I was hungover. More from the experience of last night than my intrusive introduction to alcohol. A slight pain was flaring up in my right temple from the lack of sleep last night. My throat was itchy, making it hard to swallow. I needed water. My robe tangled and my hair knotted, I threw open the double doors of my room, walking straight to the kitchenette. Simone gawked at me from the ottoman. He was probably in shock of seeing me like this. Every morning I would walk through the doors with my gym bag in hand, my hair in a neat bun and an optimistic attitude, ready to leave for the day. "I'll be ready to leave in twenty minutes," I tried to console Simone but it came out barely louder than a whisper. I coughed realizing I had lost a decibel of my voice from last night. Not even last night, more like four hours ago. Unlike the first time I snuck out this time I had no worries about my bodyguards finding out. My adventures seemed to affirm to me what I knew all along, my family was overreactive about the world. My guards didn't particularly care about me, they cared about their jobs which entailed keeping me alive. Not so much happy, but alive. So I had found people in New York who did care about me and my happiness. It seemed like a win-win situation. Mauro and Simone reported back a well behaved daughter. Their boss was happy, and so they were happy. My family was happy thinking I was safe in my strictly defined margins and finally I was happy being able to dance and explore the city. Everything was working great! Except my head. I scuffled back to my room with a large glass of water, holding my head because it seemed like it was moving too much. I had to leave soon but nothing was in place. I tried to recount what was on my calendar today, then I had to muster up the energy to actually care about these things. First I had a fitting at the school's costume department then I had to meet with the group of students about our team choreographed recital. Thank goodness I didn't have to dance today. My feet were swollen and my head was somewhere else. After that I would finish packing and board the plane to go home. My usual fear that drove me to be early and prepared wasn't there and I spent too long looking out the window to the city below.
The cold air of the morning and the briskness of paste that this city operated on quickly sobered me up. Despite having to be stuffed into a tight bodice and then being poked and prodded at, my costume looked whimsical for next weeks performance. At the student meeting I added in a few ideas to be incorporated with our recital and it seemed to go over well. I felt more daring in my everyday life, as you do after you've overcome an obstacle and everything looks small in perspective of what I once worried over. After everything was done I distractedly walked the corridors to head to the car. Mom had sent me a message that she was packing for our girls' getaway we were going on. Something that we did every summer. I had so much to celebrate it was scary how well everything was going. I heard Stephen's laugh before I saw him turn the corner. He looked good today. His face was shining like he had gotten a mid vacation tan. His smile somehow looked even more brilliant. Tom was beside him, brightly talking to him about something. Everyone around Stephen seemed to be affected by his good virtues. I met Stephen's eyes and he all of a sudden turned serious, excusing himself from Tom and walking over to me. My heart rate picked up, did I do something wrong? His face took on an easy attitude again and I relaxed as the seriousness slipped off his face. "You're not in the performance this weekend?" he asked. "No, not this time. I'm going home to my family for the long weekend." His mind seemed preoccupied, he didn't seem to listen to my reply as if he already knew that. "I was wondering when you come back... well I've found the best restaurant in New York and I don't say that lightly after being in the city for ten years. We could go try it if you wanted to? And don't worry, I already checked, they have vegan options." I looked up at Stephen caught off guard, the way he said it was so casual and far off that it took me a second to understand what his words meant and when I did the deja vu hit me. This was one of my dreams, how long ago? How had so much changed in such a short time? The feelings I now held toward Stephen were so fragile, almost lost, like a light bulb in the background of the sun. When it was dark it was comforting but now I had the whole world at my fingertips. Not to set him aside from that fact but I always did know deep down we weren't to be together. I saw him as an escape from my world. Everything had changed without me realizing it, without my permission. Not to mention I didn't even talk to guys outside of my family before this and now it seemed men were falling from the sky. I saw Mauro's figure appear on the other side of the glass door, frowning at the scene in place. "I can't, I'm sorry-" I said quickly. Sadness seeping in over the mourning of my old dreams. He looked taken aback and I felt bad for being the one responsible for notching down Stephen's joy. He still pulled off a beautiful smile though, "Maybe next time then? By the way, I wanted to tell you, the thing you did at the restaurant. That was really courageous of you, standing up to those thugs," he said the word with disgust, "I felt insulted but lost for words, you just spoke your mind and it was impressive to see you like that." Yeah... about those thugs. "Well, I see you have to go but I hope you're in the next performance." "I will," I returned hopefully, still trying to find words of consultation to my rejection, still trying to find a reason that wasn't there. Mauro came up to me just as Stephen was walking away. "What did he want?" he asked ruffly. "Oh, he was just asking about... homework. I'm ready now though, we can leave," I said, still off in though. Mauro escorted me out to the car and I obliged in his gentle but impatient nudges. Yes, some time at home would be good for me.
