“I know my timing isn’t right, but I wanted to say something.”
He stopped, turning to me with a blank expression.
“Is it terrible of me to say I’m actually really glad to see you?”
He looked up at the sky, then back to me, allowing a small smile. “It is not terrible.”
* * *
HE TOOK ME TO A tiny café off via Francesco a Ripa, something I made him repeat so that I could find it again. I also made him repeat it several times, because good god damn, I’d forgotten the lilt of his voice, the impossibly attractive rolling of the R’s. I’d once thought it was something he played up to seduce me, but over time, I’d realized it was simply the way his mouth was made to speak English—and what a blessing it was.
We sat, a single espresso in front of him and a whipped cream coffee extravaganza in front of me. While I’d been scrutinizing the coffee menu to decipher which would be the closest to my regular order, Marcello had ordered for both of us.
“You remembered,” I said, dipping in my spoon for some whipped cream.
Watching me raise the spoon to my lips, he just gave me a slightly smug smirk.
“I’m sure you have questions.”
“Only one,” he said. “Why you are here?”
Fair enough. He was angry and I could appreciate that, but I wasn’t about to be a punching bag, either.
“My life fell apart.” It was honest, direct. “Daisy offered to help me put it back together.”
His features softened a bit but his tone remained cool. “She is a good friend of yours then?”
I smiled. “The best.”
“And that is why you came to Italia?”
I nodded, hating that we were reduced to such a humdrum conversation. “I know that my being here is an unwelcome surprise, but seeing you last night, you’ve got to understand that it was a shock to me, too. I didn’t know you and Daisy knew each other, and to be clear, she didn’t know anything about you or us.”
He was quiet for a minute. Processing. His brow remained furrowed, posture stiff, and he still wouldn’t look directly at me, which bothered me more than I cared to admit.
Finally, after what felt like forever, he cleared his throat. “What happened?”
“With my life falling apart?” I took a deep breath. “Well, back home I—”
“No.” He shook his head. “You misunderstand.”
I could feel a chill starting at the base of my spine and working its way upward. So this is what it felt like, seconds before you were held accountable for your actions.
He finally looked me in the eye. “Tell me what happened nine years ago when you left to go back home and forgot all about Barcelona. And me.”
YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT I’m so sorry for how I ended things with us. I—”
He held up a finger when the server came over with a plate of biscotti. Through the large glass window, I watched the red scalloped awning flapping in the afternoon breeze, patiently waiting for her to walk away, letting this play out on his terms. I owed him that.
Once she left, he folded his hands together and dropped them in his lap. “You lie.”
My head snapped to him. “Excuse me?”
“You lie,” he repeated slowly, finally looking up at me. Any crack in the angry facade was sealed up tight. The romantic side of me was thinking he would be happy to see me after all this time.
He leaned over the table and repeated himself a third time before sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest, looking smug and satisfied. Whereas I couldn’t remember a quarter of the apologies I wanted to tell him, he seemed to have no problem getting anything off his chest.
“If you aren’t going to let me explain, then there’s no reason for us to do this.” I grabbed my purse from the back of the chair and moved to stand. “For what it’s worth, it was wonderful to see you. And I am sorry.”
He stood quickly, his chair falling behind him with a crash. “You didn’t end it,” he growled. “An ending has a finale. Come si dice, a resolution,” he scoffed, standing directly in front of me. “You disappeared.”
As I looked up at him, I could see he was furious, but under it all, I saw the hurt. Knowing that I was the cause of it, I was itching to comfort him and not defend myself. That was something I fell into with Daniel during arguments. Sometimes it was just easier to give in, roll over. Slowly I began hating myself for it. I wouldn’t do it again.
“You’re right. I did disappear but I had reasons, Marcello. Work reasons, personal reasons, just . . . reasons. I was also twenty-one, and people do stupid stuff when they’re twenty-one, you know? I should’ve gotten in touch with you, I wanted to, but life back home was crazy when I got back and then . . . All I can tell you is that I’m sorry. What I did was terrible, and I will always regret how I ended things with you. How I didn’t end things with you. I know words don’t always mean much, but I can tell you that I am truly, truly sorry.”
His eyes moved over my face before settling on my eyes. Maybe he was cataloguing how I changed, the way I did to him last night over dinner. It could have been that he was trying to read me to see if I was sorry or if it was a lie like he assumed. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell.
Finally, he nodded and turned to set his seat upright. Sinking into it, he sat quietly and stared out of the window at the bustling traffic zipping by. I glanced around at the other customers; everyone had turned away from us.
With my hand on the chair, I waited. For what, I wasn’t sure, but I hoped there would be some sort of acknowledgment that he understood. Maybe forgiveness wasn’t in the cards for us, but I hoped that he could, at the very least, accept that I meant what I said.
Finally, he nodded at the chair, indicating that I could, and should, sit back down. Knowing him, and his temper, I knew it was all I was going to get.
