The Gilder (13 page)

The weather turned chilly in mid-November, and by early December, the city lay under a steely sky, the days dawning with frost and ending with drizzle. The arrival of Advent, however, brought a sparkle to the city as colorful toys, brightly wrapped packages, and boxes of panettone and torrone filled shop windows. Even in New York, Marina had never seen a display as stunning as the Christmas windows at Gilli, the elegant café in Piazza della Repubblica where a piece of cake and a coffee cost as much as a two-course lunch at Anita’s. Every day on her return from Thomas’s studio, she walked out of her way just so she could stop and lose herself in the winter fairyland that shimmered in Gilli’s windows. Exquisite animals made entirely of colored sugar frolicked in a chocolate and marzipan forest while gilded angels with spun-sugar hair graced another window. Draped with tinsel, the market stalls overflowed, resplendent with produce pyramids, and small forests of bundled Christmas trees sprouted up in parking lots and on street corners.

Aside from the windows at Gilli, Marina barely had time to notice the brewing festivities or the weather. Thomas gave her some time off while he went back out into the streets to shoot for his show, something he preferred doing solo, but Sauro had projects he needed help finishing before the holidays, and she had her own Christmas gifts to make. Time was short and the pressure was on, but her conflicted feelings for Sarah fueled her work pace. In the days and weeks following their picnic, Marina had watched Sarah closely for signs that her hugs meant more than friendship, or that an intimacy exchanged held a deeper meaning, but she was at a loss to decipher Sarah’s intent. She’d had many girlfriends over the years, some very close, but Marina had never felt the sort of nervous excitement she now felt around Sarah. Was she in love? Was she reading too much into nothing? Was she gay? She thought of those girls in college with their boyish haircuts, leather jackets, and combat boots, and couldn’t imagine herself marching for Gay Liberation or raising her fist at anti-imperialist political rallies. Besides, she still enjoyed sex with Amir, so she couldn’t be gay. She’d had a serious boyfriend in high school, Bob Prince, with whom she’d discovered sex on Saturday afternoons in the third-floor bedroom of his family home in Gramercy Park. It was an exciting, hot, sweaty time, and she’d been sure it was love but, in looking back, knew she’d been more in love with the thrill of discovery than with Bob himself. Her college trysts had been just that, brief assignations that never blossomed into full-blown relationships. There was some good sex, some fun, but she’d never experienced the connection or intimacy she had with Sarah. Was it some inexplicable chemistry or an attraction born of loneliness? Had she suddenly become needy? She fluctuated wildly between desire and fear, seeking out Sarah, then making excuses to leave as soon as she arrived. Her pulse ran high, she worked late into the nights, and then slept restlessly.

CHAPTER 8

S
omething tickled Marina’s cheek. She brushed it away, not ready to wake up. The tickle persisted. She brushed at her face again and this time came away with something tangled in her fingers. Opening one eye, she saw a silver thread. A piece of tinsel from the Christmas tree. She closed her eye and drifted, savoring the fresh memories of her first Christmas away from home. She had been heartsick when her parents canceled their trip, but Sarah helped her see that just because her mother was having a crisis with one of her artists it didn’t mean Marina had to have one herself. She had a wonderful new life, and damn them if they weren’t interested. Marina’s parents had sent a substantial check in their stead, and Sarah suggested she spend every penny of it on herself. They decided to make Marina over into a new woman, one that reflected her new life. She had her hair layered into the shaggy style that was all the rage and, with Sarah’s guidance, invested in new boots and a few outfits. The previous night, Christmas Eve, she’d worn her new boots with the pale gray skirt that fell in soft folds to midcalf. She’d topped it with a slim, white cashmere sweater and cinched her waist with a burgundy suede belt. Thomas’s wolf whistle upon her arrival was the best gift she could have received.

The thought of the boots made her open both eyes. From her vantage point on the floor, they were right at eye level. Made out of supple leather the color of buttercream frosting, they were knee high and had tan stitching across the vamp and up the sides. More than anything else, they made her feel that she truly had stepped into a new life.

She shifted onto her back and looked up through the branches of the Christmas tree.

