The Girl in the Glass

by Susan Meissner

  Sofia leaned toward me, pulling my gaze into hers as though she was about to divulge a long-kept secret. “The first time I heard Nora whisper to me, I actually felt the shattered parts begin to pull together. When I learned Nora’s father had killed her mother, in my heart I knew something powerful bound us together. I didn’t know why then, but I think maybe now I do. I think something terrible happened to the mother who bore me. I think my parents tried to help that mother that I see in the haze of my earliest memories and they couldn’t. But they could help me. Papa and Mama rescued me by pretending I was theirs.”

  Tears that had welled up on Sofia’s eyes spilled down her cheeks and dotted her knees. I wiped my own eyes.

  I didn’t know what to say to her.

  “I think Emilio knows who that other man and other woman were,” Sofia said, after a long pause.

  “I think he does too,” I murmured.

  “And I think I know why my papa and mama said what they did. Why my papa never told me I had another mother and another father. He was such a good papa. He didn’t know I remembered. He was like the thief who stole my baby clothes for his little girl. When you are a desperate man who loves his little girl, you will do whatever you must to protect her.”

  In my mind I could hear Angelo saying this to Sofia. And I could see her as a young girl taking it all in. “Of course that’s what you do,” I said.

  Her shoulders slumped then, and she inhaled heavily, pondering something new. “But if I am not Angelo Borelli’s biological daughter, I guess I am not a Medici.”

  For a moment I thought perhaps she would collapse into despair, the words sounded so final and hopeless. I quickly spoke. “There are thousands of Medici descendants, Sofia. You told me that. They just don’t know it. Right?”

  The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “Princess Diana was a Medici descendant.”

  I smiled too. “So you said.”

  “I could still be one also, couldn’t I?”

  “Yes. Why not? Nora speaks to you, doesn’t she?”

  “Ah. That. Emilio says statues and paintings don’t speak. He … he thinks I am … That I need help. That I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”

  “Everybody needs help with that sometimes,” I said gently. “I know I do. We all do.” I took a deep breath for extra courage to fill me. “Maybe you do need some help. Not with everything. Maybe not about Nora. About some other things.”

  She blinked back tears and frowned slightly. “What other things?”

  “Your father’s tour agency has been sold, Sofia. He sold it a year ago. To pay for his place at the rest home. Remember?”

  Sofia opened her mouth in obvious protest but closed it again just as quickly. She looked down at her feet and whispered something I could not hear.

  “It’s all right, Sofia. Everyone at some point needs help when things change.”

  Or when they don’t.

  “It was the only job I knew,” she said. “I didn’t have anything else but that. When Papa left, it was all I had.”

  I patted her hand. “I know.”

  “I did give tours, you know. I found people every day in the piazzas who needed someone to tell them what they were seeing. I did it quietly. And they paid me nothing. I wasn’t doing it for the money. It was never about the money.”

  “I believe you.”

  A long stretch of silence followed. I pretended it didn’t alarm me a little.

  “I don’t think I want to know what happened to that other mother,” Sofia finally said.

  “You don’t have to know what happened to her.”

  For several seconds she was unmoving and silent. Then she shook her head slowly. “Everything I know seems to be disappearing from me,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I am going to be left with.”

  I reached into my pants pocket and withdrew the lire coin. I took her hand and placed the coin in her open palm. “You have all of Florence, Sofia. And you have Renata and Lorenzo and me. And your father for a little while. And you have all those wonderful memories and stories and all the things he told you.” I closed her fingers around the coin in her hand.

  “And what about my book? Do I still have that?” She wouldn’t look at me.

  My hand still encircled her closed fist. As I looked at my fingers covering hers, an idea sprang to my mind; an idea for a book that would allow Sofia to tell her story—and Nora’s—just the way she had told it to me.

  “I say you do,” I said.

  She looked up from our joined hands to study my face, to make sure I was serious or perhaps to convince herself she had heard me say it.

  “No one will ever believe that I’m a Medici.”

  “I can believe it.”

  She smiled faintly. “Because you want to.”

  I smiled back. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  The carriage is waiting for me below, and Maria is already in the courtyard telling the driver that I am coming. But there is one thing I must do before leaving Florence forever.

  I make my way to Maria’s bedchamber where her looking glass stands near the window. A scarlet sun is slipping into the honeyed horizon as I step toward it. I watch the girl in the glass walk toward me as she matches my tentative steps.

  I reach toward her, and she extends her hand toward mine.

  Our fingertips meet and we whisper our good-byes.

  “Don’t forget me,” we whisper to each other.

  I linger there for a moment with my hand on the glass, at the place where our palms meet, as the sun dips low over Florence and her treasures.

  My treasures.

  I turn to walk away from her, glancing back just once. She is turned to me as if she knew I would turn to look at her. She is smiling at me—reminding me without a word of who I am and who I can be if I can imagine it.

  32

  I spent my last day in Florence doing whatever Sofia wanted to do. We awoke on Sunday to cathedral bells and brilliant sunshine. After a breakfast of fruit and cheese and soft-boiled eggs, we attended Mass and then had lunch with Renata and Lorenzo on a lovely hilltop overlooking toast-colored roofs.

