Chapter 11: More Like Her
"You're weird."
I smiled as I passed by a stand of sunflowers on the way to the post office.
"I am weird. It turns you on though, doesn't it?"
Her response was delayed, so I attributed it to her concentration on a painting, something I'd never found very interesting at all, but I respected her brilliant eye with art and waited.
Finally, she said, "It does. Remember that for when you see me again."
She made it sound like that would be months. I grinned and turned the corner as our conversation slowly ended with gentle goodbye's, coming directly in front of the post office a second later. It didn't take long to ship the bound chapters of the book, and they promised it would be out of Naples and on a plane to New York before five o'clock, which I was especially grateful for.
I assumed, knowing my wife and her rare indulgence in fine art, that it would be a while. So I left the postal store and took a walk around the block I was already on, eyeing every stand of cloth, flora, jewels, trinkets and pirated DVD's I came across. It was an interesting market square, full of a different kind of life than the village we were staying in, and especially different from home life. There were gypsies here, bootleggers, sailors and farmers alike, all selling their goods and most likely their souls in the process. And yet, that was what was so beautiful about this corner of the world to me, and so suddenly too.
I had no intention of stopping or purchasing anything, until I saw something sparkle dangerously inside of the window to an antique shop at the next curve. My eyes followed my mind's turning, and with a clear view before me, I took in the spectacular little necklace perched in a case in the glass eyelet box. It was old, undoubtedly old, but magnificent, simple, beautiful and entirely too much like my wife not to go inside and make an inquiry.
I knew Roxanne, she didn't like gaudy, expensive jewelry, because she never wore it or asked for it. But this, especially when I got inside and had the shop owner lift it from its box in the window for me to see closer, was something special. He explained (in broken English thankfully) that it had been a piece he retrieved from a merchant sailor almost fifty years ago, on the coast of Sicily. The sailor had been gifted the necklace through the death of his wife, who had inherited it from her mother, and back three generations of Italians before it led to a single set of revolutionary lovers. It had been one of the first things to come to his antique store here, after it had sat in his wife's jewelry box, unworn, for thirty of those fifty years. And as he claimed, a thousand or more customers had asked to see it over the last twenty years, and never left with it on.
That was about to change.
The tiny oval locket settled in my palm, glowed with the sun outside, and I ran my finger over the engravings on the back and front, of a small bird and of a date and initials: M.H.S. 8-1-1845.
With or without knowing the full history behind it, the necklace had meant something to two lovers at one point in time, and that was where the connection grabbed me hard and made me thrown down plastic for the vintage, ancient silver.
"For a lover, eh signor?"
I smiled crookedly and tucked the necklace into the pocket of my coat before signing the receipt.
"My lover. My wife, yes."
He chuckled with his thick gut behind the counter and twisted his mustache goofily at me.
"A good gift, yes. You get-a something a-special tonight…"
"Ha, yeah if I play my cards right signore."
He nodded ferociously with a wild grin and waved me off when I stormed out of the shop to make it to the café before she finished at the gallery and beat me to it. Luckily, all of my hurried walking down the street paid off, because I made it to the restaurant a block back without a single sign of her. Hell, I even managed to get a table on the corner and in the middle of the cobblestone square facing the museum and fountain, place an order for a bottle of Chianti and look over the menu three times before finally realizing that I was a nervous wreck, like she always accused me of being.
I was fidgeting like I was on a first date, but not because I was anxious for myself, more so because it was taking her what felt like forever to show up. A hundred thoughts flew through my mind, all things involving our difficulties in the States and how those troubles might have now begun to manifest themselves here, where I thought it was safe.
I tapped my fingers on the table, sipped at the wine furiously and darted my eyes between distant buildings and streets, keeping a clear view of every possible direction she might come from. And in the middle of this chaos and the freakish storm my mind was rushing into, I felt a soft hand on my shoulder that calmed me, soothed me instantly, and I looked back with a contented smile.
