Phoebe nodded, pleased that Wolf assumed she’d had boyfriends.
“Well, that’s all we were doing,” he said. “I mean, we were teenagers.”
Phoebe shook her head. “It wasn’t the same. By the time I got to high school, nothing was real anymore.”
Wolf looked at her quizzically.
“It’s true,” Phoebe said. “Everything was kind of fake.”
“Fake,” Wolf said, clearly perplexed. “Why would it be fake?”
“How should I know?” Phoebe said. “It was just fake. I couldn’t take it seriously.”
Wolf shook his head. Phoebe played with the hot candle wax, letting it harden on her fingertips. “Some things are real, some things are fake,” she concluded.
“How about this, right now? Fake?” Wolf asked lightly, but there was an odd tug in his voice, and Phoebe sensed that her answer mattered. She had a perverse urge to tell him yes.
“No,” she said. “Right now is real.”
Wolf gave a half-smile. “I’m relieved.”
Phoebe waited to feel angry with him for prying, but each hoarded truth Wolf teased from her seemed to leave behind it a lightness, like fragile heavy packages being lifted from her arms. Now they were Wolf’s, too. He was helping her carry them.
“I think one of these days the world’s going to look a lot different to you,” he said.
Phoebe was intrigued. “How?”
“Just—yours,” he said. “Yours.” And he looked at Phoebe with such palpable sympathy that she wondered what in herself could possibly have inspired it.
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
Wolf grinned. “I’m right.”
Veal, chicken, ribbons of salad; like casualties, the empty plates and second empty bottle were spirited away from their table. So much wine had eroded Wolf’s usual guard; gone was that studied good nature reminiscent of young male teachers at Phoebe’s high school. She found her gaze stumbling against his and leaning there, unable to break away, and again that desire would stun her. She stalled mid-sentence, too amazed to continue. For all her crushes on boys, Phoebe had never felt so powerfully drawn to anyone. In fact, often when she and the boy finally sank back on the sand or a bench or the seat of his car, something in Phoebe shrank from his soft lips and clamoring heartbeat. Her mind wrestled free, veering back to Faith and Wolf in her mother’s bedroom, the white door shut, watching from the end of that long hall, trying to fathom it. “Come on,” Faith said, taking Wolf’s hand, and Phoebe would try with her mind’s eye to follow, always realizing that whatever happened between herself and this boy would not bring her any nearer that door, not make the slightest difference in her life. Finally she would have no choice but to break free as she had that day from Kyle, for already she was gone. Like hearing her name called again and again, louder each time, finally having to turn.
But this was Wolf.
And her very certainty overwhelmed Phoebe now with a riveting sense of power; light seemed to pour from behind her eyes, her smile was a nimble pair of arms reaching out to gather Wolf in. Other people did these things—why not her? Why not this? When Phoebe leaned down to adjust her sandal, the top of her dress fell open just slightly, her thick liquid hair spilled down her shoulders, pooling like oil in her lap, and Wolf watched. Phoebe felt him watching. Her very longing was a thing she could harness; it sharpened her, distilled her every impulse to a single burning knot between her stomach and her breasts, like a star, Phoebe thought, a magnetic field whose pull would either draw Wolf irresistibly to her or cause her to implode. But what had she to lose? Nothing! Nothing, Phoebe thought, and wanted to laugh, for unlike Wolf she had nothing to lose. She was eighteen years old.
Phoebe ate his dessert. Something with pears, a sweet glaze. Wolf laughed and ordered a second. His lips and teeth were stained from the wine. The restaurant was nearly empty.
“All right,” he said, mashing out a last cigarette. “Let’s make our exit while we still can walk.”
The darkness smelled of flowering trees and motor oil. Phoebe tugged in lungfuls of warm air to stop the violent spinning of her head. She nearly toppled off the curb, but Wolf was behind her. “This way,” he said. “Here, okay,” laughing, slinging an arm around Phoebe’s shoulders. She leaned against him gratefully. Right away she felt better; closing the gap between them seemed to ease some tension within her, as if hundreds of taut, quivering strings had relaxed for the first time in hours. A silence overcame them. Wolf navigated briskly toward the hotel. Phoebe drank in the warmth of his skin. This is crazy, she thought, I’ve gone absolutely crazy. Her blood felt thick, clogging her veins.
