Sixteen

by Megan Mccafferty

  “I’d like for it to have been my choice, that’s all.”

  “You’ve still got a chance.”

  “Plus Santa Cruz,” I said. “Jodi would be pretty happy if I wound up there.”

  “Yes, I imagine she would.” My mother sighed. She took off her glasses and fixed me with a sober look. “Now listen, Johnny. You know how fond we are of Jodi. She’s a wonderful girl. This isn’t about her—”

  “What isn’t?”

  “We would love it if you went to Santa Cruz, to have you nearby, your father and I. We want you to be happy. But you need to make sure you’re thinking about what you want to do. Do you understand me? You and Jodi, you’re both very young.”

  I could feel something squeezing in my chest. “So you’re saying to disregard Jodi?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all,” my mother said. “I’m saying to regard yourself. You make the decision that’s best for you. It’s as simple as that.”

  I looked at my mother, at the massive bookshelf above her, the volumes of Marx and Freud and Spinoza, all those big-ticket Jews in worn bindings.

  “She’s a wonderful girl,” she said again. “You know how fond we are of her.”

  I don’t remember the exact chronology on the rest of the college shit. I got into that last school back East—a smaller, second-tier place—and Santa Cruz, of course. That’s all you need to know. No need to go over all the moaning that came later. You have your own version, I’d expect.

  What I need to tell you about is this one night, a week after the talk with my mother. It was a Friday and my parents were away at a conference. Jodi and I were going to spend the weekend playing house, cooking ourselves meals and screwing wherever we pleased. Jodi was supposed to swing by after volleyball practice, but by eight she still hadn’t appeared.

  When she did finally call, I could hear loud voices in the background. “Hey, baby,” she said. “Can you come over and pick me up?”

  I figured she and her pals had started the weekend early, that she was maybe drunk, and this both excited and annoyed me. Then I heard someone scream, an angry male sound, and the sound of something slamming.

  “Where are you?”

  “Home,” she said. “My house.”

  “What’s happening over there?”

  “Nothing. No big deal. But it’s better if I don’t use the car.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She laughed her patient laugh. “Just a little family drama.”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “No, I want you to come by. Or—just honk.”

  So I got in my dad’s car and drove over to her house. I figured that either her mom or dad, maybe both of them, had hit the sauce a little too hard. When I pulled up to her house, I could see the new Mustang in the driveway and a car I didn’t recognize, right up on its bumper. The Mustang looked a little off-kilter, and when I passed by I could see why: The left rear tire had been slashed.

  The front door of the house was flung open. This was often the case. But the frosted-glass window next to the door was busted and the shards were scattered on the pebbled cement of the courtyard. I walked over to the sliding glass door. I could see right through the kitchen and living room to the backyard, where there was a little pool. Billy Dunne swung into view. A little string of blood was dripping off his hand onto the flagstone. He had a glass in his other hand and he was glaring down at his father, who was perched on the edge of a chaise lounge. These faint blue ripples kept washing across them, from the light in the pool.

  Billy was screaming all kinds of crap. “Get up! Get up! Fucking sailor! Fucking phony-ass sailor!”

  Mr. Dunne had his jaw set, but I could see, from the smoke coiling off his Newport, that his hands were trembling.

  Then I heard another voice, a distressed, female voice, and I thought: Jodi, it’s my Jodi! She’s back there! I had this sense that I should do something, rush into the backyard and make sure Jodi was okay. I could step between the men and get them to cool off, make the peace. I felt the adrenaline kick in and reached for the door. But Billy Dunne raised his highball glass and smashed it on the flagstone and the sound was like the report of a rifle.

  I stepped back. There was another shriek. A woman lurched into view, her blond hair up in a ponytail. “You’re ruining it!” she screamed. “You’re ruining everything!” Then May appeared and pulled her away from the two men. Bill Dunne dropped his cigarette and started to get to his feet, but his son struck him, a soft, quick blow above the eye, and Bill Dunne slumped back down onto the chaise lounge. He looked stunned and helpless, like a child.

