8. GOLDEN SHEEN
Changing out of my sweaty clothes I noticed the picture of me and Oliver. It was still perched on top of my carry-on, haunting me a little. The little carry-on was the only bag left to be totally unpacked and stored away.
I don’t normally travel with pictures, I don’t know why I brought this one. I stood staring, looking for clues, I guess, wondering why. Life was all a big, vague why at the moment.
I had come across the picture while digging out insurance documents and held onto it, moving it from place to place on my makeshift desk, tucking it into folders, and finally, slipping it into my carry-on. In the picture,
I turned away and walked back down to the terrace and texted Oliver: settling in. the sun finally came out.
I imagined Oliver ignoring it. I hoped he would. I hoped that me ignoring him would let him off the hook. He could quit feeling sorry for me, didn’t have to take care of me — or fight with me.
The days became my own. I had ideas. I was enjoying using muscles I hadn’t used in years. My first idea was about the stage. I had been mesmerized by the strange beauty of the scans taken of my eyes. I was following the scent of that.
I was also enjoying the physicality of being on the cliff. The burn in the muscles of my legs, the feel of sun on my skin. Cooking when I was hungry. Swimming alone under the stars. Reacquainting myself with the joy of rigging up a workspace.
My “desk” is spread over three surfaces. Mostly I work at the table out on the terrace, but all of my stuff was charging in the little room because I had blown a fuse in the tower and didn’t want to talk to anyone about it yet. And the wall. I used a bare expanse in the tower to watch the ideas unfold.
Each time I put something up on the wall, I faced my carry-on bag with the picture of us perched on top. Each time I looked, I turned away. Letting it be.
There was settling in, and discovery. One particularly unsettling discovery was that my “private” sun terrace on top of the Torre (I was working on an all-over tan) was actually fully visible from the street above. Naked horror. After exploring all site lines, I happily positioned a sun lounger hugging the lower terrace wall between the table and the sun shower. No one could see me.
I also discovered the comforts of Bar Bruno, a little restaurant at the top of my stairs, tables strung along the cliff’s edge. It’s friendly and simple. I like to finish my day’s work at one of the tables, eavesdropping on dinner conversations, making notes, staring off into the night sky, and practicing Italian with the waiters.
One day rolled into the next, I was coming back to life with the bougainvillea vines and the lemon trees.
While sketching on the terrace, a text from Oliver came in.
Want to Skype?
I replied, No internet. Very quiet here. Having electrical problems. Comical, really.
What happened?
Well, wasn’t going to tell you… knew how hard you’d laugh at me, but… I plugged too many things into the power strip thing, and BLEW it. Smoke and everything.
You’re right. I’m laughing very hard. Did you ruin anything?
Only the surge thing. But, too chicken to test the printer. Oh, and computer sort of shocks me, a hummy shock, when it’s plugged in. Is that ok?
It’s ok. Not the best thing in the world, but you’re ok. I’ll bring something with me when I come over.
: ) grazie
OK. I’m going into the studio.
Bye. X.
I deleted the ‘X’ before I hit send. I stared at my phone, unsure if I was happy or sad that Oliver would be headed over in a few weeks.
How long had it been that I wasn’t sure about Oliver? Well, I knew, but I didn’t want to think about it.
My day felt a little discombobulated after that.
Getting into bed that night I looked at the bottle of sleeping pills and didn’t take one. Instead, I got back up, put the photo of me and Oliver on the table in front of the pills, then put away the bits and pieces that had been lingering in the carry-on and stowed it away. I had settled in.
A text from Oliver buzzed, images from his renovation of the barn.
In the past few years, Oliver had been loving film as much as music, wishing he had followed his instincts to be a filmmaker rather than following the advice of family to dedicate himself to classical music.
The new studio he was creating was as much to make film as to make music. He hadn’t admitted that to anyone yet, not even himself. I had an inkling, but I was in no mood to listen to his dreams. I was sick of him, he knew it. He didn’t entirely understand why, but he was sick of himself, too.
I woke up to an email from Oliver sent late the previous night. I had more tests. I’ll let you know what happens. I’ve started on a new piece. I like it. Maybe I’m crazy to be taking something so big on. I don’t know. Would love to tell you about it.
I stared at it, and turned off my phone. What tests? And I don’t want to hear about it. I tried to shake it off, this mix of guilt and irritation. I felt bad for Oliver, that he was having to face the reality of hitting his 50s. High blood pressure, high cholesterol. High anxiety. But I’m also sick of his projects, and his dreams, and of his fucking desires.
I paced a little. Sat. Stood. Ate an orange and watched one lizard chase another off a prime sunning spot.
I was too distracted to work, irritated that I was distracted instead of experiencing the damn joy of making something.
I sat, looking out at the sea, looking through one eye and then the other. Blinking out an SOS.
Finally, I emailed Oliver. Happy to hear you’ve started a new piece. Maybe there will be internet when you get up, and we can Skype. What’s the password for Viena? And what kind of tests? Engaging with him, holding tightly to my ire, gave me some relief from just being distracted by it all.
A waft of lemon blossom shifted my attention. I closed my eyes to the gossamer wall of its scent, letting it pull me back to myself and the extraordinary place I was sitting.
“Be here now,” I sighed and shook myself out. I got up and got on with my day. Relishing being alone, relaxing into the quiet, and loving that no one was asking anything of me.