The flight was a peaceful one. I loved the whole experience of flying, being held by the atmosphere, gliding to our destination in the stillness of the night sky. Looking below at the world that was entangled in tiny lights. Everything just seemed so insignificant from up here, all my worries turned into silly little nuances. Staring out my window, listening to Clair de lune as the cabin lights dimmed, I kept smiling. Upon seeing my reflection in the window I would shake it off then promptly be overcome with another event that would have me laughing a silent gleeful admission. I was fully satisfied with my time in New York. I was full with the experience of it all. Mauro and Simone were left looking at me in perplexity. I was usually like a begging kid in their presence, constantly asking for anything to do, a tiny bit of fresh air. I was still myself though, no matter my environment I couldn't lose myself. Or thats what I kept telling myself. Deep in the belly of the plane held a stowaway that didn't belong. A cell phone that was turned off.
I tried to sleep that night but images of stolen kisses in broken alleyways haunted me.
Amo
My lungs started restricting, my body felt like shutting down, my heart was beating at an erratic pace. The water was like a thousand needles to my nerves. This was where it happened, the tools to learn to stay calm in the uncertainty. To breathe deeply through the pain. To focus when everything seemed to be going wrong. Finding clarity in chaos was what I needed to become a good leader. Focusing when I wanted to shut everything off. Overcoming primal instincts and expanding to the next level available to me. Acceptance settled in and for this second everything was still. Acceptance wasn't defeat, it was a tool to stop wasting energy and actually see what was within my control. I could see my goals and not be lost in the problems, everything seemed simple in this state. "Ten.'' Marco announced. Even though I was just getting into the elusive zone that granted a euphoric feeling, I got out of the icy water and went straight into the steam room. Finally being able to fill my lungs fully. The heat burned my skin for the first minute. I had to have a clear mental state to rule or I could just throw all of it away. A clear mind was imperative to stay alive and more than that to stay on top. My mind was sharp now. I could take on anything, an ambush, a complaint, the antics of my many incessant relatives. I was beyond it all but still able to assess the situation. My muscles that were strained after my earlier workout now felt relieved after the cold plunge. I involuntarily let a laugh slip when an event from yesterday came to mind. She thought the phone was sweet, little did she know where it came from, a dead man. The details of how he died may or may not have something to do with me. Minor details. It was his burn phone but in good condition. Roburto was about to throw it out till I quickly said that I wanted to keep it which caused a lot of raised eyebrows. Our meetings were so fleeting and in the moment that the next day nothing concrete proved the fact that they were actually real. Clarity was something I couldn't afford to lose right now, yet I actively let it go with Margaret. Besides the fact things were progressing with the Camorra and their far off attacks that hit outside cities we'd never planned on. Their behavior was always erratic and bizarre but even more so now. I was trying to decode their actions but the extensive time I dedicated to it provided no actual answers. The wedding was progressing as well. Yes, besides the fact I hadn't even decided on a bride, Mom and my aunts saw no reason to not go ahead with the wedding decisions. Reservations, flowers, venues, all sent with question marks and flagged as very important. Interrupting meetings with urgent messages such as to have trim on the lace or not. I agreed to whatever they wanted but they still didn't leave me alone. "This is such an important event in your life Amo!" Mom would say when it all seemed so inconsequential. None of it felt real, it felt like it would all be forgotten in a week. The importance of it that everyone else preached to me passed my consciousness completely. It was something I knew would be required of me but even I was surprised by how little concern I attended to it. It was the wedding of the year and nobody knew who the bride was. The fact that I was more invested in the game with Margaret than my wife was getting concerning. The situation with Margaret was precarious but it was no reason for Andrea to get his panties in a bunch for it. Yet from our last meeting I felt betrayed. The innocent way she conducted herself that was so alluring to me now offended me. Her gentle sweet presence that seemed so harmless was hiding something far more dangerous. The power I had underestimated that was beneath it. It had the power to capsize a ship, sink it before it reaches its long determined destination. The course that had been set for many years. I had underestimated her and I felt ashamed for it. She was unsettling my closely held beliefs that had defined me. Control slipped away as her lips met mine. I lost clarity and reason and fell into the abyss of elsewhere. Reality slipped away and for the first time in a long while I was scared to the core of my being. My closely acquired self that I thought was strong as stone fell to dust. The high I was riding off of after my victory over Fillip was forgotten and instead I was left feeling in the worst kind of defeat. The win seemed like decades ago and I drove home in a vile mood. "Bad race?" my long-time doorman asked. "I won,'' I said irritated and walked to the elevator. The worst part was that she seemed so unaffected by it all, blissfully unaware of what she had done to me. While I was living in an inner turmoil of hell, Margaret seemed to be in a rose-filled world of her own as I was driving her back to her dorm. She slowly caressed the air outside of the car window with love struck eyes for the city. This was not how the game should've gone and the whole thing was screaming for me to let go of it before I was in too deep. To leave with dignity rather than leave in defeat. Yet I was never more invested in the game than I was now. I wasn't one to leave something half done, the game wasn't over and I wasn't going to bail. Among the myriad of things that was Margaret, there was something beneath the exterior that she showed that didn't line up. A mystery to be uncovered. Again, I didn't leave things half finished.
