Ordinary World (14 page)

“I don’t have a sexy bone in my body.”

“Do too.”

I opened my mouth and stood there for about ten seconds, looking like I’d just been hit with a stun gun.

“Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

I instantly time-transported back to Devin’s Manhattan loft, when he would stand in front of me with his shirt off and give me a look that would practically bore a hole into me.

“Let’s see how sexy you feel after your husband gets plowed by a drunk driver,” I finally blurted.

“I’m not that kind of guy,” he said, with a guffaw.

“You think this is funny?”

“I think you need to start wearing some sexy underwear.”

“I think you need to go to hell,” I said, annoyed by his nonchalance.

“I’ll get there soon enough—are you almost ready or what?”

“If you would stop ransacking my personal belongings and lecturing me on my underwear for one damn minute, I could finish getting ready.”

He put the panties away, closed the drawer, and sat on the bed, grinning from ear to ear. “This is gonna be fun,” he said. Ten minutes later, I grabbed my backpack, water bottle, and two of the biscotti.

“Let’s go, Perillo,” I said.

We started with the Colosseum. David said I wasn’t ready for the really good galleries yet, and the Vatican was going to take at least a day, if not more, to cover. I found the Colosseum to be both fascinating and haunting, given what took place there, not to mention crowded as hell with tourists either clicking their digital cameras or cellphones.

“It’s big,” I said, looking around and feeling stupid for not having anything more intelligent or insightful to say. “And open. It never looks this big on TV.”

“It’s incredible…” David said, his voice trailing off. I’d almost forgotten how he gets in a gallery or a museum—completely lost in his surroundings, as if he’s having an out-of-body experience.

David offered to take a picture of me using my camera, and I let him, but squinted more than smiled. He then took one with his BlackBerry.

“Do you think the Stones played here back in the day?” I asked.

“It’s nice to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” he said.

“Who’s being funny?”

The day was sunny and warm, and pretty soon I carried around the hoody, an extra-large NorthamptonUniversity t-shirt engulfing me. David asked me if I owned anything that didn’t look like something a guy in his twenties would wear.

After the Colosseum, we went to a bistro for siesta and dined outdoors. Lunch consisted of chicken cacciatore and a salad consisting of arugula, tomatoes, and mozzarella, with fresh bread on the side. Chew slowly, David instructed. The combination of flavors was spectacular; I hadn’t really tasted anything in a long time. Dessert consisted of raspberry gelato—I thought I was going to have an orgasm right there. He watched me, a look of amusement on his face. In some ways, he didn’t even look like the guy with whom I used to strip down and dance, or practice sexual positions, or discuss writing styles and revision techniques, much less act like him. David was someone I never got to know. There was something much softer about this guy, more real and genuine.

“So tell me what you’ve been doing for the last few years,” I said. “How’s the gallery?”

“Well, I sold Paris Gallery last year after doubling its patronage and profile, and went to work in another gallery in Cambridge as a manager and consultant. When I turned that one around, I became a buyer. You know, I thought I’d miss the New York art scene, but there’s something really great about Boston. It’s not as pretentious as New York. It has a culture all its own. I feel like I’ve always belonged there.”

He talked about his work and his life with a vibrant ring in his voice.

“Are you still writing?” I asked.

He smiled slyly. “I was hoping you would ask that. Obviously you haven’t been reading the Arts and Leisure section of the
Globe
, have you.”

“I don’t trust the corporate-owned media.”

He sipped his wine and started coughing and laughing at the same time. “You don’t, eh. Well, it’s been very kind to me. I get to do a review every three weeks. In addition to that, I’ve been asked to write a section of an art history textbook on the Impressionists.”

My eyes widened. “Wow! How’d you get that gig?”

“A former client of mine from one of the publishing companies got transferred to the Boston area and came to one of the exhibits I helped put together.”

This time my mouth opened in addition to my widened eyes. “Nooooooo…”

He nodded his head slowly. “Yeah…”

“How did
that
work out?”

“She was always a cool client. I mean, I told her I wasn’t in the business anymore, and that this is my life now, and she respected that. Then she put me in touch with an editor to set up the book deal.”

“Anyone I know? Allison? Carol?”

“Diane.”

I didn’t know her.

“Do you think she told anyone back home who or where you are now?”

“I asked her not to.”

“Do you think she listened?”

“I considered making her put it in writing that she wouldn’t.”

“Well, not for nothing, but your little contracts didn’t always stick too well.”

He looked at me, mildly irked, I could tell. I regretted it the moment I said it.

“I did thank her,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know. I
thanked
her.”

It was my turn to give him an annoyed look, and I stopped regretting my own snide remark. I took a sip of water. All day I’d been wondering just with whom I was hanging out. And yet, just then, he became Devin in an instant, and it was like waking up after a long sleep. I almost wanted to say, “Oh, I know
you
. You’re the charmer, the schmoozer, God’s gift to women and King of the Hedonists.” I wondered if he wondered who I was or if I’d changed. Then I wondered if I even knew who I was.