Rolling my eyes, I slid into the chair. And waited. I eyed the coffee cup, watching the foam dissolve and waiting for him to say something. Anything. It didn’t go unnoticed that we were together less than thirty minutes and had already fought more than Daniel and I had in years.
“I don’t want to argue,” I finally admitted, the silence driving me crazy. “We probably should, but I really don’t want to. I just had to apologize.”
He nodded, focusing on my wringing hands on the table. Could he see the white line from my wedding band? To me, it glared like a beacon screaming to all that saw it look here!
Married woman running around Rome with her wedding band off !
If he noticed, he didn’t comment.
“I don’t want it. I needed it then, but—”
“I need it,” I said, making sure there was no way he missed this. “You deserve it. Then and now. I shouldn’t have left how I did. I should have explained and not just . . . Jesus, not just panicked. When I got home I thought everything would go as we planned and, well, unplanned things happened and changes were made and—”
“I don’t understand,” he said, reaching out his hand but pulling back quickly.
And you can’t understand because I’m afraid to tell you.
Then his phone pinged, and now he was the one rolling his eyes. “Daisy is wondering where we are and she . . . oh. . . she wants to know what I am planning to do with you.”
I waited a beat or two, willing my heart to stop racing. Would he say nice to see you again, have a good life? Would he enfold me in his enormously powerful arms and crush me to his chest and whisper the words I was longing to hear, that he was sorry and that he had missed me and that thank God I was back?
“One more coffee?” he suggested.
Best line ever! It was innocent enough for anyone else, but for us—with the complicated history that we had—it spoke volumes. Neither one of us looked away. For the briefest moment he seemed sad, so very sad, but then the tiniest of smiles crept back in when he texted her back.
I wanted to ask what he said.
But for now, I was just grateful to have anot
her few moments with Marcello, sitting for another coffee and getting to ask a few of my own questions, if he’d let me.
“So how long have you been working with Daisy?”
He seemed taken aback by the switch in topic. “It is, let’s see . . . four years now. We have worked on several projects together since she joined the firm, and we are just finishing one up.”
“Yes, she told me about that. An old bank. Lots of frescoes, mosaics, right?”
His face lit up with excitement. Marcello had always been passionate about his career.
“Yes, it’s been a bank for almost 150 years, but it had been a monastery since the fourteenth century. The bank modernized it in the 1870s, and then again in the 1950s—they made some terrible changes then. We worked with them to develop several new spaces this time, strengthening the integrity of the original shell.”
When Marcello spoke about work his accent became a bit more generalized, more of the world rather than of a small town in Tuscany. I could easily see him presenting his plans in a boardroom, in some beautifully restored space filled with like-minded professionals. This was Grown-Up Marcello . . . and it was something to see.
“Sounds amazing. Maybe I’ll get to see it while I’m here,” I murmured. I knew I’d see the vase at the office, but the bank itself, that may be too much for either of us to handle.
“And how long is that?” he asked quietly.
I exhaled on a long sigh. “That’s the million-dollar question.”
“What does a million dollars have to do with you staying in Italia?” He looked puzzled.
“It’s just an expression. I have no idea how long I’m staying. Could be a couple of weeks, could be a month, could be . . .” I let my voice trail off, not wanting reason and logic to get ahold here just yet.
His phone pinged again. Looking at it, he drew in a breath and held it, lips sealing together in a flat line. His eyes moved over the text a few more times before he looked at me. “Sorry, work.” He seemed distracted.
“Oh, do you need to go?”
Why did you give him an out? Keep him talking!
“No, it’s Daisy, something about she found the perfect volunteer.”
Keep him talking about anything but that!
“It’s just some vases,” I blurted.
Brilliant work, Avery.
“What is?” he asked, setting the phone down next to his cup.
When the waitress stopped back to see if we wanted something besides coffee, I was grateful for the distraction. It gave me time to think about how to tell him that we may or may not be working in the office together. It was a distraction until she left two dinner menus on the edge of the table.
Depending on how this conversation went, I wondered if we would be making it through the coffee, let alone dinner.
“What Daisy has to talk to you about is the vases.”
“I don’t understand.”
I nodded, draining my coffee. “You lost a volunteer. The bank job you guys are working on?”
“Yes.” He nodded slowly, confused. “Anna. She is pregnant.”
“So you need someone to pick up where she left off. With the Romanesque vases.”
“Yes.”
“I know how to do it.”
“So.”
“You need a volunteer.”
“And . . . ?”
“I told Daisy that I would do it.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it quickly with a snap. By the third time he did it, a small sound came out, but nothing more.
“They’re just vases, Marcello.”
“They are not just vases, Avery. You know it is not.”
“It is what we decide it is. Nobody has to define it. Vases, just vases.”
“What if they take you a week, a month?”
“Then they take a week or a month.”
“And there is no one waiting for you at home?” he asked, his voice sounding casual, but his eyes told me otherwise.
“That’s complicated.”
And it was. It certainly wasn’t a lie.
