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  Two Ways to Read

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  ONE

  catherine

  April 1993

  Catherine leans her head against the passenger window, grateful that Mark volunteered to drive from the airport. She’s not up to these Sicilian roads today. It started almost an hour before their plane landed—the disembodied sense of dread. That part is familiar. But this time there’s more, a feeling that this is some kind of last chance for her. Which is ridiculous. It’s been only a couple of months, and she’s simply getting away, not running away. She just needs to recharge, and that will be easier away from the well-intentioned encouragement of friends and colleagues.

  Funny, but most people she knows, seeing her shaken and down, have said something along the lines of “You’ve faced problems before and bounced back.” The irony is, those remarks have made her examine her life and understand that it’s not true. She has not bravely surmounted obstacles or dealt with adversity and come back stronger. Somehow, things have always gone her way, and she’s never even seen that. Maybe thirty-five is too old to learn how to bounce back.

  When Mark hits a pothole, the aranciata Catherine is holding flings an orange splash onto her gauzy white blouse. “What a mess.” Catherine dabs with a tissue. “I look like just the kind of person you want staying in your place for five months.”

  “Sorry.” Mark pulls out left to pass a piece of farm machinery sputtering its way down the road.

  “No, it’s not your fault.” They exchange smiles, and Catherine opens her window, feeling herself relax under the spell of the steady, warm wind. Yes. This is why she’s here. She looks out over the placid lagoon that hugs the west side of the narrow road. It sparkles and stretches to touch tiny islands in the distance. Weathered wooden signs point out places that until today have been no more than words on a map. Erice, Trapani, Marsala—the musical names make Catherine’s heart sing. Even this brief drive has shown her that no amount of reading could have prepared her for the wild beauty of the place. Derelict stone buildings litter the landscape, new next to old, and active farms and vineyards form a haphazard tumble of careless green fields that dare to race down and touch the road’s eastern edge. It’s a place that has lived so long, it can’t be bothered with the usual niceties of planning, building, demolition, and rebuilding. It simply grows on its ancient roots, organically and comfortably, understood by the locals and forever a mystery to anyone else.

  “Mark, quick—we’re the second turn after this sign.”

  It’s almost too late, but Mark manages to turn onto a long, white sand track sprinkled with mini craters and lined with prickly pear cactus. When a young boy runs in front of the car, Catherine grips Mark’s arm. “Look out!”

  Mark hits the brakes hard. “What?”

  “You didn’t see? You almost hit that boy.”

  “Damn! No. I looked away for a second. Was he—was it really close?”

  “Pretty close. He was crossing. Ran somewhere behind those shrubs on the left.” They look at each other, acknowledging this reminder of just how delicate life can be.

  “That shouldn’t have happened.” Shaken, Mark begins driving again at half his former speed. He pulls over next to two tiny, elderly Fiats that look as if they might, with a little work, be made to fit together in the trunk of their leased sedan.

  Catherine takes in the brown stone house, the matching stone cottage off in the distance, and the large, long wooden building even farther away. “Look at those olive trees. And the water. It’s like the land just . . . liquefies . . . and relaxes. You know? Then continues right on out to the horizon.”

  She turns to Mark, who squeezes her knee, and with a “Can you believe it?” smile, says, “Looks like you picked a winner here.”

  “I can’t wait to sketch this.” Catherine gets out of the car and stretches. For a moment the color of the sky prompts a memory of a student squeezing a well-used tube of cerulean blue, laughing as oil paint spritzes from a crack in the wrong end. The image threatens to lead her down a dark path, but she pulls back.

  Mark touches her shoulder. “You OK? Was it—”

  “I’m fine.” She draws away, knowing her smile is too weak to be convincing. “Look, that must be the owner.”

  A slender, middle-aged woman steps out the front door of the main house, a buff-colored puppy wriggling past her legs. She walks toward them, but the puppy dashes ahead and greets Mark with full-on pawing and tail wagging.

  “Hey, guy.” Mark crouches down, and the puppy snuffles in his hair.

  The woman, wearing jeans and ankle-high work boots, catches up. “Excuse this, please. He is—em—a baby and not too good in behaving. Basta, Pippo! Shhh!” This admonition triggers an inexplicable full-body wag, and the woman shrugs, smiling in what appears to be familiar defeat. She holds out her hand. “Benvenuti—welcome to Macri and to our farm. I am Giulia Trovato.”

  With only one skipped beat of her heart, Catherine replies in rusty Italian. As it becomes clear that Giulia understands her, she relaxes, even more so when Giulia continues in English, with a rhythmic Italianate cadence that is beyond charming.

  “Let me show you your little house. It’s a short walk only.” Giulia explains the cottage’s quirks as they walk. “And so, not two showers very close together, OK? Unless you like the cold shower.”

  At the cottage, Giulia unlocks the door. “You maybe don’t need to use this key so much. Here, no one comes to find you who shouldn’t.”

