by Ann Hood
On has brought her a pupu platter in a take-out bag.
He says in perfect English, “I am so beat. I did twenty deliveries tonight.”
She chews on a sparerib and studies On’s face. He is another problem. Julia likes him. She really likes him. In two weeks she has to leave this apartment and her plan would usually be to leave her lover too. No forwarding address or telephone number. But she doesn’t want to leave On. He is handsome. He is smart. He plays in a band called the Copy Cats, a band that does no original music at all. They imitate other bands—the Rolling Stones, the Talking Heads. On plays the drums for them, and delivers Chinese food to make extra money.
Julia says, “Can you speak Chinese?”
He laughs. “Only words I shouldn’t repeat in front of a woman,” he says. He always brings champagne, and drinks most of it himself. After a few glasses, his voice gets higher, almost squeaky, and his laugh becomes a series of giggles. That is how it sounds now.
Julia stretches out on Darren and Frank’s expensive rug and sighs. Everything about On is wrong. He’s American, for one thing. Born and raised in San Francisco. He even went to Harvard. He only looks foreign, and although she keeps asking him to tell her stories about China, he has nothing exotic to give her.
“My grandfather only spoke Chinese,” he says. “We never knew a word he was saying.” Then he adds, “He lived to be one hundred and seven.”
“Good genes,” Julia says. She starts on another sparerib and asks, “Tell me about him.”
On shrugs. “He was a mean old bastard. Always screaming at us in Mandarin.”
She sits up, smiles. “Mandarin,” she says, enjoying the word, the foreignness of it. She thinks of silk, of strong tea, of junks and jade and ivory.
“Yeah,” On says in his squeaky champagne voice. “Like oranges.”
Julia’s exotic images shatter. “Mandarin oranges,” she mumbles, and falls back on the rug. “How suburban. Housewives put them in salads with almonds and sugar for fancy dinner parties.”
“They do?’ On says. His giggles are like the champagne bubbles now. He pulls her T-shirt over her head and sighs. Then, slowly, he drips champagne on her breasts, and gently licks it off.
Julia is in the office that assigns her the house-sitting jobs. The woman she works with, Edie, has hair like Farrah Fawcett’s in Charlie’s Angels. Julia can smell the raspberry gum Edie chews and pops. It makes her feel a little queasy.
“We got three months in SoHo. Six weeks on Sutton Place.”
Julia shakes her head. “I’d like somewhere a little longer.”
Edie cracks her gum. Her tongue is dyed fuchsia from it. She frowns and studies her listings. “Two months on Fourteenth Street.” She leans toward Julia, breathes raspberry in her ear. “I think it’s Bernie Goetz’s building.”
“No thanks,” Julia says. She is wishing that Frank and Darren stay in Europe longer, that they change their minds and don’t come home, or get to plan a party for Fergie in England that will take months to organize.
Edie’s face brightens. Her base makeup leaves a ragged line around her jaw and chin. “A year in Brooklyn Heights!” she says.
“No,” Julia says too quickly.
Edie chews harder. “But it’s a year,” she says again. “And the place is right on the Promenade.”
Julia shakes her head. “I’m a one-borough girl,” she says.
“But it’s one subway stop to Manhattan,” Edie says. She sits up straighter. “I live in Forest Hills,” she says. “The other boroughs are very underrated.”
“No,” Julia tells her.
With quick, jerky movements, Edie unwraps another piece of raspberry gum and pops it in her mouth. Her cheek bulges like a squirrel’s.
“Come back next week then,” Edie says finally.
“I don’t have much time,” Julia tells her. “Unless Darren and Frank have changed their plans?”
“You wish,” Edie says. “They want you out in two weeks and the place professionally cleaned.”
Julia hesitates. “Can you hold that Fourteenth Street place?”
Edie winks at her. She wears a palette of eyeshadow, all shiny shades of purple, blue, and green. “Bernie is still single, I think.”
Julia rolls her eyes. “I don’t think a madman is my type.”
“Madman or hero?” Edie says. “Right?”
