When I get off the elevator in the attico, I look at the painting over the love seat for the last time. For every day I have come and gone from the hotel, I have waited here for the elevator, and looked at this painting. For days, it has been a mystery to me. Now, I understand what all those Mondrian checks represent-they’re windows, hundreds of windows. For me, this trip was all about seeing out of them, and for sure, I did. I sit down on the love seat underneath the painting I have come to love and open the package from Gianluca.
As I loosen the ribbon and unfold the paper, my hand shakes a little. I open the lid on the box and lift out a shoemaker’s tool, a new hammer, il trincetto. Gianluca has engraved my initials on the handle.
I open the door to my room and there’s a large antique urn on the coffee table bursting with blood red roses and branches of bright yellow baby lemons. The air is filled with fragrant sweet roses, tart lemons, and rich earth. I close my eyes and inhale slowly.
Then I pick up the card on the table. That Gianluca, I’m thinking as I open the card. That’s why he rushed off. He wanted to surprise me with the flowers. I open the envelope and lift out a single card.
Happy birthday, honey, I love you. Come home to me. Roman
Of all the great lessons I learned in Italy, the most important is: travel light. Pushing our mountain of luggage through three regions of Italian countryside has turned me into a minimalist. I’m this close to becoming a nun and rejecting all worldly possessions. Gram, however, is not. She clings to these suitcases, fills them carefully, and knows the contents of each Ziploc bag and bundle. Old people need stuff. It makes them feel secure, or so Gram says.
Gram holds on to the handle of the cart as I push the bags through customs at John F. Kennedy Airport. We’re back in the United States, which means I must begin to live a real life again and face my responsibilities. I begin with a commitment to Gram’s health and general well-being. I will call and make an appointment for her with Dr. Sculco at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Gram needs new knees, and she’s going to get them if it’s the last thing I do.
I survey the line at pickup. Families, friends, and chauffeurs wait for us, looking us over from head to toe as we search for familiar faces from our side.
Roman waits with my parents. Mom is wearing a red sundress with matching sunglasses and waves a small Italian flag. Nice touch. Dad stands next to her, waving plainly with his human hand.
Roman stands tall over them, in jeans and a blue Brooks Brothers button-down shirt. He looks handsome. He always does, which makes hellos and good-byes sweet. When our eyes meet for the first time in a month, my heart races. I really missed him, and as angry as I was with him, I love him. My nose stings as though I might cry.
I kiss my father and mother, and then Roman. He takes me into his arms, and my parents and Gram vamp about the trip, as if they don’t notice that he can’t let go of me. This ought to be an interesting car ride. Roman takes the luggage cart from me and pushes. Mom and Dad and Gram follow. I fill him in on Costanzo and what he missed on Capri. We go through the doors to the parking garage.
“Honey, we’ll take the bags. You go with Roman,” Mom says.
“I drove, too,” Roman says.
“Oh, two cars. Great. Okay. You can take my bags. I never want to see them again.”
Dad helps Roman load up the back of his Olds Cutlass Supreme with the bags I lugged through Tuscany and farther south. I lift my carry-on out of the car and hold it in my arms. “Precious cargo,” I tell Gram. “The shoes. I want to keep them with me.”
“Of course,” she says.
They climb into Dad’s car, while Roman opens the front door of the passenger side of his car for me. I get into his car, and shiver, even though it’s almost June. I remember the first winter night I sat in this car, and how happy we were. He climbs in and pulls the door shut. He turns to me. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“You’re beautiful,” he says and kisses me.
“It’s the Capri sun.” I shrug, deflecting his compliment that sounds sincere. I don’t know what to believe. When it comes to Roman, all I know for sure is that things are constantly changing. “You want to stay over?” he asks quietly.
“Sure,” I tell him.
With my quick answer, Roman, like all men, is satisfied that all is forgiven. He believes what I tell him, and why shouldn’t he? I don’t want to overthink our reunion and turn it into a monster discussion of our future and our relationship. We’ve got years for that, or do we? When it comes to love, this is where I’m weak. I don’t fight for myself or what I want. I’m perfectly happy to pretend that we’ve moved past my hurt, Italy, and all the unpleasantness. Now I’m home and all will be well. We can pick up where we left off.
Roman talks about the restaurant-review night, and how the pressure was on. When he tells me Frank Bruni of the Times gave him three stars, I throw my arms around him. I act excited for him, giddy even, and I’m all the things he needs me to be: supportive, interested, and utterly on his side. When he asks me about Italy, I give him the broad strokes, but I don’t explain how I think I’ve changed, and how the people I met had such an impact on me. I begin to tell him about the old lady’s brooch, but it sounds silly, so I change the subject and switch the conversation back to him.
I look at his face, and his glorious neck, his hands and his long legs, and I get stirred up. But it isn’t stirred up of the deep variety; it’s a fashionable fake of the real thing. This is the part of me that loves being in a relationship. I like the stability and being part of a couple. Never mind our problems, we’re together, and that’s enough. More than enough. Roman Falconi might be the Chuck Cohen of love, the knockoff, whereas I’m looking for a couture label, but he’s mine.
I’m going to his apartment and I’m probably going to make love to him, but it’s not going to mean what it would have meant a month ago, or even a week ago. Then, we were building on a solid foundation. Now, doubt has seeped in and I’ve got to find what I saw in the beginning. I only hope that my feelings will all come rushing back just as they were the first time he kissed me. Maybe then our relationship can begin anew, and I can figure out how to be in a relationship with Roman and his restaurant.
“Someday, we’ll go back to Capri together,” he promises. Gratefully, the traffic on the LIE gets thick and he has to keep his eyes on the road. In this moment, I try to believe him. But somehow I know he’s just saying it because he thinks that will keep me focused on the future, and out of the present, where our problems with each other are alive and well.
“That would be great,” I tell him. It’s not a lie. It would be great.
The next morning, I wake up in Roman’s bed, buried deep in the warm comforter. I slept soundly, exhausted from the drive to Rome and the flight back to New York. I look over and see my overnight bag by the door, and my carry-on with the Bella Rosa inside.
I get up and go into Roman’s kitchen. There’s a pot of coffee and a bagel on the counter with a note: “Went to work. So happy you’re home.”
I pour the coffee. I sit down in his kitchen and look across the bright, sunlit loft, and instead of seeming masculine and romantic, as it did before Italy, in full daylight it appears to be unfinished, bare, in need of things. Temporary.
14. 58th and Fifth
TODAY IS THE DEADLINE FOR THE DELIVERY of the shoes for the competition for the Bergdorf windows. I get off the subway at Columbus Circle, holding the shoe box containing the Bella Rosa in the crook of my arm, like a newborn baby. Let’s face it, this is my version of precious cargo. Some people give birth to babies, I give birth to shoes.