by Liska Jacobs
“Dad taught Guy everything he knows,” I tell him. “My mother doted on him. He’s part of the family.”
It’s easy to play the part when everything feels like a production. The discerning investor and his pruned Pomeranian, the grilled razor clams with lemon halves wrapped in cheesecloth, twine tied around the ends in little bows. And the prosecco in delicate crystal glasses, never mind that we’re on a yacht and if one were to break it would make a terrible mess—Hollywood is about the aesthetics.
But you can only pretend so much. That photography exhibit—Emily and I passed around the room, chatting and chatting until I thought I could not hear my own voice another minute. Photos of us on the walls—as children, playing naked in the sand; in the arms of a young starlet; examining a toy in a smoke-filled room. Or later, no longer little girls but not yet women, how the angles changed and became more objectifying. I remember one titled Mother and Daughter and there was Emily, hair done up like Mom’s. They were in matching bikinis, identical smiles and flashing blue eyes. Even their toes in the sand looked identical. The car ride home that night was roaring silence. How exhausted I felt, how empty. I remember hearing Emily in the backseat quietly crying.
I tell the investor stories meant to make him feel part of the fold.
“You can never tell anyone I said this but…”
He is enraptured, I can tell by the way he laughs and leans forward, how he makes sure my glass is filled. We are playacting, I want to tell him. You poor fool. Guy’s hand on my knee, his thumb stroking. None of this is real. I miss Rome, I miss Donato. His eyes on me.
“This movie is going to win every award,” I tell the investor, because if I learned anything from those long-ago parties, it’s that everyone is looking for the one thing that will have made their living worthwhile.
“It will be your legacy,” I say, tipping the last of the prosecco into my mouth.
On the way back into the city, Guy is the quiet one. I roll down my window, so I can cool my flushed cheeks. The sun is setting and the whole lush countryside is blushing pink and purple.
Guy puffs on a cigarillo. “Thank you, Cilla,” he says, blowing the smoke out like a big sigh. “You were wonderful.”
I can feel the energy slipping from me. I’ve forgotten how depleting a performance like that is. The depression that sets in afterward. It’s reminded me of every boardroom meeting or studio visit or Hollywood party where I had to work the room. How afterward my hands would shake, and sometimes I’d cry on the drive home. That kind of loneliness is sharp.
“It was easier when I was younger,” I say, rubbing my temples.
He smiles at me a little, his eyes welling up. “You were always my good luck charm. Christ, look at me. I’m a mess.”
Something in me relents a little. I remember how gawky-looking he was when we were younger. Scruffy beard and big ears, how he thought mock turtlenecks were fashionable. We have a history, an understanding, which is more than most relationships.
“Come here,” I tell him, and he does, which is awkward because he’s bigger than me and we’re still in the backseat of the town car. But I manage to wrap my arms around him and press my face into his hair, kissing the top of his head. “And you were always the emotional one.”
He laughs, twisting to look at me. “I’m getting worse in my old age.”
I must know every line in his face. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the lines around his mouth, even the ones etched into his forehead and neck. I used to think of him, but now, alone at night, it’s Donato’s boyish face I see. Those plump round lips touching my throat, my breasts. I’ll close my eyes, and there he is, hovering above me. But it’s a losing race. I’ll be panting and fantasizing, his mouth here, there—I’ll be on the verge, but then anxiety overcomes. The creeping suspicion that I may no longer be a sexual creature.
“Now you look like the one about to cry,” Guy says, touching my cheek.
“I’m tired too,” I say.
* * *
It’s dark by the time we reach Rome. We pass the Colosseum again, now lit in gold and white lights. The streets are damp and shining from a sudden rain shower. It’s humid, the air thick and smelling of exhaust.
We eat at the St. Regis, in the mirrored ballroom beneath glowing chandeliers. There are potted ferns everywhere. Frescoes on the arched ceilings, the color so rich they look cartoonlike and cheap. Everything is gilded. When we’re seated I realize the chairs are actually plastic, not lacquered wood—and those mirrored walls have been treated, made to look aged. There is a phoniness to the room, a feeling of something that was once grand, now poorly modernized.
