Dating da Vinci

by Malena Lott

  “That's our bleeding-heart Ramona,” my mother said.

  Judith crossed her manicured hand over her heart, as if she were having chest pain. “In Joel's studio?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, yes. But it hasn't been used.”

  Judith's brows went up. “I suppose I could come help you pack Joel's things out there.”

  She had been in the camp that believed you did not have to get rid of the deceased's belongings. In fact, Joel's bedroom in her house was the same as it had been in high school, complete with his trophies and party pics (though Joel had scratched out Monica's face with a black marker after the wedding had been called off) and even the clothes in his closet. Judith was certain, even after we got married, that he might long for a T-shirt or red checked Polo or any number of the clothes she had so lovingly purchased for him over the years.

  “Oh, that's not necessary, Mom G,” I said, patting her arm. “It's just a few things, and I'm going to keep them.”

  “Of course you are. But if you decide you don't want them any longer, please give them to me. I couldn't stand his things being thrown out.”

  I took a sip of diet Coke, while my sister kicked me under the table. She thought Judith's preoccupation with Joel, even in his death, was a bit much. But then she wasn't a Griever, so she would never understand.

  “How about giving your sister the hook-up?” Rachel said, turning the conversation back to herself.

  I considered my sister's blonde hair, the C-cup breasts “Santa” gave her for Christmas three years earlier and her sparkling white teeth. She wasn't Jessica Simpson, but she was a close clone. He would like her. “He doesn't speak English,” I told her.

  She flipped her long hair. “Not seeing the problem, Sis. Haven't you heard of the universal language?”

  I nearly choked on my diet Coke. “Love? You're not falling in love with da Vinci.” Over my dead body.

  “Thanks, brainiac. My plans don't include love or verbal communication. Body language of another sort.” She giggled and my mother shook her head as if to disapprove, but smiled anyway. Judith forced a smile, though I gathered she wasn't one of my sister's biggest fans, something Mom Griffen and I shared besides our love for Joel and the boys. I thought about telling them about my dissertation on the language of love, the one that I'd benched After because it was the last language I wanted to speak and doubted I would ever speak again. If everyone in the world can speak the language of love but me, who am I to write about it?

  I grabbed the cookie she wouldn't eat and stuffed it in my mouth. Rachel leaned in and shook her French-manicured finger at me. “Look who's proclaimed herself the bodyguard to the hot immigrants! Well, Mom's setting me up with a handsome doctor, anyway. I hope he lives in a gated community with a pool in his back yard.”

  Before I could remark on how shallow my sister was I glared at Barbara. “Mother! You're giving her the doctor you were giving me?”

  Barbara's face softened. “Just because your sister might go out on a date with Dr. Cortland Andrews doesn't mean you can't also be friends with him.”

  Judith nodded in agreement. “So your mother told you about our idea for the Life singles group, then?”

  My voice shrilled. “I have male friends. Michael, for one.” I shot a glare at my sis.

  “My ex?” Rachel shrieked. “I wouldn't say that out loud.”

  “He's not a good influence,” Barbara said.

  “He broke one of the Ten Commandments,” Judith said, then added in case any of us had forgotten, as if Rachel didn't remind us and her public all the time, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

  I kept my tongue to myself to keep from lashing out that perhaps even her own son had broken a commandment, the very same one, and that now I was determined to find out if it was true. Even if I did find out he had cheated with his ex-fiancée, I knew I couldn't burst Judith's bubble about her only son. “Well, Michael's not my only male friend. I have da Vinci now.”

  My mother giggled. “Oh, Judith. You should see him. He's quite a looker.”

  “Whatever would you have in common with him?” Judith asked.

  I began to formulate a list, but then thought how ludicrous it would be to have to prove to any of them the who and why of my friendships. Da Vinci and I could be friends. And so could this Cortland fellow. Just because I was a widow did not make me unfriendly, though Anh would probably take me to task on that one. She had said the Seven Dwarfs I most resembled were Sleepy, Bashful, and Grumpy. I told her to try raising two boys on her own and grieving a soul mate and see if she came up any different.

