quindici
Listening to Stefano conduct her classes that Monday had been a paradoxical joy for Lucia.
His enthusiasm and passion practically reverberated up through the floorboards and into her apartment. She listened from her perch at the calle -facing window with Foscari in her lap, laughing in time with the students and relishing the quiet pauses, knowing they were hard at work. Despite it all, she longed to be the one steering the ship.
She wondered what Francesco had told Stefano about the viral Instagram situation, and what Stefano thought about it. Would he have approved of Francesco’s actions, or berated him for them? Lucia suddenly caught herself worrying that her current state might drive a wedge between the two, and she certainly didn’t want their new relationship to suffer on her account.
That set of worries only reminded her how much Francesco meant to her. He had always been there for her. Always . They had been inseparable since the day they met. From pubescent pimples to his coming out, they had been through so much, but this situation felt different. She was furious and deeply hurt by his actions, and knew it would take time to move past it together.
It’s ok to feel betrayed by this and still miss him. You do love him.
At one o’clock came the sound of chairs scraping against floorboards and feet shuffling down the staircase. Foscari’s little head rose and turned to Lucia. She gave him a gentle rub behind the collar, and he pawed at her sling. Even Foscari knew Lucia had been hurt.
Mariella eventually came and went, not before making sure that Lucia would be able to fix herself something decent for dinner.
Francesco’s only contact for the day had been a text with a solitary hug emoji. Lucia’s instinctive response was to reply, but she held off. She wasn’t ready to talk yet.
The bandaged wound on her forehead resonated a dull ache, but it felt significantly better than yesterday. All day Lucia had sat quietly, allowing herself to rest and keeping a close eye on Calle del Leone from her window. She was glad the crowds hadn’t returned, and that her disinterest in most forms of modern technology kept her away from the stories and photos which would otherwise torment her. Thankfully, La Commedia had also provided no drama: windows closed, curtains drawn, and no distractions to add to her flooded cortisol levels.
Pulling herself from the ledge, she set Foscari down on the floor and made her way to the top of the stairwell. Here she paused to listen.
Nothing but silence. The school had been emptied of life for another day.
‘I’m going downstairs,’ she said to the dachshund. ‘Want to come?’
Foscari lapped at the water in his bowl by the en suite door, dropping his bottom to the floorboards.
‘I’ll just go alone, then.’
Gripping the banister tightly, Lucia made her way to the school below. Her feet, usually confident enough to take two stairs at a time, felt jittery and light. No matter how carefully she took each step, the jelly-like insecurity of her trembling legs threatened to topple her.
She stopped momentarily to peer around the edge of the lower staircase, checking to see that the coast was clear and that there wasn’t anyone gathered out the front of La Scuola Rosa.
There is a God.
Walking to the front window she looked up at La Commedia, then turned back inward. She would return to the classroom tomorrow with a renewed purpose, bolstered by ibuprofen and her usual trademark dedication.
She wouldn’t be able to see Tiziano about the ball’s profits until Saturday, per his request. So, she had to get on with day-to-day life as best as she could.
She withdrew her phone from her pocket and shot Stefano a speedy text.
Grazie mille for your extra help today. Your lessons sounded wonderful.
He replied immediately with, Prego. Feel better soon. X
For now, all she wanted to focus on was clearing the San Valentino dressings from the window display. With her one good arm, she collected a box from the office space behind the welcome desk, and quite literally single-handedly pulled the hearts and love-inspired decorations from the window.
There was nothing to decide for the new display, as it always followed the same pattern. San Valentino would melt into Carnevale, and Carnevale would morph into Pasqua . And once Venice had gorged itself beyond reason on chocolate eggs, it would finally be time to celebrate La Primavera : spring.
Having stashed San Valentino from sight for another year, Lucia collected the box of Carnevale decorations. Fanning open the cardboard flaps one at a time, the familiar vintage hand-made masks and string-laced wood puppets stared back at her. She felt a tug on her heartstrings, remembering how she and her mother had always used to dress the window together. Her father would stand outside on Calle del Leone, pointing and gesticulating to ensure the perfect balance of elements. Historically, he was never quite happy, though. With his usual spritely energy he would then take to the window himself, building mechanical contraptions with pulleys and levers that would move and animate the puppets.
Holding the Arlecchino puppet aloft so it caught a beam of sunlight, Lucia found space in her melancholic haze for a smile.
Some things I will never let change.
Lucia returned Arlecchino to the box and set it down on the edge of the window display. Then she turned back to face the glass, and her heart seized in her chest when she was immediately met by the figure of a blonde-haired woman standing on the other side of the window.
