This Crumbling Pageant Page 14

  “Unfreakingbelievable!” Janet gurgled. She added, to Scott, “She steps right onto Papa Smurf.”

  He snickered, and Gemma shot him a betrayed look, which was funny because they barely knew each other. He looked at Janet again. “Mm. You know what I could go for right about now? Your calzones.”

  She turned to him slack-jawed. “Are you kidding? You know how much work it is to make those?”

  &

  The suckiest thing about Janet was how early she liked to go to bed. She didn’t care what NBA matchup or cuttlefish documentary was airing later that night—he had to vamoose. It was only eight o’ clock when he inserted the key and opened the door to his apartment.

  “Holly?” he called out, though he knew there was no point.

  He went to the doorway of the empty bedroom and became lost in thought. After a while he realized that he and the dog were staring at each other, the puppy standing stock-still on the bed. Scott narrowed his eyes. He turned around and flew out of the apartment, the front door slamming after him. Then he swooped down the stairs and into the bracing night air.

  He was going to stay out late. Very late. So late Holly would come home and find him missing and let’s see how she likes it. He tramped around his desolate neighborhood until he reached the first signs of nightlife. It was a steamy English pub. Inside was a pack of wild and whooping American girls. Scott squeezed his way to the bar with its brass rail and shouted “una birra” to the bartender running back and forth. He had no problem rolling his rs. He could do it without overdoing it. In general, his accent was good. Holly had once generously lamented that it was better than hers.

  He grabbed his beer and began at once to gulp it down. Stopping for breath, he turned the bottle in his hand. On the label, a man with a handlebar mustache sipped from his pint and cursed Scott with his eye. All around the room could be heard musical snatches of Scott’s own native language:

  “I just wanna fuck some Italian guy.”

  “Stacy, you’re not gonna believe this! Rob told me he ‘dreams’ about your ass.”

  “I can’t believe I shit in my bed last night. I’m such a fuckin’ lush.”

  There was one girl—the shy one—with very straight, glossy, princess hair, and an innocent expression belied by a truly astounding body. She must have mistaken Scott for a local because her eyes were fixed on him with such susceptibility and longing-to-be-ravished that he could only shake his head at what a cinch it must be for the boys around here.

  Was Holly really any different than this girl? Don’t many women at some stage in their lives dream of taking a vacation to southern Europe and having a passionate fling with a Mediterranean? Don’t they all just want to fuck some Italian guy? What made him think his wife was above falling for that shopworn yet time-tested female fantasy?

  Nothing, actually. He didn’t.

  With the help of Carolina, the school’s secretary, Scott felt he had pulled off quite a daring coup getting his work papers in order. But the triumph was short-lived. He may as well have gone home. Since he and Holly had started their jobs six weeks earlier, they hardly spent any time together. The only time his presence was requested was to go grocery shopping and to lug the dog food bag up five flights. Scott had tried not to dwell on Holly’s absences, but then one night she said something that drove home just how seldom they were seeing each other. She had returned to the apartment, switched on the light, and found him lying awake on the sofa.

  “Oh!” she started. Then with a smile: “I like your beard.”

  He thought it was the saddest thing anyone had ever said to him.

  “Oh my God, Ashley,” announced a young woman at the bar. “You just spilled your beer all over my tits.” She bumped roughly into Scott’s back.

  He was convinced Holly was cheating on him. He couldn’t say how he had come upon this conviction. A certain falsity in her tone. A certain nothing behind the eyes. A husband knows these things as well as a wife. He hadn’t, however, actually found any tangible evidence, try as he might. A covert raid on her laptop had gone nowhere quick. Her Internet history had been deleted, which in itself might or might not be incriminating. He needed to take a look at that cell phone next. Her Facebook page was a waste. It had long been a ghost town, a place for clueless aunts and old classmates to occasionally show up yoo-hooing for her.