Tommaso's name came up on my phone and my finger went straight to the ignore button. A quick calculation let me know I hadn't talked to him in two months. For sanity sake I kept our contacts to once a month basis, never longer though because the old man had grown gluttonously lazy in his Italian villa overlooking his vineyard. I could just imagine him now, laying out in the sun like a fat Greek god, eating grapes from a gold bowl. He wouldn't do anything else if wasn't for others putting a fire to his ass. I answered the phone, finding it was easier to get this over with now than later. "Hello Amo!" he practically yelled into the phone. "Let me sit down, I did not think I would reach you today but it seems it is my lucky day, which is funny because-" he spoke in his comically thick Italian accent. I had told him on numerous occasions to speak Italian to me but he seemed to view me as a little kid who wouldn't understand. "Yes, Buongiorno uncle Tommaso," He wasn't my uncle in any way but it was said in courtesy. He was somehow related to me by a large ancestral tree that was happily far enough away from my branch that I hopefully wouldn't inherit his baldness and lack of metabolism. "Do you have the reports for me this month? I am still missing them." "Ah yes, yes! As I said Amo, I did not per se that you would answer so I will need to retrieve them right now. Al momento!" He had come to his position solely from outliving everyone else. He was an old house cat that it seemed nobody could kill no matter how useless he had become. The responsibility of dealing with my native Italian relatives was given to me early in my career for a practice in patience. More like a sentence of punishment I didn't deserve. Their whole lifestyle directly contradicted my acquired New York upbringing. New York kept me hungry and cold. No matter what apartment you owned you never reached the top. I was more than willing to play the game, reaching new limits of how high I could go. "Now Amo, tell me, I have heard tales of wedding bells on the horizon, is this true?" Apparently business information took two hours to cross the Atlantic but gossip took two minutes. "Now let me tell you Amo, you need a real Italian woman, not those spoiled New York girls. They have lived in America too long and have lost their true Italian values-" I let him run his course as I picked up my coffee order. He was unsurprisingly still talking after four minutes of ignoring him. I could've hung up and he wouldn't notice. "-You know... Clarissa is becoming quite a young lady, very talented at piano and cooks the best Italian meals you'll ever taste, very polite too." Clarissa was also surely related to me in some way. And how exactly was polite a figure of a compliment? I'm sure he meant compliant instead. Nothing more attractive for a lowly mafia man than to have someone he could boss around. "Your men will be pleased if you take a real Italian woman-" "Have you found the reports Tommaso? Or I will call back when you have them." Maybe that's what was wrong with me. I didn't appreciate the attributes of the women in our circles or whoever Tommaso was talking about. I happened to like the all American party girl, the girls who took relationships like me, non committal, living only for the night. The girls I went on dates with were already planning our fifth child's name. I liked the girls at the races who wore crop tops, not giving a shit if their midriff was on display. I liked the girls who danced on bar tops and gave me shit when I deserved it. "Come to Italy Amo, you have not come home in so long and you are getting too stressed. Do not worry, you will find a wife here and your peace." "Send the reports today Tommaso or I will come to Italy for an entirely different reason," yes nothing like a death threat in the mere hours of the morning to liven up things. I hung up the phone decidedly, I would give this task to Marco from now on, he would take it as a compliment to have more responsibility. Clarity, I needed clarity.