But it wasn't my usual contentment staring back down at me.
"Signore Rainey."
The eyes, the smile, the face were all familiar, and yet my stress refused to allow me to place them correctly.
"We met at the market in Positano, yesterday?"
I focused on the girl looking down at me, her blackened, soft curls framing her brown eyes and cherry lips. I knew then who it was, where I'd seen her, and why those eyes were suffocating me again.
"Yes, oh yes of course, I apologize. How are you, Catalina right?"
"Yes, good. And you…" she stopped for a moment, examining my face as she slowly came to stand on the other side of the table, looking upon me, "…you look not so good."
"Oh, I'm just a little worried. My wife is taking forever and a day to meet me."
I watched her gaze turn to the streets, as if she were searching out a woman she'd never seen before, curious all of a sudden of who she might be and where. I looked too, but had to admit that I mostly did it to keep my eyes off of Catalina, this oddly tantalizing young woman.
"I don't see her."
I looked at her with a twisted brow, confused and anxious at her conclusion.
"You don't know what she looks like though."
"Well," she began, taking a seat across from me and leaning, watching the passer bys. "I know she must be the most beautiful woman in this market right now. And I see only ordinary women. You would not be married to an ordinary woman, Signore Rainey."
Her accent and words made me smile and calm a little more as I listened to her theory intently.
"The girl you love must have eyes that can be seen from a mile away, yes?"
I nodded, grinned.
"And she must surely have a smile like yours. One that makes people stop and stare?"
Shy and bashful, no so unlike my own daughter, I let my face hang low with a tight smirk at her compliment.
"Your wife must, how you Americans say, 'break hearts'?"
"Break hearts, yes." I replied, confused.
"She must make all the men in Naples green-eyed today. Envious of you. The way all Italian women are envious of her."
Her flattery was adorable, I'll give her that, but I was well beyond the point of flattery from any woman. It didn't work on me, the charm of it, the romanticism was petty in comparison to what I had going for me with my wife and kids and the home I'd built somewhere else. But it was entrancing for a short time, entertaining even, until Roxanne would show.
I sat and chatted with Catalina for what felt like forever, over the city of Naples, other places that I should visit, and especially over her adoration for particular books of mine. She was a fan and I was indebted to her on some level because of it. I just wasn't sure what she was after, the way she looked at me at certain points in the conversation, or the way she touched my hand softly on the table. I took it as a gesture of the culture and brushed it off, kindly of course.
But I wasn't an idiot, I saw something in her eyes I hadn't seen that clearly in a woman's eyes in a long time. I just loathed admitting to myself what it really was. So I ignored it all blatantly and let the complimentary smiles and touches go on as they may.
Eventually, I believe she tired of it herself though, "I must go and meet my friend at the market. I do hope your wife shows up soon for you."
"Yes, me too, thank you for stopping by to say hi."
She smiled briefly, before leaning down over the table and placing a gentle kiss on each of my cheeks. I felt her linger, I know what a lingering woman's lips feels like, and it was mostly definitely an unnerving, double linger.
Let it go buddy, relax, let her run along, I told myself, stopped myself from doing anything stupid as we men usually manage to do in these instances, and I let her slowly move away and then take her leave. Good boy.
Good girl, Roxanne. Easy does it. Let her go.
I bargained my will to succeed even at the sight of it, half hidden behind a doorway and cart of roses on the corner across from the café. I waited and watched as the younger, clearly more attractive, clearly not pregnant and Greek goddess like girl, walked slowly from my husband, and his table, my chair and our life, and back toward the market stalls where I felt she best belonged. Then I looked back to Mort for a moment, seeing how bothered he was by the girl, but in a way I saw as only being the pain of depravation. He'd struggled to not let the girl go further than was necessary for cultures sake; it had been a difficult thing for him.
