The Girl in the Glass

by Susan Meissner

  Beauty tamed them as it tames us all, Nora has assured me, if only for the moment.

  Nora was the granddaughter of Cosimo I, the first grand duke of Tuscany. Her mother, whose life story is a sad one for another telling, was Isabella de’ Medici. When Nora was born, Michelangelo and da Vinci and the other great ones had already come and gone. Nora lived in the echo of their accomplishments, and those echoes kept her from caving in to despair. For, you see, she did not lead the happiest of lives.

  I think this is why it is her voice I hear. It is her young woman’s voice that emanates from the stone and canvases; that part of her she left in Florence when she married and moved away. She knew sadness here as I have known sadness, but she also found Florence eager to heal the wounds suffered while in her embrace, just as I did.

  Florence was established by Julius Caesar as a settlement for his veteran soldiers. It was named Florentia, which means “flourishing,” for a reason.

  We are not meant to languish here. Even if our situation flattens us. In Florence we are meant to find that which will empower us to live in the caress of what we can imagine. This is what Nora has whispered to me.

  It is not a ghost I speak of. It is not a dead Nora who speaks to me. The Nora who died in her sixties in a convent, I do not know her. The Nora who speaks to me is the young woman who had not yet left Florence for good. The one who speaks to me is the one who still knew how to hope.

  I read it twice, lingering on Sofia’s phrases. At lunch I read both chapters again.

  The rest of the day passed slowly. I did laundry. Washed my car. Cleaned out the litter box. Swept the porch. Vacuumed. Read. Hopped onto Facebook to see if anyone had posted pictures of Miles’s wedding. And when I saw that someone had, I scrutinized the images, studying Miles’s and Pamela’s happy, serene faces for clues as to how they managed to get their lives to play out just like they were supposed to.

  When that contemplation afforded me no quick answers, I sent a quick message to Lorenzo, telling him that my father was making plans for us to come this summer and that I hoped he and Renata would be around in June. And might he ask Ms. Borelli if I could see a few more chapters? And then I sat around waiting for Lorenzo to reply, as if he’d be awake and loitering on Facebook in the middle of the night.

  I stayed up until after midnight watching a dumb movie, then slept poorly. I awoke several times, wondering as I wandered in and out of sleep what exactly Sofia meant when she said the paintings and sculptures spoke to her in the voice of a Medici woman named Nora. In that in-between place of sleep and wakefulness, I imagined I knew what Sofia meant, but only in the smallest of ways. When I was young, sometimes I could hear the music that the girl in my nonna’s painting danced to in front of the beckoning statue. At least that is how I remembered it. Perhaps it was only Nonna humming a tune while in the kitchen, a melody that swirled into the hall where the painting hung and where I stood gazing at it.

  But when I awoke in the morning, Sofia’s claims that she could hear statues and paintings whispering to her needled me. I was a child when I imagined I heard the music. She was an adult who should know better. After reading her chapters over coffee a third time, I texted Gabe and asked if I could go to his church with him instead of my usual rendezvous at my mother’s. Gabe attends an artistically minded church that meets in a refurbished warehouse in East Village. They were as likely to paint or dance a sermon as preach one. But he was on his way to Orange County to visit a friend. I asked him how his date was, and his one-word reply was “Okay.” I was immediately aware of my selfish desire to keep Gabe right where he was. Available.

  I ended up going to church with my mother anyway. She told me in between choruses of “Blessed Assurance” that Devon looked forward to having coffee with me. After eating crepes for lunch with her, I went home and rearranged the furniture that isn’t mine.

  By Sunday night I had a very clean cottage, no further word from my father, no return message from Lorenzo, and an e-mail from Devon: “Coffee after work on Tuesday?”

  Sure.

  He asked for my phone number. In case we needed to contact each other. And he gave me his.

  I was hungry all day Monday. Hungry to hear back from Lorenzo, hungry for more of Sofia’s memoir, hungry to hear back from my father, hungry for Florence. I e-mailed Lorenzo when he still hadn’t responded to my Facebook message and then hungered for an e-mail back from him. I was hungry for details of Gabe’s okay date, hungry to get Geoffrey and Beatriz on board with the memoir thing, and hungry to not be hungry for anything.

