An Astrological Guide for Broken Hearts

by Silvia Zucca

  I restrain myself from curtsying. “Nice to meet you. Yes, you can call me Alice.”

  “My heartfelt thanks for your invitation to the program,” he says, bowing his head and briefly breaking into a very British smile.

  “Oh. Sure. You’re welcome. Actually, we should be the ones thanking you . . . Um . . . Most sincerely, for agreeing to join us.”

  I point to one of the chairs, to have him complete a release form, but he pulls out my abandoned seat and motions for me to sit back down. “After you.”

  I watch him fill out the card with his information, and I’m astonished when he fills in his birthday, because the year is the same as mine.

  “So, your show preaches the merits of astrology?” he asks.

  I nod as a shiver runs down my back. I know all too well that speaking to a scientist about astrology is tantamount to waving a red flag at a bull. After all, he’s a Taurus, judging from his birth date. And I’ve just given Marlin permission to interview him. God, this could be a disaster.

  “Yes, you know how it is. Our program is geared toward a large segment of the public who are not experts on scientific matters,” I say, by way of a justification.

  “Of course,” he replies. “Usually television doesn’t bother teaching the common man about scientific issues. If it did, we would have more alert and aware minds, but instead there is always just a load of garbage.”

  “And this is the very reason we want to inform them. By speaking about horoscopes in a more serious way than usual.”

  “I’m afraid ‘serious horoscopes’ is an oxymoron. Though, I find nothing wrong with reading them purely as a form of entertainment. Obviously, you and I are well aware that it’s all a load of nonsense aimed at deceiving pitiful minds.”

  Uh . . . Yes, well aware. “That’s why I would like to only hint at your aversion to astrological theories and give more space to science, which as you’ve rightly pointed out, is grossly neglected,” I conclude, holding my breath.

  “Thank you. I would be delighted to be able to leave the public with the impression that not everything is as disingenuous as horoscopes and that some of it would be worth exploring further. I’m confident that people would be interested in carbon dioxide emissions released from the ISON comet or enthusiastic about the super-Earths discovered in the Tau Ceti system, just twelve million light-years away from us. As a science, astrogeology is pretty stellar, as young people say these days.” He grins, pleased at his joke, and stands up, and I do the same to accompany him to makeup. Except, when we turn around . . .

  “Good morning,” the astrogeologist says affably, stretching out his hand. “Andrea Magni, and you are?”

  “Professor Tiziano Falcetti,” replies Tio, tight-lipped. “The ‘charlatan’ running this dump.”

  “Doctor Magnet!” At the door of the dressing room Marlin emerges, sheathed in a latex jumpsuit that leaves nothing to the imagination.

  “By Jove!” exclaims the astrogeologist, who perhaps under his earthly crust has a throbbing core of physical passions in addition to his astrophysical ones.

  “Good evening, Dr. Magnet. I am Marlin and I will deal with you . . . in the interview.” She takes him by the hand, and he doesn’t even bother to correct his name. “Come, come. While they make you beautiful, we can have a good talk about catatonic plates. Or do I mean tectonic plates? The ones in continents. They move. Did you know that?”

  No, I don’t need a psychic to foresee disaster.

  Aware of the imminent defeat, all that’s left is to do everything in my power to win back the only person who can save me. I am ready to make amends, to take a pledge, to “cross my heart and hope to die” that I will never contradict him for the rest of my days.

  “Tio.” I flash my best set of puppy dog eyes, but he turns around, raises a hand, shakes his head, and walks away.

  I feel truly alone for the first time in months.

  “All right, now I’m angry,” begins Ferruccio, the lighting technician, wiping his brow. “I mean . . . where the hell is Mr. Heartthrob, your Spaniard?”

  “He’s not my Spaniard!” I obstinately insist, although I’m not fooling anyone. In a place like this, it’s impossible to have a secret liaison. But Ferruccio is right; Alejandro is supposed to be on call with us tonight.

