Excerpt: Ask Me if I'm Happy
"Connections - (February 2008)"
Chapter One
Restlessly, Emily’s feet slid over the pockmarked concrete of the
Rovigo train station platform, chips of disintegrating cement gritting under
the soles of her shoes. Two hollow blasts of a distant whistle shook her out of
her daze and she sat up on the bench to focus on the pinprick of light emerging
from the fog.
The more you want something, the slower it comes. I suppose this includes Italian trains. But why today of all days? Why can’t my last day here be different from the past ten years?
The concrete bench was freezing but she stayed put, her suitcase beside her. Weighted down by the sleep she’d missed the night before, her eyelids began to droop in spite of the cold. Emily shook her head suddenly, causing herself some momentary dizziness and drawing a disinterested glance from one of the other travelers on the platform. While digging around in her shoulder bag, she looked up at the station clock and sighed; her train was forty minutes late. Locating her planner, she pulled out her plane ticket and examined it once more.
Milan Malpensa, 15:00, British Airways to New York, window seat…
She clutched the airline ticket like a talisman before tucking it into place once more, briefly marking the blue edge of the photograph next to the ticket before closing the planner and shoving it back into her bag. No point in taking the photo out; the image of Jacopo seated upon the Spanish Steps in Rome, looking smug, was etched deep into her memory.
Still blindly exploring in her bag, her restless fingers slid over the surface of a thick legal-size envelope tucked up against the side. The contents of this envelope had, a few days before, rendered much of her life null and void in one fell swoop.
That was an eternity ago.
Shivering, she looked around at the other pre-dawn travelers. A few hopeful faces turned to look down the length of track visible from the platform in the faint light. However, the approach of the rhythmic clacking and chuffing didn’t slow. A freight train rattled past and disappeared into the mists, taking Emily’s fleeting optimism with it.
Earlier, after exchanging most of her euros for American dollars, she’d used the rest to buy a train ticket from the machine inside the station, and then a magazine at the Valentine-infested newsstand outside. Now she was obliged to forgo any additional purchases. Though as time dragged on, the station’s offerings became more tempting. A shift in the wind nudged the steam of her nearest neighbor’s tiny cup of espresso her way, bringing with it the warm, rich scent.
Maybe just a hot chocolate? Or a caffè macchiato?
Another passenger’s watch beeped but Emily kept her focus out on the tracks, refusing to read the station clock.
Stamping her feet, she carefully rubbed her numbed, raw hands to warm them. Fingers aching down deep, she pictured her sheepskin-lined gloves, cozy, warm and forgotten on the kitchen table back at the apartment.
Yet another scatterbrained moment and here I am, paying for it.
Finally she stood up and scuffed to and fro, never straying far from the bench and her suitcase.
“Sei disattenta,” Jacopo’s voice chided inside her head. “You’re careless to do something like that, but that’s just exactly what you always do, isn’t it?”
With a small mental jerk she drew her thoughts back to the present.
Stop worrying about Jacopo. Right now.
The cold air seeped through her coat and she rubbed her arms uselessly. The coat itself seemed to have stiffened in the frosty air, the sleeves bunching and folding between her fingers.
Closing her eyes, she blew into her hands and reconsidered buying a hot drink from the vending machine nearby. All at once, her fellow travelers began shuffling toward the yellow line. Emily opened her eyes to find them leaning forward as one to peer toward the approaching lights.
Wincing at the metallic grinding of the train’s brakes, she braced herself for the ritualistic rush to attempt to board against the exodus of smokers heading for the platform to squeeze in a quick nicotine fix.
She managed to drag her suitcase aboard a bedraggled second-class carriage. Clinging to her last shred of optimism, she pushed her way along to the next. This compartment was no better than the last. Here she found only the same stale air, dull lighting and rows of seats covered in dreary Trenitalia green, two by two on either side of the aisle from one end of the carriage to the other. Most of the seats were already occupied, the passengers giving any newcomer the typical Italian once-over from head to toe and refusing to like what they saw.
