Guillermo?
Her pulse thrummed.
He wasn't here. She shook her head, trying to clear it. The roiling in her stomach suddenly felt more like nausea. A cold sweat broke out all over her body. Her throat and stomach convulsed. If she eaten anything at all, she would have thrown it up.
Her knees wobbled, and she lurched, clutching at the back of the sofa to steady herself. "Perhaps I will rest just a little." Then the floor sprung up to meet her and blackness filled her vision like a falling curtain.
She came to gradually, and lay awhile with her cheek pressed to the cool floor, unsure where she was or why. Then all at once, like an epiphany, she knew. Of course. This is what's been missing from my thesis. This sense of possession and surrender. This feeling, this feeling that Guillermo and she had shared, was the closest thing to God that a man or woman could know with certainty.
All the questioning and theorizing about creation and meaning in their lives didn't matter. We are ultimately limited by our earthly experiences.
A conversation came back to her. The day Guillermo had come and dragged her, in his turmoil, to the Laurentian Library. It was almost as though he'd needed to find a church, a place of worship, and a confessor. He had his God, and yet he chose to commune with that God through the language of art, creativity and nature, and ultimately through the sensations of his body.
Extreme speed, beauty, pleasure, whether intellectualized as gifts of creation or not, were still experienced on a different plane from their pedestrian lives. Clio knew why Guillermo had been brought into her life. This was his gift to her, this insight, this clarity.
Ecstasy finally made sense. Not as something base or shameful or even primitive, as her parents made her believe, but as the ultimate expression of oneness in being. And just like they'd spoken that day of different ways of experiencing bliss, the art she'd been studying was a natural extension and form of expression of something universal, divine and cosmic.
She had intuited an abstract idea, but it took hedonistic, dangerous, mercurial, passionate Guillermo to show her the truth of it. To share it with her and make her feel it in her skin and bones, her blood, and her heart.
She pulled herself up, squeezed her eyes to clear and focus them, and stumbled back to her desk. Dropping into her chair, she began to type. And type. And type.
She wrote and edited like a madwoman, without stopping, for untold hours. She did not stop. And could not stop, until it was done.
At last she stopped typing. For a long moment, she stayed frozen in that position, staring at the last line of her conclusion. Her hands cramped in claws over the keys, her neck stiff and aching with tension from the long, unbroken hours. Her eyes fell closed, heavy as lead.
Then she opened them as the first rays of morning sun reached in to illuminate her room, its fingers of warmth touching her face. She straightened her back, cracking and creaking, and stretched her shoulders, feeling fatigue in every cell of her body. She was utterly empty.
Pushing out of her chair, she went to the window and watched bright golden rays of lights cut through thin gaps between buildings, flaring off of windows in dazzling radiant sparks, and slicing the dawn into shreds of dark and golden light.
"Now what?"
Before she collapsed, she had to do something. She rubbed her temples, thinking. She didn't have the patience to start the process of calling various colleagues. The notion made her furiously angry and frustrated.
She turned back to her desk, flipped on the printer, and sat down to send the document to print. That alone would take a half hour.
Clio paced into her kitchen, banging open bare cupboards, searching fruitlessly in the empty fridge. She reached for the coffee pot, and noticed her hands were shaking violently. More coffee was a terrible idea. She grabbed a glass and ran the tap, filling and drinking glass after glass of water, until her shrunken stomach felt bloated.
She slammed the glass down on the counter and returned to the printer, sighing that it should take so long, now that she was finally done. She sat on the arm of the sofa, hypnotized by the pages jerkily emerging from the printer one by one. Come on, come on!
"What to do? What to do? What to do?" she chanted in time with the printer cartridge's path back and forth across the pages.
By the time the last page slid out into the tray, she knew. She bundled her hundreds of pages together, thumping them on the table into a neat block, and found a large envelope to shove them into.
Then she threw on a sweat shirt, grabbed her cell phone and bag, and raced across the city to Dr Jovi's house. She would submit it first to her old advisor for approval. He might reject her right to defend, but it wouldn't be because she'd abandoned it. Or that it wasn't worthy.
THump! THump! THump!
