One Summer Day in Rome Read online

  Lizzie patted the top of Constance’s head and peered into the gloom of the room. She could see her own dim reflection in the vast Venetian mirror hanging over the fireplace, and it did not give her pleasure.

  “Who is that old lady?” Lizzie asked the ghost squinting back at her.

  “Sometimes I look at my laughter lines and wonder what on earth could have been that funny,” said Constance.

  Lizzie laughed.

  Constance hauled herself out of the chair. At once, her reflection appeared next to laughing Lizzie’s. Constance frowned.

  “What?” asked Lizzie.

  “That laugh of yours. Reminds me so much of him,” said Constance.

  Lizzie took the document back from Constance. “He’s very specific about where he wants us to go and what he wants us to do. All a bit odd, really.”

  “He was an odd man,” said Constance plainly.

  “Indeed.”

  “That’s why we love him.”

  “Indeed.”

  Lizzie’s bottom lip trembled. She turned quickly, hoping Constance might not catch her lapse in decorum. But Constance did.

  “Come now, girlie,” said Constance briskly. “What’s that going to achieve?”

  Days later, Henry’s driver, Robert, negotiated the dark-blue Jaguar through the roads and roundabouts that surrounded Heathrow like a network of modern moats, delivering Lizzie and Constance to the ramparts of the departure gates. Robert carried Constance’s luggage inside, and Constance followed. When a nice young man opened the entry door for Lizzie, she instructed him to follow Robert with her luggage. The young man began to explain that he was a fellow traveler—not an employee of the airport—when Constance shot past her in a panic. Lizzie abandoned the young man and followed.

  “What’s up, girlie?”

  “Henry. I left him in the Jag.”

  Indeed she had. Henry’s ashes had been waiting in a plain brown recyclable cardboard box—his own premortem selection—seat-belted into the front passenger side of the Jaguar. And that is exactly where they found him a few moments later. Robert arrived, mortified that he, too, had not only forgotten his esteemed incinerated employer but left the car unlocked and the box vulnerable to theft. Constance calmed Robert and warmly offered him absolution. They were all nervous. It was a big day. Robert took the liberty of hugging Constance, which Lizzie noted she endured with grace. Next there was a brief and slightly unseemly tussle over who would carry Henry into the terminal. Yes, he was heavy, Constance conceded, but she was perfectly capable of carrying him, thank you, Robert. As soon as he registered the steely pirate in her tone, Robert surrendered the box to Constance.

  * * *

  High above the Alps, Constance and Lizzie sat in their voluminous first-class seats, sipping DOCG Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, as instructed by Henry. He had been retrieved from the overhead locker where he was secured for takeoff and now sat comfortably on the wide walnut-trimmed armrest between them.

  A young flight attendant approached, rubbing errant lipstick from her teeth. She addressed them with a deep-fried Southern American accent that would have been charming had it not been for a note of disinterest that would not have been detectable, they suspected, had she been speaking to two handsome young businessmen.

  “Can I put your box away for you, ma’am?” She started to reach over Constance toward the box, making it clear that she wasn’t really asking, more informing them of her intentions.

  “No, thank you,” said Constance brightly but so loudly that the flight attendant reeled back.

  “That’s not a box,” said Lizzie enthusiastically. “That’s my brother.”

  “And my husband,” added Constance.

  “Henry!”

  “We’re taking him to Rome.”

  “Henry adores Rome.”

  The two old ladies grinned manically at the flight attendant.

  “Oh. Okeydokey,” said the flight attendant. “Um. You just holler if you need anything.”

  “Grazie,” said Constance in her steely pirate voice.

  The flight attendant scurried away.

  Constance took a sip of her prosecco. “I think we frightened her.”

  Lizzie took a sip of her prosecco. “I believe we did.”

  “We’re scary old ladies,” said Constance.

  “I believe we are,” said Lizzie.

  Constance turned and raised her crystal flute to Lizzie. “To scary old ladies.”

