“I think I like the navy one better. Does it come in charcoal, or maybe olive?” I heard him ask.
As I half-listened to Cooper rattle off names from the darker spectrum of the color wheel, I couldn’t help but think of all the times this had happened in the past. The day of my cousin’s wedding, when he canceled, forcing me to go dateless at the eleventh hour. The night of my birthday dinner, when he showed up one hour late, after they’d given our table away. The day I left him the message I’d been laid off, when it took him three hours to call me back. Why hadn’t I remembered those moments when I was crying my eyes out over Cooper earlier?
“I’m back. Sorry,” Cooper sighed as he returned to the line. “The concierge told me about an old man who makes killer suits. I figured while I was here, I’d go see him. The old school Italian tailors are a dying breed in New York, and from the looks of things,”—he lowered his voice—“this guy’s also on his way out.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Please don’t tell me this is why you can’t come meet me.”
“No. No!” he exclaimed in horror. “I came here early, but it’s taking a bit longer than I’d expected. I guess it doesn’t really matter though, since I have some issues to take care of anyway. I came here thinking I may as well kill two birds with one stone.”
“Am I one of the birds by chance? Reconcile with Lucy and get a custom made wardrobe in the process?”
Cooper laughed. “Cute. No, I’m going to shoot out some emails while getting fitted. I know how much you hate that.”
“What? The way you palm your BlackBerry like a teenager holding his penis?”
Cooper chuckled on the other end.
“It’s not funny,” I scolded.
“Hey, that’s not fair. I flew all the way to Florence. That should count for something. I just have to wait for a fax to come,” he said. “It needs to be signed asap, and that’s the reason I have to hang local. Then after that, I’m all yours. Right now, I’m just multi-tasking. Don’t be mad.”
“Cooper,” I sighed. “I’m not mad, per se. I just can’t help but feel like a part of your to-do list. Buy new clothes, return emails, have dinner with Lucy—”
“Hey, let’s not forget that you got a new wardrobe too, and I took you on a special date yesterday. I barely took any calls at the vineyard!”
“That’s because you didn’t get service. Cooper, I don’t need things. I need you.”
“Aw, Luce. I need you, too, honey, and I know you’re disappointed, but I promise to make it up to you later. We’ll have a nice dinner. And I’m still sending the car, of course.”
Without saying a word, I looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. He just didn’t get it.
“I even packed you a nice picnic,” he added in a pleading voice.
I gazed into the mirror with narrowed eyes, exchanging a suspicious look with myself. Unless Cooper had a personality makeover overnight, I hardly thought he could take credit for packing a picnic.
“Luce? Are you there?” Cooper said.
“Yep,” I sighed. “I’m here.”
We hung up the phone, and I got dressed while trying to figure out what to do. I decided to love the one I was with: Good old reliable, dependable, me. And I deserved the best.
However, contrary to the pleasures of yesterday, today, the best didn’t mean a chauffeured car. It meant being me, the real me whom I had started to truly enjoy. I put on a tank top and a skirt I’d bought at a street fair in Munich, and left the room as a semi-single girl who felt confident enough to walk around a new city by herself.
When I stepped outside, the car was waiting out front. The same driver from yesterday must’ve seen me coming because when I approached the car, he quickly jumped out of the car.
“Buon pomeriggio!” he exclaimed, opening the passenger door.
“Ciao,” I smiled. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to walk today.” I twisted my hands and looked at him apologetically.
The driver looked at me in confusion, so I held my hands flat and moved them as if they were walking.
“Ah. Si,” he nodded. “Es una bella giornata.” He pointed a finger up to the sky.
“Molto.” I stood up a little straighter and felt proud of my ability to have a two-line conversation.
He reached into the car and extracted the picnic basket. “Buon appetito,” he said, handing it to me.
“Oh,” I said with surprise as I reluctantly took it from his hand. There were starving backpackers all over the city; I probably shouldn’t let a gourmet picnic go to waste. “Grazie.”
