Tuesday, May 16
I haven’t checked my phone in two days, and even though I know my sister well enough to not anticipate any sort of open, vulnerable
communication, I still crave it. While I shower, I let my mind wander to a daydream, a fantastical near-future where my sister
picks us up from the airport. She meets Marco; she comes back to Evergreen; she pulls me aside and tells me, You two are soulmates. It’s so obvious.
No way, I’d say back.
I feel pathetic for yearning so completely for her acceptance , yuck. But shouldn’t it be enough for her—to see me deliriously happy, even if it’s just for a little while? It’s been so
long since I’ve been this happy.
After drying my hair, applying makeup, and stealing a sip of the coffee Marco’s just brewed, I connect to the apartment Wi-Fi
and wait for my phone to ding.
Marco still hasn’t revealed to me the work reason for this trip, but not for my lack of trying. With little to no information about our upcoming evening, I put the
decision about my outfit completely in his hands. He chooses the white linen pants and matching blazer with nothing but my
golden skin and black bralette underneath.
I’m securing the strap of my sandal around my ankle when Marco appears in the doorway, leaning against the frame, floating on a cloud of cologne and shower steam. His outfit is simple, elegant, and all black. Next to each other, we’ll be in perfect harmony.
He lets out a slow whistle when I look up to catch his eyes. “Damn.” He looks rugged with a few days’ worth of stubble on his chin, his heavy bottom lip pulled back between his teeth. Our eyes
meet and he moves toward me like my eyes contain a magnetic quality.
“You like it?”
“I... I love it.” He takes my hand in his and pulls me to my feet, then to his chest, closer and closer until our lips
meet.
“Can you tell me anything about where we’re going?”
“Wait just a little longer. The surprise is worth it, I swear.”
“Better than this?” I ask
“Hm, no.” His eyes dance over my face. “Definitely not better than this. Nothing is.”
Very suddenly I miss Evergreen so much it hurts my chest. I miss the smell of bay and salt air and the way Marco had looked
at me the very first time I saw him. I long for that moment, want to crack it open like a walnut, see what lives inside. I
miss his nervous eyes and his mullet; I miss the first time I felt like I wanted him, on the dance floor at Ernie’s and maybe
even before that, on the boardwalk.
It’s not that days have passed and I know our time will be up; it’s that this is the best thing that has ever happened to
me and I want it all over again, from the beginning.
Whether this entire saga ends with us looking at each other on the edge of this bed or if everything ends in ten days or ten years, I would want to replay it all. I’d rewind over and over again, memorizing every moment, charting the course from where we started to where we are right now, so if ever I were to lose my way as profoundly as I lost myself back in November, I’d have a map back to this. Joy . A feeling intense and perilous and so deep and clear, I could drink it and never feel thirsty again.
Marco brings me joy.
“You’re a flirt, Marco Antoniou,” I say into his neck. We’re swaying now, back and forth, to invisible music.
His hand tightens on the small of my back, sending an electric throb through my hips. “Not a flirt. Just personally invested
in making you feel amazing.”
I’m not sure how it happens—how it’s possible to have never experienced something before, but to know deep in my stomach,
in my soul, that I’m falling in love.
A bumpy, jittery taxi ride where my heart skips with every cobblestone we hit lands us in a piazza somewhere north of Castel
Sant’Angelo, which Marco points out to me, sliding across the back seat, a hand lazily draping over my thigh. I’m so fucking
nervous, I don’t even care about the enormous, gorgeous stone structure smearing by in a blur of orange streetlights and inky-blue
sky. I just want to turn in to his chest and close my eyes.
“Can you give me a hint? Or at least let me know if there’s going to be five thousand cameras or if I’m going to have to give
a speech?”
“Nadia.” He laughs, shaking his head as he pays the taxi driver. “This is supposed to be fun, not an acute form of torture.
I promise it’ll be worth it, okay?”
The piazza is filled with a post-dinner crowd, couples lounging in chairs that face a brilliant, glittering fountain while the marble terraced steps that lead to the water display fill up with teenagers, tourists, panhandlers, and drug dealers. Marco leads the way to the far end of the square toward a building with enormous carved doors and a boisterous crowd spilling out into the night. I can hear a fluid mix of Italian and English, as I crane my neck to try and parse out the details of what we’re headed into. No red carpet, thank God. No groups of autograph seekers. No cameramen, no microphones, just a single photographer and a security guard standing stone-faced at the top of the marble steps by the door.
