Juliet Read online

  “I understand you are a pacifist?” he said to me, as we walked away from the cemetery together.

  “Jules loves to fight,” observed Janice, walking happily in the middle, oblivious to the fact that the brim of her hat was funneling water on both of us, “and throw stuff at people. Did you hear what she did to the Little Mermaid—?”

  “That’s enough,” I said, trying to find a dry spot on my sleeve to wipe my eyes one last time.

  “Oh, don’t be so modest! You were on the front page!”

  “And I hear your business is going very well?” Mr. Gallagher looked at Janice, attempting a smile. “It must be a challenge to make everyone happy?”

  “Happy? Eek!” Janice narrowly avoided stepping in a puddle. “Happiness is the worst threat to my business. Dreams are what it’s all about. Frustrations. Fantasies that never come true. Men that don’t exist. Women you can never have. That’s where the money is, date after date after date—”

  Janice kept talking, but I stopped listening. It was one of the world’s great ironies that my sister was into professional matchmaking, for she was probably the least romantic person I had ever known. Notwithstanding her urge to flirt with every one of them, she saw men as little more than noisy power tools that you plugged in when you needed them and unplugged as soon as the job was done.

  Oddly enough, when we were children, Janice had had an obsession with arranging everything in pairs, two teddy bears, two cushions, two hairbrushes … even on days when we had been fighting, she would put both our dolls next to each other on the shelf overnight, sometimes even with their arms around each other. In that respect it was perhaps not strange that she would choose to make a career out of matchmaking, seeing that she was a genuine Noah at putting people in pairs. The only problem was that, unlike the old patriarch, she had long since forgotten why she did it.

  It was hard to say when things had changed. At some point in high school she had made it her mission to burst every dream I might ever have had about love. Running through boyfriends like economy pantyhose, Janice had taken a peculiar pleasure in grossing me out by describing everybody and everything in a dismissive slang that made me wonder why women consorted with men at all.

  “So,” she had said, rolling pink curlers into my hair on the night before our prom, “this is your last chance.”

  I had looked at her in the mirror, puzzled by her ultimatum but prevented from responding by one of her mint-green mud masks that had dried to a crust on my face.

  “You know”—she had grimaced impatiently—“your last chance to pop the cherry. That’s what prom’s all about. Why do you think the guys dress up? Because they like to dance? Puh-leez!” She had glanced at me in the mirror, checking her progress. “If you don’t do it at prom, you know what they say. You’re a prude. Nobody likes a prude.”

  The next morning, I had complained about a stomachache, and as the prom came closer, my pains grew worse. In the end, Aunt Rose had to call the neighbors and tell them that their son had better find himself another date for the evening; meanwhile, Janice was picked up by an athlete called Troy and disappeared in a smoke of squealing tires.

  After listening to my moans all afternoon, Aunt Rose began insisting we go to the emergency room in case it was appendicitis, but Umberto had calmed her down and said that I did not have a fever, and that he was certain it was nothing serious. As he stood there next to my bed later in the evening, looking at me peeking out from underneath my blanket, I could see that he knew exactly what was going on, and that, in some strange way, he was pleased with my scam. We both knew there was nothing wrong with the neighbors’ son as such, it was just that he did not fit the description of the man I had envisioned as my lover. And if I could not get what I wanted, I would rather miss the prom.

  “Dick,” Janice now said, stroking Mr. Gallagher with a satin smile, “why don’t we just cut to the chase. How much?”

  I did not even try to intervene. After all, as soon as Janice got her money, she would be off to the eternal hunting grounds of the bushytailed wannabe, and I would never have to set eyes on her again.

  “Well,” said Mr. Gallagher, stopping awkwardly in the parking lot, right next to Umberto and the Lincoln, “I’m afraid the fortune is almost entirely tied up in the estate.”

  “Look,” said Janice, “we all know it’s fifty-fifty down to the last nickel, okay, so let’s cut the crap. She wants us to draw a white line down the middle of the house? Fair enough, we can do that. Or”—she shrugged as if it was all the same to her—“we simply sell the place and split the money. How much?”

