The Sunflower Girl

by Rosanna Chiofalo

  “Ah. I see I have wounded your pride, signorina.”

  “No, you have not wounded my pride, but I do not take orders from men so easily. I have grown up with a very opinionated father and brother, and, after my mother died, I was the only female in my household until my brother wed and brought his wife to live with us. It would’ve been easy to have my voice drowned out since I was outnumbered until recently in my family. So I have become accustomed to challenging my father and my brother whenever I can and making my own choices.”

  A subtle, surprised expression came over Franco’s features as he studied her.

  “Very well. But again I must emphasize that these are dangerous times, and things might get even worse, as I’m sure you realize. Just promise me you will be extremely cautious—no matter what you decide to do.” He held her gaze, and Maria saw how serious he was.

  “I promise. Thank you again for your concern.”

  He nodded before adding, “I must go. But first let me escort you back to your front door.”

  “That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

  “I insist. It will make me feel better to see that you have entered your house safely.” Franco smiled. He had a warm smile, which completely melted Maria’s resolve.

  “How about you wait here while you watch me go to my house? If my father sees you, he might call the police since you are trespassing.”

  “Is he a Fascist?”

  “No, but you are committing a crime by being on our property uninvited. So if you don’t want to return to jail, I suggest you wait here and then leave as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry, Maria. It was a pleasure meeting you. Grazie molto.”

  “Buongiorno.” Maria slightly bowed her head before taking her leave.

  As she walked toward her house, she could feel his eyes on her. Once more her cheeks flushed, and she was grateful he could not see her face this time. She was a grown woman in her late twenties, not a silly teenager. What would he think seeing her blush over the littlest thing? Then again, why should she care what this stranger thought of her? Every so often Maria would glance over her shoulder. Franco remained in the same spot as he waited for Maria to reach her door. Though he watched her, she noticed he would also look from side to side quickly, ensuring the police hadn’t returned.

  When she reached her house, she turned around and waved. He waved back, but still waited. She shook her head in exasperation. He did mean it when he’d said he wanted to make sure she got into her house safely. Maria stepped inside. She could hear Enza singing softly to herself. Enza always sang whenever she was in the kitchen. Soon the sound of the espresso pot percolating reached Maria’s ears. Papà and Michele would be getting up from their siesta any minute now. She walked over to the window that looked out onto the sunflower garden and stood to the side lest Franco see her staring at him. But he was already gone from where he’d been standing. Perhaps he had gotten back down on the ground and was crawling his way off the property. Maria had to place her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  Her gaze went over to the sunflowers. The sun was getting lower in the sky. Although she knew it was absurd to feel afraid in the garden she’d played in since she was a child, Franco had managed to instill some fear in her—and curiosity. She wondered where he was from. Was he also from Florence or from one of the neighboring towns? What had been the catalyst for him to start his anti-Fascist newspaper? He had an intellectual look with his glasses and his serious gaze. He looked like a man who pondered a lot.

  As Maria made her way to the kitchen, she sent out a silent prayer for Franco, asking God to keep him safe.

  CHAPTER 7

  Dante

  Siena, 1970

  Dante was setting up his easel as he did every Wednesday morning at Siena’s famed Medici Fortress, the site of a weekly outdoor market that boasted a dizzying number of long tables and trucks that displayed everything from housewares, clothing, jewelry, scarves, shoes, and bags to plants, produce, meat, cheese, and other items. Many tourists visited the market, hoping to find inexpensive goods to take back home. It was an ideal place for Dante to sketch and attract tourists who wanted a unique piece of artwork to bring back home. But tourists weren’t his only customers here. Many of Siena’s wealthy residents came by regularly to purchase Dante’s larger canvases to adorn their villas.

