by Delia Ephron
Jenna gives me a long, hard look, a look she should have given James. Her eyes dry up. She smashes a tissue against her nose, honks once, balls up the tissue, and chucks it into the pile. She swings her legs off the bed and, with a sweep of her arm, knocks the tissue balls off the bed and into the wastebasket. “There, you’ll never know I was here.”
“Jenna, come on, I’m sure if you call James…” I go into the bathroom to fix her a warm wet wash-cloth because, even though she isn’t still crying, her eyes are bloodshot, and when I return barely thirty seconds later she’s gone. She made less noise leaving than I did arriving, but then she’s a ballet dancer and considerably more graceful than I am.
She had no right to be so sensitive. Sensitive, hmm. That word is coming up a lot today, like the day practically has a theme. There is such a huge difference between James the Albert-Waldo and—forget it. It isn’t even fun to play with his name. Or nice. Maybe it was never nice. It’s lonely in this house, and it is really Jenna’s fault that right this second I don’t even care whether telekinesis happened, and I find myself climbing the stairs to Mel’s office.
I knock.
“It’s open,” he calls.
As I enter, he swivels from his computer to face me. His shoves his hands under his glasses and rubs his eyes; then, while they’re still blinking, he presses his hands into his sides to wake up his muscles. Finally he says, “How was work?”
“Okay.” I flop onto his couch. “What are you doing?”
“Me?”
Why does he always make it seem like a miracle if I ask him a question? He is the only other person in the room—who else would I be talking to? His room—I guess Mom decorated. It’s got her unmistakable antiseptic touch, with aluminum-pole bookshelves that arrived in a box with directions that Mom’s delivery guy, Andy, had to decipher while Mom and Mel stood there uselessly saying things like “Don’t step on a pole” (they were rolling about), and “Be sure you don’t lose the screws. Did you lose the screws? Where are the screws?” and spinning other variations on the screw-disaster scenario.
Mel’s books, floor to ceiling, are mostly old, with faded torn cloth covers. I bet the paper inside is yellowing and brittle, and if the books could think, they would feel out of place on this metal contraption. Mel probably has the books catalogued in some maniacally compulsive way. There are labels on the shelves too far away for me to read. Except for his PC, electric pencil sharpener, paper clip holder, and jar of identical black pens, his desk is a Plexiglas wasteland. OhmyGod, he’s a reaction. He’s a reaction to Dad. Poor mom, that’s why she hooked up with him. He’s the un-Dad. Dad with his cozy artist’s studio coated with sawdust, Dad who would have leaned back and plunked his legs up on his drafting table. Mel, on the other hand, performs some infinitesimal adjustment to his glasses, repositioning them on his ears, places his elbows on the desk, clasps his hands, and cocks his head. “Is something wrong?” he asks.
“Why would something be wrong?” I snap. I do snap. I’m out of control, I’m an attack dog. “How are the serfs?” I add lamely.
“Fine.”
I wait for him to tell me something like how their favorite food is gopher, but he doesn’t offer anything. All of a sudden he’s a mite withdrawn. His face goes slack, as if he’s barely aware of my presence. Even his eager puppy-dog eyes get a case of the remotes. Does he dislike me, why would he dislike me? Or, put another way, why would he like me? That’s heavy, I’m not going there, so I drag myself up and head out again. “I’m going to take a nap, camp was exhausting, I might sleep through dinner, would you tell Mom?” I turn to reward him with a disarming smile—say cheese, Frannie—when I spy over his shoulder, on the wall next to his bookshelf, the grapes.
“Where did you get that?”
Mel turns to follow my glare. The missing watercolor, the painting from Dad’s studio, is now framed, as if it’s something elegant and valuable and utterly un-Dad. It floats—that’s a term Dad taught me—meaning that the entire placemat, scallops and all, is glued to a backing, in this case minty green paper, and then the entire shebang framed, in this case, in wood that’s painted—don’t faint—a shimmery gold.
“Where’d you get that watercolor?”
“From your mom.” He plucks it off the wall and admires it at close range. “I love it, I just love it.”
“I just love it” is virtually a caress. How inappropriate and shocking. “Mom stole it from Dad’s studio.”
The look he gives me is truly puzzled and very nervy, considering he knows exactly what I’m talking about. She’ll steal the wavy bird next. She’s probably after all of Dad’s things.
