The Girl in the Glass (10 page)

I believe my uncle Francesco stowed this painting away somewhere, or perhaps he sold it. Or destroyed it. There were many nights after it was taken down that I would huddle in front of the place where it hung and I would whisper things to her in the blank space. I wish I knew where that painting was. I would ask Francesco, but he is dead, and my uncle Ferdinando doesn’t know where it is. He has said he will look for it, but I worry
that he will not. It’s not important to him. Ferdinando doesn’t need reminders of the day my mother wore that dress. He was there. Ferdinando doesn’t have devastating moments when he forgets—even just for seconds—what she looked like.

8

The first thing I did after my mother left was toss my cell phone onto my bed where I wouldn’t hear it, and then I went out to my munchkin-sized patio with Sofia’s pages. I wanted to lose myself in Florence more than ever. Alex followed me. I sat down on a wicker chair, its faded daisy chair pad still clammy from the morning marine layer. I didn’t care. Alex jumped into my lap, and I began to read.

When I begin my tours, I tell my guests to close their eyes and whisper the lovely word “renaissance.” Isn’t it the most elegant word in all the world? Renaissance. A time of renewal. Even those who do not know what
renaissance
means know something beautiful began when this word replaced the Dark Ages. And when God gave the world the Renaissance artists, He gave us artistic genius the likes of which have not been seen since.

Renaissance
is a French word with a lovely meaning. It means to be reborn. It is a word with hope infused in every letter. It assures us that what has fallen into pieces can be made whole, what has sagged into ugliness can be made beautiful again, what has died can have life breathed into it once more. My father told me I should never forget this and I never have.

It is widely known that there were many in the Medici family who rocked heaven with immoral, even diabolical, schemes. The Medici were often unjust and unfaithful: they killed, they harmed,
they betrayed. And yet their passion for beauty and elegance funded the greatest creations outside the hand of God.

Beauty tamed them as it tames us all, Nora has assured me, if only for the moment.

Nora was the granddaughter of Cosimo I, the first grand duke of Tuscany. Her mother, whose life story is a sad one for another telling, was Isabella de’ Medici. When Nora was born, Michelangelo and da Vinci and the other great ones had already come and gone. Nora lived in the echo of their accomplishments, and those echoes kept her from caving in to despair. For, you see, she did not lead the happiest of lives.

I think this is why it is her voice I hear. It is her young woman’s voice that emanates from the stone and canvases; that part of her she left in Florence when she married and moved away. She knew sadness here as I have known sadness, but she also found Florence eager to heal the wounds suffered while in her embrace, just as I did.

Florence was established by Julius Caesar as a settlement for his veteran soldiers. It was named Florentia, which means “flourishing,” for a reason.

We are not meant to languish here. Even if our situation flattens us. In Florence we are meant to find that which will empower us to live in the caress of what we can imagine. This is what Nora has whispered to me.

It is not a ghost I speak of. It is not a dead Nora who speaks to me. The Nora who died in her sixties in a convent, I do not know her. The Nora who speaks to me is the young woman who had not yet left Florence for good. The one who speaks to me is the one who still knew how to hope.

I read it twice, lingering on Sofia’s phrases. At lunch I read both chapters again.

The rest of the day passed slowly. I did laundry. Washed my car. Cleaned out the litter box. Swept the porch. Vacuumed. Read. Hopped onto Facebook to see if anyone had posted pictures of Miles’s wedding. And when I saw that someone had, I scrutinized the images, studying Miles’s and Pamela’s happy, serene faces for clues as to how they managed to get their lives to play out just like they were supposed to.

When that contemplation afforded me no quick answers, I sent a quick message to Lorenzo, telling him that my father was making plans for us to come this summer and that I hoped he and Renata would be around in June. And might he ask Ms. Borelli if I could see a few more chapters? And then I sat around waiting for Lorenzo to reply, as if he’d be awake and loitering on Facebook in the middle of the night.

I stayed up until after midnight watching a dumb movie, then slept poorly. I awoke several times, wondering as I wandered in and out of sleep what exactly Sofia meant when she said the paintings and sculptures spoke to her in the voice of a Medici woman named Nora. In that in-between place of sleep and wakefulness, I imagined I knew what Sofia meant, but only in the smallest of ways. When I was young, sometimes I could hear the music that the girl in my nonna’s painting danced to in front of the beckoning statue. At least that is how I remembered it. Perhaps it was only Nonna humming a tune while in the kitchen, a melody that swirled into the hall where the painting hung and where I stood gazing at it.

But when I awoke in the morning, Sofia’s claims that she could hear statues and paintings whispering to her needled me. I was a child when I imagined I heard the music. She was an adult who should know better. After reading her chapters over coffee a third time, I texted Gabe and asked
if I could go to his church with him instead of my usual rendezvous at my mother’s. Gabe attends an artistically minded church that meets in a refurbished warehouse in East Village. They were as likely to paint or dance a sermon as preach one. But he was on his way to Orange County to visit a friend. I asked him how his date was, and his one-word reply was “Okay.” I was immediately aware of my selfish desire to keep Gabe right where he was. Available.

I ended up going to church with my mother anyway. She told me in between choruses of “Blessed Assurance” that Devon looked forward to having coffee with me. After eating crepes for lunch with her, I went home and rearranged the furniture that isn’t mine.