Maybe that's what he likes when I'm not around. I thought it very peaceably, very fairly as I moved from around the cart and out into the street heading toward him with a smile. Maybe dark little gypsy girls turn him on now too.
I could feel the jealously boil over in me, even as I stepped up to the table and even as he stood in a flash to throw his arms around me, whispering something about being, 'glad you're okay', and then kissing me like it was only us in this foreign municipality, rich and passionately.
Making up for what you missed out on with the Italian babe, huh buddy? I thought it as his tongue moved into my mouth quickly, roving for a short moment and then releasing me to the ground again. I thought about it as he helped me to my chair, poured me a glass of wine and took my hands in his. I thought about it when he looked me dead in the eyes and said he missed me.
"I'm sorry it took me so long. I got lost."
Second lie of the day. Racking up the points, Roxanne. Not good.
He only smiled and kissed my hands.
"Don't apologize, I'm just glad you're back. I was worried."
Oh yeah? Worried enough to trade looking for me, for a pair of vineyard fresh--"
My thoughts were cut by him, "I found something for you."
"You did?"
He nodded and dug into his coat pocket, pulling out a sparkling chain and placing it into my hand on the table. It was locket, an old trinket of some kind that seemed to have been passed down through generations of this land. I had to smile away the pain and envy; it was impossible not to.
"It's beautiful."
I read the date, 1845, and then shot a glance back up at him.
"And very old…where did you get this?"
I watched him nibble on the pad of his thumb, as if he were nervous, "An antique shop, just down the road here. I saw it and thought of you."
Okay, so he was thinking of me, truly. But I still don't like that dark little tramp with her perfectly round--"
Again, cut. "Let me help you put it on."
"Thank you."
I smiled and handed it to him as he moved around the table, hooking the necklace on my neck gently as I held my long hair out of the way. I stared at the other couples in the restaurant, all of them in love to some degree, and then I felt the two softest lips I'd ever known, melting the skin on the nape of my neck with a simple and searing kiss.
With a sigh into the touch, I reached behind me for his arm, pulling him toward my face instead.
"Can we go somewhere else?"
My whispering question caught him off guard as he kneeled to the side of my chair.
"I thought you wanted to eat at a café."
"I did," I held his face in my hands, "But I changed my mind. I think I want to do something crazy."
He laughed, confused. "Something crazy? What might that be?"
"I'm not sure. I just want to be fun again, and spontaneous. At home, I have a routine."
Mort looked up at me, slowly saddened.
"And don't get me wrong, honey, I love our routine. But I feel like I'm becoming boring to you."
"You're not. Why do say that?"
Bring up the girl or not? Risk getting into an unnecessary argument or not? Not.
"I don't know that's just how I feel. I want to be fun for you again, like I used to be."
He shook his head, obviously annoyed with my distrust of his words.
"You never stopped being fun, Roxanne. I don't know why you think that."
I shrugged and played with the necklace he'd found for me.
"But," he began with a sigh, rubbing my legs, "If you want to do something crazy, we'll do something crazy."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Let's go. Let's do it. Come on…"
He took my hands in his without another word, threw down enough euros to cover the table's hold and the bottle of wine that he took with us, and Mort pulled me down the streets and back to the car four blocks away. I didn't know what he was thinking, the way he glanced over at me and smiled once we were in the old Ferrari and pulling away. His hand on my leg, squeezing, teasing, was renewed.
I think I hit a nerve. A good one for the both of us.
Now I just have to convince him that I'm as good as any twenty something Napoleon flirt.
Boring. My God, I thought to myself, driving along the narrow coastal road from the city, she's lost her mind.
My new task for the day: prove Roxanne completely wrong all over again.
I figured I would start with driving, drive until she told me to stop, until it hit her what she wanted. The city distanced itself from us as the fields of flowers grew wide and higher all around, the sound of the ocean wilder, and the breeze thicker, warmer. She didn't say anything for a long time, so I was left to hum to the music filtering in through her iPod. It was one of those bands that guys like me don't know the name of, but we hear the song on the radio once and we suddenly are hooked to it like we're teenagers again. It was also the benefit of having a freelance Rolling Stone journalist for a wife.