As we draw close to the building, I can make out a large fabric sign hanging over the doors. In enormous white letters, it
reads:
ADAM WEST
“REST”
MOSTRA IN ANTEPRIMA
16 MAGGIO–1 LUGLIO
We slow to stop, and Marco drops my hand. “Well?”
“Your favorite photographer? We’re here to see his exhibit?” That can’t be right. I guess again. “You modeled for Adam?” That
feels wrong, too.
What else could it be? I recognized the photographs from his apartment at the exhibit we went to in Brooklyn. The grainy black-and-white portraits
of people sleeping—or looking at least like they wanted to sleep—made sense for an exhibit called “Rest.” All of the photos
I’ve seen taken by Adam are candid shots. Maybe it’s a small film premiere?
“No,” I jump in before Marco can correct me. “You’re not a model.”
“Uh, ouch .” He laces his fingers with mine and pulls me along with him.
“You had a mullet when I met you,” I remind him. “Did you model the mullet?”
His eyes glisten as he says, “Let’s think about it—what have I brought on each of our dates?”
“A winsome smile. A huge boner.”
“Besides that.”
“I don’t know...” I feel like an absolute idiot. I stop walking and stare at him in horror. “A gun?”
“Nadia.” He takes my face in his hands, laughing. He plants a kiss on my top lip. “I always bring my camera.”
“Wait.” I pull back from him with a gasp. “You’re not Adam West, are you?” Marco responds by pressing his lips together until
they disappear. “ Holy shit , Marco. You’re Adam West? This is your premiere.” I rip myself out of his hold altogether. “Holy shit !” Then, I throw myself forward, arms circling his neck, laughter exploding out of me. “Adam fucking West.”
“You’re not mad, are you?” he asks through a laugh, stumbling backward at the sudden weight of me against him, his hands coming
to gently rest against my hips.
“ What ? Why would I ever be mad? This is.... this is amazing .”
“But I didn’t tell you about any of this—about this part of things.”
I pull away from him and take his face in my hands. I’m not crying, but I should be. “Baby, you don’t owe me anything.”
He lays his hands over mine. “Did you just call me baby ?”
“You deserve it,” I say. “You look stressed.”
“Yeah.” Marco throws a look over his shoulder toward the building. “A lot of people I want to work with are here tonight. From fashion brands and bigger galleries around Europe. Plus, some people I really need to make things right with. Old coworkers from different projects over the years. The whole team worked really hard to help me get my foot in the door. I haven’t been this nervous since I was a kid. I’ve never done something like this before—like, stood on my own as an artist. They’ve invested time, energy, love.”
“Your work is incredible, Marco. You’re incredible. You’ve got this.”
He takes a deep, steadying breath, squaring his shoulders. “Well, either way.” He reaches for my hand. “I’ve got you here.”
We step through the grand doors, squeezing past the guard, who greets Marco with a handshake, and into a high-ceilinged front
room. Marco’s arrival—and mine, too, I guess—sends a ripple through the crowd and everyone explodes with movement. Turning
heads and double kisses, one on each cheek. The space around us is choked with bodies and noise, and while everyone grabs
for Marco, he holds on to my hand the entire time. Everyone’s smiling at me, and they’re warm and fragrant like the Roman
night.
They’re looking at me like they know me. The walls are high and stark white around us, with gallery lighting but no art. Through
another pair of double doors I spy what has to be the exhibit. I can hear the same soundtrack—the one that played over the
speakers in Brooklyn—of waves crashing, gulls crying. Sounds, I realize, from Evergreen.
The crowd moves us through the room, like a multitentacled beast, depositing us into various groups of gorgeous, important
people. I meet those who have job titles I dreamed of, even job titles I once had, but somehow they seem more valid. Art directing for fashion houses and beauty brands and mononymous individuals. Not for failing media conglomerates
or ointment manufacturing companies.
Someone presses a flute of prosecco into my hand, and I take it, suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude. I really do need a drink. Tonight is outside of everything usual and typical. I can’t even think about medicine and dosages; none of that exists here—in a place so close to perfection. Dosages, triggers, aches and pains—those can be tomorrow’s problem.
I lean close to Marco while he chats with a very large Dutchman, trying my best to not interrupt what sounds like a bone-dry
discussion of public art policy. “Would it bother you if I have some champagne tonight? Just a sip, to celebrate.”
