“Oh, wait -” said Lily. “I know those bikes! I didn’t realize you made those here!”
Mr. Papandreas chuckled. “We are the best kept secret in Rochester - but that’s because we do ninety-five percent of our business out of town, especially in places that have a climate more suited to year-round cycling.”
“When I worked at SaveMart they used to sell them there. I actually used to put them together for people who didn’t want to have to do it.”
Mr. Papandreas’ face lit up. “You did?” He flipped Lily’s application over and scanned her previous work experience.
“It was a while ago,” said Lily. “But I had the assembly down to a science. I used to make a game of it, with the goal of trying to break my own records to see how fast I could go. I guess that must sound silly -”
“Hold on one second,” said Mr. Papandreas. He wheeled his chair toward his computer and punched some keys on the keyboard.
“One of our biggest initiatives right now is to provide better support to our customers by improving the written instructions we include with every bike - we know we need to make them friendlier, easier to follow. So we’re looking for a technical writer - someone who knows our products, and can explain clearly and simply how to take what looks like a crazy collection of parts and pieces, and make some sense out of them. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?”
“Mr. Papandreas,” said Lily. “You just described my life.”
11. Iris
Iris maneuvered her red Vespa around the silver Porsche Boxster and the black BMW SUV, both bearing Milan license plates, both illegally hogging the parking area reserved for two-wheelers. She doubted the cars would be fined, but even if they were, their owners would probably just curse, then chuckle, then tear up the ticket. When Iris was fresh from a visit from America, she had very little tolerance for the way Italians just did whatever they wanted, regardless of the rules, and without a thought for others or the consequences. A part of her would like to take matters into her own hands and use one of the several blades of the Swiss army knife she carried in her backpack to hit the bastards where it hurt, right in the shiny metal doors and high-performance tires of their ostentatious vehicles. But Iris just shook her head in disgust, slipped her scooter into a spot between the slanted trunks of two umbrella pines, hoisted it onto its stand, and locked her helmet in its case. Backpack slung over her shoulder, she headed down the steep stone steps, ignoring the silly suggestion from her creaking knees that she was no longer a teenager, and should perhaps modify her behavior accordingly.
Sure-footed in her rubber-soled Menorcan sandals, Iris trotted down the narrow passage under a colorful canopy of purple bougainvilleas and pink oleanders growing on opposite sides of the high stone walls. She had already put the question of ill-mannered drivers out of her mind when she was stopped in her tracks by a slow-moving couple blocking her path.
“Give me a break,” Iris grumbled in English, at the sight of the tanned redhead in a yellow halter dress struggling to stay on board her sling-back high heels by clinging to the arm of a companion better equipped for the walk in his spiffy deck shoes. In addition to the accessory on his arm, the man sported a pink Lacoste polo shirt tucked into plaid Bermuda shorts of the style that make short men look shorter, tall men taller, and all men ridiculous.
Six dozen steps later (she counted them every time, each step marking the name of a Capotosti sibling, of which there would always be twelve in her heart), she paused for a few moments at the bottom, where the curtain of vines and branches parted, revealing a scene of breathtaking beauty. The sea was perfectly calm, shimmering with the light of the late afternoon sun slipping to the horizon, bathing the city of Genoa and the entire gulf in an enchanting golden haze. This was the same view she used to spend hours gazing at from the balcony of the little flat Gregorio had provided for his young bride, and it was the same view she shared with Max from the apartment up in Ruta. Same view, different perspectives.
“Scusi,” a voice came from behind her. The guy with the redhead on his arm and the crocodile on his shirt and the mirrors on his eyes landed next to her on the last step.
“Scusi lei,” Iris replied, hopping to a slab of rock to her right, and allowing the couple access to the walkway on the left. They were obviously not going for a swim, but were headed for the seasonal bar which returned to its perch above the rocks every Easter, and stayed put as long as the summer did. She watched the couple totter toward the row of white umbrellas fluttering above a dozen painted blue tables lined along a blue railing, wondering how they had discovered the spot that for years had only been known to locals, including, of course, Iris.
