Chapter Eleven Ginevra

Ginevra Ex sat across her dining room table from Rory Aronov and watched her twenty-sixth main character sip Acqua Panna from a crystal goblet.

Twenty-six main characters, and Rory was without a doubt Ginevra’s favorite, even though they’d yet to begin.

Ginevra had published one book a year since her early thirties. She’d written other books before—as a child, as a teenager, in her twenties. Those books she’d long ago torched, turned to quite literal ashes. They were about her. Fiction, but really truth masquerading as fiction. It was common sentiment that an author’s first main character most acutely resembles herself. And in Ginevra’s case, this was true for her first book, her second, her third. She had a world to work out in ink, but in the end, she couldn’t untangle any of it. Everything she wrote was awful sludge—attempting and not succeeding to parse her guilt and shame, to make it up to her father, to her mother, to her sister. Especially to her sister.

Ginevra had loved writing since she was a child. Writing was how she made sense of the world. Or tried to.

Her solution was to stop. Full stop. For a year she didn’t write a word. Occasionally she picked up a pen, hovered it over a notebook, and tried to summon something. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t face herself on the pages anymore.

Maybe if she were braver, she’d often thought. But if there was anything her life had proven to her, it was that she was not.

And then one day, working at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Ginevra was shelving books and came across a teenage girl in one of the aisles. Propped on her knees, pages furiously turned, was La Co-scienze di Zeno. Zeno’s Conscience—the book that had touched Ginevra more than any other. It featured Zeno, a neurotic businessman, forever trying and failing to stop smoking. He narrates his memoirs to his psychologist, revealing his many faults, as life throws him one punch after another. Or perhaps Zeno courts those punches. For instance, he has the choice among three sisters to marry—two beautiful, one ugly. He chooses the ugly one. And he lusts after the other two thereafter.

Yes, Ginevra related to Zeno and to the story so much that she had a copy by her bedside, pages worn and dog-eared. Zeno fascinated her—at once he could reflect on his actions and habits, yet be tricked into repeating his mistakes again and again.

The girl saw Ginevra examining her book. She smiled. “Have you read this?”

“Many times,” Ginevra answered.

“Does he ever quit smoking?” the girl asked.

“Never manages to.”

“Ah.” The girl frowned.

Ginevra understood it: If Zeno could succeed at his hardest mission, then the girl—and Ginevra—might feel they, too, could succeed at the thing that vexed them. But life wasn’t as even as that. Sometimes it was better to stop trying.

“I smoke, too. Drink, also.”

“Me too,” Ginevra admitted.

And suddenly the girl was closing the book and confiding in Ginevra about how a few months ago she was riding a motorino and the crosswalk, as in all of Rome, was faded and not entirely visible, and so the girl didn’t see an old man crossing the street, and accidentally she careened into him. He died instantly. And Ginevra heard, and understood, the girl’s pain. But it was a different story—different facts. A different person. The girl’s mother was wealthy and tried to cover it up, and the girl was apparently a burgeoning artist, but after the accident, she said she threw red paint on all her canvases.

As the girl spoke, Ginevra listened, and asked the questions that sprouted in her mind. She was curious about this girl, for sure, but even more, she thought, You. You would be an excellent main character.

And that was how it was all born. With a new person—a person not Ginevra herself—fanning out fascinating quirks and thoughts and feelings, Ginevra found her creativity flowing again, able to run wild. To devise crazy scenarios in which to place her characters. But they were not her. That was the freedom of it. She didn’t have to delve into her own past for backstory or pain points. Main characters were a surfeit, a spout that didn’t stop streaming.

Ginevra’s first book was an international sensation. It was still difficult for Ginevra to believe that she’d created a career of what was first and foremost the pure joy in her life. Imagining, creating. Her fingers always trembled, poised over her notebook, as a new person began to speak. What might be birthed.

And as yet, the past—Ginevra’s past—would lay dormant. Festering, sure. But on the whole, blessedly undisturbed.

So many readers told Ginevra that she changed their lives. That she inspired them. Entertained them. Distracted them from their troubles. Illuminated pockets of light in their rooms full of darkness.

