Instructions for a Broken Heart (16 page)

Instead, she had slurped her pasta and craved a really big plate of nachos. At one point, Dylan Thomas had watched her over a spoonful of lasagna, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

She felt like she’d been in Italy for ten years.

She heard voices on the veranda behind her and she shuffled down the railing a bit, hid behind an ivy-covered pillar. The sky turned dark alarmingly fast.

Francesca and Giacomo were arguing, intensely, in Italian, their bodies in shadow. Jessa couldn’t understand a word of it, but with all the mad gesturing, she knew it wasn’t a polite conversation. And Francesca still had that stupid frog with her. She must sleep with the thing.

She was brandishing it like a wizard, and for a brief moment, Jessa expected a streak of light to emerge from the frog’s mouth, like something out of
The Lord of the Rings
, something green or maybe even electric blue that would turn Giacomo into some boggy animal or to dust.

Then without warning, Giacomo grabbed it from her, smashed the frog into the cement of the veranda, and stormed off, his shoes slapping against the stone, growing faint, and then gone entirely.

Francesca stared down at her shattered frog, shards of green plastic fanned out around her. Jessa slipped out from behind the pillar and, without a word, knelt down to start picking up the pieces one by one.

“Grazie.” Francesca dipped beside her, picking up a chunk that held the black orb of the frog’s eye. “I am sorry for that. My son—my son is very confused.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if I was kicked out of school.” Jessa placed a small handful of plastic shards into Francesca’s delicate hand.

Francesca stood up suddenly. “Is that what he told you? That he was kicked out?” Her eyes probed Jessa’s face.

Standing, Jessa bit her lip, averted her eyes. “Um, he said because of narrow minds.”

Francesca shook her curls, her eyes slipping out over the water. “He left school, all of his own accord.” Her voice was a sigh, all breath and water. “No one wishes him to leave.”

“Oh.” Jessa’s eyes searched the stone for any stray pieces, mostly because she couldn’t look at Francesca’s face—her tight skin, her eyes such sad, dark pools. Several feet away, Jessa saw a small folded piece of tissue, a glint of metal poking out of its folds. Had it come out of the frog?

Jessa made a move toward it, this glinting fragment that had gone undetected, but Francesca was already slipping away into the shadow of the small hallway leading to the hotel lobby.

Jessa picked it up, a key poking from the thin skin of tissue. Frowning, she slipped it into her pocket, then turned back to where the sky had bled to ink.

Dawn was even more beautiful than sunset. Maybe—or maybe it was just sprawled in front of her and last night’s sunset had already become lodged into that hazy place of memory that diminished things.

Jessa shook her head. She was starting to sound an awful lot like Stephen Dedalus from
Portrait
. She finished it last night on her tiny balcony by the light of a candle she’d found in the bathroom, and the whole thing—the night full of gathering storm clouds, the candle’s flickering light, the ending of the novel that had left her sobbing into the air, the dark, dark roll of the sea—had almost been too much for Jessa. Stephen’s words echoed through her head,
I will not serve that in which I no longer believe…I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can…

Jessa thought about the holes in herself, the patchy places that didn’t seem formed yet. She craved being able to express herself wholly, as wholly as she could. As an artist, sure, but mostly just as a girl. Whatever girl she was and would be, not just what school or other people expected. But it would also mean expressing herself in her friendship with Carissa. It would mean dealing with Sean in a
whole
way, figuring out what she wanted from him. How did she feel about him? The actual him and not just the cheating part.

And it would mean figuring out which road to take from now on, the busy bustle of her current schedule—the obvious well-traveled path toward success—or the one, like in the Robert Frost poem they’d read in English last month, the one less traveled, the one that would feed her need for beauty and light and words.
I will not serve that in which I no longer believe…

Italy had given this to her—the time to sort it all out, the time to stop, think, dream, decide, to figure out why she kept trying to stuff all her holes full of activities and classes and events—why even after she kept filling her life to the brim, she still felt empty at her center. Standing here, watching the silvery water, she was reminded of a scene from that eighties movie
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
, the part where Ferris says something about life moving fast and making sure you don’t miss it. Had she missed her life so far?

Last night, she’d read all three of Carissa’s text messages.

The first two said how sorry she was, that they should always tell the truth, that their friendship was so important to her. She was just trying to help with the envelopes, with the manual. Normal Carissa—excuses and love and moving forward. The kisses meant nothing—stupid drama. She was truly, infinitely sorry.

But the third had said:

Did you love him?

Jessa had texted back:

I don’t know anything anymore.

Behind her, she could hear Christina rising, moving about in the early light of the room, getting ready for their ferry ride to the island of Capri. Last night, a thunderstorm had rocked the hotel. Flashes of lightning illuminated the room, and the sea had turned chunky and aggressive. Now the morning dawned clear and fresh.

But Jessa’s text repeated over and over in her head like a mantra or an old-fashioned record that skipped and skipped:
I don’t know anything anymore.

