Florence in Ecstasy

by Jessie Chaffee

  The next day is bright with sun and warmer, and I ask Lorenza if I can leave early and then hurry to the club in the late afternoon. The men are already gone, but as I enter the locker room, anxious to change and get out onto the river before clouds move in, I find Francesca, bent before the mirror as always. She looks tired.

  “The sun brings everyone out of hiding, I guess,” she says. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Working.”

  She looks surprised. “You work? Where?”

  “At a library—the Biblioteca Serroni.” I unpack my clothing quickly.

  “Huh. Good for you. Guess you’re staying for a while. Good.” She begins coating her lashes with mascara, her eyes open wide. “A library. That would kill me, but good for you.” And, when I don’t respond, “I didn’t even know that place existed.”

  “It’s private. Mostly for students.”

  Francesca looks back at me, then returns her gaze to her own face before asking, as though as an afterthought, “You ever see Peter there?”

  “No.” I sit down and pull off my shoes.

  “Nice kid,” she continues, rustling through her bag on the sink ledge. “But a bit of a baby. That stunt out on the water?”

  She pauses, waiting for acknowledgment, until I say, “I feel badly for him.”

  “Huh.” She squeezes a bit of foundation onto a sponge and spreads it across her cheeks, under her eyes. “Who doesn’t? But I already have a kid, you know? The last thing I need is another one.”

  I don’t answer, but she continues with force.

  “He acts like it’s some big surprise that life isn’t perfect. That it isn’t fair. That is life. Not what you expect. And I have to explain that to him?”

  I nod. I know very well what she means.

  “Sure, you’re old enough to know that,” she continues. “You’re an adult. Not him, though.” She closes the little tube and rubs her hands together. “You can’t blame me.”

  I sit up at that. “I’m not. I don’t.” Meaning it.

  She meets my eyes in the mirror and nods.

  I finish changing quickly. Pants off, shorts on, not quite looking at my body but no longer as afraid of it as before. Not perfect. But better. When I look back, Francesca is still in front of the sink, unmoving.

  “He’s a good kid, though,” she says, catching my eye again. “You’re his friend, right?”

  “I guess so.” Guilt tugs at me.

  “Well, that’s good. I’d say you guys should date, but I guess you got a man, huh?” She gives me her sly look. “I’m still waiting for details.”

  “Sure.” I throw my clothes in my locker. “Another time, va bene?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Who knows how long that sun will stay out.”

  I leave Francesca with her doubts. I enjoy my afternoon on the river. The water is freeing, the sun warm on my shoulders. But in spite of the lightness of the afternoon and the sense that I have room to breathe out on the water, I have my doubts as well. I don’t think we can live in anticipation of disaster, and yet it often happens that we think tragedy has passed us by, or that we’ve survived the worst of it, when in fact we have witnessed only the initial blow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Hannah?”

  The next evening, a regular Tuesday, I’m at the supermarket having the young woman at the deli counter measure out due etti of cheese when I hear my name followed by whispering, and then I turn to see her.

  “Hannah!” she says brightly, approaching me around the vegetables. The same face, composed; her hair pulled back tight. The same voice from all those months ago—Look at you—but overly saccharine, as it was on the afternoon when I’d grown careless. No suit, but a sleek leather jacket that looks brand new, maybe purchased here in the market, and all I can manage is a soft “Claudia?”

  “It is you! My god, I didn’t recognize you for a minute. You look so good,” she says, then quickly, “Not that you didn’t look good before, but you look really great. Healthier.” Heavier is what she doesn’t say.

  “Basta così?” the woman at the counter asks, glancing at Claudia. My face must give me away because she adds, “Tutto a posto?” Are you okay?

  “Sì, grazie,” I say quickly, taking my little packet and holding her gaze a beat too long, wishing I could stay with her until Claudia disappeared, could forget I’d ever seen Claudia and get on with my life, but Claudia has turned around and is calling, “Matt, come over here!” to a tall man browsing the meats close by.

  “Matt, this is Hannah. My friend from work.” My friend. “You remember her, don’t you? From the benefit? I told you it was her.”

