The Girl in the Glass

by Susan Meissner

  “And he said that? He said he would give her his half?” My words bristled with frustration and fear at what I had set in motion. “You believe him?”

  “I do.”

  “She doesn’t trust him!”

  “She thinks she still works at the tour agency, Marguerite.”

  I sprang to my feet to pace the room. I wanted Lorenzo. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here?

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” Renata said.

  “She was happy before I came here. And I come and her whole world is about to crumble.”

  “Just because she was happy doesn’t mean everything was right. You have done her a favor. Sooner or later Emilio would have found out Sofia needed help. And what if her delusions worsen? She needs professional help. She could never pay for that kind of care with all her money tied up in this building. While Angelo is still alive, he can sign the bill of sale. Once he’s gone, his half will go to Sofia, and she will never sign it.”

  I turned around. “Angelo can’t sign anything.”

  “Of course he can.”

  “I mean, he won’t know what he’s signing.”

  “Who cares? It’s the right thing to do.”

  “It’s the black-and-white thing to do!”

  “What?” Her face was awash in confusion.

  I sank back into my chair. “Nothing.”

  My thoughts were a tumbled mess. “Where’s Lorenzo? Does he know about this?”

  “We talked before we met our friends at the restaurant. He feels as I do.”

  “And what if you lose your flat?”

  She laughed lightly. “What idiot is going to buy a building and evict all his tenants? And besides, there are many flats in Florence. This is not the first I’ve lived in. It won’t be the last.”

  I sighed heavily. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  Renata shrugged. “Nothing. Emilio is coming tomorrow. He has every right to come. He owns the building.”

  “What’s he going to say to her? Is he going to tell her we called him?”

  “Tomorrow at breakfast I am going to tell her I called him. You didn’t. I did. I called to see if he could tell me about his family’s ties to the Medici. You are visiting Sofia about the book she is writing, and she told you she was related to the Medici family, and I was curious. That’s all.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “He doesn’t care that she’s writing a book. He only cares that you don’t publish it.”

  “Okay, but then why is he coming? She’s going to want to know why he’s coming.”

  “He’s coming because my call simply reminded him he needed to make a trip out to visit. The rest of it is none of our business.”

  Several weighty moments of silence hung between us. “I think I might take that glass of wine,” I said.

  She stood, took her glass to the kitchen, and came back with two glasses. Hers and mine.

  Renata folded herself back onto the couch.

  I took a sip. The wine was robust and ruddy, and I tasted earth and chocolate. “When will he be here?” I asked.

  “He said he was leaving Rome a little after eight. He has a car. If traffic is not bad, he will be here before noon.”

  “I just don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you are making it sound.”

  “Stop worrying so much.”

  I stayed until nearly eleven, partly because I hoped Lorenzo would return and I could talk to him myself about all these new developments and partly because I wanted Sofia to tire and go to bed so that I wouldn’t have to talk to her and pretend everything was just peachy.

  I got one of my wishes.

  As I rose to leave, Renata reminded me Lorenzo was making breakfast and that Sofia and I were to come over at ten. As soon as we were done eating, Renata would tell her about Emilio’s impending visit.

  I made my way back to Sofia’s. The flat was quiet. The door to her bedroom door was closed, and no light shone through.

  Nurse was careful to keep gossipers and unkind courtiers from repeating in my hearing what was whispered in the dining halls and courtyards about my mother’s death. And it was easy enough to keep Virginio and me on the fringe of activity in the palace when we were young. Uncle Francesco never came to see us, even though our care had been relegated to him. But the day finally arrived when I came to Nurse with this terrible thing I had heard. It was the day before my tenth birthday. One servant had told another that my father had strangled Mama at the villa and that Francesco knew about it and had said nothing because he’d always been jealous of her.

  It could not possibly be true. Could not. I ran to Nurse and told her what I had heard. She sat me down as if she had rehearsed a thousand times the conversation we were to have.

  “You can’t be listening to what people say, Nora, especially when they talk about things that are none of their affair.”

  “But that servant said my father had help killing her,” I wailed. “Other men waited in the room and dropped ropes from the ceiling. Why would they say a thing like that?”

  She told me not to waste time wondering why other people say what they say. It is enough to pay attention to my own words.

  “Is it true?” I said. “Is what they say true?”

  Nurse said only the Lord God Almighty knows what really happened. The choice before me was not what did I know, but how did I want to live the rest of my life? Did I want to live the rest of my life as if it was true or as if it wasn’t?

  How does one live as if something is not true when everything suggests that it is?

  I am still learning that on the canvas of my heart, I can paint what I will. The brushes are mine. The paint is mine.

  My heart is mine.

  28

  I heard Sofia up and moving about in the morning, but I delayed getting up until after nine. I don’t possess a great poker face. If I had to pretend for more than an hour that I didn’t know Emilio was on his way to Florence, I would give myself away through pure sheepishness.

  I logged on to my e-mail before even getting out of bed, took care of a few work-related matters, posted my pictures from the last couple of days, and lingered over an e-mail from Gabe. He had responded to my telling him about hearing the woman praying in Santa Croce.