Still, for as long as she could remember, Ginevra had felt the world would be better off without her. She nearly did something about it after that treacherous time in her early twenties. But her readers—they convinced her to stay in this world.

And besides, there was Orsola. Ginevra would forever be making it up to her sister. It was Ginevra’s well-due punishment to stay and care for Orsola, provide for her. To stay and try to make it up to her.

Ginevra always fell in love with her main characters. How could you not? When you saw the whole of a person—sometimes their hatred of themselves or their pride. The fleeting, flickering shadows that conjured their innocent child selves. The secrets not even their parents or spouses knew. When a person showed you everything, turned their insides out, it was impossible not to love them. This was what Ginevra had learned in her long life.

With one exception. The rule did not extend to herself.

Ginevra knew everything she had done. Everything she was. And it was not lovable. Yes, she had spent a lifetime repenting for it—but she’d need lifetimes more.

Now Ginevra watched Rory drink her water, tentatively, unsure. It was early days together. There was much to get to, parts that wouldn’t be fun. Main characters usually anticipated this, arrived anxious to Ginevra’s apartment on the first day, accepted her extension of limoncello shots. But Rory was sticking to water now, which made Ginevra respect her even more—that Rory didn’t need to bury her nerves in order to face what would come next.

“Let this be fun, too,” Ginevra always said. She meant it, but alcohol was medicine, too.

Ginevra certainly imbibed. Italians in general are not big drinkers. In fact, the Italian language has no single word for a hangover. But in this way, Ginevra did not typify Italian stereotypes. She needed to drink to survive life. Occasionally, after a bottle of wine, she could feel almost happy.

Of course, in other ways, Ginevra was very Italian. Take the Italian children’s character of Pinocchio—the story beloved worldwide. Not the versions bastardized by Walt Disney but the one by Carlo Collodi. It is a story not about the perils of lying, like everyone thinks. In fact, in the original story, Pinocchio tells several lies, but in none of those instances does his nose grow even a smidge. Disney created the moral tie-in. But Collodi’s version epitomized the Italian way—in Italy, lying amuses; it doesn’t elicit the same degree of contempt or condemnation as in other societies.

Ginevra was comfortable with lying. Especially about herself.

“Do you need anything? Do you feel at home?” she asked Rory, caring very much about the answer.

“Yes. Thank you. Your home is so beautiful.”

Ginevra gazed around with pride. Her home was beautiful, it was true. Italian frescoes adorned the walls, tree-filled country vistas hand painted by acclaimed Italian artists. The living area boasted silver brocade sofas; a gold baroque chandelier; twisted silver lamps with red shades; and on the jade dining table, at which Ginevra and Rory were sitting, a jardiniere brimming with wild poppies. Ginevra didn’t allow many people into her apartment—it was her safe space, to retreat from the world, to share with her main characters and her sister, when Orsola visited from Positano.

“Thank you. The decor is inspired by Sophia Loren. She was my idol when I was a girl. Still is.”

Rory nodded politely. She wasn’t the generation, of course, of Sophia Loren. Neither was Ginevra, but though she was fifty-nine, not exactly ancient, she’d always felt older than her biological age.

“Shall we get started?”

“Sure,” Rory said nervously. “Where do you want to start?”

Ginevra considered this. She preferred to be spontaneous in the moment, to follow her instincts. Now she sifted for question number one. It should be easy. Day one was for easy. Even though everything was riding on this new book. It had to succeed. Ginevra was acutely aware of the pressure, on her and on Rory, to turn out a memorable main character. Absolutely everything was pinned upon it.

But easy day one, Ginevra reminded herself, trying to quell the knots in her chest. “What inspired you to become a news anchor?” she finally asked.

“Oh.” Rory smiled in a way that Ginevra couldn’t parse—half smile, half grimace. “It’s funny, but I’ve thought of this more recently. After…”

It hung in the air. After she was fired, though Ginevra didn’t want to pursue it, not now. There was time for that—much time to explore every last crevice of Rory’s life.

“My father always said I’d be an excellent news anchor. I’m curious, I love people’s stories, figuring out what’s behind the masks everyone wears. And to be honest…”

Ginevra smiled, tried to make her at ease. “Yes, please do be honest. Brutally so.”