  “Oh, sure,” he says, the flesh gathering around his eyes as he smiles, and I know then that what he remembers is not speaking with me at the party, but whatever came afterward, maybe the conversation they had in the car on the way home, still tipsy, as they dissected the evening and he asked about the girl who was just a little too skinny and drank just a little too much—and Claudia would have assured him, her conscience clean, that she had already tried to intervene. Look at you.

  And just like that, my old life comes flooding into this small supermarket in Florence.

  My throat fills up. “What are you doing here?” I manage.

  “Well, we got engaged,” Claudia says.

  “Oh my god. Congratulations,” I say as she holds out her hand so I can see the ring glittering, large, on her finger.

  “You didn’t get my messages?” she asks. She sounds surprisingly hurt.

  I shake my head. The e-mails. Shit.

  “Anyway, I was dying to share the news with you. And then Matt found this great last-minute deal to Italy, and I thought, why not? I know it’s the week before Thanksgiving, but I told Robert that I just had to take it. Everyone says this is the best time to be here, between the tourist seasons. And it’s true—I don’t think we’ve had to wait in a single line, have we, Matty?” Then they launch into a catalog of everything they’ve done so far, and I think about the last time I saw Claudia, when I swung open the door of that strange bathroom with a smile, as though she hadn’t heard anything, couldn’t see the red around my eyes or smell the bile coming off my breath.

  Early June. We were in the home of one of the board members. His apartment was balanced at the top of a tall glass building, a great eye looking over the city. All windows, and nowhere to hide. Sparse everything, except for the drinks and the food, which kept coming—Don’t you want any? Aren’t you hungry? You need to put some meat on those bones.

  They’re envious, I’d thought. But I could feel their eyes—Claudia, the director, the trustees—and so I took everything they offered me. How much? I lost track. I couldn’t hold on to anything anymore. Any time someone said something, I ate. Too much. Far too much. Too much to drink as well.

  Our host joined our circle, began talking about something that seemed humorous, though his look told me I was wrong to laugh when I did, and so I excused myself, walked over to one of the many windows to look out. I tried to stay steady, but we were so high up, and it felt like the building was swaying, or I was swaying. Everything was swaying.

  Slowly the haze began to lift, and then I could feel inside of me all the food, all the wine. A ticking bomb. And for what? I had to see myself. To empty myself. I couldn’t wait.

  I found the bathroom at the end of a hallway. Slate and marble with a broad mirror. I stripped off my blouse, my pants, watched my image swaying. Then I bent over the toilet—pressure in my head, cold tiles hard under my knees—I was clutching the bowl. There was no choice. I could see myself in the water. If only you were… Then I stopped thinking and let everything come up. I was crying. I always cried when I threw up.

  I was not listening. I was careless. The door opened. I thought I’d locked it, but I must not have, because it opened. Though I didn’t notice until I heard a quiet “Oh.” A small person in the doorway. A girl. Seven? Eight? The daughter. The trustee’s daughter. I stood up, m
umbled something, tried to cover myself, but she fled. The room was spinning. I closed the door, locked it, dressed, turned on the faucet and let it run and run until there was knocking.

  “Hannah?” a voice asked. Claudia.

  It was done. I knew it was done.

  “Hannah, some people have been saying…” In Robert’s office again. He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. “Is there someone you can talk to?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, “I just need to take better care of myself.”

  He sighed. “I—we can’t.”

  And then I knew that the eyes wouldn’t leave me.

  “We’ll take care of you, of course—three months’ severance.”

  I nodded. It was done.

  He didn’t look at me then, left his glasses on the desk. “I’m sorry” is all he said.

  My sister in her well-ordered apartment: “You should sue.”

  “It’s over. I made mistakes—other mistakes. It’s in my contract.”

  “Still. You’re not yourself. You’re sick.” She paused, then added softly, “Maybe you should get some help.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Hannah…”

  “For god’s sake, stop looking at me.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” Claudia says once they’ve caught me up to today, to this very moment in the supermarket. “You’ve been here for quite a while?”

  Who told her that? I take a few steps away from the counter, giving a nod to my friend, as though walking Claudia and Matt away from her might keep this place mine.

