Louisa had loved Charlotte only when she was good. But when she screwed up, Louisa’s love vanished. Charlotte didn’t want to pass on the bleak feeling that came when a parent loved you only some of the time.
What a disappointment, Louisa had said, when Charlotte had told her about the famous painter. Charlotte had been seeking comfort, but Louisa offered only shame.
* * *
—
CHARLOTTE CLIMBED QUICKLY FROM the golf cart, grabbing Regan’s arm. To distract herself, she focused intensely on the Colosseum tour leader. The guide gave them each a little headset, pointed them toward the large group they seemed to be a part of, and directed them, en masse, across the busy Piazza del Colosseo.
Charlotte focused on the ancient arena. My God, the building was magnificent.
She had just inserted her little earpieces (they reminded her uncomfortably of hearing aids…which she didn’t need!) when the girl’s voice came booming through: Welcome to the underground tour of the Roman Colosseum!
It was so hot, hotter than Charlotte had imagined was possible.
Follow me! said the voice in Charlotte’s ear, as we travel back in time! Imagine, please, tens of thousands of Romans waiting with bated breath to see the show right here. Gladiators fighting panthers, hippopotami, crocodiles, and even…a LION!
Lee and Cord seemed to have disappeared. Charlotte tried to remain upright as Regan admired the cunning wooden contraption that had been used to ferry lions to the arena. (It was a facsimile, said their guide, wherever she was, in their ears.) They plodded through dark and creepy hallways into the Colosseum dungeon.
Here, in the dungeon, said the voice, is where the gladiators awaited their fate! Imagine how it might have felt to be a gladiator about to enter the arena, knowing this breath might be your last…
“Yikes,” said Regan, meeting Charlotte’s eyes and grinning.
“What’s funny?” said Charlotte. Regan’s face fell. They kept moving, climbing up and passing under an enormous arch to enter the arena.
Now we are walking through the Porta Libitinaria…or Gate of Death! cried the guide. Imagine fifty thousand people cheering. Imagine facing an army of tigers, or other armed gladiators. Will you survive?
From across the vast space, Charlotte saw her son. He spotted her, raised his arm, waved. His face was open. “Mom!” he called, loping toward her. “Mom!”
What a disappointment.
Charlotte knew she should go to her son, embrace him. But his need was too like her own—naked, endless, weak.
Charlotte pretended she hadn’t seen him. She turned away, heading back into the labyrinthine hallways. She walked quickly, the packed earth hard under her ballet flats. She went left and then right, becoming lost in the Colosseum, wanting only to find a way out.
IN CHARLOTTE’S DREAMS, SHE was young again. Someone had given her a surprise gift—a silver package—but she had misplaced it in an enormous castle. She was chilly, wearing a pink flannel bathrobe she’d thrown away a decade before. She searched the kitchen, the basement, the attic, and many dusty bedrooms. She wanted to unwrap the present.
Charlotte opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize that there was no wrapped box. It was 2:00 A.M. Charlotte had taken the bus from Rome back to the ship with Regan. Had Lee and Cord returned to the Marveloso, or were they still in Italy? Charlotte had lain down for a nap, and must have slept straight through dinner.
Alone in the middle of the night, Charlotte began to worry. She was due to read “The Painter & Me” aloud in the Teatro Fabuloso the following evening. Her children still had no idea what the essay was about. Not one had asked. Maybe they assumed it was about Winston, or them.
Part of Charlotte was terrified at the thought of standing in a spotlight and exposing herself, but another part was ready for her children to hear her secrets. Or, okay, her one secret, sordid as it was. Maybe they would see her, just for a moment.
Charlotte had, to be fair, worked hard to keep her children from knowing her. It was perhaps the signature accomplishment of her life, how airtight the construction of her false self had been. She’d known neighborhood mothers who’d gone off the rails: leaving husbands for handymen or other people’s husbands; spending ruinous amounts of money; and (in one case) absconding to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Charlotte had clung to her pious persona like a lifeboat. Perhaps she’d even come to believe it was real.
But Charlotte could imagine a shadow self. A woman who would move toward a kiss. A Charlotte who invited lovers in, who opened her body to them without fear, abandoned herself to pleasure. A woman who believed herself worthy of love.
Lying in her nest of Splendido blankets, Charlotte remembered her wedding day. It had been six months since her father’s death had exposed the bad investments that left them paupers. Winston waited beside the priest, crisply dressed, looking at her expectantly. She didn’t feel much of a connection to him. Yet there she was, wearing an ivory dress.
Why did Winston marry Charlotte? She annoyed him on a daily basis; many of her habits seemed to grate on him like sandpaper. Charlotte knew their relationship was based on people they’d once seen in each other. To Winston, Charlotte was a trophy, a prize that even a famous artist had desired. Winning her made him believe that a thrilling life was possible even as he soldiered on at his father’s law firm. Charlotte watched Winston’s hopes dim as the years passed. She wasn’t magic, couldn’t deliver him from the alcoholism and depression that had been in him all along.
Charlotte had been badly burned when the painter and then her mother spurned her. She had wanted to feel safe, and giving up on romance seemed like the price for safety. Winston had money, of course, though not very much. Marrying him had given Charlotte and Louisa a path forward.
