Seeking Sara Summers (12 page)

The light seemed different in Tuscany. Brighter, more alive. A group of students with sketch pads were set up on the corner to capture the architecture in their drawings. The clatter of dishes echoed in the back room of the café. Sara looked around for the young waiter who was nowhere in sight. Music floated in from the street corner. Even accordion music sounded romantic here. The musician played a tarantella, then
Hello Dolly
, perhaps to attract tips from American tourists.

The feeling in Europe was totally different from what Sara had experienced in the States. In America there was still the sense of the frontier. A town was considered historic if it had been in existence for a hundred years. In Italy, buildings had been standing for many centuries. Layers of history dwelled on every city block. Walls surrounded the city, with tracts of farmland inside, so that when medieval enemies attacked, the city could be self-sufficient.

The young waiter returned again and this time brought Sara a bowl of fresh strawberries. “Are you sure you won’t get in trouble with your boss for this?” she asked, motioning toward the strawberries.

He leaned closer and smiled. “I am the owner,” he said. He winked at her and bowed again.

Sara’s face reddened to the color of the strawberries. The waiter hesitated before walking away and then turned to look directly at her. “I take a break soon. Would you take a walk with me?”

“Pardon?” Sara asked.

He started to repeat himself but she stopped him. “I’m sorry, I heard you. I just didn’t expect you to say that.” His expression turned from hopeful to confused. “Have I insulted you, Madam?”

“No, you’ve flattered me, actually. It’s just that I’m married.”

He shrugged, as if this were a minor detail. “I was just suggesting a walk,” he said. “My name is Antonio.” He extended his hand for her to shake. It was warm and slightly sweaty.

A moment of awkwardness followed. What harm would a walk do? she thought. She agreed and Antonio smiled and excused himself. When he returned his apron was gone and he was wearing a white shirt with an open-necked collar that revealed a chest full of dark hair. Nestled within the forest of hair was a gold medallion of the Virgin Mary. Sara averted her eyes so she wouldn’t stare. She couldn’t seem to get away from the holy virgin these days. But she was certain she was the only virgin between them.

Antonio held the door open for her as they walked out into the streets of Siena. They immediately settled into a stroll that would have gotten them plowed down by other pedestrians if they were in the States.

“What brings you to Italy?” he asked.

“I’m visiting an old friend,” Sara said.

“Man or woman?”

“A woman. We were girls together.”

“Why is your friend not here with you?”

“She had to go into Florence today for business.”

“Pity,” he said. “Is she as beautiful as you?”

Sara smiled and touched the scarf around her neck. Even if it was just a line she loved it. They continued to walk, avoiding the occasional bicycle. When they reached Il Campo, the city square, they stopped. It was a sunny day, in the low 70s. A sea of people had washed up on the sandy stonework. Tourists mingled with locals, who ate their lunch and soaked in the sun.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said, a line she had found herself saying or thinking frequently while in Italy.

He nodded, as if proud of his home. “I have lived here my entire life,” he said.

“Do you ever think about living somewhere else?” she asked.

“Never,” he said. “I love it here.”

Sara couldn’t imagine what it was like to live somewhere that you loved.

They took a narrow side street and stopped to watch a cobbler repairing a shoe in his small shop. The door was open wide, letting the fresh air inside. The old man sat on a stool at a wooden table. Dozens of pairs of shoes and boots hung on wooden hooks along the wall. Antonio waved to the old man, who returned the wave.

“He’s been doing that for fifty years,” Antonio said. “Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.”

“I read somewhere that the average American changes jobs seven times,” Sara said.

“Is that true?” he asked.

Sara nodded.

“That is very different from here,” he said.

They began to walk again and took another turn into a more residential area.

“Would you like to see where I live?” Antonio asked. His expression was innocent enough, Sara thought, even if his intention was not.

Sara hesitated. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She was walking through Siena with a man who was a stranger only an hour before, contemplating going to his apartment. Was this somehow the anti-venom to being physically attracted to her best friend?

