Remember Me
Keywords: Remember, Me,
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She was seriously interested and seemed to hang on my every word. I told her how my family came over from Italy when I was a little girl and how we settled in the city. My parents opened a small ristorante where my sister and brothers helped out.
I told her about how I met my first real boyfriend and how we broke up because my parents didn't like him; he wasn't Italian, which was a big no-no. He went to a different college and it wasn't until after we both graduated that we met up again. We reconnected and eventually became lovers of art and of each other. It's how we came to start the gallery, through our love of art and wanting to have somewhere to showcase up and coming artists.
It wasn't long after that I had found him giving an art major some 'private' lessons. I eventually convinced him to sign over his half of the
Gallery. It was difficult at first, not many wanted to deal with a woman alone but I persevered and became successful. Lucia had started for me as an intern and would eventually become my right hand.
"It doesn't surprise me that you've made a success of your business. Having dealt with you I can see how dedicated you are." She said.
"Dealt with me, huh? I'll take that as a compliment." I laughed.
"It was your accent. I had no idea what you were saying so I just agreed to everything." She winked and then lit a cigarette.
"I didn't realize I was so unintelligible?"
"I'm teasing. You speak perfect English for a foreigner."
"Your sense of humor is as unconventional as your artwork."
"I've been called a lot of things before but I like unconventional best." She laughed. "So what part of Italy are you from, I can't trace your accent?"
"Tuscany. I still have family there; my uncle owns a small vineyard."
"It must be lovely. I've always wanted to go to Italy." She sighed.
"Then I will have to take you there someday." I blurted. I don't know why I said it but something really did want me to take her there away from her own life.
She sat back and looked at me for a moment. Her eyes seemed almost pleading and then she smiled slightly. "I may just hold you to that."
"I miss her face. "
I shuffled through the box to find a picture. Fond memories assaulted me instantly when I found my favorite picture of her, taken on that week in Tuscany. Again, I was lost to reverie...bittersweet memories.
We stayed at my uncle's villa while he was on business in Roma. It was set on a hillside overlooking the vineyards and pastures.
Our morning ritual was to have coffee out on the small patio warming ourselves in the early morning sun and taking in the beautiful scenery that surrounded us.
Mary Jo woke early one particular day, deciding to let me sleep in while she made the coffee. While it was brewing she went outside to have a cigarette. I woke up early out of habit and found her sitting out on the wall. She was still dressed in her oversized nightshirt with her sleeves rolled up and her feet bare. Her hair was naturally curly and tousled and the slight breeze would lift the curls like unseen fingers. She had her knees drawn up to her chest, one arm wrapped around them while the other hung out, her cigarette dangling between her long fingers. It was the look on her face that compelled me to grab my ever-present camera. She had such a peaceful look one that I had never seen before and would never see again.
The click of the shutter broke the spell and I was regretting that I had disturbed the moment. I just leaned against the doorway and smiled.
She looked over at me and raised one eyebrow. "Am I going to have to hide that camera from you?"
"The view was too beautiful to not capture for posterity."
She smiled and held out her hand beckoning me to her. I put the camera down and she flicked away her cigarette so she could wrap both arms around my waist. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
"Buona Mattina il mio Zola."
She kissed the space between my breasts, "Good morning to you, my love." She purred and rested her head against my chest. "I can hear your heart beating."
"It beats for you, my love." I lifted her chin and kissed her. I could taste the cigarette she had just finished mixed with the slight mint of toothpaste. "I miss that taste. " The slight smell of her perfume mingled with sleep melded with the earthy smells of newly tilled soil carried on the gentle breeze. "I miss that smell."
I closed my eyes and let the tears fall landing in a soft thud on the glass of the frame. It was time for me to heal this wound that I left opened all these years. I had avoided these memories for too long, unable to bear the pain. She was gone and she wasn't coming back, that much I knew but I could never fully release myself from her.