***

“Let me see the manual.” Jessa grabbed Tyler by his sweatshirt sleeve on the docks as they waited for the ferry. “If you still have it.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” Jessa pulled her hair into a ponytail and waited.

He handed her the pages. She flipped to the instructions for Reasons #16 and #17.

This looks bad. I know it does. But she doesn’t know the history. I’m sorry. Make her know that. That’s the most important thing. Here’s the truth. Sean and I had a little thing. During
The Breakfast Club
. It didn’t last and it was totally stupid freshman backstage stuff. It resurfaced. Twice. It will not happen again. I never meant to hurt her. Please, please, Tyler. Make her understand. She’ll listen to you.

Jessa saw the boat approaching. Everyone shifted on the dock, jockeyed for position. Jessa handed the manual back. “Why didn’t I know? I worked on
The Breakfast Club
too.”

The boat docked, and Jessa and Tyler fell into line. “I think it meant more to Carissa than it did to Sean. When he talked about it, it was just sort of a backstage thing they had. It didn’t mean anything—to Sean.”

Jessa hoisted her bag onto her shoulder as they began to move forward.

Tyler tucked his hands in his sweatshirt pockets, stared out at the water. “When you two started hanging out, Carissa was sure it wouldn’t last, didn’t want you to get all mad about nothing for nothing.” He frowned, his eyes shifting to the students climbing onto the boat. “And then it did last. And then it was too late to tell you.”

“She should have told me.” She blinked at her friend. “You should have told me. Or Sean should have.”

“We all
should
do a lot of things,” Tyler said quietly. “But I think, most of the time, we don’t.”

***

Capri was cold and wet when they arrived, washed by the previous night’s storm, but the sky and water engulfed them in a shocking, blue world, haloed with golden light. The sea stretched out like melting silver encircling the famous
Odyssey
rocks off the island. Sorrento had been so bustling, buzzing, but Capri simmered with tranquility, the hum of the surrounding sea, the fresh smell of last night’s rainwater. The sun had won its battle with the few remaining storm clouds and only the most stubborn remained, silhouetting the floating lines of seagulls. Against the cliff, peppered spots of white houses and palm trees stood out amid thicker, denser trees. The sun played hide and seek with the clouds, casting layered patterns of light and shade over the island.

Jessa closed her eyes, wanting the sea in her ears forever, her face bathed in salt air, cooled by mist. They had walked from the main square, past the incredible Quisisana Hotel to the Giardini di Augusto, a park with striking views of the Faraglioni rocks. Jessa wished she’d paid more attention when she had read the
Odyssey
in freshman English. She would have appreciated it a lot more now facing this expanse of sea. Odysseus had sailed and sailed across it, alone on the raft. She flipped open her journal and chewed the end of her pen.

After a moment, she wrote:

Can I be alone, lashed to a raft in a drifting sea, but still surrounded by the whole stupid world?

Ms. Jackson had given them an hour with their journals to prepare for their final creativity salon in Rome. It was hard to imagine they’d be heading home tomorrow.

She took a breath. What had Francesca said about these gardens? That they had once been a school for revolutionaries? Something like that. Jessa would have trouble mustering up a revolutionary spirit here; this place seemed more spiritual, more suited for meditation—or full-on napping.

She turned at the rustle behind her. Natalie froze in mid-descent down a little grassy slope, her own journal clutched in her hand. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t know anyone was here.” She started to retreat, tugging at the strap of her red tank top.

“Natalie?” Jessa closed her journal.

Natalie turned, her face wary. “Yeah?”

“Did you think about what being with him, like that, would do to me?” Jessa’s heart raced and her hands sweated onto her journal cover, dimpling it. “I’m just wondering, actually, if you thought about me at all? I mean, I know we aren’t friends or anything but…we’ve known each other. A long time. You came to my birthday party in fourth grade, helped me build a castle out of Popsicle sticks.” Jessa felt the revolutionary spirits shift beneath her after all, and their shadowed energy buoyed her
. I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can…
Stephen Dedalus tapped at her skull, thumping her brain.

Natalie made her way down the slope, settled herself down next to Jessa, and blew a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. She appraised Jessa, picked blades of grass, brushed imaginary dust from her tight white sweatpants.

“I did.” She kept her eyes on the grass. “But I believed Sean.”

Jessa’s stomach churned. “What do you mean?”

Natalie fiddled again with her tank-top strap. Jessa tried to keep her eyes from the swollen chest straining in the tank, the lacy edge of bra cup also struggling. Her boobs really were alarmingly huge. How could she just grow them in one summer? Just one summer? Natalie finally said, “That you two were over. That it was over. That’s what he told me.”

“We weren’t.”

“Yeah, I kind of know that now. Why do you think I broke it off? But you know what, Jessa? You haven’t been very nice to me. I mean, Popsicle-stick castle or not, it’s not like I used Miracle-Gro or had an operation or something. The same thing happened to my grandma.” Her large eyes pooled.