  “The reality is that in the end”—Mr. Gallagher looked at me with some regret—“Mrs. Jacobs changed her mind and decided to leave everything to Miss Janice.”

  “What?” I looked from Janice to Mr. Gallagher to Umberto, but found no support at all.

  “Holy shit!” Janice flared up in a broad smile. “The old lady had a sense of humor after all!”

  “Of course,” Mr. Gallagher went on, more sternly, “there is a sum put aside for Mister—for Umberto, and there is a mention of certain framed photographs that your great-aunt wanted Miss Julie to have.”

  “Hey,” said Janice, opening her arms, “I’m feeling generous.”

  “Wait a minute—” I took a step back, struggling to process the news. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  For as long as I could remember, Aunt Rose had gone through hell and high water to treat us equally; for heaven’s sake, I had even caught her counting the number of pecans in our morning muesli to make sure one of us didn’t get more than the other. And she had always talked about the house as something that we—at some point in the future—would own together. “You girls,” she used to say, “really need to learn how to get along. I won’t live forever, you know. And when I am gone, you are going to share this house.”

  “I understand your disappointment—” said Mr. Gallagher.

  “Disappointment?” I felt like grabbing him by the collar, but stuck my hands in my pockets instead, as deep as they could go. “Don’t think I’m buying this. I want to see the will.” Looking him straight in the eye I saw him squirming under my gaze. “There’s something going on here behind my back—”

  “You were always a sore loser,” Janice broke in, savoring my fury with a catty smile, “that’s what’s going on.”

  “Here—” Mr. Gallagher clicked open his briefcase with shaky hands and handed me a document. “This is your copy of the will. I’m afraid there’s not much room for dispute.”

  UMBERTO FOUND ME in the garden, crouched under the arbor he had once built for us when Aunt Rose was in bed with pneumonia. Sitting down next to me on the wet bench, he did not comment on my childish disappearing act, just handed me an immaculately ironed handkerchief and observed me as I blew my nose.

  “It’s not the money,” I said, defensively. “Did you see her smirk? Did you hear what she said? She doesn’t care about Aunt Rose. She never did. It’s not fair!”

  “Who told you life was fair?” Umberto looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Not me.”

  “I know! I just don’t understand—but it’s my own fault. I always thought she was serious about treating us equally. I borrowed money—” I clutched my face to avoid his stare. “Don’t say it!”

  “Are you finished?”

  I shook my head. “You have no idea how finished I am.”

  “Good.” He opened his jacket and took out a dry but slightly bent manila envelope. “Because she wanted you to have this. It’s a big secret. Gallagher doesn’t know. Janice doesn’t know. It’s for you only.”

  I was immediately suspicious. It was very unlike Aunt Rose to give me something behind Janice’s back, but then, it was also very unlike her to write me out of her will. Clearly, I had not known my mother’s aunt as well as I thought I did, nor had I fully known myself until now. To think that I could sit here—today of all days—and cry over money. Although she had been in her late fifties wh
en she adopted us, Aunt Rose had been like a mother to us, and I ought to be ashamed of myself for wanting anything more from her.

  When I finally opened it, the envelope turned out to contain three things: a letter, a passport, and a key.

  “This is my passport!” I exclaimed. “How did she—?” I looked at the picture page again. It was my photo all right, and my date of birth, but the name was not mine. “Giulietta? Giulietta Tolomei?”

  “That is your real name. Your aunt changed it when she brought you here from Italy. She changed Janice’s name, too.”

  I was stunned. “But why? … How long have you known?”

  He looked down. “Why don’t you read the letter?”

  I unfolded the two sheets of paper. “You wrote this?”

  “She dictated it to me.” Umberto smiled sadly. “She wanted to make sure you could read it.”