  Rachel flicked her golden hair, giving me the puppy-dog stare she often did her viewers when she looked into the camera and told them she knows how hard it is to get off that couch. “It's okay, sugar. You'll always have us,” she said and it dawned on me that this is what my new Normal looked like. If I continued down this path, having my mother visit on a daily basis would turn into a permanent situation. These three musketeers would try to steer my life from here on out.

  My new Normal did not seem like a big step up from my Griever life. No way. This couldn't happen to me. If it was time to transition to a Normal, it had to be on my terms, not taking the scraps of others' sympathy to piece together a life without Joel.

  I thought about the binder back home in Joel's office-the one where I'd stuffed everyone's articles, magazine ads and letters with ideas on how to deal with my grief. So far the only recommendation I'd taken was attending a Parents without Partners class, which focused more on parenting needs than personal ones. Because, really, I wasn't worried about me. It was my boys, fatherless boys who would grow up into fatherless fathers, who most concerned me. I'd been most concerned about. And luckily they were still young enough that they opened up to me and shared their feelings. It was I who hadn't fared so well in the sharing department. It was I who hadn't done a single thing to try to recapture la vita allegra.

  Finding joy would not happen in one lightning strike. Just as my students couldn't swallow big words all at once, I would have to start slow-finding the root and adding prefixes and suffixes until before long I had one word following another, making sense of my life again, creating a new story that may not be the same as my old one, but joyful nonetheless. I had to believe it could happen.

  I checked my watch, wishing I could return to spend some time with da Vinci before we had to pick up the boys. Our next class wasn't until the following morning. Muffin top or not, I couldn't give up on at least one slimming outfit first. I would wake up the next day and put on something new, something that I felt confident in, something that a butterfly might wear on her debut into the world.

  Who knew one needed courage just to shop for a new look, let alone a new life? I threw down the challenge to my fashion-loving familials and we dove into the shopping sea.

  “Are we on for Bunko tonight?” Zoya asked as we both pulled groceries out of the trunks of our cars, hers a cherry-red convertible. Zoya was my next-door neighbor in the cul-de-sac, a former student from five years earlier, a pricey mail-order bride from Russia, though Donald had asked her not to tell anyone. (As if we weren't bright enough to know he wouldn't vacation in Russia and during one week, boy meets girl, boy marries girl, and girl leaves for big adventure in the U.S. with a virtual stranger.) With a Russian mother and a German father, she usually spoke German around me since I'm fluent, and Donald didn't seem to mind that he didn't know what his wife was saying half the time. But then couldn't the same be said of English-speaking spouses?

  Her family and six brothers and sisters had gotten a sizable sum for her marital commitment (Bunko nights are quite revealing) and the then-nineteen-year-old had been desperate to start a new life in the United States, even if it meant marrying a slightly overweight CPA twice her age.

  It might be easy to rush to judgment on a man that would resort to such drastic measures to find a mate, but I understood his desperation. If I hadn't met Joel, I often wondered if I'd sti
ll be searching for my soul mate. Donald had tried for twenty years the traditional way with no luck. At least I'd had one true love, more than most people ever get.

  I slung my arm through three plastic bags and watched Zoya maneuver the heavy groceries in her platform heels and skin-tight ankle pants. Her dark hair swung down to her hips, the sides pushed up in clips. She was exotic, though not quite beautiful, and Donald kept her happy with all the American luxuries: a red sports car, designer clothes and weekly spa appointments.

  “Bunko. I don't think so,” I told her. “I have company.” Sort of company.

  Zoya smacked her gum and shut the trunk with one overly braceleted arm. “You got the man in the backyard. Very handsome man.”

  I nodded, fighting the temptation to correct her broken English. My vow was once they left my class not to put on my teacher hat again. “He's a student from Italy. Needed a place to stay.”

  Zoya eyed me suspiciously, then added, “We have you all over for dinner tonight. You, the Italian, and your boys.”