  I’m happy because at least we’ll get to see each other. Even though we didn’t discuss it, I’m expecting to go home with him after the broadcast, which is why I took public transportation today. That way we can speak about us, about our future.

  Racked with anxiety about work and my love life, I read the notes from my horoscope app.

  Family difficulties, or strict father and Spartan education. Mentally ill mother.

  Oh god, is that why I feel distant from him?

  They tend to have their own definition of honesty. Possible feet problems and trouble with the law.

  I frown. In fact, with all the dancing, it’s no wonder that he would get sore feet. But trouble with the law? Does this have to do with the drugs from before?

  Very respectful of ethics and moral.

  I poke my head in the studio of Mal d’Amore to look for him. I need answers, because instead of settling my doubts, this horoscope is multiplying them.

  Led to fall in love with a foreign person.

  There it is. In black and white! I almost, almost forward the message to Tio, but think better of it.

  “Excuse me!” I yell, getting the attention of the assistant for Mal d’Amore.

  “Mara, isn’t it?” I say, trying to be nice. “Do you know where I can find Alejandro?”

  “That’s the question we’re all asking! What has become of Alejandro?”

  Does she mean all of us, men and women, or just all the women? Because it really changes the meaning. She must be jealous. I’ve seen how she was looking at him.

  I turn around for a second and see that she is staring at me with empty eyes. She opens her mouth, but then bites her lip, and goes back to the script that she was checking.

  I take the opportunity to go to the bathroom.

  Existence marked by trials of a chronic nature. Operations, stays in nursing home. Death from intestinal disease.

  I am still staring at the words on the tiny phone screen, wondering why I ever thought Ghost was a good movie. Like hell do I want to be in Demi Moore’s shoes. But I would feel like a real bitch if I even thought about leaving Alejandro because I was afraid of his health problems.

  I rinse my hands quickly and go out, only to bump directly into him, my elusive Spaniard, who in fact is taking a step back and pushing the door of the men’s bathroom to be sure that it is solidly closed.

  “Everything OK?” I ask.

  “Yes. I was just in the bathroom.”

  I look for a second at the closed door, then at him. He seems paler than usual. Is he hiding something?

  Perhaps that’s how it all begins. His bowel problems, I mean. “Can I do something?”

  “No, Aliz. Don’t worry.”

  I try to walk beside him, as we move toward the studio, but his legs are longer than mine and goes too fast.

  I am not imagining things. There is something up and I must find out what it is.

  When we reach the studio, it feels almost like I’m standing in front of a firing squad.

  In the front row is Tio, who on this occasion has decided not to stay in the studio and is leaning against the door of the production room, his eyes burning holes in my back. Then there’s Mr. President. He’s here for Marlin, of course, not for me, but he will be the first to eat me alive if his protégée makes a slip that tarnishes her image, or that of the program or of the whole network. And then there’s Davide, leaning against the plasterboard wall, hands behind his back, lips pressed into a hard line.

  I feel like there’s something wrong, something bothering him, although he is perfectly controlled, as always. A distance has grown between us over the last month or so, but it’s not about that, not tonight. He
looks right through me without really seeing me. He is not focused; he’s not here right now.

  I look for Alejandro, hoping to at least find backup in him for this trial that I am about to face. He’s in the production room, but he turns his back to me and speaks quietly to Raffaella. She brushes aside her hair, stroking her neck.

  The announcement crackles through the intercom that there are thirty seconds until we go live. I grab the microphone, press the button that allows me to speak to the studio, and tell everyone to take their places.

  The green eyes of our star pierce the screen, and she smiles, winking at the camera, taking her time to walk toward the stool, swaying her hips.

  At the very least, the introduction is impeccable. Miraculously, she pronounces his name correctly and even his profession, perhaps aided in both cases by the astrogeology book in her hand.

  The trouble, however, begins immediately after the first question. “Why study the composition of the planets?”

  A very simple question, in short, for those who are satisfied with a no-frills response. But Magni has more extensive educational objectives, and I see Marlin falter under the barrage of big words like geomorphology, petrography, magnetosphere, hydrocarbons, magnetic fields, orbital parameters . . .