  The identity of the other man was an interesting question. Scott could think of several possible candidates: Giancarlo, the flashy carpenter who worked at the museum making mock-ups; Holly’s middle-aged yet abundant-haired bosses; that priest, who gave guided tours of the collection. Yet there were two who distinguished themselves from the rest. Two who were the primary suspects. However, Scott was making himself dizzy trying to figure out which one to be jealous of. And to his everlasting annoyance, they were both named Luca.

  Either Luca was a plausible rival.

  There was his landlord, the thriving skirt chaser. And there was the artist, that tempest in the shape of an Italian. One was filthy rich; the other was, in Holly’s own words, a budding genius. Both were handsome, handsomer than he.

  Both struck him as dynamos in bed.

  Scott leaned forward slightly. Behind the sweating bartender, the liquor bottles gleamed like potions.

  Which Luca was it? It had to be one or the other.

  Or maybe both of them.

  Scott was appalled. A porn clip went through his mind: the two Lucas simultaneously doing his wife. He gave a lurid shudder and then slowly turned to accept a shot of Tennessee whiskey from the girls next to him.

  “Chin-chin,” they said in a toast. Their beefy shoulders were trussed up in spaghetti straps. He nodded at them and tossed back the bourbon.

  He dropped the orgy idea. His imagination was running amok.

  But could he find it in himself to forgive her? That was the question. That was the question that he had only once stopped to ask himself. The answer was, he didn’t care about that right now. All he cared about was catching her and saying into that pretty little face I knew it I fucking knew it!

  He ordered another beer, two for the ladies, drank to their health, and was about to move away when one of the girls collared him and breathed into his face, “You’re hot!”

  Scott gave a regretful smile and showed her the wedding band on his finger.

  Again her face heaved into his. “That’s even hotter!”

  There should be a Mexican bar up the street. Scott seemed to remember there being a Mexican bar up the street. He wondered what one in Italy was like. It would be comforting to be around some of his North American brethren. He should check it out.

  There were no Mexicans in the Mexican bar in Italy. Scott asked for a Modelo Especial and then glanced at his phone for the time. 9:09. What day was today? Saturday? Yes, it was Saturday. He’d had class that day. What did Holly say she was doing today? Some shit about having to go in to work and then going out for dinner with friends. That was all. He looked at his phone again. No signal. Ha! That was one thing she was always saying to him—that she couldn’t receive his calls because there was no signal in whichever grotto-like wine bar or trattoria she was in.

  For good measure, Scott turned off the phone. Then he brought his beer to a table and proceeded to nurse it to death. He repeated the performance twice over. The place had embarrassingly few customers. The neat barman kept topping off the already brimming snack bowls, pouring a tiny bit, then a tiny bit more, challenging himself not to spill anything. It was engrossing. For other entertainment the bar offered satellite television on a set mounted in the corner, playing MTV2. Scott went outside, smoked his last cigarette, and then came back in and began to drink in earnest. He sat immobile, ordering carafe after carafe of the house red wine. He remembered consuming, trance-like, a prefab hamburger. Eventually, he roused himself and checked the time on a Corona clock on the wall.

  11:00. Still early, but by now Holly should be home. She would be worri
ed, a little mystified, wondering where her inscrutable husband was, getting a taste of her own medicine. And so, Scott finished off his wine, called the bartender over—and ordered one last beer. A tall, towering glass of Hoegaarden. He sat back and sipped at it maliciously. This ought to teach her a lesson, he thought, with drunken glee. But when he finally exited the bar and stumbled home, ready to meet all her questions with beautiful evasions, he realized he had been teaching a lesson to an empty apartment this whole time.

  “Unfreakingbelievable!”

  One record-breaking piss, and back outside he went. He wasn’t finished. He’d curl up in an alley and sleep with the tomcats if he had to. He walked off, working his way north. On Via San Vitali he turned west, in the direction of the university quarter. Along the way, he disappointed several drunken teenagers by not having any change for them.

