8. Atticus
ATTICUS
The morning light across my apartment floor is a harsh, uncompromising white.
I’ve spent two hours hunched over my light table, sliding transparencies and digital proofs into rows that don't quite sing.
My editor wants "The Hidden Pulse." He wants the Florence that doesn't sell keychains and plastic statues of David.
I scroll through a folder of potential assistants provided by the agency—bored graduates with expensive lenses and practiced pouts. Then my phone pings. A last-minute cancellation from the lighting tech I’d booked.
I toss my pen onto the desk. The typical travel influencer would spend the day complaining about the lack of Wi-fi in the Oltrarno workshops or worrying about their makeup melting in the Tuscan humidity. I need someone who actually looks at things.
My mind skips back to Baleigh. I remember the way she looked at a crumbling brick wall like it was a masterpiece. She has this raw, uncurated wonder that’s become a rare currency in my world.
I pull up her number and type: I’m short-staffed on a shoot for a feature today. It involves a lot of walking and even more caffeine. Interested?
The reply is near-instant. Yes! Just tell me where.
An hour later, I’m leaning against the sun-warmed stucco of a café that doesn't have an English menu. Baleigh rounds the corner, her hair a bit windblown, a smudge of ink on her thumb. She’s breathless, her eyes darting toward the tiny, unmarked door of the coffee shop.
"I didn't even know this street existed," she says, smoothing her jacket. "I think I took three wrong turns, but I found a tiny garden with a stone lion on the way."
"The lion of Via dell’Orto," I say, handing her a shot of espresso in a thick ceramic cup. "Most people walk right past it."
We move through the narrow capillaries of the city. I’m supposed to be the guide, the one with the eye, but I find myself lowering my Leica to watch her instead.
"Atticus, look," she whispers, pulling me toward a heavy oak door.
Above the lintel, a fresco has faded into ghostly outlines of blue and gold, nearly swallowed by vines. I’ve walked this passage fifty times and always looked at my watch or my light meter.
"The way that the light hits that blue," she says, voice thick with genuine reverence. "It looks like a secret somebody forgot to keep."
She wanders toward a bakery where the scent of rosemary and sea salt spills into the alley, stopping to read a handwritten note taped to a window.
"Someone is looking for a lost cat named Dante," she says, smiling. "They describe him as 'arrogant but soft.' That’s so... Florence, isn't it?"
I lift my camera, but I don't point it at the architecture. I capture her profile as she leans in to study the texture of the stone. For years, I’ve hunted for the "authentic" city, but looking through her eyes, I realize I’ve been staring at the bones while she’s finding the soul.
We drift deeper into the Oltrarno, far from the rhythmic clacks of selfie sticks on cobblestone.
I lead her through a door so low I have to duck, into a workshop smelling of cedar and ancient tannins.
Enzo, a third-generation leather binder, doesn't look up from his workbench until I greet him in rapid-fire Italian.
Baleigh hovers by the shelf of hand-marbled papers. Her fingers hover over the swirls of crimson and gold, never quite touching, as if the ink is still wet after fifty years.
"The patterns," she whispers, turning to me. "They look like storm clouds over a sunset."
Enzo barks a laugh and hands her a scrap of scrap leather, his weathered face cracking into a map of wrinkles. She thanks him with a "Grazie mille" so earnest the old man actually blushes.
We leave with a small almond pastry from a shop with no sign, sharing the warm, flaky crust as we climb a set of stone stairs tucked behind a crumbling convent. At the summit, a hidden terrace opens up, a private island above a sea of terracotta tiles and laundry lines.
"I’ve spent so much time chasing 'the shot,'" I say, watching her lean over the iron railing. "Sometimes I forget to just be in the city."
"Is that why you stay?" she asks. "Because you're still looking for something?"
I adjust the focus ring on my lens, but the view of the Duomo in the distance is blurred. Only she is sharp. "I stayed because here, you can be whoever you want. Back home, people remember you by your mistakes or your father’s last name. Here? You’re just the man with the camera."
"I get that," she says, voice dropping an octave. "In North Carolina, I’m 'the one who stayed.' My life is a predictable loop of Sunday dinners and people asking when I’m getting married. Being here... it feels like I’ve finally stepped out of a black-and-white movie into color."
The light shifts, catching the gold in her hair. I should be documenting the way the sun hits the Arno, but my shutter clicks on the curve of her smile instead. The air feels heavy, charged with a quiet gravity I wasn't prepared for.
"Wait, look at that gargoyle," Baleigh says, pointing toward a rain spout carved into a screaming griffin. "He looks like he’s judging everyone who walks by without an umbrella."