A lie by omission is still a lie, Daniel would say. Ironic. I wondered how many omissions he omitted telling me about.
“I see.” His eyes narrowed. “Home is still Boston, yes?”
Huh. He was on a fact-finding mission. I nodded. “Yes. And Rome is home for you now? How far are we from where your family grew up? I know you grew up fairly close to here.”
I could fact find, too.
“You remembered,” he replied, allowing a small smile to escape before putting his business face back on.
Of course I’d remembered. I remembered everything.
And just like that I was thrown back to Barcelona, to him, to the lazy days and frenzied nights. To the carefree and the unhurried, when not one thing was tedious or monotonous.
For years I’d kept myself from thinking about him, hating myself for what I did. For what I didn’t say. Mainly for how I let things unravel. Because if I had thought about or contacted him after months or years of silence, there’d be no way I could get through my monotonous, routine life. And now here he was, and the floodgates were open, and I was experiencing everything again like it was the first time.
These were dangerous waters.
“Your hair, it is different, no?” he said, changing the subject once again.
“Not really. It’s the same curly mess it always was,” I said, smoothing it back.
“Why do you tuck it away?”
“My hair plus this humidity? Nightmare.”
“Hmm,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate. “So, you are still in Boston, where someone may or may not wait for you—”
“Yes.”
“—and you are here in Rome. For a while. We don’t know how long.” He studied me for a moment. “And the museum is okay with this?”
“Museum?”
“Or gallery—I assume you’re working for one or the other. Or perhaps you are teaching? I always thought you would make an excellent teacher.”
Pay dirt. He’d unraveled me in less than five minutes. Suddenly I didn’t want to play this game anymore.
“I’m not teaching. Or working, for that matter.”
“So you are . . .”
“So I am. There’s not much to it,” I said, frustrated that I had nothing to show for my life so far. It was the same feeling I got when Daisy asked about sketching.
“And now you are in Rome,” he said, glancing up at me, waiting. “And my newest volunteer.”
“Am I?” I tried to keep the giddiness out of my voice, the smile off my face, and the twinkle out of my eye, but it just wasn’t possible. “You’re okay with it?”
Nodding once, he stood and motioned for the check. “Like you said, they’re just vases.”
* * *
WALKING ME BACK TO DAISY’S, he weaved us in and out of side streets that we hadn’t taken the first time. This path had far less tourist signage to help me along the way. Usually, every corner building had a street sign on it and a stack of signs shaped like arrows pointing every which way to send you toward the landmarks.
This was more of a tour through pocket-sized neighborhoods that seemed to exist on the outskirts of the larger section of Trastevere.
Throughout the entire walk, it was agonizingly quiet. Not a cold quiet like it was on the way to the coffee shop, but a thoughtful quiet. His hands were tucked into his khaki shorts and his long legs ate up the sidewalk with purpose.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked, unable to take the silence anymore.
He harrumphed. “Of course. It is only your second day, yes? I take you a different way so you see more.”
“Oh,” I whispered, taken aback by the thoughtfulness of it. “Thank you.”
We had just turned a corner that I recognized as near the Metro stop I arrived at my first day. Had I been paying attention that day, I would have seen the enormous Poggi art store across the street. I stopped, but Marcello carried o
n not realizing that I wasn’t behind him. The iron gates were down but the interior lights were lit enough that I could see that the store looked well stocked.
“What it is?” Marcello asked, coming to stand beside me.
Our shoulders brushed lightly, but it was enough that we both noticed and stepped away from the other.
“It’s nothing. I was just going to snap a picture so I remembered where this was.” If I was correct, this was just about two blocks away from Daisy’s. And this was definitely a place I wanted to come back to.
He crossed the street and looked in the glass door before bending down to read the sign.
“Chiuso il lunedi eh, they are closed Mondays,” he explained. “Tomorrow they open at nine.” He handed me a business card he’d picked up from a holder on the door.
I smiled in thanks and tucked it into my purse.
By the time we reached Daisy’s, it had started to drizzle. I looked up at the late-afternoon sky, blinking through the drops and loving the coolness it brought to my skin. Even though today was mentally exhausting, I felt like I came out of it stronger, wiser even, and most certainly in a better place with someone who was once so important to me. We could even end up as friends at the end of this . . . whatever this was.
When I looked back to Marcello, he was watching me intently, and his features had softened the tiniest bit.
“Did you want to come in?” I choked, and quickly explained, “I meant out of the rain.”
“I’ll be fine. Go inside, Avery.”
Climbing the stairs, I turned to where he waited. “Bye, Marcello. And thanks for today.”
“Ciao,” he called, waving once before returning his hand to his pocket. “I guess I will be seeing you soon.”
It wasn’t until he disappeared around the corner that I let myself in the front door. Leaning against it, my head thudded against the wood and I counted to ten. Then to fifty, and finally, when I reached seventy-five, I felt solid enough to walk up the stairs to the apartment.