by Silvia Zucca
Why did I tell her that? On the other end of the receiver there is silence for several seconds.
“With a man?” she finally asks.
I sigh. “No—I mean, yes—but he’s a friend.”
She sighs, too. “Guido! Alice is going out with a man tonight.”
“Mom!”
“OK, what are you going to wear?” she asks next. Like mother, like daughter.
“I don’t know yet, Mom. I was trying to figure that out.”
“Why don’t you stop by? You know we’re packing up boxes to empty the house, and I found that beautiful polka-dot skirt in your closet and the blouse with the lace collar and the camellia brooch. Do you remember them?”
God help me.
“Mom, I wore those things when I was twelve years old.” And I probably should have been ashamed of them even then. The polka-dot skirt and the blouse with the frilly collar probably explain why I never fit in as a child. Who in the world would want to be seen in the company of a Saint Honoré cake with measles? “I’m sorry, I really have to go.”
When the phone rings again and the display reads PRIVATE NUMBER, I think that I will never manage to get out of this house.
“Hello?”
“Alice, this is Carlo. I’m sorry to call from a restricted number but I need to speak to you. Please. There’s too much happening all at once. I don’t understand anything anymore.” He attacks in bursts, hitting me with flurries of words. “I know that you’re pissed off, because of Cristina, and the baby—I mean I can understand that you are jealous—and touchy—God, you’ve always been so impossibly touchy.”
“Me, jealous? Touchy?”
“There. That’s exactly what I mean. You see?”
“So, if I’m so impossibly touchy, what do you want from me?” I yell, practically strangling the cell phone.
“A little bit of understanding. Don’t treat me like a prairie from Calcutta.”
“Pariah. You mean pariah, idiot.”
“God, you are awful when you play the wiseass. Why am I still wasting my time with you? Do you ever wonder why men run away from you all the time? Or is it always just your bad luck? Poor, unfortunate Alice, always meeting the wrong people. Well, maybe you’re the wrong person.”
Oh, hell no.
“That’s enough! I don’t need a lecture from a moron who doesn’t have a shred of sensitivity. We are done. You keep me informed of anything important via the Internet anyway, right? I will wait until you update your marital status on Facebook and then post my congratulations on your wall. For everything else, chill out, and above all, stay away from me.”
I throw the phone on top of the pillows and the room starts to spin around me. I look at the piles of clothes everywhere, and I’m no longer able to think: casual, elegant, serious, bold colors, simplicity, sensuality, charm . . . Carlo and Cristina, Tio, work, Paola, the wrong men, the wrong me . . . and I can’t breathe. My heart is racing at a thousand beats per minute, and I can feel it in my throat. Is this a panic attack?
Thank God I have sedatives in the nightstand. I gulp one down and take five minutes to stretch out on the bed. Breathe, Alice. Breathe.
But a second later, the nightmare begins again.
“What the hell!” I exclaim, grabbing the ringing cell phone again.
As it turns out, five minutes has turned into almost an hour.
“Um, hey, Alice, it’s Luca. I’m downstairs.”
6
* * *
The Libra, the Aries, His Wife & Her Lover
The car vibrates under my feet as I make my way down in the elevator. I reach the ground floor unscathed, only to realize that the vibrations aren’t coming from the elevator but from the bass line of music that keeps getting nearer. In my driveway, I discover a flaming red sports car—which is where the deafening noise is coming from.
“Hi!” I scream, opening the car door, practically crouching to the ground to get in.
“Hey, Alisss, good evening, welcome,” says Luca, butchering my name with the American pronunciation, Alissss.
I match him with a “Hey, Luuuke” and start laughing.
“Is everything OK? I was starting to think you had changed your mind . . .”
“No, I’m sorry. I got a bunch of calls that put me way behind.”
“What?” Luca yells. Of course, if he were to lower the volume, we might be able to communicate without having to use sign language.
“Nice car!”
“Do you like it? It’s my baby. I’ve had it less than a month.”
