'm wearing oversized cashmere knits to fight
the sudden drop in temperature, the wintry cold that slowly finds its
way through the walls and the windows and on to my naked skin. Stephanie
left the apartment on Monday morning, I haven't seen or heard from her
since. On the kitchen table a slaughtered envelope and a lipstick
stained coffee cup, more than one of her silk charmeuse dresses missing
from the neatly arranged walk-in closet.
I keep watching my phone
for signals and proofs that she's still alive, but all I see are
increasingly desperate messages from Henry. He wants me to meet him in
Prague, then Berlin, then Athens. "Let's just leave everything behind"
he writes and I'm not sure if he means our lives or the things we've
done together.
I try calling her, a few seconds pass before her
velvet voice: "This is Stephanie, leave a message or catch me falling
through the heavens".
Early Sunday morning in last night's dress, a
warm bed in an large apartment at the end of Via Prenestina. The sun
isn't up yet, Stephanie's eyes glowing like flares in the silent dark,
waiting to be rescued. A half-dressed man asleep between us, empty
bottles of Prosecco Spumante scattered across the wooden floors where
the air smells of cigarette smoke and stone dust.
She gets up and
starts gathering her wrinkled clothes: a graphite pencil skirt, white
silk blouse, heels from Ferragamo. It's a long walk back but we have all
the time in the world and no one bothers us because it's too late or
maybe still too early.
"I have things to do tomorrow" she says,
"will you be alright on your own?" She takes my hand in hers and we walk
past Catholic churches, ancient temples and fascist boulevards across
the river to her apartment above the little restaurant on the corner.
Five missed calls from Henry. He can wait until tomorrow.
I sometimes write down my dreams on a piece of paper, but I only truly remember them when I don't.
S
talks to me, she's the mirror image of Henry in that sense. She's also
significantly cuter in pink and has the alcohol tolerance of a high
school beauty queen (in spite of being raised on red wine and Sambuca).
The way we stumble through the narrow Trasteverian alleys late at nights
makes me think of rain clouds and the everlasting sun above them. Maybe
it's just our Champagne breakfasts softly whispering back like
long-protracted echoes.
"How long will you stay here for" she asks in the shadow of the Trinità dei Monti.
I'm close behind her, the sweet smell of chestnut hair in broad
daylight, hands tight around her pearl white swan's neck. If I press
hard enough I'll kill her. My worried heartbeats are thunder and
butterfly wings and I tell her that I haven't yet decided.
She has a small apartment in Trastevere where
she can pretend to be poor, and I that I've somehow managed to escape.
We spend most of our days around Piazza di Spagna and Via dei Condotti,
feeling less like tourists and more like European bohemians wearing
outrageously colored vintage spring clothing from Kenzo Jungle.
At
nights we get drunk in her apartment while trying on everything else in
that tasteful wardrobe of hers, then stumble down the Lungaretta to the
Arco di San Calisto where the waiters treat us like celebrities and
friends. She tips in dollars and flirts shamelessly with the entire
staff - after each dish they bring us free shots until the walls seem
too start coming down like ancient ruins.
"Rome", she yells
through the metallic noise, "is a lot like Paris I guess, only here you
get drunk off Limoncello". I want to tell her she's wrong but the way
she says it is just too damn adorable.
