37. MAGDALEN
37
MAGDALEN
When we get to the villa, Dante and Theo are nowhere to be found. Lucia and Maio’s car is parked on the nearby street; when we get inside, they’re feeding each other olives across the kitchen island.
‘Oh, this is disgusting.’ Anika and I ogle them through the doorway. ‘Can’t you save this for the honeymoon?’
‘To think we were going to christen this place. They beat us to it,’ I muse.
‘Which bedroom do you think they had sex in?’
‘I heard that.’ Lucia pipes up while wiping her mouth of excess olive oil. She eyes us with feline eyes, smirking.
‘And?’
‘First floor. Far right.’
I gasp while Anika erupts into a fit of laughter and soon enough we’re both gagging and giggling while Maio hides his head in his hands in shame.
‘Maio, you’ve got to get used to her crude mouth,’ I say between laughs.
‘Oh, he’s used to it.’ Lucia smiles widely, causing Maio to abruptly get up from leaning on the kitchen island and stare hard at Lucia to convey some secret message that she’s ignoring.
‘When did this family get so sexually liberal? I miss the days when everyone suppressed their feelings,’ I sigh, walking to the counter to steal an olive.
‘While this has been fun...’ Maio pats down his shirt, obviously looking for something to do with his hands while he reins in his embarrassment. ‘... I haven’t had a chance to look at the garden yet.’
‘That’s so funny, sweetie.’ Lucia closes the lid to the olive container while my fingers try to grab one. ‘Neither have I.’ She swats his ass while they walk to the backyard and I hide my smile behind my hands.
‘The boys have put your luggage in the rooms upstairs,’ Lucia calls while closing the door behind her and grabbing Maio’s hand.
We walk up the marble stairs, cold stone cutting through the humid, summer air warming the house.
I peek inside the bedrooms and see Dante’s swimming shorts and belts scattered across the bed in the safari-themed bedroom. There’s a zebra-print cushion on the crisp white sheets and an elephant mural on the far-right wall. The furniture is dark and sleek – wicker stools and woven rugs laid carefully throughout the space. It’s so Dante – chaotic and overtly masculine. It is clearly meant for him.
Anika’s luggage is laid on the bed in the pink room next to his. Her curtains are frilly and fun, with a gingham tufted skirt around the bed. She lies across it, rummaging blindly for something in her luggage, humming some nameless song. I tiptoe down the hall until I spot my luggage in the corner of the bedroom diagonal from Anika’s. Stepping in, I can’t help but feel underwhelmed and exposed by whoever chose this room for me. Shades of various pale blues decorate the space. A simple bed with a cornflower-blue duvet. No throw pillows or vase of flowers. The only creative liberty, really, being a muted painting of the ocean above the beige headboard. It feels lifeless, incomplete. The room they made after exhausting all their efforts on the others. I throw my purse on the bed. At least there’s a bed.
As I go to open the luggage, I notice a white T-shirt has been tucked into the handle of the bag. Frowning, I pull it out and go to check the size but I don’t even get to the tag before a wave of his scent washes over me. It’s invasive, heavenly toxic, and there’s no stopping me from bringing the fabric to my nose, breathing him in. Turning scent into delusion as I wish for him here, kneeled next to me in this sad, blue room, his sunlight warming the place up. As I unravel the shirt, a piece of paper tucked between the folded creases falls onto my lap.
Looks like you forgot pyjamas.
Thank god for me.
I cover my mouth with my hand to suppress my laughter. And shake my head – ashamed, happy, confused, anxious. Wanting more.
A few words scribbled and all that anger following our rendezvous in Torino bleeds away with a little pen to paper. I sigh. He’ll be back in New York soon enough. Why not have some fun in the meantime?
Opening my luggage, the sound of my own gasp startles me when I find the contents completely rearranged.
‘Theo, this is a major invasion of privacy,’ I grumble through a smile as I take in what he’s done. My pyjamas are definitely gone. Instead, the lingerie Marta supplied me with sits neatly on top of my clothes. Lavender thong. Lavender bra. White socks with lace lining, oddly enough. A uniform for the sexually repressed.
‘Oh my god.’ My head falls into the open luggage as I process Theo seeing me in this. ‘Oh my god,’ I say again, because what else is there to say?
‘Should I ask?’
My head jerks up to see Anika, clad in her bright orange bikini and tiny sarong, looking at me through the door frame.
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ I quickly shut my luggage and stand up. But it happens in slow motion, the paper falls onto the floor and Anika’s eyes dart to it and the white T-shirt in my hand.
‘Don’t you da—’ I start, but Anika dives to the floor before I can even get my knees to bend.
‘Is it from Roberto?’ She crumples the paper tightly in her hand, rolling across the carpeted floor so she’s out of reach.
‘No! You know how it went with him.’
‘So who’s it from, then?’ Her breathing is fast, paper still held tightly in her hand.
‘Anika, don’t open it.’ I crawl towards her but she kicks her tiny feet out, stopping me.
‘Tell me!’ She wiggles her toes, almost touching my forehead before I back away.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? Are you fucking a priest?’
‘Anika!’
‘A rabbi?’
‘Okay, you’ve made your point,’ I huff, lying down on my back. The ceiling fan humming is the only noise in the room for a moment. I take a breath out.
‘My brother?’ she says, a slight edge in her voice. I roll my head to look at her, unsure if she’s joking or not. My heart stammers. A million denials, justifications, confessions at the ready, but I remain silent, remembering Theo’s words.
Just don’t tell Anika, okay?
‘Please, be serious.’ My voice cracks at the end and I try to smile to make up for it but my lips feel numb and I’m unsure if I said anything at all.
