When in Rome

Prologo

September 2019

Today is different for so many reasons, but chiefly this: the city has decided, as she has, that Rome is precisely where she is supposed to be.

Claire will try to communicate this to Monica. Best of friends for thirty-four years, business partners for thirty; they're telepathic, or should be, but these past weeks since Claire left the States for the second time, it's been messy, and it's taken Claire a while to sort things out.

But now they are. They weren't last month. Not even last week. But today, Claire's changed. Inside. Outside. Thanks to Rome. She has its key in her pocket. After this past summer, it's her city now.

Except this one part-this one corner bar, the counter where you stand to sip the espresso you painstakingly ordered (not knowing that simply asking for a caffè would get you the same thing), at this bar, the narrow counter feels like the province of men. She's never seen a woman standing there, not dressed as she is. But today, Claire stands, orders, waits, and studies the wall behind, where shelves bear not syrups but spirits.

Paolo, the barista, starts to smile at her as he always does, like they were lovers once but parted on good terms. Today, though, he catches himself.

"Signorina," he says. "You look different!" She smiles. "You look good!" He smiles.

They have tried, and try, different things. Signora, which feels too old. Suora, which isn't quite right, but still causes her to swoon slightly, because the word, short as it is, has sweep, and whenever he said it, she felt like he'd just dipped her to the floor.

So, Signorina-but it's too jangly and bright and diminutive. And also too young; it's impossible for him to say it to her without a smile. Some weeks ago, she'd finally offered him her name, which he accepted and then never used. Too intimate, apparently. But for her to use his felt, and apparently was, totally natural.

"Paolo," she says. She would like Monica to meet Paolo. She would like Monica to meet everyone she's met in Rome. Maybe then Monica would understand. Claire tries explaining this to Paolo, but it's no use, and she retreats, condenses. I would like you to meet an old friend of mine, she wants to say, but, like always, her limited fluency truncates this into something more emphatic. Meet my old friend.

Paolo peers around her, as though the friend is there.

No, no: she waves her hands to erase what she's said. Too late.

"How many grandchildren does your friend have?" Paolo replies, and smiles again.

The smile discounts the jab, but still, she's surprised: Google told her earlier that vecchia amica means-

"Very old friend, yes," Paolo says in English.

"No, like 'good friend.' Not old. Fifty-two."

Paolo says the next part with his eyes-fifty-two is plenty old-and then shrugs, says he would like to meet her. Now his real work begins. He taps the coffee scoop clean. Back in the States, the signature sound of the coffee bar is not the hiss of the espresso machine but the hammering of the scoop to clear it of old grounds. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Hammering, hammering, as though the baristas were building a house or recycling steel.

When it was the other way around, when it was Claire correcting Paolo's English and not him her Italian, the word in question was fluffy. That's how he'd described another customer's voice once.

"Her voice, this is very fluffy."

"No, Paolo, fluffy means 'soft' and 'light.' Airy. Gentle."

"So I am right?" Paolo had said or meant. In English, what he'd said was, so I am precise? And Claire had laughed because absolutely nothing in her life then, least of all Rome, was precise. Everything, from the final cab fare to the number of tomatoes or cherries-or, really, precisely what would finally wind up in her market bag-to her confidence that, at age fifty-two, she'd finally, fully decided how to spend every day of the rest of her life, was approximate.

Paolo's smile is active now, lit from within. He has told her his age-forty-five-and she does not believe him. He looks to be her daughter's age. Dorothy is twenty-nine. Paolo is maybe thirty. Thirty-five. But when he smiles like this, he is no longer thirty-five, nor even forty-five. He is the right age.

"What do you call your grandmother?" he jokes. "When does she arrive?" He slides the saucer and tiny cup to her, and after that, a small, elegant caddy of sugar packets, which is the only time the two older men at the other end of the short counter look up. Claire returns the caddy unused, and they look away, satisfied. Italians everywhere cascade sugar into their coffee, but Paolo takes pride in his product-impossible to improve what God has already sweetened, is the gist of it-and so sugar is not the custom here. That said, sugar was always provided to her without complaint during early visits. Indeed, without a single word. Then after she'd tipped yet another sugar packet into yet another espresso, Paolo held up a finger, made her a second cup, and asked her to try that one without sugar: no amaro, he said, giving each syllable more than its due, and she'd blushed, having confused the word bitter for love.

If only Monica really was coming. Claire has outpaced her Italian skills, made musing fact. Claire's been daydreaming, pretending, and now Paolo seems to think Monica really is en route.

Claire will believe this, too, then. She has found that Rome can favor imagination over reality, and that acquiescence to this can serve her.

Paolo has been staring at her for some time, which is unusual, or would be until Claire realizes that she's not answered his question.

"My grandmother?" Claire says.

"Your friend," Paolo says. "Her name is what?"

"Monica," Claire says.

"Ah, Monica," Paolo says. "The mother of Saint Augustine."

