The Gilder (4 page)

Marina rolled her eyes. “I can see I’m never going to live that one down. Thomas came to my rescue, then told me a bit of history about the flood.”

“Yes,” said Sarah, shaking her hair off her face. “You have to watch out for this one.” She indicated Thomas with a lift of her chin. “He’ll give you a full-blown history lesson if you aren’t careful. But you know”—she lowered her voice and leaned toward Marina—“what he’s really good at are all the juicy bits, the things that most people don’t know. Who was cheating on whom, artists stealing each other’s patrons, murder, treason. It’s fascinating, a bit of a medieval soap opera.”

Marina glanced at Thomas to find him looking at her intently. She blushed and turned back to Sarah.

Sarah laid her hand on his forearm and said, “Honestly, Thomas, take off the lens and join us for lunch.” Turning once again toward Marina, she continued, “Did Thomas tell you that he’s a photographer?”

“No.” Marina shook her head, then pushed her hair off her face, hooking it behind her ears, aware that it was not nearly as elegant a gesture as Sarah’s shudder, which seemed to put every coppery strand in just the right place.

“Sometimes, when he’s struck by an image, he virtually turns into a camera. I can see the look in his eyes, as if they’re actually responding to aperture settings and focal points.”

Thomas blinked. “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare, but ... your eyes, that fine ring of dark blue at the edge of your iris, it’s as if it’s holding in that pool of pale blue. Amazing. And the shape of your face—”

Sarah laughed. “Thomas, stop. You’re making her blush.” She turned to Marina. “And did I say that he’s a terrible flirt?”

Was there something in her tone, an undercurrent of warning? Marina looked from one to the other but wasn’t sure.

Thomas scowled and picked up his menu. “Let’s order.”

Sarah translated the menu, describing their favorite dishes while Thomas slouched in his chair and picked at his fingernails. After they ordered, Sarah put her elbows on the table and leaned toward Marina. “So, tell us what you’re doing here in Florence.”

Marina was not sure if it was nerves or so many days without a good conversation, but she ended up telling them her life story—how she had grown up in New York an art brat, then fallen in love with Florence as an adolescent, eventually giving up on her mother’s promise to bring her to Italy and funding the trip herself by working as a waitress. Laughing, she told them about ending up at the seaside by mistake and her middle-of-the-night arrival. She’d found a language class that was about to start, and was registered for a gilding and restoration course. Now the only thing missing was an apartment.

Marina took a breath, then realized the food had arrived and Sarah and Thomas were well into their tortellini. Her own fork was in her hand, so she stopped talking and twirled it in the nest of angel-hair pasta that was dressed in a pink sauce laced with mushrooms and pancetta.

Sarah put down her fork and wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of peachy lipstick on the white napkin. “It sounds to me like you plan to stay on here after the gilding course is finished.”

Marina nodded her head emphatically as she chewed, then swallowed. “That’s my plan. I’m hoping to find an artisan who will take me on as an apprentice.”

Sarah and Thomas exchanged glances. Thomas, who hadn’t said a word through dinner, put down his fork and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, and I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I’ve been in Florence a long time and I’ve never seen a female apprentice anywhere.”

Thomas’s statement lay on the table between them like a deflated balloon, but Marina just shrugged, dipped her fork back into the pasta, and, with more conviction than she felt, said, “Then, I guess I’ll have to be the first.”

Marina spent the next few days immersed in the collection of gilded furniture and objets d’art at the Pitti Palace. The palace, commissioned by a Florentine banker in an attempt to outshine the Medici family, was an exercise in excess, every inch of its interior embellished with gold, frescos, mosaic, or tapestries, a grandiosity that distracted her from the furniture and frames she wanted to study. Adding to this frustration were the velvet ropes that, once again, kept her at a distance from the details she wanted to experience firsthand, forcing her instead to consult the catalogues for details she’d rather touch. Her fingertips ached for the burnished surfaces, but she knew it would be foolish to attempt an escapade like the one in Santa Croce.

