by Kristen Mae
I took a hunk of bread for myself. “Not that it would taste weird, it’s just that—I mean, it’s a rabbit. You’re going to eat a poor little dead bunny.”
Claire almost choked on her bread. She took a sip of water and said, “I don’t see how a bunny is any more deserving of pity than a cow, a pig, or a chicken. That a creature is cute and fuzzy really ought not to have any bearing on the issue.”
I chewed my bread. “I’d still rather cuddle a bunny than eat one.”
“Whatever. It’s all flesh no matter how you look at it. Why not try something new?” She bit off another piece of bread and stared at me while she chewed. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if we were talking about rabbits anymore. I tingled all over while I waited for the conversation to go wherever it was supposed to go, but then Claire started talking perkily about her sextet, and I knew I’d imagined something that wasn’t there.
After we’d filled our bellies with pesto and bunny rabbit (I tried a bite—it tasted like chicken), we decided to walk off our wine buzz in the cobblestone streets of the surrounding area. We still had an hour and a half until our three o’clock rehearsal, and with Claire’s cello slowing us down, we could easily use every minute of that time.
I was surprised by how many high-end clothing boutiques there were in Lucca. I’d expected more old-fashioned places selling pottery, old paintings and the like, but instead we passed shop after shop bursting with expensive designer clothes.
I’d gotten the people all wrong, too. In spite of the studying I’d done, somehow I’d come to assume that Italians all had olive skin and dark hair, the women short and squat and wearing aprons covered in tomato sauce stains, and the men with big bellies and round mobster faces. But these people were like fashion models, from their sleek, styled hair to their trendy designer clothes. Everywhere I looked, I saw another stunning human being with a lithe, toned body, high cheek bones, and glowing bronze skin. They were so beautiful to look at they almost made me want to care about fashion.
“I dunno,” Claire said in one boutique, picking at a tag on a pair of jeans. “I don’t see the draw. This does not look comfortable enough to spend a hundred and fifty dollars on.”
I picked up a red, patent leather stiletto and examined it, my heart fluttering uneasily. Something about the shoe made me anxious. Maybe because I would never be brave enough to wear something so provocative. Maybe because I wished I could be. I rolled it over in my hand and reminded myself it was just a stupid shoe.
Claire turned from the jeans and saw the shoe in my hand. “Ha. Fuck-me heels.” I must have made a face because she said, “What, you’ve never heard that expression? Alternatively: hooker heels.”
I scowled at her, then at the shoe.
She took its mate in her hands and considered it. “These are hot, but don’t they look hideously uncomfortable?” She slid out of her sandals and pushed her foot into the stiletto, holding out her hand for the shoe’s match, and I gave it to her. Pulling the shoe on, she walked away to the end of the aisle and then clomped back toward me, crossing one leg over the other with each step, the way super models do. She stopped a few feet in front of me and posed with a hand on her hip, jutting her leg out at me. “What do you think?” she said, dropping her voice into the gutter. “Do they make you want to fuck me?”
I almost hit the ceiling. “Um, no. Absolutely not.” I pretended to examine a shirt on a nearby rack while my hands shook and my organs liquefied in my body. “You are really crass sometimes, Claire, you know that?”
“Geez, I was joking, Hazel. Relax.” She sighed as she took the shoes off and set them back on the display. I couldn’t say anything else, couldn’t apologize or even think of some trivial nonsense to say. My ears flamed.
She sliced me open with a reproachful look, then took her cello by the handle and pulled it out of the store, shaking her head.
SEVENTEEN
The Italians have a break in the middle of the afternoon called la pausa. It means “the pause,” and they take it very seriously. Between the hours of two and four, the entire city of Lucca shuts down—shutters are closed, doors are locked. It is impossible to go to a shop or bank or even a restaurant or bar during this time. Though there are still people walking the streets and the occasional old man sitting on a stoop puffing on a cigar, the tiny city takes on a hushed, sleepy quality.
