Instructions for a Broken Heart (17 page)

“The Villa San Michele,” Francesca was saying, her voice tired but still floating across them in that now-familiar lilt, drawing them into the place she was about to share. “The original owner was Axel Munthe, a Swedish physician who built the villa out of remains of Roman ruins.”

Jessa followed her class through the grounds, watching as Giacomo fell to the back of the group, checked his phone, texted something. A trance seemed to be taking over her limbs, the world here seeming a thousand years old, all green and varied, white buildings, fountains, the sea a breathless vastness. Running water from the fountains mixed with the sea crash filled her ears with a noise that sounded mostly like silence, like hours stretched out and made into taffy, sweet, with no sense of time or distance.

All around her, beauty from ruins—beauty from ruins.

***

She found a railing with a straight view of the sea, a blooming vine nearby smelled of apple candy. The edge of the island fell away beneath her. She could be at the end of the earth. She hadn’t felt this kind of ease, this kind of melting simplicity since the way the costume barn used to make her feel. Before—B.C.B.

What would happen if she didn’t go home?

She could get a job in one of the shops in the square, finish high school with distance learning, live in a small studio with a view of the sea. She could write things, or paint things. She could read every book she had wanted to read but couldn’t because there was always school, where they made her read other books, the ones not on her shelves. She would stack them all around the small room, spines out, use the stacks as tables, as places to rest her coffee cup, her pictures of home, the ones in the etched silver frames that had been her grandmother’s.

“Careful,” said a voice behind her. “Those Siren songs get in, fill you up. You’ll never want to leave.” Mr. Campbell joined her at the railing, his eyes shadowed by his Giants cap.

“Too late.”

He chuckled, taking in a deep breath of sea air. “You ever finish
Portrait
?”

“Last night.” Her stomach hummed with the memory of the incoming storm as she finished Joyce on the hotel balcony, the flickering light of the candle. “Mr. Campbell?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m screwed, right?”

“What?”

A seabird found a hollow in the sky that stopped its flight, just drifted out there on the air in front of them. Jessa closed her eyes, imagined trading places with that bird, to dip and sail, glide, passing time in sunbeams, in gusts of sea air—floating, a slave only to migration, knowing to come or go. Birds were so lucky.

“That guy at the end says to Stephen. ‘You poor poet, you.’ He pities him.”

Mr. Campbell leaned on his elbows. “Yes. He does say that.”

“I’m screwed. That’s the point of the novel.”

“I’m not sure Joyce would agree with you.”

“Now that I’ve figured out that I see the world a certain way, that I might not want that big, big future I had so steadily been planning, so blindly. Now I’m destined to wander the world always feeling too much, noticing too much. Crying and hurting and in despair while other people just live normally, happier. Not wondering so much, feeling so much.”

Mr. Campbell adjusted his hat and leaned on the railing. “OK, I can see how you’d get that, but, listen, you’re not giving up anything. You’re just figuring out how you see things. And those people—I don’t know if they’re happier, Jess. Maybe they just seem that way to you. But sure, having an artistic sense about you can make things difficult sometimes, feelings can be more extreme, like all of our nerves are always open to the elements. But that’s the secret.”

“What is?”

“We get to
feel
those things. Some people—they get comfort and ease, maybe. We get complexity and really messy feelings that make people uncomfortable. It’s a trade-off. There are people who don’t get to look at this sea and wonder what you’re wondering.”

She pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, felt the sun warm her forearms. “You mean that I could live here forever and read and write and never need to be part of the real world. Practical people don’t wonder that, huh?”

“Practicality can be its own prison.” He pulled off his hat, ran his fingers through his messy hair. He had dark stains beneath his eyes. The trip had been long, too much drama.

The kiss on the bridge in Florence felt like years ago, another life. What an idiotic maneuver that had been.

She shivered a bit. “You know how in the novel Stephen has to choose? Between the life he thought he was supposed to live and the one he discovers, his artistic path?”

