The Gilder (20 page)

On Sunday Zoe had returned from Sasha’s in good spirits and eager to talk about how many and which kinds of pies they should make. Evidently, June had bought a “humongous” turkey that wouldn’t fit in the fridge and had been relegated to a cooler on the back porch. She confirmed, with zeal, that Peter was coming
alone,
and that he and Marina would once again be in charge of making the gravy. Over the years, a friendly rivalry had blossomed between Peter and Marina over who had the best gravy recipe, and they argued endlessly about milk versus water, whether to add the flour directly to the fat or make a roux first, and the ethics of adding canned gravy in order to extend the quantity. Marina was the purist, while Peter believed that more was better as long as it had flavor.

Zoe’s eyes shone and her cheeks flushed as she described the place cards she and Sasha had made for the holiday table. While Marina was relieved to see Zoe focused on something other than her trip to Florence, she was wary of the high spirits. Lydia had called Sunday afternoon to report that Zoe seemed to be fine, that the two girls were shut in Sasha’s room with the contents of the craft cupboard, but she wanted Marina to know that she’d overheard them discussing NED. NED was an acronym Zoe and Sasha had come up with a few years earlier that stood for Non-Existent Dads, and they had been known to egg each other on in the quest for answers to unanswerable questions that invariably ended with one or both of them in tears. But so far Zoe hadn’t broached the subject, seemingly content to plot their pie-making strategy.

Marina surveyed the damage: A coating of flour dusted every counter surface, the floor, and most of Zoe’s face; flattened bits of pastry dotted the old floorboards like coins spilled from a purse; and the sink overflowed with bowls, measuring cups, and utensils. The Rolling Stones screamed about dissatisfaction from the living room stereo as Zoe finished crimping the last piecrust.

“That looks beautiful, sweetie. I think we’re done.
Now,
can we please turn the music down?”

Part of their pie-making deal was that Zoe got to be in charge of the music and, as it turned out, the volume as well. Marina went along with it since Zoe had chosen her mother’s favorite group, but enough was enough.

Zoe pursed her lips and spoke as if to an infant. “Ooh, is the music too much for Mommy-wommy’s wittle ears?”

Marina laughed but gave her the I’m-the-parent-don’t-push-me-too-far look, and Zoe complied, but not without blasting it at full volume for a moment before turning it down. She’d been in a good mood ever since her return from Sasha’s, and Marina was grateful for the return of her sweet child, hoping that her surly, churlish counterpart had taken a permanent hike. Now if only they could get through the Thanksgiving holiday in peace, after which Marina would slip quietly away to Italy. While she was gone, Zoe would be staying with Lydia and June, and she’d have Sasha and Ben to distract her from any thoughts of what she might be missing in Florence.

“Come on, Mom, come dance with me. It’s your favorite song!” Zoe yelled from the living room, turning up the volume again.

The two of them jumped and shimmied around the living room to “Brown Sugar” and then “Gloria,” collapsing on the couch as the tape ended. It had been months since they’d danced together, something they’d once done regularly around the kitchen, the living room, even in the car, wiggling in their seats and shaking their shoulders when an irresistible tune came on the radio. Marina hadn’t given it much thought, but now with the same breaths that savored the precious moments at hand, she lamented its loss. As Zoe got older, she supposed that moments like these would become fewer. Then she smacked Zoe gently on the thigh and said, “Up we go. Time to clean up our mess.”

Marina cleaned the surfaces and swept the floor while Zoe did the dishes.

Zoe was humming to herself as she splashed in the water. “Mom, can Sasha spend the weekend here?”

“You just spent a weekend with her, Zoe. I thought maybe we’d go shopping and out for lunch.” She didn’t want to remind Zoe that this was the weekend before her trip.

“But we’ve got this project we’re working on. Can’t we go out some other time?”

“I don’t know. What are you working on?”

“Just something. I’ll show you when we’re done.”

Reluctantly, Marina agreed. At least she’d have Zoe around for the weekend. “Okay, but she has to go home Sunday evening.”

“Duh, Mom. It’s a school night.”