I spent the day writing and sketching, and tapping and humming. Perfectly lost, just as I had been when I first discovered sound in my bath so many years ago. A lifetime ago. I had worked out a lot of life in that bath.
The bathroom in my loft was a marvel. “Loft” is a stretch — it was squatted warehouse space on the lower east side of Manhattan. But it was mine. Early on, it had just a sink and toilet, but I had turned it into a wonderful amalgam of luxe material and rigged-together function that was somehow both bare and opulent.
It was the one place that I didn’t feel guilty or ashamed. I had sketched and worked on that room for each of the 11 years I lived there. Each year it got a little more resolved. Each year the porcelain of the giant, street‑find tub was worn a bit more smooth, each year it became a more perfect fit to the curve of my rump.
I had discovered my musicality in that room. I had also regularly, methodically tended to wounds that were so private and so deep that all of my tending could really only stave off the festering.
I was adrift in the millions of tears that had been shed in that bath. The rituals I had created for myself to keep the faith.
The acoustics could compete with any temple. Water, and how it was delivered, became an audio obsession for me. I tuned the room. The shifting sound as the water moved from cold to hot, the varying tones from the hodgepodge of pipes I had rigged to get enough hot water to the tub, the drips, the splashes, the clangs and hisses.
What had started as a smallish window had, over the years, become a cantilevered garden that made the room feel huge. With the window open and the water running, I could place myself anywhere in the world. I could partake of any number of ancient bathing rituals. And I did.
Soaking, it turned out, got me as close as I ever got to feeling worthy.
My thoughts drifted, and the afternoon slid past. It had grown hot yet my rigged desk stayed cool in the dapple light created by the grape leaves that had been filling in the arbor overhead.
I watched as two lizards did a mating dance in the hot sun. The female quiet, the male grabbing her tail, tugging at it gently and then more firmly. A lightning-fast twist, a skirmish, a nuzzle. I reached for my glasses, but they weren’t there, and I paused, murmuring to myself, “Dear god, I’m jealous of lizards.”
I ate half a perfect cantaloupe standing at the balustrade, watching the boats below. The cold juice dripping down my arms, splashing against my bare legs. Delicious and messy. Tears followed the dripping juice. I wondered if I would ever feel loved again. I stripped as I walked to the sun shower, grateful for it’s bracing tingle.
The ritual was set. Cooking, gardening, working on the play, getting lost in thought, climbing the stairs to swim, climbing the stairs to shop, climbing the stairs to Bruno to eavesdrop and review, talking to Oliver in short messages, guilty but glad that Skype never quite “worked.”
There was a voicemail on my phone that I had avoided all day. While sautéing garlic for a lunch experiment, I picked up my phone and tapped play. I heard Oliver’s voice for the first time in days. “Hey, it’s me. I got results from the doctor,” his voice was interrupted by an indecipherable bit of digital garble, and then, “growths on my liver. Yay. I guess I’ll talk to you later?”
I sat and replayed it. “What?” Replayed it again.
And then I emailed Oliver. Hey, I don’t understand. Your liver? Are you ok? Call me when you get up. X
The garlic burned.
The time difference felt huge now. The six hours had been a great buffer at first, but then each of us had slipped in sync with our natural clocks, me up with the sun, Oliver falling asleep as it rose.
When Oliver did Skype early that evening it was awkward, and normal. He said “Hi,sweetheart” before I had a chance to say anything. My response was somewhere between shy and hostile: “Hey, how are you doing?”
“Good. Really good. The tests are all done…”
I interrupted, “On your message it was garbled. You do have growths on your liver or you don’t?”
“Oh. No. No growths. I’ve got to make changes, but I don’t have any tumors or anything… “
“Wow. Well, I’m glad it’s good news.”
Oliver tried to make light of it, “Well, as good as no martinis and change everything you eat can be…”
“Well, honey. Ummm, well, maybe some other good will come of the changes, maybe…”
Oliver interrupted me, changing the subject with, “So how is Italy? We haven’t really talked…”
“It’s good. I’m settling in. I like it.”
A sardonic laugh from him, “Well, one would hope, you did escape to paradise…”
His use of “escape” hit me strangely. My first inclination was to fight with him about it, but instead, I let it go, more curious than angry. “Yeah. It’s good. I’ve been working all day, I’m on a really good roll…”
“Oh. OK. Well, I guess I should let you go…”
“No. No. I don’t have to go. It’s just good. You know. It’s quiet. I feel like I’m coming back, I don’t know. It’s good. How about you? What are… oh! You started a new piece, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure what it will be, but, like you say, I have the scent of it. It’s weird though, it’s like I’ve forgotten how to do work that isn’t commissioned.”
I was struck by this idea, but quiet, not expressing that I was agreeing, or that I understood. I was just nodding my head. Mute.
Oliver, misunderstanding my silence, jumped in, uncomfortable. “Well, I guess that’s … I should let you go.”
I came out of my reverie, “Oh, I was just thinking about what you said. I know what you mean. But, yeah, OK. You probably want to get back to your project…”
The signal died. For real this time. No more internet.
I picked up my phone, sent him a text — internet just went down again. glad you’re good. — and turned it off.
I stared at the screen for a minute then took a deep breath, and hit print on the work I’d done earlier. I slipped on my tennies and a headband, and as I looked into the mirror to check my hair I noticed that I looked kind of alive. No trace of a black eye, a golden sheen to my skin. “Hmmm.” With that, I picked up the printout and started the climb to Bruno.
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