by Anna Chillon
He pulled the bunch of keys out of his pocket that Aron had entrusted him with and put them on the desk. He paused for a moment to look at my pin board, looking at Dad out of the corner of his eye, holding a hand over his forehead, covering his silent crying.
I don’t know if Vincent had ever seen him cry. No, not even when Grandma died, and he was so fond of her. I'm sure that at that time, Aron was not crying so much for my lost innocence, as for the loss of the person who’d accompanied him step by step throughout his life, always remaining alongside him as a guardian angel.
An angel contaminated, difficult, misunderstood, but always present, always loyal, until that night.
My lost lover sighed, turned all of a sudden with a long face and left the room with long strides.
“Vince!” I called him sobbing, but he didn’t turn, conscious that a single breeze of feeling would corrupt his intentions, preventing him from leaving me.
“Don’t leave, Vince! I beg you...” bending over, I punched my fists into my belly, planting my fingers in my own flesh, that still held the after effects of his presence.
Adele moved from the spot she’d been frozen to and came to embrace me with the ability only mothers have to accommodate the pain of their own puppies.
“Mum... I love him. I’m happy with him.”
“She held my head caressing me. “You’ll love again, and more Lalla.”
Not like this, I told myself, moving away from her. I no longer felt like a daughter at that moment, but rather a wounded and misunderstood woman who needed to face her own suffering alone. So I rejected arms that wouldn’t be able to comfort me and leaned against the wall, struggling to stand, while the man I’d given my whole self to continued to move away from our home and my life.
* * *
[3] ‘I thought of you ya know... tonight
I thought about you then... the bad luck
she phoned me first
I didn’t know how to say no
you know that there was history.’
Chapter 14
It took a couple of days for me to stop crying before my mother blocked me in the kitchen, determined to face the issue.
“Lalla, I’ve made coffee. Come and have a drop, Dad and I need to talk to you.” She filled a cup and pushed it towards Aron who was sitting at the island, on a stool that creaked beneath his weight.
I was expecting such a scene.
I accepted my cup, but stayed standing up. I didn’t even put one spoon of sugar in, secretly smiling to myself at the thought that made me feel better.
In the end you managed it, Vince, to make me swallow a bitter pill.
“Lalla...” Mum paused, stirring her own moccha, not knowing how to put the question that upset them. Yet she had to do it because she had more tact than her husband and was closer with me. So it was decided. “If Vincent forced you somehow you shouldn’t be afraid to say so. You can talk to me alone if you prefer.”
I almost choked on the hot coffee. “Are you serious?” I looked at her in amazement. “You're completely on completely the wrong track, Mum.”
I would never have confessed to that first night because I’d never considered it violent, even as I was trapped under Vincent's weight. I never thought to say no.
My father, who knew his friend too well, remained hesitant. He put his cup down, he probably would have been helped by a handful of newspapers and his paper knife. However, he cleared his throat and tried to be patient. “Giada, your mother doesn’t know Vincent as I know him, his behavior at certain times could be... you know now too. I know he has his methods, sometimes brutal, to be convincing.”
Mum’s jaw dropped, not at all sure that she’d understood what Dad was referring to. Evidently he’d never told her about Vincent’s tastes in the bedroom.
Personally I didn’t blink. “I, too, Dad, have my methods: if you want to know I hassled him until he gave in. That’s what happened.”
Adele twisted her head, tensing even more. “Did you do it to spite us?”
“What? No!”
“So what did you find in Vincent? Do you really want me to believe that with all the good looking guys around, that you preferred him? He’s not even that good looking.”
But a hell of a character, I thought.
I smiled sadly, for once it was them that were naïve. “I don’t care about the good looking guys. I mean I like them, but I liked him more.”
“You mean you like old men?”
“Mum, what are you talking about? And he's forty-four, he's not old.”
“He should be for you. At your age you should be having fun, not wasting your time with someone like him. We were fond of him, but...” she stopped and sighed heavily. It had hurt her too to feel betrayed by a friend.
“I don’t regret the time with Vincent.” He’d broken my heart, but he’d made me feel more alive than anyone else could have done. Yes, I’d probably been taken for a ride by a grown man, but I didn’t care, because every emotion was real for me. He’d really given it to me, with knowledge and dexterity. And he’d done so at the expense of his friendship with Aron. “I'm sorry, Dad, he wanted to tell you right away, but I insisted not too. I wanted to be able to stay with him as long as possible and I thought it was my choice, not yours.”
Until two days ago they were convinced that they were the parents of a good girl with good grades, a beautiful face and a bright future. Now, suddenly, they had an impulsive, imperfect girl, impossible to hold back. Worse: convinced of what she wanted in spite of everything and everyone.
They were disconcerted by the confidence I’d never shown before; me, who wasn’t even decisive enough to be able to detach the labels from the clothes I bought. Still, despite their sorrow, I think maybe they were relieved to think that I hadn’t been entirely duped. Perhaps I had, in their eyes inexplicably, wanted it badly.
