The Rome Affair
I had fallen into a sales career five years out of college, after I decided I had to get the hell out of advertising, an industry I’d misguidedly battled my way into. I thought I’d use sales as a sort of break, that I’d probably return to advertising (for no one truly left, one of my bosses had once said) and find a job at a better agency, or at least one that didn’t want me to specialize in the tedium that was account management. But I loved sales—the rush, the wondering, the cliff-like highs and even the lows.
The lows had been few until recently, when the economy slowed and construction slowed along with it, leaving many architects wondering if they really needed our pricey new software to help them design buildings. The U.S. offices of Rolan & Cavalli had finally come around and begun using the software after almost a year of my working on them. Now, I was here to convince the Roman architects that their Italian office needed the software as much as their American counterparts. Laurence Connelly, my boss in Chicago, was counting on me to land this account. “You’ll bowl over those Italians, Blakely,” he’d said in a rare attempt at encouragement. “Go get ’em.”
The gate buzzed, and I walked into a large courtyard with a white cherub fountain in the middle, a few cars and scooters parked to one side. On the opposite side of the courtyard, double doors made from heavy pine swung open and a portly man in his early fifties stepped outside, extending his hand.
“You are Rachel Blakely?” he said in formal, heavily accented English.
“Yes, hello.” I quickly crossed the courtyard and shook his hand.
“I am Bruno Cavalli. Benvenuto. Welcome to Roma.”
“Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure.” I pumped his hand once more, surprised that the owner himself had greeted me.
I felt the exhilaration of an impending pitch, a potential sale. Sometimes being in sales was painful—particularly when you were faking your way through a cold call or getting shot down from a company you’d been working with for five years—but the anticipation and bursts of elation from my job had gotten me through Nick’s revelation about his affair. It had given me back some of the confidence he’d stolen. And here in Rome was potential. Here, I might close again.
Bruno showed me through the front doors and through a sitting room decorated in shades of sienna and white. We made small talk as we walked, passing offices and drawing tables. By the time we reached the conference room, a round space with a large, mahogany table in the center, I was feeling charged up and ready to sell Bruno and his team—four men and two women—on the excellence of our software.
Bruno introduced me to the team, and I thanked him in Italian, then switched to English. “Thank you all for having me and for your time today.”
One of the team members, a paunchy man in an olive green suit, turned his head and leaned an ear toward me. A few others nodded, but as I moved from a few introductory remarks into my pitch, I saw perplexed glances. I slowed my words, but I quickly realized that although Bruno had near-perfect English, his staff did not. Some knew a few words, but when it came to talking architecture, they were only used to Italian. As the confused looks around the table increased, my adrenaline faded.
Finally I halted my words. “Capite?” I said. Do you understand?
The man in the olive suit shook his head. A woman held up her hand and rocked it from side to side. “Cosi, cosi.”
I glanced at Bruno, who shrugged. “Italiano?” he said.
I struggled not to rub a distressed hand over my tired face. While it was true that I’d lived here for six months as a kid and studied Italian in college, and while it was also true that I could order wine with the best of them and eavesdrop on snotty saleswomen, I didn’t think I could give an entire pitch in Italian, certainly not to describe complex architectural concepts. My company, Randall Design, had sent me, knowing I was the only one in our sales team with any Italian skills, but I’d been given the impression that I would mostly rely on English, stepping in here and there with a few Italian phrases.
Still, I would give it my best shot. I launched into my pitch in my schoolgirl Italian. The first few sentences came out okay. Then I started to stumble. I had to halt frequently to think of the proper words, the proper tenses, how to form a sentence. Pitying glances came from around the table.
I shuffled along until I heard “Scusi!” in a high, cultured voice.
The speaker was a woman with white hair pulled back in a low knot. She had raised a delicate hand. A braided gold bracelet adorned her slender wrist.
“Si?” I said eagerly. Questions during a pitch gave me motivation; they revealed that the client might be interested.
But the white-haired woman rattled off a lengthy question at such a rapid speed I only picked up every fifth word or so.
