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“I wore it, Granny.”
“Ugh, what impossible hair! I’ve never seen anything like it. Okay, change of plan, Oonagh. Why don’t we use some coconut oil to slick it down and get rid of the frizz that way? It’ll give it some gloss. Then we can give her braids on either side, and she can wear my Lacroix dragon jacket like it’s a robe. If we can’t make her look like the other girls, let’s give her the china doll look. Lucie, remember how we used to play china doll? You’re going to be my precious little Chinese empress at the party tonight!”
Lucie stirred herself from the memory, wondering how she was ever going to face George tonight. He probably thought she was a total freak. Why in the world did she kiss him? She didn’t even like him. What came over her to make her lunge at him like that back at the villa? Over and over, she was doing nothing but making bad decisions and embarrassing herself. Ignoring him, crying on him, kissing him. What would her grandmother think if she saw her behaving like this? Maybe she had Stendhal syndrome, being surrounded by so much beauty at that spectacular villa overlooking Positano. She had heard of people arriving in Paris or Rome for the first time and bursting into tears uncontrollably, overpowered by the exquisiteness of everything. No, she blamed Charlotte and Olivia. It was all that kissing talk between them after lunch that stirred her up and confused her.
Just then, she heard a strange shuffling sound on the floor. She looked down and saw that a little envelope had been slid under the door. Jumping off the sofa, she rushed to the door and opened it, peering out to see who was there.
The hallway was empty.
Lucie tore open the envelope and found a folded sheet of beautiful Italian parchment paper. Unfolding it, she let out a quick gasp. Written on it in prep school cursive was one line:
In one kiss, you’ll know all I haven’t said.
—Pablo Neruda
*1 This line is just one example of the kind of bullshit Auden learned to write in his Deconstructing Art of the Postwar Era course at Amherst. If he hadn’t dropped out, he might have had a whole other career as a critic for Artforum.
*2 This architectural masterpiece by Le Corbusier was formally named the Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut.
XII
Certosa di San Giacomo
CAPRI, ITALY
As luck or Murphy’s Law would have it, the one time that Lucie and Charlotte were a few minutes late in Italy was the one time the event started early. From Via Pizzolungo, the Certosa di San Giacomo looked smaller than it did when one actually passed through the narrow iron gates and entered the monastery. Here, the cousins discovered that they had to walk for what seemed like miles through a complex of ancient buildings, passing magnificent cloisters and expansive gardens that overlooked the sea. Arriving at the chap
el at long last, they found the space packed and the concert about to commence.
“I’m sorry, I tried to save seats for you, but the Queen of Sheba wasn’t having it,” Olivia told Charlotte in a hushed voice, darting her eyes at the elderly Italian lady with the enormous shellacked beehive festooned with emeralds seated next to her.
Charlotte forced a smile. “That’s perfectly fine. There are a few seats left at the back, I believe, otherwise we can just stand.”
Seeing how cross Charlotte was, Lucie apologized again. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have washed my hair. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“What were you thinking, Lucie? You know your hair takes ages to dry, and I told you we were already going to be late. And no one can even tell that you washed your hair when it’s put up.”
“I just wanted to get the sea out of my hair,” Lucie lied. She hadn’t washed her hair at all; she had spent the past thirty minutes trying to calm herself after receiving the mysterious Neruda poem, trying on six different outfits in a panic and finally settling on the long black gown with a bandeau top—the one her mom called her “Rita Hayworth dress”—that made her feel more sophisticated and grown-up. She had worn it at the Frick Young Fellows Ball,*1 where Bill Cunningham had complimented the dress and taken her picture, and she felt that she needed this armor against George, even though she was sure he wouldn’t notice—he dressed in such a nondescript way and would probably be oblivious to her sartorial efforts.
As they took their seats in the back row, Charlotte wondered out loud, “Where did all these people suddenly come from? I hardly recognize anyone.”
“I think many of them arrived just in time for the wedding tomorrow,” Lucie surmised, using the excuse to stand up and scan the room. She was trying to spot George but couldn’t locate him anywhere in the crowd.