  Catherine takes in the cozy sitting room that opens into a beautiful old kitchen. “I love this tile.” She runs her fingers across the peacock-blue and yellow glazes. Large windows offer views of the lagoon to the west, the olive trees to the north, and the big barn in an open field to the south. Catherine reaches into her purse for a leather clip and fastens her dark brown hair up and away from her long neck. She can’t wait to kick off her shoes.

  Walking over to two trunks stacked against the far wall, Mark says, “Thank you, Giulia, for letting us send these ahead. I had no idea we owned so many clothes.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  Mark examines the stone fireplace and the dark wood beams of the high ceiling. “Fantastic. This is built to last, huh?”

  “Here, we like when things stay. Not like—eh—the disposable everything. But now I have in my oven something almost ready to come out. I will go take care of this now and be back in two minutes to show you the barn.”

  “Please do. We don’t want any fires.” As Giulia leaves, Mark joins Catherine, who’s looking out the window. “Something interesting?”

  “All of it.”

  When she doesn’t elaborate, Mark says, “You thinking about Seth?”

  “I’m planning to write to him, Mark. Try to set some of it straight.”

  “Not that again, Cath. You have to let it go. Isn’t that why we came here? Because you wanted to let it go?”

  “You wanted to let it go. I need to work it out in a way that makes me comfortable.”

  “How can you even consider telling him where we are?”

  “You think he’s going to get on a plane and come here? Come on, Mark.” Catherine stops, playing their exchange back in her head, astonished at the swift escalation—quiet to loud, calm to angry. She tempers her tone. “I’ve already sent him our mailing
address here.”

  “It’s just not smart. It’s asking for trouble. More trouble.”

  They stare out the window in silence. Catherine is about to speak when Mark points to a figure in the distance. “Looks like Giulia’s ready.” He turns to Catherine, his expression conciliatory. “Let’s not argue about this right now. Here we are—in this beautiful place. And exhausted. Let’s just wait a couple of days and then talk it over, OK?”

  Relieved to feel the tension defuse, Catherine smiles. “OK.”

  As they walk to the long, low building, Pippo runs ahead. Catherine’s eyes turn inland to the rows and rows of olive trees and the many tones of moody gray-green they provide for the sun to play with. “These are all yours, Giulia?”

  “Yes. One hundred hectares—em, about two hundred fifty acres.”

  “All for olive oil?”

  “Most, but also, we sell the olives to eat. My brother—not far from here he has the press for the oil, and also he preserves the olives to sell them. Our family has done this a very long time.”

  “The trees are magnificent.” Catherine envisions them in acrylic and oil, clay and bronze.

  “Grazie. Some are very old. Maybe three hundred years.” They reach the barn. “You must be tired. Travel from New York—always it makes me want to clean up and rest right away.”

  Catherine puts a hand over the orange stain on her blouse. “You’ve been to New York, then?”

  “Yes. Manhattan and Brooklyn. My cousin lives in Brooklyn, and I have been three times to stay with her. I like it very much there. But my cousin, she says now is not the same as it was.” Giulia waves her hand backward over her shoulder, a gesture that could mean last week or last century. “Now, she says it is all yuppie hippies with fancy ideas who live there. In America, things always change, no?” She sighs. “Where do you live in New York?”

  Catherine exchanges a quick glance with Mark, who appears to be suppressing an amused smile. “Brooklyn.”

  “Oh! So nice.”

  At the barn, Giulia unlocks a broad set of heavy doors. The baleful groan of their massive hinges, whose style matches the shadowy medieval interior, makes Catherine grateful they’ve arrived before dark. Centered on one of the very long walls of the cavernous space is a bank of filmy windows lighting the midsection like a stage in a darkened theater. Floating dust forms a veil, suspended in midair. It shimmers in the bright light and disappears into dark corners and the even darker lofts overhead, like fog or smoke. Or runaway spirits. In the surreal glow, Mark’s windblown blond hair is a translucent and tattered halo.

  “This barn is hundreds of years old, but the windows only maybe fifty years.”

  “This will be perfect for me. And it’s just huge!” Catherine eyes the banks of long wooden lablike tables lined up in the windows, the ideal height for art stools.

  “If you open the doors on both ends of the barn, you get a big cool breeze from the water.”

  As Giulia and Mark discuss the windows, Catherine looks toward the west-facing doorway and through it, to the sloping field that washes out to white in the brilliant afternoon sun. She notes a shadow and a movement, and spies a small boy standing in the doorway, backlit by the glare reflected from the water. She waves at him, but he remains still. Catherine turns to Giulia. “Who’s the little boy?” When she turns back, he’s gone.

  “Boy?”

  “He was just there, in that doorway. I saw him before. When we drove up. I assumed he lives here—or nearby.”

  Giulia stands next to Catherine and looks toward the door. “I think there are no children even close to here, but maybe. Or maybe he visits—like you!”

  As Catherine runs her hand over the smooth wood of the benchtop, Giulia says, “Do you have children? At home?”

  “Us? Oh, no. Not yet, anyway. Maybe, though. Maybe someday.”