Claire and I fell into a daily pattern of meeting for lunch at the little restaurant we’d stumbled upon together but separately, then spending the hour before la pausa browsing the shops. Though I didn’t deserve it, she seemed to have forgiven my outburst from the first day as easily as if it had never occurred. At least, she never brought it up to me.
When the shops closed, we would climb to the top of the great stone wall to stroll for a while. Claire had found a place in her rehearsal building to lock her cello, so we could roam freely.
Most of the time, I found it easy to be her friend. We could stroll and chat and laugh, have everything feel natural and uncomplicated, and I could almost forget that she, Claire, my friend, was the object of so many lurid fantasies.
But there were other times when the littlest things would visibly shake me—a cryptic innuendo, a sideways look, an absent-minded fingertip in the mouth. She would notice my distress and become concerned, but she would always assume my anxiety was related to my traumatic past, and I would always let her believe this was true. Soon I wasn’t sure what made me sicker: the feelings I had for her, or the fact that every minute I spent with her made me more of a liar.
Each day, late in the evening, we returned to our apartment together where I brushed my teeth and peed like I was in a race, then flew to my room, squeezed my pillow to my chest, and hoped for sleep to claim me quickly. Even when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I hurriedly tiptoed across the wood floor of the living room and kept my eyes away from the couch where Claire slept, careful to respect her unconscious state.
But on the fourth night, I could not stop myself from stealing a look. On the way back from the bathroom I paused behind the couch and leaned over to peek down at her sleeping face. Her skin was extra pale, almost blue in the moonlight, and she slept on her side, with one bare shoulder piercing her cloud of silver curls like a snow-covered mountaintop. She slept silently; the only way I knew she was breathing was by the rise and fall of her chest. Beautiful. A wave of such violent longing shuddered through me that I thought I would throw up. I hurried back to bed where I scrunched my eyes closed, trying to forget what I’d just seen. I shouldn’t have looked at her.
Friday came, and the students performed their pieces in the first end-of-week concert. Ryan was the only one I’d worried might have a problem, but he’d practiced hard and kept up with the others. I was proud of him for his success, proud of all of them, really, but especially for him, because he’d shown Iris what he was capable of.
Afterward, everyone from the festival met up at a posh little bar near the center of Lucca. The bar felt more like a café to me, too clean and much better lit than a typical American bar. Most of the patrons lounged outside at a group of tables set up under rows of white Christmas lights.
I sat at one of the outside tables with Raymond, Katrina, Frank, and Paolo. Claire had stopped at the apartment to call Mike. The festival students bounced between themselves and the locals, who were eager to practice their English. I noticed Ryan at a table near ours with a few of the other more reserved students. He looked flushed and happy, relieved that the concert had gone well. I smiled and waved at him.
I ordered myself a mojito because I’d seen someone in the bar with one and didn’t know what it was. In between sips of the sweet, minty drink, I inhaled the floral Tuscan air and took in the scene around me—the blooming vines growing over a nearby trellis, the jazzy strains of music emitting from the sound system, the R-rolling lilt of the Italian conversations going on all around me—trying to memorize it all. The happy mood from the concert had left a pleasant residue that
set me at ease.
Until I saw Iris. She wore a short, bubblegum-colored strapless dress and sky-high fuck-me heels, as Claire would have called them, and she was busy flipping her bleached hair at a burly, long-haired man who was far too old for her. He reminded me of a mobster, slick, too confident, puffing on his cigarette around a crooked smile while his eyes swam all over Iris’s body. Deep in my gut, so far down I almost couldn’t feel it, a cold, dark thing slithered and writhed.
“What’s going on over there?” Katrina said, twisting to see what had gotten my attention.
“Huh?” I jumped. I realized my hands were shaking so hard they made the ice clink in my glass. “Oh. Terrible things.” I chugged a few gulps and set my glass on the table.
Iris brushed her fingertips along her collar bone as she spoke to the man. He gave her a cigarette and lit it for her.
Katrina turned back and shrugged. “Yeah, that one. The other students talk. She’s a grown woman, though. What can we do?”
