Chapter 27
Lora:
Are you out?
It’s late there
Andrea:
I was out
It is late
Too late
I should have told you so many things when you said all I should need is already in me
I should have said bullshit because I think that some of what I need is also in you
Lora:
Where are you Andrea?
Andrea:
On my way to my hotel
It’s too bad though because I am close to Lincoln Center
If you were here right now I would have said
Meet me at the Met
Her mouth dropped open, and she turned the screen to Vilmari again.
“Go get your man, Lor,” Vilmari said, pulling Lora’s jacket off the back of her stool and handing it to her. “You’re what? Ten minutes away? Maybe eight if you hustle. Keep him texting, Mami, go, go go!”
“Te quiero mucho,” said Lora, hugging Vilmari.
“Lo sé, lo sé. I know.”
Lora ran out the door and headed north up Eighth Avenue, and while she wasn’t wearing high heels, the hard soles of her boots didn’t exactly allow her to sprint either. She paused, trying to think of a nonchalant way to continue the conversation.
Lora:
Are you actually there?
Andrea:
Yes
The Philharmonic played tonight
She could see the lights and the statue in the middle of Columbus Circle up ahead. All she had to do was pass the circle and take a left. She paused again and tapped out a text back.
Lora:
Are you alone?
Veering left onto Broadway, she passed endless banks with their ATMs glowing and a West Elm furniture store where she could see employees vacuuming couches under the bright lights. She kept moving toward Sixty-Second and finally took a left.
Andrea:
Yes
I’m going to go back to my hotel, though
I’m sorry to bother you so early
She was so close. He couldn’t leave now. She paused on the corner of Broadway and Sixty-Third to try to stall him.
Lora:
You’re not bothering me
I am sure it’s beautiful
Not even one block to go. She had to think.
If she were Andrea, where would she be in the plaza?
Should she make him send a photo? As she hustled up the block toward Lincoln Center, the image of Loretta Castorini getting out of her cab and Ronny Cammareri nervously standing in front of the fountain popped into her head.
She turned to her left, and suddenly the plaza opened in front of her.
The theater, opera, and concert hall buildings that lined three sides of the plaza were still fully lit, their tall glass facades gleaming in the night.
Concentric stone circles drew the eye directly to the fountain in the center of it all, and the sound of the tumbling water sprays echoed in the space. He’d be at the fountain.
Andrea:
I wish you were here
Lora walked closer to the center of the wide-open space, scanning.
There was a surprising amount of people still walking out of the buildings, laughing and talking in the cool, late-September night.
She looked for any sign of him—his hair, his glasses, whatever she could imagine the New York version of Andrea wearing.
She walked around the side of the fountain that was closest to the opera house and stopped short.
There he was, sitting on the low wall that encircled the fountain.
He held his phone in his hands while staring up toward the five glowing arches of the opera house’s ninety-six-foot-tall facade.
Her heart squeezed in her chest. He was here, right here.
Her hand shook as she pulled out her phone one last time and tapped on the screen.
Lora:
I am
He shrugged, and looked back up toward the sky. She waited for him to turn around and see her, but he didn’t even glance around for a second. He must have thought she was kidding.
Lora:
Andrea
Andrea:
Sì
Lora:
In the movie he at least turns around when she shows up
Andrea’s head snapped around to the right and then to the left where she stood, still holding her phone in her hand.
He stood and started walking toward her slowly, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said, dropping her phone back into her pocket.
“Someone I know does this incredible research on thriving in life independently of family and social structure. So I came here to test the hypothesis,” he said. “Your turn.”
“Someone I know told me that we can’t do everything on our own. Unfortunately for that research you mentioned, it turns out that idea may have had some merit.”
“That wasn’t my idea. I didn’t invent it.”
“No, but you made it impossible for me to ignore it,” she said.
“When I went to Zurich to present my hypothesis, it disintegrated right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t spend three years studying something that didn’t make sense to me anymore.
So, I came home. I mean, I came back. Still trying to figure out the home part. ”
“But all of that work—everything you went through to get there. You let it all go? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know what to say yet. Truthfully, I’m still trying to figure out what to do.”
“I’m not,” he said, looking around the plaza. “This is beautiful. Someone should film a movie here.”
“Someone should.” She followed his gaze. “Not beautiful enough to stay, though.”
“No.” He shook his head. “If good and bad things can happen no matter where I am, I’d still rather be in a place I love and doing something that makes sense to me.”
“With the people you love.”
“Most of them, yes.”
“When will you go back?”
“Theoretically, I have a meeting tomorrow to talk about the details of this new job. But in reality, I’m not going to take it. I’m going to see if I can switch my flight.” He stepped toward her, grabbed her hands. “Lora. Come with me.”
“Andrea, I don’t think—”
“No, wait. I interrupted. I’m sorry. I don’t want you to come to Italy for me.
Hang on, that’s a lie. Yes, I do. I want you to come back, move back into my house, and let me make love to you every day.
But it’s not about that. You should come back for you too.
You said you’re trying to figure out where to be, but maybe you already know. ”
“I told Zurich I wanted to resubmit at some point.”
“And so you should. You need time to gather your thoughts, right? How about you do it in the town your family is from, where your family is, with a man who seems to not be able to live without you.”
“This is wild,” she said, laughing. “I’ve been a mess since I left Zurich.
I told Vilmari tonight that I couldn’t stop thinking about you.
I thought she and I would be hatching a plan right now to find a way to get to you.
Now look at us. Look at where we are. All I did was come to Italy to file a bunch of paperwork, and now my whole world is upside down. ”
“No. Your whole world is not upside down—not to me. In fact, everything about you makes sense.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I love you, Loretta!” Andrea opened his arms and spun in a slow circle in front of the fountain.
“I love you. And I’m sorry if it disrupts your life, but you disrupted mine.
And I came here to prove that I am ready to try anything to be happy, but I know that nothing is going to replace what I feel like when I’m with you.
I know where my home is and it’s where you are.
So, get on a plane with me. Because no matter what you want to do in the future—and I don’t have any data to prove this—I know it doesn’t make sense to do it alone. ”
“Is this the part where they play Puccini?”
“Yes! Pull it up on Spotify if you want. It’s ‘O Soave Fanciulla’ and you’re going to hear Pavarotti singing to Mirella Freni—telling her that she’s the dream he always dreamed of.
I’d say it’s beautiful if I liked opera.
But you know something? It’s never going to be as good as me telling you from my own mouth. ”
He stepped back to her, took both of her hands again, and stared directly into her eyes.
“I love you. You are everything. Let’s go home.”
“How can I argue with that?” She laughed.
“I love you too. I know it. I knew it when I was sitting in front of that review board. Hell, I knew it back in Baia Santa, though I did everything I could to deny it. I was so stupid! But now I just want to give in because no matter where I end up, I want to be with you.”
He drew his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks. She brought her mouth to his, kissing him slowly. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her feet off the ground, and set her back down again.
“How about this?” he said, pulling his mouth away from hers. “My hotel is two blocks away. Let’s go there, kiss for the next five hours, and then get up and make phone calls.”
“We’re only going to kiss?”
“No, probably not,” he said as they began walking toward the street, their arms linked. “But we can start there.”