cards

Lisa Maraventano — novel — $6.99

alle api

The Activation

The taxi stops outside the building on Piazza Mazzini. I get out and check my reflection in a parked car's side mirror. I look slightly flustered, a little old and worn, but acceptable. I have to get used to this reflection. This is who I am now. I turned fifty this spring. I tell myself I am a mature, confident, beautiful woman who has lived a full and interesting life, and that is true. But I also know I miss looking in the mirror and seeing hope, possibility, and curiosity—as well as younger skin.

I am heading upstairs in the rickety elevator to my friend Cristina's exhibition space. I haven't been here before. I had met Cristina last year in San Francisco where I live and we had stayed in contact. I had told her I was doing an eight-week residency in Rome this year to study the ancient plays and she invited me to this event tonight.

I work in the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. I have been there twenty-seven years. I started as a young actress fresh out of their MFA program, hired before I had even graduated. Now I have been there longer than anyone else.

I dream about relocating to Italy one day. I meet expats here every day who have made the move. Yet I hesitate. I try to identify what is holding me back—fear, complacency, false security. San Francisco has changed so much in the last five years. It doesn't feel like the same place I moved to in my twenties.

All these thoughts run parallel to my existence in the current moment, weaving through the crowded rooms back toward the front door. Yet I move forward, dragging the accumulated experience behind me perhaps, but intent on forward motion nonetheless.

On my way out, I nod at the hostess seated by the door who helped me when I arrived. I reach for the door handle but the door opens. There before me is the best-looking man I have ever seen. Something happens inside me. Something like a lightning bolt straight into my heart that activates a dormant hive of bees I didn't know lived in there.

Our eyes are locked onto each other's. His are big and brown and slightly sad. He is broad and tall, about six foot two, with dark hair and beard, wearing all black from his black T-shirt down to his boots. His shirt has a V-neck that shows a bit of tattoo over his chest. I notice all this while never looking away from his eyes. My senses have expanded to take in every detail in the space of a breath.

Cristina turns up at my side. "Pietro!" she exclaims. "I am glad you made it!"

He turns his deep brown eyes back to mine, his mouth a smirk now. I rally and stick out my right hand. I dig deep into my vocal training for the proper collected and confident tone. "Piacere," I say. Then he takes my hand in his and my knees literally weaken. Stay on your leg, I tell myself. It is a mantra I learned from my friend Katharine at the San Francisco Ballet. It is what she tells herself when she is nervous and unsure. Just stay on your leg.

I cannot pretend I am not leaving. I am too close to the door. I slip through the portal. I am shaking. What just happened? I have been around good-looking men for years. Actors are usually good-looking. This man, Pietro, was more than handsome. It was an attraction activated at some quantum level, something electromagnetic, as if all the cells in my body turned at once in his direction.

A hand reaches above mine and helps pull open the enormous door. And then I know. I feel him behind me. It is his hand. The energy is radiating between us.

"I thought you were going to the exhibition," I say in a remarkably calm voice.

"I told Cristina I just remembered something." Pietro is holding the door open now and the early Roman evening is outside, the sun sliding home and lighting everything up in gold on its way.

"Would you like to get a drink?" Pietro asks me.

"Sure," I say and we begin walking.

— the cards are on the table —