The Girl in the White Culottes
[Published in Enhance, July 2012]
She was standing in the piazza looking at David. Her eyes traveled up and down the height of him, stopping mid-body each time, lingering there before repeating the visual loop. She seemed consumed by the sculpture, taken by the pouty lips, the musculature of chest and arms, stomach and pelvis, the dainty tuft of hair curling above the stubby little thumb of a penis, the strong, beautiful legs set on the pedestal, just so. Turning to her three girlfriends—all Americans, I knew, by their dress and pieces of early '70s jargon I’d been able to catch—she said something I couldn’t make out, though only eight or ten feet away. Several smiled at her comment, but one cackled, a startling sound from such a rounded, ample frame, and a half dozen pigeons rose up on their legs and fluttered into the air—the furious flapping of wings raising dust from the cobbles—before settling again. When she turned my way once more I thought we connected for an instant, and during that tingling moment I felt sure I saw interest in her eyes before she looked away.
I elbowed Jim. “Did you see that?”
“The ogler?”
I chuckled.
“Gorgeous,” he said and smiled at the girls in his friendly way. A fellow teacher at Glenville High in Cleveland, Jim had suggested this trip to a couple of us one afternoon in early spring as we drank away our teaching woes at the Pepper Pot on Coventry. I jumped at the offer. What could be better? Art. Adventure. Romance. "But I don’t like the odds,” Jim said. “They look like a pretty tight team.”
As if on cue, the quartet turned and began to glide across the Piazza della Signoria amid the rising heat waves. I could only stare after them, my eye fixed on the glistening dark hair and the pert backside of the girl in the white culottes.
“Bad luck, Dan,” he said. “She was checking you out.”
“You think?” But I grew doubtful. “We were standing here together, man. It could’ve been you.”
“Impossible, dude. No spark, no electricity. Capiche?”
I did. “Damnit.”
“Next stop, the Ponte Vecchio.” He squared my shoulders toward a new direction and gave me a fraternal pat on the back. “Come on, Romeo. That was only Rosaline. We’re in Italy. Lots of beautiful women.”
I watched the girl evanescing in the distance and wondered if my friend was right about her. It was conceivable. I’d felt a spark.
Jim led the way south to the Arno and then west until we arrived at the ancient bridge. I’d never seen anything like it, the shops on top of one another like tenement flats, customers everywhere. Artwork, leather goods, souvenirs. The jewelry, especially the silver bracelets, I found exquisite. I browsed but bought nothing, wondering what the girl in the white culottes would choose if we were a couple and I was treating. Though hampered by a teacher’s salary, I’d be generous. She would smile, protest a bit, and hug me, planting a kiss on my jaw just under my ear. A promise, perhaps.
Jim and I grabbed a light lunch and headed back to our room. It was our first full day in Italy and we were seriously jet-lagged.
After a siesta and shower, we headed out from our little student-filled pensione. Just that morning I’d discovered my traveling companion was a genius with maps, and now, after two brief glances—down at the map, up to reconnoiter at the corner where we stood, down once more—he folded Firenze neatly into his back pocket and off we went toward our new destination, the Uffizi. Ten minutes later we found the long ticket line, made inquiry, and decided against the two-hour wait.
“Where to, compadre?” Jim said.
“Want to find a bottle of Tuscany’s finest?”
“Hell yes. And dinner. This town has jacked up my appetite.” He looked my way, I suppose, to see if I was on the same page. My nod seemed to satisfy him and he continued. “There’s a little caffe I saw in Frommer’s. Great food, cheap prices. Zuppa Toscana, cacciatore, parmigiana. Fresh-baked bread.” He smiled and opened his arms wide, as if the feast were spread out in front of us on a checkered tablecloth.
Of course the David we’d seen that morning was a copy, Jim explained on our walk, the original safely under roof in the Accademia for the past hundred years.
I hadn’t known that. The sculpture seemed so imposing, so real. "Copies,” I said. “Good grief, everything’s fake anymore. I thought in Europe we’d find originals.” The girl in the white culottes, for example. She was the real deal, I would bet on it. “It’s the way of the world, amigo. True beauty is always spirited away from the lowly bourgeoisie.” He laughed. “Actually, it’s the pigeon shit that bothered them. Bad for David’s complexion.”