“Yeah.”

“How does he know he makes the right choice?”

Mr. Campbell frowned, his eyes searching the horizon. “He doesn’t. But he vows to himself to live life on his terms, to not serve that which he no longer believes in. I think the vow itself is what matters. It will inform each choice he makes in the future.”

“But Joyce didn’t write that part of the book, right? The part where we see how it informs him.”

Mr. Campbell laughed. “No. No, that’s the thing about books. We don’t get to see the fallout after the happily ever after—true.”

“Mr. Campbell?” Devon, Tim, and Sean had come up behind them, a little army of drama boys. Devon watched her with interest, his eyes slipping back and forth between her and Mr. Campbell. Lovely—one more rumor to cart home from Italy. “Ms. Jackson says it’s time to start rounding up the troops,” Devon told them. “There are many roads to Rome.” He cracked himself up.

“How long you been waiting to say that?” Mr. Campbell pushed himself away from the railing and followed Tim and Devon back toward the entrance.

Sean lingered behind.

“I’m warning you,” Jessa told him. “I’m contemplative and emotional and I didn’t sleep well last night. Approach at your own risk.”

He risked it, leaning next to her on the rail, staring out at that huge sprawl of water. “What I told Natalie was that we were pretty much over. That’s what I told her.”

“I guess a lie is as good as the truth if you can get someone to believe you.” Jessa pulled her sleeves down again, tucked her hands inside the cuffs. A wind had come up suddenly, the air chilly and full of salt.

“I didn’t think I was lying.”

“You didn’t tell me you thought we were pretty much over. You didn’t tell me a lot of things.”

“I guess I forgot to make an appointment.” He jammed his hands in his shorts pockets, hopped a bit up and down to keep warm.

“Whatever, Sean. That’s not fair. I’m a busy girl. No get-out-of-jail-free card for you because I’m ambitious. You know I have a lot on my plate. It doesn’t give you an excuse to kiss Carissa or Natalie or anyone else.”

His eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t deny it or try to explain it. “I just hope you get something for all of your busy, Jess. All that you put yourself through.” He set his hands on the railing, squinted out over the ocean. Clouds were starting to gather again. It would be a rocky boat ride back. He smelled like cinnamon and sea air. His face had gotten tan on the trip. Looking down at her, he said, “I do love you, though. I know I sort of have the world’s crappiest way of showing it, but I do. For what it’s worth, I think a lot of people will love you. And maybe you’ll love one of them back.”

His words spattered her body with microscopic pin pricks. “I loved you.”

He stood very close to her now, his body long and solid next to her, and maybe it was just because it would be warmer to hold him, or maybe she just wanted to share this feeling with someone, even him, or maybe she wanted something to stick into her dream about nothing. Whatever the reason, she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, pulled him in to kiss her, the wind cold against her cheeks and his arms warm as they wrapped around her back.

Giacomo was gone. Not on the boat back and not on the bus now. She debated telling Francesca about the key, but maybe she’d already caused a problem. No need to draw attention to it. She fiddled with
Wicked
playing on her iPod, kept skipping songs before they finished. Restless, annoyed, she chewed a Frutella candy and folded the wrapper into tiny squares. She offered one to Kevin, who was sitting next to her. He shook his head, his eyes on the spy novel in his lap.

No more buses. No more buses. She never wanted to see the inside of a bus again. Next time she came to Italy, she would ride a bicycle along the Italian roads with the wind in her hair. She barely looked at the world outside as they hurtled down the highway toward Rome, tired even of the view out the square bus window.

