doors open, I see Rome talking to a beautiful young Russian woman who works at the hotel. She is blond and ultra-skinny, and—like so many of the model-thin women in Saint Petersburg—she makes me feel clunky. I am in good shape, but I’m definitely not skinny. I surf and run and like to hit a punching bag a couple of times a week. I inherited my father’s shoulders. I like feeling strong. The only downside—if you could even call it a downside—is the rare occasion when I allow myself to buy into the stupid cultural stereotype that every man really wants a woman with a little-girl body. I am never going to be a waif.
When Rome sees me over the woman’s shoulder, I am instantly and firmly recommitted to strength over waifdom. His face lights up at the sight of me, and he quickly says good-bye to the skeletal thing and crosses the lobby in a few powerful strides to meet me.
He went to his room while I got changed, and he’s put on a light jacket of buttery brown suede. He leans in and kisses me lightly on the lips, as if we are the oldest and closest friends meeting for breakfast in Saint Petersburg. He slides his arm around my waist and starts leading me out of the hotel.
“I love a woman who can look like that after a fifteen-minute shower and wardrobe change, by the way.”
I lean into his strength, enjoying the way my shoulder fits neatly into the space beneath his arm. I reached around his lower back so we can walk in tandem more easily. It feels good. He’s so casual about everything. So easy. It is going to be a fun day. And don’t I deserve this after my father’s death?
We walk everywhere. Miles and miles through the Hermitage, the two of us stopping and gaping and sighing over the same Rembrandts and Titians and Matisses. We spend nearly an hour staring at The Red Room by Matisse.
When I was a girl, I always wanted to be an art history major, or even a painter, but it all seemed too ridiculous. Too artsy. Too dependent on the whims of others. Too much like my mother. I always tested strongly in math, and that seemed to make my mother roll her eyes, so I figured it was a good way to go.
But staring at that Matisse, so deceptively primitive and so glorious, brings all of that visceral adolescent joy surging back, all of the ecstatic freedom I used to allow myself when I would spend long afternoons alone at the Getty Museum. That joy doesn’t feel adolescent anymore; it feels all grown-up and subtle, because now that ephemeral feeling is being buoyed by this laughing, strong man next to me, subtly seducing me with his murmured French suggestions and his stray caresses along my forearm or lower back or cheek. I feel like my younger self is bubbling to the surface, but with adult desires and a man who can fulfill them.
All the while, Rome is looking at the painting and then looking at me. He murmurs something academic about the composition of the chair, and then he dips his face into the curve of my neck and kisses me there. I sigh like a schoolgirl.
How is it that at USC or when I’m out with Landon, I always feel rushed and pressed for time, yet I haven’t spent even one whole day with Rome and he makes me feel as if this single day could go on forever if we wanted it to?
Again, I return my attention to the image and my imaginings. Is she a maid? Is she the mistress of the house? Does her arrangement of the fruit and flowers give her pleasure, or is it drudgery? Is she in the room, in that space and time, because she wants to be there or because she has to be there? Is she so happily focused on her tasks that none of those other worlds even matters?
Have I created that kind of interior world in my own life? I wonder.
I don’t realize that I’ve asked the question aloud.
“We all do. That’s why it’s such a powerful painting,” Rome says. He touches my wrist gently while he speaks.
I turn to look at him. He is just as powerful as the painting but much harder to read. Does he know he is
When Rome sees me over the woman’s shoulder, I am instantly and firmly recommitted to strength over waifdom. His face lights up at the sight of me, and he quickly says good-bye to the skeletal thing and crosses the lobby in a few powerful strides to meet me.
He went to his room while I got changed, and he’s put on a light jacket of buttery brown suede. He leans in and kisses me lightly on the lips, as if we are the oldest and closest friends meeting for breakfast in Saint Petersburg. He slides his arm around my waist and starts leading me out of the hotel.
“I love a woman who can look like that after a fifteen-minute shower and wardrobe change, by the way.”
I lean into his strength, enjoying the way my shoulder fits neatly into the space beneath his arm. I reached around his lower back so we can walk in tandem more easily. It feels good. He’s so casual about everything. So easy. It is going to be a fun day. And don’t I deserve this after my father’s death?
We walk everywhere. Miles and miles through the Hermitage, the two of us stopping and gaping and sighing over the same Rembrandts and Titians and Matisses. We spend nearly an hour staring at The Red Room by Matisse.
When I was a girl, I always wanted to be an art history major, or even a painter, but it all seemed too ridiculous. Too artsy. Too dependent on the whims of others. Too much like my mother. I always tested strongly in math, and that seemed to make my mother roll her eyes, so I figured it was a good way to go.
But staring at that Matisse, so deceptively primitive and so glorious, brings all of that visceral adolescent joy surging back, all of the ecstatic freedom I used to allow myself when I would spend long afternoons alone at the Getty Museum. That joy doesn’t feel adolescent anymore; it feels all grown-up and subtle, because now that ephemeral feeling is being buoyed by this laughing, strong man next to me, subtly seducing me with his murmured French suggestions and his stray caresses along my forearm or lower back or cheek. I feel like my younger self is bubbling to the surface, but with adult desires and a man who can fulfill them.
All the while, Rome is looking at the painting and then looking at me. He murmurs something academic about the composition of the chair, and then he dips his face into the curve of my neck and kisses me there. I sigh like a schoolgirl.
How is it that at USC or when I’m out with Landon, I always feel rushed and pressed for time, yet I haven’t spent even one whole day with Rome and he makes me feel as if this single day could go on forever if we wanted it to?
Again, I return my attention to the image and my imaginings. Is she a maid? Is she the mistress of the house? Does her arrangement of the fruit and flowers give her pleasure, or is it drudgery? Is she in the room, in that space and time, because she wants to be there or because she has to be there? Is she so happily focused on her tasks that none of those other worlds even matters?
Have I created that kind of interior world in my own life? I wonder.
I don’t realize that I’ve asked the question aloud.
“We all do. That’s why it’s such a powerful painting,” Rome says. He touches my wrist gently while he speaks.
I turn to look at him. He is just as powerful as the painting but much harder to read. Does he know he is
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