Rory nodded. “I suppose I do like being the star. My brother’s always said so, at least. And so anchoring, reporting, it made sense. But maybe the real reason is that Papa slipped the idea in my head as a child.”

Ginevra nodded, transcribing it. Ansel. She would ask more about him—she definitely would. But not now.

“Makes sense.” Ginevra nodded. “You’re beautiful. Very dynamic. Wonderful with people, attuned to them, to ask the right question. I have personal experience with you, of course. And you were sharp. Asked incisive questions. I’m not only saying so. I felt it firsthand.”

Rory blushed. “Thanks. I guess I’ve always been interested in people. Their stories. What makes them how they are. Some anchors love the headlines, the adrenaline, but I preferred the interviews, especially with someone new. Making them comfortable. Finding out the small things that are really the big things. And the rush of the studio—I’d lose all sense of time, all sense of myself, really.”

Ginevra recorded it and thought, Funny, how we all try in different ways to make ourselves disappear.

“But there were negatives to the job, too. I don’t want you to only know the positive slant. Because then you’re missing how I was basically never off my phone, scrolling through the endless international horror stories on our network Slack.”

“That was hard?”

“Not hard as in laborious, per se, but it sucks your energy, all that bad, sad news. Although I guess you could say it is… was… laborious work, too. Because I’d be doing fifty things at once, absorbing all the news pouring in while conferring with my producers, and researching stories, and manically weaving it all together in something palatable for our audience while a producer was shouting at me that I needed to get into hair and makeup. And then of course I’d smile big as I was cued onto air.” Rory demonstrated, a wide, beautiful smile that Ginevra noticed for the first time had nothing real behind it. “It was important to smile in just the right way. Likably, for likability ratings, and credibly, so our viewers would feel like they could rely on me.”

Ginevra recorded it, absorbed it—the elements of anchoring that Rory didn’t love, that didn’t spark her with joy. In her own way, Ginevra related. Even writing, which Ginevra adored, entailed the necessary evils of interviews and social media.

Ginevra pondered where to take the conversation next. A new question hovered on the tip of her tongue. It was more provocative than she usually asked on day one, but this wasn’t a typical interview, nor was Rory a typical main character. And Ginevra found that she couldn’t wait anymore—her eagerness was overflowing.

“What was it like, as a child, with your father and Max?”

“Oh.” Rory flushed, then smiled wide and, Ginevra thought, genuinely. “I had the best childhood, truly.”

Ginevra felt a puzzle piece she didn’t know she was missing slot back into her heart. “You felt loved?”

“Very.” Rory’s voice trembled, the way a main character’s usually did when Ginevra had hit on someone or something important.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wanted a mom. It was hard sometimes without a mom.” Rory stopped, remembering, and Ginevra felt an ocean of pain in her chest. Ginevra wanted to ask when Ansel told her she was adopted. What that was like, reconciling it? Whether Max ever longed for his mother, too?

Piano, piano, Ginevra reminded herself. Slowly, slowly.

She didn’t want to scare the girl or hurt her. In all likelihood, Rory would raise the fact of her adoption on her own volition. And if not, then in a few weeks, Ginevra would gently inquire about it. Not now.

She exhaled deeply, prodding the words back into her throat.

Not now.

“Of course, there were times I ached for a mom, like when I got my period or saw other girls running into their moms’ arms after school. Their moms would, like, take out their pigtails that were rumpled from the school day and fix them and make them perfect. Whereas my hair was awful. A bowl cut, basically. Papa took me to the Ukrainian barber.” Rory laughed softly.

Ginevra’s hand flew across her page, transcribing every word. She knew later that day she would read the pages again, savor them. She didn’t know yet how she’d spin the novel, what fiction she’d make of Rory’s truth, but those things were of less importance than what would emerge from these interviews. And this day, talking about Ansel, was something Ginevra had eagerly anticipated for oh so long.

She took a breath. She must not let on about her eagerness.

“I mean, yeah, I would have loved to have a mother,” Rory continued, “but I’m not sure I felt the lack as much as I felt… so happy to have Papa. Because my dad, he totally adored us. He’s—well, he was—so much fun. And we were the center of his world. We didn’t have a lot of money, but made do, and he was big on activities—skating on our lake in winter, sledding, swimming. We did everything together. The three musketeers.” She smiled sadly. “That’s what he called us. He worked hard—he was the chef at the local Russian restaurant. It wasn’t how he was trained. He’s a violinist. Hugely talented.”