Claire did not realize that life in Rome would involve such constant reference to theology, history, art history, philosophy, the lives of the saints. It's strange she didn't anticipate this, of course, because these things are such constant companions here. It would drive her churchless daughter Dorothy batty. Back in the United States, if the Starbucks barista spoke to Claire at all, it wouldn't be about a fourth-century Doctor of the Church, even if that barista was busily scribbling Augusteen on a cup. In Rome, on the other hand, grand references blossom every day. Not just during conversations with Paolo, but on the sidewalk, at the market. Buying turnips earlier occasioned a brief discussion of Nero.

Another sip, two. The foamy crema on top is so sweet she worries she's forgotten herself and put the sugar in anyway.

Monica would say, add a cup of sugar, what the hell, or Monica would tell her not to, what are you thinking? But what Claire's been thinking lately is that Monica's been telling her what to do for thirty years in matters large and small. It helps, and does not, that Monica is usually right.

Claire lifts the cup, but it's only the dregs now. She's seen people-men, women, Italian, not-spoon up the final drops, but she worries it will betray too great a need, and besides, it doesn't make the moment last longer. That's the problem. She's not found a way to make the tiny espressos endure. It's her only sadness about these moments with Paolo or at any other counter in the city. Too brief. But that's what it's all about. People think-she thought-Italy was all about the lack of speed, about slowness, but plenty happens fast here. Speech. Scooters. A tazzina of espresso.

Changing your life.

"Oh!" Paolo says, misinterpreting Claire's silence as reticence. "Your friend, she is bringing a man with her?" He switches back to his sad smile. "I am understanding now."

"No," Claire says, and it is a moment before she herself understands. The thought of untangling this is exhausting, and so she doesn't, but it gives her an idea. She tells Paolo ciao, he gives her outfit one more look, up and down, and then she's out the door.

She walks, imagines finding Monica's face in the crowd. Monica would take one look at Claire, the smile on her face, and tell her, yes, this is perfectly right!

No, knowing Monica, she wouldn't.

But if Monica did, then everything-what Claire's done, will do here in Rome-will feel right.

It doesn't, not yet.

All along the way, people look at her, and some men even nod, duck their heads.

A discovery, an omen: gifts have been left for someone (for her?) all along Via Cavour. Books. She sees the first, an Italian paperback, Il Manoscritto Incompiuto, its cover a woman reading. The paperback is on the sidewalk outside a shoe store. Her initial thought is that someone has dropped it, but it's been too carefully placed; it's resting against the building just so. She picks it up, crosses the street, sees a tiny door left ajar-an ancient access panel for water or
electricity?-and in here are shelved three more books. She's alert to them now; someone has seeded the entire walk with books. They are in planters, windows, idling beneath menu boards. It's like a secret passage through the city. Outside a hostel's entrance door there's an empty niche and she decides her book belongs there. There's magic enough in this city to share.

She follows the trail to Piazza dei Cinquecento, waits for the green walk signal, doesn't panic when it changes to yellow after just a few seconds, and finally reaches the other side. She smiles. It is impossible to cross a Roman street successfully and not feel favored by fortune.

Before her, Rome's main train station, Termini. She joins the flow of people flooding in. There's a glass-walled bookstore, bright and busy, just to her left, and she catches a glimpse of her reflection.

She can't help but pause, and so misses seeing everyone, but most especially Monica, who is, impossibly, here.

In Italy. In Rome. At Termini.

Claire misses seeing Monica approach, seeing Monica see her, seeing Monica's face fall.

By the time Claire looks up, Monica wears something like a smile.

Claire's shock is total-Monica is here, really here-and Claire does the only thing she can think to do, which is throw open her arms for a hug.

People turn.

Monica shakes her head but leans in for the embrace, and when she speaks, still deep in the hug, it's muffled, because her words must work their way through so much fabric. Claire can't see everyone else yet, but she can hear Monica's question clearly.

"Why the fuck," Monica says, "are you dressed as a nun?"

Part I

Four Months Earlier

i. Old Campus

Rome waited for her Monday, but tonight was Saturday, and Claire was in New Haven, Connecticut, at her thirtieth college reunion. One night, one person she wanted to see, ten lies told before she did.


One. “You haven’t changed. You look wonderful.”

Not a difficult lie; many classmates did look wonderful. But she couldn't help noticing that those who looked most wonderful were the ones who did look different. The women who'd gone gray, the men who'd gone bald, everyone who'd settled into their skin and was doing no more for their skin than grinning into the showerhead each morning.

Claire wasn't alone in the lie; many people had told her that she looked radiant, or happy, or exactly as she'd looked when they'd last seen her, thirty years ago. None of this could be true. She wasn't radiant, or happy, and she hoped she didn't look the way she had the last time most of her Yale classmates had seen her, which was red-faced and crying, running from a stage the night before graduation.


Two. “Marcus? Sardeson? I’ve not thought about him in years.”

False. Marcus was-

Is-

Oh, just read the Class Book.