Giovanna comes to sit next to me and strokes my hair. “You’re in a sorry state, little one,” she whispers. Lara heads into the kitchen to make me one of her infamous cups of tea that she claims are good for your health but really taste like toilet paper. I sip it slowly. I don’t like it, but it was made with love—that’s good enough for me.
I close my eyes after I finish my tea. Lara starts to hum the song Emma was singing, and then Giovanna chimes in. After a few minutes, both of my friends are tenderly singing together, cradling me with the repetitive melody.
“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr.”
And I fall asleep.
I know. I have to do something. I need to get Luca out of my heart. I should ask him to move out. But I don’t have the courage, cunning, or stupidity to do it. I prefer cold war to bloodshed.
We haven’t spoken since that night. I don’t see him very much, but I’m okay with that. When I get up in the morning, he’s already out for a run. When I come home in the evening, he’s always just about to go out. We greet each other coolly and exchange a few awkward words. We are two distant planets sharing the apartment, two parallel lines observing each other from afar and hoping not to run into each other. The thing that hurts the most is that I know I’m right, but he couldn’t care less.
I’m too upset to call Erika. She would see right through me, and her feelings of triumph would triple. It’s better to leave her alone. But I do imagine the kind of medieval torture I’d subject her to if I could . . . Which scares even me.
Meanwhile, my work at the theater has become even more complicated than Franz said it would. Internet research has confirmed my suspicions. Most of the dolls that Rocky wants are either unavailable or outrageously expensive. How am I supposed to snag Scarlett O’Hara Barbie in her green dress, or Happy Family Barbie with her third-trimester belly, or Talking Barbie with her fundamentally important phrase, “Who do you have a crush on?”
One afternoon, Giovanna calls me as I’m leaving the theater to check out some toy stores.
“Can you please watch Bear tonight? Something came up at work and I have to run back to the set, but if he stays locked up inside much longer he’ll start howling like a werewolf and tearing the couch apart!”
I readily say yes. Bear and I are very similar. We’re both a little crazy and have a lot of hair. We don’t like to be on a leash, so we jerk around whoever’s walking us—him to chase other dogs and invisible smells, me to check out cute clothes in shop windows. Neither of us ever gets what we want—whether that’s buying everything or quarreling with a particularly unpleasant pug—but it’s the chase itself that we enjoy.
My hairy escort in tow, I head into an old, windowless toy shop full of shelves packed with colorful boxes. Flirty plastic girls peek out from them. It seems more like a junk shop, with boxes stacked everywhere and secondhand toys strewn about on dark wooden shelves. The shopkeeper sells and repairs vintage and antique toys. A young girl who looks to be about five or six is here with her mother. She solemnly hands the shopkeeper a doll.
“Make her better,” she tells him. He nods and sizes up the doll. She’s small and plump, with big eyes, a floral-print dress, and black flats with bows. One of her arms is detached, and there’s a cut on her cheek. I’m almost tempted to ask what happened, as if we were in a doctor’s office waiting room.
“She’ll be ready to go home in three days,” the shopkeeper says. He’s small and stout, with white hair, like an elf. Feeling reassured that her little baby will be all better soon, the little girl leaves. Unfortunately, as I list all the dolls I’m looking for, he shakes his head sadly.
“I’m sorry. At the moment, I don’t have any of those. They’re rare and very expensive. The first Barbie you mentioned goes for about seven thousand euro. They’re collectibles, not children’s toys.”
“I know. I scoured the Internet, but they’re either impossible to get or crazily expensive. I don’t know what else to do.”
“You won’t be able to find them in stores. You should try talking to collectors.”
“Do you know any?” I say, as solemn and pleading as the girl who left him the broken doll.
“You’re in luck. I sold some of these dolls to some amateurs a while ago. I think they wanted to complete their collection. They ended up asking me to buy them back, but they’re too expensive. And what if I couldn’t find a buyer? With the state of the economy, sometimes this business is tough. I can’t afford it. Maybe you can contact them and see if they’ll offer you a better price.”
“Probably not, but it can’t hurt to try.”