By Sunday night I had a very clean cottage, no further word from my father, no return message from Lorenzo, and an e-mail from Devon: “Coffee after work on Tuesday?”

Sure.

He asked for my phone number. In case we needed to contact each other. And he gave me his.

I was hungry all day Monday. Hungry to hear back from Lorenzo, hungry for more of Sofia’s memoir, hungry to hear back from my father, hungry for Florence. I e-mailed Lorenzo when he still hadn’t responded to my Facebook message and then hungered for an e-mail back from him. I was hungry for details of Gabe’s okay date, hungry to get Geoffrey and Beatriz on board with the memoir thing, and hungry to not be hungry for anything.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to pump Gabe for details on the date, and he didn’t offer any. He was happy to hear my dad was at last making plans to take me to Florence, but he was cautious in his enthusiasm. “Let me
know when you have the dates,” he said. “I’d be happy to take you to the airport.” But the tone of his voice sounded more like “Let me know if you actually get an airline ticket out of this guy, and I’d be happy to take you to the airport.”

“I think he might be serious this time,” I said.

And Gabe said he hoped I was right.

I mentioned to Geoffrey that I might take a week or so off in June, and he grumbled that August would be better and what did I mean by “or so”?

I told him if my dad offered to take me to Florence and said we could stay two weeks, I would be staying two weeks.

But I was thinking it would be more like a week. I told Geoffrey I would let him know.

By Tuesday morning there was still no word from Lorenzo. And nothing further from my dad. The day dragged on with nothing to look forward to but coffee with my mother’s boyfriend.

I arrived at the Living Room, an eclectic café on Prospect, and ordered a decaf. I got there early so I could order my drink myself and pick the table. By the time Devon arrived, I had nearly finished my coffee, and he offered to buy me another one. To my relief, he looked slightly less handsome in his just-from-work clothes and soft-soled shoes. And he smelled a little like a hospital. He came back to the table with his first cup of java and my second. I sat back in my chair and slipped one leg over the other as if I were perfectly at home.

When he smiled at me, held up the coffee mug, and said “Cheers,” he had a slightly crooked smile that I hadn’t noticed before.

I held up my cup, wordless, and waited.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said gently.

“I’m barely doing anything.” I shrugged and took a sip.

“Do you want me to stop seeing her?”

I set the cup down too quickly, and a tiny wave of coffee sloshed out and burned the tender skin between my thumb and index finger. I shook my hand to chase away the pain. “So we’re not going to start with the Padres?”

He laughed and the crooked smile returned. “I just thought the sooner we get to it, the sooner you can get on with the rest of your evening.”

I placed a napkin on the minuscule spill on my hand. “Okay. Well, Devon, you don’t need to do this. You are both adults, although she’s been an adult a lot longer than you have, so you honestly don’t need to ask me what I want.”

He cocked his head a fraction, the way thoughtful people do right before they say thoughtful things. “Actually, I do. Family is the most important thing there is. It’s the most precious thing there is. I’d rather not mess with that.”

For the next five seconds, I sat in awe of his virtue. Then an urge to topple his coffee cup swept over me as I realized he must think I have the maturity of a four-year-old. “What kind of person do you think I am that I would disown my mother over who she dates?”

“Wow. That’s … that’s not what I meant.” He grinned uneasily and the lopsided smile crinkled his brow line. “I just meant that if you think she’s making a mistake by dating a younger man, I want you to know I respect that. And I’ll back off for a while if it’s going to put bad feelings between you and her.”

I stared at him. He was being completely sincere; there wasn’t a hint of audacity there. His concern was both charming and annoying. He had obviously been told what I had said in the ladies’ bathroom at the Melting Pot. And how I had said it.

“Look, the way I found out about you and my mom—”

“Not the best way to find out,” he interjected. “I feel bad about that. I didn’t know she wasn’t going to tell you until you got there.”

“And you do know she is fifty-six, right?”

The lopsided grin lost a bit of its curve. “I do know that. But I don’t think it matters. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. I can see it matters to you. I didn’t mean it shouldn’t matter to you.”

“You don’t want to … be with someone your own age?” I said, and I willed myself not to blush.

“Well, I was with someone my age. Just because someone is your age doesn’t mean everything will turn out perfectly.”

True.

“And I enjoy your mother’s company. She is … fun to be around.”

This was an interesting concept to me. My mother wouldn’t hesitate to give you the shirt off her back—only if she had sunscreen in her purse for after she gave it to you—but I had never thought of this making her fun to be around.

“So her quirks don’t drive you nuts?” I said.

The grin disappeared. “What quirks?”

I sat stunned for a second, unable to produce an answer. But then he laughed.

“I’m just kidding. I know what quirks you mean.”

A nervous laugh escaped me. He was kind
and
clever.

“I think they’re kind of cute,” he continued. “And I guess if those are the worst of her quirks, I am pretty lucky. She has to put up with my quirks, too, of course.”

But you don’t seem to have any. Aside from dating older women
.

“Everybody has to put up with something if you’re going to be in a relationship with someone, right?” he said. “I mean, there are no perfect
people. Even your own quirks might annoy you a little if they showed up in someone else.”