I smiled and hummed on, waiting for the request to be made.
Finally she asked, "Where are we going?"
"Wherever you want. Pick this crazy adventure of yours."
"Me pick?"
I nodded and looked at her from the corner of my eye as she began to peel her eyes to my side of the car, looking out on the never-ending fields and castle villas in the distances. I hadn't even made it around the next bend in the road though, before she was pulling on my arm and telling me to stop.
"Pull over."
"Here?"
"Yes," she laughed, "Right here."
Here, there, was the only thing I hadn't really given any thought to. Before me, as I parked and got out of the car, was a field of wild, giant sunflowers, towering over the grass that ran the distance of a long hill to the sky. There was only ocean behind me as I turned to see Roxanne coming around from the other side with the bottle of Chianti from the restaurant.
She was a sight.
"What are you looking at? Let's go…" she teased, tugging on my arm across the tiny road to the other side.
Her bare feet hit the soil and grass the same time my boots did, and she walked quickly, dashing through the flowers like a child in search of the perfect spot. I followed with a shaking, bobbling head and wide eyes as she finally, after minutes of hunting, came across it. It was an open space in the midst of all the green and yellow, a sunny patch of warm ground where she fell down into the high grass like an angel in a snow bank.
I stood over her form, smiling as she giggled.
"Spontaneous enough for you?"
She nodded and threw her arms out wide in the grass with the bottle of wine rolling away.
"Aren't you coming down to join me?"
With a smirk, I tore off my jacket and unbuttoned the flannel shirt I wore as she watched on raised elbows.
"Oh yeah, baby," she teased. "Take it all off."
It was working. She wasn't so concerned with being fun anymore, since I think she could tell she still was. I helped the situation only the more, by undoing the last button of the shirt and slowly easing it off my back, then twisting it around in the air overhead as she howled. Then while her laughing and chanting softened, I tossed the shirt down to her face and she took in its scent, before I covered her body in the grass.
"Don't say you're boring," I whispered in her ear as I kissed her roughly. "You're nowhere near boring."
"No?"
I shook my head and began to gently pull off her black tee.
"But all I ever do…" she murmured under the movement of fabric over her head and her mess of long curls, "…is cook and give the kids' baths and…" I brushed the hair out of her eyes and mouth, "…write."
Her green eyes shimmered with a strange sadness under me; one I hated to admit was really there at all.
"I used to be wild. I used to be the life of the party."
"When you were Roxy Love?"
"Yeah."
I stroked her cheeks and pressed my body to hers softly.
"Well honey, I never knew Roxy Love. I only ever knew Roxanne Hayden. Roxy Love was already gone when I met you. She was tired and ready to move on."
"Tired and boring."
"Hardly," I sighed against her lips. "Roxanne was the life of my party."
She laughed and held my face to hers, arching up to kiss me back as deeply as she could. I felt her tongue beg entrance and I held onto her tight, letting it come forth and take mine hostage. I could understand so much of her in that moment, I could feel all the uncertainty she'd had for all this time and never once voiced. Maybe she was scared to, maybe she thought I would be upset by it, but it felt so good to know it existed. I know being pregnant made her vulnerable to the world around us, especially our simple life back at home. And I guess I owed this unplanned trip to save lives, for finally getting to see truth she was hiding.
Wet lips let mine linger away as she rested in the grass again and tugged at my belt and the button of my jeans. I was in a sort of a daze then, watching her hands move about anxiously between our bodies, from her jeans to my boxers, until we were bare to one another completely, skin to skin, hidden by an uninhabited field of sunflowers and the midday sun of the Naples coast.