  I didn’t think it was a good idea to pump Gabe for details on the date, and he didn’t offer any. He was happy to hear my dad was at last making plans to take me to Florence, but he was cautious in his enthusiasm. “Let me know when you have the dates,” he said. “I’d be happy to take you to the airport.” But the tone of his voice sounded more like “Let me know if you actually get an airline ticket out of this guy, and I’d be happy to take you to the airport.”

  “I think he might be serious this time,” I said.

  And Gabe said he hoped I was right.

  I mentioned to Geoffrey that I might take a week or so off in June, and he grumbled that August would be better and what did I mean by “or so”?

  I told him if my dad offered to take me to Florence and said we could stay two weeks, I would be staying two weeks.

  But I was thinking it would be more like a week. I told Geoffrey I would let him know.

  By Tuesday morning there was still no word from Lorenzo. And nothing further from my dad. The day dragged on with nothing to look forward to but coffee with my mother’s boyfriend.

  I arrived at the Living Room, an eclectic café on Prospect, and ordered a decaf. I got there early so I could order my drink myself and pick the table. By the time Devon arrived, I had nearly finished my coffee, and he offered to buy me another one. To my relief, he looked slightly less handsome in his just-from-work clothes and soft-soled shoes. And he smelled a little like a hospital. He came back to the table with his first cup of java and my second. I sat back in my chair and slipped one leg over the other as if I were perfectly at home.

  When he smiled at me, held up the coffee mug, and said “Cheers,” he had a slightly crooked smile that I hadn’t noticed before.

  I held up my cup, wordless, and waited.

  “Thanks for doing this,” he said gently.

  “I’m barely doing anything.” I shrugged and took a sip.

  “Do you want me to stop seeing her?”

  I set the cup down too quickly, and a tiny wave of coffee sloshed out and burned the tender skin between my thumb and index finger. I shook my hand to chase away the pain. “So we’re not going to start with the Padres?”

  He laughed and the crooked smile returned. “I just thought the sooner we get to it, the sooner you can get on with the rest of your evening.”

  I placed a napkin on the minuscule spill on my hand. “Okay. Well, Devon, you don’t need to do this. You are both adults, although she’s been an adult a lot longer than you have, so you honestly don’t need to ask me what I want.”

  He cocked his head a fraction, the way thoughtful people do right before they say thoughtful things. “Actually, I do. Family is the most important thing there is. It’s the most precious thing there is. I’d rather not mess with that.”

  For the next five seconds, I sat in awe of his virtue. Then an urge to topple his coffee cup swept over me as I realized he must think I have the maturity of a four-year-old. “What kind of person do you think I am that I would disown my mother over who she dates?”

  “Wow. That’s … that’s not what I meant.” He grinned uneasily and the lopsided smile crinkled his brow line. “I just meant that if you think she’s making a mistake by dating a younger man, I want you to know I respect that. And I’ll back off for a while if it’s going to put bad feelings between you and her.”

  I stared at him. He was being completely sincere; there wasn�
�t a hint of audacity there. His concern was both charming and annoying. He had obviously been told what I had said in the ladies’ bathroom at the Melting Pot. And how I had said it.

  “Look, the way I found out about you and my mom—”

  “Not the best way to find out,” he interjected. “I feel bad about that. I didn’t know she wasn’t going to tell you until you got there.”

  “And you do know she is fifty-six, right?”

  The lopsided grin lost a bit of its curve. “I do know that. But I don’t think it matters. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. I can see it matters to you. I didn’t mean it shouldn’t matter to you.”

  “You don’t want to … be with someone your own age?” I said, and I willed myself not to blush.

  “Well, I was with someone my age. Just because someone is your age doesn’t mean everything will turn out perfectly.”

  True.

  “And I enjoy your mother’s company. She is … fun to be around.”

  This was an interesting concept to me. My mother wouldn’t hesitate to give you the shirt off her back—only if she had sunscreen in her purse for after she gave it to you—but I had never thought of this making her fun to be around.

  “So her quirks don’t drive you nuts?” I said.