  The letter read as follows:

  My dearest Julie,

  I have asked Umberto to give you this letter after my funeral, so I suppose that means I am dead. Anyway, I know you are still angry that I never took you girls to Italy, but believe me when I say that it was for your own good. How could I ever forgive myself if something happened to you? But now you are older. And there is something there, in Siena, that your mother left for you. You alone. I don’t know why, but that is Diane for you, bless her soul. She found something, and supposedly it is still there. By the sound of it, it was much more valuable than anything I have ever owned. And that is why I decided to do it this way, and give the house to Janice. I was hoping we could avoid all this and forget about Italy, but now I am beginning to think that it would be wrong of me if I never told you.

  Here is what you must do. Take this key and go to the bank in Palazzo Tolomei. In Siena. I think it is for a safety-deposit box. Your mother had it in her purse when she died. She had a financial advisor there, a man called Francesco Maconi. Find him and tell him that you are Diane Tolomei’s daughter. Oh, and that is another thing. I changed your names. Your real name is Giulietta Tolomei. But this is America. I thought Julie Jacobs made more sense, but no one can spell that either. What is the world coming to? No, I have had a good life. Thanks to you. Oh, and another thing: Umberto is going to get you a passport with your real name. I have no idea how you do these things, but never mind, we will leave that to him.

  I am not going to say goodbye. We will see each other again in Heaven, God willing. But I wanted to make sure you get what is rightly yours. Just be careful over there. Look what happened to your mother. Italy can be a very strange place. Your great-grandmother was born there, of course, but I’ll tell you, you couldn’t have dragged her back therefor all the money in the world. Anyway, don’t tell anyone what I have told you. And try to smile more. You have such a beautiful smile, when you use it.

  Much love & God bless,

  Auntie

  It took me a while to recover from the letter. Reading it, I could almost hear Aunt Rose dictating it, just as wonderfully scatterbrained in death as she had been when she was still alive. By the time I was finished with Umberto’s handkerchief, he did not want it back. Instead, he told me to take it with me to Italy, so that I would remember him when I found my big treasure.

  “Come on!” I blew my nose one final time. “We both know there’s no treasure!”

  He picked up the key. “Are you not curious? Your aunt was convinced that your mother had found something of tremendous value.”

  “Then why didn’t she tell me earlier? Why wait until she’s—” I threw up my arms. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Umberto squinted. “She wanted to. But you were never around.”

  I rubbed my face, mostly to avoid his accusatory stare. “Even if she was right, you know I can’t go back to Italy. They’d lock me up so fast. You know they told me—”

  Actually, they—the Italian police—had told me significantly more than I had ever passed on to Umberto. But he knew the gist of it. He knew that I had once been arrested in Rome during an antiwar demonstration, and spent a very unrecommendable night in a local prison before being tossed out of the country at daybreak and told never to come back. He also knew that it hadn’t been my fault. I had been eighteen, and all I had wanted was to go to Italy and see the place where I was born.

  Pining in front of my college’s bulletin boards with their gaudy ads for study trips and expensive language courses in Florence, I had come across a small poster denouncing the war in Iraq and all the countries that took part in it. One of those countries, I was excited to discover, was Italy. At the bottom of the page was a list of dates and destinations; anyone interested in the cause was welcome to join in. One week in Rome—travel included—would cost me no more than four hundred dollars, which was precisely what I had left in my bank account. Little did I know that the low fare was made possible by the fact that we were almost guaranteed to not stay the whole week, and that the tab for our return flights and last night’s lodgings would—if all went according to plan—be picked up by the Italian authorities, that is, the Italian taxpayers.

  And so, understanding very little about the purpose of the trip, I circled back to the poster several times before finally signing up. That night, however, tossing around in my bed, I knew I had done the wrong thing and that I would have to undo it as soon as possible. But when I told Janice the next morning, she just rolled her eyes and said, “Here lies Jules, who didn’t have much of a life, but who almost went to Italy once.”

  Obviously, I had to go.