Guy orders champagne, but then looking at me he changes his mind. “Bring us two large whiskeys before you bring us anything else.”
The drink does me good. At first, I think it isn’t working, the headache is worse than before, the room more vulgar and repulsive, but then suddenly I’m drunk. The gaudy pomp starts to grow on me, I feel affection toward the other patrons—the well-dressed Arabs, the women in their beautiful silk hijabs and chunky jewels, the older couples, even the white-haired woman across the room who is staring and smiling because she thinks Guy and I are younger versions of she and her husband.
I take Guy’s hand after the appetizer of sea bass ceviche, after Guy asks if I want another whiskey.
“Or would you prefer to see the wine list?”
“Wine list,” I say, smiling, and he smiles too.
We drink a bottle of Gewürztraminer from Alto Adige, and then with the main course a bottle of Chianti from Tuscany.
“I see why you look the way you do,” he says, motioning to me with his glass.
I sit straighter, run my fingers through my hair. “What do you mean?”
“You are in love with Rome,” he says. “And it is in love with you.”
The chef sends out a special for us—a tiramisu with ginger jelly and chocolate flakes.
“Oh, yummy,” he says.
And I can tell by his eyes, by their watery sheen, that he will try to take me up to his room.
I take a large sip of wine. “How is Trudy?”
He offers me the last of the tiramisu, and when I shake my head he scoops it into his mouth and relaxes into his chair, patting his stomach. “Let’s not talk about her,” he says. “I’m here with you.”
He’s taken my hand, moved it to below the table, onto his leg.
“A nightcap first?” I ask, and he calls the waiter over and orders us two cognacs.
I don’t want to think of the effort it will take. The layers of clothes to take off; the hope that I can make him hard, that I will get wet. Sex with Guy sounds exhausting. But haven’t I wanted this? For years now, I’ve been waiting for him to turn back to me.
He swipes the check from the table. “I owe you enough,” he says, slipping the waiter his card.
In the elevator he kisses me, almost hungrily. “Cilla, Cilla, you’re still so beautiful. Do you know that? So beautiful,” he says against me.
I try not to think of anything. I have wanted this for so long, I remind myself again. I catch sight of us in the glossy elevator doors. Guy buried in the shallow of my neck, my eyes nearly closed. Do we look like that old version of us? Could I be seventeen again? I slip my hands into his pants, something I would not have done a decade ago—not in a public space. His eyes widen and he lets out a pleased groan.
It goes exactly how I feared it would. After thrusting and grunting, after we have both worked up a sweat and I’ve tasted the Chianti and the ginger from the tiramisu, he goes limp in me. Then, when he’s worked himself back up, I am dry. He spits onto his fingers, working it around. I try not to look disgusted, try not to say right then, Enough. I pant and sigh and bounce around until he comes with a tender shudder and a grating of his teeth.
“Did you come?” he asks, rolling over.
Hmm-hmm.
“You really are beautiful; you do know that, don’t you?” he says, still out
of breath. He sits up, making the sheet slide off him. I can see his flaccid penis, limp in the condom, resting against his thigh.
“I got the good sister,” he says, kissing my arm. He gets up and crosses the room bare-assed to the bathroom.
“What do you mean by that? The good sister.”
“You know,” he calls. I hear the shower turn on.
I wince a little when I stand. I’ll be sore tomorrow. “No, I don’t.”
He’s sitting on the toilet. “Hey,” he says, covering himself with a towel. “Some privacy would be nice.”
“I’ve seen it before. Tell me what you mean by the good sister.”
Under the fluorescent lighting he looks older and heavier.
“You know how Emily was—she could have been a genuine child star. I set up an audition for her once, it would have made her. But nothing I did was good enough.” His face takes on a bitter slant.