On her wedding day, Charlotte wore new shoes that chafed at her right ankle. It hurt as she walked down the aisle. She’d had an angry blister for weeks, and a new husband who told her to stop complaining.
Charlotte tossed and turned. There was so much space in the bed. Was this her fate—to be alone at night, and invisible during the day?
The boat rocked slowly, almost imperceptibly, and Charlotte realized that she had never really known what it felt like to be someone’s true love. She tried to fall asleep again, to go back inside her dream. She wanted to find the silver gift, tear the paper off, and see what lay inside.
CORD MISSED HIS MOTHER. He missed his tight little tucked-in bed in his musty, fusty cabin on the cheesy monstrosity that was the Splendido Marveloso. For a moment, gazing at the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, the fountain’s noise rushing in his ears, his head and heart aching, Cord realized that he’d probably miss the megaliner for the rest of his life. Once you’d known the comfort of cruising, life on land was jagged and difficult indeed. There was no Paros, no breakfast tray, no carb-o-licious buffet on the lido deck with a bottomless carafe of coffee. Cord had exiled himself from the Promised Land.
He stretched. Cord had walked around the Eternal City for hours searching for Giovanni. Each time he rounded a corner, stumbling upon another historic treasure, he’d imagined their reunion: Cord’s tearful apology, Gio’s forgiving embrace. It would be a sweeping black-and-white film of a reunion!
Except Cord never found Giovanni. Maybe he’d gone back to New York. He wasn’t answering his phone or posting anything anywhere. Giovanni’s face, when he’d confronted Cord next to the golf cart, was filled with rage and pain. “You have serious problems,” Giovanni had said.
“Help me,” Cord had said.
Giovanni crossed his arms over his chest. “I thought this thing with your mom was something you had to do,” he said. “But now I get it. It’s who you are.”
“It’s not what I want,” Cord managed. “It’s not who I want to be.”
“Goodbye, Cord,” said Giovanni, before walking away, then picking up his pac
e, turning a corner, and disappearing.
“Don’t leave me!” cried Cord.
But Gio was gone.
Cord couldn’t leave Rome, not like this. Countless glittering bars beckoned. He could get drunk. He could meet up with the ship at its next destination (Florence, wasn’t it?) or even go home and deal with the 3rd Eyez mess he’d created. Across from him, lights played upon the majestic fountain, illuminating a young couple madly making out.
Cord pulled out his phone and stared at it. God, he wanted to jam it back in his pocket, resume his fruitless search. But he’d already gone down every avenue he could imagine to make things right. And none had worked. He was, as they said in the rooms, his own worst enemy. He needed help. Beaten down and unable to think of any other option, Cord dialed Handy.
“Ah,” said Handy, answering on the first ring. “It’s you, man.”
“Yeah,” said Cord. “It’s me.”
“Are you drinking?”
“No.”
“I’m glad.”
“Not today. Not right now at this minute.”
“That’s good.”
“But I did drink. I fucked up.”
“It’s okay, man,” said Handy. “We’re alcoholics. It’s what we do.”
Cord heaved a long, shuddering sigh.
“Where are you?” said Handy.
“I’m in Rome. I’m sitting in front of a big fountain. I don’t know where to go, and I don’t know how to make things right.”
“Yup,” said Handy.
“What does that mean?” said Cord angrily.
“It means, I hear you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cord, rubbing his eyes.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“But I am,” said Cord. “I’m so sorry.”
“You know what I’m going to say?” said Handy, after a pause.
“Yeah.” Cord laughed sadly.
“What?”
“Go to a meeting.”
“Right. What else?” said Handy.
“Accept the things I cannot change.”
“Good one. And…?”
Cord tipped his head to look at the navy sky. “You’re going to tell me to wait for God to tell me what to do.”
“How’ve you been doing on your own, man?” said Handy.
“Not so well.”
“Yup,” said Handy again. Cord’s fury ebbed, and he began to laugh. “Gio came to surprise me,” he said. “Handy, he hired a golf cart. To drive my mom around Rome. And I just—I don’t know. I blacked out or something.”
“You were drunk?”
“No,” said Cord. “Sober as a mouse or whatever they say.”
“A church mouse,” said Handy.
“Yeah. But I just went comatose. In the golf cart.” Laughter bubbled up, and Cord giggled. “Gio told me to go to hell,” he said. “My family didn’t know what was going on. My mom…”
“But what about you?”
“Huh?”
“What about you?” said Handy.
Cord stopped laughing. A Japanese couple having dinner at an outdoor café was staring at him. He didn’t care. “You know what I want,” said Cord bitterly.
“I sure do,” said Handy.
They were silent. Cord felt glad not to be alone. “Thanks,” he said. “You get it, I know that. That’s a lot.”
“You need me to come on over there to Italy?” said Handy. “Drag you to a meeting?”
“I can do it,” said Cord.
“Do it, then,” said Handy. “Call me afterward.”
“Okay,” said Cord.
“One day at a time, man.”
“I hate that fucking saying.”
“Yup,” said Handy.