  For a second, I think the poor thing is going to faint. But then, she suddenly seems to rouse at the word universe, which has made it even into her meager vocabulary—although more frequently in association with the word Miss. She bats her eyes, telling him that she always feels overwhelmed by the immensity of the heavens, which she finds so romantic precisely because it is infinite and unfathomable.

  Yes, she actually says unfathomable. I am shocked, but Magni doesn’t let himself be impressed by Marlin’s lexical prowess.

  “My dear, the Hubble variable, which is none other than v equals H times d, tells us the veloc onity of displacement of one galaxy compared to the others, where v is the velocity of distancing in the direction of our line of sight, d expresses the distance of the galaxy from Earth, and H is a proportional constant whose value, alas, is still rather uncertain but should fluctuate somewhere around sixty-five kilometers per second for every megaparsec of distance. At this point, I think it is clear to everyone, that the constant gives us the rate of expansion of the universe, which therefore, in a certain sense, is perfectly measurable.”

  “Poor Marlin,” comments Raffaella. “Hung out to dry. Why did we do such a thing to her?” She shakes her head and shoots Mr. President a clandestine look. “I would never have allowed it,” she comments, while her gaze flickers for a nanosecond just on me.

  I return to staring at the control monitor, where Magni and Marlin are on full display.

  “. . . as the physics of the degenerate matter imposes a mass limit on the white dwarf, called a Chandrasekhar Limit. In the most common type, carbon-oxygen, exceeding that limit, usually because of the transfer of mass to a binary system, can cause the explosion of a nova or supernova.”

  Marlin brushes a strand of hair from her cleavage. “Poor thing, though, a dwarf and yet obese!”

  I cover my eyes with my hands, not that it will do me any good.

  “Cut to commercials,” I hear behind me. “Something long, if possible.”

  Davide has broken away from the wall and, standing next to my chair, leafs through the lineup with a wrinkled brow. “Bring the news forward,” he says, pointing his index finger on the paper.

  “But that’s two segments ahead. We still have a half hour,” I fumble, lifting my gaze to his.

  “We need time to get organized,” he says, staring at me with those eyes, dark as chocolate, that suddenly flash, because now he is smiling. At me. “We can do it, Alice. You and I, together.”

  I blink; my blood is rushing up and down through my body with reckless abandon.

  “And Tio,” Davide adds, turning to Tio, still leaning against the door with his arms folded. “Come on.”

  While I speak through the headphones to the studio assistant, telling him to cut to commercials, the other two disappear into the adjacent editing room. From the glass wall, I can see Davide sit down at the computer and Tio tell him something as he takes his place at his side.

  I don’t know what they have in mind, but I don’t have time to think about it, because I am bombarded with insults from our own red dwarf, who clicks into the production room on her eight-inch stilts.

  “Someone want to tell us what the hell is going on? The countdown read that there were still seven minutes! Why did you go to commercials?”

  “My dear, everything was going incredibly well. And, let me tell you, tonight you look like a million bucks,” intervenes the president. “Come with me, Doctor Magni, I’ll get you a coffee.”

  “Alice . . .”

  Davide. He’s so close to me that I have to raise my chin to look him in the eye. Hasn’t he noticed he’s invading my personal space? I can’t say that it bothers me though. He smells nice, and the heat emanating from his chest has a reassuring effect.

  “What’s up?” I stammer.

  He doesn’t say anything. He keeps looking at me with that magnetic smile of his, and then takes a pair of headphones from the dashboard of the production room and puts them on me.

  Suddenly, I hear notes in my head. It’s that song, “Reality,” from the movie The Party.

  In the chaos of an absurd evening, I can’t believe that I feel like I’m at a thirteen-year-old’s birthday. I meet Davide’s gaze and wait for him to wrap his arms around my waist to dance, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a step back and brings a transmitter to his lips.

