The Girl in the Glass

by Susan Meissner

  Lorenzo put down the top on his convertible and held my hand as we flew down the narrow streets. The breeze of the fair city lifted my hair from my neck, nudging me gently to tip my head back and let the Florence sun kiss me good-bye.

  At the terminal I instructed Lorenzo to please let me off and leave quickly. But he did not listen. He yanked my bags out of the backseat, set them down beside me, and drew me into his arms. He seemed on the verge of saying something as he released me, but then he kissed me lightly on the cheek, his lips lingering, waiting perhaps to see if I would turn my head and match my lips to his. I pulled away before I had a chance to decide if I would.

  33

  There’s something to be said for a very long plane ride that takes you from a magical place back to the world where your real life waits. I didn’t sleep on the flight home. I didn’t watch the in-flight movies or lose myself in the pages of a novel. When you are thirty thousand feet above everything that is real, you have a perspective on your life perhaps only a Renaissance artist would understand.

  Sometimes you need to stand back to see the vanishing point; that place in the distance where two roads appear to converge. And you have to stand still long enough to realize they only appear to converge. There is a place where what is real meets up with what we can imagine is real. It’s actually a black-and-white place, a place of safety. A boundary that gives us a handrail.

  I knew I was being catapulted back to all that I had left behind me when I boarded the plane for home. But that didn’t mean everything would be the same.

  My father was still missing, albeit voluntarily so, and my mother was in a dating relationship I envied, but from my chair in the heavens, that jealousy felt weightless for the first time since I met Devon at the Melting Pot.

  I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to engrave on my mind what it felt like to be far enough away from reality to actually see it.

  I had my father’s love, and he had mine. I didn’t have to search for it in someone like Devon because I already had it. Lorenzo was not far from me even at thirty thousand feet above the ground, but I reasoned that when I saw Gabe waiting for me at the airport, I could lay that temporary distraction to rest. Lorenzo could not save me. He was part of my dream world. Gabe was real.

  I landed in Los Angeles a little after six in the evening. My body clock was telling me it was the middle of the night and that I should be sleeping, and my heart was telling me it was the dawn of something new. I made my way through customs, weary but energized to see Gabe and embrace my post-Florence life. Everywhere around me were people dragging suitcases filled with the real-life things they had brought with them, folding themselves back into the fabric of their daily routines, just like I was. I felt a little dizzy. The terminal seemed to swim a little bit as I pushed my way through the mental fog into the sea of people in baggage claim waiting for the travelers they’d come for. They were the first wave of real life, those people standing there.

  He saw me first.

  I was scanning the messy rows of waiting people, looking for Gabe’s curly head, when I suddenly felt him near me.

  I turned to my right, and he was just a few feet away, smiling and moving toward me.

  His arms were quickly around me in a welcoming embrace, and I smelled ink, oranges, and green tea—all the remnants of his day.

  “Welcome home.” He stepped back and smiled at me.

  I waited for the whoosh of comfort those tried-and-true words should’ve enveloped me with, but I felt strangely untethered to the ground I stood on. Like I didn’t belong here at all.

  I tried to stay awake on the drive back to San Diego, but after an hour of sharing my many highlights and the latest on Sofia, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  “You don’t have to stay awake, Meg,” Gabe said gently, and his voice sounded like a lullaby.

  “But I want to,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll get you home safe,” I heard him say, and then I gave in to dreamless sleep.

  I awoke with a start when the car engine stopped. We were in front of the cottage, and the lights were on. A car was parked in the driveway. Not mine. Devon’s.

  “Looks like your mom is here to welcome you back.” Gabe laughed easily.

  “Looks like,” I echoed, attempting to match his humor.

  We got out of the car. Gabe retrieved my suitcase, and I slung my carry-on over my shoulder. We walked up the steps, and I heard my mom inside say, “She’s home.”