Too bad that it was no longer possible for me to have him, and that he’d proven what he really was. I felt tears lurking. “But I understood him in the end: he’s an irresponsible and insensitive person, he doesn’t want me under his feet. He must love me a bit, but not enough.”
I was grateful to Dad for avoiding saying what he thought, even though it was obvious, that Vincent didn’t care for me, that I was just a bit of fun. However, he seemed to have a kind of disgusted face, as if he was angry with me. “I've disappointed you,” I said.
He didn’t deny it, keeping his mouth shut to avoid saying things he could’ve regretted in the future. It was another bad hit for my self-esteem. “I'm sorry if I'm not the daughter you hoped,” I murmured, wiping a tear. “I'm not like you and Mum, I can’t always do the right thing.”
“I don’t expect you to always do the right thing, but I do expect you to have a bit of sense. And I hope this is a lesson for you.”
“I really loved him, Daddy.”
“We all loved him,” he stood up. “That's why you should’ve used your head.”
I used my heart, instead Dad.
I lowered my head. “He doesn’t want me anymore, anyway.”
“It’s for the best, Lalla,” Mum said, with a compassionate look.
Best bollocks, I thought.
But it was a civil discussion and I didn’t want to argue with them and they were already looking at me as an outsider. So I kept quiet, but this didn’t spare me three weeks of punishment, constantly in their sight, locked in the house even after school finished.
As far as they could be understanding, I had lied to them and done things I knew they wouldn’t have approved of. That considered, I got off pretty well.
During those weeks, in moments of weakness, I sent a couple of messages to Vincent, who didn’t answer. He obviously didn’t come to see Aron.
At night, sometimes I sat at the window till he got home at un-imaginable times. I watched him cross the yard and go into the house. I watched the lights go on, imagining his every move, his voice. I went over and over his words, “when you want to hate me, re
member that I love you.” I hadn’t expected those words and he could’ve avoided saying them. He was a fake and it wasn’t hard to imagine that he was already saying them to others; maybe to dancers and models much more attractive than me.
Meanwhile, my skin healed and was smooth and perfect again, which instead of making me feel better bothered me. The only marks left were those of the bracelets and ankles that I had tightened up almost cutting off the circulation, imprinting the design on my skin until I decided I’d had enough.
I couldn’t even have an orgasm on my own any more without crying from loneliness, lost in the chasm that had been made by his absence. I always ended up tightening my fist on my belly shaken by the sobs and hiccups turning on him with my mute accusations.
What’ve you done to me, Vincent? You saved me from limbo just to abandon me. And now I have to pretend I’ve never known that throb that takes my breath away? Have you never felt a hundred butterflies flapping their wings under your skin? It will never be the same again, I know and you knew when you took me and when you left me at the first opportunity. Selfish bastard.
In private I was a rag, but in public I put on an act because I knew that everyone wanted to see a Giada that had had fling with the wrong guy and then got back to being a care free youngster. Only then would they leave me alone and stop trying to understand what they were incapable of understanding.
I was still in that state in late June, while my imprisonment, imposed by my parents and largely wanted by myself, was over, and I found myself free to live a life in which I could have everything except Vincent. Precisely in those days, I took my final exams.
During the oral exam I invented something about Leopardi because I’d heard that the chairman of the commission had a weakness for the poet. There were other questions, some I was able to answer, others not, I just pretended that I wasn’t aware that they were the subject of the program, when the truth was that I just wasn’t at all well prepared. I wouldn’t get a high vote worthy of years of graft, but I’d pass.
The letter ‘D’ was drawn, I was questioned first and when I got out I felt relieved to be able to leave that chapter of my life behind. I encouraged Zoe, penultimate in the list of leavers, with a ‘good luck,’ I left my companions as prey for the examiners and walked the high school hallways for the last time; I crossed the threshold of the lobby, crossed the road and met Simon, alone that day because Tim was on a football retreat.
We spoke pretty often on the phone, he was better than Zoe at distracting me. He didn’t ask me how I was and did not talk about Vincent, nor did he remind me that he’d been right about him. Instead of jumping right in, he’d given me the time I needed and now he was there, waiting for me, with his bottom leaning against the usual concrete pylon.
I took the cigarette from his fingers, took a puff and coughed out all the poison that I’d stored over those weeks.
“New life?” He asked, reading my mind.
“Yes.” I smiled, concealing to perfection what had been pain and turned into anger. “Enough feeling sorry for myself.”
I really had turned a page, and he noticed too. “Well, if we want to celebrate I’ve got something better than this,” he said.
“I'm sure you have, Costa,” I replied, noticing the tantalizing five O clock shadow he’d deliberately neglected. “What do you suggest?” I took out a pack of chewing gum, put one in my mouth and offered him one.
He put his cigarette out, reducing it to crumbs against the pylon and accepted the gum. He pushed his sunglasses onto his head, between the thick honey and chestnut colored hair. “That depends on what you want,” he replied slowly chewing, like a hard guy from the black and white films.
“I just took the maturity exam: you at least have to offer me your best stuff.”
