Roman Crazy

  “I so wanted to think that one day I would have woken up, packed a bag, and gone out into the world to find my own way. To sketch and paint again. To walk into a museum and not feel that sense of longing from missing it so much. It took coming here to get those things.

  “The thing is, while I can’t say I was happy with Daniel, I can’t say I was unhappy, either. I was a whole lot of nothing. And that wasn’t great.”

  “It sounds very not great.”

  Hearing my words repeated back to me in an Italian accent made me even more aware how different we were.

  I smiled sadly at him. “There’s more, Marcello.”

  “More?”

  “Yes. Daniel was my boyfriend in college. We, Daniel and I, we were dating when I studied abroad. When I was in Barcelona.” I looked down at my napkin. “When I was with you.”

  “Avery,” he sighed, sitting back in his chair and looking as though the entire world was heavy on his shoulders.

  “When I came to Barcelona, it was the first time I was ever alone, on my own, and I went a little crazy. I went a lot crazy with you.” I thought of that first time I saw him, on that hill when I was sketching. “You were so great, and so much fun, and I thought what the hell, I’ll have a little fling. I gave myself permission to have some fun, but then you turned out to be so damn great, Marcello; you weren’t supposed to be so great!” I surprised us both then by laughing. “You were so amazing and wonderful and you made me fucking fall in love with you for God’s sake.”

  His eyes burned into mine as he watched me come undone, reliving it, feeling everything again because he was feeling it, too. He knew what I went through because he felt it all right there with me.

  “When I went home, Marcello, I had every intention of coming back, to you, once I had my career on track and I could apply for something near you, whatever it was, I was coming back. But things change and things happen and—” My voice cracked then, and my body gave me away because I could never talk about this, ever, without going through it all over again. “Once I was home, I slipped too easily back into my old life. And after a while, I ended up sleeping with Daniel. And then I got pregnant. And then I got married. And then we lost Hannah when she was only three months old and—” My eyes blurred, tears spilling over. “And then I got lost, too.”

  He was up from the table, this blurry beautiful man whom I could barely see because of my tears, and taking me into his arms and tucking me into his side and hurrying me out onto the balcony and away from prying eyes and curious looks and concerned glances. Away to a quiet corner against the railing where strong Italian arms wrapped around shaking American shoulders and words were whispered in a quiet language that couldn’t possibly be understood but they were. They were because it was Marcello speaking to his Avery, to me, and he worried and fussed over me like a child, wiping my tears and kissing my forehead and telling me that it was okay, that I was okay, that we were okay, and when he wrapped his hands around my face and kissed me gently, so gently, I knew that this man would be the only man kissing me for the rest of my life.

  We stayed that way for a moment or an hour, I’m still not entirely sure, while my tears subsided. And when I was finally under control, he leaned back to look at me with a hint of a smile.

  “So,” he said, breaking the silence. “Divorced?”

  “Divorced,” I sighed, saying it out loud as though it were already a fact. I trusted the wind coming off the lake to carry my words into the ether somewhere, making them real and true.

  “Divorced,” he said again, rolling around the word a bit, as though trying to decide how it felt. I shivered a bit. That word-laden wind coming off the lake was chilly.

  “I like it,” he finally pronounced, dropping another kiss on my forehead. “I have always wanted to have a torrid affair with an American divorcée.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, feeling drained but also a tiny bit hopeful. Marcello now knew all my secrets, I had nothing left to hide. And that felt pretty incredible.

  “Yeah,” he said, in his best American accent. “Come, let’s go home. I’d thought a nice walk through the gardens would be a nice way to end the day, but . . .”

  “But?” I asked.

  Pressing his mouth just under my ear, he whispered, “But now all I can think about is getting you into bed. Or up against that cabinet in the entryway. I am not picky.”

  Goose bumps broke out across my body as he walked us back inside and over to our table. “Gardens are overrated.” I shivered once more as he dropped a kiss on my neck, leaving our unfinished meal and a mess of bills behind for the waiter. There was an urgency now to get home, to be together, to feel what was here and now instead of what was over and in the past. I tugged at his hand, wanting nothing more than to be with him.

  “Let me just get your sweater, tesoro,” he said.

  I looked at the heather-gray cashmere cardigan with tiny pearl buttons hanging on the back of my chair. Bitsy had bought me that cardigan, a Christmas present. It matched one that she had exactly . . .

  “Leave it. I don’t want it anymore.” I tugged him toward me by his collar. “I’d rather you keep me warm.”

  He did. With his hands, his arms, his words . . . and his own sweater. Which he took off and gave to me.

  * * *

  THE REST OF THAT WEEKEND was, in a word, bliss. We spent hours on the lake, simply enjoying the quiet pleasure that this entire region seemed devoted to. While Marcello answered emails or went for a jog, I curled up on a chaise and sketched in the garden. Or he would row me out into the center of the lake so that I had a full view of the house to capture on the page. Sometimes it would be a single flower scribbled on the back of a napkin or billowing vases filling up my phone to get down onto paper later.

  Things seemed to have changed slightly between the two of us. Something subtle had shifted, and I wondered if I was the only one who felt it.