  It had been a couple of weeks since Dante had seen Anabella, and he was beginning to lose hope that he would ever see her again. He had gone to the Piazza del Campo every day of the week except Sundays and Wednesdays. On Sundays, he and everyone else in Italy attended church, and most shops remained closed for the day. And on Wednesdays, he came to the market at the Medici Fortress. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t seen her again? Maybe she and her mother had gone to the Piazza del Campo on the Wednesdays when he was here. Yes! Why hadn’t he thought of that before?! If he didn’t see her the rest of this week, he would change his routine next week and go to the Piazza del Campo on Wednesday as well.

  Feeling a bit more hopeful, he decided to stray from the drawings of landscapes that he normally did when he worked at the Piazza del Campo or at the Medici Fortress market. He began a sketch of Anabella. It was the first time he would be drawing her instead of painting her. The sketch’s background was the bustling market and in the forefront was his sunflower girl. Her back was toward the viewer as she stood at one of the merchants’ tables. An open leather handbag, which hung around her wrist, contained a bouquet of sunflowers. A few of the flowers’ petals were strewn by her feet. Only her profile was visible to the viewer as she stared at an antique mirror that hung in the vendor’s tent on a shelf. The other half of her profile was visible in the mirror. Her eyes looked very sad. Her long chocolate-brown curls framed her face and hung over her shoulders, which were exposed in the silky sundress she wore.

  “What a stunning work!” A portly man stood over Dante, who was now adding a few final touches to the sketch.

  “Grazie.”

  “She looks so pensive and sad. Is she not happy with what she sees in the mirror? I cannot see how that is the case with her perfect classical features. È molto bella!” The man leaned in closer and peered intensely at Anabella.

  Dante couldn’t help feeling a stirring of jealousy. He knew it was crazy to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. He had become protective of his sunflower girl, perhaps even more so now that he knew she was very alive and present in the real world.

  “Please, be careful. I need to get a new easel. This one is not stable,” Dante pleaded with the man, hoping he wouldn’t notice the easel was actually stable. But the man simply nodded and took a step back.

  “I must have this drawing. How much?” He whipped out a fat billfold and began separating his lire.

  Dante paused. Although he still had in his possession several sunflower girl paintings, it was becoming even harder for him to sell any of them. Maybe when he saw Anabella again, he could sell more of them. He knew he needed to let go of this obsession that had taken hold of him. And his landscape drawings hadn’t been selling as much in the past few weeks, which he wasn’t surprised by, since they hadn’t been the best of his work. He blamed it on his recent distractions—at least where the landscape pieces were concerned. But when he painted Anabella, his work still shone.

  Returning his thoughts to the waiting customer, he swallowed hard before replying, “How much would you like to pay for it?”

  The man looked surprised. “Please, my son. Don’t devalue your work. You are a very talented artist. Surely you must know your worth. As you can see, I have the money and am willing to pay handsomely for it.”

  How could Dante tell him he did not want to place a price on his sunflower girl? While he’d quoted rates for the paintings of Anabella that he had sold, that had been before he’d seen her in person. Now, he felt as if he knew her and as if he would be selling her. But he needed the money.

  “I trust you, signore. Please just pay m
e whatever you think is fair. I am more than happy to sell you the drawing since I can tell you are a lover of art and will appreciate my work for a long time to come.”

  The man seemed pleased with Franco’s compliment. Shrugging his shoulders, he said, “Very well.” He took out what looked like most of the lire in his billfold and handed them over to Franco without counting them.

  “Aren’t you going to count it?”

  “I know how much money I had when I left home, and I have yet to purchase anything today. Please take the money. No more arguing.”

  Before Dante could refuse again, the man placed the money in Dante’s shirt pocket. Then the man lifted the drawing from the easel and hoisted it under his arm. Dante cringed, wondering if the man would perspire all over his beautiful sketch.

  “Buongiorno.” The man quickly walked away as if he’d heard Dante’s thoughts and was afraid he would change his mind about selling.

  Sighing, Dante decided to call it a day and began packing up his easel and art supplies. As he bent down to put his drawing pencils in his satchel, he saw, out of his peripheral vision, a woman with long, dark, curly hair. He whipped his head to the right. Anabella!

