That Month in Tuscany (Take Me There)

by Inglath Cooper

  My face goes instantly warm. I’m blushing. “Should we walk on?”

  “Sure,” he says, and we continue down the street.

  Now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. Everywhere I look, I see something I want to capture.

  A window displaying the most incredible pastries. Mounds of them on beautiful Tuscan-colored platters. Arranged so artfully in the window that it must be nearly impossible for anyone to walk by without going inside and buying one.

  Pigeons squabble over a bread crust on the sidewalk.

  Two old women walk along, arm in arm, ahead of us. They are the exact same height, are wearing similar coats, one in a bright pink, one a mint green. They chatter nonstop in Italian, one not quite completing a sentence before the other one starts the next.

  I imagine that they are sisters, and they have talked this way all their lives. They laugh at something, and I click, catching the lines of amusement on their faces.

  The Accademia is a thirty minute walk from the hotel. The only reason I know how to get there is because I walked by it yesterday and ducked inside to get a schedule of hours and things to see.

  “Why have you been away from it?” he asks, so unexpectedly I have to think for a moment about what he is asking me.

  “You said you’ve missed it,” he adds. “Your photography.”

  The label is an obvious one, but I warm at the sound of it coming from him, at the same time remembering that I can’t think of a time when Ty actually called it that. My pictures. My hobby. But not my photography.

  “I guess it stopped seeming important in the big scheme of things,” I say.

  “To you?” he asks.

  “No. It’s always been important to me.”

  “Then unimportant to whom?”

  “My husband,” I say.

  His gaze drops to my left hand and the wedding band on my ring finger. I can see that it isn’t the first time he’s noticed it. I wonder if that’s why he’s here with me. Because I’m safe. Not a threat. Even though it’s absolutely true, it’s not what any woman wants to think of herself.

  Reality is, however, reality.

  According to my Google search, he is thirty-one. I’m thirty-eight with a college-age daughter. He’s also a celebrity. A guy who dates supermodels, if I’m looking to acknowledge any further reasons why it would never occur to me to think that he has singled me out for anything remotely resembling attraction.

  I actually feel a little embarrassed to find myself thinking along these lines. That’s how ridiculous it seems.

  “Why does he think it’s unimportant?” Ren asks, pulling me back to the conversation.

  I shrug. “I guess because it’s not really something that contributes significantly to our lives.”

  “Does it contribute significantly to yours?”

  I don’t have to think about the answer. It springs up automatically, refusing to be tamped back. “Yes.”

  “Then it matters,” he says, in a voice so full of conviction that I think how likely it is that no one ever disagrees with him.

  “What I meant,” I say, “is as a significant source of income.”

  “Things can be valuable even when there’s no monetary value attached.”

  “But there’s that word, compromise.”

  “In what way?”

  “We make concessions. To get along with others. To make life go more smoothly. Even when we’d rather not.”

  “But that’s when life begins to lose some of its shine, don’t you think?” he asks.

  “Are you saying you’ve never made any?”

  “Concessions?”

  I nod.

  “I’ve made plenty.”

  “I imagine anyone who gets to where you are would have to make a few here and there.”

  “You have to be careful which ones you allow yourself to make. Some, you can adjust to. Others are game changers.”

  We’re in front of the Accademia Gallery now. We walk inside and find the place to purchase tickets. I pay for mine first and then step aside and wait for him to get his.

  At the entrance, we hand over our tickets and start down a hallway with offshoot rooms of priceless statues.

  We step inside the first one. We separate at the center of the room. I wander left. He wanders right.

  I begin reading the plaques denoting the artist and the year the work was created.

  We intersect paths again at the end of one display. “Can you imagine creating something that would last this long? That people would travel from all over the world to see?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “I really can’t.”

  I glance at him. “Your work is kind of like that now. People come from all over the world to hear you.”

  “It’s not the same,” he says, “nowhere near the same.”

  “How so?”

  He waves a hand at a statue in front of us. “This is lasting. Worthy. What I do isn’t like that.”

  “It is to some people.”

  We walk on and continue looking, winding through another room full of marble statues, some of which sat outside for many years before being removed from the elements and housed here to prevent further damage.

  We finally find our way to the gallery’s most famous Michelangelo work: David.

  I had imagined that it would be incredible, but anything I pictured in my mind doesn’t come close to the real thing. First of all, he is more than seventeen feet tall, and so much wider, bigger than I had expected. The detail of his hands and feet is lifelike. I stare for a long time, studying every part, except for the part I can’t look at with Ren Sawyer standing next to me.

  Like the others around us, we’re both quiet, simply taking it in.

  “It doesn’t seem possible, does it?” Ren says.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “I read that the enormous piece of stone he used to create David sat outside in a cathedral courtyard for twenty-five years when its original commission fell through. Michelangelo convinced authorities that he was the man for the job. Can you imagine the work involved—how long it would take? Not even counting that, how could he end up with this from a chunk of stone? It’s nearly otherworldly.”