“What if it were Elizabeth? Would you want someone to intervene?” I was almost to the bottom of my drink, and I blurted the words without thinking, high on a wave of indignation.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Elizabeth wouldn’t do that.”
Katrina wasn’t getting it. I didn’t react outwardly, but my insides twisted and lurched. I kept watch on Iris while my colleagues debated the merits of Brahms versus Beethoven.
Raymond: “Well, everyone knows about Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, but nobody gives a crap about poor Brahms.”
Iris followed the man over to a gleaming black motorcycle. She smiled demurely, and I winced. That’s his version of a puppy.
Katrina: “Of course people care about Brahms. He’s a master.”
The man gestured for Iris to get on the bike. Her back was rigid, her movements hesitant.
Raymond: “Musicians care. Not lay people. Non-musicians only know the big three.”
The man loosened his shoulders, relaxed onto the back of the bike like he had no plans to go anyplace. Patient. I saw Trey talking my ear off until I became careless with my defenses.
Paolo, in his rolling Italian accent: “There is no comparison between Beethoven and Brahms. Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. Brahms only wrote four.”
The man took Iris by the hand. Smiled and cocked his head at her. “Want to give my puppy a treat?” The dark thing in my gut shifted and rolled.
And then Raymond’s voice, distant, as if spoken from across a canyon: “Yes, but Brahms only wrote less because he was so careful. He was acutely aware that in the eyes of critics, he would always be compared to Beethoven.”
The man gave Iris’s hand a rough little jerk, and she tumbled into him. He caught her valiantly, folding his fingers around her ribs like jaws.
Katrina: “Are you saying Beethoven wasn’t careful? Wasn’t a perfectionist?”
I scanned each of the faces at my table. They didn’t see. None of them saw. I flicked my eyes back to Iris. She stood erect next to the man, smiling. They looked normal. Maybe they were normal. Maybe I was the one who was fucked up, so broken I could turn an ordinary player into a dangerous predator. And why did I even care what happened to Iris? She was a bleach-haired, fake-tanned idiot. A mean girl.
Raymond: “I’m just saying Brahms knew everyone was going to compare him to Beethoven and he couldn’t afford to screw up. The extra pressure threw a wrench in his cogs.”
Another invitation to the back of the motorcycle. Another hesitation from Iris. A firm hand, gliding around her slender neck. Thick fingers, threading through shiny yellow hair.
Frank: “Not only that, but sonata form was still evolving. Brahms was pushing the boundaries, expanding the form with each symphony he composed.”
He pulled Iris to him. His mouth went to her ear. I remembered Trey’s mouth at my ear, how the drops of spittle hit me with each word. “It didn’t have to be this way. You didn’t have to be such a prudish little cunt.” I could barely hear the others now over the roar in my head.
Paolo: “Brahms was not so daring. He mostly stayed within the confines of traditional sonata form.”
Iris stiffened. Her eyes darted back to the group, landed on me, caught me watching. Flinched away. Was that a look of embarrassment, or did she have that same slithery feeling deep in her gut? I glanced around again to see who else had caught her look. No one. Only me.
Raymond: “Harmonically, though, you have to admit he pushed the envelope.”
The man took Iris’s glass and set it on a nearby table, then mounted the motorcycle. She climbed on behind him and turned to me again, a look of fierce determination on her face, her eyebrows low, hooding her eyes. Go ahead and judge me, her expression said, as if she had something to prove. Then she twisted back to her driver and I saw the muscles in her back flex as she squeezed him tight, like he was the only thing in the world she had to hold on to. The motorcycle let out a ferocious growl.
I jumped up, snagging my chair on the cracks of the cobblestone and tipping it backwards. Frank caught it before it hit the floor. I reached for it at the same time but somehow hooked Katrina’s drink with my arm and sent it splashing all over the front of my skirt. Icy liquid stung my thighs.
