world revolves around love.” She smiles. “And besides . . . you chose the beautiful Daniele, who has a chance to become rich and famous in just a couple of years. I would say ‘congratulations’ if it weren’t that you forgot to factor in one fundamental variable.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Me, honey.” She sashays away, with a virtually imperceptible wiggle, and I see many men’s heads turn as she walks.

  My heart is pounding in my chest with everything that I wish I could say to her. Instead, I am frozen by one solitary thought.

  Davide left her.

  43

  * * *

  Aquarius of a Summer Night

  I’m dizzy. I can’t breathe. My hands and arms are tingling. My entire body is in the throes of a coup d’état fought to the sound of an aggressive symphony.

  I decide to go outside, leaving behind the hubbub ringing in my ears.

  Davide and Barbara are no longer together.

  Yes, but aren’t I in love with Daniele? Our relationship is beautiful, linear, and clear. I am an idiot to think that . . .

  Davide was right to leave her, anyway. He must have realized what a bitch she is. It doesn’t mean that he did it for me. Perhaps sleeping with me cleared his mind about their relationship, made him realize that he didn’t love her. Can’t I at least be happy about that? Then why does it feel all wrong? Why am I wishing for him to come back to me?

  I am about to step foot outside the door when I see something in the corner that I haven’t seen for ten—no, realistically, for at least twenty—years.

  In the rustic, luxury restaurant, there is an old-fashioned, mousy-gray telephone booth; one of those with a door that make it seem like those spaceship rides with the coin slot and perforated plastic walls inside.

  I step inside and instantly feel a little better, as if I were in my grandmother’s arms. I think about how I used booths like this as a girl to call my latest crush when I was on vacation. I let myself slide to the ground, where I would tuck my knees under my chin, and wrap arms around myself.

  Tio is right to say that I am afraid to take my life into my own hands. Fight and fail start with the same letter after all. What if I, Alice Bassi, were to fail, by myself? What if I couldn’t blame someone else, or the stars, or fate for having made a real mess of things? That would be really tragic.

  Wouldn’t it be worse, though, if I realized, in twenty or thirty years, that I’d never done anything on my own? That I’d never had the strength, had never made decisions without allowing others, always others, to make them for me?

  Davide and Barbara broke up.

  I don’t know what it means.

  I don’t know what to do.

  But I understand deep down that my horoscope doesn’t matter. Or perhaps it could matter, but only if I take it as what it really is: a suggestion to understand my potential. After all, I am a Leo Ascendant, aren’t I?

  I jump when the cabin resounds with three thuds. When I look up, Tio’s face, disheveled and smiling, is framed by the long and narrow glass of the door. I feel a tear slide down my face; just one, of relief. He grabs the handle, opens the door, and faces me.

  “Are you decent or are you putting on your Superman costume?”

  I apologize again, trying to explain why I’d had to stay away from him, and that I’d really missed him. Tio almost starts to cry. I do, too, but I don’t give in. He drives into the night.

  “OK, as you wish. No more astrology.”

  “Great. Excellent.” I cross my arms, although my addiction to horoscopes right now seems like the least of my problems.

  “So . . .”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at all the stars,” I say, looking out the window.

  “Don’t start again!”

  “Ugh. Look, horoscopes are not my only problem. You’re right. I have to be braver. I owe it to myself.” I avoid telling him about Davide and Barbara’s relationship, because it would seem like falling into the vicious cycle of errors if I even considered it. They broke up. So what? It doesn’t concern me. I have to focus on my life now.

  “That interview . . . It’s true. I’ll call them tomorrow to set up a meeting.”

  Tio turns toward me with a big smile. “Wonderful, my little one! And listen . . .” He stops for a second. “Your energies are at an excellent level; you just have to believe in your abilities . . .” He bites his lip, like someone who is not free to speak as they wish.

  I warn him: “Tio . . .”

  “In my opinion, this is an excellent period for you to take some sort of initiative at work.”

  I sigh, exasperated. “And this is because of a Trine?”

  “Positive aspect of Mars with the Sun,” he admits, speaking rapidly.

  Both of us start laughing. When the light turns red and we have to stop, I undo my seat belt and lean over to hug him.

  “I love you, you lunatic!” he says.

  “I love you, too.”

  Then we let go, and I sniffle, still somewhat emotional.

  “Are you sure you’re OK?” he asks me with an inquiring gaze.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I respo
nd, vaguely.

  Then, he adds, “I’m sorry for what I said before on the phone.”

  “What?”