Clio paused, her fist in the air, listening to shuffling bumps and shouts and murmurings through Dr. Jovi's door.
"Bene. Cosa diavolo? I'm coming. Chi l'inferno? IO vengo!"
The door swung open.
Dr. Jovi stood across from her in a blue satin bathrobe, the thin grey hair at his temples sticking out like antennae, trying to adjust his glasses on his reddened face. He was puffing. She'd never seen a scowl so dark.
"Clio? Mio Dio. Che cosa stai facendo qui?"
"Dr. Jovi. Thank God you're here. I brought my thesis. It's done. It's finally done!" She pushed past him, entering his sitting room. "I'm so sorry for everything. But you have to give me another chance, you have to read it. I finally got it. I got it! Per favor."
She yanked the envelope out of her bag and shoved it into his hands. He stood with his mouth open, and his brows pulled together like he'd seen a ghost. Then his face fell, and he shook his head sadly, his watery eyes filled with pity.
"Per favor, Dr. Jovi, per favor." Clio mumbled, and collapsed onto his sofa. "Just read it. Please read it."
"Caspita, bambina. Straordinario. What have you done?"
Despite her exhaustion, she bounced, excited to see his reaction. "You won't be sorry."
"I couldn't possibly do it today. I already have committments."
"Not later. Now! Please read it right now," she begged.
"Ora? Incredibile. How can I deny you?" He went to his kitchen, and soon the aroma of fresh caffe and something sweet teased her nose.
She fought burning, scratchy eyes, but she mustn't sleep. She had to know how he reacted.
He returned a few minutes later with a tray of coffee and pastries, and she dived on them, filling her mouth. Heaven.
"Dio," Jovi muttered, and settled in across from her with a cup of coffee, her stack of pages in his lap, and adjusted his reading glasses on his nose.
When she'd had her fill of pastry and cheese, and a second cup of coffee, she sighed and leaned forward to watch his face as he read. His expression hardly changed, except from time to time, a slight lift of his eyebrow, a small nod of his head. It was excruciating. He read a page, set it aside, read another, and she watched for any clue as to his opinion.
"Do you have any questions?" she asked. "Can I expl–"
"Shh."
The minutes ticked past, and her eyes grew heavier.
She lay a moment, trying to remember where she was. All of sudden, she recalled what she was trying to do, and shot upright.
"Dr. Jovi?"
"Si, si. Relax. I'm right here."
Where was here? She recognized his living room, his house. What? She frowned.
"Don't you remember paying me an unexpected visit at five o'clock this morning?"
She remained silent, piecing together her last hours at her apartment. Slowly, she nodded, her gut clenching in trepidation. Was he furious?
"Have some fresh caffe, some more breakfast. You look like hell, Clio." He waved a hand at the low table between them. Her stomach growled.
She smoothed her wild hair back. I must be a wreck. Tentatively, she reached forward and poured a cup of coffee, added some hot milk from a silver pitcher. Her hands were steady
but weak, and it was an effort lifting the cup to her lips. But the hot liquid passing her lips, her tongue, her parched throat, were delicious and immediately revived her, zinging through her veins. The coffee she drank earlier hadn't been enough to stave off her exhaustion.
Then, suddenly, she was ravenous again. She took a small plate and loaded it up with bread, cheese, and fruit. Her heart squeezed. He'd done all this for her? The food flew into her mouth as quickly as she could lift it, chew it and swallow, and she reached for more.
Dr. Jovi sat across from her, sipping his caffe, shaking his head with a puzzled expression.
At last, sated, she sat back and lifted her gaze to meet his.
Well? Was this a sympathy meal?
Slowly, very slowly, his old wrinkled face cracked and stretched into a smile. Coy at first, but as she realized what it meant, and her own face showed her shock, her joy, his smile grew into a wide grin full of crooked yellow teeth.
"Really?" She sat back, rubbing her eyes, which were crusty with sleep.
"I knew you could do it, Clio. It's excellent. I'm very proud of you."
"I can't believe it. I can't believe it," she gasped.
