How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer Read Free Book Online Page A

kitchen with the inevitable cook. The padrona sits next to Aïda with a glossy magazine open on her lap, exclaiming at what she sees. “Ah, yes, here you are again,” she says. “God, what a gown.”
    It’s as though royalty has come for a visit. She seems reluctant to look away from the photographs when the maid enters and announces us as friends of the signorina.
    “More friends?”
    “Actually, Mira’s my cousin,” Aïda explains. “And that’s Drew. He’s another student at the university.”
    Drew nods politely at the padrona. Then he goes to Aïda and crouches beside her chaise longue. “We saw you faint,” he says. “Do you need some water?”
    “She’ll be fine,” Joseph says, and gives Drew a narrow-eyed look.
    Drew stands, raising his hands in front of him. “I asked her a simple question.”
    The padrona clears her throat. “Please make yourself comfortable,” she says. “Maria will bring you a refreshment.” She introduces herself as Pietà Cellini, the wife of the vintner. She says this proudly, although from the state of their house it seems the family wines haven’t been doing so well in recent years. As she speaks she holds Aïda’s hand in her own. “Isn’t she remarkable, your cousin?” she asks. “So young.”
    “I’m awfully sorry about all this,” I say. “We should be getting home.”
    “She’s darling,” says Signora Cellini. “My own daughter went to study in Rome two years ago. She’s just a little older than Aïda. Mischievous, too.”
    “Is that so?” I say. The pain in my ankle has become almost funny. My head feels weightless and poorly attached.
    “Aïda was just showing me her lovely pictures in
Elle,
” our host says. “The poor girl had a shock just now, all those police. I’m afraid our housemaid was quite rude.”
    “She was just protecting your house,” I say.
    Aïda sips water from a porcelain cup. Joseph takes it from her when she’s finished and sets it down on a tiny gilt table. “Feel better now?” he asks.
    “You’re so nice.” Aïda pats his arm. “I’m sure it was just the heat.”
    Black flashes crowd the edges of my vision. The ankle has begun to throb. I look past them all, through the panes of the French doors and out into the garden, where an old man digs at a bed of spent roses. Dry-looking cuttings lie on the ground, and bees dive and hover around the man. He is singing a song whose words I cannot hear through the glass. I rest my forehead against my hand, wondering how I can stand to be here a moment longer. Aïda laughs, and Joseph’s voice joins hers. It seems she has done this intentionally, in reparation for the thrown candlestick or the words I said to her, or even because all my life I have had a mother and she has had none. What a brilliant success I would be if I could paint the scene in this sunny room, glorious Aïda in careful disarray, the two men drawn to her, the elegant woman leaning over her with a porcelain cup. Sell it. Retire to Aruba. I can already feel the paint between my fingers, under my nails, sliding beneath my fingertips on the canvas. And then I hear the padrona’s voice coming from what seems a great distance, calling not Aïda’s name but my own. “Mira,” she says. “Good God. What happened to your ankle?”
    In defiance of all my better instincts, I look down. At first it seems I am looking at a foreign object, some huge red-and-purple swelling where my ankle used to be. It strains against the straps of my sandal as if threatening to burst. “I got hurt,” I say, blinking against a contracting darkness, and then there is silent nothing.
    It is nighttime. I do not recall getting back to the apartment, nor do I remember undressing or getting into bed. The room is quiet. There is a bag of crushed ice on my ankle, and an angel bending over it as if it had already died. Translucent wings rise from the angel’s back, and its face is inclined over my foot. Its hair shines blue in the