As we made our way through the streets, Jim never reached for the fold-up map, and after fifteen minutes of maddening cul-de-sacs and cut-throughs that couldn’t possibly be right, I grew dubious. Sixty seconds later, he spotted the place he’d been searching for. Or so he said. I never knew with him. A genius, true, but sometimes he just got lucky. The universe liked Jimmy B. The restaurant was almost deserted when we arrived, but it had every dish a person could hope for and a primo Chianti at three bucks a bottle. For two hours we feasted, toasting Italian cuisine the while. We discussed the girls from our morning in the piazza, the ongoing war in Vietnam, the difficulty of our teaching jobs on the edge of Cleveland’s ghetto, the nature of good and evil, the meaning of life. We ordered a second bottle. At one point, either half drunk on wine or enlightened by sudden epiphany, I thought of Dante’s Divine Comedy, at which point I noticed the name of the place on the menu: Caffe Paradiso. I envisioned the girl in the white culottes. The caffe got busier, then crowded, and by nine o’clock, surrounded by the lush musical embroidery of foreign languages and exotic accents, I became restless. When I rose to see what there was to see in the place—an old, sprawling affair with numerous rooms—Jim waved me on, smiling at the world around our table. What I was looking for I wasn’t sure. On a trip to the loo, I discovered that the Paradiso opened onto a large courtyard out back that was pleasantly cool in the dwindling twilight and quietly festive with its colored lights draped from the trees. Most of the tables were taken, but if we hurried we could find something. I returned inside to tell Jim, but my chair was taken by a comely blonde who was drinking wine with my fellow traveler, their heads together as if sharing a secret. Back in the courtyard, I grabbed a table for two near the entrance. As a waiter hurried by, I shouted Chianti to his back, and though he never broke stride, two minutes later I had a half carafe of the house red in front of me. I settled into my chair, almost content, and sipped the wine while I breathed in all of it—the voices and laughter, the reds and yellows and blues of the lights, the aroma of perfumes and lotions, baked cheeses and sauces, the musk of mingling bodies—on this summer evening suddenly full of all things enchanting and profound. The voice came from behind me, a melody, light and airy. “Bueno sera. Come sta?” I looked up. “Sorry, my Italian’s terrible. Do you speak English?” She smiled at me. “May I sit with you?" I stood and pulled the second chair from the table. “Dan,” I said to her. As she shook my hand with her fingers, I noticed Jim and his blonde strolling toward us. When he saw me he smiled crookedly and waved, whereupon they pirouetted in perfect unison for the front exit. Incredible, that guy. I refocused on my new friend. “I am called Fortunata,” the woman said. She sat and crossed her legs. She placed a small beaded purse on the table and pulled a Dunhill Fine from a pack while pushing a Bic across to me. Lighting the cigarette for her felt innocent enough, but she took my hand in hers as I held the lighter and did something magically sensual to my palm. Full evening was upon us and images took on a chiaroscuro effect of subtle light and shadow, akin, I imagined, to the look of an ancient da Vinci oil hidden away in a forgotten Firenze attic. Fortunata smiled again in the flickering light of the flame. “Do you come to the Paradiso often?” she said. I almost laughed out loud. She’d used a standard pickup line from the States. Did she know that?
“My first time,” I said.
She leaned toward me and nodded. “May I taste your wine?”
As she reached for my glass, her eyes sparked, something I saw but could not feel. That puzzled me. Had I simply seen a reflection from the lights?
“Help yourself,” I told her. “I’ll be right back.” In half a minute I returned with a clean goblet. “Voila.” I poured myself a healthy splash from the carafe.
“Aahhh.” Positioning her head just so and pursing her lips into a pout, she placed her hand on my shoulder. “I was afraid you would not return.” She trailed her perfect red fingernails up and down my arm. Obviously she was trying to pick me up. Why was I resisting? She was sexy, available, and willing.
How can I describe her? In her twenties. Brown eyes and short, dark hair. Silver ankle-length gown with matching high heels. Rings on her forefingers and thumbs. Sterling bracelets like those in the shops on the Ponte Vecchio. An elegant neck that reached down to a slender, boyish torso. Sultry and seductive, I suppose: I was still goose-fleshy from her trick with my hand and her nails caressing my arm. In some cultures I was sure she would be considered . . . well, alluring. Even attractive. But for a reason I couldn’t grasp, she wasn’t my type. Too angular and shallow cheeked. Eyebrows too arched and plucked. Everything manicured and coiffed and styled. Not my type at all. I couldn’t put a name to it, but she . . . she . . . oh my God, she wasn’t . . . a she.
I looked away, a sudden heat of confusion rising up my neck. At that moment the beautiful girl from the Piazza della Signoria walked past my table. When she paused to adjust her blouse, I noticed Frommer’s guidebook poking from the top of her shoulder bag. Our eyes touched for the second time that day, and for the second time a spark, a tiny frisson on the trembling air between us. Her attention moved to my tablemate, then immediately back to me, her head tilting as if in surprise. There was no judgment, only a slight bemusement and an almost imperceptible shrug.
“Darling,” my tablemate said to me.
The girl in the white culottes turned toward the doorway. I stared after her, mute and powerless to move, admiring her shoulder-length hair and pert little backside one last time as she disappeared through the caffe, out into the perfect Italian evening.