He writes down the names and addresses on a sheet of paper, and I thank him. As I’m about to leave, I turn and ask him, “Will you make her better? That little girl’s doll, I mean.”
“I’ll make her better,” he says. He smiles at me the way my father did when I brought him a hurt caterpillar I’d found while playing outside.
I take Bear to the park. He goes crazy, straining against the leash and wagging his tail, once he catches a whiff of the earth, so different from the smells of asphalt and smog. He sniffs the butts of Labradors, Great Danes, and Pomeranians, and they all courteously reciprocate. I feel bad about keeping him on the leash when he so desperately wants to run free, so I make him swear—paw to his heart—that he’ll behave, and then I let him go.
It’s hot today, and the sky looks like an upside-down ocean. Bear seems as happy as only a dog chasing other dogs in the emerald-green grass can be. I get emotional watching him. I’d love to be him, a simple, trusting creature who just needs a good run and a sniff under the tail to feel at peace with the universe. I sit down on the grass and watch him chase the joy of living. Run, my furry friend, run!
Oh, God. Don’t run too far!
I lose sight of him as he disappears into the trees ringing the park. I told Giovanna to get him neutered to spare him the suffering of chasing after female dogs. People think it’s nice when male dogs go after a female in heat. Nice, my ass! At the very least, you risk them fighting with other dogs; at the worst, he’ll father dozens of puppies. What if they’re not purebred and no one wants them?
I head into the trees to look for Bear, calling him with increasing desperation. After what seems like hours, the culprit appears, all fresh and combed. By which I mean, he’s covered in mud and weeds, and a lizard’s tail is sticking out of his mouth. If I scold him, he’ll think I’m saying, “Bad dog! You shouldn’t have come back.” So I pet him in spite of myself.
I put him back on the leash and take him to a fountain to try to clean him up. He paddles around, very pleased with himself. The scenery is beautiful. In the distance, a pond glitters like silver paper, and nearby a park cafe’s tables and umbrellas are clustered under a clump of trees. I decide to sit down and order a drink. Finally exhausted, Bear falls asleep under the table.
As the waiter passes by, he ignores me completely—perhaps he has no work ethic, or perhaps he was just not captured by my radiant beauty. Tall and lanky, he looks like he just came from his grandmother’s funeral. So, looking like the nerdy student who knows all the answers, I raise my hand to get his attention. But this giraffe-man hybrid walks right by me again, tray in hand, toward tables hidden among the trees as if I’m not even here. More and more people sit down around me, and the lanky guy continues to ignore me—and insolently, too.
Now I’m just pissed off. I don’t want anything to drink anymore, but he can’t just treat me like some insignificant shrub. As he passes by with two iced coffees on his fake silver tray, I sneakily extend my leg and trip him. He sways for a few seconds, and the glasses slide—an impossible balancing act. He curses as they tumble to the ground. The iced coffee splatters everywhere; whipped cream lands in his ear. Bear raises an eyelid as if to say, Please be quiet; can’t you see that I’m resting? I hold back laughter while
the waiter glares at me.
“You did that on purpose!” he says.
“What do you mean?” I say. “I’m not even here, am I? You’re talking to a shrub!”
He gets up, mumbling. If he did get it, he pretends not to. He goes over to someone sitting a few tables over and explains that he needs to resubmit their order because a crazy lady tripped him. I get up, ready to do it again, but then I sit right back down. The voice I hear responding to the waiter belongs to Luca, and he’s not alone. I get up and, protected by the trees, follow his voice. I could recognize it in the middle of a U2 concert, no matter what sound he was making—a laugh, a moan, a yell, and lately, the silence that feels like a slap in the face.
I peek out from behind a hedge and see them sitting at a table under an umbrella. He’s with her. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the elegant young woman that I saw him with outside of the apartment. Close up, even with the hedge obstructing my view, she’s even lovelier than I thought, and she’s not wearing sophisticated makeup or expensive clothes. Her hair is pixie short.
