Finding Juliet

by Frank Sennett

  “I thought there were no cars allowed here,” Nick said.

  “Just in this one little spot,” she replied. “See, Venice is one surprise after another. I never said all of them were pleasant.”

  Before attempting to retrace their steps, they stopped at a blessedly empty wine bar and munched on prosciutto and nuts while sampling several selections recommended by a bartender who got friendlier the longer he looked at Lia.

  “If things don’t work out between us, I think I found your next boyfriend,” Nick said as they walked back into the now-dark city.

  “Are you jealous?” she asked, spinning around to give him a tipsy smile.

  “Not jealous,” he said as he took her shoulders and kissed her dark, lovely lips. “But maybe just a bit territorial.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Nobody cool lives in Venice these days. Now, take me to Florence or Milan and you might have some problems.”

  While they tried to figure out which direction to go next, they spotted a poster for a baroque opera concert at the Scuola Grande Arcionfraternia di San Rocco. It featured one of the vocalists who’d lent his voice to the film Farinelli: Il Castrato, about the eighteenth-century singing sensation Carlo Broschi.

  “Look, the performance is tonight,” Lia said excitedly. “That high male soprano voice is so haunting. If this place is close by, we can still make it.”

  After asking a surly waiter and a couple of clueless tourists who were no help at all, they stumbled on the sixteenth-century guildhall on Campo San Rocco quite by accident. They bought tickets and made their way into the ground-floor hall just in time to take their seats as the house lights dimmed.

  The contrast of the modern plastic folding chairs with the polished floor of white and brown marble and the three white support columns on either side of the hall was striking. But that juxtaposition wasn’t as odd as the eerily beautiful high notes that soon emanated from the mouth of the gilt-costumed man with the heavily powdered face who took the stage. For an hour, he sang a capella, and Baroque pieces by Handel and Farinelli’s brother, Riccardo Broschi, echoed off of the high ceiling.

  After giving him a heartfelt round of applause at intermission, the crowd lined up for the large, hand-held mirrors the ushers were passing out. Lia grabbed one for both of them and they followed everyone else up the grand staircase to the upstairs hall. There, they used the wood-framed mirrors to check out the Tintoretto paintings set into the ornate carved ceiling.

  His religious-themed works adorned the walls as well. There were about 50 paintings in all, Nick estimated, some quite arresting. He particularly enjoyed the massive 1565 Crucifixion back on the main floor, which captured the chaos attending Jesus on the cross, and The Circumcision, in which a tough-looking old guy in a pointy hat and velvet-lined cape was doing the cutting while a bemused crowd looked on.

  Lia liked The Adoration of the Shepherds best because, she said, “It shows that the glory of the Christ child was meant for everyone, not just the nobles.” Nick admitted he wasn’t religious, but he liked the sentiment.

  “Are you an atheist, then?” she whispered, seemingly more curious than upset.

  “No,” he replied after giving the question some thought. “I just wasn’t raised in the church, so it has never been an issue for me one way or another. I try to keep an open mind about all this stuff.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “All this stuff?” she repeated. “Hmm…”

  Before he could ask about her religious upbringing, the hall lights flashed and it was time for the second set. The music was still beautiful, but Nick found it hard to concentrate as he wondered if theological issues would come between them, and what her response suggested about the whole birth-control situation.

  Nick was so distracted, in fact, that after the concert he got them hopelessly lost down a seemingly endless series of foreboding streets where he imagined cutthroats might be lurking in every shadow. Lia pressed herself tightly against him and he could feel the tension in her arm as they kept hitting dead end after dead end.

  When they finally made their roundabout way back to St. Mark’s Square it was almost exactly 3 a.m., and Lia started running as soon as they could see the pier.

  “It’s the last bus for two hours,” she shouted back at him over her shoulder. “Hurry.”

  But before they finished crossing the square, the forlorn ferry had departed.

  “Maybe we can catch a water taxi,” Nick said after he caught his breath.

  Even as the words left his mouth, he realized they were standing at the edge of an empty square. No tourists meant no taxis. The only boats in sight were docked for the night and buttoned up tight.

  Without a word, Lia pulled her thin wrap tightly around her shoulders and sat on one of the chilly concrete pilings.

  “I’m sorry I’m not a better navigator,” he said as she made just enough room for him to perch next to her.

  “It is ok,” she said, still staring out into the choppy black water.

  “But are you ok?” Nick asked as he draped his left arm awkwardly around her shoulders.

  She breathed heavily and stood up, shrugging his arm off as she rose.

  “Nick,” she said, turning to him. “I know things are still up in the air, but I have something important I need to tell you.”

  “Anything,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  She countered his eagerness with a sad smile. “I am not saying I’m the best Catholic in the world—far from it. But you know I want to have children, Nick. And I want to raise those children in the church…”

  “And you’re worried I would object to that?” he asked.

  She nodded. “It is part of the fabric of my culture.”