  He told me I had to consider the amount of sensory overload I was dealing with. It wasn’t that odd that I could hear a woman praying in a six-hundred-year-old church full of breathtaking beauty. Someone I trusted suggested I could.

  It was that last line I kept rereading. It was a concept I kept falling up against. When we trust someone, we believe what they tell us is true. We experience it as being true. It’s not the experience itself that empowers us to believe it. It is the trust. I composed a reply, just to thank him for that insight, but I was soon spilling everything that was happening with Sofia. I could not lay to rest the fear that today was going to be a really hard day for her and it was all my fault. I asked him to pray for the day I was about to step into, knowing that by the time he read it, the day would be over unless he happened to be up at midnight.

  I had no sooner sent the e-mail when the reply quickly came back to me. Gabe was up.

  Of course I will pray for you and Sofia. I think she needs to hear it straight, Meg, as far as the book goes. And I honestly don’t know if she needs to be told everything her uncle told Renata. I wouldn’t lie to her to make the day easier for the day’s sake. Know what I mean? The truth, while sometimes hard to hear, is not usually hard to bear. You can collapse under it, and it will still hold you up. You don’t usually get the same deal with the opposite.

  Miss you.

  Gabe

  I missed him too.

  It felt good to realize that.

  And he was right. There’s a time to imagine you can hear the woman praying, and there’s a time to admit she’s not there anymore. Or never was.

  I got out of bed.

  Sofia wanted to bring a fresh bouquet of flowers to Renata, so at nine
thirty we headed down to the street and her favorite outdoor mercato. She bought a fat bunch of daisies, a little net bag of blood oranges, and a loaf of bread that was still steaming. I found a few leather items to bring home: a billfold for Geoffrey and a folio that I added to my purchase of a tin of Illy coffee for Gabe. The market was noisy and busy, and it would’ve been impossible to have much of a conversation with Sofia, which suited me fine.

  We walked back to the flat and dropped off the gifts I had bought and the bread and oranges. Then we rang the bell at Lorenzo and Renata’s.

  Renata, dressed in a long gauzy gown of peacock blue, opened the door, and we were immediately enveloped by the aroma of cheese and garlic and spinach. She pecked us each on the cheek, and Sofia handed her the bouquet. She said something in Italian and Sofia smiled wide.

  Lorenzo called out a hello to us from behind the kitchen counter. He was wearing a black apron and arranging melon slices and strawberries on a cobalt-blue platter.

  “Good morning, principesse!” He strode over to us, kissing Sofia on both cheeks and then me. He smelled like spice and the ocean. “I have a frittata in the oven. She’s almost done. And I have melon and strawberries, some Greek yogurt, and lovely figs. And coffee!”

  “We are eating out on the balcony,” Renata said. “I’ll just get these flowers into some water and take them outside.”

  Renata in her flowing dress floated into the kitchen and Sofia followed, both of them easing into their native tongue.

  “Help me take the fruit and yogurt outside, cara?” Lorenzo was now extending a bowl of creamy white yogurt toward me. I took it and he grabbed the platter of fruit. I followed him out to the balcony where a carafe of coffee and painted stoneware dishes waited on the table between the padded chairs and sofa.

  “Did Renata tell you everything?” I said in as low a voice as I could.

  “She did.” He set the platter down and did not look at me.

  “And?”

  “And what needs to happen needs to happen, cara. It’s not up to us.”

  “But we’re part of the problem,” I whispered.

  Now he looked up at me and caught my gaze. “But we are not part of the solution.”

  “I don’t want to ruin everything for her,” I murmured, but my voice was urgent.

  His face was close to mine, and he touched my cheek with his hand. “She is already broken. We just didn’t know.”

  “You never minded the talking statues before,” I said softly.

  “There was never a reason to mind. Now we have several. Here she comes.”

  Several minutes later we were eating Lorenzo’s savory frittata, drinking coffee, and enjoying a lovely meal on a sunny balcony. When the plates were empty, our small talk drifted toward books. Sofia asked a question about Renata and Lorenzo’s upcoming book on destination weddings, which Lorenzo answered. And then Sofia turned to me and said she was having such an easy time writing the additional chapters; she thought she would be done well before July. She asked me when Beatriz and Geoffrey would decide if what she had was good enough.

  I remembered what Gabe said about being truthful. I turned to Renata for a silent vote of confidence, which she gave to me with a nod. Sofia had given us a perfect segue into a conversation about where we stood on the book and how we had gotten there. I could sense that the three of us knew it.

  “Actually, Sofia, it’s not a question about whether or not you’re a good enough writer. You’re a great writer. The problem we’re having is proving your premise.”

  “My premise?”

  “Right now, one of the primary selling points of your book is that you maintain you are directly descended from the Medici family. It’s what would set your book apart from any other book on Florence that’s out there, including Renata and Lorenzo’s book. And it’s not looking like we can prove it. It’s a flimsy premise if we can’t prove it.”