Conte Andrea De Vecchi, a tall, imposing man in his sixties, and his wife, Contessa Laudomia, a striking strawberry blonde dressed in an emerald-green gown that Lucie recognized from Valentino’s spring collection, approached the altar in front of where the orchestra of musicians had been set up. Looking very distinguished in a dark velvet dinner jacket, the Conte tapped on the microphone with his finger and addressed the crowd in charmingly accented English: “Your Majesties, Highnesses, Holinesses, Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen, my wife and I are so honored that you have all come tonight from different corners of the earth to celebrate the nuptials of our son Adolfo to la bella Isabel. We are here in one of the oldest buildings in Capri, and to me the most beautiful. It was built in 1371 on the orders of Count Giacomo Arcucci on land donated by my ancestor Queen Giovanna D’Angiò of Napoli as a sanctuary for the Carthusian monks. Tonight, as we take sanctuary together in this sacred place, we are very lucky to have with us the maestro Niccolo Miulli leading the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, who will be accompanying the incomparable Dame Kiri Te Kanawa!”
The crowd gasped in surprise as the celebrated diva took the stage in a billowing cape of orange shantung silk over an iridescent violet ball gown. The orchestra began to play, and as Kiri bellowed out the first notes of “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” from Puccini’s opera La rondine, Mordecai could be heard letting out a moan of ecstasy so loud it sounded slightly obscene.
Even from the back row, Lucie was transfixed by Kiri’s incredible voice. She couldn’t believe that anyone could hit those high notes with such clarity, and as she sat there in the chapel, lulled by the ethereal beauty of Kiri’s next aria, “Bailero,” from Chants d’Auvergne, she found herself staring up at the vaulted arches of the chapel. The ceilings and walls had once been completely covered by a fresco, much like the Sistine Chapel, but now only a few colorful fragments from the original painting remained on the white plaster ceiling, punctuating the starkness in a random way that reminded her of jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Why did her life suddenly seem like a jigsaw puzzle that had been overturned? She had always gone through the world with such certainty, such methodical precision, like a perfectly sung aria, and now in just a few days it seemed like everything had become so confusing. Messy. And more than anything she hated messy. Was George actually the one who slipped the poem under her door? It had to be him, right? After all, he was the only person who had mentioned Neruda to her. What exactly was he trying to say with that line?
Lucie was a bundle of conflicting emotions. On one hand she was willing to admit that she found herself intrigued by George, but on the other hand she was repelled by her own interest. He was the absolute antithesis of the type of guy she liked. She sat there, fixating on all the things she couldn’t stand about him. He was a mama’s boy. A pretty boy. A surfer/jock. A tank-top-and-Birkenstock-wearing slob. A self-righteous eco-warrior. A brooding weirdo who took himself much too seriously.
Kiri capped off the concert with her most enduring song, “O mio babbino caro,” and the audience murmured in approval. As the swoon-inducing aria filled the chapel, Lucie found her eyes wandering to the fresco under the dome of the chapel, where some artist centuries ago had painted the typical scene of God and Jesus with saints, angels, and cherubs, their limbs all tangled up together in the clouds. At the apex of the fresco, Jesus floated above the clouds partially swathed in teal-colored robes that had been pulled down to his waist, exposing his muscular torso. Lucie stared at this decidedly hunky Jesus, counting the muscles in his six-pack, following the line of shading that accentuated his pecs, thinking, What beautiful nipples. God, what is wrong with me? I’m going to hell for thinking of Jesus’s nipples in a monastery!
As Kiri sang the last notes of the aria, her voice effortlessly trailing off into a delicate whisper, Mordecai was the first to jump out of his seat. “Brava! Bravissima!” he shouted, clapping wildly as the rest of the audience rose to give the legendary soprano a rapturous standing ovation. After a few minutes, as the guests began to disperse outside for cocktails, Lucie and Charlotte headed toward Olivia, who was standing in the middle of the chapel chatting with Dolfi’s parents.
Through the crowd, Lucie caught sight of George at last. He was standing near the altar speaking to the conductor, and as he stretched his arms out, gesturing enthusiastically, Lucie was surprised at what a commanding presence he cut tonight. In his cream linen suit, crisp white band-collar shirt, and suede oxfords, there was a distinct air of sophistication about him. Thank God I wore the Tom Ford, she thought.
