The Girl in the Glass (41 page)

I awoke for the last time in Sofia’s bed, and I lay there for several minutes just listening to the waking world outside the window. By the same time tomorrow, I’d be back in the cottage with Findlay’s cat pawing at my bedroom door.

I had packed my bags the night before, after Lorenzo and I returned from cruising Florence in his little convertible. I got dressed and pulled my suitcase out to the living room. Sofia was in the kitchen, making us a spinach-and-feta omelet.

We ate on her little balcony as the pink dawn turned golden, struggling to make small talk after all that the last couple of days had been like. Our conversation steered toward her manuscript and what the future held for it.

I told her sometimes a book idea births a second book idea and it’s the second idea that gets published.

“I wouldn’t know what to write in a second book,” she said.

“I’m not talking about a second book. I’m talking about a second idea. A second concept. Your first concept was based on a historical concept: you are a Medici. What if the second idea was based on a twin concept? A concept we don’t have to prove?”

“What concept?”

“Nora Orsini’s life story.”

“Her story?” She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t even begun to realize what I had.

“Your stories have Nora’s perspective, as you see it, written all over them. It’s real. Real enough to allow us to imagine the other parts are all real too. Even the parts we cannot prove.”

She sipped her coffee, contemplating my words and looking past me to the spread of Florence awaking. Then she set her coffee cup down and turned her gaze back to me.

“But there’s hardly anything written about her. The only things I know
are the scattered echoes she left for me. And those ended when she left Florence to marry.”

“Which leaves you lots of room for conjecture. If you imagine the missing parts of her life story, no one can say it didn’t happen that way. And you can still weave in your own memoir, because your story is wrapped up in hers.”

“So … what do you want me to do, exactly?”

“Finish the book. The story of the Medicis and the wonder of Florence is Nora’s story too. Go ahead and finish the book.” I reached out to squeeze her hand. “And then trust me with it.”

At seven thirty, Lorenzo was at the door waiting to take me to the airport. Renata was with him, in a silk nightgown, sleep still in her eyes. She hugged me good-bye, told me to come back next summer and go with them to Morocco. Then she traipsed back across the hall to return to her bed. Lorenzo took my bags and told me he’d wait for me at the curb and not to take too long saying good-bye to Sofia; he was parked illegally.

When he was gone, I turned to my gracious hostess; at once she pulled me into her embrace. “Thank you for spending your week in Florence with me. I hope I did not ruin it for you.”

Tears nearly sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Sofia. I can’t imagine having seen it any other way. I loved sharing this week with you. You’ve … you’ve been such an inspiration to me. I can’t even tell you how much.”

She pulled back and stared at me, surprised to her wits at what I had said.

“I’m serious,” I continued.

“I don’t see how,” she said, doubt laced in every word.

“I think I will be able to show you—soon. I need to get back and talk to Beatriz and Geoffrey first. In the meantime I want you to keep writing. Promise me you won’t stop.”

“All right. I promise.”

“And promise me you will listen to Renata and Lorenzo. They care very much for you. You can trust them. Will you do that?”

She nodded.

I hugged her again, and she held me tightly. “Will you ever come back?”

“Of course,” I said. “Whenever I am homesick.”

I turned from her and headed down the stairs to the street.

Lorenzo put down the top on his convertible and held my hand as we flew down the narrow streets. The breeze of the fair city lifted my hair from my neck, nudging me gently to tip my head back and let the Florence sun kiss me good-bye.

At the terminal I instructed Lorenzo to please let me off and leave quickly. But he did not listen. He yanked my bags out of the backseat, set them down beside me, and drew me into his arms. He seemed on the verge of saying something as he released me, but then he kissed me lightly on the cheek, his lips lingering, waiting perhaps to see if I would turn my head and match my lips to his. I pulled away before I had a chance to decide if I would.

33

There’s something to be said for a very long plane ride that takes you from a magical place back to the world where your real life waits. I didn’t sleep on the flight home. I didn’t watch the in-flight movies or lose myself in the pages of a novel. When you are thirty thousand feet above everything that is real, you have a perspective on your life perhaps only a Renaissance artist would understand.

Sometimes you need to stand back to see the vanishing point; that place in the distance where two roads appear to converge. And you have to stand still long enough to realize they only appear to converge. There is a place where what is real meets up with what we can imagine is real. It’s actually a black-and-white place, a place of safety. A boundary that gives us a handrail.

I knew I was being catapulted back to all that I had left behind me when I boarded the plane for home. But that didn’t mean everything would be the same.

My father was still missing, albeit voluntarily so, and my mother was in a dating relationship I envied, but from my chair in the heavens, that jealousy felt weightless for the first time since I met Devon at the Melting Pot.

I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to engrave on my mind what it felt like to be far enough away from reality to actually see it.

I had my father’s love, and he had mine. I didn’t have to search for it in someone like Devon because I already had it. Lorenzo was not far from me
even at thirty thousand feet above the ground, but I reasoned that when I saw Gabe waiting for me at the airport, I could lay that temporary distraction to rest. Lorenzo could not save me. He was part of my dream world. Gabe was real.

