The Chapel (22 page)

He propped his two hands on the suitcase handle, and I saw that he was wearing a wedding band. He said, “This is not looking as you think.”

I pointed to his hand and said, “Did you just put that on?”

He let go of the suitcase and tossed something onto the bed. “You don't understand,” he said.

But I did. On my bed was a perforated strand of three black condom packets. I was flattered by his overestimation of my stamina, but I said, “I am going home.”

“I must have something to say,” he said.

“Trust me,” I said, “you said it.”

He said, “You must let me—”

“No,” I said. “I got it.”

He reached up and held my face in his huge hands. Urgently, beseechingly, he said, “You are knowing nothing.”

I said, “That is not exactly a compliment.”

Maybe he wasn't listening, or maybe he didn't understand, but his ardor was undiminished. He said, “When we will ever meet again?”

“I'm not even here,” I said. I took a step away from him. The suitcase handle tilted back against his belly, and I saw that he was hard already, so maybe that breath mint was actually a Viagra, and though his size would not have been a deal breaker, it was breathtaking, probably better suited to a yogi with a more rigorous Pranayama practice. I said, “In my mind, I am not here.”

“I know,” he said ardently, as if everything I'd said so far had made perfect sense. “You must let me speak to heal your losses.”

Someone had told him I was a widow. I didn't want him to say anything about Mitchell, so I said, “I was actually lost,” as if an adverb might tip the balance back toward my side. “Mixed up,” I added, pointing a finger at my head and twirling it around, indicating a possible mental illness.

“I know all about this,” he said. His tone wasn't threatening, but it was impatient, as if his walking me back to the hotel entitled him to spew something before he retreated back into the night. I really wished I could slip a condom over his head. “You must let me speak.”

“In Italian,” I said.

“
Si, si, si
,” he said proudly, “
Italia
.” He seemed to think I was conceding home-field advantage.

“No, no, no,” I said. “In Italian. You understand? You can say everything, anything at all, but just say it in Italian.”

And astonishingly, he did. His brushed back my hair, and then withdrew his hands and leaned so far forward on the suitcase handle, I was sure it would soon break. He spoke softly, sometimes smiling, sometimes purposefully shifting his gaze away from mine and whispering. It was mesmerizing. At one point, he slapped his hand right against his heart and heaved out a huge blast of air, and then he shrugged and held up one finger, to assure me there was just one more thing, the last thing, and he smiled broadly while he explained something that seemed to involve the buttons on my dress, his bald head, somebody sleeping peacefully, the Madonna della Misericordia, and a bird or a plane or an angel—something with wings.

I didn't say anything.

Matteo looked genuinely confused. He said, “No? No?”

The light above our heads flicked off.

He said something else in Italian, not a compliment as far as I could judge his tone, and then I heard the whir of the suitcase rolling away and the door swinging open and shut. I didn't move for several seconds. I heard nothing, but I knew he was standing just outside my door. I felt I owed him something—not a triple-header, but an apology or an explanation or a rain check, maybe. And then I heard him knock—just once. I took a deep breath, and I stepped toward the door. I took the handle in my hand, and as I pulled the door wide open, Mitchell's suitcase fell against my shins. I stepped out into the hallway. It was bright and empty.

I
RIGHTED THE SUITCASE, AND WHEN
I
TRIED TO COLLAPSE
the long telescoping handle, it wouldn't budge. I didn't know if Matteo had bent it out of whack while he was delivering his Italian aria, or if the bang against the door had jammed the handle so it wouldn't collapse. Either way, I took it as a sign. That suitcase was an unfit
traveling companion. I grabbed my nail scissors and cut away the tag with Mitchell's name. I'd never noticed it before, but instead of our telephone and street address, he'd printed his Harvard information in the blank spaces beneath “Home.”

I wheeled the suitcase to the elevator, and in the lobby, I found Ricardo at the front desk with an open book.

I said, “I found this in my room. It was under the bed. It isn't mine.”

Ricardo said, “
Signora Berman
.” He checked his watch, as if he considered this an inappropriate hour for conducting business with a single woman.

“The handle is broken,” I said.

He said, “You broke this?”

I said, “No.”

Ricardo said, “He broke this?” I noted a slight change in tone, as if he might feel he had to come to my rescue if Matteo had wronged me, but that seemed to open the door to my room yet again, so I said, “It was broken. Perhaps that is why it was left under my bed.”

Ricardo said, “We are on the end of his English.”

I said, “I'm tired, too. It is late. Please, take this.” I wanted to turn and leave him with the problem, but I was certain it would end up at my door again.

Ricardo said, “You want safekeeping?”

“
Perfetto,
” I said. “Safekeeping.”

He ducked down and came back with a tag for me to fill out.

I said, “It is not mine.”

He said, “
Non il mio
.”

I really wasn't sure if he was translating what I'd said into Italian or issuing a disclaimer. I was just determined not to let him or Matteo write the end of this story. On the tag, I wrote, “Owner Unknown.” I could feel Ricardo was waiting for me to fill in the rest of the blanks,
so I copied the phone number from a tour agency brochure hanging beside the front desk, invented an illegible email address, and handed him the ticket.