She was a woman in her 40s who had only slept with one person her entire life. That was practically archaic these days. Did a person like her sleep with total strangers? Of course, he hadn’t exactly asked her to do that. But why else would he ask her to see where he lived? Did he want to show her his infamous etchings?

They climbed the narrow steps to Antonio’s small fourth floor apartment. With each step she analyzed the situation. She had never been unfaithful to Grady. She had never even fantasized about being unfaithful. But what better way to pull yourself from the edge of extinction, she thought, than having a romp with a beautiful Italian man in Siena.

Antonio opened the door to his apartment and the air went out of Sara’s fantasy. Dirty dishes were stacked high in the sink. Clothes pungent with perspiration lined the floor. In contrast to the enormous mess, the most resplendent feature of the room was the bed. It was positioned directly in front of a large window and appeared to possess clean sheets, a fact she found both disturbing and heartening.

Antonio walked across the room and opened the window. Fresh air chased away her second thoughts. She stepped over a mound of dirty clothes to look outside. Life was abundant on the street below. Plants in terra-cotta pots crowded the window boxes. Pigeons had built nests in the porticoes. The smell of sautéed garlic rose from a lower apartment. With the breeze and the sounds of life outside, Sara inhaled deeply, as if she had been invited to make love to the city itself.

Antonio stepped closer. Within seconds his tongue was probing Sara’s mouth. She tried to forget about the dirty, sweaty laundry brushing up against her ankles. A faint taste of garlic traveled on his breath and Sara wondered briefly if Antonio had a girlfriend who would arrive later and cook his dinner. Or perhaps even a mother. Antonio deftly removed her scarf and tossed it on another mound of dirty white shirts on the back of a chair. Then he unbuttoned the top button of her blouse.

“Wait!” Sara said. Antonio jumped slightly, as if she had scared him. In her reinventing of herself she had forgotten the pink elephant in the room: she only had one breast. She imagined him horrified or disgusted by this fact. Or like Grady, he may just pretend the scar wasn’t there. At any rate, it was something she had not planned on.

Antonio watched her, a coy smile on his face. “Is there something bothering you?”

“I can’t,” Sara said. “My friends are waiting for me.” Sara buttoned the top of her blouse, grabbed her scarf from the back of the chair and retied it. Then she stepped over the clothes to an island at the door where she could actually see the floor.

“But we were having such a good time,” Antonio smiled.

“The walk was wonderful,” Sara said, “and you’ve been very sweet, but . . . .” 

“But what?” He reached out to her, the Virgin Mary swinging briefly before nestling back into the fur of his chest.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” she said.

Antonio followed Sara down the stairs and they walked without speaking to the central parking lot where Sara had left Max and Melanie’s car.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, as she unlocked the car.

He suddenly seemed much younger. “No,” Sara said. “It’s just not a good time.”

“I’d like to see you again,” he said. The afternoon sun revealed the perfection of his twenty-something skin.

“I know where to find you,” Sara said. Did she really say that? His dejected look prompted her to kiss him on the cheek before getting into her car. He stuck his hands in his pockets and watched her as she drove away.

Sara followed the road back to Max and Melanie’s and turned down their long dirt and gravel driveway. Her thoughts were still reeling from the events of the day when she parked and walked through the courtyard. She stopped at the Madonna in stone and smiled remembering the gold necklace dangling from Antonio’s neck. Sara placed her hand in the stone virgin’s upturned palm, as if to pay homage to the earthy deity. “Are you the one responsible for all this craziness?” Sara asked thoughtfully. But at least there were no witnesses to her most recent debacle.

Sara was already doing things in Italy that were totally out of character, as her daughter Jess would say. But how far was she willing to go with this exercise in character development?

CHAPTER TWELVE

Later that evening Sara dressed for dinner. Her usual earth-tone outfit was set off by the red scarf that she had purchased in Siena. Sara looked in the mirror and arranged it the way the young woman in the dress shop had shown her and pronounced herself ready.

