Ordinary World (15 page)

“Bellissima.”

He said this rather quietly, matter of fact, even. As if he’d known all along. As if I’d always been this way.

The stylist spun the chair back around and I looked in the mirror. My eyes welled with tears.

I recognized her too, for just an instant. And then she disappeared again.

Chapter Eighteen

W
E WENT BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM AROUND NINE o’clock. I was exhausted; this had been the most productive day I’d had in a year and a half. David put my purchases in the closet and called room service to order something for me to eat when I curled up on the bed and closed my eyes.

“Don’t bother,” I said in a sleepy voice. He then lay next to me and stroked my hair, not seeming to mind that it’d been over-sprayed.

“Mmmmmmmmm,” I said, feeling myself drifting into slumber, “that feels good.” I remembered when Sam would do the same after a stressful day at school. He’d spoon me and stroke my hair and talk to me until I was peacefully asleep. And somewhere between consciousness and the dream world, I thought perhaps he had come to do it again. I even felt a kiss on my cheek.

“Andi,” I heard him whisper.

It’s Sam! He’s back! He’s here!

No…pay attention. Listen to me!

Then who is it?

It’s time, Andrea.                

I awoke around one a.m. David was gone, to return promptly at seven-thirty again.

Chapter Nineteen

Days four and five in Italy

N
EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A GOOD haircut.

I awoke feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Hell, I woke up feeling
thinner
. Ready to jump into the day.

We spent the entire day in Vatican City. The Basilica of St. Peter was breathtaking. The Sistine Chapel astounding. The lines to get in never-ending. Once we did, however, I stood in each structure in awe, my mouth open most of the time, feeling incredibly small and plain. David did the same.

“No matter how many times I visit these places, I’m blown away as if it’s the first time,” he said. A Vatican virgin, I thought. How ironic.

“How many times have you been here?” I asked.

“Six, maybe more. I’ve lost count.”

Church bells rang.

“Wanna go to mass?” he asked.

I practically gasped. “Are you kidding?”

“No. Why would I be kidding?”

I looked at him in disbelief. “Since when do you go to Mass?”

“I started a few years ago, shortly after I moved to Boston.”

The irony of this was not lost on me. “You’re the only person I know who actually
joined
the Boston Diocese as opposed to running from it screaming.”

“I found a nice little parish. Good people. Sensible. They live by the Gospel, not by the rules.”

Who is this person talking to me? I thought.

“You’re serious?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You’re a practicing Catholic now.”

“Si.”

I looked at him, baffled, and then walked out onto St. Peter’s Square, pigeons and tourists both rustling out of the way, the brightness of the sun making me squint. David followed me out.

“Why does this surprise you so?” he asked.

I sat on the edge of the steps and took a swig from my water bottle. “I read your journal entries, Dev. I remember you writing about the residuals of Catholic guilt, and even reminding me of the damage it did to my developing sexuality.”

“That was what—seven years ago? A lot’s changed since then. Surely you can attest to that. Besides, I came to realize that it doesn’t have to be that way. You know, all that guilt and stuff. There’s another way.”

“Which way is that?”

“The way of forgiveness.”

I laughed out loud in contempt. “
Forgiveness!
” I said, incredulous. “Whom did you need to forgive?”

“My father, my mother, myself…”

“Do me a favor, Dev: save the homilies for someone else.”

“David,” he corrected, more stern than usual.

“What?”

“I’m not Devin anymore.”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“No—not fucking ‘whatever’. Geez, Andi. You can be so mean when you’re angry, you know that?”

I got even angrier because he was right.

“You can go to mass if you want,” I snapped. “:I’ll stay out here and feed the pigeons or something. I’m here to look at the art and the buildings—not God.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. He left me at the fountain and went into the church.

The nerve of him
, I thought as I crumbled amaretti cookies and fed them to the birds.
Trying to preach to me about forgiveness. Trying to get me to think that there’s such a thing as a loving God.
What kind of loving God would do this? I had spent sleepless nights in an empty bed wondering. What kind of loving God would let a wonderful, compassionate man die so senselessly and suddenly? A loving God
wouldn’t
do it, I had concluded. A loving God wouldn’t allow planes to fly into buildings, wouldn’t allow drunk drivers to kill husbands after five years of marriage, wouldn’t allow a wife who spent most of her life sexually deprived to go hungry again, wouldn’t allow the Red Sox to win the World Series
again
. So that was it: there was no loving God. In fact, there was no God at all. We were all a bunch of overgrown primates with shaving kits and hair products.

David returned to find me writing in my journal.

“Whatcha working on?” he asked. Any trace of anger he might have had for me before was gone.

“The Gettysburg Address,” I said, without looking up. “I’ve decided that it’s too long.”

“Why don’t you try it in couplets,” he suggested, pausing for a moment, then reciting slowly: “
Fourscore and seven years ago/we set up shop and lo/ thought a good idea to be free/ and pretend you’re on par with me
… Hey, not bad for off the top of my head!”