Julia takes the Number Two train to Brooklyn and gets off at Grand Army Plaza. She has not been here since Christmas. She avoids coming. She pretends she doesn’t even know where this area is. But every now and then, she starts to feel guilty and she spends an afternoon in her old neighborhood.
She grew up on the top floor of a brownstone on Garfield Place, off Prospect Park West. She grew up fat and sullen, in an apartment that was always quiet except for the tapping of her mother’s fingers across the typewriter keys. They had high-ceilinged rooms that made Julia feel like she lived in the Tower of London.
Sometimes, she got letters from her father in Houston, suggesting she could go and live with him and his new wife there. Then she would sit in her room and imagine riding horses, eating chili, wearing a cowboy hat. She would imagine open spaces with lots of light, flowering cactus, and roads lined with bluebonnets. She would call people in school y’all, practicing her Texas accent. Somehow it never worked out, though. His job kept him too busy, his wife was pregnant again, their house was too small. Next summer, he’d say. Next year.
At camp in upstate New York, Julia kept pictures of her father and his new family and told everyone they were hers. She would point to his wife Kelly, the former Miss Texas with honey-blond hair, and say that was her mother. She would show them the rambling house in River Oaks, with the redwood and glass and sharp angles everywhere, and say that was where she lived. She would show them her half sister and half brother, dressed in identical western outfits, and make up stories about babysitting them. When her mother, who was small and mousy, who walked with her head down and spoke in a thick New York accent, appeared to pick her up, Julia told everyone she was the family maid.
Her mother’s apartment smells musty, as if the windows haven’t been opened in a long time. Nothing about it ever changes—the living room furniture in harvest gold and moss green is still scratchy and stiff. The piano gathers dust, unplayed, in a corner. Julia’s room still looks like it did twenty years ago, all pale peach, a small dim lamp of a ballerina holding a peach bulb upward.
“What a treat,” her mother says when Julia comes in.
“For me too,” Julia lies. Her words are thick, like marbles in her throat.
As a child she had always wished for a different mother—a funny, smart one with a Miss Texas trophy on the mantle and tawny hair. This mother, her real one, has a life that orbits beside Julia’s, but never touches it. Their whole life together, they have sat in these awkward silences, unable to think of anything to say to each other. Julia knows her mother dreams of a braver daughter, a more beautiful one. That wish hangs in the air between them too.
Her mother adjusts her thick glasses on her nose. She looks a little like a mole, Julia thinks, squinting out beyond her small pointed face into this dark apartment. “I made some cookies,” her mother says.
She pushes a plate of chocolate chip slice-and-serve cookies at Julia. As a fat teenager, Julia would eat entire rolls of these, raw. To her mother, the memory must be that they are Julia’s favorites, although the truth is she can hardly stand to look at them.
Julia says, “Thanks.” She starts to talk about the apartment she is living in, making it sound like it’s her own. She describes everything in rich detail. Her mother nods and makes a noise in her throat something like Mmmmmhmmm. But it sounds almost painful the way she does it.
When Julia finishes, her mother says, “Who lives there? I mean really?”
Julia sighs. “These two guys. They’re professional party planners.”
Her mother shakes her head. “Now I’ve heard everything,” she says.
Then she adds, “Your father and Kelly probably had something like that. They had a big shindig when they got married.”
“Ma,” Julia says, “that was twenty years ago.”
“Still,” her mother says. She smooths a yellowed doily that rests on the arm of the couch. “Still.”
Bluebeard, the parrot, squawks, ruffles his feathers.
Julia watches a line of pigeons outside the window. There is a small balcony there, but neither she nor her mother has ever been on it. That strikes her as odd suddenly. Her mother is telling her how her father did not seem like the type who would run off with a Miss Texas, with a woman who got manicures and facials and went off to health spas. Julia has heard this all before. She gets up and goes to the window.
“Let’s go out there,” she says, pushing at the latch.
Her mother jumps up. “Julia, don’t. It’s not sturdy enough to hold us.”
“Says who?” Julia asks.
“Says the landlord. Why do you think I never go out there?”
Because you’re timid, Julia thinks. Because you like to sit in the dark and feel bad. Because you like to make up stories rather than really live. Out loud she says, “I figured you never wanted to.”