I took a breath and tried to respond to what I thought she might be asking—a question about our 3D capability. I mangled a few words; I forgot others. A man to my right wore a look of complete confusion and leaned closer, as if I onlyneeded to talk more loudly. The woman with the white hair shook her head dismissively.
Bruno offered to translate, and the question-and-answer session, which should have taken ten minutes, took about forty. My pitch limped.
After two hours, Bruno stood from his chair. “Grazie, Rachel,” he said, looking at his watch. “If we might take a break.”
I nearly kissed him with gratitude.
But then he continued, “Two of our members will take you for a meal. We will finish this afternoon.” He spoke in Italian to the team members, all of whom nodded.
“Oh…” I said. I thought of Kit at the hotel, waiting for me. I’d promised we’d have the afternoon together, that I’d show her some of my favorite Rome sites, aside from the Gucci store. I thought of how badly I wanted a shower and a glass of wine and a nice long chat with my girlfriend.
But Bruno was giving me another chance, one I needed and appreciated.
“Thank you so much. That would be lovely,” I said. “Could I please use your phone?”
I called Kit from Bruno’s office and apologized. She was silent for a moment. “It’s okay, Rachel,” she said then. “I’ll just go wander. Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
My hatchet job of the language continued its shamble at the ristorante, where they took me to lunch. There was no reprieve, only more questions about the software—questions that took me decades to decipher and centuries to answer. This sorry situation continued during my afternoon presentation of the product itself. I noticed every sigh from the team members who couldn’t understand me. I saw them glancing at their watches.
When the meeting ended—finally—I buttoned my jacket and shook Bruno’s hand. They’d consider the software and let me know, he said. Yet when I met his eyes, I could see the decision was already made, and the answer was no.
I walked through the office, tapped of all strength, mental, physical or otherwise. How wonderful it had sounded back at the office—oh, I’m going to Rome for a meeting! But the reality had been as fun as the middle seat on an overnight flight.
3
Slumped in the back of the cab, I began to think of how I’d tell my boss, Laurence, the news. He wouldn’t be pleased.
I paid the cabdriver and tried to cheer myself up by thinking about a night out with Kit. Professional disaster or no, there were bottles of wine around the city, just waiting for us to open them.
But when I got back to the room, there was a note.
Rach,
Met the most amazing guy! He works for the French embassy. He’s taking me to some place called Ketumbar. I figured you’d be exhausted and would want to sleep. See you later tonight. (Maybe!)
Kit
P.S. I hope your pitch went great. I’m sure it did. Thanks again for bringing me to Rome. I’m in love with this city!
I tried not to be disappointed. I’d left her alone all day, after all, and she was right, I was exhausted.
I took off my clothes and slipped on the heavy, silk hotel robe. Then I made the dreaded phone call to Laurence and told him about the pitch. “The owner told me before I left that his team spoke English, but they couldn’t understand the whole pitch.”
“I thought you spoke Italian.”
“Not well enough to get through a whole pitch.”
Silence on the other end.
“This is not good timing, Blakely,” he said, his voice as prim and severe as a schoolmarm’s. “We lost the Ricewell account today.”
“What?” Ricewell was a huge architectural firm, and one of our biggest clients. Their purchases of our software, and its yearly updates, accounted for a large portion of our profits. “What happened?”
“I can’t go into it now. Randall wants to talk to me.” Terry Randall was the company’s not-so-pleasant owner. He made Laurence seem like an easygoing beach bum. “You’re sure Cavalli isn’t going to buy?” Laurence asked.
The afternoon flashed before me—the disdainful glances from the white-haired woman, sympathetic ones from Bruno. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Jesus, Blakely, I didn’t need this. I’ll see you when you get back. And have a great time over there.” His voice was thick with sarcasm. “I’m glad somebody’s getting a vacation.” He hung up.
I lay back on the bed and dialed Nick’s work number. It was late morning in Chicago, and it was his day to see patients at the office, but I wanted to hear his voice.
Tina, the receptionist, answered. “Hi, Rachel!” she said cheerily. “How’s Rome?”
I turned my head on the pillow and looked around the room. The windows were open, the breeze making the curtains sway and billow. “Beautiful. Thanks for asking. Hey, is Nick busy?”
