Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Positano and Paris
B y Christmas, the new scans were in: Alessandra was cancer-free, for now.
Federico was overjoyed, covering her with kisses, carrying her frail form to the car, and turning on their favorite songs and throwing his hands in the air.
Alessandra was weeping, too, but mostly due to exhaustion.
Rain spat from the swirling sky above them, a rain that told them the cerulean skies of summertime were deep in the past. When they returned home, they found a celebratory feast waiting for them, every delicacy meant for a Christmas in Italy, and Alessandra found herself tossed from one family member to the next until she pleaded fatigue and sat with a glass of white wine and watched the children play with toys next to the Christmas tree.
On her head, she wore a thick scarf meant to keep her head warm, and she joked that she looked like Mother Mary, headed across the desert to find a place to give birth.
Federico didn’t like that joke. He kissed her and reminded her that her hair would grow back.
It always did. Alessandra didn’t want to say, it always does until the next chemotherapy round. But she didn’t want to ruin Christmas.
At Christmas dinner a few days later, Alessandra was surprised to hear talk of CAT, the muralist. In the throes of chemotherapy, she’d let herself forget about her alter ego, and now, hearing about her was like hearing about a friend she’d once known but had lost track of.
“I wonder if he moved on elsewhere,” her father was saying, spooning more pasta onto his plate. “Italy in winter isn’t for the weak. And an artist making such bold claims like him must be weak.”
“I disagree with you,” Alessandra’s grandfather scolded him. “CAT is brave!”
“He always says this,” Alessandra’s grandmother said with a smile.
“Who says CAT is a man?” Federico said, his tone passive.
Alessandra’s heart seized. There was quiet over the table, and everyone was thinking about this.
“A woman is usually at home with the children,” Alessandra’s father said.
“Not everyone is a mother,” her mother said.
Alessandra’s father grumbled about “this new generation of Italians” for a little while before the conversation shifted elsewhere.
But for a split second, Alessandra let herself look at her husband, Federico, wondering what was going on in his head.
Did he suspect her of being CAT? Did he remember that she’d snuck out of the house both nights the murals had appeared?
Alessandra and Federico had been married for ten years at this point, which meant that they spent many days only half remembering their glittering origins.
The story of their past was that they’d grown up together in Positano but never been friends, not till they’d run into one another at art school in London, of all places.
London! It had seemed like the brightest and most insane possibility for a small-town Italian girl.
She’d wanted to date Londoners and had had grand schemes of staying in England forever and becoming an English artist, featuring her work in the Tate Modern.
But one afternoon after a painting class, Alessandra and Federico had spotted one another in a square and were drawn to one another like magnets.
The sound of Italian, the language of her life and her youth, had sounded like the most wonderful music.
They’d gone for drinks and laughed all night about their upbringing, about English people, about how terrible the food in London was.
They hadn’t managed to go out with anyone else after that.
Like many people before them, they hadn’t managed to think of anywhere else to go to build their life but back home.
But as Alessandra fell asleep that night, she began to stew with questions. Federico was the man of her life, her partner. Why had she kept him out of the most important secret she’d ever had? Why didn’t she want him to know that she was CAT?
A few mornings later, Federico surprised Alessandra with her “free from chemo” gift: two plane tickets to Paris for a three-night stay.
Alessandra was overjoyed. She threw her arms around him and immediately began making plans of where she wanted to eat and where she wanted to shop for antiques (most of which, of course, she wouldn’t be able to afford).
When her mother and father dropped them off at the airport on January 15th, Alessandra cut into the bathroom to fix her lipstick and look at herself in the mirror.
She had a bit more color than in autumn, and there was spiky hair growing out of her skull.
Some of it, this time, was gray, which was a disappointment.
But she reminded herself that aging was a privilege, especially when she’d spent so much of the past two and a half years sick.
The plane from Naples to Paris took about an hour.
It landed them in another dimension, where Parisian women dressed in immaculate outfits and walked tiny fuzzy dogs and ate croissants and did little else.
Parisian men smoked tiny cigarettes and squinted at one another from behind ornate and expensive glasses.
The city was all cream and traffic and baguettes.
Federico had booked them a hotel in Oberkampf, near the canal, and they took a nap on bleach-clean sheets and woke up to walk around and eat.
Alessandra reminded herself to appreciate every detail of this remarkable day.
She reminded herself to open her heart. After all, you could be dead right now , she thought.
They walked the river and shivered and eventually ducked into a brasserie for something warm to eat.
The ma?tre d’ told them that there weren’t seats inside, but they could sit outside under a heat lamp if they wanted to.
They said okay and went for it, huddling under blankets as the heater charged up.
It was in the lower fifties Fahrenheit, which they decided wasn’t too bad if they kept each other warm.
The red wine flowed, as did the conversation.
They were talking about London, about what they’d wanted their lives to be like.
But they were only thirty-five now. Wasn’t it strange that everything had gotten off course?
“Except for our family,” Alessandra corrected them both. “Our family is perfect.”
Federico agreed that it was. “I would never speak ill of any of them. Especially Anna.”
“Especially Anna,” she agreed.
There was a lull in the conversation. Alessandra drank her wine and let her eyes trickle over the scene in front of them.
It was then she saw the wall: big and empty and inviting.
Her eyes widened. Already she knew what she wanted to do, what she felt she had to do.
The tips of her fingers began to tingle.