  Something turned in me, just then. I lost my nerve. Rather than leaping forward, into the fray, I turned and hurried back to my car and leaned on the horn. I told myself that if Jodi didn’t appear in a minute or so, I’d head back inside. When I’ve thought about this moment in the past, taken it apart, I’ve made the kind assumption that I knew the woman with the ponytail was Sue, not Jodi. The truth is I wasn’t sure. It might have been Jodi I was running out on.

  And then Jodi did appear, a big, sweet dumpling of a girl hurrying toward me. Her hair was wet and loose across her shoulders.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Is everything cool?” I said. “I heard some screaming.”

  “Oh, it’s so stupid. Let’s just go, baby. Okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Should I—”

  “Please,” she said, as I knew she would. Then she looked at me and took me in her arms and hugged me, hard. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much.”

  You reach a point in every relationship where you have to decide to be brave, to move forward into the dangerous territory. Or you retreat.

  It didn’t happen immediately. We had ourselves a fabulous weekend of kissing and fondling and slurping. Jodi was grateful for these pleasures. We both were. I managed to convince myself that I’d shown admirable restraint in the matter. It wasn’t my place to interfere in family politics.

  I knew what a load of crap that was, but I wasn’t ready to face my cowardice. So I started making judgments. The Dunnes were drunks, failures, makers of tawdry scenes. Their poor breeding had finally revealed itself. And how long would it be before Jodi met the same fate? Here was my bigotry rising again to rescue me, the idea that I was above Jodi, that my family had more money and more sophistication, that our blood was a little purer, our minds more refined.

  What was I really afraid of? I was afraid of love. I was afraid of Jodi because she offered me love, a pure, unconditional love, and this made me feel like a traitor to my family, which doled out love only as a reward for heroism. I viewed accepting her love as beneath me when, deep down, it was more than I felt I deserved.

  So this isn’t some kind of after-school special where the booze is the culprit. My family was just as sick as hers, beset by envy and guilt and a need to withhold, all the polite violence of the modern suburb.

  There were some other things I could mention—minor acts of infidelity—but I’m not sure they matter so much. They were more effect than cause. By summer I’d decided to head back East for school and started to pursue other girls who were going East, thinner models who doled out the abuse I was seeking.

  The worst part, of course, is that Jodi didn’t hold any of this against me. She was totally, maddeningly forgiving. She understood that I wasn’t ready for the happiness she was offering, that I needed to get away from my family.

  The last time I saw her, the last memorable occasion, was the next summer. Bill Dunne had commissioned his boat. He’d even agreed to let Billy—back from rehab and looking contrite—take it out for charters. They threw a party at the dinky little public marina near the marshlands, and Jodi sent me an invite, with a note informing me that her father insisted I be there. It was a rousing affair, with margaritas and platters of salty salami and dancing. Jodi came and hugged me. I felt the solid warmth of her flanks against me. The breeze moved thro
ugh her hair, which was golden with sun. It was strange to see her again only because it didn’t feel strange at all. It felt perfectly natural, as if we’d never missed a beat. Then May came and gave me a hug and Bill threw his giant straw hat on the dock and gestured for me to dance around it. I didn’t get it. Couldn’t these people see me for the heel I was?

  Later, at dusk, Jodi slipped away from my side and went down to the launch. She and her mother smashed a bottle of Mott’s against the hull and they climbed aboard for the maiden voyage of the Jodi May. Everyone let out a cheer and May hugged Bill and the rest of the Dunnes waved like mad.

  I felt the oddest sensation then, as they puttered out under the high, distant streaks of cloud—as if I were the one drifting away from land, from the happy crowd on the dock, from the wine and song, from the simple human pleasures of fellowship. And it’s true, I was.

  Venetian Fan

  Cat Bauer

  I’m crying and it’s Titian’s fault.

  I sit at the top of the Doge’s private staircase inside the Palazzo Ducale, alone except for one cuff-linked man who stands near the foot of the steps, his back to me, black hair tumbling to his collar. He cannot see my tears.