As he slams the car in reverse, he is eager to inform me of its cylinder capacity, how fast it can go, and even the nightclub-worthy stereo system that he has unfortunately decided to install.
“Where are we going?” I ask him after a while.
“Ah yes. It’s an amazing place in the Porta Romana area, naturally. They make a Negroni Sbagliato that is out of this world.”
“Really? I don’t really like Negroni, sbagliato or otherwise, but they serve food, too, don’t they?”
Luca doesn’t answer me; my words most likely fell on ears deafened by the roar of the car, car radio, and his own voice, going hoarse while singing the praises of the good life he is about to introduce me to.
In fact, the bar we enter is the epitome of Milan’s drinking scene, filled with mid-November suntans and upturned polo collars, Dracula style. The atmosphere is very deliberate: dim lights, exposed stone walls, and six-foot-high flames that blessedly have metal casings.
“Luca! Hello, brudder!” As soon as we enter, one of the bartenders greets him with a high five and a bro shake.
“Hey, where’ve you been hiding? How’s Anna?”
I step forward, waiting for him to introduce me, but instead he just mumbles something I don’t understand to the bartender, which is not surprising, considering that the music is just as deafening in the club as it was in the car.
“What can I get you guys?”
“Two Negroni Sbagliatos. As only you can make ’em, brudder!”
He probably didn’t hear me in the car when I told him that I didn’t like Negronis, but now it seems rude to remind him.
“So, you and Paola met at the newspaper,” I say when we’re finally alone—just me and him and the roar of the speaker hanging above our heads.
He smiles at me and starts to talk about his job, about his colleagues and Paola. “I really respect her. She’s really great for a woman.”
I want to ask for clarification on that last point, but he’s already moved on to telling me his dreams for the future.
The Negroni is really disgusting, but his story about free climbing in Malaysia isn’t bad. And the one about diving in the Philippines. And trekking in Kenya, rafting in Colorado, kayaking in Ecuador, and hang gliding in Zimbabwe.
“Maybe we can get something to eat, what do you think?” I ask, with my ears buzzing, either from the background noise or from all that information about extreme sports practiced at the extreme ends of the earth.
As I approach the buffet counter, I feel my cell phone vibrate.
It’s a message from Tio.
Well? How’s it going? Is he able to look away from your neckline or is he already completely gone?
In the end, I decided to try and have it both ways, by wearing a red velvet dress (a decisive color evocative of an Aries’s fire, in the words of Tio) that is flexible enough to allow me to move naturally (as suggested by Paola). Just then, to my horror, I notice that in my rush to leave I have failed spectacularly with my shoes. They don’t match the dress or rather they do, but they don’t match each other.
I put on two different shoes.
One is black, and the other has red stripes. How could I have missed that?!
I try to hide my red foot behind the other leg.
I answer the message by telling Tio about my horrendous mistake but he answers:
No worries, he’s an Aries. He’s not equipped with the ability to notice what is
going on around him. You just have to hang on his every word and pretend to be eternally grateful for the mere fact that he is speaking to you.
I snort as I return to my seat.
Luca resumes his travel diaries with Easter Island, and then turns to New Guinea, where he was on a recent vacation with friends, bungee jumping. “. . . because it’s such a rush to feel the force of nature like that. It’s like—BAM! You get me? You feel everything. WHAM! You breathe it all in . . . ”
I nod, trying to give the impression of hanging on to his every word and every guttural onomatopoeic sound that he emits. “I have to admit: these things kind of scare me.”
“These are sports for real men, but you could come watch me, sometime.”
At this point, there’s a lull in our conversation, and I get the feeling it’s my turn to speak about myself. I talk about movies, my work at the TV station, and my interest in culture until I realize that one of two things has happened to Luca: either he has come down with an extreme case of squinting or he is staring at something behind me.
“Aha . . . it must be . . . well . . . cool . . . to work in a bookstore . . .” he finally says, vaguely.