  “You are American!” one exclaimed, putting his disgusting hand on Scott’s shoulder. He raised a finger and cleared his throat, about to demonstrate some of his English. “Fuck…” he said, “you.”

  &

  While Scott wandered the city streets, Holly was sitting with her friends at a table outside a club in the Piazza Verdi. They had been to a performance of The Vagina Monologues that night, and so every other word out of their mouths was vagina:

  “If your vagina could wear anything, what would it wear?”

  “Beh, that’s easy. My vagina would wear a Gucci bikini.”

  “My vagina would dress in a bonnet.”

  “My vagina would wear boots with stiletto heels.”

  “No, Flavia. I think combat boots are more your vagina’s style.”

  “I don’t know,” said Severino, a young gay man. He was a concert pianist, balding and dignified. He removed the pipe stem from his mouth. “To me a vagina has always looked like a wound.”

  This comment provoked the expected reaction, and he picked up a drink menu to shield himself from the attack.

  “You’re horrible, Severino. Didn’t you learn anything from the play?” they said.

  “I learned nothing,” he told them, straightening in his chair.

  In the middle of this conversation Holly saw that they were being observed by a straggling group of obvious Americans. One by one the tourists fell silent as they passed, slowing down to watch the lively Italians at play. For the first time in her stay in this country, Holly was conscious of being seen as a native. It gave her a little thrill.

  “Hello there, wife of mine.”

  Scott was standing over her, swaying perceptibly.

  “Scott?” she said. “What are you doing out?”

  During his nocturnal rambles, Scott had latched onto the group of American tourists. He eavesdropped on them until the sweet, stupefying smell of pipe smoke attracted him to Holly’s table. At first glance he didn’t know it was Holly sitting there. She was talking in that iconic brand of rapid-fire Italian, and looked foreign to him.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, with a discombobulated shrug. Eyes were on him. “You know, just hanging out. Saturday night!” Then he waved and heard himself say, too loudly, “Hi, everybody! I’m Holly’s husband. I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian.” There were about seven or eight at the table. One was a man, but Scott knew who he was. He was cool.

  “How’s it going, Sev?”

  “Ciao, Scott,” the pianist said, getting up and kissing him on both cheeks. He offered his chair, but Scott said he was a-okay. The girls nearest Scott rose briefly to introduce themselves, also kissing his cheeks. Scott bent down to give Holly a kiss, a real kiss, but for a lark she offered up her cheek instead. She clearly meant it as a joke, but he thought she enjoyed doing it a little too much.

  “So what’s everyone been up to?” he said. He was trying to control his voice, but it was like trying to control someone else’s voice.

  “We went to see The Vagina Monologues,” Holly told him, projecting her own voice in a slightly stilted manner. “Elisabetta was one of the actors.”

  “Cool.” He said hi to Elisabetta, whom he had met before. Next to her he recognized Sofia, a pretty little vixen with a sourpuss expression. She was shivering in her fur-trimmed coat. He looked down at Holly again. “You didn’t tell me you were going to see that.”

  “I didn’t know about it until the last minute,” she returned crisply.

  “What about you, Scott?” Elisabetta called out across the table in English. “If your penis could wear anything, what would it wear?”

  Scott wasn’t familiar with the show, but he sensed that he was supposed to answer with something quirky and ipso facto funny, like bunny slippers and a sombrero. They all waited for his response.

  “Uh,” he said, “a vagina?”

  That got a nice laugh. Scott gazed down on Holly, pleased with himself beyond belief. And then as if on cue, everyone stood up to leave.

  “Where’s everyone going?” Holly asked, looking around as if being abandoned.

  “I,” said Severino, “am going to bed. I’ve been up since five this morning. You should go home, too, Holly. I think your husband is trying to tell you something.” He winked at Scott. Scott gave him a bear hug.

  “I’m leaving, too,” Sofia said bitterly. “I’m freezing.”

  “Me, too,” said Elisabetta. “I’m freezing and I need sleep. Thanks everyone for coming!”