Sean thought she didn’t love him. But she did. She did. She just couldn’t be one of those girlfriends who built their whole world around their boyfriends. That was too dangerous, too stupid. She had her life to think about, the life stretching out before her like a highway. No, not like a highway. Something more twisty, with bends she couldn’t see around and fallen trees and no center divider. Her future road was more like that. But she had loved him with every cell in her body, so much so that at night falling asleep, she would hold one of his shirts to her face and breathe him into her. If he couldn’t see that, couldn’t see how he had made her feel then he wasn’t paying attention and the last thing she needed was a boyfriend with some sort of emotional ADD.

“Switch me,” Dylan Thomas said, motioning for Kevin to move. Kevin barely peeled his eyes from his novel as he slid into the empty seat across the aisle. Dylan Thomas reached over and pulled her earbuds out. “You kissed Sean?”

Jessa wound the cords of the earbuds around her hand, the way a boxer must tape up his hands before a fight. “Who told you that?”

“He’s telling people.”

“Like he’s taken out an official announcement?”

“Um, he told Devon and Tim. And Kevin.” Dylan Thomas hooked a finger at Kevin.

“That’s true. He did tell me,” Kevin mumbled, still not looking up. Must be a good book.

“It was nothing.” As she said the words, she knew them instantly to be true. Nothing left there. Just a view and an island known for false promises, for escape. An attempt to conjure a love back out of a bottle that had been too tightly capped.

Dylan Thomas held her eyes. He unwrapped a stick of gum, popped it in his mouth. Chewed. “You sure?”

Jessa shrugged. She wasn’t really sure “nothing” existed—everything was about something. Carissa had said the kisses were nothing too. Maybe they meant more to her than she was willing to admit. Maybe everyone lied a little to themselves right in the moment because it was easier than looking like the one who wasn’t wanted. She had asked Jessa, “Did you love him?” Maybe Jessa should have asked Carissa the same thing. What Jessa had said was, “I don’t know anything anymore.”

She repeated this to Dylan Thomas.

“Because you are not a stupid girl. Don’t act like one.” He leaned a bit toward Kevin. “I’m going to keep this seat, OK?”

“Help yourself,” Kevin said.

“Smart girls can act stupid.” Jessa said, plugging her ears up again with her music. Turning her eyes to the sweeping caramel hills flying by outside, she whispered, “We are all more stupid than smart, I think.”

***

Reason #18 was a picture of Frodo. Well, two pictures of Frodo. One of the actual Frodo or that actor who played him—what was his name? Elijah Wood. And the other picture was of Sean’s car, the green Honda she’d named Frodo. She set the letter on the bedspread in front of her. Her last hotel room in Italy, and she wouldn’t even sleep here since they all vowed to stay up until they left for the airport.

Reason #18: This probably seems stupid now after everything else, but he is really weird about his car. You know I’m right.

Carissa was right. Sean was a freak about his car. But Jessa knew that was just a place holder, that this envelope was really about the instruction:

Let’s think about the other Frodo for a minute—the hero’s journey and all that. So think about it. What did you learn on your journey?

Jessa had checked her phone in Rome. No more texts from Carissa—total text silence from her end. She would wait Jessa out. Sighing, Jessa scanned her things, her suitcase, her dirty clothes, the presents she bought: the Murano glass frame she’d selected for her mom and dad, the leather journal for Maisy. After tucking all the ticket stubs from their museum visits and church visits into the small blue cameo bag so she could make a collage for her photo book, she picked up the cameo Madison bought her. The Three Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity. She knew she would need all three in her immediate future, supersized versions.

Someone knocked on her door. Jade poked her head in, her curls tied back at the nape of her neck. “You coming?”

“Almost done.” Jessa placed everything in her suitcase, zipped it shut. Would she really go home tomorrow, walk through the red door of her parents’ house and back into her old life? Her bed with the quilt her grandmother made her, the white furniture she had desperately wanted in seventh grade and now seemed sort of babyish, the view of the pine trees out her window, her huge calendar bulging with activities, events, responsibilities, checklists—the tried-and-true path she was laying like bricks out in front of her, solid, predictable bricks. Would everything be just as she had left it? Or would her normal life now seem foreign and strange?