“Whatever you want,” he assures me, pressing a hand into my lower back.
The first sip of alcohol I’ve had since our first date. It fizzes on my tongue, dry and electric. My stomach immediately
comes alive with fire and my nerves mellow. For a moment, my mind flickers back to other moments I drank to soothe myself—a
quick snap of terror and dread in my chest. But just as quickly as it arrives, the memory is gone.
I’m okay, I tell myself. Tonight, I’m okay.
Once again, the crowd bucks and moves us forward, like high tide at our back pushing us to shore. Finally, we arrive at the
second set of doors. The exhibit.
I tighten my grip on Marco’s hand and he squeezes back.
Here, the crowd parts for us as we step into a different world. This room is cooler, less cramped. All the noise of conversation
and glassware clinking and lo-fi music is gone. Like in a movie, everything dims.
My feet fail me and my hand falls from Marco’s, cool and moist. His photographs are enormous splashes of black-and-white, fantastic explosions of life stretched across canvas. There’s only one or two on each wall, except for the farthest wall at the other end of the room. There I see only one photo, lit from above.
My breath snags, and my feet carry me forward. As I cross the room, heads turn. They smile, they look twice. They see me,
in double.
Because there I am.
In black-and-white, six feet off the ground. Lit from above.
The moon hangs heavy in the sky, bold beside the soon-to-fade afternoon sun that drips like milk-white honey over the surface
of the ocean. Sunlight unravels like a bolt of ribbon down from the sky, over the ocean, then to the handrail slipping over
the edge of the boat and, finally, over my face. Over my close-cropped hair, my full, curly lashes and closed eyelids, the
angle of my nose and the pout of my sleeping mouth, over my fingernails glinting at the tips of my limp hand, tucked under
my chin.
And just behind me is the arch, smooth and long, of the whale jumping.
I can almost hear this photo. The powerful, quiet sway of the ocean. The gulls overhead. Marco telling me to stay still.
For a moment, the room falls away and I’m back in Evergreen, the place that has kept me, made me feel safe, while I rested.
My eyes have fallen shut, and when I blink them open, he’s next to me.
Without pulling my eyes away, I say: “It’s me.”
“It’s you,” he says softly. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s my favorite photo from the set.” He runs his tongue over his bottom
lip before adding, “I can’t tell if that’s because it’s my best photo or my best subject.”
“I... I love it, Marco,” I manage. “I can’t believe that... that’s me . I look so peaceful.”
His mouth tugs to the side. “That’s definitely you.” He lifts his chin toward the sunset. “You and your whale. Two beautiful women.”
The walls of the exhibit are filled with photos of people from Marco’s life—his mother and his aunts sunbathing all in a row
like roasting ducks; his little brother face down on a tattoo bed, vibrating needle pressed into his spine; a man with pierced
ears and a face etched with heavy lines appears over and over, and it dawns on me that Marco definitely has a best friend—other
than me, of course . There are other women on display. I don’t know who they are—how long they were in Marco’s life and how deeply he felt for
them. There’s the woman who dances, her hair fanning around her in a sunbeam of joy. There’s another woman asleep in an armchair,
a book draped over her thigh and a dog at her feet.
It’s a patchwork quilt of small moments, a story of how easy it is for Marco to slip into people’s lives and warm them. On
the other end of his lens, we all look at peace.
Am I special to Marco? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know how I fit into the landscape of his life—am I as big to him as I
am in this gallery? The thought hounds me as I move from photo to photo, turning over each piece of his work like ancient
artifacts. I hunt for meaning, for clues. Has he done this before—tricked a regular woman with a silly, little life into falling
head over heels into his world?
I don’t mean to, but I drink my whole glass of prosecco.
Eventually there’s a dimming of lights and lots of shushing and a thin woman with a loose, low bun steps into the center of
the room with a microphone.
I don’t really understand Italian, but I gather that she’s introducing Marco, whom she gestures at continuously. He ducks his head as all the eyes in the room turn to him, and suddenly I am extremely grateful for my glass of prosecco. I’ve been to enough weddings to know what’s coming—one of us is going to have to make a speech. And like hell will it be me.
For the first time all night, Marco leaves my side and the crowd erupts into boisterous applause that ricochets off the walls
and comes back twice as cacophonous.