Her mother leads her back to the couch, her hand pressed lightly into the small of Julia’s back.
“I think I have a new boyfriend,” Julia says softly. She wants desperately to like her mother, to be liked by her.
Her mother’s eyes are a cloudy green. They narrow. “Watch out,” she says. “Men are all the same.”
Julia shakes her head. “No, they aren’t, Ma,” she says. Her mind fills with the different sizes and shapes men come in, with the faces of her lovers, their different accents and movements. “They’re all different.”
Her mother touches her arm, holds it as if it’s a buoy at sea. “No,” she says. “Don’t be fooled.”
That night, she invites On to her house for dinner. She makes risotto with mushrooms, sausage, and red wine. As they eat, she studies him—his sculpted face, the high cheekbones, and black shiny eyes. Looking at him almost hurts. She realizes she will have to move, that being with On is getting dangerous. She will take the apartment in Bernhard Goetz’s building. She will start over as usual, borrow someone else’s life.
On refills her champagne glass. It is extra tall, with a black base cupping the glass like a tulip.
On says, “You always ask me so many questions. But you’re so mysterious. Tell me where you come from.”
Julia thinks of her mother, small and bent over her typewriter in that dark apartment.
She says, “Houston, actually. I come from a long line of beauty queens.”
On smiles at her. “That,” he says, “is easy to believe.”
Nawn PAR-lo-ee-tah-lee-AH-no
LUCY FACES HER TOUR group. They are from Edison, New Jersey, and at the start of a Whirlwind Weekend in Rome. It is the hottest day of the summer, and their sunburned faces are all turned toward Lucy. She has handed out their itineraries and name tags. HELLO MY NAME IS __________. Like a Romper Room teacher, Lucy thinks, I see Mabel and DeeDee. I see Frieda and Stan.
Around them, regular travelers get their boarding passes, read magazines, wait to board the flight. But the Whirlwind passengers are getting their Italian lesson.
“Non parlo Italiano,” Lucy tells them. She holds up a large piece of poster board with the phrase spelled out phonetically: Nawn PAR-lo ee-tah-lee-AH-no.
The tour group repeats after her, “Non parlo Italiano.”
She is aware of non-Whirlwind passengers watching her, smirking. Lately, she has the urge at times like this to shout, “I am an illustrator! I designed My Dolly!” To somehow prove herself to strangers.
She tries to focus on one face in her group, the way she has heard rock singers do onstage. She chooses DeeDee, a heavily made-up woman with silver high-heeled sandals and a fake Louis Vuitton bag. DeeDee’s hair is a flat red, the color of taillights on a car.
“Here’s something you’ll want to remember,” Lucy says. She looks right into DeeDee’s eyes. “Quanta costa?” Her flash card says, KWAHN-toe KOE-stah? “How much does it cost?” Lucy translates.
The group laughs and repeats the phrase.
She continues until it’s time to board. Hello. Good-bye. Please. You’re welcome. Where is the bathroom? Thank you very much. She hands everyone flash cards with all the words spelled phonetically. According to Whirlwind rules, she must use these phrases on the flight. When someone in the group approaches her, she must say, “Buon giorno.” She saves the phrase, L’Italia e bellissima, for right before landing. Italy is very beautiful.
When Lucy first dated Jasper, leaving for these weekends used to almost hurt. All she could do was think about getting home and seeing him again. But since that horrible feeling has settled in her chest, she looks forward to her trips away. It isn’t even that she is able to sort things out while they’re apart. It’s that she doesn’t think about him at all. She pretends that he doesn’t exist. In New York, more and more, she can only focus on Jasper, on what went wrong.
“Do you think you’re a failure?” she whispers to him at night. “Is that it?” He answers her with a heavy silence. “Are you asleep?” she asks him. He doesn’t even answer. She knows that if the light were on, he would be looking away from her. “Come va?” she says. “What’s happening?”
