Juliet by Anne Fortier Read Free Book Online Page B

kind smile people fix on you just before they stick a syringe in your neck. “No.”
    “But I know he used to work here—” I did not get any further beforethe woman’s colleague from the booth next door leaned in on the conversation, whispering something in Italian. At first, my unfriendly teller dismissed the other with an angry wave, but after a while she began to reconsider.
    “Excuse me,” she said eventually, leaning forward to get my attention, “but do you mean
Presidente
Maconi?”
    I felt a jolt of excitement. “Did he work here twenty years ago?”
    She looked horrified. “Presidente Maconi was always here!”
    “And would it be possible to speak with him?” I smiled sweetly, although she did not deserve it. “He is an old friend of my mother’s, Diane Tolomei. I am Giulietta Tolomei.”
    Both women stared at me as if I were a spirit conjured up before their very eyes. Without another word, the teller who had originally dismissed me now fumbled her glasses back on her nose, made a phone call, and had a brief conversation in humble, underdog Italian. When it was over she put down the receiver reverently, and turned towards me with something akin to a smile. “He will see you right after lunch, at three o’clock.”
    I HAD MY FIRST MEAL since arriving in Siena at a bustling pizzeria called Cavallino Bianco. While I sat there pretending to read the Italian dictionary I had just bought, I began to realize that it would take more than just a borrowed suit and a few handy phrases to level with the locals. These women around me, I suspected, sneaking peeks at their smiles and exuberant gestures as they bantered with the handsome waiter Giulio, possessed something I had never had, some ability I could not put my finger on, but which must be a crucial element in that elusive state of mind, happiness.
    Strolling on, feeling more klutzy and displaced than ever, I had a stand-up espresso in a bar in Piazza Postierla and asked the buxom barista if she could recommend a cheap clothes store in the neighborhood. After all, Eva Maria’s suitcase had—fortunately—not contained any underwear. Completely ignoring her other customers the barista looked me over skeptically and said, “You want everything new, no? New hair, new clothes?”
    “Well—”
    “Don’t worry, my cousin is the best hairdresser in Siena—maybe in the world. He will make you beautiful. Come!”
    After taking me by the arm and insisting that I call her Malèna, the barista walked me down to see her cousin Luigi right away, even though it was clearly coffee rush hour, and customers were yelling after her in exasperation as we went. She just shrugged and laughed, knowing full well that they would all still fawn over her when she came back, maybe even a little bit more than before, now that they had tasted life without her.
    Luigi was sweeping up hair from the floor when we entered his salon. He was no older than me, but had the penetrating eye of a Michelangelo. When he fixed that eye on me, however, he was not impressed.
    “Ciao, caro,” said Malèna and gave him a drive-thru peck on both cheeks, “this is Giulietta. She needs un makeover totale.”
    “Just the ends, actually,” I interjected. “A couple inches.”
    It took a major argument in Italian—which I was more than relieved to not understand—before Malèna had persuaded Luigi to take on my sorry case. But once he did, he took the challenge very seriously. As soon as Malèna had left the salon, he sat me down on a barber chair and looked at my reflection in the mirror, turning me this way and that to check all the angles. Then he pulled the elastic bands from my braids and threw them directly into the trash bin with an expression of disgust.
    “Bene …” he finally said, fluffing up my hair and looking at me once again in the mirror, a little less critically than before. “Not too bad, no?”
    WHEN I WALKED BACK to Palazzo Tolomei two hours later, I had sunk myself