Determined to ignore the stares, she pressed on toward the middle of the carriage. In passing, she noted a man standing beside a seat, breathing the outside air through an open window. He smiled at her, tugged the collar of his black wool coat more snugly about his neck and returned to his view of the depot. The train made a false start, lurching forward to an abrupt halt, and Emily stumbled, her suitcase falling to the floor with a loud thud.
Hauling her suitcase upright, she caught a glimpse of the man’s dark eyes watching her. He moved away from the window as though to offer help and she turned away from him, dragging her case to the first empty pair of seats she found. When she put her hand to the vent to check for heat, she felt only a faint rush of tepid air.
“That’s not good,” she muttered, rubbing her hands again until the circulation resumed, stinging her slowly pinking skin. Snuggling deeper into her overcoat, she turned toward her own dim reflection in the window. Movement behind her image caught her eye, and she saw the man across the aisle by the window smiling in her direction. Years of married habit swiftly stifled her impulse to smile in return.
When he turned back to his own window, she tilted her head to watch him directly.
For the first time, she noted the crack spanning the length of the glass along the sliding window frame. He pushed the broken portion up as high as it would go, then wedged a small, tightly-folded piece of paper between the Plexiglas and the lower frame in an attempt to keep it closed.
At last the conductor’s whistle signaled their departure. The smiling man moved to a different seat, leaving the row with the broken window vacant. They began to glide silently forward in the eerie, graceful way of even the most decrepit trains, before the momentum caught and the rattling and clacking began.
Emily took the magazine out of her shoulder bag but the glossy pages remained shut. Instead, she toyed with the wedding band on her left hand, idly tracing the ornate carving with the pad of her index finger.
With every bump and sway of the train, Rovigo slipped further behind her.
Shouldn’t this mean something? I thought I’d feel better, or worse; instead, there’s nothing in the end, even after ten years.
She shook her head and searched for an article in her magazine to lose herself in the language, a language still foreign to her in so many ways.
“How like you to choose something as dry as a teaching journal in order to pass the time.”
She pushed away Jacopo’s voice and squinted at the page, her eyes and brain refusing to work together to focus on the words.
“Mitologia Antica e Fiction Moderna, di Davide Magnani .
“Il ruolo che l’antica mitologia gioca nella fiction moderna è sottovalutato, ma tuttavia innegabile. Tutti i temi moderni non sono altro che mere rielaborazioni di antiche storie e sono stati raccontati attorno al fuoco sin da tempo immemorie... ”
Drawing a long, quiet breath, she closed her eyes and pressed her cool fingertips to her temples. In time, her mind slightly clearer, she tried once again to read, translating as she went.
“Ancient Mythology and Modern Fiction, by Davide Magnani.
“The role that ancient mythology has in modern fiction is little appreciated, but nonetheless undeniable. All modern themes are merely re-workings of ancient tales and have been told around the fire since time immemorial…”
Emily let her attention drift away from the article, settling on the artwork on the page opposite: a chalk drawing of Proserpina and Plutone on a city sidewalk, drawn by a street artist in Rome. Her heartbeat trebled for an instant in recognizing the figures.
Proserpina , she thought, and tried to swallow the dry lump in her throat. Proserpina, who stayed in Hades because she was tricked into doing so.
Biting her lip, she folded the page with the photo back and out of sight, then focused again on the article at hand, determined to get through it this time.
Fifteen minutes later, that man was smiling at her again. His eyes tickled at her periphery like so many nimble fingers until she allowed herself to sneak a few peeks at him on the sly, using the reflection in the window. In only a few minutes, she noted he was Jacopo’s exact opposite in many ways.
He’s the other side of the same coin, though, I’ll bet.
Still, he was easy on the eyes, with a strong jaw, dark eyes and dark, boyish curls which fell along his brow. His clothes weren’t fancy, but simple in design. A pale blue chambrayshirt peeked out from beneath his red scarf.There were no fancy designer labels, no ostentatious, trendy affectations on view.
She liked that.
