Ordinary World (16 page)

At sunrise, I went back to my hotel room (ignoring Sam’s picture sitting on the bedside table, waiting for me), showered and changed, went back to one of the boutiques we’d been to a couple of days ago, and bought black lace underwear and a low-cut shirt. Then I went back to David’s room and pounced on him again.

I was awake and alive and soaring.

I could feel every kiss, every touch, every sensation.

I could
feel
.

And then, I wept.

Chapter Twenty

I
T HAPPENED WHEN I OPENED MY EYES AFTER WE made love again and I looked at David dreamily. He kissed me playfully on my nose.

The reality set in slowly.

Sam used to do that. Used to kiss me playfully on my nose like that.

I’d just slept with someone else. Someone who wasn’t Sam. Good God, I just cheated on my husband.

And then it hit me like a brick wall: Sam was gone. He was really gone. He was
dead
. Expired. Finito. Never coming back.

My husband was dead.

What began as sobs erupted into a wail. David took me into his arms and held me, rocking me back and forth, stroking my hair and my back while I cried. Then he somehow managed to pick me up and carry me to the bathtub, where he ran the tap and added lavender-scented salts and soap and sponged me with a massive seasponge and shampooed my hair while I cried. And then he took me out of the tub and enveloped me in the cocoon of a plush, lily-white towel and picked me up and carried me back to the sex-soaked sheets while I cried. He pulled the bedspread over the sheets and gently laid me down and held me again, spooning me while I cried. He said nothing throughout.

I cried until I was hoarse and exhausted.

And then, I slept.

Chapter Twenty-one

Day seven in Italy

I
AWOKE HUNGRY. STARVING, IN FACT. DAVID brought me biscotti and tea. I hoisted myself up in bed and ate every bite while he watched me.

“What time is it?” I asked, my throat scratchy.

“It’s nine-thirty in the morning.”

I sipped my tea, slightly slurping it. “I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” I asked.  “Didn’t you say you had business here?”

“My business is done.” He took the tray away, then sat next to me and caressed my cheek, somewhat hesitant. “You okay now?”

I nodded. For the first time, I really believed it, really felt okay. I wanted to say thank you, but the words remained stuck in my throat.

“Devin,” I started, then caught myself. “I mean—”

“It’s okay,” he said, looking at me lovingly.

This time I caressed his cheek and ran my fingers through his hair. And then, as if touching an electric socket, I arose with a jolt.

“What day is today?”

“Saturday,” he said.

I gasped. “I’m going to miss my flight home!”

“So?”

“So, what do I do?”

“Reschedule.”

“Isn’t that going to cost extra?”

“Look, if it’s a problem, I’ll take care of it.”

            I jumped out of bed and went hunting for my clothes, collecting them piece by piece: a shoe, a bra, another shoe, skirt, panties…where were the panties?

“I gotta pack; I gotta call Miranda and tell her not to come pick me up; I gotta make sure the cat’s okay... God, I haven’t called her in days. What’ll she think?”

            “She’ll think you’re having a good time—relax; it’ll be fine.”

            “You don’t understand. Miranda—she’s sensitive when you don’t check in. And Maggie. I promised Maggie I’d call.”

            “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he said, watching me haphazardly dress.

            “What?”

            “Why don’t you stay for a couple more days? There’s still lots to see—galleries, shops… We could even take a drive outside the city and see some of the countryside. Bellisima.”

            I stopped dressing. “What?”

            “
Rimanere
. Stay. Three days. I’m sure your friends won’t mind. What’s the rush to get home? You said you’re not teaching classes, right?”

            “But I still have responsibilities, meetings and stuff. And I’m on shaky ground as it is right now. I’m sort of on probation with the dean—it’s a long story. There’s also Donny Most.”

            David furrowed his brow. “Excuse me?”

            “Our cat. His name is Donny Most.”

            “You named your cat after Ralph Malph from
Happy Days
?”

            “Yeah,” I replied, combing my hair with my fingers.

            “That’s cute.”

            “He’s an orange tuxedo. Took the poor thing months to get used to being without Sam. I don’t want to be away from him for too long.”

            “He’ll live. I mean, he’ll recover if you’re gone for a couple more days. Your friend’s taking care of him, right? It’s not like he’s alone and starving.” David walked up to me and took my hand. “
Per favore
, Andi. Stay with me. Just a few more days. We’ll go home together.”