“Good evening, everyone. Buona sera a tutti .” I find myself thinking, When did Marco learn Italian? But it’s a dumb thought because Marco could have known Italian his whole life. I’ve only known him for less than two weeks.
What else don’t I know? So much. A pang of anxiety strikes me in the back of my throat and travels down to my stomach. I’m
on the edge of a spiral when he clears his throat and begins:
“Thank you all so much being here. I’ve dreamed of tonight for many months—ironically, I’ve lost countless nights of sleep,
terrified and exhilarated at the idea of finally sharing all these images in one place as ‘Rest . ’” He pauses politely, pulling a tan hand down over the angle of his chin, while laughter ripples through the crowd. When
he looks up again, there’s a new emotion in his eyes. “All the photos on display tonight are candids, moments I was lucky
enough to actually witness. When I was deep in my battle with addiction, I never slept. Sleep terrified me. Sleep was, in
my mind, a tiny stream with many precarious mouths that all opened up to a violent river that could sweep me away. I thought
about death constantly. I thought about my value, my legacy—who would remember me, why would they remember me? I couldn’t sleep because if I did die, I would die a loser. A failure. That shame controlled my life.” Marco’s gaze is pure fire, yet perfectly still. No fear, no nervous energy. I know that gaze. I’d seen it in myself, weeks ago, when I’d lifted the shears and held them to my hair and made the first cut. Pure purpose.
“When I found sobriety, I finally found the beauty in rest. In closing my eyes and handing a part of myself over. Once I
found that beauty, once I recognized it, I saw it everywhere. All the small moments we hand ourselves over—the quiet moments
when we let ourselves become vulnerable. I recently had a small setback, and all I could think about was how I never want
to live in a world where I can’t see that beauty. That was scarier to me than death. Bigger to me than shame. The people in
these photos changed my life. They taught me this lesson. So, please—” Marco pantomimed lifting a glass. “Join me in thanking
them.”
I’m introduced to dozens of people and each time Marco tells me one thing about them he appreciates.
“This is Paola, she’s a genius winemaker—she’s always giving me great ideas.
“This is Pierdavide. He runs a small press, I owe so much to him.
“This is Tia—the best curator in the world.
And then, he introduces me in Italian. This is Nadia, from the photo.
It hurts how badly I want to be more.
I slip out of bed, the cold terrazzo stinging the bottoms of my feet as I creep into the bathroom. Just the sound of my thighs brushing together and toes cracking. I shut the door behind me and start the bath, water bubbling and tumbling noisily with no respect for the sanctity of night. My head is pounding from what feels like a toxic mixture of prosecco, medicine on an empty stomach, and Marco’s speech.
When the deep, white basin is full I slip into the water, barely suppressing a moan of relief as the water melts me inch by
inch.
Months ago, this sort of midnight madness took everything out of me. I was still learning the rhythms of a sick body—how I
could physically be so exhausted while my mind was so awake from the pain. It was tedious and boring, especially when it already
felt like life was being wasted on me. What about all those fathers taken from sons too soon? All the mothers who went out
for groceries and never came back?
Now I understand the pain, anticipate it, even wait for it. These moments are deeply lucid, and I feel incredibly awake.
I sink down deep into the bath until my hair is wet, warmth seeping into me through the back of my skull. Then, I wet a washcloth
and place it over my eyes, throbbing in their sockets with every jolt of blood routed through my veins. Sickness has a way
of making you aware of every dimension of yourself; I swear I can feel the difference between tissue and bone. I’ve never
felt more 3D than when I hurt.
Fragments of the night move through my mind intermixed with sunbursts of color, a private little light show from my brain.
Marco’s eyes on me. Marco talking about shame, shame controlling his life.
Me too.
Shame has an iron grip on me. There are many reasons why I can’t tell Marco about my life, but none of them as compelling
as the shame I feel. Maybe I’m not afraid to fall asleep, but—worse yet—for all those months, I’d been afraid of being awake.
And even still, I thought we could find a way to make this work. Without any form of confrontation with my reality. How idiotic.
Now, I see exactly how far away Marco is from me, how finite our time together is, how easy intimacy is to cultivate when
you’re beautiful and charming and find someone as starved as I am for something I’ll probably never really have.
Liv was right. She’s always right.
“You okay?” a hoarse, sleepy voice says from the doorway. Moonlight slips over his broad shoulders. I make out the soft swish
of skin as he crosses his arms.
“Can’t sleep,” I say to Marco.