When he crossed his legs, she risked a direct look at him and smiled in spite of herself. His shoes were black running shoes, rather scuffed up at that. She knew too well the premium Italians placed on footwear; it was nice to see someone who wasn’t completely fussy about his appearance for a change.
When he drew out an eyeglass case from the inside pocket of his coat, she turned to the reflection in the window once more. He perused a copy of La Repubblica—not Libero, not La Padania—so she was reasonably sure he wasn’t from Veneto. Despite her fugue, this thought made her smile again. A glimpse of his dark eyes straying in her direction, followed by his own secretive smile, sent a pleasant shimmy down her spine.
Her heart leapt skittishly even as she pushed the expression off her face and felt the blush creep up from her collar to tint her cheeks.
The broken window fell open with a soft thump and the banging and rattling of the train’s progress drowned out the soft hum of conversation around her. A steady, chilling wind blew inside the carriage. Several passengers grumbled their disapproval and tugged their scarves and coats more tightly around themselves, but none made an effort to close the window.
After a moment or two, the man stood and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with an air of determination. Emily observed even more openly this time as he returned to the broken window, shoved it upward and stuffed the wedge of paper between the Plexiglas and the frame once more.
When he turned, he saw her watching and his smile lit up his face again. His eyes met hers fully and she looked away, her cheeks tingling as she turned to the window and the countryside emerging in the growing daylight beyond it.
In spite of herself, her eyes shifted to follow him yet again when he stepped away from the row with the broken window.
His hair had been tousled by the wind, and upon settling back in his seat he ran one hand cautiously over it, taming any wild, out-of-place waves. His dark eyes behind the oval frames of his glasses flicked in her direction before he turned toward his own window. She thought it was clear that he was trying not to be obvious about watching her.
“Emily, you need to get over yourself,” Jacopo’s voice scolded. “Pale skin and a mousy pony-tail on a dumpy thirty-four-year-old woman won’t catch the eye of someone like him.”
Still, it was just a fun little daydream, right? Then she considered why she was on the train and she revived her interest in the magazine.
With effort, she managed to make him fade into the background. By her reckoning, it was for the best anyway.
The more you want something, the slower it comes. I suppose this includes Italian trains. But why today of all days? Why can’t my last day here be different from the past ten years?
The concrete bench was freezing but she stayed put, her suitcase beside her. Weighted down by the sleep she’d missed the night before, her eyelids began to droop in spite of the cold. Emily shook her head suddenly, causing herself some momentary dizziness and drawing a disinterested glance from one of the other travelers on the platform. While digging around in her shoulder bag, she looked up at the station clock and sighed; her train was forty minutes late. Locating her planner, she pulled out her plane ticket and examined it once more.
Milan Malpensa, 15:00, British Airways to New York, window seat…
She clutched the airline ticket like a talisman before tucking it into place once more, briefly marking the blue edge of the photograph next to the ticket before closing the planner and shoving it back into her bag. No point in taking the photo out; the image of Jacopo seated upon the Spanish Steps in Rome, looking smug, was etched deep into her memory.
Still blindly exploring in her bag, her restless fingers slid over the surface of a thick legal-size envelope tucked up against the side. The contents of this envelope had, a few days before, rendered much of her life null and void in one fell swoop.
That was an eternity ago.
Shivering, she looked around at the other pre-dawn travelers. A few hopeful faces turned to look down the length of track visible from the platform in the faint light. However, the approach of the rhythmic clacking and chuffing didn’t slow. A freight train rattled past and disappeared into the mists, taking Emily’s fleeting optimism with it.
Earlier, after exchanging most of her euros for American dollars, she’d used the rest to buy a train ticket from the machine inside the station, and then a magazine at the Valentine-infested newsstand outside. Now she was obliged to forgo any additional purchases. Though as time dragged on, the station’s offerings became more tempting. A shift in the wind nudged the steam of her nearest neighbor’s tiny cup of espresso her way, bringing with it the warm, rich scent.
Maybe just a hot chocolate? Or a caffè macchiato?