A wind chilled Jessa’s bare arms. She grabbed her Williams Peak sweatshirt from her bag, pulled it quickly on. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, stared until the other girl met her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Natalie.”

“Me too,” Natalie whispered.

Jessa nodded, said again, louder this time, “I’m so sorry.”

The spirits settled beneath them.

***

Reason #17: The Dream about Nothing

Sean Does Not Support Your Dreams!

Remember our dream. From when we were twelve and used to sleep in the tent in your yard during summer break after we dug all the fairy holes for Maisy for when the fairies came. The dream where we both woke up and couldn’t remember anything at all. Couldn’t remember if it had been about the fair or about the waterslide you might get for your birthday or about Tim, the older boy across the street who was so cute and worked on his truck and who sometimes bought us ice cream from the scary ice-cream-truck driver and ate them with us in the driveway. It was just blurry, like fog. And we used to say, “Let’s make up a dream to stick where we had the dream about nothing.” Remember. Can we do that now? Can we make up a dream?

Instruction: What will you stick into your dream about nothing?

Jessa wrote three things at the top of her journal page:
Dream
,
Fairy Holes
,
Love
.

***

Giacomo waited for her at the entrance to the Villa San Michele. He seemed perfectly in place, leaning against an arch covered in vines, as if perhaps Odysseus had given in to Capri after all, surrendered to the siren call, threw on some designer denim and a tight black T-shirt and waited for Jessa all those years under a flowering archway.

Light slanted across his face, and he smiled when he saw her. “Buongiorno, bella.”

She flushed with sudden sunburn. The Capri sun had nothing on that smile. “Hey, stranger.” She was sure she sounded five, all high and hiccupy. “Where’ve you been?”

He frowned, drawing the stray storm clouds into his face. “My mother and I…had a disagreement.”

“I saw you.” She brushed a piece of windblown hair from her eyes, shaded them as she studied his face.

He squinted down at her, his eyes growing dark like his mother’s.

“Last night. On the balcony. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“Because I know what it feels like to be that angry.” She licked her lips, let her eyes take in the sea. When he didn’t say anything, just let his dark eyes wash the landscape, she added, “Besides, we’ve all been wanting to work over that frog since we got here. You have no idea how liberating that was watching you smash it to pieces.” She glanced up at him, attempted a smile.

His face broke back into light. “You are a funny girl. Yes, it did feel good in the moment. Not today though. She will not give me what I’ve asked for.”

“Which is what?”

He gazed out over the sprawling grounds of the villa, didn’t meet her eyes. “Look at Capri. What do you see?”

“Another world,” she said, her eyes falling on spots of red and white, all the flowers amid the green of the landscape.

“It’s a special place here,” Giacomo said, tucking his hands in his jean pockets. “A siren call for artists, bohemians, seeking beauty, a different life, with no rules—no idea of what is the right way to live life, to love.”

Jessa wanted to ask him what he meant, who they were, these artists who were Siren called to Capri, but Ms. Jackson whistled at the group to meet under a flowering arch.

“Giacomo?”

“Yes?”

“After you, uh, left last night, I helped your mom pick up the pieces of the frog. I found this.” She handed him the thin, silver key. His eyes widened. “Could you give this to her for me? She’s been a little busy.” Jessa nodded to where Francesca flipped through a folder, talking rapidly into a cell phone.

“This was in the frog?” Giacomo’s voice was a ghost whisper.

Jessa frowned. “You know it?”

Giacomo clasped the key in his fist, his eyes full. He glanced at his mother, his face collaged with emotion, then his eyes rested back on Jessa, who was quite sure this was what it felt like to be caught in a tractor beam. “Thank you. You have no idea what you’ve just given me.”

Before she could reply, Ms. Jackson’s voice cut into their stare. “Jessa!”

Giacomo dropped his gaze, and Jessa hurried over to where Francesca stood, looking a bit naked without her frog.

No one mentioned him, that frog they’d followed through the streets of Rome, through Florence, through Venice, but who was suddenly, noticeably gone. Francesca’s phantom limb. Actually, Jessa missed him a little, bobbing along on his stick, his bulging black plastic eyes staring, telling them which way to go.

Jessa’s eyes strayed to Sean. Her grandmother told her once, when she was seven and they were sitting in front of a frog exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, that she’d have to kiss a lot of frogs before she found a prince. She had stared through the glass at an odd little waxy tree frog and secretly hoped she’d never have to kiss any frogs. She’d been seven and not really grasping the whole frog-prince metaphor, but now, here, staring at her frog across the gauzy air of Capri, she realized that maybe the whole kiss-a-frog thing wasn’t just about finding a prince. Maybe you had to follow your own fair share of frogs on a stick through busy streets without really knowing where you were going. And maybe sometimes, you needed them smashed on the cement so you could find your own way.