I put down my work and follow the sound of his voice through the supply room and outside to a patio garden where there is a small table and four chairs. A white cotton tablecloth covers the table, anchored from blowing away in the Capri breezes by a pot of fragrant red geraniums.
Costanzo motions for me to sit next to him. He opens a plain tin lunch bucket and unloads the contents. He unwraps a loaf of bread from a sleeve of wax paper. Next to the bread, he places a container of fresh figs. Then he lifts out a tin of what looks like white fish covered in black olives. He pulls out two napkins. From under the table, he lifts a jug of homemade wine. He pours me a glass and then himself.
He cuts into the bread, which isn’t bread at all, but pizza alige, soft dough filled with chopped onions and anchovies. He slices the hearty pizza in thin, long slices, then places two on a plate for me. I bite into the crisp crust, which gives way to the salty anchovy, softened by the sweet onions and butter in the folds of the dough.
“Good?” he asks.
I nod emphatically that it is.
“Why did you come to Capri?” he asks me.
“It was supposed to be a vacation. But my boyfriend had problems at work and couldn’t make it at the last minute.”
“He canceled?”
“Yes.”
“When you go home, you end it, right?”
“Costanzo!”
“Well, he likes his work more than you.”
“It’s not like that.”
“I think so.”
“You know, I’m actually glad he couldn’t come here because if he had, I wouldn’t be spending time with you.”
He smiles. “I’m too old for you,” he laughs.
“That seems to be the case with most of the men I’m meeting in Italy.”
“But if I were young…” He fans his hand.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Costanzo.” We laugh heartily. I’m feeling genuinely happy for the first time in days.
Italian men put women first. Roman’s priorities are more American than Italian, as he puts the restaurant first. To be fair, I can’t say that I have my priorities straight, or that I’ve mastered the art of living. I live for my work, I don’t work to live. Roman and I have lost our Italian natures. We’re typical overextended, overworked Americans with the worst kind of tunnel vision. We waste the present for some perfect future we believe will be waiting for us when we get there. But how will we get there if we don’t build the connection now?
The way I live from day to day in New York City suddenly seems ridiculous to me. I’ve mortgaged my happiness for a time that may never come. I think of my brother, and the building, the Bergdorf windows, and Bret’s investors. I love making shoes. Why does it have to be more complicated than that? Costanzo walks to work, builds shoes, and goes home. There’s a rhythm to his life that makes sense. The small shop sustains Costanzo and his sons beautifully. I sip the wine. It’s rich and intense, like every color, mood, and feeling on this island.
Costanzo offers me a cigarette, which I decline. He lights up his cigarette and puffs.
“What do you do in the winter, when the tourists are gone?” I ask him.
“I cut leather. I make the soles. I rest. I fill up the hours,” he says. Costanzo looks off in the distance. “I fill up the days and wait.”
“For the tourists to return?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer. The look on his face tells me not to pry. He puts out his cigarette. “Now, we work.”
I follow Costanzo back into the shop. He takes his seat behind the workbench as I sit down behind my table. Costanzo lifts a new pattern out of his bin and studies it. I pick up il trincetto and a sole from the stack Antonio has left for me. I follow the pattern and peel the outside edge of the sole like an apple, just as I saw Costanzo do on the first day. He looks over at me approvingly and smiles.
“Go and get your sketchbook,” Costanzo commands as we finish a cappuccino in the afternoon. “I want to see your work.”
I get up from the table and go back inside the shop. I pull my sketchbook out of my tote.
“Everything all right?” Antonio says to me.
“Your father wants to see my sketches. I’m scared to death. I’m a self-taught artist, and I don’t know if my drawings are as good as they might be.”
Antonio smiles. “He’ll be honest.”
Great, I think as I go back through the storage room to the portico. Costanzo peels a fig as I sit down next to him. I tell him about the contest for the Bergdorf windows, then I open the sketchbook and show him the shoe. He looks at it. Then he narrows his eyes and squints at it.
“High fashion,” he says. “Molto bene.”
“You like it?”
“It’s ornate.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“This I like.” He points to the vamp of the shoe, where the braiding meets the strap. “Original.”
“My great-grandfather named his six basic dress shoes for brides after characters in the opera. They’re dramatic. They can also be simple. They’re classics, and we know this for sure because a hundred years later, we’re still making his designs and selling them.”
“What shoe do you make for the working girls?”
“We don’t make everyday shoes,” I tell him.
“You should start,” he says.
This is not the advice I expected to get from an Italian master craftsman, but I go with it because Costanzo knows so much more than me. “You sound like my friend Bret. He wants me to come up with a shoe to sell to the masses. He said that I could finance my custom shoes with a shoe made to be sold in large quantities.”
“He’s right. There should be no difference between making shoes for one woman and making shoes for many. All of your customers deserve your best. So, sketch a shoe that can serve them all.”
“I don’t really know how.”
“Of course you do. You drew that shoe for the window; you can draw another shoe for every day. I am giving you an assignment. Take your pad and go out on the piazza. Sketch as many shoes as you can.”
“Just general shoes?”
“Anything that you see that you like. Watch how the woman moves in her shoes.”
“The tourists wear tennis shoes.”
“Forget them. Look at the Capri shopgirls. You’ll see what to draw.” He smiles. “Now go.”
I take my pad and pencils and go out into the piazza.
I pick a spot in the shade, on the far stone wall, and sit. I put down my sketchbook and watch, just as Costanzo instructed me.
My eye sifts through the clumps of tourists wearing Reeboks, Adidas, and Nikes to find the locals, the women who work in the shops, restaurants, and hotels. I look down at their feet as they move through the crowd with purpose. These working women wear flats, practical yet beautiful shoes, smooth leather slip-ons in navy blue or black, beige lace-ups with a slight stacked heel, sandals in plain leather with a functional T-strap, and one daring shopgirl wears sensible mules made of bright pink calfskin. My eye typically goes to the color, but I notice it’s only the occasional woman who wears a vivid shade on her feet. For the most part, the women choose a classic neutral.
After a while, I pull my legs up and cross them under me. I begin to sketch. I draw a simple leather flat with a low upper that covers the toes but does not come too high on the vamp. I sketch it over and over, until I get a shape that pleases my eye and that would best flatter a woman’s foot regardless of size, length, or width.
I see a mother and daughter talking outside the jewelry store on the corner of the piazza. The mother, in her forties, wears a slim navy blue skirt with a white blouse. On her arm, thick bangles of shiny silver click together as she talks. She wears navy blue leather flats with a simple bow on the upper. Her daughter wears a black tissue paper T-shirt with a cropped bolero of brown linen. Her slim-legged jeans ride low and tight. She wears brown flats with a matching grosgrain ribbon edge. The flats on the mother are classic, and she stands tall, with an ease that comes from wearing a comfortable shoe. The shoe is soft, but not slouchy. The daughter bounces on the balls of her feet as she talks excitedly with her mother. The brown flat fits her foot without gapping at the heel, and the leather moves with her in a smooth, full bend of the arch when she’s on her toes. The leather does not crease or buckle.