14. Rome, September #2
We introduced ourselves. Her name was so old-fashioned that I had to ask her to repeat it.
“Jean.”
“Like the denim?” She nodded, offering a warm hand, the one with all the interesting rings, and let it linger on me.
We both agreed what an awful experience the casting had been.
“Sorry I stole the job,” I said shyly.
Jean’s laugh tinkled. “Oh, I have plenty of work to do.” She took a small step toward me. “How’s the modeling going?”
I considered her question for a moment, wanting to downplay how thrilling it was. “It’s actually quite uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable? Why?”
“Holding the pose. I get so stiff. And it feels pretty unnatural, being watched all the time.”
Jean paused, as if she wanted me to expand on what I’d said. It was the first time I experienced her prolonged quiet. You fell right into that silence, words spilling everywhere. Sometimes it made you overly frank. Other times, you said things just to fill the gap. Things you didn’t mean.
At last, she spoke, tilting her head slightly to the side.
“I sat once before. It was nerve-racking, I remember. I had this constant fear I might not make a good painting, that I’d let the artist down.
” I smiled. Jean’s observation was spot-on.
She considered me seriously for a moment.
“Don’t overthink your pose or try too hard.
The body has its own alphabet. Just let your posture speak for you. ”
That phrase resonated. I had recently started messing around in the studio, taking casts of my hands as they made those characteristic Italian gestures. I liked Jean’s idea that every human posture could be unique. I wondered, again, about her taste in art.
“Do you mind if I sit down for a moment, Gus? I’ve been walking all day—these Roman hills—when you get to my age, you really feel it.”
I gestured tentatively toward some stools, and Jean settled down close to me, leaving her bag on the table. I noticed her smell: tuberose layered over Italian laundry detergent. It calmed me.
“How was the exhibition?” I asked, referring to her bag.
“Magnificent,” she said. “Did you go?”
“I was dying to. It ended just before I arrived.”
“I’ve got the catalog,” she said simply. “I’ll give it to you.”
A warmth passed through me, which quickly shifted into curiosity about who exactly this kind woman was. Her questions kept coming. “Are you here for a while, Gus?”
“Program ends at Christmas. So, shortly after then. Or when my cash runs out.”
“Oh,” she tutted, making a long o sound. “That’s not long at all.”
“I know.”
“You want to stay longer, I take it?”
“Desperately.”
“Where are you living?”
“Termini.”
Jean flinched. “Now that worries me.”
“Well,” I said brightly. “It’s a shared bedroom and we recently found a peephole in the bathroom that we think our landlord uses for his own entertainment.
But, apart from that, it’s a palace.” I waited for Jean to laugh, but she only looked concerned.
I shrugged away her worry. “Honestly, it’s fine. I’m actually hardly there.”
She blinked at me, unconvinced. “And what was Gus’s life like before?” In the third person, her question seemed less direct, so I found myself telling her about the job at the cinema, the short stints at a studio when I could afford it.
“That sounds extremely varied,” she said politely.
“Yes,” I said. “Varied but also…” I trailed off.
“Kind of a struggle?”
“Yes,” I admitted. She smiled knowingly at me. “It was. Almost always a struggle.”
She told me that she split her time between Rome and her place in Primrose Hill in London. “For now, it’s mainly Rome.”
I hesitated. The woman was living my dream existence. “How do you know Thea?” I ventured. “Are you a collector or something?”
“That’s perceptive of you,” she murmured.
“I do sometimes support artists in their early careers—those with talent, I mean.” Momentarily, she let her gaze fall on my work and opened her mouth as if to say something.
I felt myself stiffen, poised for her comment, perhaps even a compliment.
But nothing came. Instead, she looked up at me.
Her eyes behind her glasses were searching and direct.
“But that’s not my main job. I’m also a therapist.”
“Cool.” It struck me that Jean must not only be rich, but also clever. The way she was dressed, it all now made perfect sense.
“What makes you say that?” she said, with a modest smile. “I mean, I happen to agree but—”
“You make people happier.” I wanted to believe this, but I also couldn’t help thinking of my parents, and Mr. Greening’s terrifying conversion pamphlets.
Jean flushed. Her skin was plump and very smooth. Although she had complained about her age earlier, her skin was youthful and unlined, as if she spent more time reading books than outside. I put her in her early fifties.
She smiled widely. “I think it’s pretty magical, too, Gus. It sounds strange to say, but—like you, I suspect—I really love what I do.”
I was flattered that Jean had noticed this about me. “What brought you to the model casting, then? If you already have a job?” Jean’s eyes glittered. “Sorry if that’s a rude question.”
“Not at all.” She touched my arm to reassure me.
“It was an academic interest, really.” She paused, just to make sure I was listening.
“The therapeutic relationship is all about observation. It has been a while since I was watched so closely myself.” Her tone lightened.
“A kind of reverse therapy, I suppose. Which means you’ll have to tell me about it.
” Playfully, she tapped my arm again. “Since you took my place.” I groaned with embarrassment.
“Just a joke, Gus. I’m glad I didn’t get picked.
I’m too busy, really, and I can’t stand to be in the same room as that man. ”
I assumed Jean meant Lawrence, and her criticism made me like her even more. We smiled at each other, then she checked her watch and announced she had to get off. There was a party at Sotheby’s that night and she needed to change.
“Let me know if you fancy coming along,” she said, opening a little Hermès wallet and passing me her card. She used both hands to pass it over. All her movements were careful like that. Every gesture was neat and precise. “They have this amazing terrace, which overlooks Piazza Venezia.”
“I can’t,” I said, feeling disappointed. “I’ve got a sitting.” I studied the card she had passed me. Written at the top in lowercase, rounded letters: JEAN GUEST . Underneath it read:
T HERAPIST & L IFE C OACH
Two phone numbers: one British, one Italian. I also gave her mine.
“She’s called Mary, isn’t she?” Jean asked. “The girl you’re sitting for?”
“Yes,” I said, getting up from my stool.
“Isn’t she the daughter of—”
I nodded, then shrugged. Mary affected a weary bitterness toward her mother that I was also trying to emulate. “To be honest, we don’t talk about her much,” I said.
Jean’s mouth opened, then closed again. “Oh, I’m not at all surprised at that, poor girl. Living in that shadow.” She shook her head. “What an act to follow.”
I looked away, uneasy about the sense of self-importance I felt, just through the association with Mary. Decca and the twins treated me differently, too, and now this woman. As Mary’s subject, I was acquiring status. Status and substance.
“I’ve actually got quite a few of her mother’s ceramics at home in London,” Jean said, her soft voice bringing me back to the room.
She turned to leave then, and beamed again, her hand lingering on the door.
“I’ve got one of her first-ever pieces. Her work hasn’t dated at all.
It’s still beautiful. Goodbye, Gus. What a total treat to meet you. ”
“Bye, and likewise.”
“Call me anytime.”
There are versions of my story where I gush over the coincidence of meeting this woman again, then I excuse myself politely and get on with my work.
There are alternatives where Thea forgets her scooter helmet and comes back to the studio, and I overhear the two women have a conversation and try to gauge the real depth of their relationship.
There are contingencies I play out for myself all the time, but do I really believe they would have kept us apart?
Deep down, I know Jean would have found a way to me.
Or I to her. That might be her chief legacy: To see the universe as fated.
To believe that some humans are marked out for collision, no matter what we do.