“When was this?” I manage. “I don’t remember that.”
He shrugs, his shoulders looking fragile and delicate.
“I don’t know, she was probably ten or twelve years old. What does it matter? Instead she grew up to become queen of San Clemente. What a waste.” He makes a face and flushes the toilet.
We’re both back in bed, Guy holding me. Even after rinsing off, his scent is almost suffocating. The little hairs he trims on his chest prickling against my skin. I don’t know why I missed this part most.
“Is that Trudy?” I ask when his phone lights up.
“Huh?” He stirs and lets go of me, reaching for his phone.
“Guy,” I say with emphasis. “Is that Trudy?”
For a moment I’m not sure I’ve said anything. He continues texting. I feel my face get hot. I keep thinking of him saying, the good sister. Am I the good sister because I never demanded anything from him? Because I was available?
“Being with Hannah these last few weeks has got me thinking.”
“About?” he asks.
“You and me.” I can’t stand the smile on his face, that he’s still looking at his phone. “I was her age when we first got together.”
“Were you really? That can’t be right.”
“It was after my birthday party, when you said I looked like a young Jane Fonda.”
He brings my hand up to his face and kisses the back of it. “Who can remember that long ago?”
The phone chimes each time Trudy messages him back. I get up to open the balcony door. The hotel room is climate controlled, and the burst of hot wet air is breathtaking.
“What are you doing? It’s miserable out there. Come to bed. My flight isn’t leaving until later in the morning.”
I think I can make out the Duomo near Paul and Hannah’s apartment. I wonder if Donato is awake. What he thought when he heard from Hannah that Guy was in town. If he cared at all. I’m sure Paul told her. Guy had gone to the university first to get a house key. I want to surprise Cilla, he told my brother-in-law. Another fool.
“I just remembered.” I turn back to the room. “We’re taking the early train for Bari in the morning and I haven’t packed.”
He doesn’t object, he even offers to dress and walk down with me. “It’s fine, don’t get up on my account.”
I don’t wait for him to say goodbye. I’m in the elevator and then outside, hailing a cab. The bellboys and doorman wishing me buonanotte despite it being past two a.m.
At Paul and Hannah’s I can’t sleep. I shower and pack, but when I lie down all I can think about is Hannah’s first birthday party. It was at our parents’ house. And I remember standing at the kitchen window with Emily, washing our lunch plates, watching our parents walk with Hannah along the beach.
She’s so bright, Emily was saying. I love watching her discover things.
I’m glad things are getting easier. I was doing the washing, she the drying. Every once in a while, she’d pause, and I’d have to remind her where a dish went.
From the narrow twin bed, I can see the light changing, hear the cicadas renew their drone.
And then Emily said, Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want Guy to be alone with her.
How enraged I was. We argued but she remained resolute. A panicked awareness sharpened somewhere within me. He’s my boyfriend, I shouted. Then you won’t see either of us.
* * *
The train car is packed with preteens heading to Puglia for some kind of overnight camp. Their energy is chaotic, and the train hasn’t yet left the station. Backpacks clutter the aisles, boys are hanging out of their chairs, teasing the girls, who are huddled together. The racket is intolerable, the smell too. I try to catch the eye of the adults sitting with them, but they’re busy talking among themselves.
“Cilla, I think our seats are over here,” Paul calls to me.
We’ve reserved a table for four and a pair nearby. One of the girls lets out a hyena-like laugh when I pass by. An Italian boy is tormenting her and her friends.
“The train is packed,” I say to Paul, who grunts as he tries to fit his luggage into the overhead bin.
“Here, let me,” Donato says to Hannah, and takes her bag. “Grazie,” my niece replies prettily.
In the morning, when Hannah and Paul came downstairs they were surprised to see me.
I thought for sure you’d be with Uncle Guy, Hannah said. I didn’t give anything away, I pretended it had been a glamorous evening. I exaggerated the yacht, the rich investor.