But at that point, the bartender from before, Mr. Negroni-Sbagliato-As-Only-You-Can, comes over smiling and whispers something in Luca’s ear.
“Thank you, brudder,” says Luca, clapping him on the shoulder. “Will you excuse me for a moment, Alisss?”
I watch him walk over to a six-foot-tall blonde, with a microskirt that modestly covers her thong and a skimpy sporty T-shirt.
Luca kisses her on the cheeks and then greets her companion, holding his hand in a grip that lasts at least eight seconds and makes the muscles of his jaw harden like the Incredible Hulk during his transformation.
When he comes back, his forehead is sweaty and his eyes slightly spooked. “Do you want something else to eat? Come on.” He pulls out my chair like a true gentleman and accompanies me to the buffet table, leaning a hand on my waist and whispering in my ear with confidence.
“You look beautiful tonight. Have I told you that yet?”
No, in fact he hasn’t given me a single compliment yet, and I just keep hoping that he’s not going to notice my zebra shoe.
Suddenly, Luca is really sweet. He asks me what I would like to eat and serves me, following me the whole way. He even makes me try an olive, bringing his fingers close to his mouth and then immediately licking them, while staring into my eyes.
There, Tio, I think, this Aries is not the boor that you made him out to be. He is sweet and polite, just like Paola said. I begin to relax and let him take me back to our table, comforted by his warm hand resting on my lower back.
“Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” Luca stops halfway and turns toward the table where the blonde and her companion are sitting. “Guys, this is Alisss.”
The blonde smiles at me through clenched teeth.
“Anna.”
Anna . . . As in Anna, his ex-girlfriend?
“How nice to meet you, Aliss,” says Anna.
“It’s actually All-ee-chay. The normal pronunciation is fine,” I tell her.
She looks me up and down, judging me like a piece of meat. Damn, she is a woman and therefore genetically programmed to notice details . . . like my misfit shoe, for example.
She raises her eyes and instead of commenting, turns to face her thighs toward Luca, crossing her legs Basic Instinct style.
“Hi,” says her friend, whom I discover answers to the improbable name of Wolf. “Come sit down for a second.”
And since Luca doesn’t have the slightest hesitation, I do so, rounding the table and pulling up a chair next to Wolf.
While we are served two more Negroni Sbagliatos, that once again I can’t reject, it emerges that this was Luca and Anna’s favorite hangout when they were dating. How sweet . . .
“I hope you don’t mind, darling, that now I’m bringing Alisss here, too,” he says reaching across the table to touch my fingers.
“Not at all, sweetie,” Anna replies. “After all, I’ve brought Wolf here, haven’t I?” She strokes Wolf’s chin with the tip of her index finger.
“So, let’s make a toast,” says Wolf, who immediately calls one of the waiters and orders a round of shots.
In spite of her sensuality, Anna proves herself some sort of Viking when it comes to alcohol and successfully downs two glasses of grappa, one after another without putting a hair out of place. After the second, she looks at Luca and winks.
“You miss me as a drinking buddy, I bet. Do you remember Mexico?”
As they launch into a story about drunk Mexicans, I make my excuses and get up to go to the bathroom.
I’m starting to overheat and suddenly I feel very strange.
Locked in the toilet, I write to Tio.
It goin weeeel. Lucas is mice and took my band. But his X is her and we ere at her rable. What do do?
His answer arrives not even thirty seconds later.
Are you drunk? Your message is almost incoherent. His EX? Maybe he is testing you. He wants to be the conquest. But don’t give in. Be provocative, but keep your distance. Speak with other men. Make him understand that he isn’t the only catch there. And stop drinking.
I admit, my head is spinning a bit, but it’s not like I’m not thinking clearly. When I come back, I see that the others are just outside the bar.
Suddenly I have a shot of tequila in my hand that I don’t remember ordering, but I’m having fun. Anna is actually nice and even Wolf’s not bad. Actually, he’s pretty amazing. I don’t know what we’re talking about, but he really makes me laugh. He’s a riot.