Marina blinked under the glare of the overhead kitchen light, then fumbled for the dimmer, turning it down to something that more accurately replicated the slumber from which she’d woken. What had roused her from her bed? The doors were secure, the furnace was making its usual cacophony of burps and sighs, there was no wind rattling the windows. She shrugged mentally and eyed the pies that sat on cooling racks on the table—two pumpkin, one pecan, and one apple—perhaps
they’d
been calling to her. Crossing to the fridge, she took out a carton of milk, gathered a glass, plate, fork, and knife, and settled at the table in front of the pies, like a judge at a contest. The taut, glistening expanse of pumpkin custard beckoned. Her mouth watered. Maybe just a tiny sliver, surely no one would begrudge her that.

What could be better in the middle of the night than the soft, silky taste of nutmeg and cinnamon? Marina savored the slick filling against her tongue, remembering the fruitless search she and Sarah had embarked on for a can of pumpkin filling for her first, and as it turned out, only Thanksgiving in Florence. In the end, they’d settled for apple pie, and she’d had her mother send a can of pumpkin in time for Christmas. Her mind snagged on the calendar of that fateful year, and she watched the pages turn over, beyond that Christmas, into the new year, past the bathtub fiasco with Thomas to the day she discovered she was pregnant. Over the years, she’d come to understand that her assignation with Thomas was the result of too much wine, a seductive man, her misplaced feelings for Sarah, and a fair amount of naïveté. But now, sitting in the kitchen with a fifteen-year-old daughter asleep upstairs, she still couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her afterward to wonder if Thomas had worn a condom. She’d been so wrapped up in her guilt and the fear of Sarah finding out that she hadn’t given it a thought. She couldn’t remember much about that day or the weeks that followed. It all seemed to hover perpetually out of reach, shrouded in a hazy mantle of denial. But she recalled perfectly the moment it dawned on her that she was pregnant. It happened a few days after her riverside talk with Sarah, as she was leaning over the toilet bowl vomiting for the third day in a row. She sat on the cold stone floor in her little bathroom in Via Luna, stunned at the realization. When she could move again, she scanned her small pocket calendar in search of the red dot that religiously marked the first day of every period. She found it two months back, just after Christmas. Her mind scurried to all sorts of reasons why she might have missed a period, the most logical being the emotional upheaval she was going through, but two days later, a kindly English doctor took her urine sample and confirmed her fears.

Marina put the kettle on and cut herself another piece of pie. She thought about lighting a fire but didn’t want to get too invested in staying up. It was going to be a long day and a couple more hours of sleep would serve her well. The kettle began its whistle and she caught it up before it could reach a full-blown shriek, not that anything less than a bullhorn could penetrate Zoe’s slumber.

Sleep. Sleep had been Marina’s refuge those final weeks in Florence. Whether a defense mechanism, a psychological coping skill, or just the pregnancy itself, during the end of her time there, she’d slept more than she’d been awake. In her waking hours, she vacillated about whether or not to tell Sarah, to beg for her forgiveness, for her help. But help with what? Aborting her husband’s child? She dreaded seeing Sarah, afraid that her condition would somehow be all too obvious even though she could see no signs of it herself. As it turned out, their first encounter was by happenstance and rife with other distractions. Marina had been in the Oltrarno running an errand for Sauro and had run into Sarah on her way back as she crossed over the Ponte Santa Trinita. When she saw Sarah coming toward her, she stopped and contemplated turning and running, but Sarah raised her hand and waved.

Sarah didn’t seem to notice her hesitation and greeted her with an enthusiastic hug. “Hey, you! I’ve missed you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Thomas and Sauro were conspiring to keep us apart. Come on, let’s have a coffee.”

Without waiting for a response, she linked her arm through Marina’s and pulled her into a corner bar. Every thought Marina had entertained about confessing, asking for forgiveness and help, evaporated in the hot breath of fear that scorched her neck and face. She stood immobilized as Sarah ordered a cappuccino for each of them and began unfastening the leather portfolio she’d been carrying under her arm.

“Wait ’til you see this. It’s fabulous! You’ll love it!” Sarah pulled out a sheet of heavy stock the size of a manila folder and held it up in front of her.