The driver took off his jacket and while he neatly folded it up and placed it in the backseat, I took a peek inside the basket. There was wine, foie gras, caviar, and all sorts of unrecognizable delicacies. While it looked delicious, something about sightseeing with a premade lunch made me feel as if I were cheating. It was like moving out of your parents’ house, but returning home for dinner on your first night alone. I didn’t want to be half-independent today. It was going to be all or nothing. I needed to cut the cord.
The driver closed the passenger door and reopened his own. That’s when I handed the basket back to him.
“For you. Per favore.”
“No? You no like?” His forehead crinkled as he frowned.
“It looks great, but I want...” A man walked by with a long sandwich that he nibbled out of a bag. “That,” I said with a firm point of my finger.
The driver took a step back and looked at me as if I were crazy. “Che?”
“Si,” I smiled. “Enjoy.”
He gratefully accepted the basket, got back into the car, and pulled away from the curb. After it had disappeared into traffic, I planted my feet firmly on the crowded sidewalk and looked around the narrow road. It had been a while since I’d been part of the rush hour crowd and it was interesting to see real life in a different city.
Just like in New York, pure chaos was happening around me. Loud conversation, frantic honking, and vibrations from vehicles on the cobblestone street mixed as motorists sped along on their way to work. It was a little before ten, and rush hour still appeared to be in full swing. While all sorts of mini-cars whizzed past, I was surprised to see the majority of the vehicles on the thin cobblestone street were scooters.
A silver one pulled up alongside me, and I could tell immediately its driver was a beautiful woman. Long, auburn hair spilled from beneath her helmet and cascaded down a very tanned back. She wore a cream-colored pencil skirt and halter-top, and the red soles of her black Christian Louboutin pumps peeked out as they rested on the footboard.
When the light turned green, she expertly balanced a cup in one hand, cigarette in the other and left behind a trail of perfume, gasoline, and coffee. She reminded me of an ad for liquor. Or sex.
My cell phone rang, and I saw that it was Tess.
“Hello?” I shouted. I ducked out of the way as an older group of women on a Segway tour came barreling down the sidewalk. I strained to hear Tess over their peals of laughter.
“Hi, Aunt Lu.”
“Tess! I feel so out of touch with you. What’s happening?”
“You tell me. Please tell me you did not have a threesome last night,” she said in a hushed tone.
“What?”
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had been thinking about sex.
“Well, first I saw Simon go up to your room, and then moments later, Cooper followed. But Mark dragged me away before I had the chance to see either one of them come down.”
“Oh they went down all right. Simon even dragged me down with him.”
Tess gasped.
“Not like that,” I groaned. I filled Tess in on what had happened.
“Yikes,” Tess whispered after I finished the account.
“Yikes is right. I mean, who does Simon think he is? Can you believe he even said those things?” I demanded.
“Well...” Tess didn’t have to finish her answer.
The silence
on the other end of the phone was an affirmative. Since I was feeling footloose and fancy free, I decided not to even go there. I wasn’t in the mood for another lecture.
“So tell me,” I quickly interrupted. “How was your night? No twosomes, I hope?”
“Aunt Lu. Give me a little credit, please. Although ... I did get locked and loaded,” she said with a giggle. “Mark wrote our names on a lock, fastened it to the bridge and then tossed the keys into the Arno.”
“Wow, Tess. That’s like the Italian version of writing your names on a tree.”
“I know!” she squealed with delight. “The Ponte Vecchio is glorious at night. We drank some wine, I got sloshed, and he was a perfect gentleman,” she said matter-of-factly.
I ran my hand through my hair and frowned into the phone. “From what you can remember, anyway,” I said doubtfully.
“Oh, I remember everything. He’s incredible.” Her voice oozed with enthusiasm. “I don’t think I ever met a kinder man in my life.”
Tess continued to gush, and I was so engrossed in conversation that I was caught off guard when someone bumped into me. I took a step back and whirled around.