  The friends dispersed. Scott and Holly stood waving good-bye, and then faced each other with leftover smiles.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, flailing his arms, “you have to hang out with me now.”

  She fixed her eyes on him, bright and bird-like. “Are you okay, honey?”

  “Let’s just go.”

  They started home.

  Scott asked, “Why did everyone leave like that? Was it because of me?”

  “Don’t be silly,” she retorted, then waved a nonchalant hand. “The night was over, anyway. Besides,” she yawned, “I’m so tired I just want to go home and go right to sleep.”

  “Okay, take it easy. I get the hint.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  They turned down Via G. Petroni.

  “Brr!” said Holly, burying her hands deep in her coat pockets, arms locked to her sides. Scott avoided contact with her as well. She asked, “So how was your day?”

  “Fine,” he shot back. “How was yours?”

  “Fine.”

  “Remind me why, exactly, you had to go to work today.”

  “Clara and I wanted to start planning the exhibit.”

  “What exhibit?”

  “The Art of the Americas installation. Remember?”

  “You didn’t tell me about any Art of the Americas installation.”

  “I didn’t? Oh, well, it’s actually pretty exciting news. On Wednesday morning Enzo called me into his office and said he wanted to focus on New World art for the museum’s next show. He asked me what I thought, and I told him I thought it sounded really exciting, and then he asked me if I was interested in heading the project with Clara, as a sort of co-curator. Isn’t that unbelievable?”

  “Who the heck is Enzo?”

  “Vincenzo? The director of the museum? My boss?”

  “Oh, right, right. The great director! How could I forget.”

  “It’s a huge opportunity for me.”

  “I’m sure.” Suddenly he came to a halt. “You didn’t mention anything about the Kensett painting, did you?”

  “Scott.” She leveled a look at him. “Would you stop with that! What do you think, I’m crazy?”

  He exhaled. “Okay. Just making sure.”

  They continued on their way. Holly set her little jaw and waited before going on: “Anyway, it’ll look great on my CV, and it’s the kind of experience I would never have gotten in the States.”

  “America,” Scott grumbled.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s the kind of experience you would never
have gotten in ‘America.’ Not ‘the States.’ I hate that. Only assholes call it ‘the States.’” Then he stopped and said, “Holly?” as she strode down an alley.

  &

  Be that way. He went on without her. By the time he got home, however, he felt remorseful and called her cell. She wasn’t picking up. He sat through the long rings and the laborious voice mail recording and left a message saying he was sorry for being rude, “I’m the asshole. Please come home. We need to talk.” Then he wrote a text message to the same effect. He paced the living room floor, worried about her being out alone this late. After a half hour, however, he started worrying about her not being out alone this late. Then began a relentless campaign of phone calls, with Scott waiting through the seven and a quarter rings, clicking disconnect when the voicemail picked up, then clicking on her number again, over and over until it became automatic and his mind could go off on its jealous flights. He paced faster, hurtling back and forth. The dog kept thinking it was a game and was stutter-stepping around him. Finally Scott pocketed the phone, grabbed some change, and went outside, roaming around among the zombie armies of street sweepers until a pay phone came into his sights.

  “Pronto?” Holly said.

  “Holly.”

  “Oh. Hey, Scott.” He had caught her off guard, but she recovered with a flippant, “What’s up?”

  “Where are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Uh… Just out.”

  “With who?”

  A pause. “With Luca.”

  He hung up.

  16

  Sunday evening. Scott was watching the boring first quarter of an important football game. The night before, he’d banged on the door of a pensione and slept on an inch-thin mattress under a crucifix, and then had spent the whole day here, on Janet’s yawning loveseat. He’d left no word to Holly, only a note saying, “Play with your dog.”

  His back was having spasms. “I need to get up,” he said, to no one. Janet was down the hall going to the bathroom, and the maid was in the kitchen dropping some dishes. Struggling to his feet, Scott went out to buy some cigarettes.