“What on earth are you doing down there?” Sarah stood at the end of the couch where she and Thomas had left Marina bedded down the night before, after a champagne dinner and too many chocolates.

Marina began to slide out from under the tree.

“No. Don’t move! I have to get a picture of this. You look adorable.” Sarah retrieved Thomas’s camera from the dining table and snapped a couple of shots.

“Whatever possessed you to sleep under the tree? Were you there all night?”

Marina nodded and wiggled herself off the cushions she’d put down for a bed.

“I read about it once, in a story, when I was little, sleeping under the Christmas tree, and I’ve always wanted to try it.”

“I love it.” Sarah gave her a hug. “Merry Christmas. Thomas is still asleep. I’m going to make us some coffee.”

Marina was stretched out on the couch with her feet in Sarah’s lap, her eyes closed, her mind drifting to the previous night and Thomas’s whispered comment as he leaned over to refill her glass. “You look good enough to eat.” She’d been flattered in spite of the slimy residue the compliment left in its wake. She still wasn’t sure what to make of Thomas. Sometimes he seemed to genuinely enjoy her company, but at other times he was withdrawn and taciturn, making her feel that she was in the way. Sarah’s sigh drew her back into the moment. Opening her eyes, she asked, “What’s the matter?”

Sarah looked surprised. “Nothing. Why?”

“You’re sighing.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, you seem a little down.”

Sarah waved her hand, a dismissive gesture. “Don’t mind me. I sometimes get a little morose at Christmastime.”

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you another time. I don’t want to spoil your Christmas.”

“You couldn’t possibly spoil this Christmas. It’s been perfect.” Marina sat up, pulled her feet off Sarah’s lap, and hugged her knees to her chest. “What is it? Tell me.”

Sarah sighed again. “It’s just that Christmas always makes me think about children.”

“You mean having them?”

“Yeah. Wanting them, having them, the whole thing. It’s silly.”

“It’s not silly. I didn’t know you wanted them. You’ve never said. What about Thomas?”

“It doesn’t matter. I had a bad abortion. Now I can’t have them.”

“When? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It was years ago, when I was first with Thomas.”

“Was something wrong with it? With you?”

Sarah shook her head. “Thomas said that it wasn’t the right time, that we would have kids later, when his career was up and running.”

Marina’s good cheer began to fade, as if good old St. Nick had put it back in his sack and taken it with him up the chimney.

“I didn’t want to do it. I even thought about leaving, having it by myself. But we were so happy. He told me everything would be all right.”

“And it wasn’t.” Marina’s voice was as flat as the statement.

Again, Sarah shook her head. “Abortion is illegal here. But there was this underground doctor, someone in the Radical party. He had a good reputation, safe and clean ... but something went wrong. I still don’t understand what, exactly. It was such a mess. I ended up in the hospital, where I was interrogated by the police and prayed over by the nuns. It was a nightmare.”

“How awful for you.”
What an awful man you’re married to,
was what she wanted to say.

“Afterward, I went to three different doctors, and they all said the same thing, that there was too much scar tissue, that I’d never be able to conceive.” She glanced toward the bedroom where Thomas was still asleep. “I think Thomas was relieved, not that he wanted me to go through all that, but I know now that he never would have wanted children. His life is all about his work.”

Marina brought Sarah a fresh cup of coffee and sat with her until she heard Thomas begin to stir. To escape the apartment before Thomas got out of bed, she used the excuse of needing to shower and a change of clothes. The streets were deserted as she made her way to Via Luna.
Thomas!
How could he have done that to Sarah? It made her so furious she didn’t know how to think about it. And Sarah, how could she stay with him after that? The two of them! They
deserved
each other. The intensity of her anger made her want to cry, and that made her even angrier. It was Christmas and she wanted to be happy. She turned toward the river—perhaps a walk and some fresh air would clear her head.