The woman removed her dark sunglasses and slipped them into her designer attaché. She gave Lucia a kindly wave and a smile, and gestured to the locked door with a nod of the head.
‘ Tutto bene ?’ The woman pressed a hand to the glass.
Lucia couldn’t find her voice. So she nodded.
Again, the woman gestured to the door.
Lucia scrutinised every inch of her. She held no camera, no microphone. She was well dressed in a camel-coloured trench, brown heeled boots and a long-line tan knitted dress. Nothing about her screamed foe, or flashed metaphorical hazard lights, so apprehensively, Lucia made her way to the door. She opened it just enough so that they could exchange a few words.
‘Signora Trevisan?’ The woman’s eyes were bright and meticulously outlined with kohl.
‘Signorina. And, Lucia, please.’ She planted her feet solidly on the wooden floor and tried to keep her voice even.
‘ Mi scusi ,’ the woman said, pressing an apologetic well-manicured hand to the designer silk scarf wound around her neck. ‘I do hope you are feeling better after the accident, Lucia. A terrible, horrible thing to have happened.’
Lucia read a certain sincerity in the way the woman’s head tilted to the left and her frown pinched between her brows. Her greying hair caught momentarily on the breeze which rustled down the calle . Still, Lucia was not keen to open the door more than a few inches just yet.
‘ Grazie . Sorry, have we met?’
‘Del Campo. Benedetta.’ The woman’s hand dipped into her coat pocket and retrieved a business card. She passed it through the opening. ‘I work for the publishing house, La Copertina.’ She nodded in the direction of the card. ‘I would like to talk to you—’
Really? Today? Ugh. Today’s not the day . . .
Lucia’s hand instinctively shot back through the opening, returning the card.
‘Thank you for your visit, but publishers usually just email their textbook and resource catalogues. Our email is on the website. I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time.’
She closed the door, flicked the latch, and stepped back into the window display.
The woman, unperturbed by the blunt shutdown, moved to her previous position in front of the glass. She gave the window a gentle rap with her knuckles, which Lucia attempted to wave away as she began unpacking the box of Carnevale decorations.
‘Lucia.’ The glass did a good job of muffling Benedetta’s voice, but couldn’t shut it out entirely. ‘I don’t think you quite understand . . .’
Lucia shook her head, busy untangling the legs of her Colombina and Dottore puppets. Further tapping on the glass eventually drew a frustrated groan. ‘ Mi scusi , but I’m in no state to discuss business today.’ She gestured to her sling and her head with her right hand.
Benedetta’s hands found her hips. She leaned forward, as close to the window as her lips could reach without grazing the glass, and tapped again. ‘It’s you I want to talk about.’
An elderly couple walked past, arms linked, and were somewhat startled by the volume and force with which Benedetta had delivered that final comment.
Lucia straightened up and turned to face her again. ‘Doesn’t the world already know all there is to know about me?’
Benedetta’s face softened and she shook her head. ‘Perhaps. But they’ve never heard it from you .’
Lucia felt her shoulders sag. Despite her apprehension, she knew this was true. Benedetta clearly wasn’t going to let up, and Lucia didn’t want anyone else on the calle listening in. So, she stepped from the window and unlatched the door again, welcoming Benedetta in with an open palm. ‘Please say what you came here to say. But also please know that I’m not interested, grazie .’
Setting her things down on the welcome desk, Benedetta said, ‘Everyone thinks they know your story, Lucia. But it’s only yours to tell.’ Again she presented her business card to Lucia, who this time accepted it.
‘Unlike our grammar guides, scripts and travel companions,’ Lucia gestured to the expanse of bookshelves to Benedetta’s right, ‘ I am a closed book. And I would like to stay that way. Thank you for coming . . .’
Benedetta smiled slightly and waved her hand nonchalantly through the air. ‘Lucia, that might be good and well, but right now you have no control whatsoever about what is said and published about you.’
‘I don’t read it.’
‘But the trouble is, everyone else can. And they do . Sadly, this latest episode has returned you to the spotlight. Now is the perfect opportunity to seize the moment and redirect your future.’ She let that final word linger in the air between them for a moment, before adding, ‘I would like to partner with you, Lucia. To tell your story, the only way it can and should be told. By. You .’ She withdrew slightly, folding her arms and allowing her thickly linked gold bracelet to tinkle as it rolled over her designer watch.
‘What do you mean by “partner with”?’ Lucia scanned the business card again.