  Giulia smiles. “Sì, sì. Maybe someday. When you are ready for the new adventure.”

  The next morning, Catherine wakes up later than planned, but she lets Mark sleep. She could say she’s being thoughtful, but the truth is she’s happy to put off the unpacking.

  Choosing a pair of turquoise-and-lime-green ceramic mugs from a kitchen cabinet, Catherine places them on the dark wood table and arranges two chairs for a view of the sea. She locates the coffee grinder—manual, so nice and quiet—and soon wonderful aromas fill the room. Warming milk, fresh coffee beans, even the smell of propane when she lights the burner—they bring back happy memories of time spent living in a cramped apartment with two other graduate students every bit as much in the thrall of Florence as she was. Coffee brewed and milk heated, she sits at the table, her back to the bedroom door. Being here is thrilling and scary, but not as scary as staying in New York. It’s one thing to be out of step in a place you’re visiting; it’s quite another to become out of step in the place you call home. How a single experience can turn your safest place into the one you need to escape—she’d never appreciated how shattering that could be.

  “Hello in there?”

  Catherine turns to see Mark, elbows on the table, chin resting on clasped hands, seated beside her. Oh, no. That was supposed to stop here—the little gaps in time, the sickening moment when she realizes she’s been gone. “I didn’t hear you come in. Lost in thought, I guess.” She keeps her voice light.

  “I’m still half-asleep myself.” Mark gets up and walks across the room. “Let’s try out this couch.”

  They plop down on the worn sofa, all wine-colored brocade and plump pillows. Hitching and stretching, they arrange themselves to be close and cozy.

  “This thing could swallow you up.” Catherine readjusts a leg. “If we look, we might find the last guests down in there.”

  They sit in quiet for a long time until Mark speaks. “You know, I think we’re some of those ‘yuppie hippies in Brew-ka-leen-a’ Giulia was complaining about.”

  “Oh God, I know. Let’s stay away from that subject with her, OK?” Catherine gets up, again drawn to the window. The sky is so blue it all but demands they get up and out there to find out why it’s so happy. “There’s that peculiar boy again. He just—stands there.” She waves, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I hope he’s not going to be a pest. Hang around us all the time.”

  She walks back to the couch and puts on her shoes. “It’s odd, Mark, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it must be because we came so close to—you know—hitting him on the way in. But seeing him gave me a weird feeling. Butterflies in my stomach or something. Something—fidgety.” She walks back to the window. “He’s gone now.”

  Mark stands and rests his hands on her shoulders and his chin on top of her head. “Hey, with any luck he’s visiting someone nearby, and you’ll never see him again. Anyway, once he catches on to who we are . . .”

  “Who we are?”

  “Yeah. A pair of yuppie hippie types from Brooklyn, responsible for the decline and fall of the entire borough. I mean, why would he want to hang around us?”

  TWO

  seth

  August 23, 1992

  Dear Notebook,

  I was going to write “Dear Diary” but I felt like a 12 yr old girl with a pink gel pen. I don’t exactly know how to feel about this. About you. I mean, it was nice of Dr Whitmore to give me a fancy leather diary. He called it a “graduation” present now that I’m going from once a week appointments to once a month. But the truth is he actually believes that writing about yourself every day is a helpful thing. I guess if you’re a shrink you really buy into the whole idea of examining every thought and emotion. Which I don’t think I’m all that great at.

  It feels pretty okay to be enrolled in school again. My new apartm
ent is kind of a pit, but it’s close to CCNY so I’m cool with it. The whole place is brown. And chipped. It’s a look, I guess. I said apartment but really it’s a room with some kitchen stuff stuck off in one back corner and a bathroom with one of those funky old tubs in the other. Which at least matches the rest of the decor since it’s kind of brown and definitely chipped. The refrigerator, though. That thing is old and the only brown is on the inside. It doesn’t wash off and I don’t even want to know.

  I’m supposed to write about how I feel, so—yeah—I still feel down. I’m not sure that’s ever gonna change. I’ve been in therapy nearly 6 months and Dr Whitmore seems to think I don’t need to see him so much anymore. I guess he figures pretty soon I’ll be all fixed up, but I don’t know. You don’t just forget something that big and move on. At least not me.

  If I’m honest about it, I’m scared right now. I have no friends at CCNY. My friends from RISD—some of them have called me but I won’t ever be part of that group again so why pretend and make them pretend? Maybe when we all graduate I’ll take the train up to Rhode Island and see them. But I’ll worry about that in a couple of years. Same with my old friends here. Everyone’s gone their own way pretty much. I’m not part of my old neighborhood anymore, especially after what happened. So I’m starting all over and there’s nobody home but me.

  THREE

  Catherine

  The lounge chairs Giulia has set up are large, cushioned, and colorful, and this rest is a welcome luxury after today’s massive unpack-and-put-away session. Catherine raises one leg, splays her toes, and frames an offshore island in one of the spaces between them.

  “Do you suppose the weather is always like this?” Sun-drunk, jet-lagged, and happy, Catherine turns to Mark.