I landed in Los Angeles a little after six in the evening. My body clock was telling me it was the middle of the night and that I should be sleeping, and my heart was telling me it was the dawn of something new. I made my way through customs, weary but energized to see Gabe and embrace my post-Florence life. Everywhere around me were people dragging suitcases filled with the real-life things they had brought with them, folding themselves back into the fabric of their daily routines, just like I was. I felt a little dizzy. The terminal seemed to swim a little bit as I pushed my way through the mental fog into the sea of people in baggage claim waiting for the travelers they’d come for. They were the first wave of real life, those people standing there.

He saw me first.

I was scanning the messy rows of waiting people, looking for Gabe’s curly head, when I suddenly felt him near me.

I turned to my right, and he was just a few feet away, smiling and moving toward me.

His arms were quickly around me in a welcoming embrace, and I smelled ink, oranges, and green tea—all the remnants of his day.

“Welcome home.” He stepped back and smiled at me.

I waited for the whoosh of comfort those tried-and-true words should’ve enveloped me with, but I felt strangely untethered to the ground I stood on. Like I didn’t belong here at all.

I tried to stay awake on the drive back to San Diego, but after an hour of sharing my many highlights and the latest on Sofia, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

“You don’t have to stay awake, Meg,” Gabe said gently, and his voice sounded like a lullaby.

“But I want to,” I mumbled.

“I’ll get you home safe,” I heard him say, and then I gave in to dreamless sleep.

I awoke with a start when the car engine stopped. We were in front of the cottage, and the lights were on. A car was parked in the driveway. Not mine. Devon’s.

“Looks like your mom is here to welcome you back.” Gabe laughed easily.

“Looks like,” I echoed, attempting to match his humor.

We got out of the car. Gabe retrieved my suitcase, and I slung my carry-on over my shoulder. We walked up the steps, and I heard my mom inside say, “She’s home.”

I opened the door, and there was my mother, ready to wrap her arms around me. Devon was standing a few feet away, smiling. I sensed a small remnant of the strange attraction I had left with the week before, and I found it only a tad difficult to smile back at him.

My mother hugged me tight. “How are you? How was your flight?”

“It was fine.” I turned to Gabe who was still just inches away. “Mom, Devon, this is Gabe Robicheau. We work together. He’s a graphic artist. Gabe, this is Elaine Pomeroy and Devon …”

I could not remember his last name. I laughed and would have gone on laughing had I not been worried it would seem incredibly rude.

I couldn’t remember Devon’s last name.

“Sheller.” Devon stuck out his hand and Gabe shook it.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Devon, but he smiled my apology away.

“You look tired.” My mother patted my arm.

“It’s five in the morning in Florence,” Devon said good-naturedly. “We should go. She’s home.”

“Can I make you something to eat?”

“There was food on the plane, Mom. I’m fine, but thanks.”

Alex strolled in from wherever he had been napping and meowed a greeting, approaching my legs with a cozy arch to his back. I bent down to pick him up.

“Really? Because I brought stuff to make sandwiches.”

Devon took a step forward and put his hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Why don’t we take off and let her settle in?” He looked at me and smiled that crooked smile of his.

“All right. But first we need to show her the surprise,” my mother said urgently. I set the cat down, immediately concerned about what my mother might’ve done while I was gone. Installed security cameras? Bought me a guard dog? Replaced all my plastic, microwaveable dishes with ceramic?

“Close your eyes!”

My mother took my hand. “Close them!”

I did what she asked.

We walked down the hallway to my bedroom, and it took superhuman strength not to open my eyes to look at what my mother had done to my bedroom—of all places—with Devon at her side.

“Keep them closed,” she said.

She positioned me in front of my bed; at least that is what it seemed like. To calm myself I asked her if she had replaced Findlay’s four-poster with bunk beds.

She laughed. “Don’t open them yet.” She moved away from me.

“Okay. Now,” she said, softly, almost like a caress.

My eyelids lifted and there on the wall in front of me and hanging over my bed was Andromeda.

I felt my mouth drop open and my breath catch in my lungs. It was my nonna’s painting, just as I had remembered it, only smaller. It had seemed so big to me when I was young. Now as it hung above my bed, I could see it was not the sweeping gateway to Florence, it was only a window, no wider than one arm’s length.

Andromeda in diamond-white marble was sitting bent-kneed on her rock with her arm stretched out. My nonna, a dark-haired little girl in a pink dress, mimicked the pose, as if she and Andromeda were about to dance. The palette of colors was gold and yellows, scarlets and toasty browns. Cheerful. Hopeful. My great-great-grandfather’s paint strokes weren’t as precise as those of the artists whose work hung in the Pitti Palace, but they were as purposeful. This canvas told a story, just like the statue that inspired it. Just like all paintings do.

They speak; we listen.

“How did you get it?” I whispered.

My mother put her arm around me. “Your father sent it. It was waiting for you on your doorstep today. I had to open it. But I didn’t open this. It came with it.”

She reached into her sweater pocket and handed me an envelope, still sealed.

“He must’ve found the painting at one of his cousins’ or something. You’ll have to read the note to find out, I guess.”

I looked at the envelope in my hand. One word was written across it.

Angel
.