  “That you’re not really in love with Daniele.”

  “Oh.”

  “And that I don’t understand you . . . He certainly is a nice hunk of meat.”

  “Tio!”

  “Come on, he is hot. But I’ve seen you lose your mind; I’ve seen you dance; I’ve seen you shine like . . . a star when you were in love.”

  “Maybe that was passion, Tio. And, as you know, everything went wrong.” I shrug. “Perhaps something calmer and less hectic is better.”

  He sighs, and I see him shake his head. “It’s not love.”

  I bite my lip. “I guess. But maybe it’s what I need right now.”

  I am fastening my belt again, and Tio has his foot on the gas, ready to set off, when a fire truck passes us at full speed. Right behind it, I see an ambulance with a flashing siren turn at the next light, right into my street.

  “See?” says Tio. “Stop complaining. There’s always someone worse off than you.”

  I lean forward to turn up the radio, as they’re playing a song that I love.

  “Oh, for the rings of Saturn, don’t tell me Giorgio is back on the loose!”

  I lift my head as Tio is turning onto my street and see a roadblock and the ambulance from before parked in the driveway of my building.

  “Oh my god,” I exclaim, unfastening my seat belt again and jumping out of the car before it’s fully stopped. “Cristina!” My heart feels like it’s pounding between my temples. If something has happened to her, I will never forgive myself.

  Oh god, I didn’t answer her call at the restaurant. I will die of guilt!

  I start to slow down when, several feet ahead, behind the ambulance, I hear the moans of someone who is racked by deep pains.

  The baby is being born! I think. So, what the hell are the paramedics doing?

  Suddenly, I think I can also hear the strumming of a guitar. As I move closer, the groaning gets louder and more articulate.

  “Cristinaaaa, Cristinaaaa, Cristina . . . a-a-a-a-a!”

  I stop and roll my eyes, then I look back and see Tio, who has followed me, slumped on the hood of a parked car, cracking up with laughter.

  Someone yells from a window: “Enough! It’s almost two in the morning!”

  But Carlo, oblivious to the paramedics staring at him dumbfounded and the approaching firemen, continues to sing.

  “What the hell?” I hear one of the guys from the ambulance say. “They called us for this guy?”

  “They must have thought he was about to die. Have you heard him singing? It sounds like he’s been shot in the knee,” comments the other.

  I look up at the facade of my building, already anticipating the complaint letter from the condominium directors to the administration.

  “God, why is everyone out to ruin my life tonight?” I mutter. While I look for the keys, I stumble across my phone flashing a message from Paola.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m sorry, but I called Carlo to get her to calm down.

  And now the mystery of why Carlo came to my house at this hour, armed with a guitar and in such good spirits, is revealed.

  “Let’s go, man . . . be good now,” says one of the firemen, touching Carlo’s arm, who continues to tirelessly strum the only guitar piece he has learned, modulating his heartbreaking lament with head held high. “You can’t keep yelling at this hour. Come on!”

  Carlo, however, doesn’t pay attention to anything or anyone, and keeps staring at my living room window. My heart is so close to breaking that I run with my keys toward the door. If Cristina doesn’t come out of her own accord, I’ll drag her down here myself.

  Before closing the gate, I look at Tio again, who gives me a thumbs-up in approval. I skip up the stairs, two at a time, but when I get to the landing between the second and third floor, I see Cristina’s name flashing on my phone.

  “Hello!” I exclaim.

  Through the receiver, I hear her whisper: “Alice . . . he’s here! Carlo. He’s downstairs.”

  I stop to catch my breath. “I know. I’m outside the door. Please open up.”

  Ten seconds later, I hear quiet steps, and then the sound of the lock turning.

  “He’s down there!” she hisses again, with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.

  “Yes, I saw him. Actually, I heard him.”

  “He’s serenading me!” she squeaks.

  “More than anything else, I’d say he’s risking prison time.” Maybe there are rehabilitation programs where he could learn to sing—at last—but I don’t think that Cristina would be interested in this. “Go to him.”

  “No, I’m not going down.”

  “Cristina, that man in the street down there is . . .” I shrug. “OK, he’s a dick.”

  She pulls a face.

  “But he loves you, and you love him.”

  “He’s an idiot. He ruined everything,” she replies, pouting.

  “He’s a forty-year-old baby, Cristina. And you knew that even before you got together. He was scared: to get married, to be a father, to start a family. Damn, I would probably be going crazy in the street myself!”