I looked up at him, squinting even with my sunglasses on, with both astonishment and absurdity. Freak boy.

“When did you read—and
memorize
—The Gettysburg Address?”

“Last year.”

“Why?”

“I was dating a history professor. I wanted to impress her.”

“Why are you so drawn to women in academia?” I asked, hearing a hint of jealousy in my voice.

“I like teachers. If you do something wrong, they make you do it over again.”

I laughed, recognizing the Rodney Dangerfield line from the eighties movie
Back to School
.

“See?” he said with a wink. “I like it when you laugh. You’re much sweeter.”

David may not be Devin anymore, but he could still melt me like butter in a matter of seconds.

“Where to next?” I asked.

“
Pranzo
,” he replied. Lunch. His pronunciation, rather than its meaning, made my mouth water.

***

The next day was fountains, fountains, fountains. We went to every fountain in Rome, and David was in true docent form. He lectured me on their history, gave an analysis of their aesthetic qualities, recalled their folklore, and simply gawked and gazed as he always does. He saved Fontana di Trevi for last—the most famous as well as magnificent fountain in Rome, if not Italy, and his favorite. I was running out of words for breathtaking, astounding, wonderment…the sheer magnitude was enough to render me speechless, let alone the intricacy of each sculpted figure, alive and practically speaking to me, beckoning me to jump in.

“The story is that if you throw a coin over your left shoulder into the fountain and make a wish, you will return to Rome and your wish will be fulfilled. Some say it’s three coins; some say it’s not over your shoulder.”

He then reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a handful of Euros, paused, and tossed three over his left shoulder. They made a barely audible plinking sound. The water rippled and bobbed, sunlight dappling on its surface and reflecting other coin-tosses and wish-makers and the blue sky.

“Your turn,” he said.

I looked at the fountain and the water, the hundreds of coins at its bottom, naively waiting for nothing. Then I looked at David, as if he’d just told me a cruel joke, and walked away.

Later that evening, I changed into one of the new dresses and met David at his hotel room. He opened the door dressed in a new Versace suit.
Ciao
. I had to turn away, lest I rip the suit right off his body. “David” was an appropriate name indeed; he was a work of art. Molto bello.

He told me that the stars would be jealous of me tonight.

We dined and danced late into the night. The tensions of the previous days evaporated into the moonlit sky and I felt lighter with each hour that passed. A memory of Sam and me at a wedding appeared before my mind’s eye:

Sam, in his charcoal gray suit and silk tie. The one that brings out his eyes. His deep, big, ocean blue eyes. Me, in a salsa dress, ruffled just below the knees, hugging my hips. My hair in a French twist, my lips full and bright red and puckering. Sam’s arms touching my hips, us dancing without a trace of inhibition, the crowd clearing the floor for us…
In the present moment, I felt free and light and unburdened, just as I had then.

And horny.

Later still, we went back to David’s hotel room and came out onto the balcony, where he handed me a flute of ginger ale.

“Per te,” he said.

I put the flute to my lips and drank slowly and provocatively, not taking my eyes off him. God, I’d forgotten how incredible those sienna eyes are. They actually looked fiery in the moonlight.

He fed me a strawberry. I chewed slowly, letting its juice fill my mouth and slide down as I swallowed, closing my eyes as I did so. When I opened them, I stood still for a moment.

First I took his hand, and then I hugged him.

We let go and locked into a gaze. Then we kissed.

I swear, I heard something like pots and pans banging together. Or cowbells. Or gongs and triangles and whistles. He stopped and practically bore a hole into me with his eyes. Hot flashes overtook me. My breathing increased as my chest heaved, cleavage peeking out of the dress.

“I’m sorry,” he said with uncharacteristic shyness. “I didn’t mean to—I’m not trying to take advantage.”

He picked up another strawberry, and I knocked it out of his hand, where it flew off the balcony. I kissed him again, hard and messily, like one might eat a loaf of bread after months of starvation.

We somehow navigated ourselves back into the room with the lights off, pulling off each other’s clothes and kissing wildly, until we blindly hit the edge of the bed and fell over, laughing at our clumsiness. He hoisted me up and dropped me on the bed before climbing onto me. When he unhooked and slid off my bra, my muscles tightened in an old, involuntary reflex of self-consciousness, and he instantly set my mind at ease.

“Your body is fine,” he whispered, and went right to work nibbling my neck. “Just like I remember it.”

And that was all I needed to hear.

We made love into the early hours, and I thought I might actually die from the dizzying heights of ecstasy he was bringing me to. I had an orgasm that could’ve waken up the Pope. Had he done this with his clients while he was an escort, he could’ve charged double and the women would be committing bank heists just to get ten minutes with him. And for a moment, I was thankful that he never had, that I knew something they didn’t know.