Picking her way across the craggy rocks, she found a flat spot on which to leave her towel and backpack, and quickly stripped down to the two-piece bathing suit she wore under her sundress. A shudder escaped her as she lowered her body into the cool seawater, hoping it would neutralize the nagging negativity that had plagued her since her return.
Though her swimming had improved over the years, Iris was reluctant to venture too far out on her own, especially since most other bathers had already abandoned the rocks in favor of mojitos. She wondered whether any of the people chatting and drinking up at the bar would even notice if she drowned. She wondered how long it would take before anyone at all would. She had no husband waiting for her at home, no job to report to, no family checking in on her, no neighbors knocking on her door.
If the sea wanted to take her, she would let it, Iris thought, as she rolled over in its salty embrace, her face upturned to the sky. The sounds splashing in her ears whispered that she was not alone, that the sea would help bear the burden of her troubled soul. After a few moments, the tears began to flow, mixing with the water that washed over her eyes, making her one with the great and powerful body that buoyed her.
Extending her arms and legs to form a star, she opened herself to the sky and sea, feeling their energy pulsating above and below and all around her. She pictured herself from high above, a minuscule speck on the immense cobalt surface of the sea. Soaring on the wings of her imagination, she flew to the Strait of Gibraltar, leaving behind the placid Mediterranean for the rolling waves of the Atlantic ocean that took her to the eastern seaboard of America. From the Gulf of St. Lawrence, she sailed into the mouth of the river that flowed between Kingston and Cape Vincent, and followed its course until it she reached Lake Ontario, on whose shores Lily’s house stood. Knowing exactly where Lily lived made her seem closer, but imagining her sister there all alone, struggling to cope with the challenges of her life, filled Iris with frustration and regret. It seemed that no matter how hard Iris tried, she would never be able to bridge the gap that had opened up between them. Her words always came out wrong, and her actions were misconstrued. That day Iris had gone over to Lily’s armed with good intentions, music from their high school days, and a bottle of champagne to celebrate their new lives as single women, had left her feeling awkward and aggrieved. There were so many things she had left unsaid, so many others she had been desperate to hear.
Iris’s innermost thoughts and feelings bobbed to the surface as she floated on the water, gazing up at the sky, feeling all around her the presence of those she had loved and lost. In a cumulus drifting across the setting sun, she saw her father’s face the day he walked her down the aisle; in the lapping of the water she discerned the notes of Uncle Alfred’s Hawaiian melodies; in the cawing of the gulls circling above, she heard Auntie Rosa’s raucous laughter; and in the deep, dark water which both sustained and frightened her, she felt the tragedies of Dolores and Henry. She felt closer to all of them than to the families over on the main beach, whose shrill voices were carried to her on the breeze, or to the crowd socializing at the bar above the rocks. Or to Lily, in her impenetrable shell of self-absorption. Or to Max, who had sent her a message saying that he would not be returning from Ponza tonight after all.
Thoughts of Max made her muscles twitch. She f
lipped over onto her belly and began to swim, her legs kicking furiously, her arms slicing through the water. Back and forth she splashed between the rocks and the open sea, swimming through waves of conflicting emotions: hope and fear, liberation and guilt, love and doubt. When she was out of breath, she found a foothold and boosted herself out of the water. She was standing at its edge, still dripping and panting, when she heard a voice call her name in the Italian pronunciation she had grown accustomed to. “Eeerees!” She looked up, trying to figure out where the voice had originated. “Eeerees!” she heard again, this time spotting a woman standing by the umbrellas up at the bar, waving both hands over her head.