  “I respect that,” he said. “In fact, I’m ready to embrace it. I would be delighted to see my children raised in a loving church. I might not go to Mass every Sunday, but I would support giving them a strong moral upbringing.”

  “I am so glad to hear you say that, Nick,” she said. “It has been going through my mind ever since… last night.”

  “I’ve been thinking about children since then, too,” he said.

  She laughed. “Ah, yes, I see. You did not know quite how good a Catholic I might be.”

  “Right.” He tried not to blush.

  “Well, I just got divorced, if that tells you anything. And yes, I am taking the pill. For some reason, I stayed in the habit of it after Antonio and I split up.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, showing more relief than he’d intended.

  “Me, too. But like I said, I do want children, probably in the next few years.”

  “Fine, fine,” he replied, standing up to take her hands. “That’s what I want, too. I just want to have a plan, have things figured out a little bit better between us first.”

  “Ok,” she said, rubbing his palms with her cold fingers.

  “And here I thought you weren’t going to tell me what’s missing in your life,” he said.

  “Not as cocktail chatter, no. But I have serious feelings for you, Nick, and our time grows so short.”

  He kissed her from her forehead to her mouth and then took her in his arms. “Is there anything else you’ve been dying to tell me?” he whispered.

  “Just that I won’t change my mind about leaving my father,” Lia said. “It would kill him to see me move away to America.”

  Huh, Nick thought, a bit stunned by the sudden weight of all these declarations. In the span of five minutes, they had gone from having no set plans to raising devoutly Catholic children in Verona with Salvatore underfoot. He had to admit, the rush of it knocked him for a loop.

  Feeling him tense up, Lia let go and backed up a step. “I am sorry if that is not what you want, Nick,” she said, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “I wish I could be more flexible… but my life is here in Italy.”

  “What about my life?” he found himself asking.

  “I realize you may have other plans,” she said.
“But from what you have told me, your family is not exactly the most important thing in your life. You do not have a home or even a job to go back to. I do not mean to sound harsh, but if I were to go to America with you even for a few months, what would we do?”

  “We’d figure out our lives together, I guess.”

  “But I already have a life, and I want you to be a part of it. The thought of being gone when he… I already lost my mother, Nick. I will not throw my father away.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Everything she’d told him made perfect sense, and the idea of living with her in Italy wasn’t bad at all. And yet he felt the frustration rising inside him. Maybe it was because she was presuming so much about him—or maybe it was because so many of her presumptions were dead-on accurate. But whatever it was, his pride wouldn’t let him allow her to chart out their whole life together while they stood on a deserted Venice pier at three in the goddamn morning.

  “Speak to me, Nick,” she said. “What is it?”

  “I need to stretch my legs,” he said, turning back toward St. Mark’s Square. “I’ll be back before the next bus comes.”

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Why had she laid everything out so harshly? Lia wondered as she watched Nick walk off into the desolate square. She wiped away the streaming tears with the back of her hand. Damn this bus schedule, she thought. No, better yet, damn him for not booking us into a place in the city.

  She couldn’t work up any real anger at Nick, though. She was too filled with despair at possibly driving him away with her ultimatums. But those things did need to be said, she reassured herself. She’d given him a complete pass on Fortunata; that had to count for something. And it wasn’t like they had weeks and weeks in which to dance around the important issues. If their love was real, it would survive this test. It had to.

  She shoved her hands as far as they would go into the pockets of her tight black jeans, but the fingers of her right hand stubbed against something hard and metallic. She had forgotten all about the little music player. Well, at least he was thoughtful enough to leave me with some music, she told herself ruefully.

  She slipped the white headphone buds into her ears and pressed play on the tiny click wheel. But instead of a song, she heard Nick’s voice instead. He had recorded his latest letter to her, she realized as her sniffles gave way to a tiny smile. She turned up the volume, sat back on the piling and listened as his words filled her head:

  Dearest Lia,

  As I record this within Verona’s enchanted walls, my days of wooing grow short. I hope that I am holding your hand as you are hearing this. But if not, let my voice remind you that my heart is with you always.

  It pains me to think of being away from you, even for the short time it would take me to put my affairs in order and return to your arms. The details of our future are hazy, but through the fog of decisions small and large that lie ahead as we move to fashion one life out of two, I always see your soft smile beckoning me forward.

  Real life cannot but aspire to the kind of sustained romance found in the most ardent love letters. Spats, squabbles and painful days are inevitable in any relationship between smart and strong-willed people. But let us never linger on these hurtful episodes and instead do everything in our power to make amends and replace the bad feelings with affection.

  So my wish is not for impossible perfection, but for an honest, loving partnership where we remain always on each other’s side, and face whatever the world throws at us together. Mostly, though, I want to cherish every day with you. It took me a long time to get here, but I finally understand what a family is supposed to be.

  Forever yours,

  Nick

  Lia felt a hand on her shoulder and her heart leapt into her throat. But her fear subsided when she saw that it was Nick, a look of contrition on his face.