  The grin disappeared. “What quirks?”

  I sat stunned for a second, unable to produce an answer. But then he laughed.

  “I’m just kidding. I know what quirks you mean.”

  A nervous laugh escaped me. He was kind and clever.

  “I think they’re kind of cute,” he continued. “And I guess if those are the worst of her quirks, I am pretty lucky. She has to put up with my quirks, too, of course.”

  But you don’t seem to have any. Aside from dating older women.

  “Everybody has to put up with something if you’re going to be in a relationship with someone, right?” he said. “I mean, there are no perfect people. Even your own quirks might annoy you a little if they showed up in someone else.”

  He was too good to be true. “I suppose you’re right,” I managed to murmur.

  He took a drink from his mug and set it down. “So. Does this mean we are okay?”

  I knew he meant was I okay with him dating my mother, but the question startled me nonetheless.

  “You don’t need my permission.”

  “But I want it anyway.”

  “I don’t want you to hurt her. She was hurt once before.”

  He nodded slowly. “I know she was … And we are a long way off from anything other than just dating,” he continued. “If it should get serious, we promise you’ll be the first to know. Okay?”

  We sat there quietly for a few moments, letting the aura of our understanding settle in around us. At some point he must have decided we could move on.

  “Your mother says you might be headed to Florence this summer?”

  Florence.

  “Yes.”

  “With your dad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. So when you go, there’s a little restaurant in the Piazza della Signoria that makes the best porcini mushroom ravioli in the world. Honestly. The best. Porcini mushrooms are tangy sweet and as soft as marshmallows. You will love them. The restaurant is in the same piazza where the copy of the David statue is. But promise me you won’t settle for that one. It’s just a copy. When you get there, make sure you get tickets to the Accademia and see the real statue. It’s simply the work of a genius. You have to see it.”

  He didn’t say “if.” He said “when.” No one else had ever talked of my promised trip to Florence that way. Not even my dad. The muscles in my chest tightened.

  I looked across the table at the man dating my mother, and a smile involuntarily spread across my face. I felt it lift.

  Devon smiled back at me, the gentle hook of his crooked smile softening the lines around his jaw.

  I hadn’t been even the tiniest bit jealous of my mother in I don’t know how long. But in that moment, what I felt inside me was not attraction to her new boyfriend but an odd envy that she had found one so wonderful.

  My mother longed for Florence whenever she was away from it. She told Nurse the Orsini castle in Bracciano hadn’t the beauty of Florence and its lifeless corridors bored her. But I don’t think it was boredom that made my mother dislike any place that wasn’t Florence. It was loneliness. And Rome, though majestic in its own way, could not woo her either. Only Florence charmed her.

  When my father came to Florence to see my mother, he would always ask her to join him in Rome, but apparently he did not insist. Nurse thought he asked because he wanted to be heard asking. Sometimes my mother visited him at his family home in Bracciano or in Pisa or at one of the Medici villas in the country. But she hardly ever went to Rome to see him. Two years after their wedding, during a summer when my father had joined her at the Medici palace, my mother found herself with child but miscarried within the same month. Nurse said my mother barely had a moment to consider that she would be a mother before the tiny life was taken from her.

  9

  Our reason for meeting clearly met, I told Devon I needed to get back to the office to finish something I’d left undone. Devon stood when I stood, reached for my hand to clasp it in thanks for meeting with him, and offered to walk me to my car.

  No need, I told him. No need, no need. I said he should enjoy the rest of his coffee.

  Five minutes later I slid easily into a parking place in front of the darkened building. I fumbled for my office key, grateful I couldn’t see any lighted desk lamps inside. I punched in the alarm code, locked the door behind me, and headed for my office.

  I tossed my purse onto the desk and sank into my chair.

  This ugly feeling inside me was ridiculous.

  Devon was dating my mother. He liked my mother. Liked her in that way men like women. She deserved a guy like him. Of course she deserved a guy like him.

  I grabbed my computer mouse, and my computer screen sprang to life. I clicked into a search engine for bargain flights out of LA. Dad would want to leave out of LA. I couldn’t type the words fast enough. Los Angeles to Florence. LAX to FLR. From where I was now to somewhere far away.