Jade leaned her head against the door frame. “Ms. Jackson wants to start right at midnight. Ugh, I’m so tired.”

“Me too.” Jessa ran her hand over her closed suitcase, fingering Maisy’s little hair ribbon tied to the handle. “But we can sleep on the plane.” Jessa set her suitcase on the ground. “It will be better to just not sleep at all now.”

They had to leave for the airport at 3 a.m.

Jessa followed Jade down to the lobby. The other school group waited there, sitting on their suitcases or on the floor. Jessa didn’t see Cameron. She was probably somewhere saying good-bye to Tyler. The whole room seemed filled with shadows, people saying good-bye in dark corners.

Jade cuddled up next to Dylan Thomas, who was sitting propped against a far wall of the lobby. He whispered something to her. She laughed, brushed some hair out of his eyes. Jessa clutched her journal, searching out where they’d be meeting for their last creativity salon. Ms. Jackson and Mr. Campbell sat alone on some couches in a dimly lit room right off the lobby. She didn’t want to be the first one there.

A patch of night sky loomed outside the crescent windows above the hotel doors, and she found herself pushing through the heavy doors and out into the cool night. The air filled her lungs, the sweet smell of Italy, flowered and musty. She could hear airplanes in the distance. She wished she was on one.

“What, you bad with good-byes or something?” Dylan Thomas stood in silhouette against the open hotel door. It hushed to a close as he joined her on the sidewalk.

“I was going to say good-bye.” Her whole body began to shiver, her skin crawling with goose bumps.

“Sucks I’m missing the last salon,” he said. “But we’re leaving now. Our plane leaves soon.”

“I wish we were leaving now.”

“No you don’t.”

Jessa felt tears wetting her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Dylan Thomas moved close to her, pulled her into his sweatshirted chest. She realized she’d never hugged him before, which was weird because she was such a hugger. He smelled great. Like mint gum and aftershave, something musky and soft. He smelled the way velvet should smell.

“I’ll miss you,” he said. “You poor poet, you.”

Her breath caught; she looked up at him. “What did you say?”

He smiled, his eyes dark but full of hotel lights. “What? You’re not the only one who reads.”

Dylan Thomas took a step back. A bus idled near them. The other group filed out of the hotel, bags over shoulders, wheeling suitcases, a wilted, travel-weary brood. They’d lost a bit of the shine they’d walked into the Pantheon with that first day, but it looked good on them, the dull rub of these past ten days. Madison waved to her as she climbed on the bus, took a quick snap of a picture. Jessa waved back.

“Oh, hey,” Dylan Thomas grabbed her left wrist. “You should tell people the truth about that scar of yours. The truth is always more interesting anyway. It has rougher edges.”

“What makes you think I’m not telling the truth?” But she knew her smile gave her away.

He gave her wrist a little squeeze, his eyes warming hers. “You know how to find me.” He wiggled his phone at her.

“Bye,” she whispered as Dylan Thomas climbed on the bus behind Cameron, her face tear streaked. Jessa felt Tyler next to her, the weight of his arm on her shoulder.

“Well, that’s lugubrious,” he said, finally, as the bus pulled away.

“Lugubrious?”

“I’m trying it on for size.”

Jessa leaned into the curve of him. “It’s perfect, actually. But I don’t really see it catching on.”

Shrugging, he gave her shoulders a little squeeze, waving again to the bus disappearing into the Italian night.

***

Jade played Green Day’s “Time of Your Life,” which seemed totally perfect even if it was so completely overused in these kinds of situations. They all sang along.

“Thing is, this song is really titled ‘Good Riddance,’” Tyler whispered. Jessa gave him a good-natured poke with her elbow and sang loudly over him.