It took Marina a second to realize what she was looking at. After what had happened
that day,
she’d never seen even a proof of the bathtub photograph, but there it was, white tub, white skin, white water. Thomas had cropped the picture to the inside of the tub, which created an arched frame for the torso arching out of the water. With her head tipped back, the focal point became her neck, then her hands clasping her breasts, with her ribs and belly disappearing back into the water. She couldn’t tell if Thomas had doctored it in any way in the darkroom other than to print it in sepia tones rather than black and white, but the effect was stunning, and it did look very much like stone.

“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it? I was going to bring it by your place later so you could see it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Marina replied, then hesitated. Thomas’s name was at the top of the poster, and the name of the gallery and its address were printed at the bottom next to the dates the show would run. “You’re not going to put them up, are you?”

Sarah looked at Marina. “Of course we’re putting them up. It’s a poster. That’s the point. Didn’t Thomas tell you?”

Marina shook her head. “He should have asked me if it was okay.”

“Marina, it’s art. The image belongs to Thomas. I thought you understood that. He can do what he likes with it. I assumed he’d told you. Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise. Don’t you like it?”

It was a surprise all right. Her life seemed to be full of surprises these days. “I like the picture. It’s amazing. I just don’t like the idea of my naked body plastered all over town.”

“No one will know it’s you with your head tipped way back like that. Is this going to be a problem?”

Marina was taken aback by Sarah’s businesslike tone. She hadn’t known she even had one. “No ... I suppose ... I just wasn’t expecting ... this.” She motioned toward the poster.

Outside the kitchen window, dawn was breaking with the faintest hint of pink. Marina pushed her empty plate away and leaned back in her chair, holding the mug of herbal tea between her palms, staring into the murky liquid as if a revelation might surface. After that encounter with Sarah, for some reason she couldn’t now fathom—perhaps because of the poster, perhaps because she felt he owed her—she had decided that Thomas should be the one to help her. After all, he was the one who didn’t want children; he should be happy to help her get rid of the evidence.

Not wanting to face Thomas in person, she had decided to leave a note for him at his studio during the night. A midwinter thaw in the mountains had sent a torrent of water downriver, carrying broken branches that snagged on the banks and under bridges catching all manner of debris in their tangled limbs. It was past midnight when she crossed the Ponte Vecchio on her bike, the note in her pocket. Her plan was to tape it to the darkroom door where he’d see it first thing in the morning.
I need your help.
But what if Thomas helped her right into a botched abortion like he had Sarah? The only alternative she had come up with was the British doctor, but when she’d broached the subject, he hadn’t let her finish her sentence, holding up his hand like a traffic cop.

She left the tumbling waters behind and slipped into the shadows of a narrow street that came out near Thomas’s studio in Piazza Santo Spirito. The piazza seemed to be deserted, but it was hard to tell, shrouded as it was by a canopy of twisted branches that cast distorted shapes against the buildings. The streetlight in front of Thomas’s was out, and Marina had to feel for the lock on the front door. Once it was unlocked, she stepped quickly into the foyer, hit the light switch, and made her way quietly up the stone staircase, past silent apartments to the top floor. The second key slipped easily into the studio door, and she had it partway open before she heard the music. And voices. The velvet drapes to the studio were closed, creating a vestibule of pitch-black. She was about to leave her note on the floor and creep away when she heard a woman’s laughter. Curiosity got the better of her. The music was loud enough to cover any slight noise on her part, so she closed the door, easing the latch into a whisper, and moved to the curtain, taking care not to disturb it. She put her eye to the sliver of light where the velvet panels met, then brought her hand to her mouth, silencing an audible intake of breath.

The studio was dimly lit except in the center, where portable lights illuminated the red Oriental rug. Thomas stood behind his tripod with his head bowed over his large-format camera, his back to the door. The contessa, dressed in jodhpurs, black riding boots, and a tight, crimson jacket, stood at one end of the carpet surveying the scene. She lifted the leather crop in her hand and pointed it. “Now mount her,” she commanded. In the center of the carpet, a man thinly disguised as a woman knelt on all fours. The makeup was crude and there was no hiding his burly physique under the lace peignoir. Astride him, another man, wearing nothing but a black riding hat, riding boots, and a large erection, grinned with bared teeth.