“Do you want another vodka? I’m going to get another round,” he says, stroking my hip with his hand.
At this point, I’m no longer sure that he and Anna are actually together. In fact, what happened to her and Luca?
In the meantime, Wolf grabs me. Oh god, I can’t breathe and my head is spinning.
“Want to go to my car and listen to some music for a while?”
“No, the only thing that’s helping me right now is the fresh air on my face. I need to take some deep breaths.”
“Let’s go for a walk then. There’s a little park right behind there,” and without warning, his hand slides just above my butt.
“Alice?”
When I turn around, I am stunned, as if I’ve seen a ghost. “Raffaella?”
“I didn’t know you come to the Cave,” she says.
“I’m here with some friends, this is not my neighborhood . . . you?”
“Oh, I live around here.”
And just then someone catches up to her and passes her a margarita.
I knew it. I knew I should have listened to Tio. I’ve drunk too much and now I’m having insane hallucinations.
“People are packed like sardines in there,” says the man, who then turns around and recognizes me. “Alice . . . good evening.”
So, it must be real: Davide Nardi is here, right in front of me. “Um . . . good evening.”
Wolf finally removes his hand from my butt and stretches it toward them. “I’m Wolf.”
Davide raises an eyebrow. He looks at Wolf and then at me.
Noting the ruby color of my dress, Davide cracks a smile and says, “So, that would make her Little Red Riding Hood?”
I burst out laughing. I had failed to notice that detail. This guy is such a hoot! I can’t control myself.
“Alice, are you feeling OK?” Raffaella asks me.
“Wolf . . . Little Red Riding Hood . . . and the park . . . the hand on my . . . I mean . . .” Oh god, what am I babbling on about? “Actually, I was here with someone else.”
“Oh, really?” Davide cranes his neck, as if he could pick out Luca without ever having seen him.
“Interesting shoes . . .” says Raffaella. Damn her. Now both Wolf and Davide are looking at them.
“It’s . . . a new fad,” I explain. “You know how fashion is, who knows what they’ll com
e up with next?”
“Can I get you something else to drink, hon?” asks Wolf, turning into a human octopus and clutching at my side.
“Something without alcohol,” Davide says decisively, pointing at his drink.
I start laughing uncontrollably again. Davide looks more than a little bizarre standing there in his black leather jacket, holding a glass filled with strawberries and a tiny umbrella.
Davide disappears into the bar, following Wolf, while Raffa and I stay on the sidewalk, surrounded by the other patrons who are out getting air or smoking.
“Are you OK, Alice? You don’t seem very . . . stable.”
I give her a thumbs-up to let her know that I’m OK. “It takes a lot more, believe me. But you, what are you doing with Nardi?”
“Oh nothing, I’m just being nice. I took him to look at an apartment. He’s not from Milan and he has to find a place to stay while he’s here.”
You mean a place for him to stay while he takes stock of the company and decides to get rid of us one by one.
“Come on, don’t talk like that. Besides, he’s actually working for the good of the network.”
How did she hear my thoughts? I slap my hand over my mouth. Damn! I didn’t just think it, I was talking out loud.
Just then, Davide returns to us with a bottle of still water.
“You absolutely must try this,” says Wolf, who has joined us with a multicolored cocktail in hand. “It’s a dream.”
“Better not,” Davide replies.
“Hey, there are my friends,” Raffaella calls out. “Come on, Davide, I’ll introduce you. This way, if you take the apartment, you’ll already know someone . . .”
Wolf hands me the glass. At this point, it would be rude not to taste it, as he got it specifically for me. It’s cold, and not half bad, and what’s even better is how the world changes when you get some alcohol in your system. The people in front of me are multicolored shapes, and they’re dancing.
There are even fireflies, countless yellow fireflies dancing in front of my eyes. Suddenly, I feel my legs cave in, and then, darkness.