  Lizzie clinked her flute against Constance’s, and a tring rang out.

  THREE

  Leonardo da Vinci

  THE LONG, DULL, MONOTONOUS YEARS OF MIDDLE-AGED PROSPERITY OR MIDDLE-AGED ADVERSITY ARE EXCELLENT CAMPAIGNING WEATHER [FOR THE DEVIL].

  —C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

  A tanned man with an easy smile that made him look at home wherever he went ambled down the business-class aisle of the Airbus 380 bearing two bottles of water, one sparkling, one still. At forty-six Alec Schack was just beginning to allow himself to enjoy the fruits of his success. He had graduated with a degree in architecture at the tail end of a building recession and finding himself virtually unemployable gratefully took a job in his uncle’s modest lighting shop in Cincinnati. When his uncle was electrocuted installing a Christmas window display, Alec’s grieving aunt asked him to take over the business. It was not his chosen profession; he didn’t love lighting, but he liked it and evidently had a knack for it. Within three years the store expanded to two more locations in Cincinnati, and within ten years there were stores in Cleveland and Toledo as well. Strategizing his way through the housing crisis and riding the back of the renovation boom, Alec had just opened his twenty-ninth and largest store at Westfield Century City in Los Angeles.

  This was the American dream, and Alec knew he was lucky to be living it. Many of his competitors had folded, but he was of the few who had survived and thrived. He knew he should be grateful, and most of the time he was. But some of the time he wasn’t. Some of the time he suspected that his life looked a whole lot better from the outside than it was on the inside. Not that he was dogged by a desire to toss it all in and become a professional golfer or a rock-and-roll guitarist. But sometimes, on the rare occasions when he woke at 3:00 A.M. and could not get back to sleep, he wondered if maybe he’d missed something.

  Reaching his seat, Alec handed both bottles to his wife, Meg. “Still and sparkling,” he said, infusing the announcement with just enough resentment to be sure it would register, “just in case you change your mind.”

  Meg turned to her husband but, as was her habit, directed her attention to midair as if she were addressing an unseen stranger sitting between them. “Why would I change my mind?” She had lived in the United States most of her adult life, but a nasally Australian twang lingered.

  Alec shrugged.

  “Why are you turning this into a big deal?” she said. “I asked for water. I happen to believe in getting what you want.”

  You mean getting me to get you what you want, thought Alec.

  Knowing what he was thinking, she said, “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee.”

  “If only it were that simple,” he said, addressing the in-flight entertainment guide.

  Meg opened the water and took a swig. “You’ve grown tired of me. I’ve lost my allure.”

  “Why do you think I’m sitting here next to you?”

  “Habit?” said Meg. “I don’t know. Why are you sitting here next to me? So you can snipe at me about how demanding I am?”

  Alec looked out the window at the wing, bouncing slightly in the tumescent white clouds. “If I kicked this window out, we’d both be sucked into oblivion.”

  “You shouldn’t have come. You have no faith in our mission.”

  What mission? thought Alec.

  There was a mission of sorts. Years ago when their eldest daughter, Sydney, had transitioned from toddlerhood to littlegirldom, Meg had begun a blog chronicling the redecoration of h
er room. Essentially it was a marketing exercise to promote Alec’s new range of children’s lamps and night-lights, but Meg’s way with a funny anecdote saw it quickly expand and rebrand as Megamamma, one of the most popular, we’re-all-in-this-together-and-most-of-us-are-sinking homemaker blogs on the Web.

  Meg’s latest project was reporting on the rejuvenation of their large Spanish Mission house overlooking the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. She had sourced a particular sky-blue tile that appeared to come from a boutique manufacturer in Rome. Because it had emerged from a jumble of tiles minus its sticker, no one could be 100 percent sure of its provenance. She had e-mailed photographs and even Skyped but in the end decided the best (and most fun) course of action would be to fly to Italy and have a conversation with the tile-maker in person.

