The Girl in the Glass

by Susan Meissner

  Lorenzo was quiet as he closed the balcony doors and locked them.

  Renata began to describe the trattoria we were walking to even before we were out the door. With the front door locked, we headed for the stairs that would take us out into the night. Renata fairly ran down them.

  “You really think I should ask Sofia before Renata talks to Emilio?” I whispered to Lorenzo.

  He inhaled a contemplative breath. “It is too late to think about that now, cara. Renata has already talked to Emilio.” He smiled at me, but it was a loose smile, the kind you tend to offer when someone naively asks you to predict the future.

  I don’t know what happened between my mother and my uncle Francesco that made him turn against her. My cousin Maria has told me her father was always jealous of Cosimo’s affection for Isabella and Giovanni, the favorite son who died. She said she saw bits of a letter my mother wrote to her father concerning Virginio and me and her own financial welfare. Something that Francesco had promised at my grandfather’s deathbed, he was now taking back. And apparently Francesco had no such desire to see my mother, Virginio, or me remain in Florence, and he expected my mother to at last join my father in Rome. But Nurse was never instructed to pack my things or Virginio’s. My mother kept putting it off, as she had for many years, but this time, Nurse said, it was for more reasons than just wanting to stay in Florence; she needed to win over Francesco.

  In the late summer of 1575, I fell ill. I remember only that Nurse held me while I lay hot with fever and my mother paced the floor as Virginio cried outside my door. He was not allowed in.

  After I recovered, everything changed.

  23

  The food at Renata’s favorite restaurant was insanely delicious. For our antipastos we had prosciutto and honey-roasted pears that had been filled with goat cheese and drizzled with a balsamic glaze, then grilled octopus with a saffron aioli. The pasta course was pappardella with leeks and sausages, and the main dish, beef Carpaccio with parmesan and truffle oil. Renata insisted on ordering the chocolate panna cotta with orange and candied hazelnuts for dessert, though I could barely breathe by this point, my stomach was so full.

  I thought Renata and Lorenzo would want to talk about ideas for future books, but Renata said from the get-go that she didn’t want to talk Crowne & Castillo business at her favorite restaurant. Instead, she seemed intensely interested in me, asking me a thousand questions about my life and dreams and hopes and fears. She found it peculiar that I had waited until now to come to Florence when I’ve wanted to come since I was twelve.

  “My father kept promising he’d take me, and I just kept thinking he would,” I answered.

  “And so you waited—all this time?”

  I nodded.

  Renata shook her head. “If my papa promised me something, I wouldn’t let him rest until he came through for me. You are too patient.”

  “You probably grew up with your father right in the next room. Mine was always a hundred miles away,” I said. “When your parents are divorced and your father lives two hours away, you learn to expect distance between what you want and what you have.”

  She thought about this for a moment. “I wouldn’t let him rest.” She slid a spoonful of panna cotta into her mouth.

  “Renata is not one for compromise,” Lorenzo said to me, but loud enough for his sister to hear.

  “Renata is not one for nonsense.” Renata toasted the air in front of her with her cappuccino.

  I sipped my own cappuccino, letting its frothy smoothness linger in my throat. I wanted to be done talking about my father. And we were.

  When Renata got up to use the rest room, I asked Lorenzo what was up with all the questions. He merely shrugged my concern away by reminding me that his sister was the research half of their writing team; she was filling her mind with details. I was a fresh resource.

  When she returned from the rest room, Renata moved on to my love life.

  “So you haven’t been married before, no?” Renata asked.

  “Um, no.” I set my cup down. “Just engaged.”

  Stupid answer. She might’ve forgotten that detail if I hadn’t said anything.

  “Ah, yes. You didn’t marry him. I remember this.”

  Lorenzo, who had appeared mildly interested in our conversation to that point, turned his attention fully onto me.