“Jet lag?”
“Headache.” I pull the rag off my face completely. Blue moonlight falls in from the balcony, cutting a harsh pattern across
the stone floor. The entire room has an otherworldly glow. A hard knot seizes in my chest. I don’t want Liv to be right. “Get
in.”
Marco listens; he slides out of his boxers and into the tub opposite me. The water surges and overflows then settles around
our shoulders as he weaves his legs between mine.
He looks tired, eyes heavy and soft. He reaches beneath the surface and takes one of my feet in his hands and I sink lower,
until the soap bubbles lap at my chin.
We don’t speak at first. Not until I say: “I keep thinking about your speech.”
He lets out a hum. “Was it okay?”
I nod. “I think I get it now... why you wanted to do this.”
“Tell me.”
“Nothing in life has ever been effortless for me... ever. I thought I did everything right. And it didn’t get me anywhere. Actually—” I laugh. “It almost killed me. And I think... I think you’re like that, too.” He nods, so I keep talking. “It feels like there are some people—me and you—that no matter what, we’re always gonna be on the outside. Even if we do everything right, we’re always going to feel wrong. And it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy. We feel so lonely and then we make ourselves unreachable. We realize
we’ll never be enough. We’ll never be everything for everyone. Or we’ll never be the right person for our right person. So...
so, you just said fuck it. And I guess I did, too.”
“That’s... that’s exactly it,” Marco says, his voice soft and urgent. “When we met, all I could think was, what if? What
if it wasn’t so fucking hard to make something good or even something mediocre? What if I just chose to be okay? What if I
just chose a person and went with it?” I lift my eyes from the glistening surface and look at him. His eyes are tearing into
me, dark tunnels that press me against the porcelain. “I know that’s not romantic.”
“I think it’s...” I swallow roughly. “Very romantic. Or maybe there’s something better than romance and we’re the only
people who’ve ever found it.”
“I’d like that. To have something that’s all our own.”
I sit up and reach for Marco. He drops my foot and lets me into his arms, sending a tidal wave of water lapping at the edge
of the bathtub. He pulls my mouth to his, gentle yet hungry. Famished. He kisses me like he wants to sink through me, and I kiss him like I want to give him every ounce of me. Every secret I’ve
ever held inside me. I kiss him like shame doesn’t control me.
“Tell me something true,” he whispers against my skin, his voice wavering under the weight of restraint or emotion or maybe
both.
My body is shaking; it’s like I’ve just had my mind read, every piece of myself pulled out and laid bare. What else is there
left to say? Isn’t it all obvious? I’m in love with you. I’m not okay, and maybe I never will be, but I love you. More than anything I want to ask him why I can’t feel the way I looked in his photo.
I close my eyes and press my forehead to his temple. “I feel... like I’m in love with you. But I don’t know if that’s just
because I’m finally remembering how much I love being alive.”
He tightens his grip on my waist. “We could find out,” he whispers back.
“Marco,” I say softly, pressing my face into his hair. “If you broke my heart, I would never recover. If you left me, if you
hurt me... Worse, if I hurt you. I don’t know how I’d—”
“Hey.” He pulls back, tilting his head so he can look at me. The moon glints off his eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, carving
a hard edge over his features—the long slope of his nose, the hollows of his cheeks, the square pout of his mouth. He runs
his thumb over my chin. “Me too, okay? Me too.”
Then, his thumb keeps moving, slipping over the slick skin at the base of my throat, over my collarbones, and down between
my breasts. Underneath the water, I feel him hardening against me, pushing into me. Around us the water cools, and I shiver.
His touch is so light, yet persistent and firm. A groan, a raw bid of desire, builds in his chest as he touches me. Under
my breasts, around my waist, his fingers travel, his mouth following. Marco takes his time, teasing every inch of my skin
until I’m vibrating with desire, every hair follicle on my body raised. His tongue finds the soft, sensitive spot on the side
of my neck and his fingers slip between my thighs. A sound catches in my throat, and I arch my back.
“You’re sexy when you moan,” he breathes into my ear. “Why do you try to keep quiet?”
“I’m trying...” My voice comes out in a pant. “I’m trying to let go.”
“Stop biting your lip, then,” he commands. His voice is rough, deep in the back of his throat.
“I have to hold back. I have to...” But I’m not holding back, not anymore.
“That’s it,” he whispers into my skin, smoothing my hair away from my face. “Much better.”