  Her next step was to bully her husband into accompanying her. Since he had forgotten their last anniversary as well as her most recent birthday (the enormous bouquet of Australian native flowers delivered late afternoon by his terrified PA had only made matters worse) she felt fairly confident that Rome would prevail.

  Rome did prevail, but not because of forgotten birthdays or anniversaries—he had forgotten that he had forgotten these—but because, as Alec recollected, they always seemed to have especially amorous encounters in the eternal city. And since it had been an eternity since they had enjoyed any encounters at all, he leaped at the opportunity to address the situation.

  The plane began its descent. Meg dug her fingernails deep into Alec’s wrist. It was their unspoken understanding that she was allowed to express her terror of takeoffs and landings by mutilating his nearest hand and forearm. Alec winced and stroked her ravaging hand. She smiled gratefully, not quite directly at him, but as close as she ever got. He tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and noted that, despite the bone-dry atmosphere of the cabin, her ruthlessly straightened golden hair had begun to curl.

  Tossed in a colorful sea of gesticulating Mediterraneans, they jostled for position at carousel number three, waiting for their bags to spew forth. Alec formed a picture of laconic Roman baggage-handlers lolling over their luggage, macchiatos in one hand, cigarettes in the other. He felt a surge of irritation.

  “If we were in search of some amazing fresco,” he said, “I’d call that a mission. If we were helping excavate some ancient temple, I’d call that a mission. If we were on some kind of spiritual—”

  Unfazed by what she knew was simply redirected anxiety, Meg cut through the diatribe and pointed out that his bag had appeared. Alec pushed through the almost impenetrable wall of passengers crowding around the carousel and reached for the suitcase at exactly the same time as a solid old nun in a classic black habit with a white wimple.

  Meg watched with glee as Alec and the nun tussled over the bag. A brief but heated discussion led them to consult the name tag. Wisely, Alec let Soeur Luc-Gabrielle do the reading. Her silver crucifix dangled from a blue ribbon around her scapular, waving back and forth across the luggage in a private benediction. The nun spoke firmly to Alec, who bowed and babbled in return. He retreated sheepishly through the crowd and stood next to Meg, taking care not to look at her.

  “If you say a single word,” he said, “I will not be held responsible for what happens next.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” said Meg. “You were so terrifyingly assertive with that seventy-year-old nun. I shall not utter another syllable.”

  Alec watched the luggage birthing onto the carousel, reminding himself to be patient; he was no longer in a land where customer service was paramount. While Italy had many areas of excellence, baggage retrieval was probably not one of them. “They should be here by now,” he said. “Business luggage always comes before coach.”

  “Unless, of course, it’s lost,” said Meg.

  As the carousel emptied and the crowd dispersed, it became evident that their bags were, indeed, missing. This was supposed to be a fun, duck-in-and-duck-out-adventure-slash-mission; a day in Rome to source floor tiles then back to business in LA. Meg’s feet had barely touched the ground, and already she was being derailed. Quelling a surge of childlike disappointment, she refrained from stamping her foot.

  “This is not part of the plan. This is not part of the plan,” she said louder the second time, permitting a petulant eruption from the cross little girl inside her.

  Two airport guards, wearing black berets and bearing submachine guns, paused. Alec noted that they had black pistols holstered to their thighs as well. He lowered his voice. “If you’re planning on getting us arrested before our vacation begins…”

  “This is not a vacation,” Meg protested. “We’re on a mission.”

  After a few wrong turns and some more cross words, they located the lost baggage counter and joined a long line of disgruntled passengers. As they waited, his wife’s conviction that they were on a mission stuck like a burr until Alec could contain his irritation no longer, and once again thoughts burbled into words.

  “We’re not on a mission,” he said.

  “Don’t trivialize it.”

  “I’m not trivializing it—it is trivial. We’re spending a day in Rome to find tiles for our house.”

  Meg sighed.

