The Girl in the Glass (3 page)

When I was little, the crinkly paint tubes in the garage corner where my grandmother painted had beckoned me in a way that seemed almost familial. A visit to her house always meant touching those metal tubes and fingering the horsehair brushes. The artistic gene showed up often on my father’s side. He even dabbles in watercolors when he allows himself the luxury of time spent in front of a canvas, which isn’t often. I used to tell people that I was going to be an artist too.

But while I favored my dad’s side in looks—my one-quarter Italian appears three-quarters when I wear knockoff Gucci and stilettos—I wasn’t gifted with the family flair for art. After a less-than-stellar first year in college as an art major, my mother reminded me that my SAT English scores were a better indicator of what I was good at. I changed schools, changed majors, and graduated three years later with a degree in English. An internship at Crowne & Castillo Press led to a job as an editorial assistant after graduation. Four years later, I was named an assistant editor. Four years after that, I was promoted to editor. Crowne & Castillo publishes travel books: how-tos, planning guides, travel essays, and pictorial coffee-table books. It’s my personal goal to one day soon produce travel memoirs, but the once-married publishers, Geoffrey Crowne and Beatriz Castillo, have yet to be convinced that a travel memoir has enough commercial appeal for the typical Crowne & Castillo buyer.

“Who really wants to read about one person’s cerebral contemplations of a place?” Geoffrey said only a few days ago. I replied that I would want
to. Lots of people would. And that not all memoirs are cerebral contemplations. He said that memoirs don’t have photographs to engage the senses and that’s what sells a Crowne & Castillo book—the photos. I said that’s why ours would be different. Ours would have full-color photos. He said he’d think about it some more.

As I came into the office out of the fog, this recent conversation with Geoffrey was on my mind, along with my father’s imminent phone call, and Miles, too, and the fact that I was a few minutes late for my Skype appointment with Lorenzo. I mumbled hello to the front-office staff, rushed into my office to open my Skype account, and found Lorenzo waiting for me.

Lorenzo DiSantis and his sister, Renata, an Italian brother-and-sister writing and photography team, have authored five books for Crowne & Castillo: two on Italy, two on the South of France, and one on the Catalonia region of Spain. Their sixth project, still in the production stage, is a guide to planning intimate Italian destination weddings. Lorenzo and Renata live in a flat in the heart of Florence; no small wonder they are my favorite Crowne & Castillo authors.

I like talking with Lorenzo, and not just because he and Renata live in the one place I’ve always wanted to visit. Lorenzo is the only person who calls me by my full name—Marguerite. I like the way it sounds falling off his tongue. When Americans say it, like the woman at the DMV last week, my full name sounds like a bunch of concrete bricks rolling around in a wheelbarrow. But Lorenzo says my name the way my grandmother said it, light and sweet. Everything Lorenzo says sounds a little like my grandmother. Nonna’s melodic Italian accent produced an unnecessary yet enchanting
a
sound at the end of every word and so does Lorenzo’s. Lorenzo just turned forty, and Renata’s a year older. They are apparently perfectly happy being single and sharing a flat.

When my Skype account finally connected with his, I could see that he was sitting back in his desk chair, a Florentine evening just beginning to fall on the world outside the window behind him. He was unshaven, a look that went well with his nearly hairless head. Lorenzo told me that when he started to go bald in his twenties, he promptly took matters into his own hands. He bought an electric razor and clipped his hair down to the scalp. Some men can expertly pull off the sophisticated five-o’clock-shadow-on-top look. Lorenzo is one of them.

I apologized for being late.

“Nothing to worry about, Marguerite,” he soothed. “Ten minutes is nothing. Fifteen? Nothing.”

I checked my watch. “It’s only five minutes.”

He leaned in and smiled. “Less than nothing!”

The little
a
sound on that end of “nothing” made me laugh.

“Do not worry so much. It puts wrinkles on the face.” He stroked his stubbled chin.

“I get that from my mom, I’m afraid.”

“Ah. Give it back to her, eh?”

Again, I laughed. “So how was Florence today?”

“Enchanting as always. When are you coming?”

For the last four years I’ve been telling Lorenzo and Renata that my dad has promised me a trip to Florence, but Lorenzo doesn’t fully get why I don’t want to come alone. He doesn’t understand that when my father and I finally go, it will be more than just a trip to Italy. It will be something special and long awaited, like a lost thing found. I like to imagine that it will happen that way.

“Soon, I hope.”

“So. You do not like the photo Renata and I suggested for the cover?”

“I never said that.”

“I have your e-mail right here. You say ‘Beatriz had pictured Venice or Rome.’ ”

“Yes. Beatriz was thinking either Venice or Rome.”

“And you do not disagree with her?”

I riffled through the photos on my desk and uncovered Lorenzo’s shot of a man in a black suit holding a woman’s hand as they walked barefoot on the beach on the Amalfi coast. A grove of nodding lemon trees bloomed on the hillside above them. The woman was dressed in a gauzy white strapless gown. The skirt was caught in a breeze that wanted the ocean; its hem reached for the foam. I could almost hear the rush of surf and smell the tangy twin scents of citrus and salt water.

“It’s a great shot, Lorenzo. But Beatriz wants the cover photo to be of a city that people will instantly recognize.”

“And you think we should give them Venice because everyone will be expecting Venice?”

“Is there something wrong with giving people what they expect?”

He laughed. “You know I like the unexpected, Marguerite. Besides, the Amalfi coast is a lover’s bliss. Tell Beatriz that. Venice is for tourists with cameras. The Amalfi coast woos and flatters; it celebrates romance, eh? That is what the bride and the groom will remember when they go back home to wherever their real lives are. The romance of the place. If the romance does not matter, they can marry in a courthouse in Detroit and save a lot of money. It is all about the romance.”