When they reached the hotel, Wolf let her go. In the elevator he stood opposite Phoebe, craning his neck to study the overhead cables. Phoebe watched the bones in his chest. She felt predatory, thirsty, already slightly sick.
Wolf took their keys from the desk and led the way to the rooms. The hall was poorly lit. He opened Phoebe’s door and handed her the key, kissing the top of her head. “Schlaf gut,” he said, but as he tried to move away, Phoebe lifted her arms to him blindly, craving again that relief of closing the gap. And here were his legs against hers, his stomach, so many points of contact that their meeting felt miraculous, irrevocable. The keys slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Wolf held quite still, arms at his sides, while Phoebe hung there, foolish and drunk, fastened to the heat between them, chest and ribs, the roll of his throat as he swallowed.
“Whoa. Whoa, Phoebe, hey,” Wolf said, half laughing, trying to shake free, but Phoebe heard the falter in his voice and she cleaved to him, turning her head so her lips met the hot skin of his neck. Abruptly Wolf pulled her against him, a swift, fierce tug at the small of her back. He lifted her onto her toes, one hand fisted, holding his keys, his heart beating into her like something come open.
It lasted an instant. Wolf seized Phoebe’s arms and forced her away, hands trembling. “Stop,” he whispered. “Jesus, we’re out of our minds.” In the half-dark he watched her, a stunned look on his face as if she’d punched him with a strength he couldn’t fathom. Then his grip on her arms softened, as if suddenly he felt her there. One kiss, Phoebe thought. It was that close. The enormity stopped her.
Wolf let go. “It can’t happen, Phoebe, listen to me,” he said. “Are you listening?” His voice filled the hallway, half-angry, half-disbelieving. “This is not a possibility.”
They parted without another word. In her dark room Phoebe clawed the sundress over her head, yellowy street light spilling across her damp skin. Deep in her belly a small ravenous animal lay coiled; Phoebe felt it breathing, felt its heartbeat.
She yanked the bedspread away and lay under one sheet. Across the wall she heard the jerk of bedsprings and realized that Wolf’s bed and her own met against this same thin wall; they were practically touching. Across the wall she heard tiny movements and imagined him in his bed, what he must be doing now or be about to do. Phoebe braced her head against the pillows until her neck felt ready to crack, every nerve in her body trained on that wall—this was sickness, sweet awful sickness, her flesh an open wound she could barely touch yet had to, mercilessly, again and again, nothing else would heal it.
Hours later Phoebe crawled from murky sleep and fumbled her way to the sink. Yellow street light soaked the room. Outside the window the city seethed faintly. She drank several glasses of water and ate another candy-coated pill before returning to sleep.
eighteen
Phoebe woke to the sensation of having spent hours turning on a spit. She lurched to the sink and vomited, shutting her eyes afterward while she cleaned out the sink. She flapped the French windows to air the room, then scoured her teeth. When she lay back down, she was folded into softer sleep.
Later she heard Wolf’s footsteps next door and tried to remember the last sequence of events between them. Grabbing him and not letting go, that seemed the gist of it, Wolf forcing her away. Remembering made her weak with shame. The roo
m kept turning; Phoebe closed her eyes to still it. They’d played this game as children, you whirled in a circle, then stopped, savoring the explosion of dizziness in your brain.
She would have to get away from him.
Phoebe rolled onto her stomach. Incredibly, that pulse of longing still beat through everything else, Poe’s tell-tale heart pounding from under the floorboards. Seamlessly it mingled with her sickness, like two halves of one thing. She had to get away from him.
Eventually Wolf knocked. From the bed Phoebe eyed him in the doorway. Somehow she’d managed to dress herself. Wolf looked unwell, his skin like clay, mouth ringed with white. He was holding her key. Dimly, Phoebe recalled dropping it in the hallway the night before.