  In the afternoon we walked through a Sunday market, and I bought a few more gifts to bring home. Linens for my mother. Hand-embossed stationery for Kara. A necklace for myself. A leather hat for Devon and one for my dad too. Sofia walked beside me in the marketplace, but her thoughts seemed far away. She was no longer the talkative tour guide. She was just a kind Florentine friend helping me make change.

  The last couple of days had been emotionally draining on her, and I knew events to come would be equally hard. Her father’s eventual mental disappearance was one, the sale of the building was another, and the impending sessions with a psychologist was another. I wouldn’t be around for any of those things, and Renata and Lorenzo had a busy writing schedule. I hoped that the resiliency and fortitude Sofia had been led to believe were in her blood would carry her through. Part of me wanted to confess to her that I had been the one to convince her father to sign for the sale of the building, and part of me knew there was nothing to be gained from telling her that. Lorenzo, Renata, and I did what we did because we cared for her. It wasn’t the first time in her life that had happened.

  We came back to the flat in the late afternoon, and Sofia asked if I minded if she wrote for a little while. She wanted to finish what she had started even if the outcome of the book was as uncertain as ever. I had not told her the idea that had come to me as we sat on the floor of the Palatine Gallery at the Pitti Palace. I hadn’t told anyone. I wanted to present the idea to Beatriz and Geoffrey at the same time I told them the original plan would not work. If I could get Beatriz and Geoffrey to agree to my new idea, perhaps I could also convince Sofia.

  I spent the last remaining daylight hours sipping cappuccino at a bustling café and journaling onto my computer thoughts from my long-awaited trip to Florence in a letter to my father, one that I knew I would never send. As the
sun dipped into the horizon, I checked my e-mail one last time. My mother announced that she and Devon had cleaned out my fridge and put in fresh eggs and milk so that I wouldn’t starve to death when I got home. Beatriz said I could come in at noon on Tuesday. Kara invited me to a purse party on Friday night. And Gabe confirmed he was still able to pick me up at LAX. He was looking forward to it.

  I was too.

  When I got back to Sofia’s, she was making a salad to take over to Renata and Lorenzo’s for our last supper together.

  The four of us ate Lorenzo’s amazing rack of lamb and homemade gnocchi in cream sauce. Despite the lovely meal, the mood was a bit solemn. I was leaving the next day, and Sofia was about to begin a new chapter of her life with only Renata and Lorenzo for a cheering section.

  After the meal, and while Renata and Sofia did the dishes, Lorenzo invited me out for a walk, my last moonlight stroll in Florence.

  He took my hand in his as we walked. We arrived at the river, which was as it had been the night I came. Shimmery, silvery, and alive with subtle movement. He put his arm around me.

  “Was she everything you had hoped she’d be, cara?” he said. And I knew he spoke of the city. Florence. My Neverland.

  I laughed lightly. “It’s far more memorable than I ever dreamed it would be.”

  He laughed too. “But you had a good time, yes? Even though your father did not bring you? Even with all this trouble with Emilio and Sofia?”

  I looked out over the water swaying southward on its constant course. “It was amazingly wonderful,” I said. “I saw so much, experienced so much.” I turned to him. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

  He kissed my forehead. “I think I might want you to stay,” he whispered. “I miss you already.”

  I felt unsteady on my feet with him so close and the romantic pull of Florence all around me. I looked up at him to say something witty, but his lips were on mine before I could think of anything clever.

  It was a kiss of sweetness and delight and playful desire. I pulled away gently.

  I could imagine Lorenzo being in love with me and marrying me and being a devoted father to our children and faithful lover to me. It was easy to imagine those things with a starry Florentine night shining down on us.

  But surely Lorenzo wasn’t in love with me. He couldn’t be. He wanted me to stay because he enjoyed my company.

  “Very sweet. But I have to go home.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He pulled me back into his arms. “What for? What do you have back there that you must get back to? Stay.”

  “I can’t stay. I have a job.”

  “A job is never a reason to live somewhere. Quit the job. Stay here. Renata could get you an editing job. She knows everybody. Stay.” He rubbed his thumb across my jaw line, and I backed away before I fell headlong into his charms.

  “And have you break my heart? No thanks.”

  His eyes widened in playful surprise. “I could never break your heart!”

  “Oh yes, you could. Come with me to the airport tomorrow and see me off,” I said, wanting very much to change the subject.

  “Really? That is what you want? You want to go back?”

  I thought of my comfortable job where Gabe waited and my cozy borrowed cottage with a view of the ocean if I stood on tiptoe. And I thought of how I felt when I saw Lorenzo with Bianca, and the easy way he kissed her cheek.

  “I want Perseus,” I barely whispered.

  “What?”

  “Yes, I want to go back. I can’t compete with all the Biancas in Florence.”

  He laughed. “Bianca?”

  “Don’t laugh at me. Yes, Bianca. And all the other girls you’ve dated.”

  His laugh morphed into a quizzical smile. “Bianca is an old friend, cara. I’m not in love with her. She would break my heart. I am not in love with any of those women I have dated.”