  Though he couldn’t see her face, he would have known that glorious crown of hair and figure anywhere. Slinging his satchel over his shoulder and leaving his easel behind, he ran after her. She was alone and hurrying toward the back of the market. Dare he shout her name, even though they had yet to formally meet? He didn’t want her to think he was stalking her.

  A large group of tourists suddenly appeared and were heading in the same direction as Anabella. Damn them! They completely obliterated her from his view. He roughly pushed his way through the crowd, much to the dismay of the tourists, who glared at him. But once he made it to the front, he saw Anabella was gone.

  Out of breath, he walked over to a wall covered in ivy that was set several feet back from the vendors’ tables. He squatted, leaning his back and head against the wall as he waited for his heart rate to return to normal. Closing his eyes, he exhaled deeply. Just as in his dreams, he was now chasing his sunflower girl in his waking life. Would he ever catch up to Anabella Ferraro and actually talk to her? Or would he be doomed to chase her forever?

  CHAPTER 8

  Anabella

  Pienza, 1961

  Anabella could hear the church bells chiming in the distance. It was Easter Sunday, and she and her mother were dressed in their finest. Anabella wore a belted chiffon dress with three-quarter-length sleeves. The shopgirl had called the color of the dress pale lemon. That was what Anabella loved the most about the dress—that it wasn’t simply called yellow. Lemon made it sound more alluring and tempting—just like the many wonderful lemon desserts Mamma made. And it wasn’t a glaring yellow or a yellow tinged with orange like the color of the sunflowers that her mother hated so much.

  As Anabella stepped out of the car, she pulled on her white lace gloves, which Mamma had crocheted for her. Though there was a light breeze and a chill in the air, she decided to leave her cardigan sweater in the car. She wanted to show off her dress. It was the prettiest dress she had ever worn, and the first dress Mamma had bought for her instead of sewing it herself. Anabella was now seventeen, and her mother had finally relented to her pleas to buy her Easter dress in the shop in town. Every Sunday, when they attended Mass, Anabella had noticed the other teenage girls and their dresses that reflected the latest styles. Though she knew several of the girls’ dresses had been sewn by their mothers as well, theirs were always stylish, exhibiting voluminous skirts and fitted bodices that fully accentuated the figure and drew attention to the waist and bosom. In contrast, Anabella’s were all shirtwaist dresses that had been the rage in the forties. Though older women like her mother often still wore them, Anabella rarely saw them on the younger girls her age, especially at church. For the past two years, the other girls in Pienza had begun dressing in these stylish dresses, but Mamma had told her that, at fourteen and fifteen, they were too young to be dressed like women.

  “They are still children, after all! What are their mothers thinking?” And for emphasis, Mamma followed these words with a disapproving tsk, tsk. Anabella had always liked the dresses and clothes Mamma made for her. But ever since she’d begun to look at the fashion magazines Chiara had secretly given her once she turned seventeen, Anabella had longed to have one of the glamorous-looking dresses she’d seen on the models in the glossies as well as on the village girls.

  Anabella blushed as she remembered their visit to the boutique in town last weekend. When she and Mamma had stepped into the shop, Anabella had felt shy and awkward. Her mother had wasted no time in taking charge as she flipped through dresses on the racks, oblivious to the choices that Eloisa, the shopgirl, was making. Anabella had merely stood to the side, glancing at the dresses as if she were afraid to touch them. But, oh, how she longed to! They were so beautiful. She’d never owned any clothing that was even remotely this extravagant.

  Eloisa had looked to be in her late teens, a mere year or two older than Anabella, but she exuded maturity and sophistication. She’d reminded Anabella of the confident models in the magazines that Chiara had given her. Eloisa had been very kind to Anabella and had taken her under her wing as she measured her, praising her with compliments while Mamma had continued perusing the dress racks.

  “You have the perfect hourglass figure. Many girls would die to look like you,” Eloisa said, much to Anabella’s embarrassment. “No one has ever told you this, have they? It is nothing to be ashamed of. You should be proud. Someday, you will drive a special young man crazy,” Eloisa said in a hushed tone, winking at Anabella and smiling.