Greta
"Now breathe in, visualize what you're letting go of..-" Amo. "-and breathe out. Let it go with grace." The peace time alone with my family was exactly what I needed to think clearly. Or with my female family at least, Kiara, Mom, Leona and Gemma. Aurora was invited too but she said last time she went she was bored out of her mind. Every year we did our summer girls trip to a spa in the middle of the desert. The day was coming to an end after a sunrise hike, Swedish massages, yoga in the afternoon and crystal sound healing at night. The whole trip was supposed to exfoliate toxins and to help you release the things that no longer served you. Which was what I needed. I could no longer pretend Amo wasn't bad surrounded by my family, I couldn't forget how much I didn't want to disappoint them. They were so fundamentally important to me and I couldn't feign innocence about the fact I was betraying them by lying to them. So I had to let go of Amo. Breath out. More than anything I wanted to ask these women, to spill everything to them. I trusted this group with everything and they had been there for me throughout my life. But this felt so much bigger and so much more personal. "You were really taking that sound healing seriously, Greta. Your eyebrows were almost touching!" Kiara said, laughing delightedly now that she had a cocktail in her hand. Tipsy Kiara was my favorite Kiara. The flames of the lights flickered now that the sun had passed below the canyons surrounding us. The valley turned cold and the waitress brought out blankets for us. "I had a lot to let go of," I said seriously, frowning out into the fresh desert air. No matter how much I tried to release the thoughts of him, Amo was still lurking in the back of my consciousness. Why did I feel so strongly towards a man? In particular this man! If you'd asked me about my dream guy I would've described him as artistic, kind, caring, had the same values as me and respected my boundaries. Amo could be described in a lot of words but none of those he possessed. It scared a part of me, the fact I found him attractive proved I must have darkness within me. Darkness that I could no longer hide behind pink bows and fragile longing. "I swear the guys would be so much better if they came with us one time!" Mom complained. "Well it wouldn't be half as fun," Kiara said around the umbrella of her drink." "The tension and dark cloud Remo carries around the house just because of one small thing the Famiglia does just brings everyone down, he needs to learn to let go." "Why were you attracted to dad?" I asked out of the blue, coming back from the hypnotic patterns that the canyon displayed during sunset. It wasn't something I ever wanted to ask but right now I was impatient for an answer. She looked out to the surroundings as well, looking for an answer. I never brought up their relationship after the reveal of how they met. I'm sure she was trying to say it carefully so as to not upset me. In my youth I couldn't fathom how she stayed with him. I tried not to judge her but I think she felt my questioning eyes. Little did she know I was more than forgiving to her now after my own revelation of darkness, the messy parts of my heart I didn't even know existed. "He was real perhaps, the realist person I'd met in my sheltered life. Real isn't always what you want but the way I grew up it was the greatest compliment if someone didn't hide the truth from me. He saw I could handle real life and that was refreshing beyond belief. He saw the freedom I was capable of even before I recognized it.'' She looked closely at me to see my reaction. I thought it over and gave a small nod and she looked relieved that I understood. "Is this about that boy?" she asked gently yet prying. My heart stopped for a second, I was on the verge of relief that she knew and worried what would come of it. "Stephen?" she asked. Reality washed over me, "Stephen? No. I'm not interested in him that way, I mean I like him, he's really amazing-but it's not like that... how do you know who Stephen is?" I was getting defensive to the change of the conversation. Heat came to my cheeks at my bluster of words, contradicting what I was trying to say. "Remo was saying something about him. I saw his picture, he is very cute, Greta!" "Remo didn't like him though," Leona laughed mischievously. I hid my face in the blanket. I needed to be more careful who I talked to in front of my bodyguards or Stephen wouldn't make it to graduation. Besides that, realization came in that I was much deeper than I thought. Stephen was only the tip of the iceberg and already my dad didn't approve of my actions. They could never know the truth, they would look at me as a monster.
I lay awake that night. The floor to ceiling doors wide open, the curtains billowing in the wind. I would venture outside to sit on the chairs under the crystal clear sky, trying to look for a sign in the stars. Praying to the heavens for an answer. Then I'd walk back inside, huddle back into the comforter of the bed, closing my eyes, resolute on falling asleep but then being plagued by tossing and turning in restlessness. Then repeating the whole process again. My phone made a noise somewhere in the dark room. I searched the room frantically, diving toward it when I found it. Embarrassment filled me when I came to realize who I thought it was. He didn't even know my number! I checked my notification then turned the phone off and instead searched my luggage for the phone Amo had given me. I turned it on and clicked the call button before I could think about it. It was automatic, desperate even. My heavy breaths were the only sound accompanying the tiny ringing sound. "Hello?" His voice brought the release I didn't know I needed. The background noise sounded like he was outside in the streets of the city. A rush of homesickness filled me for a city I'd never lived in. Probably never would. "Hi, I wanted to hear your voice," my own voice was strained, longing. Good lord, what was this man doing to me? "It's nice to hear yours," he said it so quietly I almost didn't catch it. There was silence again. "I shouldn't have called you. I couldn't sleep, I'm in Sedona and-" I walked back outside as a gust of wind came in, flipping through my white robe, just a slight chill to it. "I can see the whole Milky Way from here. The sky is luminous with all the stars. It's really beautiful. Can you see the stars?" It must be late there, what was he still doing up? "No I can't remember the last time I saw the stars with this perpetual rain and smog, but I believe you." I stretched down on the cushioned chaise, laying there with the universe at my fingertips. We talked for another two hours and if you asked me about what I couldn't recall. The conversation kept flowing, it surprised me when the clock said it was one in the morning. I said goodbye, went back to bed and fell asleep soundly.