“Bea!” Iris waved back, recognizing the slender silhouette in the long skirt. Beatrix made a circling gesture with her arm, and Iris raised her hand in an “OK” sign. She could use a friend right now, and didn’t have many to chose from; her old “friends” were Gregorio’s and her new ones Max’s. She just wasn’t sure whether in her current state of confusion she could handle the crowd scene at the bar, or Bea’s Sex and the City psychology. But she was deeply fond of her, and they had not seen each other since before Iris had left on her trip with Max over a month ago, a lifetime ago. She wrapped her towel around her, wriggled out of her wet bikini and into her sundress, wrung the water from her hair, and made her way back up the rocks.
“It’s so good to see you, Bea,” Iris said, leaning over to kiss Beatrix’s cheeks.
“Yuk! You’re dripping all over me,” Beatrix said, holding her at arm’s length, and kissing the air instead.
Iris couldn’t help but smile at her friend’s theatrics. “I thought you were still in Milan,” she said.
“I get the impression I still am,” Beatrix said, flipping a wrist at the Friday evening cluster of young men and women dressed to happy hour perfection, talking loudly in their Milanese accents, laughing and smoking and sipping on trendy cocktails, while the locals sucked beer from bottles and nibbled on focaccia.
“I had a feeling I’d find you here when you didn’t answer your phone,” Bea said.
Iris had actually seen the call before leaving home, and felt a little guilty about not answering, but she knew Bea would never understand how thirty minutes squandered on conversation would never equal the same number of minutes spent swimming in the setting sun.
“As you can see, I was swimming,” Iris said.
“I figured as much,” Bea said, with a note of resignation in her voice. Iris had long since stopped asking Bea to go swimming with her, and Bea had finally understood that Iris would rather shoot herself in the foot than spend a day with her on the beach, chatting and roasting on lounge chairs. Despite their differences, it gave Iris a good feeling to know so much about another person, and to have another person know so much about her. By now, Beatrix knew more things about her life than her own sisters did.
“How are you doing?” Bea asked, taking Iris by the hand and leading her to the table she had staked out for them. The concern in Bea’s voice tickled her tear ducts, but Iris resisted; she had cried enough on this lovely summer day.
“Oh, all right, I guess,” she said, as they sat down. “I’m still reeling, though. Too much travel and too much emotion packed into one week.”
“I’ll bet everyone was glad to see you,” Bea said.
“I suppose. I know I was glad to see them, especially my sisters. Even though it wasn’t exactly a happy occasion. I still can’t believe Auntie Rosa is gone.”
“You should have stayed longer,” Bea said. “You should have taken the time to work through your grief with people who really know you, people who care, people who share your feelings.”
“Maybe. But once the funeral was over, everyone disbanded pretty quickly. They all had their own lives to get back to: their jobs, their kids, their houses. Sometimes I feel like I don’t really belong, like no one really knows me anymore. The Iris who flies back and forth to visit is not the same twenty-year-old girl who left.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that they don’t see who you really are because you won’t let them?” Bea asked. Talking to Bea, especially when they hadn’t seen each other in some time, was like going to a restaurant famished and immediately being served a hearty entrée. Iris took a moment to digest her comment before answering.
“I know I haven’t been very good at sharing the things that embarrass me,” she said, speaking with some difficulty. “I can’t help worrying about what people will think when they find out Iris hasn’t always been such a good little girl. I never really admitted that to myself until one day when I was talking to Lily.”
“Wait a minute - you talked to Lily?”
“Yes, I did. We were with Auntie Rosa together when she died. It was a very intense experience. But I don’t feel like getting into that story just yet - not without a drink.” Iris gazed at the horizon, just as the last glowing speck of sun dipped behind the hills, leaving in its wake a gouache of pinks and purples that spilled from sky to sea, coating the water in a violet sheen, its reflection making everything and everyone look smoother, softer, more mysterious.
“We’ll take a bottle of that Corsican rosé - nice and chilled,” Beatrix said to the server, who had appeared as if on cue, clad in his usual attire of shorts, T-shirt and sandals. Bea glanced at Iris for approval; Iris nodded. No sense pretending a glass or two would see them through a conversation of any substance.