  “Grazie,” Anabella managed to murmur in a tiny voice, keeping her gaze fixed on her sandals—a habit she hadn’t outgrown since she was a little girl, whenever someone said something to make her feel self-conscious.

  “So, you have not chosen any dresses yet.”

  “My mamma is still looking.”

  “Si, but what do you want to try on? After all, you will be the one wearing the dress, not your mother.” Eloisa frowned, casting a glance in Signora Ferraro’s direction.

  “It is all right. I’ve always liked the clothes that Mamma has sewn for me.”

  But Eloisa hadn’t missed Anabella’s furtive glances every so often to two of the mannequins in the shop’s display window. One was wearing a lovely lemon-colored belted chiffon dress, and the other was in a violet dress with a full bubble skirt and organdy sash around the waist.

  “Did you see the dresses in the window? I think they would look perfect on you.”

  Anabella’s eyes immediately lit up as she turned her head once more to the window. She looked at Eloisa, almost fearful, and then back at the dresses in the window, before letting her gaze rest on her mother, who had a few dresses draped over her arm.

  “Let me go get them.” Eloisa hurried off just as Anabella was about to stop her.

  Her pulse raced in anticipation of trying on the dresses that she’d been drawn to.

  “Anabella, I have a few dresses I think would suit you,” Mamma called out as she made her way over to Anabella. Both of her arms were covered in dresses.

  The dutiful daughter that Anabella was, she tried on all of the dresses Mamma had selected without one word of complaint. Never known to break from tradition, Mamma had chosen mostly shirtwaist dresses with the exception of a couple of staid-looking embroidered suits. A few of the shirtwaist dresses were nice, but Anabella didn’t feel her heart leap as it had when she’d first seen her favorite dresses in the window. Naturally, Mamma’s displeasure was etched across her features as Eloisa brought the dresses over.

  “You need to make up your mind, Anabella. We’ve already been gone from the farm for an hour. I can’t waste all day in here,” Mamma said in an irritated tone, glancing at her wristwatch.

  “But she hasn’t tried these dresses on yet,” Eloisa protested as she helped Anabella out of the last shirtwaist dr
ess she’d tried on.

  “I don’t think those are quite right,” Mamma replied as she hung her favorite dresses on an empty clothes rack. She hadn’t even asked Anabella which were her favorites.

  “Well, we won’t know unless she tries them on first. Besides, Anabella told me earlier when I took her measurements that she loved these dresses the moment she spotted them in the display window.”

  Mamma looked over her shoulder at Anabella, surprise etched over her features. “È vero, Anabella?”

  Without meeting her mother’s gaze, she nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Anabella shrugged her shoulders.

  “Va bene. Let’s see how they look.” Mamma sighed as if she knew this would be a waste of time.

  Eloisa first helped Anabella slip on the violet dress. The violet contrasted nicely with Anabella’s long chocolate-brown hair, which Eloisa had taken and draped over one of her shoulders.

  “Look how gorgeous your hair looks against the violet. This suits your coloring very well, and it fits you perfectly! No alterations are needed.”

  Mamma came over and lifted the hem of the dress, inspecting the stitching, before saying, “This skirt seems a bit frivolous, no? We are attending church, not going to a wedding, after all.”

  “But it will be Easter. People do get more dressed up for such an important holiday. You want Anabella to look her best, signora, no?”

  Signora Ferraro didn’t respond as she continued scrutinizing the dress. “I don’t agree with your assessment that the dress doesn’t need any alterations. It is too tight in the bust and will need to be let out.”

  “But that is how the dress is supposed to fit—snug in the bust to accentuate it.”

  Signora Ferraro’s brows quickly knitted in anger. “My daughter’s bust does not need to be on full display before the whole congregation of Pienza.”

  “I did not mean any offense, signora. I was just stating that these dresses are sewn to fit this way.”