  That’s what scares me the most, Lorenzo, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “Don’t you want to love someone?” I said instead. “Don’t you want someone to love you? Don’t you want to believe the rules for love are worth embracing?”

  “The rules for love,” he echoed.

  “Yes. What you said at the restaurant the other night. Don’t you want the best love has to offer? Don’t you think it’s worth the struggle?”

  He looked off into the distance, thinking. “You can want something that you’re not cut out to have,” he finally said.

  I reached up to his face and turned it toward me. “Who says you’re not cut out to have it?”

  Lorenzo shrugged effortlessly. “I’ve never felt like anyone believed I was. I’m pretty sure I’m not.”

  I said nothing as a thick sadness fell about me. Lorenzo rode no winged horse. For the first time since I arrived, Florence suddenly seemed a lonely place.

  “So will you come to the airport with me?” I said quickly.

  He frowned, genuinely disappointed. Then he seemed to shake it off, almost as if my staying in Florence would have been too much to hope for. “What, ride the taxi with you? I hate the drive to the airport. Too much traffic.”

  “Okay, suit yourself.” I started to walk on, away from the tension of that moment. He grabbed my arm.

  “We have a car, you know. Renata and I. I keep it garaged a couple miles from here at a friend’s house. We use it for trips to France and Spain.”

  “Sounds like you are offering to give me a ride to the airport. All right. I accept.”

  He grinned. “Let’s go get it!”

  “What? Now?”

  “Yes!”

  “Lorenzo, I really was just kidding. I can take a taxi.”

  He grabbed my hand, and we dashed across the street. Moments later we were in a taxi. And twenty minutes after that, we were in a tiny black Fiat, zipping along the narrow streets, looking for a gelateria open late on a Sunday night, both of us pretending that was the only thing we were looking for.

  I awoke for the last time in Sofia’s bed, and I lay there for several minutes just listening to the waking world outside the window. By the same time tomorrow, I’d be back in the cottage with Findlay’s cat pawing at my bedroom door.

  I had packed my bags the night before, after Lorenzo and I returned from cruising Florence in his little convertible. I got dressed and pulled my suitcase out to the living room. Sofia was in the kitchen, making us a spinach-and-feta omelet.

  We ate on her little balcony as the pink dawn turned golden, struggling to make small talk after all that the last couple of days had been like. Our conversation steered toward her manuscript and what the future held for it.

  I told her sometimes a book idea births a second book idea and it’s the second idea that gets published.

  “I wouldn’t know what to write in a second book,” she said.

  “I’m not talking about a second book. I’m talking about a second idea. A second concept. Your first concept was based on a historical concept: you are a Medici. What if the second idea was based on a twin concept? A concept we don’t have to prove?”

  “What concept?”

  “Nora Orsini’s life story.”

  “Her story?” She looked surprised, as if she hadn’t even begun to realize what I had.

  “Your stories have Nora’s perspective, as you see it, written all over them. It’s real. Real enough to allow us to imagine the other parts are all real too. Even the parts we cannot prove.”

  She sipped her coffee, contemplating my words and looking past me to the spread of Florence awaking. Then she set her coffee cup down and turned her gaze back to me.

  “But there’s hardly anything written about her. The only things I know are the scattered echoes she left for me. And those ended when she left Florence to marry.”

  “Which leaves you lots of room for conjecture. If you imagine the missing parts of her life story, no one can say it didn’t happen that way. And you can still weave in your own memoir, because your sto
ry is wrapped up in hers.”

  “So … what do you want me to do, exactly?”

  “Finish the book. The story of the Medicis and the wonder of Florence is Nora’s story too. Go ahead and finish the book.” I reached out to squeeze her hand. “And then trust me with it.”

  At seven thirty, Lorenzo was at the door waiting to take me to the airport. Renata was with him, in a silk nightgown, sleep still in her eyes. She hugged me good-bye, told me to come back next summer and go with them to Morocco. Then she traipsed back across the hall to return to her bed. Lorenzo took my bags and told me he’d wait for me at the curb and not to take too long saying good-bye to Sofia; he was parked illegally.

  When he was gone, I turned to my gracious hostess; at once she pulled me into her embrace. “Thank you for spending your week in Florence with me. I hope I did not ruin it for you.”

  Tears nearly sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Sofia. I can’t imagine having seen it any other way. I loved sharing this week with you. You’ve … you’ve been such an inspiration to me. I can’t even tell you how much.”

  She pulled back and stared at me, surprised to her wits at what I had said.

  “I’m serious,” I continued.

  “I don’t see how,” she said, doubt laced in every word.

  “I think I will be able to show you—soon. I need to get back and talk to Beatriz and Geoffrey first. In the meantime I want you to keep writing. Promise me you won’t stop.”

  “All right. I promise.”

  “And promise me you will listen to Renata and Lorenzo. They care very much for you. You can trust them. Will you do that?”

  She nodded.

  I hugged her again, and she held me tightly. “Will you ever come back?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Whenever I am homesick.”

  I turned from her and headed down the stairs to the street.