I went back to looking through the box reading old letters and looking at all the pictures of times and places we spent together. Seeing her smile again warmed my heart. I looked at old greeting cards and postcards remembering the private jokes we shared. I kept ticket stubs and playbills from every movie, concert, museum and play we had seen together. It almost felt silly keeping these little bits of paper that had meaning to me only but they were pieces of my life.
My coffee was lukewarm like my life now. The spontaneity was replaced by random bits of order that eventually grew over me like vines. I was anchored in a safe place and buried myself in my work. She would be so pissed off at me right now. She hated any form of routine saying it made her feel stagnant.
The second time I met her was when she came to the gallery on a whim. I was surprised but pleased to see her.
"Mary Jo what are you doing here?" I asked as I hugged her hello.
"Let's go to Central Park. It's a beautiful day, too beautiful to sit inside and shuffle through papers and boxes."
"Hold on, you drove all this way to go to the park?" I was floored.
"Yes I did since last time I was here we didn't get to go and I want to go now."
She was right about that, the last time she was here after we left the diner she went back to her hotel and I went home. I told her the next time she came to the city we would go wherever she wanted to go. I just didn't expect her to show up out of the blue but that's the way she was, impetuous. The funny thing about it was that she was rubbing off on me and at times we were like giggling schoolgirls. She challenged me to look for all the delights that life had to offer no matter how big or how small.
We spent a wonderful day in the park just walking and talking. It had been so long since I had last been there and being with her made me recall the days when I was younger and would visit there with my family. We went the zoo and watched the children take in the delights of the animals there. She told me about her niece Rosalie whom she adored.
"If I were to have a daughter she would be just like Rosie. I don't foresee children in my future so I give what I can to her, not just gifts but what I've learned. She's brilliant Gia, not school wise but in her way of seeing the world. One day she's going to be a writer and a great one at that. I'll have to bring her here to meet you and see this wonderful city. I don't want her to stagnate in that town becoming a wife and a mother without sampling the world and what it has to offer."
"I wish I had an aunt like you when I was growing up." I laughed. "I bet she thinks the world of you."
"I think the world of her. I want her to be happy but I fear that is something she's inherited from me." She quickly added, "Along with my sense of humor and appetite. I'm hungry, how about you?"
Avoiding subjects or disguising them in something humorous was her way of dealing with things. It upset me at first but then I came to know it was her nature and when she was ready to let me in she would tell me what was on her mind. I decided not to press the issue and suggested we go to my family's restaurant, my treat being that she gave me a wonderful afternoon.
We took a cab to Little Italy and went into the ristorante. My family took to her immediately and my mother insisted she have a second helping of her homemade lasagna. Mama felt she was too thin but Mama thought everyone was too thin and made it her life mission to feed the world one customer at a time.
We had a few glasses of wine and I told her stories of life in an Italian family and working in the family business. My father taught her a few words in Italian, mainly to have an excuse to flirt with her.
It was getting late and I insisted she should come and spend the night at my apartment. I didn't want her to have that long drive back alone in the dark. She politely declined but when my mother insisted and bribed her with some pastries to take home with us she relented.
My apartment wasn't too far away. I couldn't imagine leaving the neighborhood plus the rent was cheaper and my mother's cooking was always close by when I didn't feel like cooking for myself. When we finally arrived at my place, I poured us a glass of wine and we sat down on the couch.
"You spend a lot of time at work don't you?" she asked
"What makes you say that?"
"Your apartment isn't lived in. you haven't surrounded yourself with things that make it a living space." She tucked her feet up under her glancing around. "For a gallery owner not to have art on her walls and the only statuary to be religious icons isn't conducive to expanding your creative spirit."
I looked around and noticed she was right. "I guess you maybe right. I don't dare move the statue of the Blessed Virgin because my mother put it there and before you say a word, yes. I am afraid of my mother even at this age. Plus it isn't worth arguing over."
"The scourge of growing up Catholic; I know it well." She laughed. "We are first destined to be brides of Christ and then brides of lesser men. Giving our virginal selves over, and then dedicating our lives to our mates and family with shiny happy faces and clean floors.
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Keywords: Remember, Me,