“Anyway, family matters aside, I did have to get back,” Iris said when they were alone again. “I literally just ran off on Max, you know.”
“Speak of the devil. I was just going to ask you about Max. Where the heck is he, anyway?”
“Ponza,” Iris said, hoping Bea would let her leave it at that.
Bea arched her eyebrows. “Is he planning on gracing you with his presence anytime soon?”
Knowing Bea would keep pestering her until she provided a satisfactory explanation, Iris accepted one of the two cigarettes her friend had taken from her cigarette case and lit for them. Iris choked on the first puff, wondering for the umpteenth time why she bothered smoking.
“Max has a deadline to meet,” Iris said. “Which is why he hasn’t been able to get away.” She took a deeper drag this time, and held it in her lungs before exhaling. “I was thinking of going down there, but I haven’t exactly been in the right frame of mind. And Max agreed that I should just stay put and recover. He said he didn’t want me to get exhausted traipsing back and forth, since he has to come up to Milan soon anyway.”
“What a dear boy,” Beatrix said, tilting her head and blowing smoke slowly into the air. “What’s going on in Milan?”
“Max has been looking for a chance to get a foot in the door with those Mediaset people. It’s all connected to that film project of his. He’s been trying to set up a meeting, and he says it’s only a matter of days now. As soon as that’s confirmed, he’ll head up to Milan, then back here, and after that, we’ll take a ferry from Genoa and pick up where he left off.” It sounded like a good plan to Iris; logical, convenient. She searched Bea’s face for a reaction, but couldn’t see her eyes through the lenses of her sunglasses.
“How is he ever managing without you?” she said.
“Oh, that assistant of his didn’t waste ten minutes getting her pretty little ass down there to take my place,” Iris spit out the information, before deciding whether she wanted to. Bea just shook her head and laughed.
“And what about the work you were doing? The writing?”
“Between you and me, this so-called job of mine seems so bogus. I’ve been giving it my best, and I always submit my work before the deadline. I even managed to finish the piece on Carloforte while I was away.” Iris recalled the tear-filled days of the wake and funeral, followed by the sleepless nights in Violet’s guest room, her head propped up on a pillow, her laptop warming her thighs. That was one benefit of suffering from insomnia and not having any drugs around - the days were twice as long.
“And to think yo
u have been accused of having no sense of duty,” Bea said, a sardonic smile on her glossy lips.
“For all the good it does me,” Iris said. “No one ever acknowledges anything. I don’t even know whether anyone reads what I write, whether they like it, whether they’ll ever use it. I don’t even really see why they pay me. Max tells me to just take the money and stop worrying.”
“You don’t sound like the optimistic Iris I know and love,” Bea said, raising her Gucci sunglasses from her nose and parking them on her head. As the waiter approached, the two friends leaned back in their chairs: Iris with her soggy mop of curls and the one-size-fits-all sundress purchased at the market in Rapallo; Beatrix with her professionally styled hair brushing the collar of her linen tunic, her crossed legs and pedicured feet peeking out from the slit in her fashionable wrap-around skirt. They smoked in silence as the waiter set down the bottle without showing them the label, opened it without sniffing the cork, poured out two full glasses of pale pink liquid without suggesting they taste it, set down a plate of focaccia squares and mortadella cubes. His only concession to his role was the slight bow he performed before retreating.
“Is there something else I should know?” Bea continued after they had performed their ritual of touching glasses with a “cin cin”.
“Oh, it’s not only about the work, it’s just - ” Iris wasn’t really sure she wanted the conversation to take this direction, but she was tired of holding everything inside.
“It’s just what?” Bea prompted her.
“Well, if Max lost someone he loved, I would do everything in my power to stay close to him. He knows I have no one else here except you, but he didn’t even ask whether you were around.”
“Did you tell him you need him to come home?”
“No,” Iris said, taking another sip of wine. “It would only make him feel bad. He can’t just drop everything and leave because of me.”
The Complete Series Page 136