  “Do you hear me? Testing, testing. Check . . . one, two . . . Alice, do you hear me?”

  I hear him perfectly.

  There is no music except in my imagination, and the reason why Davide threw those headphones on me has nothing to do with Sophie Marceau and her first kiss.

  I nod, but he doesn’t pay attention to me and slips back into the editing room. He waves at me through the window.

  “Can you still hear me now, honey?”

  I move a couple steps closer to the window. Then I see that the headphones also have a microphone with two buttons. I press one, and Davide winces, removing his headphones. The receiver produced a whistle that was probably much louder for him than for me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Alice. Now, listen. Here’s the idea. We are going to create a bridge. We’ll give Marlin a wireless earpiece, hidden behind her ear, on the frequency of your intercom, so that you can tell her what to say to interview Magni without screwing up.”

  “But I’m not an astrogeologist!”

  He raises his hand to silence me. “You will repeat what I tell you.”

  “Why don’t you just speak to her directly?”

  “I’ll need time to do some Internet research. I’m not an expert in astrogeology either, Alice. You’ll have to pay attention in case he changes the subject suddenly, and I’m too busy reading to realize.”

  “One minute to go. People in the studio!” cries Ferruccio.

  With difficulty, I break Davide’s intense gaze to nod toward the director. “I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure?” Davide’s voice spills thick and warm directly into my ear.

  I turn around again to look at him.

  “You have to be my woman . . . behind the woman. Are you ready, Alice?” He raises his hand and presses it against the glass, as if he wants to touch me.

  Looking at him is like an earthquake in perfect stillness. I am tongue-tied, and I end up standing there like a deer in the headlights, while in my head the notes of Richard Sanderson’s “Reality” magically begin to play again.

  “Ten seconds, Alice!”

  My fingertips slide onto the glass just as Davide removes his hand and turns to sit at the computer.

  “Welcome back to the studio,” says a beaming Marlin.

  I press the button of the headset that allows me to talk t
o her. “We apologize for the technical problems.”

  “We apologize for the technical problems,” she repeats, adding her flirtatious smile to then continue according to my instructions: “But for those who are still with us, we will be continuing our fascinating interview with Dr. Andrea Magni.”

  “The famous astrogeologist,” I suggest in the headset.

  “Who, on closer inspection, should also be famous for his physical attributes, not just because he’s so astrophysical,” she adds, before asking him the question I’ve suggested.

  In my headphones, I hear a beep and then Davide’s voice: “Did you tell her to say that? Do you like this guy?”

  “Of course not!” I say.

  “Of course not!” repeats Marlin, smiling at Magni.

  I hasten to cut off communication with her while Magni raises an eyebrow.

  “Klutz,” whispers Davide, with a smile in his voice.

  “You’re the one distracting me,” I say pouting, this time thank heavens pressing the right button.

  When Magni expresses his doubt as a scientist on the actual effectiveness of astrology, Tio, who kindly has agreed to return to the studio, is prompted by Marlin—that is by Davide, and then me, and hence by Marlin—to counter with his point of view.

  “Thank God,” I say to Davide in the headphones. “We can kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Let me guess who you would kill first,” he replies.

  Now he’s even joking with me. He seems strangely elated, as if he really likes this game, his prior apathy almost completely forgotten.

  “You, Mr. Nardi, are not being honest,” I tease. “Tell the truth, you’re having fun doing The Truman Show.”

  “Oh, Alice, it’s you who’s fun, not The Truman Show.”

  Meanwhile, Magni says that astrology did indeed precede astronomy, but only because it was created in very dark times for science.

  “Well done,” Davide says into the headphones. “Brava. See, we’re a great team!”

  I blush. Fortunately, I have my back to him, so he can’t see me.

  “I’ve always wondered,” Magni taunts, “why, in order to determine the zodiac sign, and hence the character of a person, astrologists take into account the moment at which you are born and not the moment of conception. After all, that is the origin of life. Do the stars have no influence on the fetus? Is it shielded by the mother’s shell?”