She doesn't wait for an answer. She steps off the narrow sidewalk, framing the shot with her phone. She’s focused on the grit of the stone, oblivious to the high-pitched whine of a combustion engine echoing off the plaster walls.
A Vespa screams around the blind corner, tires chirping against the slick cobblestones. The driver leans hard into the turn, a blur of red metal and ego heading straight for her.
I don’t think. I drop my camera against my chest and lunge. My hand clamps around her upper arm, and I yank her back toward the doorway just as the scooter whistles past. The wind of its wake lifts the hem of her dress.
"Easy," I say, voice sounding rougher than I care to admit.
I don't let go immediately. Her heart thumps against the side of my arm, rapid and wild.
For a second, the heat of her skin under my palm is the only thing I can feel.
The thought of her hitting that stone—of that light in her eyes going out because of a bored teenager on a moped—makes my stomach do a slow, sickening roll.
"Narrow streets, fast wheels," I mutter, finally releasing her. I check my camera lens, a reflex to hide the way my fingers are trembling. "You have to watch the corners. Florence doesn't pause for art."
"Thank you," she breathes, rubbing the spot where I grabbed her. She isn't annoyed; she’s looking at me with a soft, searching expression that makes me want to start walking again. Fast.
We keep to the shadows as the sun climbs. She’s quiet for a street or two before she asks, "Do you ever miss it? The States? Your family must have been devastated when you just... stayed."
"I send postcards," I say, keeping my pace steady. "And the coffee is better here. It's hard to go back to diner swill once you’ve had a proper macchiato."
"Coffee is a reason for a vacation, Atticus. It’s not why you build a life five thousand miles away." She tilts her head, caught in that infuriatingly observant way of hers. "What was her name?"
I laugh, a short, rehearsed sound. "No grand tragedies here. Just a man who realized his luggage was too heavy for a return flight. Now, look at that window display. That’s seventeenth-century ironwork."
She looks, but I can feel her lingering on the silence I left behind. She knows I’m pivoting, but she lets the subject drop, sparing me the interrogation. I lead her toward the bridge, grateful for the noise of the crowds to drown out the questions I still haven't answered for myself.
The light turns a heavy, liquid amber as we reach the vantage point.
Florence stretches out below us, its domes and towers glowing like embers in a cooling hearth.
Most visitors scramble for the middle of the Piazzale Michelangelo to fight for a selfie, but I lead Baleigh to a crumbling ledge further down the path, where the only sound is the wind through the cypress trees and the distant chime of a bell.
She’s already perched on a stone bench, her phone held inches from her face as she scrolls through the day’s capture. The screen casts a cool blue glow against her sun-warmed skin, a stark contrast to the burning horizon.
"I can’t believe I caught the baker’s cat," she says, a triumphant lilt in her voice. "And this one—Atticus, look at the shadow the vine makes against the white wall. It looks like lace."
I lean in, ostensibly to look at the screen, but the smell of her—sea salt, almond pastry, and something floral—hits me harder than the view.
I’m an observer by trade. I get paid to notice the way light interacts with shadow, the way a city breathes.
But as I watch her thumb swipe across the glass, I realize I haven’t looked at the architecture in an hour.
I’m watching the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she finds a shot she likes. I’m noticing the bridge of her nose, dusted with fresh freckles she didn't have this morning. She’s unfiltered. In a world of curated aesthetics, she is a chaotic, radiant variable.
"You have a good eye, Baleigh," I say. The words feel inadequate for what I'm feeling right now.
"I had a good teacher." She looks up, her eyes catching the final, golden rays of the sun. "Today was... thank you for not taking me to the tourist traps."
"The traps are for people who don't really want to see," I reply.
The quiet that follows isn't the empty kind. It’s heavy, thick with the realization that the sun has set on more than just the day.
The professional distance I’ve spent some serious time perfecting feels dangerously thin.
I’ve made a career out of being the man who leaves, the one who documents the world without ever becoming a part of it.
I stand, brushing the stone dust from my trousers. It’s the smart move. "The groups will be heading to dinner soon. I should let you get back to the program."
We walk down the hill in the deepening violet of dusk. When we reach the stone archway near her residence, I give a sharp, polite nod.
"See you tomorrow, Atticus?"
"Tomorrow," I confirm.
I watch her disappear through the heavy doors.
I tell myself it’s just the Tuscan magic—the wine, the light, the history.
I tell myself that getting involved with a temporary visitor is a rookie mistake I outgrew years ago.
But as I turn toward my empty apartment, my thumb is already hovering over my camera's playback button, searching for the first frame of her.