  “Yes,” I say. I can come up with no better word for it. I think I could stand for hours, absorbing the magnificence of the creation. And even then, I’m not sure that would do it justice.

  We wander away eventually, both of us notably reluctant. There are more exhibits to see. But somehow after David, it’s hard to give the other works their fair share of credit.

  It’s late afternoon by the time we leave the gallery, and the sun has dropped enough that shadows dapple between the buildings.

  I look at Ren and say, “Do you think Michelangelo had any way of knowing how people would see his work after he was gone?”

  “I doubt that he could dream its effect would be this lasting.”

  “I hope he knew on some level the things that his creations have made people feel.”

  “Yeah, me too,” he agrees.

  We talk almost none for the rest of the walk back. I keep my camera in front of me, looking for the next shot. By the time we arrive in front of the hotel, I’ve taken at least a couple of hundred photos.

  We walk through the main door and into the elevator. I can’t deny feeling a little bit of a letdown that the afternoon is ending. But, of course, it has to, as I knew it would.

  “Well,” I say, righting my bag on my shoulder. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your visit in Florence.”

  “You too.”

  “Maybe we’ll run into each other again,” I say, even though I’m getting the feeling that he hopes that won’t happen.

  It’s beginning to feel awkward so I decide not to ride up with him, making an excuse about needing to check for messages at the front desk. “So,” I say, “see ya.”

  “See ya,” he says and then quickly ducks into the elevator.

  I feel a bit stunned at his departure, al
though I’d be the first to admit how ridiculous that is. Considering that the life I am currently on vacation from holds virtually no opportunities for anything like this to happen, I suppose I should just chalk it up to once in a lifetime—like being hit by a meteor.

  If Kylie ever decides to have a conversation with me again, maybe I will tell her about it. Although I doubt that she would believe me. I walk over to the desk and check for messages with the receptionist, who hands me a piece of paper with a gold foil seal.

  I thank her and wait until I’m in the elevator to open it.

  Winn Everson asks that you call her at your earliest convenience. Urgent.

  I glance at my watch. Four-thirty here. It would be ten-thirty there.

  My stomach drops at the tone of the note, and suddenly, real life comes crashing back in. I can’t get to my room fast enough.

  14

  Lizzy

  I IMMEDIATELY PICK up the telephone on the desk and tell the hotel operator that I would like to make a call. I give her Winn’s cell number.

  Possibly two minutes pass during which I can feel my heart thudding in my chest, and my imagination starts to run away with me. Finally, I hear a click and then a ring followed by Winn’s not-quite-normal sounding, “Hello.”

  “Hey,” I say. “I just got your message. Everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry for leaving that. I hope it didn’t scare you. But I really needed you to call me.”

  “I would have called you without the urgent part,” I say, smiling a little in relief.

  “So how is it? Italy?”

  “Amazing. Beautiful.”

  “Just like you thought it would be?”

  “Better, actually. Is everything all right, Winn?”

  She sighs, long and miserable sounding.

  “Winn, you’re scaring me,” I say.

  “I shouldn’t have called,” she says, sounding suddenly doubtful.

  “What is it?” I ask, really worried now.

  “Jason was sick last night.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. Just a stomach virus. Anyway, he wanted some ginger ale, and we didn’t have any, so I drove to the store. It was like five o’clock this morning. I passed by your house, and there was a car in the driveway.”

  The last few words are rushed, as if she has to make herself get them out before she can change her mind. “And?”

  “Ty’s car was there too.”

  “Maybe Kylie came in with a friend,” I start, not sure why Winn is making such a big deal out of this.

  “It wasn’t Kylie,” Winn says.

  “How do you know?”

  A very long stretch of silence hangs between us before she says, “Because I recognized the car. It was Serena Billings.”

  I know the name as one of the recent hires at Ty’s firm. I search for anything else that had been mentioned about her and can come up only with the fact that Ty had said she was uber smart. Had recently graduated from Yale and was considered a coup for the firm.

  “Maybe they were working there last night, and she left her car for some reason.” This explanation sounds ludicrous to me even as I’m voicing it. Ty has never brought an associate to our house to work before. So it’s not exactly a habit I can draw on.

  “There’s more,” Winn says.

  Now the misery factor in her voice is amplified to a point where my stomach clenches in a knot.

  “Winn. What is it?” Even as I ask the question, dread swoops down over me, and I know somehow that I do not want to hear her answer.

  “I started not to tell you. You know what they say about everyone always wanting to kill the messenger.”

  “You’re not the messenger. You’re my best friend.”

  “I hope you’ll still say that when I’m done.”

  “Winn, please!”

  “Okay. I recognized her car because she recently joined the Junior League. We met after a luncheon at Chez Ma a couple of weeks ago. Her license plate is SOSUEME.”

  My stomach drops a few more floors, and this time I say the words through clenched teeth. “Just tell me, Winn.”