“Bella, mi scusi!” A handsome man held the hand of a little girl and looked at me with apologetic eyes. From the looks of their attire, a suit for him and a plaid uniform for her, I guessed he was taking his daughter to school on his way to work.
I smiled and waved my free hand to let him know I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He winked and walked off.
The little girl was so involved in stepping over the cracks in the sidewalk, she didn’t notice when her father tossed me another glance over his shoulder. I politely smiled again as I listened to Tess, and he in turn, narrowed an eye and slowly ran his tongue over his upper lip.
I opened my mouth in horror, did an about face, and started to walk briskly down the street in the other direction.
“Ew, ew, ew. I just had my first encounter with a horny Italian man,” I hissed into the phone. I felt violated.
“Where are you?” Tess sounded amused. “I’ve been chewing your ear off and have no clue where you even are.”
“I just stepped outside the pensione. I was supposed to go out with Cooper, but something came up.”
“I’m sorry.” Tess paused for a moment. “Does that mean that you’re free for a little shoppy shop?” she said hopefully. “Yesterday’s fashion show really inspired me.”
I felt a stab of guilt. “Tess, I’m so sorry. I never even asked you about that. How was it?”
“Oh, it was fun. I’ve never been to a real runway show, and it was cool to see all the far out fall fashions,” she said with a chuckle. “Some of the dresses were amazing. I sat next to a buyer for an Italian department store, who also happens to own a little boutique in the Piazza Santa Trinita. She invited me to a trunk show at her store today. Do you want to come?”
I looked around and wrinkled my nose. “You know what, Tess? It’s so nice out, and to tell you the truth, I’m a little more in the mood to bop, rather than shop. You go check it out, but please let me know if you see something for your old auntie.”
We said our goodbyes and promised to see each other later in the day. After I hung up the phone, a touch of the blahs came over me.
Tess sounded so elated. And here I was, having just rekindled things with the love of my life, yet I didn’t feel one iota of the way she did. Was it because, despite the break we’d just had, we were still nothing more than an old couple who had grown comfortable with each other? I wondered if I ever even had that same excitement for Cooper that Tess had for Mark.
As I moseyed down the street, I decided it was probably a good thing Cooper had cancelled on me. I needed the alone time, and there was no better time than the present to do a little soul searching.
About a block later, I stumbled upon a quaint little garden that seemed to beckon to me from behind a tall wrought iron fence. I ran my finger along the posts and walked by the spring flowers that blossomed between the openings. Red roses, purple irises, and blue hydrangeas burst through the fence and jutted onto the sidewalk, creating a richly colored wall of flowers that brushed against my hip.
By the time I reached the entrance, the sweet, floral smells called for me to enter. I walked under a rose trellis and descended three marble steps. Once inside the garden, I paused to survey the beauty that surrounded me.
Flowerbeds on one side and a labyrinth of neatly trimmed hedges on the other flanked a lush green patch of grass. A pebble path ran directly though the grass, and after I followed the short trail, I came upon a long, narrow alleyway bordered by Cypress trees and classical statues.
On the cobblestone path, a lone daisy grew from one of the cracks. I plucked it from the surrounding weeds and slowly strolled, absentmindedly tearing petals off, murmuring, “loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not.” When I had one petal left, I held it to my nose and looked around.
Someone sat in the far corner. My jaw dropped a split second later when I recognized Simon. I shut my eyes and quickly opened them. He was still there. I wasn’t imagining things. He sat on a short stone wall, sketching on an oversized pad.
Frozen, a strange sensation came over me. It wasn’t the fact that I was about to have a heart attack. It was that he looked so intense, lost in his own world, and it dawned on me I’d never thought of him as someone with a talent or a passion. Since the man was unemployed ten months a year, I had judged him to be somewhat of a rebel without a cause. It hadn’t crossed my mind he might actually be skilled in other areas of life.