Clio's moment of shock and delirious happiness was interrupted by the muffled ringing of her phone. She blinked, then looked around for her bag. It was there on the floor beside the sofa. She grabbed it and rummaged, pulling out the phone, and pushed the button on the fourth ring.
"Si?"
"Clio! There you are. I've been calling for days! Where have you been?"
"Pia?" She'd been calling? Why didn't I hear–?
"Si, it's me. Listen what are you doing tomorrow night?"
Clio shook her head. Tomorrow? "Uhh…?
"Never mind. Cancel it. You have to join us for dinner tomorrow. We're… well we're not exactly celebrating, but we might be. Can you come?"
Clio's brain was too foggy to figure out what Pia was talking about. "I uh… I don't know. I–"
"You have to be here, cara. Say you'll come."
"Oh-uh-o-kay. I guess."
"Bene. It's Jacopo. He speaks in the house at seven tomorrow night. Come at six for drinks." Clio heard a click, and Pia was gone.
Jacopo in the house? Parliament? What the hell was Guillermo up to now? She brought her fingertips to her brow and rubbed, scowling. A sudden hollow ache pulled at her chest, weighing her down, as though she had left something immeasurably precious behind, or lost her way. Why did she feel such an intense longing? I'm sure they're all handling it well. I'm sure Guillermo has the whole thing well in hand. They didn't need her help anymore. It's only that she'd been so involved, so intensely, for so long.
"Clio?"
She looked up, jerked back to reality.
"So." Dr. Jovi cleared his throat. "I checked the schedule…"
Her voice broke on her reply. "Y-es?"
"When can you defend?"
"Tomorrow?" Really, now that it was written, she only wanted to get it over with. To be free.
He chuckled. "How about in a couple of weeks. Is that soon enough?"
She felt her chest fill with air and light, like champagne bubbles, lifting her up. She wanted to laugh hysterically. "That would be just fine. Grazie, Dr. Jovi."
She leaned toward the old man and kissed his cheeks, one after the other, embracing him. She was right to trust him. He'd come through for her in the end.
Her eyes burned and filled with tears. She had done it, she had really done it.
And then Clio realized that her thesis meant nothing except as a means to an end. A ticket to forge a new life for herself. Of course she was happy it was done, proud of herself. Her pulse kicked up, and her gaze turned inward. With sudden clarity, she knew she wanted her Ph.D. so she could apply for the Villa Cielo Incantato directorship position with Cornell more than anything. There wasn't another job in the world she'd rather have, if it were still there to be had. It seemed tomorrow night would decide it.
While she loved her thesis topic, teaching at a Renaissance research institute was exactly the kind of work and life she would love, even if it were not as prestigious as a tenure track position at Princeton or some other stuffy Ivy League University. And she also realized two other things: she wanted to remain in Italy. She loved it and it was her true home. And she couldn't imagine being happy without Guillermo.
She loved him. She felt a stronger sense of connection and belonging with him and his family than she had ever felt with her own.
She would stay at the institute and help Guillermo, even if he wouldn't ask her for himself. She knew she loved him. But she also wanted to live her own life, away from the influence of her parents. What they valued was not what she cared about. She knew what would make her happy. And there was no shame in knowing your own heart, and acting on it.
Chapter 32
Clio arrived at Pia and Paulo's place the following night at six. Intense memories of the first night she met Guillermo after her car crash flooded back. Each step, each sight, each sound reminded her of Guillermo. The thought of seeing him again tied her stomach in knots.
"Buona sera, Clio." Paulo, wearing a kind and friendly smile, flanked by his excitable dogs, answered the door, and she was immediately swallowed up in the warmth and affection of their home, and surrounded by delicious smells of cooking food, and a buzz of sociable sounds.
Clio and Paulo exchanged polite kisses, and she took his hands. He was such a lovely, quiet man. So different from the bold and demonstrative d'Aldobrandins. A charming counterpoint.
Entering the green salon, she searched for the sight of Guillermo's familiar face and form. He's not here. If he'd been there, she would have sensed him.
She exhaled, slowly and controlled. It would be easier this way. He must be in the city, coaching Jacopo or something. Or perhaps celebrating with a friend. Some new woman.