  When we went back to the villa that night, after I told him the truth about my past, and my present, he had taken me right up against the cabinet in the entryway, too fumbling mad with passion to get me into bed. But while the passion had been as eager as always, the hunger as impossibly growling as always, in between the scrambling hands and the frantic kisses there’d been . . . a tenderness.

  The way he held my face in his hands when he pushed into me. The way he swept kisses along my spine, smoothing the skin with barely there brushes. The way I caught him staring at me as I came apart under his tongue, as though if he blinked I might’ve disappeared.

  And the way he said my name when he came apart, his lips swollen from my frantic kisses, chanting like Avery was the only word he knew.

  For the first time in a very long time, I felt treasured.

  I still felt treasured as the train pulled into the station in Rome, back into the Eternal City and the eternal beautiful frenzy. I’d been reluctant to leave the countryside, but I was actually eager to get back to work the next day. I was beginning restoration work on the final section, and I’d be trying a new technique on a particularly stubborn lime deposit that had rendered the colors almost invisible in this part of the mural.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, twisting his hands through a lock of hair that blew through the breeze as we walked through the station. So different from the last time I took the train, the first day I’d arrived in Rome.

  “I’m thinking about you,” I said, and he smiled, “but I’m also thinking about work.” He actually smiled bigger when I completed my sentence.

  “This makes me very happy,” he said, his hip bumping into mine as he maneuvered us through the crowded station to the Metro line.

  “It makes you happy that I’m thinking about work?” I asked, dodging a woman with a cart with a twisted wheel.

  “And me, don’t forget the first thing you said was you were thinking about me.”

  “I know, I know.” I laughed, leaning up on tiptoes to kiss him, right in the hollow of his throat.


  “I’m glad you’re thinking about work. When you love what you do, it’s hard to turn it off, yes?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, watching him move with such grace, such ease. To my surprise, I noticed that I was moving right along with him, following the ebb and flow of the throngs of people all around us. I was getting to know this town, know how it thought and how it moved. “I do love what I’m doing right now,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks crease a little as the realization dawned. There wasn’t much about my life in Rome that I didn’t love.

  We reached the turnoff point for the Metro line that would take us to Daisy’s apartment, where we’d been spending every night and were sure to spend this night as well. Just before heading down to the platform, he pulled me off to the side and answered his phone, motioning for me to hang on a minute. I watched the crowd as he talked, playing a game where I tried to listen in on conversations and pick up as many Italian phrases as I could understand. Phrase books and language classes had nothing on simply standing in a crowd of people speaking a foreign tongue and letting it wash over you.

  That man over there was telling the woman he was walking with that if she didn’t hurry up they’d miss their train to Tiburtina.

  And that group of girls, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, were talking about some kid named Mario who had apparently brought a . . . giraffe to a party? Eh, full immersion didn’t always work out.

  I was in the middle of deciphering a conversation between two older men about a football game when Marcello hung up the phone. “Avery, I’ve got to head home for a bit.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, just something I must do. I will be done in a few hours, I will call you then, yes?”

  “Oh, okay. That’s fine.”

  He started to steer me back toward a row of waiting taxis. “Let me just get a car to take you home.”

  I stopped him. “Chivalrous but unnecessary. I’m fine taking the Metro.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I looked at the map on the wall, then back at him. “I’ve got this.”

  He studied me a moment, then grinned. “You got this,” he agreed, and leaned in for a slow kiss. “I will call you when I am on my way.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Be naked as well as there,” he called out after me as he backed away into the crowd. I blushed when I saw several people look my way.

  Forty minutes later I was off the Metro, a block away from the apartment, and damn proud of myself. I’d known exactly where my stop was, I’d spoken Italian to the ticket taker, and I barely had to look at the map on the train, trusting the loud squawky intercom to announce each stop.

  A group of American tourists—as recognized by their sneakers, huge maps, and even huger cameras—were at the bus stop pointing at the signage, trying to figure out where they should get off to get to the Colosseum. And they asked me in Italian! Sort of.

  With a finger on the Fodor’s he asked, “Scusame.”

  “No, Dad, it’s mi scusi, gosh,” a young boy chimed in, tapping away on his phone.

  “Shh, I’m concentrating.” I should have stopped him there but this was adorably fun. “Non parlo Italeeanno. Dove aye Colosseum?”

  “Parla Ingleeese?” the mom chimed in when she had enough.

  “Yes, I speak English.”

  “Oh thank God,” the dad shouted, and for a second I thought the mother might hug me.

  They all ended up hugging me after I sent them on their way, with a restaurant recommendation thrown in for good measure.

  On very light feet I turned into Daisy’s courtyard and inhaled the scent of jasmine blooming from the pots on the balconies overhead. My heels (low, but still heels) expertly picked their way across like a champ. And I felt really at home in this city for the first time.

  My hair had come loose from its headband, and I paused to push it back. And once I could see clearly again, I saw my soon-to-be-ex-husband, Daniel, standing on the building’s front steps.

  STUNNED, I STOPPED DEAD IN my tracks. As people pushed past me left and right, I stared at Daniel.