  The results came up quickly. Dad and I could leave on a Monday in late May. There were two seats left at a great price, leaving at three in the afternoon. And arriving the next afternoon. A connection in Paris. And then we’d be there.

  In a month or so, I could be in Florence.

  I couldn’t possibly wait until June.

  I e-mailed the suggested itinerary to my dad. And then I texted him.

  “Hey, Dad. Just wanted you to know there are two tickets to Florence at a nice price for the end of May. Just sent you the itinerary. Thoughts?”

  I pressed Send and waited for ten minutes.

  There wasn’t a sound in the place except for my own inhaling and exhaling. My phone was silent. And the room around me was silent too.

  With less speed this time, I reached for my mouse to open my e-mail inbox. Maybe Lorenzo had responded back to me in the three hours since I had last checked. I chortled cynically at my own childish anticipation and checked anyway.

  A handful of messages dropped into the inbox. Nothing from Lorenzo.

  But the last one snatched my breath for a second. In the From line was a name that made me sit up in my chair: Sofia Borelli. I clicked the message:

  Dear Miss Pomeroy,

  My dear neighbor Lorenzo tells me you would like to see more of my manuscript! I cannot tell you how thrilled and amazed I am. I know this does not mean you will publish my book, but I am so honored that you wish to see more. I asked Lorenzo if this was a good sign, that you wish to see more, and he said it was.

  I have other chapters. Fifteen or twenty, I think. They are not in any kind of order. I write them as the stories come to mind; the ones my father told me and the ones Nora has whispered to me. I am afraid I am not very skilled at putting things in order. I trust that will n
ot spoil the reading for you. I have never written a book before, although I have always wanted to. And my parents always told me I had a gift for writing. It runs in the Medici family, you know.

  I am sending you two more chapters. Do you want more? I hope it is acceptable that I send them to you directly. Lorenzo thought you would not mind.

  He also thought I should tell you a little more about myself. I am fifty-six. I have been a tour guide here in Florence since I was nineteen. I am fluent in English. I decided to write the memoir in English because Lorenzo told me it was a good idea.

  I live across the hall from Lorenzo and Renata. They are wonderful neighbors and have been very good to me.

  Thank you for wanting to see more of my manuscript. I hope very much that you like it. Lorenzo thought perhaps you would like my contact information to speak with me, so I have included it at the top of the attached pages. Lorenzo helped me place it there. It is on every page.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Sofia Borelli

  The awkwardness of the last hour, the frenzied desire to hear back from my dad on those tickets, and the tomb-like silence of the office at night faded as I guided the mouse over the little paper clip icon that held Sofia’s attached files. I opened the first one and began to read.

  My home in Florence has been in the family since the days of Anna de’ Medici’s twilight years. My father has a younger brother, Emilio, who lives in Rome. I do not see him very often.

  The flat is lovely with wood floors, creamy plaster walls, and arched doorways. There are three bedrooms and a lovely kitchen with a tiny balcony where I can grow basil and tomatoes most of the year. The flat, and four others like it, sits above a leather boutique very close to the Piazza degli Antinori. The only time I did not live here was when I was married and I lived on the other side of the Arno. But that was a long time ago; so long, it sometimes seems to have been someone else’s life that I observed.

  My mother, Natalia, worked for the owner of the leather shop below us. Leather goods are very popular in Florence and have been since tanners at Via delle Conce provided the leather for the manuscript covers at the Santa Croce monastery in the thirteenth century. The boutique where my mother worked sold beautiful, expensive things, but my mother smelled like a horse at the end of a workday. The three of us would laugh about it: how she could work in a boutique that sold such fine things and yet she would climb the stairs in her high heels after the boutique closed for the day, sounding like a clopping horse and smelling like one. She died when I was just twenty-eight. She had a weak heart, which is why, my father told me, they had no other children after me. She died the same year my marriage ended and the man I loved went back to England without me. When she passed away, my father and I suddenly had this terrible thing in common; it was a blessing and it was a curse. We both lost the loves of our hearts in the sweltering, unforgiving heat of summer; me, twice the loss.