“To frame that painting is a total invasion of privacy.”
“Whose privacy?”
“Forget it, forget it. I’m going to sleep, forget it,” I tell him.
“Good idea,” says Mel. He hangs the picture up and swivels to face his computer as if I’m already gone.
29
Back in my room, I crash on the bed and, reaching under, slide out the puzzle board. I’ve got the migrating piece clutched in my fist, and the minute that section of the puzzle comes into view, I detect the empty spot. The piece is missing. VIA is in the puzzle, GRAVINO is in my hand. Yet I know I didn’t remove it.
Otherwise, the puzzle is undisturbed. I’m down to the blues. Along the mountain ridge, the church tower, the roofs and treetops, wherever the sky meets land, there’s a hazy blue border, and along the puzzle’s bottom, pieces of stone quay and muddy beach have a deeper blue and a greenish-blue rim where they dip into water. The little dinghy still floats all by its lonesome, waiting for me to supply the sea around it. The most daunting is yet to come, and yet the power of Dad’s work is evident. In the ancient buildings crammed together and gaily painted, I can sense age, tradition, and a spirit of survival. Is there someone on that balcony? Who hung out those clothes to dry? Watered the flowers? Who is shopping and visiting, who’s quarreling and laughing inside shuttered windows and on the steep and shadowy streets hidden from view? At the cove a cluster of patio umbrellas and dabs of color suggest the bustle of a seaside café in the summertime. What delicious snacks are they feasting on? I thumb through my Italian phrase book. Torta, cake, fragola, strawberries, melone, melon, gelato—that’s a word I already know. One tilted umbrella, a bright tangerine, is tantalizing. Who’s hidden there, shaded from the sun? Lovers secretly kissing? A smudge of red. Is that a flower, a person?
The empty spot where GRAVINO belongs will complete the town. When I put it back, will it stay there? What is the point of plugging something into the puzzle if it’s going to unplug itself and relocate, say, in my shoe? Oh well. I reach down to lock GRAVINO into place once again, and as I hear that familiar click of a match, I feel a pull as if my whole body is being sucked by a giant vacuum, all hearing obliterated by a deafening whoosh. Within a second I am helpless in a swirling vortex, spun downward, traveling through a funnel of wind suspended and propelled by its fearsome force and then flipped like a flimsy guppy, head over tail, and land abruptly but softly on my back with a bit of a bounce.
On my back. On prickly ground. Eyes tightly shut.
Birds twittering. The caw of a gull, again and yet again. Recognizing a sound gives me the nerve to open my eyes. A breeze is warm and gentle; tall weedy greens rustle and sway around me, some topped with yellow and purple. I appear to be lying in a bed of leggy grass and wildflowers. Turning my head this way and that, checking agility and connections between neck and back, I notice movement in the distance. I sit up.
Hikers stride up a trail, outfitted to the max, backpacks like buildings, heavy boots laced over their ankles, each step stamped with seriousness of purpose by the stabs of their walking sticks with each upward clomp. “Ciao,” I shout. “Ciao.”
I scramble up and brush and shake off the dirt as the six of them, smiling, tromp toward me. I recognize “Buon giorno,” which basically means hello, but nothing else they say. One of them scoops my I
talian phrase book off the ground, dusts it off, and presents it to me. While they wait patiently, I skim through it. “Is there any danger of an avalanche?” That sentence is definitely useless. “Why?” “When?” “How far?” Nope. Aha. “Where can I find…” I attempt that phrase, speaking slowly and pointing out the words at the same time, “Dove posso trovare Via Gravino?”
They exchange looks. No one has a clue. “Vernazza?” one suggests, but not too confidently.
Vernazza? What’s that? Another long pause while I locate the word town. “La città?”
“Sì.”
Buildings, water, little boats. “I palazzi, l’acqua, le barchette.” That takes much page flipping.
“Vernazza,” they all agree.
“Dov’è Vernazza?”
They all point in the direction they came from. I am so relieved that I’ll be walking down rather than up. “Grazie,” I repeat many times, shouting it after them in happiness as soon as I locate the word in the chapter called “Polite Phrases.”