I stared at him for a few moments before I took out my camera and snapped a picture. After violating his privacy, I felt guilty, but quickly recovered and took another. A smile crossed my face and a myriad of unanswered questions filled my mind.
I walked a few steps before stopping again. My stomach sank. His presence affected me so deeply that in my excitement, I’d forgotten about last night’s exchange. Should I even say hello? He might not even want to see me. Not knowing if I would ever have another chance to be alone with him again, I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.
“I didn’t realize you were such a Renaissance man,” I called quickly before I changed my mind.
He looked up in surprise. “Lucy.”
Simon jumped off the wall and began striding in my direction. “When in Rome, right?” He fumbled with the pad and closed it.
“I believe this in Florence,” I said caustically. Immediately, I regretted my condescending tone. “But I hear you.” I smiled sweetly, patting the bag that contained my journal. “I was hoping for a little inspiration myself.”
Silence hung in the air, and then we both began to talk at the same time.
Simon’s face grew solemn, and he cracked his knuckles. “Please, me first.” His eyes pleaded with me. “Lucy, I really owe you an apology. I had no right to say those things to you and should’ve just minded my own business. You’re probably going to marry the guy. I shouldn’t have said that.” He closed his eyes for a brief moment and shook his head.
“Oh,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. I suddenly felt foolish and wondered if perhaps I’d overreacted. “Let’s just forget it. You meant well.”
“I did,” Simon said with relief. “I would like to declare a do-over. Friends?” he said hopefully, extending his hand.
“Friends,” I replied.
I opened my hand and the ‘loves me’ daisy petal fell from my palm. After we shook hands, I placed my things on the ground, picked the petal off the grass and put it in my pocket. I was too superstitious to cast it away. I was hardly in a position to abandon any promises of true love.
“Where’s Cooper? Working?” Simon said neutrally.
“That depends who you’re asking,” I replied.
Simon stared at me for a moment, but whatever he was thinking wasn’t showing on his face.
“Well, I’m psyched to see you, and it’s rather nice to see
the return of the old Lucy,” he said sheepishly and tugged on my tank top strap.
“What do you mean?”
Simon gave me a sideways look. “I think you know what I mean.” All neutrality had been abandoned.
I blushed. “Technically, this is the new Lucy,” I insisted.
“Well then I prefer the old one. Lucy, undone.” Simon looked me up and down and smiled. “Although, something tells me your stylist may not agree.”
Oh, I was coming undone, all right.
“Okay, okay, enough about Cooper please,” I begged, suddenly very tired of the whole thing.
“You’re absolutely right.” Simon placed a hand on his chest. “My bad. We’re starting over, right?”
“Right,” I said firmly. “Have you come here by yourself?”
“Yep. Would you like to join me? You know those Italian men. A beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be alone. Don’t you already have enough men vying for your affection?”
I smiled and drew in a breath. “Do you want to walk a bit?” I motioned towards the entrance of the tree-lined pathway.
I don’t know,” Simon said, eyes widening. “Are you going to throw me behind a bush and attack me? You know, since you’re such a badass and all now.”
He clearly didn’t have any trouble joking. I hit his arm and walked ahead so he wouldn’t see the big smile on my face. “Not funny,” I said, wagging my finger behind me.
“I’m just teasing,” he replied, catching up to me.
“I know. You actually are funny ... and I’m sorry about last night, too. I shouldn’t have gotten so mad.” I sighed, “It’s just that I don’t know who I am, anymore.” I looked up at Simon for help.
“What do you mean?” He cocked his head to the side and waited for me to elaborate.
I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. I wondered how much to say. Simon was easy to talk to, which was one of the things I loved about him, but I didn’t want to put him in a bad spot. I kept thinking about our conversation from the night before, and about how young he was, and how wrong for me in so many other ways. At least that’s what I told myself. It was as if Cooper had rubbed off on me. I had started to build a wall of protection around myself just like he did post childhood. I couldn’t open up to Simon and risk hurting myself, or even him, for that matter.
Tales From a Broad Page 25