and my red hair. I thanked him, and he handed me the lemon gelato, “Offerto dalla casa.”
The free gelato helped soothe my damaged ego but didn’t keep me from wondering if I was getting too old for this job. It used to be so easy. Now my skin glowed only with the application of expensive creams that made more promises than they could keep, and the sheen on my hair came from a bottle of pricey exotic oils bought in Paris. And when I lay down at night sans bra, my breasts gravitated to my armpits.
When I turned thirteen, boys and men alike began to notice me, the anonymity of my prepubescent form having disappeared over the course of one summer. My mother was the first to notice. Once, after she caught me looking at my profile in the reflection of a store window, she stopped and told me a beautiful woman needs to have something to fall back on when the beauty fades, or she’ll be left with nothing. “And it will fade,” she said. Would I have nothing to fall back on? How much longer did I have until I was forced to find out?
Unlike Feltrinelli, my ambition didn’t come from my wallet. It stemmed from a delusion that I was someone special, and the world owed me something—perhaps because I was brought up with nothing. Or maybe we all hold that delusion at some point—most of us giving it up after adolescence; but I never let it go. It gave me an unwavering belief that I could do anything, at least for a while. The problem with that type of ambition is that it requires constant reassurance from others, and when that assurance doesn’t come, you falter. And when you falter, you go after the lowest-hanging fruit—someone to make you feel wanted and powerful. But that type of reassurance is like the brief buzz of alcohol: you need it to keep dancing, but it only leaves you sick the next day.
The lemon gelato tasted like summer, and I told myself to stop the self-loathing. I changed my mind about going straight back to the hotel and stopped in the Piazza della Scala to see the Leonardo da Vinci monument.
The piazza was aglow. A small team of men were hanging white Christmas lights from the trees encircling the monument at the square’s center. One man in brown coveralls was holding the ladder with one hand and smoking with the other, while a man atop the ladder was trying to undo a knot in the wires. The other men stood to the side, arguing over the best way to undo such a significant knot.
A middle-aged couple sat on one of the concrete benches near Leonardo’s feet. Their faces were close and intense, and I couldn’t tell whether they were about to break up or kiss.
I thought of Irina. I thought about how we could never be that couple—kissing, or even fighting, right out there in the open for all to see. The thought came over me like news of someone’s sudden death, and I realized I had to put a stop to whatever was happening between us and just mourn what could have been.
I walked to the edge of the square and hailed a taxi.
“Signora, si sente bene?” the taxi driver asked when we’d arrived at the hotel. I’d fallen asleep, and the driver spoke to me with such tenderness, I surprised myself by tearing up. He looked so concerned. He held out his hand and helped me out of the car. “Starai bene,” he said. “Starai bene.”
I thought about asking him to come up to my room with me—this prematurely balding young man who smelled of fresh mint. I didn’t want to sleep with him, but I would if he’d tell me that I’d be fine, starai bene, I’d be fine, over and over, until I fell asleep. Instead, I went up to my room alone and lay down atop the covers in my wrinkled gown.
* * *
—
In the morning, after two Alka-Seltzers and room service, I removed my copy of Zhivago from its safe. Before placing it in my suitcase, I opened the book. As I flipped through the pages, a business card fell out. No name, no telephone number, only an address: SARA’S DRY CLEANERS, 2010 P ST. NW, WASHINGTON, D.C. I knew the spot: a squat yellow brick building with a royal blue hand-painted sign, a stone’s throw from where Dulles lived. I