I trudge down a steep gravel path and then proceed down wide stone steps cut into rock. Even though this trek requires considerable balance and my squat-and-step routine, at least now it’s a routine. I manage pretty well. I feel…strong. Competent. The air around me is clear and fresh, unlike in other puzzle visits, but the sky above is mottled as if too many colors have been mixed in a bottle and diluted, leaving a trace color but no discernable shade. It might be filmy gray or brown or purplish, the remains of smoke from a fire long extinguished, hanging about in the atmosphere. Behind me, up the mountain, a low building with a gray awning juts out from the cliff. It’s the restaurant I visited. Ahead, Vernazza.
The town reveals itself with surprising suddenness. One second I am struggling down yet another steep step, the next I find myself on a street with narrow houses on both sides, both gayer and shabbier than they appear in the puzzle, gorgeous sun-baked colors flecking off in big patches, bow-fronted balconies dotted with friendly pots of geraniums, clotheslines crisscrossing from second floor to second floor, hung with pants and shirts that flutter like flags of welcome. One second I’m alone, the next I’m surrounded by life, a parade of school-children, two by two, all in matching white shirts and navy skirts and pants. Women stroll and shop, carrying purchases in fishnet bags, long skinny breads poking through the holes. On a bench in the middle of the street (there is no sign of a car or any form of transportation—what happens if someone wants to move a piano?), two old men smoke and sigh with every exhale. I peek in windows. Salumeria must be an Italian deli—there are little fish floating in oil, roasted red peppers, vats of green olives and wrinkly black ones, fat rounds of cheese, salamis hanging from the ceiling, strings of garlic and onions. Wouldn’t James be frothing here? More stores. Farmacia. Drugstore. Fruttivendolo. I love that musical word and try it out loud—frutti-ven-dolo. Women pick over peaches, plums, nectarines, tomatoes, exotic fruits I don’t recognize—big meaty yellow things, small prickly green things—melons small as tennis balls and big as basketballs, bunches of gorgeous grapes. All this fruit is unceremoniously piled in wooden crates, perhaps straight from the farm.
Banco. Bank. I walk in. I know I can’t shop without money, and I’m starving, dying to pop one of those juicy grapes into my mouth, panting over il panetteria, a bread store where the smells are heavenly. “Buon giorno,” I say to the only teller, an owl-faced man peering out from behind a small grated window. I put down ten dollars and read from my book, “Do you change…puo cambiare…” This trail-off technique works well. “Sì,” the man says, and counts out several bills in a rainbow of colors, money that looks like it’s only good for Italian Monopoly. “Euros?” I ask. He frowns and scratches at his brush of a mustache. I wave the money, “Euros?” but as I do, I notice that “lire” is written on them. Lire. Twelve thousand, a fortune, and I gave him only ten dollars. How confusing. “Italy?” I say again, in case the country changed on me.
“Sì, Italia, signorina.” He bursts out laughing.
“Grazie,” I say.
“Molte grazie,” he replies.
“Via Gravino. Dov’è Via Gravino?”
He sprays a torrent of Italian and flaps his hand in the direction I’ve been walking. I discern “destro,” I think I hear that word. I flip through the book. “Right.” Destro means right. Via Gravino might be on the right. “Grazie,” I say again, giving the “r” a good spin. I’m beginning to enjoy saying thank you in Italian.
I stroll out and into il panetteria, drool over baskets of skinny crusty breads, round crackly wheat breads, little white rolls, olive rolls, some buns speckled with green, others with a confetti of red and green. Eventually I make a selection, pointing, hand over a bill, and get back bills and coins, who knows what. At the fruit stand I point at grapes and soon I have a bag of those, too. While I munch, a waiter beckons me to sit at an outdoor café. I shake my head. Another waiter scoots around him, carrying a small square tray containing six cups with foamy white tops. He delivers them to noisy tourists who push their maps aside to make room. Nearby, two slim men in black suits confer over tiny cups of coffee. I loiter nearby, wishing for English, but all the language escapes me and appears to be spoken at lightning speed. Moving along, I nearly fall into a trance over the spirited and relaxed way color is thrown about—houses painted burnt orange, tawny and coppery yellows, fuchsia, a clashing purple door, stripes and stenciled trims. Dad…I want to show Dad. He’d love this.