  Today is my birthday. I am sixteen. I am alone, on the day I was born, in front of an ancient fresco in Italy and I have never been kissed.

  The steps are smooth stones, chilly beneath me on a hot July afternoon. My sketch pad is beside me, my fingers too unsure to draw. Outside the open door, tourists shuffle by, blank and unaware. I listen to the babble of voices that bounce off the bare walls:

  “What’s a Doge, anyway?”

  “I dunno. I think he was sort of like the president of Venice.”

  “Devo fare pee pee, Mama! Adesso!”

  “Basta!”

  On the wall above the door in front of me towers Titian’s fresco of St. Christopher, child perched on his shoulder, a colossus striding across the Venetian lagoon. His biceps are toned, his thighs, strong and muscular. His head tilts up at the child, who rides him like a victor, little legs wrapped around St. Christopher’s neck. The child is serene. St. Christopher is determined, lusty jaw, noble nose. I think: I want to float up over the doorway and press my mouth against St. Christopher’s stony lips.

  The Palazzo Ducale, the Doge’s Palace, was once the center of the government, rising like a rose-colored fairy tale in the waters of the Venetian lagoon. Now it is just another Italian museum, trampled by foreign footsteps looking for a glimpse into the past of a crumpled Republic.

  The guidebook says that the Doge was the head of the government. He walked down the staircase (where I sit) from the Senate (where he worked) to his private chambers below (where he lived).

  Titian painted the St. Christopher fresco for the Doge’s eyes to light upon as he descended the stairs—a billboard to remind him of his majesty. I think: I could use a few frescoes splattered across the walls of our house in Florida to remind me who I am.

  I have been here an hour, swallowing the image, but I’m still hungry for more. I had two fathers back in America; together they do not equal one St. Christopher. Maybe that’s why the fresco moves me.

  “They say Tiziano painted the fresco in just three days.”

  The man’s voice, soft, in accented English, cuts through the tangle of languages outside the door. I am startled. I had forgotten he was there. He has turned and looks up at me.

  With my index fingers, I spread the tears on my cheeks from a single trickle to a glossy sheen. I nod. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “You’re young.”

  It is a statement, but I answer as if it were a question. “I’m eighteen.” I lie. I don’t know why.

  “A student? From America?”

  “Yes.”

  He indicates my sketch pad. “An artist?”

  “I try.”

  The man’s beard is trim; his black hair is tousled. He wears a blue tie. I raise my eyes to meet his. They are chestnut eyes, polished and moist, with deep creases in the corners where remnants of his own tears still gleam. I don’t look away; I can’t. We are connected for a weighty moment.

  “Is it the fresco?” I am hoping.

  He nods. “Sì. Sometimes, when I am overwhelmed, I come to see it. It always gives me . . . the word is not comfort. It gives me . . . power. Sì. Potenza. Potency. In the sense that I can carry the weight.”

  I wonder what his burden is. He looks tired. His clothes are dark and graceful, but his tie is loose. There is a lion of San Marco on his tie clip, so I assume he is Venetian. Venetians hold themselves separate from other Italians, I’ve learned, still angry that Napoléon conquered their Republic more than two hundred years earlier. Even the word Venetian sounds like an alien from another planet.

  “It would be nice to feel as confident as the child,” I say. “If you had St. Christopher holding you up . . . I guess that’s why some people pray to saints.”

  The man climbs up two steps and stops. “You don’t pray?”

  “I look at art. It’s like praying.”

  “If you like art that touches the soul, there is another Titian, my favorite here in Venice, across the piazza on the ceiling in the library.” The man moves up another step. “It is called Allegoryof Wisdom. It is interesting to me because Titian has painted Wisdom as a young woman, confident and mysterious. Have you seen it?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” I decide there is something attractive about him in a schoolteacher type of way, even though he is probably three times my age. There are green flecks at the edges of his chestnut eyes.

  “I can show it to you, if you like.” The man hesitates. “If you have the time.”