  I opened the door, and there was my mother, ready to wrap her arms around me. Devon was standing a few feet away, smiling. I sensed a small remnant of the strange attraction I had left with the week before, and I found it only a tad difficult to smile back at him.

  My mother hugged me tight. “How are you? How was your flight?”

  “It was fine.” I turned to Gabe who was still just inches away. “Mom, Devon, this is Gabe Robicheau. We work together. He’s a graphic artist. Gabe, this is Elaine Pomeroy and Devon …”

  I could not remember his last name. I laughed and would have gone on laughing had I not been worried it would seem incredibly rude.

  I couldn’t remember Devon’s last name.

  “Sheller.” Devon stuck out his hand and Gabe shook it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to Devon, but he smiled my apology away.

  “You look tired.” My mother patted my arm.

  “It’s five in the morning in Florence,” Devon said good-naturedly. “We should go. She’s home.”

  “Can I make you something to eat?”

  “There was food on the plane, Mom. I’m fine, but thanks.”

  Alex strolled in from wherever he had been napping and meowed a greeting, approaching my legs with a cozy arch to his back. I bent down to pick him up.

  “Really? Because I brought stuff to make sandwiches.”

  Devon took a step forward and put his hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Why don’t we take off and let her settle in?” He looked at me and smiled that crooked smile of his.

  “All right. But first we need to show her the surprise,” my mother said urgently. I set the cat down, immediately concerned about what my mother might’ve done while I was gone. Installed security cameras? Bought me a guard dog? Replaced all my plastic, microwaveable dishes with ceramic?

  “Close your eyes!”

  My mother took my hand. “Close them!”

  I did what she asked.

  We walked down the hallway to my bedroom, and it took superhuman strength not to open my eyes to look at what my mother had done to my bedroom—of all places—with Devon at her side.

  “Keep them closed,” she said.

  She positioned me in front of my bed; at least that is what it seemed like. To calm myself I asked her if she had replaced Findlay’s four-poster with bunk beds.

  She laughed. “Don’t open them yet.” She moved away from me.

  “Okay. Now,” she said, softly, almost like a caress.

  My eyelids lifted and there on the wall in front of me and hanging over my bed was Andromeda.

  I felt my mouth drop open and my breath catch in my lungs. It was my nonna’s painting, just as I had remembered it, only smaller. It had seemed so big to me when I was young. Now as it hung above my bed, I could see it was not the sweeping gateway to Florence, it was only a window, no wider than one arm’s length.

  Andromeda in diamond-white marble was sitting bent-kneed on her rock with her arm stretched out. My nonna, a dark-haired little girl in a pink dress, mimicked the pose, as if she and Andromeda were about to dance. The palette of colors was gold and yellows, scarlets and toasty browns. Cheerful. Hopeful. My great-great-grandfather’s paint strokes weren’t as precise as those of the artists whose work hung in the Pitti Palace, but they were as purposeful. This canvas told a story, just like the statue that inspired it. Just like all paintings do.

  They speak; we listen.

  “How did you get it?” I whispered.

  My mother put her arm around me
. “Your father sent it. It was waiting for you on your doorstep today. I had to open it. But I didn’t open this. It came with it.”

  She reached into her sweater pocket and handed me an envelope, still sealed.

  “He must’ve found the painting at one of his cousins’ or something. You’ll have to read the note to find out, I guess.”

  I looked at the envelope in my hand. One word was written across it.

  Angel.

  Hot tears were forming at my eyes and several slipped out. One landed on the A.

  “Devon hung it,” my mother continued nervously, as if my raw emotion at my father’s gift was too much for her too. “I thought you’d like it here. I hope that’s okay. I didn’t want it to be just sitting propped up against a wall when you got home. I know how much you love it.”

  More tears slipped out of my eyes, and I fingered them away. I had no words to express what I was feeling.

  “Okay, time for us to go,” Devon interjected.

  “Will you call me?” my mother said over her shoulder as the four of us made our way down the hallway back to the living room.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, feeling like it already was.