            I felt afraid. I was feeling
everything
now. I suddenly remembered the day we said goodbye to each other when I left New York, how hurt he looked, how I fought to keep myself from staying. A lifetime ago.

            I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said on the exhale.

He grinned widely. “
Grazie
, Andi.”

            “You owe me a gelato, babe.” Funny, Sam and I always hated the term “babe.”

            “Any flavor you want,” he assured me.

           
On second thought
,
I don’t need it after all
.

Chapter Twenty-two

           
I
CALLED MIRANDA AND ASKED HER TO LOOK AFTER Donny Most for a few more days, and told her I wouldn’t need the pickup at Logan airport after all.

            “Of course it’s okay,” she said. “How come, though?”

            “Would you believe I ran into an old friend here? Talk about a small world…”

            I called Jeff and told him my flight had been cancelled, and the only other one I could get was in three days.

            “Really?” The way he said this implied,
Are you honestly going to give me an excuse that lame?

            “Um…” I answered.

            “That’s what I thought,” he said.

            “Would you believe I ran into an old friend here?”

            “More than I would the cancelled flight, yeah.”

            “Talk about a small world.”

            “Just make sure you get back by Wednesday. The second Shakespeare candidate is coming to interview, and you’re in charge of picking her up at the airport as well as attending the teaching demo.”

            “Yeah, I know. I’ll be back by then, I promise.”

            Jeff briefed me on other agenda items before wishing me a safe flight home. “You sound good, by the way. Refreshed.”

            I called my mother and told her I was staying a few extra days and offered her no explanation whatsoever. Then I called Maggie.

            “You are
never
going to believe this,” I started.  Then I told her.

            “I don’t believe it!”

            “I’m staying on a few extra days with him.”

            “You slept with him, didn’t you. Tell me you slept with him. Of course you slept with him—I can hear it in your voice.”

            “I screamed ‘Yes’ in two different languages.”

            “Oh, Andi, I am
so
happy for you! This was meant to be. You’ll see.”

            “Don’t start planning another wedding, Mags. This is just Italy. Who knows what’s going to happen once we get back to Boston? In fact, I don’t know if I even
want
anything to happen once we’re back.”

            “Don’t worry about that now, Cupcake. Enjoy the rest of Rome with Devin.”

            “Actually, he insists on being called ‘David’ now. And really, he is. David, I mean. It still takes some getting used to.”

            “Just be sure you call him when you get back to the States.”

            “Oy, Maggie…”

            That afternoon, after touring yet another museum, we sat outside a café drinking cappuccinos. I scribbled a line in my journal.

            “So what have you been writing all this time?” David asked.

            “Well, I’ve been trying to make sure I’ve captured every aspect of the experience, for one thing. I think a good memoir could come out of this. For another thing, I’ve been jotting new ideas for Sam’s eulogy.”

            “Come again?”

            “I’ve been revising Sam’s eulogy.”

            “What for?”

            Funny—no one, including myself, had ever bothered to ask me that question, and I paused to find the answer. He didn’t wait for it, though. “Did
you
deliver the eulogy at his funeral?” he asked, sounding perplexed.

            “Of course.”

            “I guess I just assumed that you’d have been too distraught and someone else would have done it, like a relative or a best friend.”

            I shuddered in shame at the memory. “I had insisted on doing it myself.”

            “Must have been something spectacular.”

            “It was crap, actually.”

            “The funeral?”

            “No, the eulogy. It was a piece of crap. Total shit. A dead skunk stinks less than that eulogy.”

            “Come on, Andi—it couldn’t have been that bad.”

            “If it could’ve, it would’ve cremated itself.”

            “What happened?”

            “I was so shocked by his death, so devastated by the whole thing, I couldn’t think straight. I was in a haze for days. I barely remember the funeral at all, much less writing anything remotely close to a eulogy. I just remember looking down at the words on the page and suddenly realizing I was going to have to read this shit out loud. I would’ve been better off reciting one of his favorite poems or reading from a book. Hell, I would’ve been better off doing a clog-dance at that point. Unfortunately, I didn’t have such wisdom in the moment. I never should have done it. I never should have insisted.”

            “I’m sure people understood. I’m sure no one was expecting more.”

            “Are you kidding? They all were.
You
were, just now. I was. Sam was. What an injustice, to write and then deliver such a piece of crap. I might as well have spit on his dead body.”

            “I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself,” he said.

            I shook my head. “I’m not being hard enough. I keep revising it in the hopes that I can have a memorial and deliver it there, or have it published someplace, or something. I don’t know.”