The most delicious grilled razor clams, I said. And Italian shellfish risotto.
I tried to catch Donato’s eye, but he was preoccupied with his phone. He arrived early with his parents, looking younger and more beautiful. Risotto ai frutti di mare, he corrected me without looking up.
“Maybe we can upgrade to first class,” I say to Paul, who is wiping his hair from his forehead. The train has not yet turned on the air.
“You can certainly try,” he says. “But it’s probably fully booked. Every Italian is escaping for the seaside.”
“Cilla,” my niece says, bouncing into the window seat at the table, “you can sit with me.”
Tonio and Marie take the seats facing her.
“I brought a deck of cards.” She places the pack on the table. “Mom said the two of you used to play.”
Fleeting glimpses of when Mom and Dad’s partying kept us awake—Go Fish and gin rummy and crazy eights. But I don’t want to think of that.
Paul and Donato have taken the pair of seats a few rows away.
“I’m a little hungry,” I tell my niece. I steal a glance at Donato, who is texting someone, smiling a coy, secret smile. This depresses me more than the memory of Guy last night in the hotel room. I had paused in the doorway as I left, turned to look at him one last time. The plush wall panels and sconces, the four-poster bed, it could have been the setting of a Renaissance painting. And in the middle of it was an overweight fifty-nine-year-old, hair askew, clutching the sheet over his naked body in case somebody was in the hall.
“I think I’ll go see what they have in the café car.”
I push past the children who are running around unchecked. I tap a boy on the shoulder to ask him to move. He doesn’t understand, and I have to squeeze by him.
The attendant in the café car is young, probably not much older than Donato. I order a vodka and soda. “It is early,” he says, pointing to a clock on the wall. I hold his gaze. He produces two miniature bottles and a cup of ice. “Mille grazie.” I sit at one of the tables and try to compose myself. There’s room to breathe here, the A/C is already on, and I have the car to myself. The windows are large, larger than the ones in economy class. I can watch the bustling train station, the rush of passengers hurrying, hurrying. I drink the vodka fast, hoping it will ease the various pains in my joints, the soreness in my groin.
When Donato enters he stops at the bar and then comes over with two newspapers, one in Italian and another in English.
“You left us at the park,” he says, sitting a
cross from me. He puts the papers between us, examining their headlines. I’m pretty sure he’s pretending to read, because a moment later he looks at me and asks, “Did you have fun with Uncle Guy?”
I struggle to keep from crying out with glee. He’s jealous. I clear my throat, lean across the space between us.
“I’m sorry I left you in the park. Guy is just an old friend and he needed my help.”
He presses his lips, thinking it over.
I add, “I would have rather stayed with you.”
Allora. He grins and goes to buy a split of prosecco at the bar.
“A drink before a journey is good luck.” He taps his cup to mine. When he tilts his head closer to me a curl falls forward. “Let’s stay here, there are many children in our car.” His gaze falls across my chest. I’m wearing a silk blouse, a camisole underneath, but still I feel him looking at my breasts. “And the views are better.”
I can’t help it, I smile. “You’re impossible.” The train lurches, beginning to move.
“Give me your feet,” he commands.
“What? No.” I laugh nervously—ignoring that he’s reaching beneath the table for my legs. I feel his hands groping.
“Donato,” I say, but I can hear how breathy I sound. I think of the clichés—of older women and younger men. He is only seventeen. I should pull away, I know. But I don’t.
Outside, the city is getting farther and farther behind us. We pass ruins of aqueducts, of cathedrals and basilicas and castles. Farmland spreads out. Wheat fields tall and blond. The train gliding along the track. When I shut my eyes the sunlight speckles the backs of the lids, I can feel heat coming from the window.
His hand has slipped past my ankle, he’s stroking the narrow part of my calf. Different from Guy, who would have plunged forward, confident. I can tell Donato isn’t sure if I will stop him or not. I’m not sure either. I only know that I like the feeling of his fingers exploring.