“I do, do I?” He walked forward with his blue eyes and a half smile with a dangerous air, invading my living space. Before I could open my mouth, he grabbed my arm and bent over me. “Well if it’s like that...” he threw the chewing gum and caught me with a kiss.
Yes, that was supposed to be his best stuff and I wasn’t so surprised that he’d offered it. Sooner or later we’d have got there since that subject had been hanging between us while we talked about so many others on the phone, mostly pointless.
His lips rested on mine, our tongues met timidly, almost not wanting to be intrusive, then his flicked sensually. He stole my gum and moved back, only our foreheads remained touching while he held me with a hand behind my neck, undecided to let me go or not.
A silent giggle hovered at the corner of his mouth. “It doesn’t work anymore though, does it?”
The irony of the situation made me laugh too. “No, in fact.”
It’d been as magical as kissing a handsome boy could be. Nothing more.
It seemed that now we no longer had Vincent between us, Simon and I had discovered that we were friends and we also realized that this mattered to us far more than anything else.
“It was worth a try,” he said, straightening his back.
“Yes,” I said, leaning my shoulders against the next tree.
He looked me up and down, with the air of taking the mickey. “You're cute with that blouse like the Jehovah's wear. You look like butter wouldn’t melt.”
“Ah ha, how funny,” I murmured, unbuttoning my collar. “You don’t know how to see the sexy side of a school blouse. Vincent would’ve loved it...” I stopped myself too late. Suddenly it got frosty as if I’d said something wrong.
New life, but old thoughts, hard to kill.
He flipped over quickly, pretending not to have heard that last sentence. “Even if the kiss didn’t work, we could try a fuck, maybe that would be better. You know, just to be sure.”
He made me laugh even more. “Sooner or later the black eye will be from one of the girls you go out with.”
He touched the bruised brow, witness to a recent bust up. “The other guy got off worse,” he grinned.
“Did you need to fight? Zoe told me you kicked off at the community service,” I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Difference of opinion: I don’t like cockheads who show off for taking advantage of others.”
“So if someone offends you, you punch him?”
“Fuck you, yes.”
“What a gentleman,” I praised him sarcastically, but also a bit seriously because he was defending the weak and punishing the profiteers, even though his means weren’t very orthodox. He was a dealer, a womanizer and a fighter, but with good ethics. “You want to tell me what happened?”
So he started telling me about it, partly because he needed to talk about it and partly to keep me away from my thoughts. That was why I was grateful for every word he spoke, especially because he helped make that the first positive day since Vincent had left me.
The first day I started thinking that I could live without him. Not to be happy, I couldn’t aspire to that much, but to carry on, that was my right and I could do it over time. It was said that time healed all wounds, but I wasn’t kidding myself: it would take a long time to fill a void like the one left by Vincent in my young being... and for how things were, probably not even that would be enough.
***
“Tell me again: why are we here instead of going dancing?” Zoe asked me, wobbling on her heels.
“I knew it...” I murmured to myself, hoping to have judged it right.
“What did you say?”
“What balls, Zoe, always dancing? In a city like Rome there are tons of other things to do instead.”
She stopped. “Hey, look into my eyes.” She waved her finger between us. “Don’t even tell me. If it's deadly boring I assure you I’ll call Tim and get him to come and pick us up.”
Behind her, I saw the identical sign to the leaflet I held in my hand, found by chance in the bar at the shopping centre. “Am I mistaken or didn’t you promise me a whole night just the two of us?” I smiled devilishly. “And I assure you it will be everything exce
pt boring.”
She chewed her gum on one side of her cheek nodding cautiously. “You’ve got something up your sleeve, my dear.”
“Well, let's say I wouldn’t have had the courage to come alone.” I laughed naughtily as I ran as fast as I could on my ten inch heeled boots.
“Wait, Gia!”
I stopped at the public entrance, with the doors wide open. Zoe caught me up straight away, and took me by the arm puffing to catch her breath. She stretched her neck and looked in, surprised.
“OooK. It might not be so weird.”
“And you haven’t seen anything yet,” I replied, keeping my eyes fixed forward. There, on the threshold, my courage was wavering, overwhelmed by memories. There was still time to flee and deny all the thoughts I had ever had before making that decision. Don’t ask. Don’t try even I didn’t know. Go back to being young and naive as I was before.
It was too late now. For everything.
We entered the main room of the gallery.
The flyer said that the show would be repeated once a month for three months, and for a period of seven days each time. It seemed to me that some paintings had been replaced, but the subjects of the new canvases were about the same, so I imagined that the rest was as I’d remembered it.
“The best pictures are at the end,” I said, pointing to the corridor. “Let's go and see them.”
It was less busy than the evening I’d visited with Vincent; only a few couples who had opted for a different evening, some curious passers-by to those figures and lively colors, and a few more distinct people, certainly more seriously interested.
I noticed the eyes of a couple of men distracted from the paintings to look at us: it was inevitable when we dressed like that. Zoe's miniskirt showed off her bottom, making it rounded, and her makeup was heavy enough to make her look a few years older. Only her brightly painted nails in two colors could suggest that she wasn’t even eighteen yet.