She sighed, something painful in her eyes. “But he didn’t make it into the local orchestras. I guess Americans don’t appreciate classical music like Eastern Europeans do. Often I wondered, though, if he was disappointed.…”

“Disappointed?”

“In how his life turned out, I guess. He never married. Not after…”

Ginevra waited for the rest of the sentence, but it didn’t come.

“I don’t know. I guess he’d had the real love of his life. He once said that his mother had told him to only be with someone if you can’t live without them. My grandfather, Papa’s father, died suddenly when Papa was young, and his mother was content with just Papa. She didn’t want someone as a placeholder, I guess. But I don’t know.… I’ve always wondered…”

“Yes?”

“If he missed out. You know?”

Ginevra felt her breath suck in. She placed her pen onto the table and tried to quietly collect herself. Then she took a big sip from her glass. In the morning, it was limoncello. Normally she could pace herself, but right now her nerves were so jangly; she needed a bigger fix. She would switch to lower-alcohol wine soon.

“In vino veritas” was the saying. Ginevra found it funny and incorrect. For her, wine obfuscated the truth. Wine helped Ginevra to withstand life—to conceal herself, all her horrible truths.

With her main characters, of course, it was different. Ginevra’s very goal was to get to veritá. Truth.

Truth made for interesting fiction, when you spun it how you wanted. That was where Ginevra’s imagination could take root, then blossom.

You had to start with truth, though. Someone’s truth, at least.

But in Italian, veritá also meant a version. Ginevra knew that, in the interviews to come, there would be Ginevra’s veritá and Rory’s veritá. And Rory was here, after all, because Ginevra needed to understand Rory’s veritá before Ginevra revealed hers.

“Oh, I forgot!” Ginevra said, opting not to pick up the conversation thread about Ansel and his first love. His only love. “We forgot to toast.”

“Toast?” Rory asked.

“Yes. Doesn’t matter—you can do it with water. But I like to toast on the first day, to set the tone for our whole experience.”

“Okay,” Rory said uncertainly, raising her water glass.

Ginevra closed her eyes. “To a fruitful partnership. To truth flowing freely. To love and sunshine in Rome.”

When Ginevra opened her eyes, Rory was smiling, her sweet, glittery smile that made Ginevra smile in her heart, too.

“To you, Rory. You will be a wonderful main character.” Ginevra felt strangely happy and also sad, nostalgic. Unexpected words glided out over her tongue. “?‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’?”

Rory looked at Ginevra quizzically. “Shakespeare, right?”

“Yes.” Ginevra sighed. “?‘And so he plays his part.’?”

Rory nodded politely, and Ginevra could tell Rory was trying to indulge her. That, to Rory, Ginevra was a quirky old ugly lady babbling unimportant stuff. Ginevra was reminded of the vitriolic note she once received from a reader, accusing Ginevra of masking her “obvious loneliness” by buying off people as main characters, to pay her attention foremost, essentially hiring a friend under the pretense of filling a story. Ginevra received tons of fan mail—hundreds of letters a week, most resoundingly positive, with the exception of her last book, which both the critics and readers had panned. But alongside the failure of her last book, that one old note had hurt—had dug itself a place in the loop of Ginevra’s thoughts.

Maybe it was true in some ways. Maybe it was especially true here.

Ginevra clinked Rory’s glass. “Alla famiglia,” she said, taking a long sip of her limoncello.

“To family?” Rory’s nose crinkled up. “Is that what that means?”

“Oh. Yes. It’s how my father used to toast. La famiglia è tutto. Family is everything. Il sangue non è acqua. Blood is thicker than water. It’s a very Italian saying. But it is at the very core of our being, as Italians.”

Rory nodded uncertainly.

“Old habit,” Ginevra said, seeing that she’d gone a bit too far, needed to tone it down, to not raise Rory’s suspicions. “Although main characters do indeed become my family. That’s what I always say.”

In fact, it was not a thing Ginevra always said.

But with Rory, Ginevra did mean it.