Jade finished, red cheeked, adding a little flair at the end just for fun. The room burst into applause. Next, Devon, Tim, Hillary, and Kevin did a funny scene with Tim miming a frog on a stick. Kevin played an alarmingly accurate Cruella outside the Uffizi with Hillary as the dithering, clueless Borington, who couldn’t, literally, find his ass with both hands.

“OK, OK,” Mr. Campbell said, cutting them short of an ending sure to turn inappropriate much too fast. “That’s enough of that. Accurate. But enough.” Laughing, they fell into their seats. Kevin took an extra bow, smiling at the boos and hisses.

“How very
Commedia
of you all,” Mr. Campbell said proudly.

“Next?” Ms. Jackson asked.

“I’ll go,” Jessa said, standing up. “And no drinks in the face—I promise.”

Kevin gave Sean a good-natured thump on the back. “Want my rain jacket just in case?”

Sean’s eyes locked on Jessa. He looked a little sick to his stomach.

Jessa opened her journal. “OK, so you all know that Carissa gave me those letters with all the reasons why I shouldn’t be with Sean. And number 18 is called ‘Frodo.’” A couple of whistles for Frodo sounded out. Sean’s Honda had its own little following. Jessa continued, “And this is, of course, a nod to your Frodo, Sean.” He managed a queasy smile. “But the question really is, What did I learn on my journey? Well, I learned a few things here in Italy, but one in particular that I’d like to share.”

She paused. “This is called ‘Instructions for a Broken Heart.’ And it’s for Sean.”

Sean’s smile vanished. Silence poured into the room or else all the noise, the small whispers and fidgets and feet shuffles, were sucked out suddenly with a superpowered sound vacuum.

Jessa read into the silence.

Instructions for a Broken Heart

I will find a bare patch of earth, somewhere where the ruins have fallen away, somewhere where I can fit both hands, and I will dig a hole.

And into that hole, I will scream you, I will dump all the shadow places of my heart—the times you didn’t call when you said you’d call, the way you only half listened to my poems, your eyes on people coming through the swinging door of the café—not on me—your ears, not really turned toward me. For all those times I started to tell you about the fight with my dad or when my grandma died, and you said something about your car, something about the math test you flunked, as an answer. I will scream into that hole the silence of dark nights after you’d kissed me, how when I asked if something was wrong—and something was obviously so very wrong—how you said “nothing,” how you didn’t tell me until I had to see it in the dim light of a costume barn—so much wrong. I will scream all of it.

Then I will fill it in with dark earth, leave it here in Italy, so there will be an ocean between the hole and me.

Because then I can bring home a heart full of the light patches. A heart that sees the sunset you saw that night outside of Taco Bell, the way you pointed out that it made the trees seem on fire, a heart that holds the time your little brother fell on his bike at the fairgrounds and you had pockets full of bright colored Band-Aids and you kissed the bare skin of his knees. I will take that home with me. In my heart. I will take home your final Hamlet monologue on the dark stage when you cried closing night and it wasn’t really acting, you cried because you felt the words in you and on that bare stage you felt the way I feel every day of my life, every second, the way the words, the light and dark, the spotlight in your face, made you Hamlet for that brief hiccup of a moment, made you a poet, an artist at your core. I get to take Italy home with me, the Italy that showed me you and the Italy that showed me—me—the Italy that wrote me my very own instructions for a broken heart. And I get to leave the other heart in a hole.

We are over. I know this. But we are not blank. We were a beautiful building made of stone, crumbled now and covered in vines.

But not blank. Not forgotten. We are a history.

We are beauty out of ruins.

Jessa stopped, closed her journal, turned her eyes on her silent friends. Then, Jade jumped up, threw her arms around Jessa. Over Jade’s shoulder, she saw Mr. Campbell and Ms. Jackson clapping; she saw Hillary smiling, nodding. She let her gaze slide to Sean, who sat very still on the couch, watching her with heavy, Hamlet eyes.

“OK,” Devon said, “That was kind of a downer, Jess. Can we do our scene again?”