‘I am.’ She throws the crumpled paper at my stomach, the paper bouncing off my hip and landing between us. It lands closer to her than it does to me. ‘I know something happened.’
I sit up, resting on my elbows as I continue to stare at her, at a loss for words, for excuses.
‘I know because Theo told me,’ she interrupts before I even get the chance to speak. Just don’t tell Anika, okay? Did I mishear?
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he told me something happened between you two after Lucia’s engagement dinner.’
‘Oh.’ I frown, feeling both hurt and relief. His parting words were a lie to get me out of his sight. Did he sit down and gossip about me with Anika over drinks? Maybe he met up with her and Dante right after. Maybe they laughed together.
I see his snarl, how his canine tooth poked out when he was telling me off. It was so sharp, so predatory, and it was inside my mouth. I remember wishing he had made me bleed.
‘Maggie, you don’t need to hide shit like that from me.’
‘Oh,’ I sniffle. ‘Okay.’
‘He didn’t tell me everything.’ She crosses her legs and inches closer to me, concern welling in her eyes. ‘I basically had to force it out of him.’
‘He told me not to tell you.’ How could I have listened to him so religiously? So afraid that she would find out and he would be disappointed that I broke his cardinal rule.
‘Don’t do that, come on.’ Anika crawls on her knees until she’s draped over me like heavy mink. Warm. Cosy. She’s slightly sticky from all the sunscreen lathered on her body but she wraps her hands around my shoulders, embracing me so tightly, I’m lost in vanilla and Coppertone 8.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I don’t register I’m crying until she’s rocking me back and forth, soothing me, whispering gently between comforting coos. ‘It’s okay, Maggie. Please, it’ll always be okay.’
‘He was so mean,’ I hear myself saying in a heavy exhale, snot and tears now dripping down my face. The words feel hooked inside me; saying them out loud feels like tearing apart pieces of me.
‘Fuck him.’ Anika curls around me, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, trying, without knowing, to stitch the puncture together again.
‘He’s your brother!’ I sob even more.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s always right. Listen, Mag, Theo was born good, there’s no denying that. But, shit, man. There’s so much you don’t know about him. There’re things even I don’t know about him. Things that eat him up all the time. He cried, the day before he left for Yale, did you know that? Sobbed all night. It went on for ever, and I thought he was going to pass out from crying so much. I stayed with him the entire time and thought that gorgeous face was permanently tear-stained. But not once did he tell me why he was crying. I begged. I begged for hours, Maggie. Not a peep. So what I’m saying is... What the fuck am I even saying?’
I sniffle, looking at Anika lost in the memory of herself and Theo. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Of course not, no one does. He’d literally kill me if he knew I was telling you.’
‘Do you have any idea what it could have been about?’ My own sadness feels far away. Tucked in the luggage across the room. I’m desperate to know more about Theo.
‘Whatever it is, I’m sure my father is to blame.’
‘Yeah, we don’t talk about him a lot, do we?’
‘We shouldn’t have to,’ Anika answers sharply. ‘He’s only been friends with your saint of a father for twenty years. You would think...’ She stops mid-sentence, lost in thought. ‘You would think just a little of that would rub off on him.’
‘My father’s not perfect.’
‘Mag.’ She turns her head to me, her eyes burning into mine. ‘Your father is absolutely perfect.’
This time, I don’t try to deny it. ‘Why did you never tell me how bad he got?’ I search for her hands, wrapping them tightly in my own.
‘Because,’ she says, and sighs, settling her head on my shoulder, ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,’ she singsongs.
We sit there on the floor of the blue bedroom, her prayer ringing in our ears. I think of Theo crying again and shut my eyes.
‘Mother Julian of Norwich?’
I feel her nod against me. ‘Found a postcard with that quote a few years ago in one of the euro bins at the market. I really liked it. Helps me when things get tough.’
Tough? I swallow hard. Knowing if I try to broach the subject she’ll spook, the only way she knows how. Deflect with a joke or turn the radio on and dance the question off.
‘You know, I tried to make her my confirmation saint,’ I say instead.
‘No way.’ Anika’s head pops off my shoulder to look at me, eyes lit up.
‘Very much way. My mother said she didn’t count, so I went with Saint Angela.’
‘I never knew that!’
‘That’s why it’s freaky!’ I giggle despite myself. Amused that we’re geeking out over saints.
‘I love being freaky with you.’ She rests her head back on my shoulder, nuzzling her temple against my skin. ‘It makes me feel like everything will be alright.’
‘You’re my favourite freak. I love you so much.’ My throat tightens, tears threatening to resurface if I think too hard about her. About how often I avoided calling during university. How little I wondered if she was okay. I make a mental note to worry more for her. To remember that she can dance and be sad, too.
‘Me more. And because I love you, I need you to know that Theo is... Theo is more like my father than he cares to admit.’
‘Anika—’
She stops me. ‘Don’t let him take advantage of you.’ She unravels her hand so she’s now holding mine, as she’s always done. ‘Don’t let him get away with shit,’ she says with a final huff.
We don’t talk any more after that. She doesn’t offer any further information about Theo and neither do I. We sit on the floor instead, the radio in her room streaming into the quiet of mine. Raf’s voice whispers, ‘ Sei la più bella del mondo. Sei la più bella per me .’ Anika unconsciously hums along.
It’s unsettling to know that Theo’s goodness is eclipsed by a darkness none of us can make out. It hides behind broad shoulders and witty banter. Don’t let him take advantage of you. I chew my lip. But I would let him. The thought is terrifying and exciting. I would let him.