I looked up to see the taillights of the motorcycle speeding away, Iris’s bubblegum dress poofing absurdly over the back. I wanted to stretch my arms like a comic book super hero, snap her off the back of that motorcycle, and tell her to grab onto me instead. He’s not going to fill the hole, Iris. He’s only going to dig it deeper.
From behind me, one of the male students said, “Jesus, what a whore.”
EIGHTEEN
Claire turned up with a box of pastries minutes after Iris rode away. Her pretty, gap-toothed grin faded the second she saw my stricken face. She dumped the pastries on the table and walked me home.
On the way back, I told her everything, or almost everything, but in my story I was paranoid and crazy, and there was no intuitive snake in my belly, no voice screaming predator at me. Our footfalls echoed against the walls of the buildings around us.
“I was imagining it, right? It’s all in my head?”
She threaded her arm through mine as we walked. “I don’t think so, Hazel. If anyone knows what to be afraid of, it’s you. We’ll check on her first thing tomorrow.”
I couldn’t let myself believe I was right. Most of the night I spent staring at the ceiling in my room, trying to convince myself that I had overreacted, that the slithering thing in my belly was not an instinctive warning, but rather the product of a paranoid rape survivor’s overactive imagination. I had barely drifted off to sleep when the sun broke over the roofs of the neighboring houses, but I forced myself out of bed because I wanted to go to breakfast. I wanted to see about Iris, on the off chance I wasn’t totally nuts.
The group had agreed to meet a little later than usual to give everyone time to nurse hangovers and make up for lost sleep. Claire and I walked from our apartment side by side, but I could not make myself look at her. She kept asking if I was okay, and I kept saying “Fine.” I couldn’t think of her on top of worrying about stupid Iris, of all the damn people.
Most of the festival participants had already gathered in the café at the Anfiteatro. A few students giggled as they relayed stories of the previous night’s escapades, though some wore pained expressions and massaged their temples. Still, anticipation vibrated in the air; this was the first full day off since we’d begun the festival, and everyone was eager to let loose for the day, stretch their legs, and explore. Some planned to ride the train to the beach twenty minutes away, while others talked about heading to Pisa, also twenty minutes by train, to tour the Leaning Tower.
I bounced my eyes from person to person.
Claire took my hand. “It’s still early.”
I couldn’t look at her. Irrational fury was chewing away at me; I was angry that she knew enough about me to know that I needed to be reassured. To know why I needed to be reassured. If
I’d never told her about my past, she would be as indifferent as the others. I would be indifferent too. Everything would still be solid, cold, reliable, just as before.
We found Katrina and Frank and put in our orders: pastries for the four of us, espresso for Claire, and tea for me.
“Interesting night last night, huh?” said Katrina.
I stared at the table. If I tried small talk, I would probably scream.
“We’re a little concerned for Iris,” Claire said, speaking up for both of us.
I felt Katrina shift. “Hazel, you okay? Are you hung over?”
“She’s worried about Iris,” Claire said again, this time more firmly. My face flamed; I wished she wouldn’t stick up for me. She was too close already, too much in my head.
Our pastries came, but I couldn’t eat. The wrenching in my gut was getting worse with every minute that Iris didn’t show. My concern was turning to dread, and how quickly would it turn to guilt when we realized something horrible had happened to this poor girl so far away from home? And I’d done nothing to stop it. I could have. I was right there.
“Speak of the devil,” Katrina said under her breath.
“Iris!” one of the students yelled.
“Breathe,” Claire whispered, and I sucked in a lungful of air like I’d just emerged from underwater. I took a bite and bowed my head so the others wouldn’t see that I was blinking back tears.
Iris made her way between the chairs and sat at the table next to ours, supporting herself on the arms of her chair as she lowered herself carefully into the seat.
Too carefully.
My stomach dropped. This girl was not okay. I tried to make eye contact with her, but she wore a special air of superiority about her this morning, even more pronounced than usual. She avoided my face, leaned back in her chair and delicately crossed one tanned leg over the other with barely a wince, as if all was right in the world.