  “If I wasn’t already thinking about living here with you, why would I be working so hard on my Italian?” he asked. “Here, listen: Hai perso la testa?”

  Lia smiled as he took her hand and pulled her to him. “Yes, I think I may have lost my mind,” she said. “But it is rude of you to ask.”

  “Why do I always sound so boorish in Italian?”

  She pushed him away playfully, but then gave him a serious look. “If you stay here with me, you might not see your family for even a year’s worth of days for the rest of your life. You need to be sure it is worth losing that.”

  Nick thought of the father he’d never really known, waiting in the nursing home for his mother to finish wasting away. What else was there? He hadn’t kept in contact with uncles, aunts, cousins, and he could count his close friends on one hand. He hadn’t realized just how detached he’d become from the world before he found Lia. But even if he did have more connections back home…

  “Believe me,” he said. “You’re well worth it.”

  She kissed him then, and he could feel her hands pressing hard against his back, drawing him further into her world.

  “You should still go back and tell them goodbye,” she said. “Even if your mother cannot understand, it will make her happy on some level to hear that you have finally found your place.”

  “Ok,” he said, breathing in the warm smell of her hair and skin.

  “But hurry back,” she added. “We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are going to make a true Italiano out of you.”

  Chapter Sixty-four

  It was almost dawn by the time they made it back to their room on the Lido. He pulled the shades while she brushed her teeth. When he returned from brushing his, she was already under the covers, drifting off. After a few sleepy kisses, they snuggled together in the small, lumpy bed and passed out.

  In Nick’s dream, they were in the Verona apartment, but it now had five bedrooms down a long hallway. One room was his and Lia’s, one was Salvatore’s, two more held their children and in the last one was Nick’s mother, hooked up to several machines.

  The scene switched to breakfast around a grand table. Lia busied herself dressing their three little girls for Mass, tying bows in their hair and buckling on shiny little shoes while they squealed and struggled to get away. Meanwhile, Nick went back and forth between Salvatore and his mother. They were strapped into giant high chairs and he spooned rice cereal into their drooling mouths while their vacant eyes stared up at the ceiling.

  Lia and the girls were chattering, and one even pulled on his pant leg, trying to tell him something. But Nick couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They weren’t even speaking Italian, he realized. They were conversing brightly in Latin and he couldn’t pick up the thread.

  Finally, Lia had the girls ready for church and she stopped to give Nick a kiss on the cheek before leaving. “I love you,” she said. “You are the only one who knows my heart.”

  He was glad to understand the words, but terrified to hear her speak them in Salvatore’s voice.

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Thursday was a nightmare. Lia jostled him awake after only two hours of restless sleep marked by that terrible dream. She had to be at the restaurant by mid-afternoon and they rushed to check out so they could hustle back to Verona.

  In the Renault, Nick plugged in the FM receiver he’d bought to go along with the music player and they listened to the opera selections he’d downloaded for her. But what had been so uplifting and enchanting at the arena seemed tinny and annoying coming out of the rental car’s lousy speakers. Soon, he had a pounding headache to go with his exhaustion. He glanced over at Lia, who was zoning out to the music with a dreamy smile. At least she was enjoying it.

  Several times on the trip back, Nick found his eyelids drooping and he nearly drove into the ditch more than once. He briefly lost his temper when he pulled out to pass a stock truck and a big BMW zoomed in from out of nowhere and flashed its lights at him until he pulled back into the right-hand lane. “Goddamn Germans,” he muttered. But at least the incident made him a bit more alert.

  He thought about
waking Lia to drive the rest of the way, but now she was snoring gently, hair plastered to the window, and he didn’t have the heart to do it. She had a busy shift ahead of her. He could always take a nap after dropping her off.

  Nick made a beeline for the hotel after leaving Lia at the apartment with a perfunctory kiss and the promise to meet her at midnight. She wanted to go out dancing with some of her cooking-class colleagues who wanted to meet him.

  Unfortunately, he had to wait in a long tour-group line checking in during the late-afternoon rush. Even worse was the look on the manager’s face when Nick stepped up to the counter.

  “I am so sorry, Signore Moore,” the man said, not sounding very sorry at all. “We are overbooked for tonight.”

  “But I have a reservation,” Nick said weakly. He wanted to lay his head down right next to the tourist brochures.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” the manager replied. “I think it can work out in the end. We usually have a cancellation or two by later in the evening. If you come back in four hours, we may have something for you.”

  “You want me to come back at nine o’clock?” At least the anger was helping him wake up a bit.

  “Yes, I am sorry, signore,” the manager said. “But why not enjoy the festival or one of our many fine museums?” He fanned out several brochures for Nick to pick from.

  “I’ll just take my bag, thanks. I need to do some laundry anyway.”

  “Very good, signore,” the innkeeper said as he walked the suitcase around the counter. “There is a laundry two blocks west. It will all work out, I think. You will see.”

  Nick couldn’t even bring himself to respond. He just grabbed his bag of smelly clothes and trudged into the street.