‘An autobiographical account of your life. From the . . . tragedy, to now.’
Lucia instinctively closed her eyes, and behind her tight lids the mayhem returned.
Click. Click.
Flash.
The emergency sirens whirred and played their menacing tune on a loop in her mind. It was as if she could feel the rain – that rescue-hampering, water-rising, lagoon-thrashing rain – pierce her skin and soak through her eleven-year-old frame.
She opened her eyes, and the same viridescent hue that had been immortalised by the photographer’s lens twenty years ago stared back at Benedetta. ‘Thank you for your visit, but I am not interested.’
As if she’d expected this, Benedetta nodded. ‘Call me when you are ready.’
‘I won’t ever be.’
‘When you come to realise that this is the only way you can take back control, I think you will feel differently.’ Benedetta smiled sagely, then turned to leave.
Take back control . . .
The day the vaporetto hit the embankment and split in two was the day all Lucia’s control was lost. Even before the bodies and the cameras. That moment had been her undoing. The disempowering. The future-shattering. Lucia’s world, as she knew and loved it, would never be the same again.
Noting Lucia’s pensive stillness, Benedetta added, ‘Please. Just consider it. We will offer a generous advance. Very generous.’
Lucia stopped. She hadn’t considered this. In spite of herself, she turned back to Benedetta with a speed that caught even her off guard.
Could this be the way out . . .?
‘ How very generous?’
‘That depends on a number of factors. La Copertina is hoping to secure this deal exclusively.’
The thought of Edoardo’s papers upstairs in her desk drawer sent a bolt of ice through Lucia’s heart.
It would be the ultimate sell-out. Profiting from the demise of her most beloved, and feeding the ravenous media that had grasped her as an eleven-year-old and thrust her deep into the murky waters of the canal, waiting for her lungs to fill and slowly drown. Just like her parents.
No. I can’t. There has to be another way to find that money.
‘Thank you for coming, Benedetta, and for the offer, but no thank you. Arrivederci .’
‘Just think about it.’ With a respectful nod and wave of the hand, Benedetta left.
Lucia eased herself back down into the window display with her one good arm, and leaned against the inside of the glass. She turned the business card over and over again, before eventually tucking it into the pocket of her jeans.
There was one person she wanted to call in that moment, and one person only – Francesco. He would help her make sense of this opportunity and bring clarity to her cluttered mind. Of this she was certain. But she still wasn’t ready to face him.
Instead, she finished the window to the best of her ability. Lucia suspended the puppets from the hooks permanently fixed to the top line of the inner window box. She posed their limbs as if they were courting in pairs: bashful face-shielding hands; curious turned heads; arms reaching between each other; and bent legs to emulate dancing in unison. The bright silken costumes of the two-foot-long puppets brought a sudden pop of colour to La Scuola Rosa’s usually trademark pink window. It was joyful and merry, and, finished with a swathe of Arlecchino-style colourful patchwork satin to line the bottom of the window, it was complete.
Satisfied, Lucia turned away and her gaze came to rest on the community donation basket nestled between the welcome desk and the edge of the window display platform. Lucia could make out the sleeve of a black woollen coat, the stumpy end of a packet of spaghetti, and a plastic shopping bag filled with sanitary items from the farmacia around the corner. It was overflowing with items and her heart suddenly plummeted with guilt.
It was Monday, and because of yesterday’s incident she hadn’t made her usual Sunday morning donation drop to the community welfare centre at the parish office in Castello.
She checked the time on her phone: 17.00.
Lucia shot a quick message to Olivia Caruso, an energetic and creative woman she and Francesco knew from their high school days, who helped coordinate the welfare centre’s soup kitchen when she wasn’t running the local amateur theatre, Il Camino.
I have the donations, but scusami, they are coming a day late. Are you working tonight?
Within seconds Olivia replied. Never late and always appreciated. Come, I’m serving. Good timing, as I’m at the theatre the rest of the week.
Relieved to have something useful to do, Lucia grabbed her coat, beret, sunglasses and bag, and with her one good arm, emptied the donations into a black fold-out trolley she plucked from the narrow office space.
Right now she had no closure with Francesco and no idea how she would obtain the remaining funds for the school buyout. All she knew was that there was a community of Venetians who relied on her help, and that of La Scuola Rosa. And no matter how uncertain her life was, she appreciated that many others were doing it much tougher.
You can do this, Lucia. Keep pushing on. Normal life. Normal routine. Nothing will stop you now.
Taking a cursory peek down each end of the calle , she slipped outside and set off.