  Lorenzo knew what had happened between me and Miles. I hadn’t made it a point to bring it up with him; it had just come up after I’d broken my engagement. A few months had passed since Lorenzo and I had talked, and he remembered I was supposed to be married at that point. I had sent him an e-mail about some edits we needed to make on the book he and Renata were writing, and he responded by congratulating me on my marriage and asking me why I hadn’t changed my last name. I had to tell him that I had called off the wedding. I suppose professional courtesy prevented him from asking for the pathetic particulars. Or perhaps he really did only care about me—as a friend—and not the details. He asked me how I was, not what happened. And I had told him I was going to be okay, that I had done the right thing, and soon I would feel only relief, not the crushing weight of having hurt someone.

  Renata now asked the next logical question—the kind of question a research addict would ask.

  “Why didn’t you marry him?”

  I thought perhaps Lorenzo might say something like, “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?” But he said nothing. His attention was on me as he waited for me to answer. I had seen that waiting look often. When a wedding is called off, sympathies and curiosities are aroused like you wouldn’t believe.

  “I knew I didn’t love Miles as much as he loved me,” I answered. “He deserved someone who did. It was the right thing to do.”

  “But you accepted his proposal.” She didn’t frame it as a question but waited for an answer as if she had. Lorenzo did too. And as I sat there in the middle of the noisy restaurant with words flying about me that I didn’t understand, I realized no one had ever asked me why I said yes when Miles proposed.

  “I wanted to be engaged to him. Later I realized I just didn’t want to be married to him. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  “Because you didn’t love him.”

  It still hurt a little to hear my own indictment thrown back on me. “Not enough.”

  “This is why I have never married.” Renata sat back with her cup. “Too complicated, no? Love should be easy.”

  Lorenzo laughed. “Who says love should be easy?”

  “I say so.”

  Lorenzo’s grin widened. “And you make the rules?”

  She jabbed her thumb at him. “I make the rules when it comes to me. Just like you make them for you.”

  “I make no rules for love.”

  Renata pointed a jeweled finger at her brother. “Oh, but you do. How long did your marriage last? Two years? Your expectations were not met. You ended it. Your rules; your decision.”

  “Expectations are not the same thing as rules.” Lorenzo’s tone remained calm and unruffled. I could tell they bantered easily and often with each other.

  “But your expectations come from the rules you have set.”

  “My expectations come from me. The rules for love are outside of me. Where they should be.”

  She said something in Italian and tossed up her hand for emphasis.

  “English, for our dear Marguerite.” Lorenzo smiled at me.

  “I said, ‘Where the hell are these rules, then?’ ” Renata glared at Lorenzo, but she was smiling, clearly enjoying their argument.

  “They are not in hell.” Lorenzo picked up his own cappuccino, sipped it, and placed it back on its saucer. “Heaven is where the rules for love are, everyone knows that.”

  “Oh, now we have Lorenzo the theologian.” Renata turned to me. “When he was little, Lorenzo wanted to be a priest.”

  “Really?” I was incredulous. I had never imagined Lorenzo as a priest.

  He nodded easily. “But
then I changed my mind. I wanted to be a race-car driver. And then an astronaut. And then a model for Armani.”

  I laughed, but Renata jumped right back in. “You are changing the subject.”

  “The rules for love are in heaven,” he said again, like a volley to his sister.

  “But we don’t live in heaven. We live here.” She tossed it back.

  “And here is a place where the rules of heaven are needed, don’t you think?”

  “Those rules do not work here. I have tried them. So have you.”

  Lorenzo sipped his cup. “I could not live up to the rules. And you could not. The rules are fine. It’s us who are broken.”

  Renata signaled for the check. “You are going to have Meg thinking you are a pious man.”

  He laughed loudly. “Oh, I think she knows I am not. Just because I don’t live by the rules doesn’t mean I don’t know what they are. And by the way, Marguerite, I think you did the right thing with the man you did not marry. Marrying the wrong person is not good for the heart. It makes it tough.”