  I hugged her good-bye and assured her we’d talk more.

  I turned to Devon. “Thank you,” I said and he nodded. He seemed to understand I was thanking him for more than just hanging a painting. I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek and felt nothing but gratitude. “The porcini mushrooms were divine.”

  He smiled so wide the crook disappeared.

  “Dinner tomorrow?” my mother said as she stepped out on the porch.

  “Maybe. I’ll call you,” I said.

  Gabe and I stood at the doorway as my mother and Devon got into his car and closed the doors. They drove away.

  Gabe turned to me. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Something in the way he said those words that way—as if I was someone who needed help and his compassion had answered that need—stopped me. I just stood there staring at him, feeling strangely relieved. I felt a place open up inside me where my longings are kept—a vacancy. Gabe was the best kind of friend. A true companion. Dependable.

  But I was not in love with him.

  I felt a pang of heartache, an itch to see Lorenzo. “You’ve done so much already,” I said quickly as emotion swelled in my throat. “I owe you one.”

  He waved that idea away. “It really wasn’t a big deal. You’d do the same for me.”

  Because that’s what friends do.

  “You all set, then?” he asked. “I know you’re probably tired.”

  All set. “Yes, I think I am.”

  I hugged him good-bye, and he hugged me back.

  But he didn’t kiss me, and I didn’t want him to.

  A kiss already lingered within me. And as Gabe drove away, I instinctively reached up and felt for that bit of Florence that still clung hours-old to my cheek, reminding me that the man who gave it to me told me the rules for love are made in heaven. Not here on this broken planet, not here. Here is where we learn how to live them, how to honor them, how to risk loving the way God intended; completely, singularly, and with courage.

  After Gabe left I sat in the quiet of my living room and read the letter from my father. I read it three times, amazed by the idea that my love had somehow rescued my father, empowered him to be the man I already believed he was.

  I had saved him.

  Sometimes Andromeda is the one on the horse.

  I reached for my phone to call Lorenzo.

  My dear angel,

  I trust that you are on your way to Florence while I am writing this letter. I hope you have the time of your life and get to see everything you and Nonna talked about seeing. I hope you will forgive me for not being there with you. It was for your safety that I sent you away the way I did. I made some bad decisions, angel, and I owed some money. The people I owed aren’t patient people. They know I have a daughter in San Diego. I couldn’t take the chance that they would use you to get to me. I wanted you far away from here while I settled this. You don’t need to worry now that you are home. I’ve taken care of it.

  I’ve broken a lot of promises in my lifetime. I did not want to break the promise that I’d get you to Florence. I promised my mother I’d take you, but I also promised you. And the most amazing thing to me is, you always believed I would. You’ve always believed in me, Meg. I owe you so much for that. No one else did. Or does. Not Allison. Not my sisters. Not your mother. Not even my mother. Only you.

  I found the painting of the statue at my second cousin Tito’s house in Phoenix. His wife was rather attached to it, and I had to pay her off to get her to let it go. Tito said I should just take it; it belonged to my mother, after all, but I paid her anyway.

  And about the money. By now you know what I’ve done. I am not proud of it. I got in over my head, and I needed to get out. Allison and I don’t see eye-to-eye on the money thing; we never have. And I know I did wrong by her. I am sorry for that. I’m working on a plan to pay her back. And after I can do that, I will come back.

  It might take a while. But I will do it. Knowing you believe in me is what keeps me from cashing it all in, Meg. I want you to know that. You have saved my life so many times.

  You are my guardian angel.

  I love you, Dad

  MEDICI DAUGHTER

  by Sofia Borelli

  Foreword

  by Marguerite Pomeroy DiSantis

  The first time I saw Florence, I was a little girl standing in my grandmother’s living room looking at a painting of a Renaissance statue of Andromeda. My love for Florence begins there, while standing in sneakers on the tiled floor of my immigrant grandmother’s house, more than twenty years before I breathed Florentine air and gazed on her beauty.