Sara joined everyone downstairs and Max handed her a glass of wine. Julia had returned and had good news. A gallery in Rome was interested in her paintings. She told them all the details and they toasted to her success.

“What a beautiful scarf,” Julia said, as they moved from the living room to the dining room. Julia fondled the folds of the silk. Sara had done her best to not get too close to Julia for fear that she would discover that she was still attracted to her.

“I can’t believe I bought something so bold,” Sara said.

“Bold suits you,” Julia said.

Sara glanced at Julia, smiled, and then looked away. Bold can get a person in trouble, she thought. She remembered Antonio’s apartment and shuddered slightly.

They had an exquisite dinner in the large dining room and then returned to the living room, another glass of wine in hand. That made three glasses in the last hour and a half and she was beginning to feel it. She and Julia sat on opposite ends of a large sofa. The evening had cooled and there was a small fire in the fireplace.

“So when was the last time you two saw each other?” Max asked.

“When I was sixteen, my father got a teaching job in England and we moved away,” Julia said.

“Our little town hasn’t been the same without you,” Sara said.

“I haven’t been the same without our little town,” Julia said. “I felt really bad about leaving.” 

“Did you?” Sara asked. For some reason Sara had never considered that the move would have been hard for Julia.

“Of course,” Julia said. “I was heartbroken. I was leaving my best friend.”

Max opened another bottle of wine and filled Sara’s glass again. “This one was a gift from friends who own a vineyard to the north of us. I think you’ll like it.”

Sara thanked him, loosened her scarf, and took off her shoes. She slid her feet up under a sofa cushion, a gesture that would be more typical of Julia than her. The small fire crackled in the stone fireplace. Max and Melanie were easy to be with, as easy as Italy was to visit. Despite a few moments of terror, Sara was starting to relax here. Maybe a little too much.

A surge of heat rose to her face, followed by a mild panic, which historically announced the beginnings of a full-fledged hot flash. Sara made her apologies and exited to the garden. She took off her scarf and unbuttoned the top two buttons on her blouse.

Seconds later, Julia joined her. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“A menopausal moment, I think.” Sara fanned herself with her scarf. The sky was clear, overrun with stars; the night air crisp, yet still. The three-quarter moon lit up portions of the courtyard.

“You seem awfully young to be getting hot flashes,” Julia said.

“Thank you for that,” Sara said.

The light from the house cast window-sized rectangles on the stone courtyard. The fountain, in the shadows, gurgled its constant presence.

Sara dropped her scarf on the bench. It had gotten her in enough trouble for one day. Her heartbeat accelerated. She rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, dabbing at the sweat forming in the valley of her chest.

“I haven’t had one of these in a while,” Sara said. “It’s probably the wine. I never drink this much.”

“What can I do?” Julia asked, concern in her voice.

“Nothing. I think it’s almost over.” Sara walked through the shadows and sat next to the fountain. She patted her neck with cool water, as if it were an elixir for what troubled her. The flash of heat made a crescendo and then faded away. She began to feel normal again and offered Julia a faint smile.

Sara looked up into the night full of stars that had no city lights to detract from them.

“Star light, star bright,” Sara began.

Julia smiled her recognition. “Do you have a wish?”

Sara closed her eyes. She rejected the first wish that came to her, which was to stay in Italy forever. Her second wish was more in line with the
old
Sara. “Yes, I have one,” Sara said, opening her eyes.

“Wait,” Julia said. “We need to do this right.” Julia took Sara’s hand and they closed their eyes like they had as girls and released their wishes into the universe. “What did you wish for?” Julia asked.

“I’m not falling for that one again,” Sara said. “I want it to come true.”

They laughed at the interplay between past and present, and then watched the stars a little longer. The half moon cast a dim light over the courtyard.

“I feel better now,” Sara said. “We can go back inside if you want.”

“Are you sure?” Julia said.

“I’m sure,” Sara said. “Now I have a more pressing problem.” She picked up her scarf and tied it around her shoulders.