  “On the scale of Vacuous and Unimportant Things to Do,” he continued, “what we are doing earns maximum points.”

  “I do not consider building a nest for our little chicklings vacuous and unimportant.”

  Alec looked hard at his wife; maybe it was early menopause. What chicklings? he thought. We have evil teenagers plotting against us.

  “Please don’t do the Mr. Misery routine,” said Meg. “We’re in the eternal city. The city where we met and fell in love…” Here she paused to calculate exactly how long ago that had been. At precisely the same time that she said, “Nineteen years ago,” Alec said, “Eighteen years ago.”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Obviously not to you.”

  FOUR

  All Roads

  RIGHT AS DIVERSE PATHES LEDEN DIVERSE FOLK THE RIGHTE WEY TO ROME.

  —Geoffrey Chaucer, Treatise on the Astrolabe

  Elsewhere in the airport, Alice found herself in a similar predicament to that of Meg and Alec Schack. Her flight from New York had landed moments after their flight from Los Angeles. Arriving at the luggage carousels, she had been overwhelmed by brilliant reds, yellows, and blues in every combination of hue and luminance imaginable. She had left the charcoals, browns, and grays of Kennedy Airport to be greeted by this kaleidoscope of color, as if all the passengers had conspired to a midair wardrobe change in celebration of their arrival at Leonardo da Vinci airport.

  It felt like a gift, this polychromatic symphony, an auspicious omen. She had left Professor Stoklinsky’s studio resolved to reinvent herself; no more insipid acquiescing, no more scrambling to please. She would be decisive and assertive, strike a course, and boldly navigate it. This was her first trip abroad without her family. She had never been to Italy, but she spoke a little Italian, having studied it in high school. She wondered if she might further reinvent herself in this place.

  Perhaps she would introduce herself as Alicia. Or a new name altogether. Maybe she would cloak herself in an entirely new identity. She could pretend to be her friend Manuela. Waiting at the carousel, her thoughts ranged so wildly that it was a long time before she twigged that her bag had not appeared. This had never happened before. What would she do? A man in a uniform approached and asked her if she was okay. Alice was so scattered that she failed to notice that she had managed to plumb the depths of her schoolgirl Italian to both understand what he was saying and communicate her predicament.

  Following the kind man’s directions to the lost baggage counter, Alice gave herself a good stiff talking-to. Losing one’s backpack was not a catastrophe; it was a setback. In fact, it wasn’t a setback, it was a gift; this was her opportunity to launch the
new capable, assertive Alice. If she couldn’t manage this small speed bump, well, what was the point of coming in the first place?

  She turned a corner and saw a crowd of people, among them the Schacks, waiting at the counter. Had she seen the Schacks or had the Schacks seen her, there would quite likely have been a moment of mutual recognition and some what-are you-doing-heres. This would have been genuine coincidence and not a meeting initiated by me or any other of the genii of Rome. There was no need for them to meet. Indeed, a meeting may have altered their trajectories. So they did not meet.

  Taking in the long line at the counter, Alice’s heart sank. The old Alice would have meekly joined the back of the line and called Daniel for consolation. The new Alice did precisely that. But as she dialed Daniel’s work number, Alice felt such a depth of self-loathing that it startled her. Something voosh, the professor had said to her. I want you to do something voosh. Alice hung up before Daniel could answer.

  At the head of the line, a group of five scruffy young men were about to approach the counter. Propelled by an inner force as sudden as it was mysterious, Alice sashayed, actually sashayed, toward them. She could tell from their accents that they were British. Her heart raced. Sweat beaded her upper lip. She heard a voice speak with an Italian accent and realized that it belonged to her. “Scusi, signore,” said Alice, targeting the most confident and handsome of the lads.

  They all turned, almost sputtering with delight that this red-haired goddess had approached them. Rick, the handsome one, made an effort to look calm, as if beautiful women spoke to him all the time. “Hi,” he said slickly. “How can I help you?”