I guess my whole life I’ll see things I want to show him. Although maybe this is a place he wants to show me. It is his puzzle.
Distracted by color, I collide with a small wooden kiosk. A man seated in a folding chair, his face obscured by the newspaper he’s reading, lowers his paper, gives me the once-over, and raises it up again. La Gazzetta dello Sport. The front page, pink, is an eye-popping assault of type, which I scour, hoping to recognize a name, something, but no luck. The kiosk, papered with magazines for sale, makes a flashy and glossy collage. Donna Moderna, Il Mondo, Tutto Motto (judging from the photo, it’s about motorcycles), Cosmopolitan. So there’s an Italian edition. Next to the title, on the right, it says, “Luglio 1990.” Luglio, I saw that, somewhere I noticed…I swivel back to the man engrossed in the newspaper. Yes, next to the name, La Gazzetta dello Sport, in small type, there it is: 12 Luglio 1990. A date, it must be a date. I flip through my phrase book to “Months.” Luglio is July. In Italian the day appears before the month, so according to that newspaper, today is July 12, 1990.
That’s before I was born. That’s the year before I was born.
I am wandering around in a year I’ve never lived in, in a village so ancient, Mel might be an expert on its sewage system.
The noisy gulls are back, announcing themselves with raucous barks. Caw, caw, caw. I look up, expecting a flock. Instead, a solitary seagull glides to a landing on a balcony railing. Via Gravino. A plaque with those words is affixed to the wall right next to the bird. Via Gravino. I held that sign in my palm—white lettering on yellow—and there it is. Only now do I realize that I’m at an intersection. Via Gravino begins here, destro (on the right), a street of tattered charm like the others, and I might have passed it right by, except for the bird.
I hurry down Via Gravino, searching faces, peering in windows, turning around again and again in case I’ve missed a clue, a sign. And then the street ends, curving into another. It just ends.
Panting with anxiety, I sink down on a bench, trying to quiet my heart. How could there be nothing? A tinkle of bells spooks me, but it’s only a wind chime shivering in an open window. Two children squeal as they chase by, then I hear wings beating the air and jerk up to see the bird streak past a terraced stone path where my father is looking out at the view.
“Dad?” I leap up. “Dad!”
He swings around. His face lights up when he spies me, and he raises his hand, our signal.
I can’t see how to get to him. The stone terrace has great arches under it and it’s
high, as high as a third floor. “How?” I shout. “How?”
He points down. I tear into the passageway underneath the terrace, zigzagging between stone columns. There, in the shadow of an arch, nearly hidden from view, I spot the stairs. I race to them, skip up two and three at a time. I think I throw myself the final distance into his arms.
He squeezes me tight and lifts me off the ground. The thing about Dad, the thing I remember now, now that I’m feeling it, is that he’s home.
I burrow into his shoulder. After all those hugs from virtual strangers like Harriet, hugs I’ve managed to steel myself through, I crash. “Take it easy,” he whispers. Dad doesn’t rush me, he never did, I remember that, too. He holds me while I soak his shirt with tears. He holds me until I wear out and wind down. Then he does this thing I’d forgotten. You know how your eyes get red and sore when you’re crying your eyes out? Well, Dad kisses my eyes, first one, then the other, very gently—it’s like the kiss of a butterfly—which is what he always did when I was inconsolable, like after he moved out. Finally he takes me by the shoulders and holds me at arm’s distance. I remember and miss all at the same time his face appreciating mine. No one else loves so much to look at me.
“Hi there, my beauty.”
“Daddy.” And then it pours out, everything, finding him, running into the street, being so lonely, being the only one, needing to lie down all the time, everywhere, for no reason. He just listens while I blubber and carry on. I keep wiping my nose with my sleeve, and that makes me realize that we’re both wearing blue work shirts because I’m wearing his clothes. “Nice outfit,” says Dad, like he’s reading my mind.
“I have all your clothes. Mom tried to make me throw things out, but I wouldn’t.”
We walk over to a bench, which I didn’t realize was a bench because it blends completely into the terrace. Three misshapen rocks, one long and lumpy balancing on the other two—a bench of stones that could be as old as the Temple of Dendur, the perfect place for us. As we rest there, I happen to look down and notice my shoes next to Dad’s. Our feet side by side. There’s something so sad about that.