  “It makes it soft, like fruit too ripe,” Renata countered. “Look at Sofia. She marries the wrong man when she’s very young; he breaks her heart and takes all the pieces with him when he goes. And now she’s going gray, and still her heart is jelly.” The waiter brought the check to her, and for a second or two, there was silence between us as she gave him a credit card and he walked away.

  “I would much prefer the Sofia we have now compared to a hard one. I’m sure Marguerite would agree,” Lorenzo said, inviting me into the conversation.

  Only I didn’t know what to say.

  “So do you believe in the rules of heaven, Meg?” Renata asked when I failed to come up with a comment.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking me. “Do you mean do I believe God makes the rules about love?”

  “Okay,” Renata said. “Do you believe God makes the rules about love?”

  A Sunday school answer sprang to my mind, and I knew it was true even though I also knew I didn’t stop to consider it often enough. “Doesn’t God make the rules about everything?”

  “Another theologian,” Renata muttered, and Lorenzo laughed.

  I suddenly remembered something Nonna had told me, something I had forgotten but that this conversation had unearthed inside me. It swelled up from within, and I could hear her voice as plain as any voice in the crowded restaurant.

  “My grandmother told me heaven’s rules don’t just tell us what to do and not do,” I said. “They tell us what God is like. People searching for God only need to look at what God says is important. I think love is important to Him. So there are rules about it. Not to make us feel bad about how far we fall short, but to show us how wonderful the real thing is.”

  Lorenzo and Renata were both silent for a moment, in quiet contemplation.

  “The real thing is complicated and dangerous,” Renata said, frowning in disagreement.

  “And that is what makes it wonderful,” Lorenzo said, looking at me and not at her.

  We walked slowly back to the flat, Lorenzo and I. Renata rushed ahead to write a magazine article that was due in the morning. Emilio had not returned her call. It was now after ten. She did not think he would call that night.

  Her heels tapped a staccato beat as she walked away from us, and Lorenzo turned to me. “It’s hard for Renata to understand what made you wait so long for your father to bring you here. Don’t feel like you owe her a better explanation. She sees black and white, not so much gray. Even with love, she sees black and white. She doesn’t imagine things as how they might be. She sees things as they are.”

  “Or how they appear,” I said. “I don’t know if any of us can see things exactly how they are.”

  He took my arm and laced it through his as we walked. “Smart girl. That is true.”

  “And I don’t see how you can live in a black-and-white world without becoming … uncreative. You can’t make anything new. Everything already is what it is.”

  Renata was far ahead of us now, purpose in every step. I looked up at Lorenzo, whose gaze was on his sister. “You are not a black-and-white person,” I said.

  He smiled. “No. No, I am not. The best black-and-white photo I have taken is not just black and white. Many shades of gray made it beautiful.”

  That image made me relax into his nearness.

  “But you have to become what you already are. My nonna said that to me.” He laughed easily. “Renata cannot suddenly be someone she is not. I can’t. You can’t.”

  “But people change all the time, Lorenzo.”

  He was thoughtful for a moment. “People change what they do and how they think. But I don’t think they can change who they are. Renata and I were raised by the same parents in the same home with the same opportunities. And look how different we are. It is good that some people see things in black and white and some people, like you and me, cara, can see infinite shades of gray. We carry hope.”

  “Hope sometimes disappoints you,” I said, missing my father at that moment and fully appreciating the fact that we might never see Florence together.

  “That’s why there are black-and-white people. To remind us of what stays the same, no matter what.”

  After I recovered from my illness, my mother’s sister-in-law Leonora, unhappily married to my uncle Pietro, mysteriously died at the villa in Cafaggiolo after she and Pietro arrived for a short stay in the country. Nurse told me years later she had been suffocated.