  “It’s just a break,” I say. But taking in their anticipatory expressions, I have the urge to defend it, and so I continue. “An extended break, to really get the experience of living here,” and I tell them, then, that I belong to a rowing club, have a job, have some “Italian friends,” which means, of course, that I’m learning to speak Italian pretty well—not fluent, but getting better. They’re trying to look interested, but they overcompensate, grinning and nodding as you might to appease a small child, this couple, with their secure relationship and their excellent choices. Even if they find any of what I say valid, they won’t admit it, I realize. My choices are the choices of someone who is flailing, and this is all I can think as I try to make my life here stick. Look at you. The more I say, the smaller I feel, and so I stop. I’ve already given them too much. She’ll tell everyone again.

  “That sounds so nice, doesn’t it, Matt?” Claudia says. Then she checks her watch. “Honey, go pay for our stuff, would you? I’d love another minute with Hannah.”

  Dutifully he heads toward the cashiers.

  “Girl talk,” Claudia says to me, putting a hand on my arm just as she had that afternoon in the bathroom, her excitement camouflaged by concern. I look down at her arm in her new leather jacket.

  “So are you seeing anyone here?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. “No.” I won’t let her have that, not him.

  “Shoot. I was hoping for a little romance—you deserve it!” Her voice is higher pitched now. She waits for me to say more, but there is nothing left to say. “Well, you look great. Much healthier.” Heavier. “You have to come to dinner with me and Matt. How about Saturday? Anyway, it has to be Saturday. After that, we leave for Cinque Terre.” She says it with a soft c like an s, rather than the hard Italian ch. “Everyone talks about it. Sinkwa Terra. Sinkwa Terra. And then it’s back home—it goes so fast. God, I envy you, just hanging out here.” I wince, but she continues. “So, dinner Saturday? We’ve found this restaurant with the most amazing steak—and the waiters are delicious. Maybe we can set you up?”

  I shake my head. “I have plans,” and I do. Luca and I are driving to the coast. But my voice sounds hollow.

  “That’s really too bad.” She pauses, gives me a moment to change my mind. “Well, how about this—we can grab a coffee tomorrow or the next day. There’s no way I’m leaving this city without seeing you again. Just a quick coffee. I’ll e-mail you tomorrow—sound good?”

  She waits, keeping those same sharp eyes locked on me, no room for questions or doubts, no escape from the extended humiliation, and so I promise we’ll meet and give her a hug that is too warm.

  I wander the aisles, waiting for them to leave, my mind racing with the exuses I will fabricate. Then I leave myself without buying anything, abandoning the small satchel of cheese on a shelf. The city feels different when I get outside, like it might blow away with a strong wind.

  Something has come loose. Just one small thing, but it’s enough.

  The next day I go to work in the morning and the club in the afternoon. I almost collide with Luca coming out of the locker room, and I must look terrified because his own surprise turns to laughter as he puts his arms around me.

  “You thought I was a ghost?” he asks.

  I have lunch with him and the men, and I smile and nod on cue, but I feel far from them. Walking back to the library, I glance around, as though I might find my old life at every corner. Claudia is still in the city, so I am not mad—this is a possibility, in fact. There’s no hiding here. And like clockwork, her e-mail arrives—“Meeting up!”—outlining her itinerary and the many open windows in which me might connect. We have so much to catch up on—all these months that you’ve been here. It’s great to see you doing so well. You have to tell me your secret! And though she doesn’t say it, in the spaces between her words are the words you will slip up. You will slip up again. I do not respond.

  The feeling stays with me all through the next day, and it is with me at Luca’s house in the evening.

  “Stai bene?” Luca asks, and I realize I’ve been staring out his kitchen window, unspeaking.

  “Sì, sorry. I’m great,” and I smile and smile, put my arms around him, feel the heat coming off him, and still I can’t shake the chill. We talk, but I don’t know what I’m saying. We make love, but I feel like there’s someone else in my place. You will slip up. Because I’m faking it, all of it. I’ve been lying to him, I’ve been lying to everyone, sweeping my past away as though it didn’t belong to me, as though it wasn’t mine. What was I thinking coming here?

  The next morning, I’m showered, dressed, and anxious to go, but when I come out of the bedroom, shivering with wet hair, it smells like coffee and I find Luca in the kitchen preparing breakfast, upbeat and humming.