  “I’m scared, too,” she admits, grabbing hold of me. “I’m afraid of not being able to handle this life growing in my belly, of not being a good mother. I’m afraid of being a mother, period!”

  “So, tell him,” I whisper.

  We take the elevator, in silence, with Cristina anxiously tapping her foot on the ground. I accompany her to the gate, keeping my arm around her shoulders, as excited as if I were accompanying her to the altar.

  When he sees her, Carlo stops playing and puts his guitar on the ground. Applause erupts all around him—I think more for the fact that he stopped playing than in encouragement of what might happen next.

  I see him extend his closed wrists to the policeman, like in movies where the bandit lets himself be handcuffed. The two agents exchange a look and the older one shakes his head.

  “Go home to your girlfriend, moron,” he says with a sigh.

  Carlo and Cristina embrace and kiss with difficulty and none of the fluidity that you see in films, but this isn’t a scene that will be reshot a hundred times until it is perfect. This is real life, and you have to get it right the first time. There are no do-overs. You either accept the outcome, or you have to be satisfied with changing course, reinventing yourself, and evolving. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.

  I look at Carlo and Cristina, who have found each other again, who gave in to their love, and I think that, after all, this is an ending where love triumphs, even though it’s not my ending.

  I feel Tio’s hand on my shoulder and I turn into his embrace. I’m feeling truly strong, happy about everything that I’ve learned, and I’m ready.

  Yes. Now, I am truly ready.

  EPILOGUE:

  The Libra Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain

  Outdoors. Night. One of those dark yet reassuring nights with a sky full of stars. Every once in a while, you glimpse a shooting star. On top of the hill are two figures, a man and a woman, sitting on the grass; two dark silhouettes with their noses in the air.

  “Now, make a wish.”

  “Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that something you wish for might come true just because you saw a falling star? Doesn’t it seem futile?”

  “No. Not if it makes you reflect on what you really want. Getting lost in the stars is a bit like taking your soul by the hand and finding out where you want to go.”

  The two look at each other. She sighs. “That’s beautiful. And very true.”

  “So? Did you make a wish?”

  “Yes.” She hesitates, as if embarrassed. “And you?”

  He smiles and brings his face closer to hers. “I can only hope that your wish is the same as mine.”

  She leans toward him, ready to give him a kiss.

  “And . . . CUT!�
�� yells a rough, smoke-ravaged voice.

  “I’d say we’re good,” I comment, and then raise my voice so that the whole crew can hear me. “Lunch break!”

  Lights come on and the blue screen is visible again, replacing the stars that the computer was projecting on top of it. Silvain Morel jumps down from the top of the fake grass hill, rifling through his pockets for a cigarette.

  “Hey! Can somebody get me down?” shouts Nicoletta Orsini, the beautiful actress who plays the role of Alessia, the protagonist in my film.

  OK, perhaps not exactly my film. To tell the truth, it’s Lars Franchini’s film, known to the public as Lanfranco Franchini, a renowned TV director with ambitions of making great cinema, hence why we call him Lars. But it is a bit my film, too. From the moment we first met, Lars and I have been as thick as thieves. In no time at all, I’ve become his right arm or his “always right” arm, as he tells me, winking.

  It’s strange, but true. It really seems that Lars loves my ideas, my stories, and my dialogues. The one that Silvain and Nicoletta have just brought to life was written by me, Alice Bassi, assistant director of the miniseries I Loved You Under the Stars. Of course, it’s hardly Woody Allen, but I’m just getting started.

  “Alors, Alissse. C’est bien l’accent?” asks Silvain, putting the cigarette in his mouth.

  “It was good,” I tell him, removing the cigarette from his lips before he lights it and creates a falling star effect for real, as we are in a closed environment with no windows that is full of electrical equipment. “But it would be better if you learned Italian, since you work here all the time. It would also save us a fortune on voice coaches.”

  He gives me a crooked and pleasing smile. “Et toi, you go out wiz me, if I learn Italian pour toi?” Then he lifts up his shirt, pretending to wipe the greasepaint from his forehead, but purely to let me admire the considerable deployment of abs below.

  I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I know his muscular apparatus well. I was the one who made the selection from the portfolios of the actors. In Silvain’s portfolio, there is maybe only one photo where he is wearing something that covers his chest. But ever since Alejandro, I have come to realize that the muscle that interests me the most in a man is the one hidden in his skull. Perhaps that’s why I’m still single, although I think a million and a half Italian women would give anything to be in my place right now, as Silvain’s popularity rating is inversely proportional to his IQ.