“You are safe with me,” he said.

I didn't say anything.

VI

I
didn't sleep. I watched a little bit of news with British accents, and several long commercials for a colorful array of headbands and adhesive tape that seemed to be an at-home facelift kit. At eight-thirty, I finally got out of bed, and I surprised myself by feeling momentarily excited about what had almost happened with Matteo, as if his kiss and his embrace had almost awakened me, or some part of myself that had been asleep for years. However, during a very brief consult with Mirror, Mirror on the bathroom wall, I decided I looked less like Snow White and more like poor Lazarus, dragged out of his cozy tomb, trying to pass as a normal, live person.

I slipped into the linen shirtdress, which was so wrinkled it looked like lavender aluminum foil. My hair was staticky, flying up after each brushstroke, as if by ignoring all the firing synapses that were trying to form thoughts in my head I had caused an electrical storm up there. Even by my shamelessly low fashion standard for the day, the red bag with the lavender dress was a no-go, so I emptied it out and plucked my phone and room key from the mess. As a bonus, I found Pietro's business card, printed in Italian and English
on opposite sides:
From Venice? To Venice? Picking you up every times!
There was my ride to the airport. And the prospect of seeing Pietro reminded me of those postcards I'd written, and I didn't think, I just grabbed the two stacks for Sam and Rachel.

As I got out of the elevator, the young tux at the front desk said, “
Signora Berman?
”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “
Momento
,” and hustled into the restaurant.

I braced myself for a final encounter with Anna, or maybe Anna and Francesca both wanted to berate me for my generosity. Instead, Shelby appeared in the doorway and yelled, “I thought I'd missed you!”

I said, “Shelby!”

She said, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” I said, following her to her table. “I look a mess, I know, but I'm really fine.”

“I love those shirtdresses of yours,” Shelby said. “They look good no matter how many times you wear them.”

Shelby had shimmied into her white jumpsuit, as if she had decided to skip the train ride to Venice and hop on her rocket instead. I thought this, but I said, “I'm happy to have a chance to say good-bye,” which was just as true.

She handed me something small and cool. “It fell right off my knitting needle on the bus to Vicenza,” she said. “Like a sign or something. It was only thanks to you I was able to take that side-trip, after all.”

It was a little disk of lapis lazuli, like a fragment of a comet that had fallen through Giotto's painted sky. I didn't believe it had fallen out of its own accord. I knew Shelby had pried it free for me. “This is a sign of how sweet you are, Shelby,” I said.

She said, “Are you really going home today?”

I said, “Right after I mail these postcards.”

Shelby was so impressed with my literary output and the number of friends I had back in Cambridge that I felt obliged to tell her the truth.

“But they'll get all ten postcards at once,” she said.

“No,” I said. “You see, I'll mail one here, and maybe one or two from the airport, and then the rest from Cambridge—every few days.”

Shelby furrowed her brow. “With Italian stamps?”

She had a point. I said, “That won't work, will it?” If she'd asked, I couldn't have re-created the logic of writing the postcards in the first place.

Instead, she said, “Everybody loves a postcard, no matter what.”

I didn't say anything.

Shelby said, “Are you sure you're okay?”

I said, “Nothing a pot of coffee won't clear up.” There wasn't a waiter in sight.

Shelby put her hands on mine. “You know what might be fun?” She had shifted her voice into that higher register usually reserved for babies and the elderly. She even tilted her head, so I could see she was thinking very hard. “What if I mailed them for you? Right in order?”

“They're not worth the trouble.” I was talking about the postcards, but it occurred to me that Shelby might think I was referring to my children. “They'll be happy even if I hand-deliver them.”

“I insist,” she said, and she pulled the two piles to her side of the table. “It will make me think of you. Please. Maybe it will even inspire me to send a few to you! What do you say?”

“I'm just going to say thank you,” I said. I was saved from having to say more because Shelby's phone began to blast a brass-band version of “Close to You.”

Shelby said, “That's Allen!”

I stood and blew her a kiss. Every patron in the restaurant was staring at her, all but begging her to answer that phone.

Shelby was in no hurry. She held up the little boom box and said, “This is our away-from-home theme.”

“It's perfect,” I said.

Shelby said, “I know,” and then turned her attention to her faraway husband.

T.
WAS WAITING FOR ME AT A TABLE AT THE
M
ETRO WITH
two tall latte macchiatos and a heaping plate of eight little pressed sandwiches—prosciutto and Gruyère, salami and something green and garlicky, mozzarella and roasted red peppers, and chocolate-hazelnut spread—each about the size of a ladyfinger. We were silent for a long while.

Finally, he said, “I thought you might be hungry.”

I said, “Apology accepted.” As usual, I had no idea exactly how much he knew or precisely what he meant. He might have been referring to our botched dinner date or my late-night run-in with Matteo. Either way, he was right. I was hungry. I was already selecting my second sandwich. He was wearing a fresh white shirt and his blue linen blazer, wrinkle-free. I said, “I have to make a telephone call to an Italian man, and I was hoping you would make it for me.” I fished Pietro's car-service card out of my pocket.