  When the first rocks started flying in front of the Italian Parliament—thrown by two of my fellow travelers, Sam and Greg—I would have loved nothing more than to be back in my dorm room, pillow over my head. But I was trapped in the crowd like everyone else, and once the Roman police had had enough of our rocks and Molotov cocktails, we were all baptized by tear gas.

  It was the first time in my life I found myself thinking, I could die now. Falling down on the asphalt and seeing the world—legs, arms, vomit—through a haze of pain and disbelief, I completely forgot who I was and where I was going with my life. Perhaps like the martyrs of old, I discovered another place; somewhere that was neither life nor death. But then the pain came back, and the panic, too, and after a moment it stopped feeling like a religious experience.

  Months later, I kept wondering if I had ever fully recovered from the events in Rome. When I forced myself to think about it, I got this nagging feeling that I was still forgetting something crucial about who I was—something that had been spilled on the Italian asphalt and never come back.

  “True.” Umberto opened the passport and scrutinized my photo. “They told Julie Jacobs she can’t return to Italy. But what about Giulietta Tolomei?”

  I did a double take. Here was Umberto, who still scolded me for dressing like a flower child, urging me to break the law. “Are you suggesting—?”

  “Why do you think I had this made? It was your aunt’s last wish that you go to Italy. Don’t break my heart, principessa.”

  Seeing the sincerity in his eyes, I struggled once more against the tears. “But what about you?” I said gruffly. “Why don’t you come with me? We could find the treasure together. And if we don’t, to hell with it! We’ll become pirates. We’ll scour the seas—”

  Umberto reached out and touched my cheek very gently, as if he knew that, once I was gone, I would never come back. And should we ever meet again, it would not be like this, sitting together in a child’s hideaway, our backs turned to the world outside. “There are some things,” he said softly, “that a princess has to do alone. Do you remember what I told you … one day you will find your kingdom?”

  “That was just a story. Life isn’t like that.”

  “Everything we say is a story. But nothing we say is just a story.”

  I threw my arms around him, not yet ready to let go. “What about you? You’re not staying here, are you?”

  Umberto squinted up at the dripping woodwork. “I think Janice is rig
ht. It’s time for old Birdie to retire. I should steal the silver and go to Vegas. It will last me about a week, I think, with my luck. So make sure to call me when you find your treasure.”

  I leaned my head against his shoulder. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  [ I.II ]

  Draw thy tool—here comes of

  the house of Montagues

  …

  AS FAR BACK AS I could remember, Aunt Rose had done everything in her power to prevent Janice and me from going to Italy. “How many times do I have to tell you,” she used to say, “that it is not a place for nice girls?” Later on, realizing that her strategy had to change, she would shake her head whenever anyone would broach the subject, and clasp her heart as if the very thought of the place put her at death’s door. “Trust me,” she would wheeze, “Italy is nothing but a big disappointment, and Italian men are pigs!”

  I had always resented her inexplicable prejudice against the country where I was born, but after my experience in Rome I ended up more or less agreeing with her: Italy was a disappointment, and the Italians—at least the uniformed variety—made pigs look pretty good.

  Similarly, whenever we would ask her about our parents, Aunt Rose would cut us off by reciting the same old story. “How many times do I have to tell you,” she would grunt, frustrated at being interrupted in the middle of reading the newspaper wearing her little cotton gloves that kept the ink off her hands, “that your parents died in a car accident in Tuscany when you were three years old?” Fortunately for Janice and me—or so the story continued—Aunt Rose and poor Uncle Jim—bless his soul—had been able to adopt us immediately after the tragedy, and it was our good luck that they had never been able to have children of their own. We ought to be grateful that we had not ended up in an Italian orphanage eating spaghetti every day. Look at us! Here we were, living on an estate in Virginia, spoiled rotten; the very least we could do in return was to stop plaguing Aunt Rose with questions she didn’t know how to answer. And could someone please fix her another mint julep, seeing that her joints were aching something fierce from our incessant nagging.