  Sometimes the memories you make from a place you’ve longed to visit begin before you ever get there. Sometimes they are meshed with the memories others have of that same place, and sometimes your memories find their meaning only in the memories of others.

  Florence is a destination, a landmark, a repository, a window to the past, but it is also the canvas on which I found my childhood dreams coming true in surprising ways, within all the treasures of this city. When you can imagine a reality that transcends ugliness, you nurture the hope it takes to see past what perhaps you cannot change.

  Imagine for a moment, that you are Medici-born, that in your veins flows the resilient pulse of the Renaissance. Imagine that you can hear the echoes of Michelangelo’s chisel and the pounding of the hammer falls on the sweeping curve of the emerging Duomo, and the tiny whispers of horsehair brushes dipped in paint.

  Imagine that you’ve been empowered to believe Renaissance isn’t just a word; it’s the essence of rebirth; it’s what happens when you dare to believe what is isn’t what it has to be; it can be remade.

  Medici Daughter is the imagined story of Nora Orsini, about whom so little is known, the granddaughter of the great Cosimo I, but it is also Sofia Borelli’s story, and hers and mine together as our stories collided on the streets of this beguiling city. It took two years for this half-memoir, half-fictionalized account to find a publishing home, but I believe the wait was worth it.

  I met Sofia Borelli on the pages of her memoir of Florence. And then I met Nora Orsini in the very person of Sofia herself. And while learning their stories, I fell in love with their city and with the man I would marry.

  Through these two Medici daughters, I learned to imagine what could be, might be.

  And that what might be is worth risking to have.

  Marguerite Pomeroy DiSantis

  Florence, Italy

  Readers Guide

  1. Do you think there is significance in Meg’s living in a borrowed cottage?

  2. Was there a place you wanted to visit since you were a child? What was it like when you finally went? If you haven’t been yet, do you think you will go?

  3. Meg’s connection to her Nonna’s pa
inting and that feeling she had in her home fuel a great deal of her emotions connected to Florence as well as a deeper longing. Can you identify a memory from your childhood that invokes in you a response like Meg’s?

  4. How would you describe Meg’s father? Do you think he loves his daughter? If you were Meg, would you have waited as long as she did for her father to take her to Florence?

  5. Why was Meg’s parents’ divorce so devastating? Can you relate to her sense of loss?

  6. What did Meg find compelling about Devon? What was the basis of her attraction to him? On the other hand, why do you think Devon was attracted to Meg’s mother?

  7. Were you surprised or not surprised that Meg’s father was not in Florence when Meg arrived? How would her trip have been different had he been there?

  8. In Nora Orsini’s narrative, the nurse tells Nora, “You see that girl in the glass? You are the one who will say who she is, Nora. You decide who she will be.” Was that good advice?

  9. Were the actions that Sofia’s parents took when she was a child justifiable? Did Sofia’s father equip her to deal with heartache and loss, or did his actions merely cripple her ability to deal with reality? How did Nora Orsini deal with life’s hardships?

  10. At dinner, Lorenzo tells Renata that the rules for love are made in heaven, and Renata responds that is why the rules don’t work on Earth. Lorenzo says, “I could not live up to the rules. And you could not. The rules are fine. It’s us who are broken.” Is Lorenzo right? Why do you think Lorenzo felt that he’d failed at love?

  11. Lorenzo tells Meg that it’s good there are people like Renata who see everything in black and white because “they remind us of what stays the same, no matter what.” Do you agree? Are you a shades-of-gray person, or do you see things as black or white? Are you more like Lorenzo or Renata?

  12. When Meg finally sees the statue, she is disappointed that it doesn’t match the one she has in her memory. Have you ever visited something that was part of a vivid childhood memory only to have it seem small and underwhelming when you saw it again as an adult? Why do you think that is?