I felt her breasts and the peaks upon them touch my chest as she rose to meet my hunched body, and that's when it all came rushing back to me, the reality of the moment. Looking down at her, I saw something I hadn't witnessed since the official date number one.
"Mort…would you do me a favor?"
Patience was all I could bring myself to acquire in that moment, the agony of not knowing what she needed, what I was about to be asked to do. 'Will you please leave?' 'Will you run out and buy some milk?' 'Will you get me some more wine?' What does she want? I waited, tiredly, with my eyes falling downward in haste to see her chest heaving, her lips petals of grace, every ounce of her before me. And then her breath strained to plead as her eyes went wide with the shock of her own mental state
"Will you kiss me?"
I saw innocence. I saw a woman who knew what she wanted and yet timidly asked for it. I saw that girl again, the one before the pink plus sign and all the running around. I saw that girl who found comfort in my arms on a rainy night when her truck got stuck in the mud. I saw two spoonfuls of sugar with milk, strawberry bagels, black sharpie notes, Caribbean hideaways, Jerry Seinfeld's influence, bare feet on a dashboard, a shelf that housed only my novels, and I saw a girl skinny dipping in Tashmore Lake, never bothering to wonder of the potential danger below.
There she was.
And just as soon as I saw her, she somehow hid herself again. It was like a magic act, where one minute she was discovered and the next, she was a mother and wife again, forced to find the last bit of spontaneity within our relationship in fields of wildflowers on the coast of Italy, just to prove to me it actually existed still. I was left feeling completely heartbroken then; having known what she was really doing to herself and realizing the protective barrier she was forming to keep everyone around her safe.
Then, as much as I knew it was bad and wrong and probably going to be what got me in trouble when push came to shove, I suddenly saw Catalina's face. I saw her innocence that somehow still remained in tack, untouched, unscathed. I hated myself for that. I wanted to kill myself for thinking of her then.
"Mort?"
"Huh?" I asked with trepidation as I felt Roxanne's hips squeeze dance me, nervously.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Lying bastard. You're so fucked if you screw this up.
"Are you sure?"
What she's really saying is, did you just lie to me? And yet I continue to do it.
"I'm fine, baby."
I kiss her tenderly and assure her of it partially as I hold onto her, ready to do what we came here to do. But I can't can I? It feels so wrong now. I ruined it with my thoughts.
"You don't want to do this, do you?"
I find her eyes and stare at her longingly, trying to convince her somehow that I do. I hate to see her lose herself because of my stupidity.
"I do."
She laughs then suddenly and I feel her take hold of the limp appendage that never is in her hand.
"It really doesn't feel like it."
I look down to the scene of embarrassment and guilt below and realize she's right. I'm a coward to my own wife now. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"It's okay," she kisses my chin and starts to move away to find her clothes. "It's no big deal."
"Roxanne…" I try to bring her back to me and make her stop getting dressed. "Baby, I'm sorry. It's not you, I swear. I just--"
"Sh." She covers my mouth and hands me my clothes with a tight smile. A forced one no doubt. "Don't worry about it. Why don't we just go back? I'm pretty tired."
She's not though, I can see it. She's lying for me. My dishonesty has led to hers and it makes me so weak, so helpless and full of shame.
I can't satisfy the love of my life. What the hell good am I? I'm pathetic.
I deliberate and convince myself of this the entire way back to the village and our villa. I lost the handle of my already too perfect, too undeserving world today.
Something's going sideways and I don't know why.
(Roxanne)
I'm losing a part of him. A good part.
I saw it in his eyes, the way he looked at me as though I wasn't there at all. He didn't see me. He saw someone or something else. A different life maybe? Another woman? Something more romantic, something here in this place, with the enchantment, the fervor of a younger, more beautiful girl?
I don't know, but I'll blame myself for not being more like her, more like this magical land for him. This morning I woke up and he was mine. I loved him and he loved me and everything was in set in stone.
Now, I'm a little scared.