“He’s not in today.”
“What do you mean?”
“He took today off. It’s super warm here, like almost eighty degrees. He said something about golf.”
“Oh, all right.”
But Nick didn’t golf anymore, at least not unless he had to. He had played on his high school team in Philadelphia, an intense experience that diminished his love for the game, and so now he played with the other doctors at his office only when he felt forced to do so for appearance’ sake.
“Did anyone else take the day off?” I asked hopefully. “Like Dr. Adler or Dr. Simons?”
“Nope,” Tina said, cheerful as ever.
I got off the phone and dialed our home number, trying to hold my flaring suspicions at bay. Maybe he was just using golf as an excuse, and he was home working on his paper. Maybe he was coming down with a cold. My own voice on the machine answered after four rings, politely asking callers to leave their name and number. I hung up and dialed Nick’s cell phone. It went right to voice mail, as if turned off by someone who very much did not want to be reached.
Something as heavy as lead crept into my chest.
I got up from the bed and went to the French windows. I pushed them farther open, hoping the sight of the Spanish Steps would lift my spirits, but the orange glow of the sun setting somewhere over the city only made me melancholy for company, for my husband, or at least the husband I used to have. The white marble steps seemed covered with couples taking in the coming twilight. As far as my eye could see, people were holding hands, speaking softly into each other’s ears.
Where was he? Why take off work on a Monday, only two days after I’d left? Why hadn’t he mentioned it?
I thought about all the talks we’d had after his affair. Why, why, why? I’d asked over and over. Whydid you do it? Nick shook his head, his eyes anguished and disbelieving, as if he couldn’t quite accept what he’d done. He said it was a product of his boredom, his worries about whether he’d make partner at the office, whether he’d make it onto the board. He needed something new and exciting to distract him, and when she walked into his life in Napa, he felt she would bring him that excitement, if only momentarily. He swore there was nothing wrong with our relationship. He wasn’t bored with me, he kept saying. He wasn’t harboring any kind of resentment toward me.
In some ways, I was relieved by his answers, or lack of them. Because I didn’t want anything to be inherently wrong with us. I wanted Napa to be a colossal, bumbling, impulsive mistake.
But I’d never stopped to think that maybe he couldn’t control such impulses. I didn’t even ask if he wanted to.
I shut the windows and yanked off my robe. I started the shower, turned the heat high and stepped inside, letting the water pound my skin.
He’s at it again. That was all I could think. It wasn’t the goddess from Napa this time, but someone else. Unbelievable. How smug I’d been this week, thinking how much he’d miss me. How sure I’d been of his devotion when I turned my back to him at the airport.
Nick’s career couldn’t handle a divorce right now. Hadn’t he told me that in so many words while we were seeing the therapist? We’d sat side by side on the maroon leather couch in Conan’s office, while Conan himself, a large man with a trim gray beard, sat on a wide leather recliner.
How had Nick put it? “Rach, listen, I know this is unfair, but I have to ask you something. It’s…” His words drifted off, and he gave me a guilty glance.
“Go ahead, Nick,” Conan prompted. “Everyone is entitled to a request here.”
Nick nodded. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell so many people about our…our troubles.”
It was our second visit when Nick said this, and I looked at him with disgust. “You slept with another woman. Over and over for a week.” I saw Conan studying me as my voice drove up in volume, so I took a breath and lowered it. “And now you want me to be quiet?”
“I am so sorry, Rachel,” Nick said. He reached out and touched my leg. “Like I said, I realize this isn’t fair. But you know how they are at the office.” In short, the partners at his medical practice looked favorably not only upon exceptional surgical skills and the publishing of papers, but also on charitable work and a clean, traditional private life.
I had assumed Nick wanted our marriage to work because he loved me, because he made that colossal, impulsive mistake, but now I began to wonder if he’d just been patching things up until he was a partner and a member of the board, when he could do anything he wanted with his life.
In the shower, a few frustrated tears slipped from my eyes, but after a minute, I began to hate my own confusion and self-pity.