  Sofia looked from me to Lorenzo to Renata, and I could tell she understood Renata and Lorenzo were in on this. They were part of the “we.” This seemed to surprise her.

  “But we only just started looking,” she said. “Just because my father wasn’t able to help us, that doesn’t mean there aren’t records out there somewhere.”

  “Yes, but it’s not just that we are going to have trouble finding the records. It’s more like there are no records.”

  Her eyes widened. “What do you mean, there are no records? If we haven’t looked for them, how do we know they aren’t there?”

  “Because …” I didn’t know where to begin. “Well, you said you were descended from Gian Gastone de’ Medici; but there’s nothing recorded to suggest he fathered a child or was even, you know, interested in women. And besides all that, it’s quite likely that …”

  My voice fell away, and I turned to Renata.

  “Sofia, when Meg told me she needed to verify your ancestry to be able to publish your book, I called Emilio to ask him.”

  “You called Emilio?”

  I heard dread in Sofia’s voice.

  “It was totally my idea. Meg had nothing to do with it. I thought if he knew where any of the family records were, then it would help you both.”

  “You called Emilio? About this?”

  “He’s your uncle, Sofia. If you’re a Medici, then he’s a Medici. So yes, I called him.”

  Sofia repositioned herself in her chair, restless. “And?”

  Renata shook her head sympathetically. “Your great-great-uncle was the one who started telling everyone your family was related to the Medicis. He didn’t have any proof; it was just something he said. But—”

  “That’s not true!”

  Renata continued as if Sofia hadn’t interrupted. “And your father and Emilio were little when they first heard it, so it felt more real to them. And it was kind of fun to pretend.”

  “My father told me,” Sofia began, carefully enunciating each word, “that we are direct descendants of Gian Gastone de’ Medici. He told me there were eight generations between Gian Gastone and him. He told me—”

  This time Renata cut in. “Gian Gastone preferred other men, Sofia! It was just a fun story your father told.”

  Sofia blinked back glistening tears. “It was not just a fun story! This is who I am.”

  All this time Lorenzo had sat next to me on the sofa, quietly staring at his coffee cup. He leaned forward now and put his hand on Renata’s arm to gently quiet her.

  “This is not between you and Sofia. This thing with the book is between Sofia and Meg,” he said.

  “Did you tell Emilio I was writing a book?” Sofia asked Renata, her tone incredulous.

  “You never told me it was a secret,” Renata said defensively.

  “You never asked!”

  Renata pursed her lips together, obviously ready to say more but swallowing back her words.

  Lorenzo said something under his breath in Italian. I didn’t think Sofia heard him. She turned to me.

  “Are you saying you will not publish the book because of what Emilio said?”

  “It’s not so much what he said as what we cannot prove. I am thinking we may need to change the focus of the book from your being a Medici to your having this wonderful relationship with your father that makes Florence come alive. And maybe you can write that he told you that you were a Medici when you were little and how it affected you growing up and how it bound you to Florence. It could still be a really good book. We just can’t … We can’t have you saying you’re a Medici who hears … who hears …”

  “A dead Medici talking to her.” She finished the sentence in a cynical tone I had not yet heard her use. “So that’s what this is about. You think I am crazy? Is that what you think?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I don’t. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what people who might buy your book will think.”

  “I don’t care what people think!” Sofia exclaimed.

  “Of course you care,” Renata said, matching Sofia decib
el for decibel. “If you didn’t care what people thought, you wouldn’t be writing a book.”

  Lorenzo cleared his throat. “Let’s get back to the situation at hand, yes? You need to tell her the rest.”

  Surely Lorenzo didn’t mean all the rest.

  “The rest? The rest of what?” Sofia said.

  Renata looked out over the rooftops. “He’s coming here today.”

  Sofia said nothing. It seemed as though she hadn’t heard. But I knew she had.

  Renata turned to her. “Emilio viene qui oggi.”

  Sofia blinked slowly. “Perché viene qui?”

  When Renata didn’t answer, Sofia said it again louder. “Perché viene qui?”

  “It’s none of our business why he is coming,” Lorenzo said softly, bringing the conversation back to English. “We have already said and done too much. It’s none of our business why he is coming. But he is coming.”

  “Is it because of the book?” Sofia said evenly.

  “The book is between you and me, Sofia,” I said. “If we can get it to the point where it is publishable, then we will publish it; I promise you. He doesn’t have a say in it.”

  This didn’t seem to satisfy her.

  “Why is he coming, Renata?” Sofia’s eyes flashed anger.

  Renata jumped up, grabbed the stack of dishes, and pushed her way past us. “Ask him yourself. He will be here in half an hour.”

  Renata went into the flat, leaving Lorenzo, Sofia, and me sitting in the brilliant sunshine. After a moment, Sofia stood calmly and slowly. “Meg, I would like privacy when I speak to my uncle. Perhaps you could stay here with Lorenzo for a while until after Emilio arrives and he and I are finished? I will come for you.”

  “I am so sorry about all of this,” I said, but she was already past me, and she didn’t look back.

  Sofia walked back into the living room without a word, opened the front door, and then closed it quietly behind her.