  “I went to the door. I rang the bell. Ty came downstairs. He was, let’s say, shocked to see me. There was someone upstairs, Lizzy. I didn’t see her, but I heard her. I asked him who it was, and he told me to mind my own f-word business. I told him I would, just as soon as I called you and let you know there was another woman in your bedroom.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed because I feel suddenly and completely sick. Like the time I had food poisoning and couldn’t quit throwing up for twelve hours straight.

  “I didn’t want to tell you, Lizzy,” Winn says, her voice breaking.

  I can tell she’s crying.

  “But how could I not?” she asks.

  My thoughts are spinning off in a dozen different directions, and I can’t decide which one to grab first. How long has he been seeing her? Is this why he backed out of our trip? Why he worked so late? Have there been others?

  “I’m sorry,” Winn says. “I’m really so sorry.”

  I open my mouth to reply but nothing comes out.

  “Are you angry with me?” she asks.

  “Of course not,” I manage. “Why would I be angry with you?”

  “If I hadn’t driven by there . . . if I hadn’t stopped—”

  “Then I would have just gone on being a fool, wouldn’t I?” My voice breaks on the end of the question.

  “You’re not a fool, Lizzy. You trusted him. That’s not the same thing.”

  “In this case it is.” I try for a laugh, but it just comes out bent and unrecognizable.

  “I’ll come over there,” Winn says.

  “No, Winn. You just said Jason was sick.”

  “He’ll be okay in a day or so, and I’ll come.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Really. Maybe it’s not such a big surprise.”

  “It is to me.”

  If I’m honest, it is to me also. On this side of it, I don’t know why. It’s not as if our life together has actually been together for a very long time. It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually, so that it was hard to notice the extent of it on a daily basis. And still, I had not guessed this. I would not have guessed this. Naïve fool that I am.

  “Maybe this is the first time, Lizzy.”

  “Please, don’t, Winn.”

  “You don’t know for sure.”

  “We haven’t slept together in over a year.”

  “What?” Winn finally asks, shocked.

  The silence is heavy, as if we’re in a locked room and a naked person has just dropped out of the air to stand between us.

  Winn mumbles, “Maybe that’s why he—”

  “Don’t even go there,” I say quickly. “Abstinence wasn’t my choice.”

  “He hasn’t wanted to?”

  I feel suddenly ashamed because how could anyone think that I wasn’t in some way to blame for it? “I had hoped this trip would be a renewal for us.” A laugh bubbles up out of me, but then morphs into a sob. Once the tears start, I can’t stop them. I can’t even speak.

  “Lizzy,” Winn says. “Let me come over there.”

  I’m tempted. I am so tempted. Because more than anything, I want someone to lean on, to cry against. Someone who knows me. Who understands exactly what this is doing to me.

  At the same time, I cannot stand the thought of her seeing me like this, witnessing firsthand the demolition of my self-respect from the inside out. Maybe in a while when I’ve picked up some of the pieces and started to put myself together again. Only right now, staring up at the ceiling of this room for which I had declared unyielding love just this morning, I cannot begin to imagine when that will be.

  “Give me a bit, Winn,” I say, struggling to make my voice even and convincing. “I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay?”

  “You don’t need to be alone right now, Lizzy.”

  “Actually,” I say, “that
is exactly what I need. Be good,” I add, and hang up.

  I stand, slowly, carefully, as if my bones have become fragile and might break at any unexpected move. I take off all my clothes and get in the shower. It’s the only place I can think of to go where my tears will instantly be washed away, and no one can hear me cry.

  15

  Ty

  DAMN. NOSY. BITCH.

  You pace the kitchen one end to the other. You rake a hand through your hair and tell yourself to calm down.

  What are the frigging odds of Winn showing up at the front door at five o’clock in the morning?

  Okay, so maybe you had been a little careless. Letting Serena drive here, leave her car parked out front.

  But then both of you had been a little too drunk to think that part through, which isn’t at all like you. You like to cover the bases. Look ahead for the pitfalls. Anticipate instead of decimate.

  This could definitely fall under the category of decimation.

  You almost wonder if Winn planned the whole thing.

  You’ve suspected more than once that she had doubts about you. Although there was a time when you were fairly sure you could have had her if you’d wanted her.

  But you didn’t, and she had known it.

  And it looks like she’s finally found a chance to pay you back.

  You had seen it in her eyes just before she turned away from the front door and stalked back to her car, all haughty superiority.

  You’d really love taking her down a peg or two. In fact, you’re sure if you dig around a little, you can find some interesting facts about her own husband that you’re pretty sure she doesn’t have a clue about.

  But that will save for later. Right now, you need a plan for how to fix this with Lizzy. If and when your marriage ends, it will be on your terms, at your instigation, not because Lizzy’s busybody friend sees fit to make it happen.

  You force yourself to put aside your anger to focus solely on what is most likely to prevent Lizzy from believing Winn’s side of this story.

  And then it occurs to you. You’ll do what she’d wanted you to do all along.

  16

  Ren