I got out of the shower and called Nick’s cell phone three more times in quick succession. I started to despise the sound of his cheerful yet soothing physician’s voice—You’ve reached the voice mail of Dr. Nick Blakely. Please leave me a message. If this is a medical emergency…
I called the concierge and asked her to make a reservation at a good restaurant within walking distance. I dried my hair, recklessly directing the hair dryer any which way, never lifting the brush from the counter, so that the natural, erratic waves took over my dark hair. I put on black pants and high-heeled satin sandals. No more feeling sorry for myself. I had no idea what Nick was doing, but I was in Rome, and I was going out for the night.
As I walked to the restaurant, I filled up with the feeling I always got when I was in Rome—satiated though I hadn’t yet eaten, overwhelmed by antiquity even though I hadn’t yet waited in line to see anything. Beauty and history surround you in Rome. They’re inescapable, and their presence buoyed me, if only for a few moments.
The last time I’d been in Rome, Nick and I had strolled hand in hand over cobblestone streets, me gripping his arm when we crossed particularly choppy spots, and we stopped at nearly every os-teria for a glass of wine.
I pushed the thoughts of Nick from my mind as I spied Dal Bolognese, the restaurant where the concierge had booked me. It was tucked next to one of Piazza del Popolo’s twin churches. The place had white tablecloths and umbrellas out front. Soft light and classical music spilled from the white-curtained windows.
I stepped inside and looked around, my eyes immediately landing on a man talking to the maître d’. He wore tan linen slacks and a long-sleeved maroon shirt. His hair was dark brown, his skin tanned, and faint lines ran from his eyes to his full mouth. He had one hand on the maître d’s shoulder.
For some reason, the man turned to me as if expecting me. His expression when his eyes met mine said, Ah, there you are.
For a moment I forgot where I was. I don’t know how long I met his gaze. Surely it was too long, for the maître d’stepped around him, and said, “Madame?”
I stayed mute, still looking at this man, who felt brand-new and at the same time intensely familiar. One side of his maroon shirt collar had fallen aside, and I was drawn to the sight of his tanned skin below his collarbone.
“Madame?” the maître d’ said again.
I dragged my eyes away, but I could still feel him staring at me.
“Prenotazione per uno,” I managed to say. “Blakely.” I felt relieved to have spoken in coherent Italian, even if it was just a few words.
“Si, si,” the maître d’ said, glancing down at the reservation book. “Your table, here.” He gestured toward an umbrellaed table in front of the restaurant. “Please.”
I took a step to follow, but I couldn’t help stopping and turning. The man in the linen shirt was still standing there. He was still watching me.
“Your table,” I heard the maître d’say behind me.
“I should go,” I said to the man. Stupidly, I realized. He was a few feet away from me, and why was I talking to him at all? He hadn’t even spoken.
Feeling foolish, I turned again, followed the maître’ d and gratefully took my seat, hiding my face with a tall, leather wine menu.
I ordered buffalo mozzarella and asparagus to start, then porcini risotto. While I waited for my food, I sipped from a glass of crisp white wine. But I hardly noticed the tart apple flavor as I glanced around the restaurant. Where had he gone? But then, what did it matter? I quickly finished the glass and ordered another.
I ate my mozzarella when it came. The cheese was so fresh, it must have been made that day. Yet I had to struggle to appreciate it, more focused on the fact that the restaurant was full to capacity, and everyone was having a delightful time. With their friends. With their spouses.
I ordered another glass of wine with my risotto, a creamy concoction that somehow turned my stomach. I pushed the rice around on my plate, imagining Nick in the bed of some woman. Then a thought struck me. He might have her—whoever the hell she was—in our bed. I was glad I wasn’t in Chicago then. I could easily become one of those people who chased their straying spouse with a semiautomatic.
The waiter had just handed me my bill when the man I’d seen earlier appeared at my side.
“Ciao,” he said. His voice was low, smooth.
“Ciao,” I answered.
“I will call you then.”
I blinked a few times. “Pardon me?”
“I would like to call you.”
“Look, you don’t know me…”
He smiled. It was a kind smile, one that bore the experience of many years. I thought he must be in his mid-forties. How is it that Italians wear their age so well?