  “Thanks for the offer, Zoya, but we're working around the kids' schedules so things are crazy. But we'll do it another time. Are things okay between you and Donald?”

  She shrugged, her long silver earrings brushing her collarbone. “Husband trying to impregnate me.” Zoya, much like Anh, never held back. I don't think it was lost in translation, either.

  “Oh. Do you not want a child yet?”

  Zoya raised her Prada sunglasses to stare at me as if I should know better. “If I get with child, this body goes kaput. Same goes my mother and three sisters. One day thin and beautiful, after baby like a big Russian housewife.”

  I suppressed a laugh. I could tell from Zoya's attire that being attractive was very important to her. Unlike me, she did work out to Get Up and Move It, Texas! every morning. “Well, I'm sure Donald just wants a child before he gets too old,” I said. “And lots of people get their bodies back after they have children.” Just not me.

  As if a light bulb went off, Zoya pulled out a National Enquirer from her bag. “Like article in newspaper. Angelina Jolie gets body back after baby. Zoya too get body back?”

  “Yes,” I nodded, the grocery bags' handles digging red marks into my forearm. “Zoya gets her body back.”

  Pleased with this, Zoya waved her long manicured nails through the air and said over her shoulder, “Donald will get baby then. But still want to meet Italian.”

  As I entered the house I instinctively sang, “I'm home,” as I'd done for ten years upon returning from the grocery store. Because the boys asked for everything in the store, they stayed home with Joel, yet in the last two years, it was hard to break the habit. My announcement echoed through the laundry room, my heart sinking when I didn't hear the familiar “It's about time” from my husband. To my surprise, another voice echoed back.

  “I'm home,” da Vinci said. As if my heart were on an escalator, it rose again from the bottom floor. Besides my class, da Vinci was learning by repeating everything I said and trying to discern its meaning.

  He rushed to greet me, wearing soccer shorts and a T-shirt. He'd joined the Panchal soccer league immediately, and I'd told the boys we'd go watch his first game. His muscular thighs and calves drew my eyes down the length of his body, but I quickly rebounded to his large smile. He took the bags from my arms and together we put them away, going item by item for da Vinci to learn their names. A hundred items, the only embarrassing one being tampons. “Tampon for woman,” he said, not embarrassed in the least. Well, he did have a family full of females in Italy.

  The TV was paused on my own sister in a downward lunge, her boobs front and center. The escalator dropped a few stories again. Bradley had taught da Vinci how to use the TiVo (and T V, as he didn't have it in his village), and obviously da Vinci found programming that he liked. We spoke in Italian.

  “Did you work out to my sister?”

  “Half of the program.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “I'm sure she's very nice.”

  “But do you think she's pretty?”

  Da Vinci nodded. “She smiles too much. Her voice is irritating.”

  We laughed. Da Vinci: handsome and smart.

  Together we set aside the ingredients for the lasagna da Vinci would make us for dinner-his mother's recipe, he had said, starting to tear up at the mention of her name. A handsome Italian cooking me dinner every night? This I could get used to.

  When Cecelia had found out da Vinci was living in the studio, she had passed along da Vinci's skills sheet to assess job opportunities at the temp agency also owned by Panchal.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” Cecelia had asked as we reviewed the sheet. More than a hundred items on the sheet and da Vinci had checked more than half of them.

  “He says he's very good with his hands,” I had told her.

  Cecelia, who looked like a church lady but gossiped like a desperate housewife, had chewed on the end of her glasses and shook her chest. “Oh, I bet he is. Do share with me if you find out, will you?”

  Zoe and her father Michael met us at the soccer field because Zoe was staying with him the rest of the week while Rachel flew to San Diego to give a motivational speech to women who had lost their husbands in the Iraq War. If she became as iconic as Richard Simmons, I was going to throw up. At least I had a sympathetic ear in Michael, whose own reputation had been sacrificed for the sake of his ex-wife's career. Rachel's motivational speeches began with the “woe-is-me, my husband cheated, I thought my life was over, I took control, lost forty pounds, and wham-bam, look at me now, I've got my own TV show and get to meet fabulous people like you” spiel.