  “But you’re late.” I smile and try to look like the woman he’s been with for weeks, try to remember what she might say, what she might do.

  “First, breakfast. Then we go.” He takes a tomato off the counter and tosses it to me. “Dio spero,” he says.

  “A tomato?” I ask, letting it roll from one hand to the other.

  “No, no.” He produces a small knife and takes the red orb from me, slicing it evenly in two, index finger to thumb. “It is like a fruit. It is sweet.”

  He carefully hands me half. Its gelatinous insides are more orange than red and jiggle with the slightest vibration. My teeth cut the skin to find fruit like a plum. Juice spills out. Luca laughs and catches it in his palm.

  “You like it?”

  “Mmm…” I mumble, chewing slowly. “It’s great.”

  We finish it between the two of us and it feels, for a minute, just as it always does when we are together.

  “Dio spero,” I repeat the name. “God hopes?”

  “Divine fruit,” Luca corrects, reaching for another one and pausing to inhale it deeply with a smile before putting an arm around me. “Diospiro.”

  I try to hold on to the moment, to hold on to him as we rattle down the small roads into the city and he leaves me at the bridge near the library, reminding me that he’ll see me the next morning for our trip to the coast. I try to believe that this is real, that this counts. But as I make my way through my usual tasks, it is hard to recall the sweetness of the morning, even as I keep mistranslating God hopes in the hope that there is someone somewhere, however distant, rooting for Luca, for me, for a safe end to this day, b
ut I feel instead the weight of the past, the depth of my lies, and the desire to hide.

  And so I’m not surprised that my hopes go unanswered when Luca calls that same evening.

  “Ciao, Hannah, mi dispiace. I cannot meet tomorrow.”

  “It’s fine.” I’m more relieved than anything else. “It’s no problem. Is everything okay?”

  “I must go to Arezzo again. For the weekend and… for longer, I think.” His voice is calm, but it falters when he adds, “My father, well, ci vediamo.” We’ll see.

  “I’m so sorry, Luca.”

  He sighs. “Grazie. It’s possible I come over tonight? To say good-bye?”

  I hear the need in his voice. But I can’t bring myself to say yes. I have to think. I have to get back to myself. “I’m not feeling so well.”

  “Davvero? Then I can take care of you,” he says, softer.

  “I don’t want to make you sick, too, Luca. I have to sleep. When you get back. We’ll go to the coast. When you get back.”

  On Saturday morning, another message from Claudia—“Hello???” I think about responding with a slew of excuses about my busy life here. Instead I return to the supermarket and load up a cart, then spend the entire day at home preparing a meal, determined to make true the fact that I have plans, even if they are only cooking and sipping wine with the music from my small radio keeping me company.

  I don’t eat in the kitchen but instead set the table in the living room with the nicest silverware and dishware I can find. I’ve made braised chicken and vegetables, and a fennel salad with pine nuts and Parmesan. I light a candle and pour myself a glass of wine, turn out the kitchen lights, and carry the radio into the living room. But when I sit down to eat, I find that I’m not hungry. I take a few bites but then leave it. I go to bed early without having eaten.

  In the days that follow, I try to get back to my rhythm, to be fully present as I sip my morning coffee on the balcony, chat with Lorenza about my reading, pull long strokes on the ergometer, eat lunch at the café, walk slowly home along the river, drink a glass of wine over dinner, turn up the radiator just a bit before I climb into bed. In these sensations—the steaming coffee always in the same cup, Lorenza’s small smile each morning when I arrive, the tap tap tap of my fingers on the computer, the warm greetings of the men at the club, the rhythmic wheeze of the ergometer, the conversation buzzing around my table at lunch, the loud clink as I lock up the library, the chill that cools me on my walk home, the light snapping on in the stairwell, the smell of gas when I light the stove, the drip and hiss of the radiator when I drift to sleep—in each of these is the promise that this life can be sustained. As though by performing these actions in the same way each day, I might hold on to it. You will slip up. As though the past with its ghosts doesn’t exist if I don’t look at it directly, like a child who closes her eyes tight and believes that, in her blindness, those things that she fears cease to be.