Typically, after two or three hours, sensory overload set in and Marina would head for the palace garden feeling light-headed and slightly nauseated, as if she’d eaten too many sweets. In the Boboli Gardens, a potentially overwhelming eleven acres of manicured flowerbeds, hedgerows, fountains, statues, and even an amphitheatre, Marina managed to find a stone bench in the crook of a lush pathway. She sat there, taking deep breaths as if surfacing from a long dive. The spring sun warmed crisp shadows and carried the scent of apple blossoms across the plump heads of tulips and daffodils. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to be able to spend her time among such treasures, things she had only read about, fantasized about working on. It seemed too good to be true, and she wished she had someone to talk to, someone to affirm her good fortune, to confirm that she deserved it, to reflect her joy. Turning her face to the sun, she inhaled the sweet air, then once replenished, plunged back into her gilded world.

A few days after their first meeting, Marina found a note from Sarah and Thomas waiting for her at the
pensione.

Meet us for dinner tomorrow at Anita’s. S&T

She had not seen Sarah and Thomas since their lunch together, although she’d kept an eye out for them in the streets, hoping she might run into them as she walked from her
pensione
to the Pitti Palace. The note had not said at what time to meet and she had no way of getting in touch with them. Dinner, she knew, was a late affair, with people often sitting down to eat as late as ten o’clock. While she appreciated the leisurely rhythm of the city, the long lunch hour followed by an afternoon siesta and then the reluctant resurgence in late afternoon as the shopkeepers lifted metal gates and shutters for the last few hours of business, she wasn’t sure she could wait that late to eat. She would just have to guess at a time and hope she wouldn’t look stupid hanging around outside the restaurant. In the end, she decided on eight thirty and was saved from potential embarrassment when she saw Sarah and Thomas disappearing through the doorway of the restaurant just as she rounded the corner.

Sarah greeted her with an enthusiastic embrace and Thomas kissed her on both cheeks.

“I’ve found you an apartment!” Sarah announced as they settled at the table, her eyes sparkling. “It’s on our side of town, in Via Luna. Moon Street, isn’t that lovely? It belongs to my friend’s parents. Marcello says you can see it tomorrow.”

Thomas was enthusiastic. “It’s on the ground floor in what used to be a workshop. The whole street was workshops at one time, but I think almost all of them have been converted to apartments. It’s a tiny little street, a dead end. No traffic.”

Marina looked from one to the other. She hardly knew these people. She had not even started her classes yet. The words “Moon Street,” “workshops,” “no traffic” echoed in her head. “Wow, I don’t know what to say.”

Sarah reached over and squeezed Marina’s hand. “It sounds great. Marcello says it has two rooms, so maybe you could set one up as a workroom and the other as a bedroom /sitting room. And, of course, it has a kitchen and bath.”

“I think it may have a garden as well,” Thomas added.

He ordered a bottle of wine, and Marina allowed them to sweep her up in the celebration. They ate gnocchi in a creamy Gorgonzola sauce, followed by veal scallops cooked in butter and lemon, and at Thomas’s insistence, the three of them shared a plate of tiramisu to finish.

They wanted to hear about everything Marina had done since their lunch together, each of them volleying questions at her in a way that came to feel a bit like they were verbally elbowing each other out of the way, vying for her attention. When dinner arrived, Thomas engaged her in a lengthy conversation about photography, which Marina knew something about, having been the photographer for her high school paper. But by the second course, Sarah had turned the conversation back to Marina’s life, and the two women chatted easily as if they’d been friends for years while Thomas grew quiet, seemingly absorbed in his meal, although she caught him staring at her more than once.

She agreed to meet them the next morning at their apartment, from where they would proceed to Via Luna to see the apartment. When they parted, Sarah hugged Marina tightly and kissed her on both cheeks, her excitement palpable. Marina wondered if she was always this friendly but couldn’t help feeling flattered. Thomas stood off to the side, watching, then gave her a lingering embrace that seemed to include the press of his hips, but she couldn’t be sure. He had one final instruction on finding their apartment. “It’s the bottom bell. There’s no name.”