  If I were in the audience (which I swear I won't be), I would raise my hand and ask my sister how she can ever compare a cheating husband to a dead husband, especially a good dead husband, but she would find a way. She always does. The audience would eat her up like an irresistible confection. Pretty, sweet girls have few enemies. At least Michael, da Vinci and I all agreed she smiles too much. It was a start.

  Michael, who frequently got dirty looks when he went in public and had bigger hurdles than most guys back in the dating pool, wore his business suit sans jacket, and Zoe, sans mega hair bow, sat between her nephews. She wanted to play soccer, but her mother said she didn't have time with dance/cheer/gymnastics/pageants. So tonight she was skipping one of them because Michael had to exert power in the relationship whenever he could. Besides, Zoe agreed she didn't feel well (she learned quickly) so Rachel wouldn't tear into Michael.

  My feeling sorry for Michael (and his mutual sorrow about my loss) had made us much better friends than we ever were when he and Rachel were married. It was probably because he had been Rachel's whipping boy while they'd been married, and I couldn't stand how he never stood up for himself. I was in the small minority who believed Rachel had pushed him into the arms of another woman, but I had only told Joel this and he quickly agreed. He had liked Michael, too, and a friend of Joel's would always be a friend of mine. The other thing about grief is that you divide the universe into two parts: those who knew your dearly departed and those who don't. I'm not sure which is easier, but whenever I meet someone who tells me they knew Joel (a classmate, a client, an associate), I latch on to them and make them tell me anything I may not have known about my husband. You think you know everything about your mate until they die. Some days I feel like I'll never know.

  Asking the one person I really wanted to talk to, the one person who could tell me the most about my husband, was too painful. If I were honest with myself, I would admit that I could not move on without knowing the truth about Joel and Monica, which is why I couldn't put it off much longer.

  I only know what he was willing to give, which was precisely six weeks, two days, and one hour before his death: We're history. A long, complicated history I don't care to recount if that's okay with you.

  It wasn't okay with me, which is why I had bugged him to death about it, right up unt
il his death. In fact, our final argument had been about Monica, the night before he'd died. He was exhausted from a long day at the office; having passed on his work for her law firm to another partner, he was knee-deep in a new hospital project. He'd just gotten back from running and had clutched at his chest, telling me he felt winded, but I hadn't worried. He was athletic and young, always pushing himself to the limit. I wasn't a runner, wasn't even a fast walker, so I knew nothing of a runner's high or why people would push their bodies to the pain limit. I let him catch his breath, but only for a moment, before I'd gingerly asked him if he would tell me honestly and completely if he was over her.

  He had looked at me like a stranger might, someone you think you recognize from across the street, only to find out that no, you don't know them at all. I cringed inside that I'd get that look-as he continued to pant and left me for a shower without an answer. I took this as a no. No, I'm not over Monica Blevins. After I saw her at the funeral, I realized she was the type of woman that no man could ever truly get over. She was someone babies to old men wanted to get to know and once you did, you came back for more. I was no exception.

  My obsession with Monica Blevins had not died along with Joel but had been buried underneath the weight of grief. Now that I was digging myself out of it, there she was again, waiting, taunting.

  I wished I'd been more trusting, had more faith in our marriage, but Joel's act of passing on the account did not pacify me. A cloud of suspicion hung over our marriage those last weeks and it had not dissipated even in his death. Did I really think he'd pack his bags and go back to her? Truthfully that's what I'd feared ever since our second date when he'd told me that he couldn't get in a relationship because I would just be a rebound and I deserved better than that. My heart's just mush, he'd told me, and though I teased Joel time and again for his comment after we were committed and then long married, I wondered if a piece of it was true. If after eight years of marriage I was still a rebound girl: the one you go to after the one you love has just destroyed you.