“Handy?” said Cord.
“I’m here,” said Handy.
“Can you not hang up yet?” Cord sounded like a baby, like a goddamn baby, and though he was a bit ashamed, it felt good to ask for what he needed.
“I’m right here,” said Handy.
NO ONE BUT REGAN showed up for the Wonders of Florence tour. She sat by herself on the bus from Livorno, peeking out the window as the bus stopped at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The cathedral was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style and sprawled over almost ninety thousand square feet. Regan stepped back to take it in: the wedding cake exterior of the basilica was fitted with marble panels in pink and green, bordered in white. Beauty—the word sprang into Regan’s mind.
Throughout high school, Regan had kept giant scrapbooks. She’d filled them with sketches, musings, Polaroid photos, and ticket stubs. Sometimes locks of hair and even (once) a bloody Band-Aid to remember the night she fell at a Green Day concert and scraped her elbow. Regan believed she was making something beautiful—even something important—from the detritus of her days.
In early marriage and after the girls were born, she’d continued her projects, adding recipes and receipts, using the girls’ finger paints and crayons, spending sleep-deprived midnight hours at work, then sitting cross-legged on the floor of the playroom while the girls created their own art. Why had she stopped? Regan remembered needing a new scrapbook and just never getting to the store to buy one. Her brain gradually filled with grocery lists, car pool times, paint swatches for the den. Regan’s art seemed less important than her family’s constant needs.
Their guide was a bespectacled blond man with a clipboard. He talked for a while about Il Duomo, the dome, which was 375 feet tall. It was made of brick, said their guide (Regan squinted to make out the name on his tag—NICO), and was a miracle of physics. Its creator, Filippo Brunelleschi, had studied the Romans’ construction of the Pantheon as he figured out how to create the dome without using a wooden skeleton. Instead, he proposed placing the brickwork in herringbone patterns between a framework of stone beams.
So it wasn’t all about beauty, thought Regan. It was also about math and showmanship. Regan felt a familiar thirst, staring at the marble façade of the church, wanting to understand more. She asked Nico how the patterns and stone beams actually worked, drinking in his explanation as he moved his hands through the air, sketching interlocking shapes.
Regan thought of her peaceful morning hours at Monet’s Playhouse. Of course, this architectural marvel was nothing like painting ceramic figurines, but the process—a vision and its eventual execution or abandonment—was the same, wasn’t it?
Nico briefed them as they drove toward the Ponte Vecchio: it was a medieval stone closed-spandrel arch bridge with three segments. While the shops along the bridge had originally housed butchers and gold merchants, they now sold jewelry and tourist knickknacks. “Please, I implore you,” said Nico. “Do not buy a lock. We have to remove the locks weekly. They are a hazard.”
As the bridge came into view, Nico pulled out a boom box. “Puccini mentions the bridge in ‘O Mio Babbino Caro,’ ” he said. “Please, be silent and enjoy.”
He pressed Play. A soprano sang, her voice rising with the music, and although Regan didn’t understand the Italian words, the song pierced her. When the bus stopped, passengers began shoving past her to get to the shops, and Regan was surprised to feel a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, into the kind eyes of Nico. He was so young.
“You understand,” he said.
Regan nodded. She did understand.
* * *
—
THEY WERE GIVEN A few hours to wander, and told where to meet the bus to head back to the port. Regan walked along the cobblestones, peering idly at gold jewelry. The searing voice of the opera singer kept coming back to her, making her feel melancholy. She plodded forward, wishing she weren’t alone.
And then she saw him, as if conjured from her hopes. Crossing a square that was loud with zooming Vespas and shouting locals, Regan recognized the back
of his head. He was haggling with a vendor in fluent Italian, holding up a bottle of balsamic vinegar. Regan approached him, suddenly shy.
He finished his conversation, took the vinegar, and turned. “Regan!” he cried.
“Giovanni,” said Regan. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh my God,” said Giovanni, taking her arm and walking purposefully. “I’m so embarrassed I could die. I took a week off and spent all my savings. I booked a room on your stupid cruise ship. I boarded the dog at Hotel Bark Ave! I thought this was going to be the best week of my life.”
“Wait,” said Regan, “you’re on the ship?”
“Pathetic, right?” said Giovanni, running a hand through his lustrous hair. “But what am I going to do, throw away the ticket? No, ma’am. I danced at that revolting disco all night long. I drowned my sorrows in bottom-shelf tequila. I’m ashamed to tell you that I almost made out with DJ Neon.”
Regan couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not laughing at you,” she said.
“You are, but whatever,” said Giovanni. “Let’s lunch.”
They slipped into a restaurant with high ceilings and pale blue walls. Giovanni spoke to the woman at the hostess stand and she seated them. Every other table was full and the din was incredible. Regan didn’t see another American in the place, which seemed a miracle and made her feel like an insider.
“Mind if I order?” said Giovanni.
“Please,” said Regan. “I love everything.”
“The woman of my dreams,” said Giovanni. He ordered in Italian from a young brunette with her hair in a ponytail, her arms laden with plates.
When he had finished speaking, the woman nodded and said, “Si, prego.”
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