  He’d always been a beautiful man. The first day I’d laid eyes on him was eerily similar to today. I’d been walking home to my dorm, distracted while thinking about a lecture I’d just attended on Pissaro, and almost didn’t notice the impromptu soccer match on the lawn in front of my building. Almost to my door, I paused when I heard shouting and looked back at the group of guys playing. But what made me stare was the player off to the left, talking to a group of girls and charming the pants off anyone within a square mile.

  He was literally a golden boy. Tall, with the most gorgeous honey blond hair curling slightly along his shirt collar. Dimples, twinkling blue eyes, and even though it was mid-October, enough of a tan that you just knew this kid spent his summers on a boat somewhere.

  I watched him for a moment, starstruck by his looks. Even from across the quad, you could tell this guy had “it”—that quality that was going to take him wherever he wanted to go and would make sure it wasn’t all that hard to get there.

  And then he turned. And he looked at me. And he smiled at me. And when his blue eyes met my brown ones, I could feel in my feet that he was someone special.

  Now I stood in an Italian street, watching this man who was still impossibly beautiful. Broader in the shoulders now, his body filling out as he’d grown up. His hair still that same honey blond, perhaps a little thinner on top, and perhaps the honey was graying just the tiniest bit around his temples. The hair didn’t curl along the shirt collar anymore, he kept it shorter these days, but a few defiant waves perked up due to the humidity.

  The dimples? Well, they were technically still there, but that’s one part of his face that I don’t have a clear, recent memory of. Maybe it was the pressures of his job, maybe it was the pressures of all the penis sharing, maybe it was just that he wasn’t that happy to see me anymore at the end of the day—but he rarely smiled at me anymore.

  I was very glad that I had that moment to study him, because when he saw me, and he smiled, I’d had time to prepare for it. And when the dimples didn’t show up, even though the grin seemed wide enough to ensure dimple compliance, I saw him for who he was.

  A man who desperately needed to stay married for the sake of appearances.

  Taking a deep breath, I walked the rest of the block as his gaze took me in. His eyes traveled the length of my body, not in appreciation, but more like . . . cataloguing. I came to a stop in front of the stoop he was standing on.

  “You changed your hair,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

  “A flat iron is kind of pointless in Italy.” I looked at the carry-on bag sitting next to him. “You just get in?”

  He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yep, nonstop out of JFK.”

  “Why not Logan?” I asked, wondering why he’d gone to New York.

  “Logan was fully booked. All that was left was one middle seat in the back of the plane.” He smiled ruefully, shrugging shoulders. Whaddyagonnado. First-world problems solved by first class.

  I’d been so anxious to get out of Boston I had sat in the back of the plane, in a middle seat. I took another step up toward him.

  “I flew American—wanted the points.”

  I nodded. “Of course.” Gotta get those points. “I made sure to use the American Airlines credit card for my purchases here.” I walked up the steps, now on the landing with him. He actually took a step back. “I knew you’d want the points.”

  “Delta has a new program where you earn—”

  “What are you doing here, Daniel?” I interrupted. “You didn’t fly all the way to Rome just to compare airline loyalty programs, did you?”

  “No.”

  “And how the hell did you know where I was? I didn’t give anyone Daisy’s address.”

  “One of the papers you sent back to my lawyer. The return address was on the envelope.” His gaze dropped to the cobblestones below. “I don’t thin
k I was supposed to see it, but I did.”

  “So you saw a return address on an envelope containing letters about how best to resolve our divorce, and you decided to get on a plane?”

  “I wanted to see you.” He swallowed hard, now lifting his eyes to mine. “I had to see you.”

  “Daniel,” I sighed, and as the breath left my body, some of the tension left, too.

  “I just want to talk to you for a few minutes, explain a few things. Just hear me out, okay?” He was pleading now, in a tone that I’d never heard from him before. He was nervous, sure, but there was something else there. Panic? No, it couldn’t be. But suddenly I was exhausted. The high from the weekend had dipped down into a low that I realized I didn’t want to experience out here on the stoop.

  I moved to lift my bag higher onto my shoulder, but he took it, sliding it gently off my shoulder and onto his own. Ever the gentleman, his kind was trained from birth to hold a door, carry a bag, and pull out a chair. Too bad he wasn’t trained to keep his dick out from under other women’s skirts.

  I pushed past him to the front door. “Come on in,” I said, seeing the relief in his eyes, knowing it would be short lived.

  * * *

  SEEING DANIEL IN DAISY’S APARTMENT felt so . . . weird. Wrong. Total and complete upside down and inside out.

  I set my bag down in my room and headed back out to where Daniel was perched awkwardly on the edge of the couch. He held the glass of water I’d offered, sipped at it, held it, sipped at it again. He was nervous.

  Interesting.

  I stifled a smile and sat down opposite him. “So what’s up?”

  “What’s up?” he repeated. “Seriously, what’s up?”

  “What else do you want me to say? What can I do for you? How can I help you? Are you lost? Sorry I left you hanging about the dry cleaning?”

  “What’s up is that I wanted to see you,” Daniel interrupted, setting down his glass with an irritated thunk. “To talk to you, and make sure that we’re doing the right thing here.”