In the covered Galleria near the cathedral they stood side by side at a bar drinking cappuccinos, eating brioches to calm their stomachs. Italian men in beautifully cut suits surrounded them, conversing with the fabulous speed of auctioneers. It was Sunday. The sound of church bells rocked through the parks and streets like laughter. The city felt empty. The bells and flood of bright sun made Phoebe think of her father’s funeral, a clear winter day in Mirasol, navy-blue sea stirring against the beach. The bells rang and rang—the same small church where her father had gone as a boy, only two blocks from the sea, so you felt grains of sand between your shoes and the tile floor. Something festive, celebratory in the heedless flinging of those bells, the blue sky. Bent cans outside the church were luminous; you could hardly open your eyes. As Grandma led Phoebe toward the doors, a dog had flailed up to her barking, flipping its tail. Phoebe crouched on the sidewalk to pet it. “Oh now, leave him be,” Grandma said, her pale, watery eyes full of sadness. Her son was dead. Their mother had not permitted a wake—“It’s bad enough they had to see him dying,” she’d said. “They’re not going to see him dead.” Grandma touched Phoebe’s head to make her rise, but the church looked so dark, sludgy organ music seeping from its doors. Faith went straight inside, but Barry knelt beside Phoebe and touched the dog, a shabby mongrel of a thing, its wiry tale beating ecstatically at this sudden bounty of attention. Barry leaned down and buried his face in the scrubby fur of its back.
August, Wolf was saying, the Italians were all at the seashore. They’d see them in Corniglia, he said, and smiled, though behind it Phoebe felt him watching her closely, trying to assess the damage.
There was no damage. Only the constant, uneasy desire to move nearer him. Now that it was there, it would never go away.
Their luggage was in the Volkswagen, parked off the cathedral square. Wolf wanted to get back there—Milan was full of thieves, he said. Stone dangled like moss from the cathedral façade. Phoebe’s eyes felt dry, raw; the bright light chafed them even through her sunglasses. Wolf unlocked her door and opened it. She looked up at him, squinting through her glasses. “I can’t go with you,” she said.
Wolf narrowed his eyes. “You’re not going with me,” he said. “I’m going with you.”
“No.”
Wolf stretched, the car keys flashing between his fingers, shirt lifting slightly from his jeans. “Shit,” he said to the sky.
“I can’t.” The simplicity of it satisfied her. The matter was out of her hands.
Wolf leaned on the open door. “Look,” he said in a dry voice, “we’re human beings, okay? We got loaded, the lines got fuzzy for a second. It’s the oldest story in the world, Phoebe, come on. Let’s not flip out about it.” He sounded cool to the point of indifference, but his eyes were begging her. “All right?” he said. “Now can we please get on with this?”
Phoebe rested her gaze on Wolf’s soft T-shirt, the collarbones splayed beneath it. Sunlight soaked her hair, heating her scalp. What he’d said last night was true, she thought; nothing could happen between them.
“Good-bye,” Phoebe said.
She leaned into the car and seized her backpack. When she slung it over one shoulder, its weight nearly toppled her. The whole thing seemed only half-real. Wolf must have felt this, too, for he did nothing, just watched her go, a surge of pigeons pecking at his boots.
Phoebe crossed the cathedral square, alert to sounds of pursuit. None came. When she reached the opposite side, she adjusted her backpack to rest squarely on both shoulders. Still she heard nothing. So that was it, she thought. Wolf was relieved, or perhaps he simply refused to chase her. It made no difference. Phoebe crossed the street, determined not to look back. The bells were ringing again. The dazzle of light was surreal. A new phase, Phoebe thought, so long as there was money in her pocket. Though it was Sunday, of course, and not a penny of that money was Italian.
She reached a side street and hesitated, debating whether to cross or turn. Before she’d made up her mind, the Volkswagen peeled around a corner, cutting her off. Gears crunched, there was a yelp of rubber on the curb. Wolf leapt from the car, clearly beside himself. Phoebe stepped away. She felt like a tortoise, pinned beneath the giant backpack.
“Goddammit!” Wolf shouted. “Goddammit!” He kicked a tire, clonging the hubcap. Then he wheeled back around and let fly at the door, where his boot left a soft-looking dent. Phoebe watched him with unnatural calm. Finally Wolf faced the car, his arms crossed; from his agitated breathing Phoebe assumed he must be planning further assaults upon it. Instead, he turned to her, speaking with a gentleness that seemed to cost him great effort.
“Phoebe, please,” he said. “Please, get in the car. It was my fault, that stuff last night—please, just get in the car. We won’t go to Corniglia, we’ll just drive a little. Just get in the car. We’ll take it from there. Please.”