There is a man on the flight to Rome, a regular passenger, whose eyes follow Lucy through her routine—handing out landing forms, city maps, discount coupons. She feels him watching her and she finds herself performing for him. Making jokes, trying to sound knowledgeable. He looks as if he is from New England with his yellow tie and Brooks Brothers shirt. His eyes are green-gold. They make her think of marble.
Later he comes to her seat and brings her a split of Chianti. When he speaks to her she is surprised that he is Italian.
“I thought you were American,” she tells him.
He shakes his head. “I am Antonio,” he says, like a proclamation.
“Tony,” Lucy says.
“No. Antonio.”
“Okay. Antonio. I can’t accept the wine. I can’t drink while I work.”
His face droops. “But it’s for you,” he says. “You must.”
She explains about Whirlwind Weekends. His teeth have nicotine stains on them. Close up, he is older than he seemed at first. And he isn’t very tall. Lucy is five four and she guesses him to be about the same.
“You cannot see Roma in a weekend,” he is saying.
“I know,” Lucy says. She repeats the itinerary for him. “We do the highlights,” she explains. “Colosseum, Vatican, Trevi Fountain.” She rolls her eyes to let him know she is somehow above all this. That she knows these few things are not what is good about Rome. She wants him to find her interesting and sophisticated.
But Antonio is ready to leave her and go back to his seat. “When you go to Trevi Fountain,” he tells her, “throw in three coins. That way you will return to Roma someday.”
She tries not to seem disappointed that he is leaving it at that. She says, “On Saturday the group has an afternoon free.”
He turns back toward her. “Free?”
She struggles for an interpretation of what she means by free. “On their own,” she says finally.
He raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“They can shop or go on an optional tour to Frascati. Whatever.” She sees that her hands are trembling and hopes he doesn’t notice.
Antonio grimaces. “Frascati,” he says, and shakes his head.
She cannot think of anything else to say. She knows she is smiling like an idiot, all teeth and lips.
“What is your name?” Antonio asks her. He has moved closer to her.
“Lucy.”
“I am not surprised,” he says, his voice as soft as a lullaby. “Saint Lucia. You know her story?”
She shakes her head no.
“She was so beautiful that she drove m
en crazy. You know? So she pulled out her own eyes so as not to be beautiful. And she offered them to God.”
Lucy is not sure what to say. It’s a terrible story. All of the ones about saints are, she thinks. Pulling out eyes and shaving their hair.
Antonio is smiling at her. “Ciao,” he says.
“Right,” Lucy calls to his back. “Ciao.”
Jasper is handsome. Jasper is sweet and funny. Jasper loves her. These are the things Lucy keeps telling herself on Saturday afternoon as she sits in the hotel lobby waiting for Antonio to pick her up. Right now, she thinks, Jasper is working at the Blue Painted Door. He is pouring glasses of chardonnay and Beck’s draft. She imagines him in the stiff white shirt and blue bow tie that he wears at work. The cotton apron tied around his waist. Jasper has a small waist, broad shoulders, an ass that Julia describes as tight. He has a swimmer’s body. She reminds herself of all of these things until she sees Antonio drive up in a small red Fiat. Then her mind goes blank and she rises from the mauve wing-back lobby chair to greet him.
Lucy and Antonio eat and eat and eat. Crispy bruschetta, pasta carbonara, saltimbocca, coda alia vaccinara, all with bottles of red wine. They are acting silly, laughing and drinking and eating. Her tongue burns from so much garlic. Antonio lifts pieces of bruschetta to her lips, wipes olive oil from her chin. He asks her to say American words. “Say baseball,” he says. “Say hot dog.”
He is a businessman who travels frequently to Cincinnati. This strikes Lucy as very funny, but she can’t explain to him what it is that seems odd to her.
He orders fruit and espresso. His face is puzzled but he says, “I don’t know what is funny but I’m glad I make you laugh.” He touches her shoulder, under the thick strap of her sundress. He massages it lightly. “When I saw you, I thought you were someone who is sad.”
“You were wrong,” she says, leaning her face close to his. She is flirting with him shamelessly. “I go to Europe once a week,” she says. “And my career as an illustrator is really starting to take off.” She isn’t sure who she’s trying to convince that her life is so wonderful, Antonio or herself.