Marina found their street adjacent to the church of Santa Croce. A narrow sidewalk ran along the base of the tall, shuttered apartment buildings, but it was easier to walk in the street. If the buildings had been brownstones, with leafy trees planted at regular intervals, it could have been Greenwich Village. Joey’s Bakery would be up ahead, and Elsa would be sitting on a stoop, smoothing her collection of fabric scraps, her shopping cart heaped with rags. Marina passed a small
latteria
that sold milk and cheese, and a tiny bar with a clientele of toothless, white-haired men who sat on rickety chairs heatedly debating some topic. Out of nowhere, a wave of homesickness swept over her, and she blinked back the sting of tears. “You are in Florence,” she admonished herself. “This is your dream. Get a grip!” It wasn’t so much a longing for home as it was apprehension. Having the dream was one thing, but having it manifest was another, and things seemed to be moving quickly. She’d met her first friends and they seemed genuinely interested in her, her language course was about to start, and she was going to look at an apartment to rent. But what if she’d dreamed the wrong dream? Taken the wrong path? How would she know?

She found the number Sarah had given her and stood on the sidewalk looking up at the building, a sheer façade of gray stone with skinny windows. Larger than those surrounding it, it was without balconies or decorative elements of any kind. The entrance was a set of doors painted poppy red, each with a heavy iron handle. To the right of the doorway, set into the stone, was a highly polished brass plate with seven bells, running from top to bottom. Each bell had a name alongside it except the bottom one. Marina pushed the button. A moment later, the buzzer sounded and the latch released. Stepping through the doorway, Marina found herself in a cool, dark vestibule. A set of wide stone steps with a wrought iron handrail was dimly lit by light filtering down from a skylight on the top floor. As Marina looked up, she heard Sarah’s voice echo down the stairwell.

“Come up. We’re on the second floor.”

Marina climbed to the landing where Sarah stood like a flower blooming in a cracked pavement against the backdrop of gray stone and drab walls. The ankle-length Indian dress reminded Marina of the hippies at NYU, except this dress, with its heavy celadon skirt and multicolored woven bodice, had an air of authenticity. Sarah’s hair was caught up in a bright silk scarf fringed with tiny mirrored discs, and enameled earrings hung from her ears like miniature chandeliers. In her jeans, boots, and sweater, Marina felt as dull as the stone floor, but at least she had on her Guatemalan sweater, which she hoped counted for something, if not style, a progressive attitude or something to that effect.

Sarah took her hand and pulled her into the apartment as if she were a reluctant child on the first day of kindergarten, which was actually not far off, since Marina had been wrestling with doubts the whole way there. After all, she didn’t know these people, and while she was intrigued and attracted, if for no other reason than they were interested in her, she had sworn not to get sucked into the ex-pat scene. But she was here, and the room in which they now stood was amazing. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. The room was at least forty feet long, with a high ceiling and two sets of French doors that opened onto a terrace. Oriental rugs were scattered like stepping-stones across the tiled floor, and large abstract paintings and framed black-and-white photographs covered the walls. At the far end of the room, a bed was partially visible through an archway draped with a red velvet swag.

Marina turned in a circle. “Wow. This is beautiful. I didn’t realize there’d be so much light. From the street it looks like the building hardly has any windows.”

Sarah’s earrings jingled. “I know. Everyone’s surprised. But this was a convent at one time. I guess the nuns didn’t want the outside world peeping into their holy space. Most of the windows face the courtyard.”

Marina followed Sarah onto the terrace.

“This is great.” Marina took in the terrace’s wide expanse, the iron railing covered in vines, large pots of geraniums, mismatched metal and wooden garden furniture.

“It’s a bit of a mess right now.” Sarah waved her hand across the air in front of her. “I’m behind with my gardening. Thomas has a show coming up, he’s at his studio now, and it’s taking up all my time. Between organizing the invitations, food, and flowers, I haven’t had a second. Honestly, I can’t figure out why we give the gallery such a large percentage when all they do is provide the space.” She sighed, pinched a dried geranium head from its bright green stalk, then touched Marina’s shoulder. “We should go. Marcello will be waiting for us.”

The two women walked along the street, where every few blocks Sarah greeted someone with a wave and smile, or a few words, all the while keeping up a running commentary about the people they passed. “That’s our neighbor’s daughter. She’s about to have twins, but her husband still chases anything in a skirt. Then he runs home to Mama when they fight about it.” She pointed out her favorite shops and the bar where she had coffee.