  “I would like that,” I say. I am feeling bold on my sixteenth birthday.

  A British family, two adults and a matching boy and girl, enter the stairwell, attached by four headsets plugged into two cassettes. They talk too loudly, their hearing muffled by the recorded voice in their ears. The little girl is the first to turn to the fresco. She points: “There’s the Titian!” She runs up the stairs, forgetting the cable that connects her to her brother. Her headphones tumble to the floor.

  The mother pulls off her own headphones and follows her daughter up the stairs, leaving the male members of the family with their cords dangling.

  They sit two steps down from me. The girl wiggles between the mother’s legs and perches on her lap. The boy bounds up the stairs and presses close to his mother, who wraps her arm around his shoulders. She is Mother Goose, about to tell a tale. It is impossible for me to imagine a family outing like this. In Florida, my mom and I are lucky if we make it to Wal-Mart.

  “It’s St. Christopher,” the mother explains. “They say the Christ child he’s carrying on his shoulders represents the weight of the world.”

  The boy asks, “What’s a fresco?”

  The father has climbed up the steps but doesn’t sit; he leans against the railing. He touches his chin as if he’s smoking a pipe. “You paint straight on the wall.” Their English sounds exaggerated, pompous and strange.

  The girl asks, “How did Titian get up there?”

  The father says, “On a ladder.”

  The boy says, “He was a priest.”

  The mother says, “No, that was Vivaldi, the composer. Titian was just an artist.”

  I think: Yeah, and Einstein was just a scientist.

  The father says, “He lived to be very, very old, to his nineties. That was very unusual for those days.”

  I think: Ain’t too common these days either, mate.

  The mother says, “They say the fresco brings luck. Whoever looks at it will have luck all day.”

  The father says, “Well, we could all use a bit of luck, couldn’t we?”

  I think: We certainly could.

  I watch the family lean into one another, comfortable, a single unit, and I am sad. I feel like a jigsaw puzzle missing a few key pieces.

  I
see the black-haired man move to the bottom of the steps, his place conquered by the British. Some Americans wander in past him, led by a tour guide. They are dressed in sneakers and windbreakers, as if they’re going hiking.

  “Three days, huh? I could paint that in two.” Their words are Southern, slow and drawling.

  I pretend I am French and shrug my shoulders, disguising myself from my countrymen.

  “Why do they call him Titian if his name was Tiziano?”

  “I guess it was his nickname.”

  “I read van Gogh’s story about four years ago. I should have read it like, four weeks ago.”

  I want to snicker, but I don’t.

  “Well.” The tour guide hesitates. He decides to be kind.

  “That wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Van Gogh was born in 1853, almost four hundred years after Titian. And he was Dutch, not Venetian.”

  “Whatever.”

  A group of German university students pour into the stairwell, nudging the Southerners out the door. They climb the stairs, backpacks knocking into one another. They sprawl out over the steps, unzip their backpacks, and take out bottles of water and candy bars. It is a palazzo picnic. The leader of the group, tall and dressed entirely in black, barks out guttural orders, but no one pays attention. He bounds up the steps two at a time and stands right in front of me, blocking my view.

  “Excuse me,” I say. He either ignores me or doesn’t hear. I tap his ankle. “Excuse me.”

  He whirls around and glares down at me. “What? What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t see.”

  “So stand up! What do you think, you own the world?” He turns away from me and defiantly spreads his legs.

  My first instinct is to challenge him, but I am an American in Europe, and my rhythm is the beat of another continent. Instead I take a deep breath and wait, peering between his legs. I try to catch a glimpse of the black-haired man, but a crowd of Birkenstock sandals blocks my view.

  I listen to the potpourri of languages. Three gray-haired Frenchwomen wearing flat heels have joined the crowd. “Voici le Titien!” These different cultures are comfortable with one another, meeting on a stairwell in Venice. They stand close together, strangers touching. Now that the Southerners have gone, I am the only American. The space around me is greater than the rest.