“Federico,” she said, speaking as softly as she could. She touched his face and gazed into his eyes. “You’ve been with me through the worst times of my life.”
Federico sniffed and looked as though he wanted to stop himself from crying. “They were the worst times of my life, too.”
Alessandra swallowed. “I don’t know how to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Alessandra hesitated. If she told him about being CAT, there was no rule book for what would follow.
It was possible that he’d forbid her from doing it again.
Maybe he’d say it was too dangerous or remind her that they had so much to live for now that she was well again.
But this was Federico she was talking to! Her life partner! Her best friend!
And wasn’t he one of the best artists she knew? Or, he had been, until they’d given themselves over to making money and staying alive.
“I wondered if you wanted to help me with something tonight,” she said, almost swallowing her words.
Federico didn’t get it at first. “I’ll help you with anything. You know that.”
“Don’t promise it until you understand what I’m asking,” she said.
Federico leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes reflected the heat lamp above them.
“We’d have to stay up really late,” she went on. “And I’d have to gather supplies.”
Federico’s lips twitched. “What kind of supplies?”
Alessandra listed the various items she needed and said that it was better to buy them all from different locations rather than from one so as not to raise suspicion.
As the realization clicked, Federico closed his eyes and remained quiet.
Alessandra counted to ten, praying he wouldn’t fly off the handle.
And then he said, “Why did I already think it was you?”
Alessandra laughed and squeezed his hand under the table. “Because you know me.”
“Because I know you,” Federico said, opening his eyes again. “But I never imagined you’d go this far.”
“Why not?” Alessandra laughed.
“Because I thought we were too old to be stupid.”
“We’re never too old to be stupid,” Alessandra said. “In fact, now that I’ve lived through chemotherapy three separate times, I feel I’ve earned the right to be extra stupid.”
“Is that how it works?” Federico’s eyes were filled with laughter.
“I want to do this,” she said. “And I want it to be bigger this time. Better. I have sketches in my notebook. But I need your help to make it so large. Will you do it?”
Federico rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s a chance your mom and dad will catch on. Maybe others too. I mean, the timeline is strange.”
“People can believe whatever they want to believe,” Alessandra stated.
Federico sighed and let his chin drop to his chest. After a very long time, he said, “So much for getting a good night’s sleep on vacation, huh?”
Alessandra laughed.
But Federico was a remarkable help that night.
Because it was winter, the streets were clear by one thirty or so, and they worked diligently, setting up a rented ladder and outlining Alessandra’s vision until Alessandra was ready to fill in the gaps.
The painting was about motherhood, about the love of a child for their mother, about what was lost in translation between a mother and child despite trying from both sides.
Alessandra felt that, with this mural, she was revealing herself to be a female artist, and for this she was glad.
She was tired of the Banksy comparisons.
Banksy was a dude artist in every way. She was not.
By four thirty that morning, she and Federico scurried back to the hotel, showered, and got into bed, and by nine thirty, five hours later, the headlines were filled with CAT’s name.
Federico and Alessandra read them aloud to each other in their stunted English and French, as well as Italian.
Parisians were incredibly pleased that CAT had graced them with her first non-Italian mural.
Alessandra was giddy. Federico covered her with kisses and ran out of the hotel to get pastries.
“We’re going to eat everything I can find! ”
Alessandra remained in bed, watching the winter sunlight come in through the glass. She felt like she was floating. She ignored a few phone calls from her mother until, finally, she texted.
Mom: Isn’t it crazy that CAT is in Paris with you at the very same time! I wonder if it’s someone we know!
She smiled to herself and wrote back.
Alessandra: Maybe it’s one of our neighbors! I can’t believe it!
She realized that people always believe what they want to believe. Everyone wanted to think Alessandra was one thing, but she contained multitudes. Everyone did.
Federico returned with an enormous bag of pastries, more pastries than two people should ever eat at once. He was euphoric. She was thrilled that she’d brought him into her world, into this secret.
“What are your next plans?” he asked, taking a bite of something cream-filled. “Tell me how I can help!”
Alessandra smiled. How could she tell him that she hadn’t known she could hope for a next round? She hadn’t been sure the chemotherapy would work again.
“I don’t always need help,” she told him tentatively, “but I think I will for the bigger stuff.”
“The bigger stuff is what’s going to make you the next Banksy,” he said, which was true, she guessed.
“I don’t want to be Banksy. I want to be better than Banksy.”
Federico grinned and kissed her again. “You’re just like you were back in art school. You’ve got the same energy. I hope it rubs off on me.”
Alessandra took a bite of pastry and said, “I got so tired of being an artist like everyone else. Making the same paintings that everyone else makes and selling them.”
“I think I’m tired of it too,” he said. “I thought it was the only way.”
“There is never just one way forward,” she said. “We have to be creative. It’s the only way I want to live.”
Federico’s eyes swelled. He asked her to promise she’d tell him when and where she wanted to do her next mural, but she told him she’d only update him when she felt it necessary.
“I want you in on this,” she said, “but it’s still my thing, my heart, my soul.
” Some things had to remain private, she knew. Some things were sacred.
But publicly, CAT’s persona exploded. Cities around the world wrote about CAT, begging her to paint her murals on their walls and “bless” them with her messages.
Of course, what the world didn’t know was that Alessandra had responsibilities at home.
She had people waiting for her. She couldn’t gallivant around the world, although she so often wanted to.