The river was swollen, gray, and churning. Marina leaned over the wall and dropped a stick into the roiling waters, watching as it was sucked in and spun around. She dropped a few more sticks, which distracted her for a while, then climbed up onto the wall and let her feet dangle over the raging river. She thought about how lovely their Christmas Eve had been, the three of them opening their gifts. She’d given Sarah a gilded frame that had required extensive repairs and regilding, and Thomas a small box with gilded edges. She reached for her bag and took out the gifts they’d given her. Sarah’s was a silver necklace with a small alabaster heart, and Thomas had given her one of the photographs he’d taken of her last spring, one where she was sitting on the stool, the sexiest one. He’d enlarged it to eight-by-ten and put it in a pewter frame. She felt like throwing it in the river, and the little pink heart after it. What was she doing with these people? Hadn’t she said that she wasn’t going to hang out with the ex-pats? Now her life was so intertwined with Thomas and Sarah’s she didn’t see how she could extricate herself. She had no one else. Felicity and Jocelyn were long gone and Amir had returned to his family in Tehran. He’d been a nice distraction while it lasted, but she knew that even if he’d stayed, they wouldn’t have had anything more than a superficial relationship, not with her conflicted feelings about Sarah.

She got off the wall and headed toward the street. There were a few people out walking, mostly parents with children trying to run off the sugar-high from two days of feasting. She felt a drop of rain and thought of New York blanketed in snow. Her parents would now have been up for a while and were probably on their way out to brunch with friends. She wondered if they’d made popovers, a family tradition since she could remember. She put her hands in her pockets and scuffed her feet along the gravel path. When she’d called them the day before, she had not asked what their plans were. She hadn’t wanted to know that Christmas as she’d always known it might be going on without her. Still, maybe she’d try them again later today.

As she walked back to her apartment, she congratulated herself on surviving her first Christmas alone. Well, not alone, but away from home, away from her family, and she’d been fine. Grudgingly, she acknowledged that this had been due to Thomas and Sarah’s generosity in sharing the entire holiday with her. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to judge them. She tried looking at Sarah’s story from a different angle. What if Thomas had been right? What if it had been the wrong time to have a baby? But how did people decide that? She turned down Via Luna, wondering if Sarah ever looked at children in the street and thought,
My child would be doing that by now.
Without a doubt, Thomas’s career, if not Thomas himself, had become her child, and as much as Marina didn’t understand it, as much as she wanted to think that there was another, happier life for Sarah, she really wasn’t sure. Could Sarah survive, thrive, without Thomas, and Thomas without Sarah?

In January Sauro’s father had a heart attack. When it became clear that he would not be returning to work for a while, Sauro invited Marina to join him as a full-time apprentice. At first she couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly and made him repeat himself twice before she was convinced she had the job. She wouldn’t be paid much to start, but it was thrilling to be formally invited into the time-honored tradition of master and apprentice, and she had no illusions about the pressure she would be under to prove her worth. Contrary to what Thomas believed, there were women restoring paintings at the Pitti Palace, both students and professionals. Also, she knew of a woman, a friend of her mother’s, who had studied in Rome and then set up her own restoration studio in Chicago. Progress was being made, and now she would stretch it a little further.

That afternoon Marina went to Thomas’s studio to tell him the good news about Sauro’s offer and break the news that she would not be able to work with him on his new shots as he had requested. When there was no answer, Marina took out the key he’d given her back in November and let herself in. She was surprised to find that Thomas had drawn the heavy draperies that separated the front door and vestibule from the main studio, and when she parted the drapes, she was met with yet another surprise. A large, red Oriental rug covered the floor in the center of the studio, with lights set up at each corner of the rug. Marina walked onto the carpet and looked around. What was going on? She’d never known Thomas to shoot indoors. She called out, but there was no answer, so she decided to leave him a note. As she moved toward the small desk in the corner by the daybed, she noticed that the wooden trunk that was usually padlocked was open. She peered inside but couldn’t believe what she was looking at. Thomas hadn’t been kidding when he’d said on her first visit to the studio that it was full of whips and chains. There were also velvet cords, leather cuffs of some sort, whips, and a riding crop. At the bottom of the trunk, there was a jumble of things, but she didn’t dare move anything to get a better look. Just then she heard his key in the lock and scurried back to the carpet. A moment later, he came through the curtain carrying some packages. On seeing Marina, he looked shocked, then angry.