A tiny comma of pain poked me. I had loved Miles as a friend. But I had not been
in
love. There is a difference.

“You do not believe me?”

I must have grimaced, and he had seen it. “I believe you.”

“So you will sell Beatriz on the Amalfi coast? If she doesn’t like that photo, I have others. At Positano, Ravello. Many others.”

I nodded. “I will try.”

“Good. Now I have something else to ask of you,
cara
. My neighbor, she is writing a book and needs some advice. She asked if I would ask you to look at a chapter or two. I said I would.”

I placed the photo of the Amalfi coast in its file. It is usually a bit awkward when a friend says he knows somebody who has written a book—worse when it’s the friend who has written the book. I once had an acquaintance at a cocktail party insist on showing me three hundred pages of her poetry, all of it about birds. “What kind of book?” I asked. “If it’s not travel related, there’s really no point in my giving her advice.”

“It is not exactly a travel book. But I think you may want to look at it anyway.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because Sofia’s book is more like a memoir, cara. Memoir. Like what you told me you wanted to publish.”

I reached for my travel mug, interested. “Really? What kind of memoir? Is it related to a place? Beatriz and Geoffrey won’t consider anything that doesn’t revolve around a travel destination.”

“It is set in Florence. Your favorite place.” He grinned. “And it’s in English. Sofia is fluent. She was married to a British man once. Long time ago.”

“But you and Renata have already written a book about Florence. It’s only been out a couple years. How can I convince Beatriz and Geoffrey we need another one?”

“Ah, you will find Sofia’s book to be very different, I think.”

“How? Have you read any of it?”

“Some. Sofia has talent but needs direction, perhaps. But that is what a good editor is for, eh?” He laughed. I didn’t.

“So what makes hers different from other travel books about Florence? You know how many are out there. There would have to be something amazingly unique about it. Especially if it’s a memoir.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Sofia says she’s one of the last known Medicis.”

I heard what Lorenzo said, but it didn’t quite register in my head. “What did you say?”

“She says she’s one of the last of the Medicis.”

I hadn’t tanked every art class in my first year in college. I aced art history. I knew the Medici family ruled Florence for three hundred years and then evaporated in the eighteenth century because the last one died childless. The Medicis were extinct and had been for more than two centuries.

“So you’re telling me your neighbor’s delusional?” I asked, half-laughing.

Lorenzo smiled easily. “Sofia is a very interesting person. Easily the kindest person I know. You would like her, cara. And her story is very out of the ordinary. She is sweet. If she is delusional, we should all sign up for it, no?”

“I didn’t mean to sound insulting. But it just sounds a little odd.”

Lorenzo shrugged. “I don’t think it’s so odd that a Medici still lives. Big family. Lots of little Medicis. It’s possible.”

“Does anyone else believe she’s one of the last of the Medicis?”

His smile was conciliatory. “But that is what makes her interesting, Marguerite. So you want me to send the first two chapters to you? I have them on my computer. She e-mailed them to me when she knew I would be talking to you today.”

I had nothing to lose by agreeing to look at those two chapters. I could tell it would mean a lot to Lorenzo. And my interest was certainly piqued.

“But you won’t promise her anything, right? She can’t think that just because I am looking at her chapters, that we will publish her. She can’t even think that I will be able to help her get it to the point where some other house will publish it, okay? I don’t want her to have false hope.”

“Of course. Here they come.” Lorenzo tapped on his computer keyboard, then leaned back. “So you will speak to Beatriz about the photo, yes?”

“I will. I promise. And I will try to take a look at uh, Miss Medici-Whatever’s chapters this weekend.”

“Borelli. Sofia’s last name is Borelli.”

“She’s a Medici with the last name Borelli.”

Lorenzo shrugged. “The ladies don’t get to keep the family name, do they, Miss Pomeroy?” He winked.

“All right. I will try to take a look at Ms.
Borelli’s
chapters this weekend.”

“
Buono
. No rush. And now help me choose a tie. Renata is in Greece this week.” Lorenzo produced two ties and held them to the webcam. One was solid blue with frenetic silver swirls; the other was a rosy pink with thick, black diagonal stripes.

“Where are you going? Date with Alessandra or business meeting?”

“Alessandra? No. When was the last time we talked? Date with Rosabel.”

A tiny Cheshire cat–like grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. It was none of my concern who Lorenzo dated. Yet for no apparent reason other than she’d distracted Lorenzo from meeting a few deadlines, I was glad that fair-haired Alessandra must be out of the picture. I had no idea who Rosabel was, though, and that wasn’t any of my business either. I tamped the grin down to a thin line, as though I could barely decide between the ties. “The pink one, then. Rosabel?”

Lorenzo dropped the blue tie and held the rosy one up to his neck and looked down at it. “
Grazie
. She’s here from Milan for eight weeks. Met her at a party. And where will you be going tonight?”

“Dinner with my mother.”

He lifted his head to stare into the webcam. “Your mother.”

“Don’t say a word, Lorenzo.”

He ignored my command. “Is it her birthday?”

“No.”

He clucked his tongue. “If you were in Florence tonight,
cara mia
, you would not be having dinner with your mother.”

True.

I’d be having it with my father.

My mother’s sisters died of illness as young maidens, seventeen and sixteen. I believe it was for this reason that my grandfather doted on my mother the way he did and let her live whatever kind of life made her happy. My grandfather, Cosimo de’ Medici, loved his daughters. He was fond of his sons as well; for what titled man does not want sons? But oh, the affection toward his daughters! The deaths of my mother’s sisters—one before my mother married and one after—devastated him. It is said he turned all his affection toward my mother, lavishly so. What she wanted, my grandfather gave her. What she didn’t want, he took.

All this was whispered about my grandfather when people didn’t think I was paying attention to them.