She found Pia and Bibi sitting with drinks, chatting excitedly with another woman she didn't know, with her dark hair pulled tightly back. "Clio, cara! You came." They both squealed with delight and rose to kiss and embrace her. She hadn't seen either of them since the last day she'd seen Guillermo. They must know what had happened but felt only their warm welcome.
They introduced her to the woman, who it turned out was Valentina, Jacopo's wife. She had a thin face, and seemed withdrawn, and aloof. They shook hands politely but her dark eyes slid past, maintaining a wall of detachment between them.
Pia explained what they were waiting for, what Jacopo was attempting to do. They had reason to be excited and nervous. All their work would be lost, and their home too, if he did not succeed in pulling a rabbit out of a hat tonight. Valentina appeared tense. But Clio's future hung in the balance too. Her newfound thesis success would be irrelevant and useless to her if Jacopo failed. She would be cut loose, and have to begin again.
Paulo brought a glass of his red wine and set it beside her, and she slid down into a corner chair, straightening the folds of her skirt, wrapping her arms around her middle. It was different now. She was neither a co-conspirator, madly engrossed in a passionate project, nor was she a pseudo-family member, involved romantically with their brother. Really she hardly knew any of them. Without Guillermo, she didn't belong.
She shouldn't have come. What was she thinking? Why did they even invite her?
Guillermo pulled into Pia's driveway in his Alpha Romeo and crunched to a stop on the gravel. He was late, but he was so tense, he couldn't imagine sitting around sipping wine and chatting while waiting for the Parliamentary broadcast to begin. This was their final chance for heritage designation. The villa's salvation rested on Jacopo's success or failure tonight.
Come on Lapo, Guillermo prayed. We're depending on you now.
He let himself in, and immediately greeted and calmed the barking dogs. Paulo met him in the archway of the green salon, and they kissed and shook hands, their eyes meeting with a knowing look. "Fratello." Paulo knew what this meant to Guillermo, perhaps more than anyone. He unders
tood what is was to hold onto your family's estate and heritage by a thread, and be willing to risk everything to restore it.
Guillermo stepped through the archway into the salon, rolling his shoulders. He clenched his fists, trying to control the familiar tingle that signaled an urge to move and let off steam.
Then he saw Clio. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry and tight. Pia didn't tell him she'd be here. He forced himself to smile at his sisters and Valentina to avoid staring at her like a pazzo, and embarrassing them both. But her image stayed with him. She wore her hair down, tamed into a silky, curling mane of fire. For him? His pulse leapt. Her magical turquoise eyes were wide and scared, as though she were shocked to see him too, and perhaps alarmed.
He approached his three sisters, kissing each one in turn. Then, finally, he turned to greet her. The evening just took on even more significance.
"Clio," he said.
She stood up jerkily, her eyes cast down, smoothing her skirt. "H-hello Guillermo."
He reached for her hand, taking it in his. It was papery dry and smooth and cool. He squeezed her hand, smiling, and searched her face. Come on, Bella. Look at me. He kept his gaze on her face as he kissed her hand. At last she looked up, and their eyes met, fraught with emotion. Leaning toward her slowly, he pressed his lips to her silken cheek, once, twice, three times, closing his eyes and inhaling her divine floral scent. His heart skipped and raced, and her breathing accelerated too, her delicious breasts rising and falling rapidly like a frightened bird.
It took everything he had to step back and release her hand, instead of grabbing and devouring her the way every cell in his body screamed at him to do.
"It's time," Paulo announced. "Everyone come into the den. I have my large computer screen set up and tuned in to the Camera dei deputati Web TV. They are starting now." He led the way. "Please find a seat." The room was small, and the makeshift assortment of chairs were squeezed closely together. Guillermo hung back, waiting for Clio, so he could find a chair next to her. But she was so tentative, moving so slowly. He went to get a drink before rejoining them, and found her sitting next to Bibi near the back of the room, but the chair on her other side was free. He stalled a moment by Paulo, who fiddled with his computer, adjusting the volume, deflecting attention from his entrance.
The Art of Enchantment (Life is a Journey Book 1) Page 32