further into debt, but it was worth every nonexistent penny. Eva Maria’s red-and-black suit lay neatly folded on the bottom of a shopping bag, matching shoes on top, and I was wearing one of five new outfits that had all been approved by Luigi and his uncle, Paolo, who happened to own a clothes store just around the corner. Uncle Paolo—who did not speak a word of English, but who knew everything there was to know about fashion—had knocked 30 percent off my entire purchase as long as I promised never to wear my ladybug costume again.
I had protested at first, explaining that my luggage was due to arriveany moment, but in the end the temptation had been too great. So what if my suitcases were waiting for me when I returned to the hotel? There was nothing in them I could ever wear in Siena anyway, perhaps with the exception of the shoes Umberto had given me for Christmas, and which I had never even tried on.
As I walked away from the store, I glanced at myself in every shopwindow I passed. Why had I never done this before? Ever since high school I had cut my own hair—just the ends—with a pair of kitchen scissors every two years or so. It took me about five minutes, and, honestly, I thought, who could tell the difference? Well, I could certainly see the difference now. Somehow, Luigi had managed to bring my boring old hair to life, and it was already thriving in its new freedom, flowing in the breeze as I walked and framing my face as if it was a face worth framing.
When I was a child, Aunt Rose had taken me to the village barber whenever it occurred to her. But she had been wise enough never to take Janice and me at the same time. Only once did we end up in the salon chairs side by side, and as we sat there, pulling faces at each other in the big mirrors, the old barber had held up our ponytails and said, “Look! This one has bear-hair and the other has princess-hair.”
Aunt Rose had not replied. She had just sat there, silently, and waited for him to finish. Once he was finished, she had paid him and thanked him in that clipped voice of hers. Then she had hauled us both out the door as if it were we, and not the barber, who had misbehaved. Ever since that day, Janice had never missed an opportunity to compliment me on my beary, beary lovely hair.
The memory nearly made me cry. Here I was, all dolled up, while Aunt Rose was in a place where she could no longer appreciate that I had finally stepped out of my macramé cocoon. It would have made her so happy to see me like this—just once—but I had been too busy making sure Janice never did.
PRESIDENTE MACONI WAS a courtly man in his sixties, dressed in a subdued suit and tie and astoundingly successful in combing the long hairs from one side of his head across the crown to the other. As a result, he carried himself with rigid dignity, but there was genuine warmth in his eyes that instantly annulled the ridiculous.
“Miss Tolomei?” He came across the floor of the bank to shake my hand heartily, as if we were old friends. “This is an unexpected delight.”
As we walked together up the stairs, Presidente Maconi went on to apologize in flawless English for the uneven walls and warped floors. Even the most modern interior design, he explained with a smile, was helpless against a building that was almost eight hundred years old.
After a day of constant language malfunctions it was a relief to finally meet someone fluent in my own tongue. A touch of a British accent suggested that Presidente Maconi had lived in England for a while—perhaps he had gone to school there—which might explain why my mother had chosen him as her financial advisor in the first place.
His office was on the top floor, and from the mullioned windows he had a perfect view of the church of San Cristoforo and several other spectacular buildings in the neighborhood. Stepping forward, however, I nearly stumbled over a plastic bucket sitting in the middle of a large Persian rug, and after
I had protested at first, explaining that my luggage was due to arriveany moment, but in the end the temptation had been too great. So what if my suitcases were waiting for me when I returned to the hotel? There was nothing in them I could ever wear in Siena anyway, perhaps with the exception of the shoes Umberto had given me for Christmas, and which I had never even tried on.
As I walked away from the store, I glanced at myself in every shopwindow I passed. Why had I never done this before? Ever since high school I had cut my own hair—just the ends—with a pair of kitchen scissors every two years or so. It took me about five minutes, and, honestly, I thought, who could tell the difference? Well, I could certainly see the difference now. Somehow, Luigi had managed to bring my boring old hair to life, and it was already thriving in its new freedom, flowing in the breeze as I walked and framing my face as if it was a face worth framing.
When I was a child, Aunt Rose had taken me to the village barber whenever it occurred to her. But she had been wise enough never to take Janice and me at the same time. Only once did we end up in the salon chairs side by side, and as we sat there, pulling faces at each other in the big mirrors, the old barber had held up our ponytails and said, “Look! This one has bear-hair and the other has princess-hair.”
Aunt Rose had not replied. She had just sat there, silently, and waited for him to finish. Once he was finished, she had paid him and thanked him in that clipped voice of hers. Then she had hauled us both out the door as if it were we, and not the barber, who had misbehaved. Ever since that day, Janice had never missed an opportunity to compliment me on my beary, beary lovely hair.
The memory nearly made me cry. Here I was, all dolled up, while Aunt Rose was in a place where she could no longer appreciate that I had finally stepped out of my macramé cocoon. It would have made her so happy to see me like this—just once—but I had been too busy making sure Janice never did.
PRESIDENTE MACONI WAS a courtly man in his sixties, dressed in a subdued suit and tie and astoundingly successful in combing the long hairs from one side of his head across the crown to the other. As a result, he carried himself with rigid dignity, but there was genuine warmth in his eyes that instantly annulled the ridiculous.
“Miss Tolomei?” He came across the floor of the bank to shake my hand heartily, as if we were old friends. “This is an unexpected delight.”
As we walked together up the stairs, Presidente Maconi went on to apologize in flawless English for the uneven walls and warped floors. Even the most modern interior design, he explained with a smile, was helpless against a building that was almost eight hundred years old.
After a day of constant language malfunctions it was a relief to finally meet someone fluent in my own tongue. A touch of a British accent suggested that Presidente Maconi had lived in England for a while—perhaps he had gone to school there—which might explain why my mother had chosen him as her financial advisor in the first place.
His office was on the top floor, and from the mullioned windows he had a perfect view of the church of San Cristoforo and several other spectacular buildings in the neighborhood. Stepping forward, however, I nearly stumbled over a plastic bucket sitting in the middle of a large Persian rug, and after
Similar Books