  I did not know this had just happened when my father arrived in Florence and hastily arranged a hunting party for him and my mother at the villa at Cerreto Guidi. I saw him for a few moments the day they left for the villa. Virginio and I were playing in the fountains at the palace gardens because it was so hot. Mama was with us. I remember her asking him why he didn’t write that he was coming as she would have had us properly attired to greet him. I don’t remember what he replied. Or maybe he didn’t answer. Virginio and I ran to him, wet and tousled. He touched my damp curls and placed his hand under my chin, lifting it so that my eyes met his. For a moment I thought he was angry that I was sporting about the gardens in wet clothes. His eyes were hard on mine as if he were looking inside me to see if my soul was wet and tousled too. And for a moment, I thought surely he would find that indeed it was. But then his penetrating stare lifted, and he stroked the line of my jaw with his thumb and flicked away a bit of grass—almost a caress. In my memory it feels like a caress. And while he looked at me, he told my mother she and he were to leave as soon as she was packed. Mama asked if Virginio and I were to come along. Virginio was bending down beside us to touch a grasshopper tucked into the blades of grass. With his hand still under my chin, my father said no.

  My parents were expected to return within a few days. I waved goodbye to them as though they would. In the folds of my memory, I can see them walking away from me, side by side, as the summer sun beat down on them. Mama was wearing gray. The color of tears.

  24

  When I arrived back at Sofia’s flat after dinner with Lorenzo and Renata, I found her sitting in her father’s painting room at a little writing desk, tapping away at her laptop. She told me she was working on one of the new chapters and asked me if I wouldn’t mind letting her just keep at it. I wished her a good night, got ready for bed, and climbed into her guest bed. My full stomach kept me from drifting into the sleep my tired body wanted, and it was after midnight before sleep finally overcame me.

  In the morning I woke to find Sofia still in bed. The makings of my breakfast were out—bread, Nutella, strawberries, and coffee in the pot—I just needed to press a button to brew it. I found a note from Sofia. She had been up until two, writing. She asked if I wouldn’t mind seeing to my breakfast while she slept in. And then we’d go tour the Santa Croce. I made the coffee, toasted the bread, and slathered it with Nutella and sliced strawberries.

  An hour later, Sofia joined me on her balcony with her own toast and coffee, sl
eep still in her eyes. She looked tired. The amount of writing she was trying to accomplish was taxing her. I was glad we were leaving the flat and she’d be away from her desk for a while. We left at ten thirty to walk to the Santa Croce.

  “You will love the Basilica di Santa Croce,” she said as we walked, and she seemed to gain strength as we made our way down the busy streets. “The tomb of Michelangelo is there, right in front. They say he chose his burial spot himself so that the first thing he would see on the last day, when the graves of the dead burst open, would be Brunelleschi’s dome through the open front doors. The tomb of Galileo is there and Machiavelli’s. Ghiberti’s too. He was the creator of the Baptistery doors. But it’s Giotto’s frescoes that will leave you awestruck.”

  She told me the frescoes were recently restored and visitors had been allowed on the scaffolding to see up close the frescoes’ intricacies while the restorers worked.

  “The site chosen for the Santa Croce was once a marshland outside the city walls,” Sofia said. “But Saint Francis himself could see the basilica for what it could be. The frescoes tell his story. And so beautifully. Michelangelo studied those frescoes before he painted the Sistine Chapel. He was inspired by them. It is just like my father said. Out of the marshland arose this beautiful sanctuary. Out of the ugliness, something beautiful.”

  We turned a corner and the shining facade of the Santa Croce loomed above me, seven hundred years high.

  The basilica brimmed with tourists; jaw-dropping Anglos like me who struggled under the weight of visual assault and the enormity of this house of God.

  “Does everything in here echo with Nora’s voice?” I whispered wearily to Sofia after two hours of gazing at Santa Croce’s generous offerings.

  “I’d be a dead woman if that were true,” she said, smiling, but completely serious.

  “Do you walk into a place like this and hear her?”

  She took a moment before answering. I either had intruded where she wasn’t prepared to welcome me, or she didn’t quite know how to explain it to a non-Medici.