Another passenger’s watch beeped but Emily kept her focus out on the tracks, refusing to read the station clock.
Stamping her feet, she carefully rubbed her numbed, raw hands to warm them. Fingers aching down deep, she pictured her sheepskin-lined gloves, cozy, warm and forgotten on the kitchen table back at the apartment.
Yet another scatterbrained moment and here I am, paying for it.
Finally she stood up and scuffed to and fro, never straying far from the bench and her suitcase.
“Sei disattenta,” Jacopo’s voice chided inside her head. “You’re careless to do something like that, but that’s just exactly what you always do, isn’t it?”
With a small mental jerk she drew her thoughts back to the present.
Stop worrying about Jacopo. Right now.
The cold air seeped through her coat and she rubbed her arms uselessly. The coat itself seemed to have stiffened in the frosty air, the sleeves bunching and folding between her fingers.
Closing her eyes, she blew into her hands and reconsidered buying a hot drink from the vending machine nearby. All at once, her fellow travelers began shuffling toward the yellow line. Emily opened her eyes to find them leaning forward as one to peer toward the approaching lights.
Wincing at the metallic grinding of the train’s brakes, she braced herself for the ritualistic rush to attempt to board against the exodus of smokers heading for the platform to squeeze in a quick nicotine fix.
She managed to drag her suitcase aboard a bedraggled second-class carriage. Clinging to her last shred of optimism, she pushed her way along to the next. This compartment was no better than the last. Here she found only the same stale air, dull lighting and rows of seats covered in dreary Trenitalia green, two by two on either side of the aisle from one end of the carriage to the other. Most of the seats were already occupied, the passengers giving any newcomer the typical Italian once-over from head to toe and refusing to like what they saw.
Determined to ignore the stares, she pressed on toward the middle of the carriage. In passing, she noted a man standing beside a seat, breathing the outside air through an open window. He smiled at her, tugged the collar of his black wool coat more snugly about his neck and returned to his view of the depot. The train made a false start, lurching forward to an abrupt halt, and Emily stumbled, her suitcase falling to the floor with a loud thud.
Hauling her suitcase upright, she caught a glimpse of the man’s dark eyes watching her. He moved away from the window as though to offer help and she turned away from him, dragging her case to the first empty pair of seats she found. When she put her hand to the vent to check for heat, she felt only a faint rush of tepid air.
“That’s not good,” she muttered, rubbing her hands again until the circulation resumed, stinging her slowly pinking skin. Snuggling deeper into her overcoat, she turned toward her own dim reflection in the window. Movement behind her image caught her eye, and she saw the man across the aisle by the window smiling in her direction. Years of married habit swiftly stifled her impulse to smile in return.
When he turned back to his own window, she tilted her head to watch him directly.
For the first time, she noted the crack spanning the length of the glass along the sliding window frame. He pushed the broken portion up as high as it would go, then wedged a small, tightly-folded piece of paper between the Plexiglas and the lower frame in an attempt to keep it closed.
At last the conductor’s whistle signaled their departure. The smiling man moved to a different seat, leaving the row with the broken window vacant. They began to glide silently forward in the eerie, graceful way of even the most decrepit trains, before the momentum caught and the rattling and clacking began.
Emily took the magazine out of her shoulder bag but the glossy pages remained shut. Instead, she toyed with the wedding band on her left hand, idly tracing the ornate carving with the pad of her index finger.
With every bump and sway of the train, Rovigo slipped further behind her.
Shouldn’t this mean something? I thought I’d feel better, or worse; instead, there’s nothing in the end, even after ten years.
She shook her head and searched for an article in her magazine to lose herself in the language, a language still foreign to her in so many ways.
“How like you to choose something as dry as a teaching journal in order to pass the time.”
She pushed away Jacopo’s voice and squinted at the page, her eyes and brain refusing to work together to focus on the words.
“Mitologia Antica e Fiction Moderna, di Davide Magnani .