He moved close to Phoebe, took hold of her shoulders and looked into her face. It worked. The fight left her instantly. She was tired and dizzy, anxious to shed the massive backpack. The sun invaded her head, filling it with the thought of leaning forward and kissing Wolf, and an awful sensation flashed through her, a hot blade slicing her neatly in half. Wolf’s pupils were dishrunken to furious points, but it wasn’t anger now, or not just that. He wanted her. “Okay,” Phoebe said, and got in the car.
They hurtled from Milan. Phoebe relaxed into the speed. The sun was high. Wolf glanced at her now and then as if to make sure she hadn’t disappeared. “Lock your door,” he said.
Phoebe burst out laughing, a brassy, unfamiliar sound. “You think I’m going to jump out on the freeway?”
Wolf smiled grimly. “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you?”
Phoebe leaned against the window and shut her eyes. There was too much saliva in her mouth; she opened the window and spat a few times.
“Are you sick?” Wolf asked in alarm.
Phoebe laughed again, that strange metallic sound. “Yes,” she said.
An hour swept past. Wolf drove his car like an ambulance, accelerating until the Volkswagen began to shudder. Phoebe pictured herself as his stricken patient. They hardly spoke. Something had been decided, conversation supplanted by queasy knowledge.
Eventually Wolf turned off the highway onto a smaller road. It was clear they were nowhere near the sea. In the blood-heavy light of late afternoon they wove among tawny, feline hills. Olive trees ornamented the land, flashing silver. Occasionally a town would appear, blunt towers nestled on a hilltop. A drift of church bells, such a beautiful sound, Phoebe thought, like wind chimes, like singing angels. Gradually she, too, began to drift, back to the moment when finally she’d gone inside the church where her father’s casket lay and sat in a front pew, next to Faith. Try as she might, Phoebe couldn’t feel the weight of the disaster. The sound of birds kept distracting her, lighthearted, fatuous, flapping outside the church’s stained-glass windows and luring Phoebe out of its darkness, away from the dour intonations of the priest. Did no one notice? Faith’s eyes never strayed from the priest, as if her gaze were one strand in a fragile, delicate web whose slightest disruption would bring the world crashing down upon her. Phoebe leaned forward to look at Barry, on Faith’s other side. He, too, watched the priest, but after a moment Pho
ebe saw her brother steal a glance at the windows, then glance again, reluctantly, as if helpless against their gleam of liquid color, the beating of wings behind them.
Wolf followed a wisp of road up a hill and parked the car outside the thick walls of a town. The bulk of the day had gone. Phoebe wondered if this town had been their destination all along, or if Wolf had simply tired of driving. She didn’t ask. All but the most practical conversation had ceased between them, jettisoned like heavy cargo from an unstable ship. Phoebe stepped from the car and looked down at the surrounding sprawl of hills, whose white, shimmering grass made them look like heaps of sand. Here and there stood a yellowy farmhouse with green shutters, a vineyard beside it. The only sound was the wind.
They left their luggage in the car and passed through an old gate to a steep cobblestoned road. Phoebe heard sounds of children playing, but couldn’t see them. She and Wolf walked like people in a trance, not even near each other. Wineshops lined the road, colored bottles tilted in their windows. An old woman sold bunches of red flowers wrapped in white paper. Apart from the noisy, absent children, the town was silent.
They reached a sloped rectangular square paved with a herringbone pattern of narrow yellow bricks. Here were the children, eight or nine little boys attacking a soccer ball with such naked aggression that its leaps and jumps looked like desperate attempts to escape them. Houses ringed the square, interspersed with a few old towers and three restaurants, whose empty tables and chairs appeared to have wandered from their doors. It was a quiet hour, between meals.
Wolf guided Phoebe into a restaurant and negotiated with a man behind the bar, handing him their passports in exchange for a key on a leather thong with a block of wood attached. The bartender offered directions, tilting his hand to indicate a turn. When his eyes met Phoebe’s, she looked away in shame.
Only as they crossed back through the square did Phoebe notice the birds, hundreds of small black birds circling the square, their wings curved backward like arrowheads. Crazily they swooped and dipped, uttering shrill, squeaking cries not unlike those of mice, only more restless, more plaintive. Like something from the Bible, Phoebe thought, a portent of earthquakes or walls of fire, droughts to last generations.
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