From here, as I listen to snippets of their conversation, I feel unsettled and slimy, like a snake. He’s slightly tense, sighing like a teenage boy in love. In a nasty tone, he says something about not letting her father get in the way. I feel like crap, and not just because I’m playing secret agent over here with a twig in my right nostril and bird poop on my shoulder. It’s because I can tell that Luca loves this woman. She seems to belong to the traditionally wealthy class. The watch on her wrist could pay for my apartment. I’m willing to bet that dear old dad learned that his daughter has the hots for a guy like him (read: a statuesque guy with a modest savings account) and has decided to exile the guy and lock up the girl. If only.
Luca alternates between nervousness and moments of strange sweetness. All of a sudden, he starts to talk about their love. “It’s a crazy thing!” he says, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Damn, Paola, I feel like I’m high.”
“My darling,” she says. “I’m happy. It amuses me, too, to see you so flustered.”
“Are you mocking me?” His eyes glisten. He looks lost.
“No, my dear. I’m just relieved. You know, bad boy Luca, the guy who devours women and spits them out. . . To see you so uncertain . . . and then to find out . . .”
“Hey, I didn’t say I’m in love. There’s something unusual and strong between us, but I don’t know if I can go that far. I just feel weird, like there’s a hole in my stomach. It could just be indigestion, or maybe an allergy. Let’s not get too carried away here.”
Her expression turns sulky. If I were her, I’d kick him. A young, unhappy billionaire trying to get her tyrannical father to accept Luca as a son, when he’s not even sure he really loves her? It makes me feel terribly cynical.
They’re still talking, but I hear someone coming. I don’t want to be seen lurking around like a creep so I get down and try to blend in with the bush like a chameleon for what seems like a century. Meanwhile, Luca and the woman leave. I’m just about to get up and leave myself when I hear a voice from above. It’s not God admonishing me for my sin of curiosity, but the telephone-pole waiter staring at me as if I were insane.
“I knew you were crazy!” he says. “What a freak!”
I grab Bear’s leash; he gets up feebly, and we race off along the path that leads out of the park. Once we hit the street, I finally let myself relax and burst out laughing.
“We’re quite a sight, aren’t we, Bear?”
He demonstrates his agreement by peeing on a tree trunk and then licking it.
It all comes rushing back to me soon after. Luca’s face. His voice, troubled from feelings he can’t understand. Paola. I can’t compete with a woman like her. She didn’t seem like another one of his conquests. She seems like someone nice, someone who picks daisies (probably gold-plated ones) in her spare time.
She seems like someone who’s bound to win.
TEN
Should I talk to him or keep ignoring him?
Through his bedroom door, I hear Luca typing on his laptop. Keeping up the silent treatment would probably be best. He doesn’t deserve my trust or even a shadow of forgiveness.
Yet here I am. I reach out to touch the door handle, then pull my hand back. I do the same thing several times. I’m just about to retreat when the door suddenly opens. Luca winces and frowns when he sees me. Damn it. It would be so much easier if he could just look gross once in a while. But he never does. He’s wearing the same ripped jeans he wore when we first met, a cotton V-neck sweater, and no shoes or socks. He runs one hand through his hair, holding a cigar stub in the other. After a moment of surprise, he steps back into his room.
“I thought you were out,” he murmurs. Everything and anything could be written in those eyes, but I can’t decipher a single word.
“Can I use your computer for a second?” I say bluntly. “My laptop’s been dead for a while, as you know . . . I was going to go to an Internet cafe, but it’s raining.”
He nods and invites me to come in. Our bodies brush momentarily as I pass by, and for a split second I feel like he touched me with his shoulder on purpose. Obviously I’m imagining things.
Luca’s room smells like cigars and grapefruit-scented aftershave and looks like a typical guy’s room. There are no added frills, just a bed, a dresser, and a desk. Nothing is on the floor except a stack of papers, an empty beer bottle, and a dune of cigar ashes in a glass. Now that I think about it, there haven’t even been any women in here the past few days. After his erotic encounter with Erika, he stopped having houseguests. He comes home late every night like always, but he’s alone. Once upon a time, I would have been thrilled. But now, with what I know about Paola and the conversation I overheard in the park, his metamorphosis isn’t comforting. He isn’t bringing home girls anymore because he’s falling in love with her. Other girls have become invisible.