“Il ruolo che l’antica mitologia gioca nella fiction moderna è sottovalutato, ma tuttavia innegabile. Tutti i temi moderni non sono altro che mere rielaborazioni di antiche storie e sono stati raccontati attorno al fuoco sin da tempo immemorie... ”
Drawing a long, quiet breath, she closed her eyes and pressed her cool fingertips to her temples. In time, her mind slightly clearer, she tried once again to read, translating as she went.
“Ancient Mythology and Modern Fiction, by Davide Magnani.
“The role that ancient mythology has in modern fiction is little appreciated, but nonetheless undeniable. All modern themes are merely re-workings of ancient tales and have been told around the fire since time immemorial…”
Emily let her attention drift away from the article, settling on the artwork on the page opposite: a chalk drawing of Proserpina and Plutone on a city sidewalk, drawn by a street artist in Rome. Her heartbeat trebled for an instant in recognizing the figures.
Proserpina , she thought, and tried to swallow the dry lump in her throat. Proserpina, who stayed in Hades because she was tricked into doing so.
Biting her lip, she folded the page with the photo back and out of sight, then focused again on the article at hand, determined to get through it this time.
Fifteen minutes later, that man was smiling at her again. His eyes tickled at her periphery like so many nimble fingers until she allowed herself to sneak a few peeks at him on the sly, using the reflection in the window. In only a few minutes, she noted he was Jacopo’s exact opposite in many ways.
He’s the other side of the same coin, though, I’ll bet.
Still, he was easy on the eyes, with a strong jaw, dark eyes and dark, boyish curls which fell along his brow. His clothes weren’t fancy, but simple in design. A pale blue chambrayshirt peeked out from beneath his red scarf.There were no fancy designer labels, no ostentatious, trendy affectations on view.
She liked that.
When he crossed his legs, she risked a direct look at him and smiled in spite of herself. His shoes were black running shoes, rather scuffed up at that. She knew too well the premium Italians placed on footwear; it was nice to see someone who wasn’t completely fussy about his appearance for a change.
When he drew out an eyeglass case from the inside pocket of his coat, she turned to the reflection in the window once more. He perused a copy of La Repubblica—not Libero, not La Padania—so she was reasonably sure he wasn’t from Veneto. Despite her fugue, this thought made her smile again. A glimpse of his dark eyes straying in her direction, followed by his own secretive smile, sent a pleasant shimmy down her spine.
Her heart leapt skittishly even as she pushed the expression off her face and felt the blush creep up from her collar to tint her cheeks.
The broken window fell open with a soft thump and the banging and rattling of the train’s progress drowned out the soft hum of conversation around her. A steady, chilling wind blew inside the carriage. Several passengers grumbled their disapproval and tugged their scarves and coats more tightly around themselves, but none made an effort to close the window.
After a moment or two, the man stood and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with an air of determination. Emily observed even more openly this time as he returned to the broken window, shoved it upward and stuffed the wedge of paper between the Plexiglas and the frame once more.
When he turned, he saw her watching and his smile lit up his face again. His eyes met hers fully and she looked away, her cheeks tingling as she turned to the window and the countryside emerging in the growing daylight beyond it.
In spite of herself, her eyes shifted to follow him yet again when he stepped away from the row with the broken window.
His hair had been tousled by the wind, and upon settling back in his seat he ran one hand cautiously over it, taming any wild, out-of-place waves. His dark eyes behind the oval frames of his glasses flicked in her direction before he turned toward his own window. She thought it was clear that he was trying not to be obvious about watching her.
“Emily, you need to get over yourself,” Jacopo’s voice scolded. “Pale skin and a mousy pony-tail on a dumpy thirty-four-year-old woman won’t catch the eye of someone like him.”
Still, it was just a fun little daydream, right? Then she considered why she was on the train and she revived her interest in the magazine.
With effort, she managed to make him fade into the background. By her reckoning, it was for the best anyway.
Excerpt from Ask Me if I'm Happy by Kimberly Menozzi
(c) Kimberly Menozzi/Good to Go Press
(c) Kimberly Menozzi/Good to Go Press