“I put on a lot of weight,” I blurted.

He did a double take of sorts. “Okay,” he said.

“I was down to a size six when I married Sam. Stayed that way, too. And I wasn’t even trying, if you know what I mean.”

“Until the accident?”

“A few months after. I couldn’t eat anything at first. Now it seems like I can’t stop eating.”

“Understandable,” he said.

“I don’t even remember tasting the food when I eat it.”

“It’s not about taste. It’s not about feeling any of the senses. It’s about shutting them down.”

“You sound like my shrink,” I said. I looked away from him and stared out at the people walking along the streets, getting lost in no one particular thought, forgetting time. He didn’t seem to mind. Then I turned back to him. “Did you go through that when your father died?”

“I think the opposite happened when my father died. I think I started to feel everything.”

“Hm.” I stared out again, and then returned to him. “Do you miss your father?”

He paused for a second before answering. “I miss the relationship we didn’t get to have. I regret that I didn’t try to make amends with him sooner, before he got sick.”

This time he looked away, wistful.

“We were both so damn stubborn.” He looked back at me. “I can’t even imagine what it was like for you to lose Sam, especially on the night of your anniversary.”

“It sucks, that’s for sure. But I’m glad I’m able to say I had the relationship that I wanted to have with him.”

“I’m glad too. You know, I wanted to hate the guy the first time I saw you together in the gallery. Wanted to punch him out for taking you away from me or something stupidly macho like that. But I couldn’t. I could just tell he was a good guy, and good for you. He could give you what I couldn’t at the time. It turned out I wanted to thank him instead. And I could also see how happy you were. You were so laid back and relaxed with him. You were so yourself.”

“Are you kidding me? I freaked out when I saw you that night.”

We both laughed at the memory. “You were a little tongue-tied, if I recall,” he said. “That was really cute.”

“It was mortifying.”

“Still, it was obvious that you weren’t the uptight, inhibited Andi I’d first met however long ago it was that we met. You’d grown into yourself.”

My smile faded. “And now I’ve lost myself again.”

“So, you’ll reinvent yourself.”

I looked at him and furrowed my brow, then looked away yet again, this time drifting further. “I don’t want to,” I said, feeling a million miles away. If he responded, I didn’t hear him.

After siesta, we spent the rest of the day shopping in clothing boutiques and shoe stores. David’s Italian was fluent and flawless. I wondered when he’d started learning the language. I soon found out that he was telling the sales-staff:
“This beautiful woman has lost her essence and has come to Rome to get it back. She needs a dress to celebrate when she does.”
Each person to whom he said this gave a response of “Ahhh!” and went right to work measuring me and finding clothes for me to try on. Everyone seemed to be having a better time than I. When I came out of the fitting room in a red wrap-around top and a flared chiffon-and-silk flowered skirt to match, with a pair of Manolos that would’ve made Carrie Bradshaw gush with envy, I felt the same discomfort as the first time I had taken my clothes off in front of Devin—totally vulnerable and self-conscious and ashamed of my body. This time, it didn’t even feel like
my
body. But both David and the man assisting us looked at me with expressions of delight, even desire. The man said something to David, who concurred.

“What’d he say?” I asked.

“He said he had no idea there was such a beautiful body hidden under that hideous t-shirt.”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, what’d he say?”

“I am serious. Ask him to repeat it and look it up in your dictionary, if you don’t believe me.”

“Perdona mi...” I started, and in my slow, broken Italian, asked the sales assistant to repeat what he’d just said to my friend.  The man did, gesturing the shape of an hourglass, practically touching my outer figure as he did so.

I didn’t fully understand what he’d just said, but I believed him.      

I tried on three more outfits, and then the assistant took three of them to the cashwrap counter. “We’ll take all of them,” David said in Italian. That I understood.

“I can’t afford that,” I protested.

“It’s from me. I owe you an anniversary present. I owe you lots of presents, actually. Christmas, Birthday… you’re forty now, yes?”

“Forty-one.”

“Let’s tack that on too, then. Anniversary and birthday gift.”

“Thanks,” I said, although I felt awkward about accepting the gift. If I had my way, it’d be Sam buying me presents. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have needed the clothes in the first place.

David seemed to read my mind. “It’s okay, Andi,” he said. “It’s just a dress.”

“And shoes.”

After that, he took me to a salon where the stylist gave me the best damn scalp massage I’d ever had, covered my grays with a soft auburn color, and finished with a haircut that was runway ready. David patiently sat nearby, looking though Italian fashion and style magazines and drinking cappuccino. When he finished blow-drying and applied the last bit of product, the stylist turned me in the chair to face David, who smiled in a way that was subtle—serene, almost. As if all was right within his world.