I swallow a spasm of pain as I approach the computer. Just then, Luca squawks and rushes over to close an open file that he obviously does not want me to read.
“Don’t worry. I won’t look at your masterpiece,” I say curtly. But I did see that it was a letter. Perhaps to Paola. I hope it wasn’t to Erika. I clench my fists. Luca’s still hovering. Does he not trust me? I’m the one who doesn’t trust him, until he’s proven me wrong!
“You can relax,” I say. “I’m not going to go through your stuff.”
“I know that,” he says, but less rudely than before. He puts out the cigar in the glass of ashes and waves away the smoke as if to keep it away from me. I try to ignore his kind gesture and pull up Google Maps. I have to figure out how to get to the collectors that the toy store owner gave me. It’s not easy to do with Luca hovering over me like an angel. Or like a devil.
Silence reigns for several minutes. I write down the collectors’ phone numbers, copy and paste some images, and pretend to surf the Web a little longer even though I’m very much done. Then Luca’s voice rings out. It’s so unexpected that his voice is momentarily unrecognizable.
“I shouldn’t have done it.”
I gasp, my mouth falling open as the computer screen blurs before me. I don’t say anything. I don’t turn around. I don’t ask him to explain. I know exactly what he’s talking about.
“With your sister. I shouldn’t have done it,” he continues softly, as if he doesn’t want anyone else to hear. Sighing deeply, I get up. I’m grateful for this admission—knowing him, it’s equivalent to kneeling on a carpet of broken glass. But it’s not enough of an antidote to eradicate the poison. It doesn’t erase the memory of their two bodies intertwined, his cruel eyes when he saw me in the doorway, or the words he said afterward. I head for the door, still silent. I can feel his eyes following me, step by step. Just before I leave, he comes out with it.
“Have you been sleeping with Tony?”
I stifle a wince. “That is still none of your business,” I say coldly.
As I expected, taking the Metro would have required about a million changes, so I take a taxi. I’m very nervous by the time I arrive at my destination. I blame Rocky and his damn adaptation. I blame Luca and his chutzpah. Did he really think it would be enough to just admit he made a mistake and that everything would go back to the way it was before? The former didn’t work, and the latter remains to be seen, but the outcome does not look good.
Damn it, I have to focus on my job today. I can’t afford to be distracted. As the taxi drives away, I feel a chill. The collector’s cottage is cute and sweet—almost too sweet, just like all the houses in this neighborhood. Judging by the immaculate streets and the homes’ pastel facades, you’d think Disney princesses lived here. The cottage is pink, with lace curtains in the windows and a disturbing number of gnomes in the garden. Some are hanging from tree branches, some are attached to tree trunks, and several seem to be emerging from the ground through fake manholes. While they’re supposed to cheer the place up, to me they just look scary, like they’ll turn nasty once the clock strikes midnight or the sprinklers come on.
For a moment, I’m transported back to a childhood memory. It was the morning of my sixth birthday. My mother thought it would be a good idea to put Chucky’s twin sister on the pillow next to me before I woke up. I opened my eyes and there she was, staring at me with turquoise glass eyes and an evil grin. I screamed and threw her into my closet—a throw deserving of an Olympic bronze in shot put at the very least. I distinctly remember the thud she made as she fell to the floor. I swear that as she landed, her hair momentarily transformed into a tangle of snakes.
As I walk up to the house, I stifle a scream just like that one. I’m almost tempted to leave. After all, my phone call yesterday with the collector was not reassuring at all. A shrill, yet seemingly friendly woman picked up the phone. As soon as I explained who I was and who had given me her name, she fell silent. I thought the line had gone dead. Then I heard a string of quiet mutterings, of which I only caught the phrases find a girlfriend and get your ass out of the chair. She started to yell. “It’s just the census lady! She might drop by tomorrow! I’ll be home!” So the owner of the props I need might be a dangerous schizophrenic, but I can’t run away or Rocky will fire me for sure.
When in Rome Page 12