“You are alone in the city?” he said.
“No, no. I’m with a friend.” I realized the ridiculousness of this statement.
“Please,” he said simply. The collar of his shirt, which I could tell up close was made from a soft, and probably very expensive linen, had fallen aside again. He made a gesture to right it. His tanned hands were long and elegant and dotted with splatters of paint. Artist’s hands.
“You don’t know where I’m staying,” I said somewhat coquettishly. I felt a xpleasing blaze in my stomach at my boldness.
“Yes,” the man said. “True.” There were flecks of green in his smiling brown eyes. “Where shall I call you?”
I shook my head and forced out a little laugh. I knew Italian men loved to seduce American women, the thought being that they were—sexually speaking—much easier when on the road, particularly in Europe. I wasn’t one of those women, although clearly this man thought I was.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can’t do this.” I put some euros on my bill. Feeling silly, I stood. “Excuse me, I have to go.”
The man bowed slightly, then stepped aside. “Of course.”
I moved around him and without looking back, I headed out into the warm Rome night.
When I pushed open the door to our room, I saw that Kit was still gone. I checked for messages. There were none, not from my husband or Kit.
I called Nick’s phone. That grating message again. I called home. No answer.
I slipped between the cool white sheets, and waited for sleep to envelop me. I dozed, my mind working through short bursts of dreams, all of them unintelligible but filled with the color of Rome’s gold. I awoke and kept thinking about the man, although I knew this was illogical. I turned over in bed.
Just as I did, the phone rang—an unfamiliar bleat that reminded me I was far from home. I sat up and stared at the phone. I looked over at Kit’s empty bed, then lifted the receiver.
“Hello?” I said. “Pronto?”
“Giorno.” It wasn’t Nick. It wasn’t Kit. It was him. I just knew. “Giorno,” he said again when I didn’t respond.
“Is it morning?” I said.
“Soon.”
A pause.
“How did you get my number?” I asked.
“My friend who works at the ristorante. He told me where you were staying.”
“Oh.” More than anything, I was surprised at how flattered I felt that he’d searched me out.
“Please do not be angry. It is hard to explain, but I feel I have to see you, to know you.”
“I’m not angry.”
“You will meet me?”
I thought of Nick. Of course I did. And the image of him, which should have stopped me—his round brown eyes, his curly, light brown hair, the constellation of freckles over his cheeks—instead incensed me.
I threw back the sheets and said, “Yes.”
4
“Ciao,” I called to the sleepy guy at the bell desk, as if I always left my hotel by myself in the wee hours to meet a man who was not my husband.
I stepped out into the inky night. The kiosk across from the hotel, which sold water and pizza, was closed, the apartments surrounding the hotel dark. It was not nearly morning, as the man had said, and daylight seemed far away, as if I might never see the sun again. I liked that thought.
My body felt light, made of air. I moved down the street like a patch of fog. He had told me to meet him halfway up the Spanish Steps. As I took the first white marble stair, I halted. The Spanish Steps are hundreds of feet wide and sky-high, so what exactly did “halfway” mean? The first landing? The second? Ignoring the questions, ignoring common sense, I climbed.
My shoes went tap, tap, tap as I padded upward, and in my chest, behind my ribs, a drumbeat of anticipation began.
I glanced up for a moment and saw the moon—a small, yellow globe—and the dark sky behind it. The steps were nearly empty of their usual crowd, but somewhere on them, young Italian men were singing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few pairs of lovers. No single man in a linen shirt. My eyes climbed the huge stairway for him. Maybe he wouldn’t come? Relief. Disappointment.
At the second landing, I turned and stared down toward the fountain. A few stragglers were gathered around it. Maybe he was one of them? Had I walked right past him? But he’d said “halfway.” I remembered that for sure. Maybe “halfway” was some Italian lingo. The confusion nearly pulled me from my dreamlike state. I started to process what I was doing, or at least how I hadn’t a clue of what I was doing.
But when I turned back to look up the steps, he was there.
“Ciao,” he said.
“Ciao.”
He came to me and took one of my hands. I felt a flutter through my belly and my limbs. “I don’t know your name,” he said.