The Willing

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS 8:30 A.M. on Monday, June 30th and I was leaving for school. It was warm and would be hot today with thunderstorms and it was beginning to rain. I turned right onto Via della Rosso, left on Via dell’Agnolo past the Pizzeria, then right on Via Giuseppe Verdi, then a left on Via dell’Oriuolo. At the end of the street I could see the Cattedrale di Santa Maria. The sunlight was breaking through the clouds and shown upon Brunelleschi’s Dome as if it were lit by a spotlight. It was stunning. All I could think of were Cimabue, Gaddo, Gaddi, Giotto, and Brunelleschi, who had walked these streets so long ago, as great influencers on the Renaissance. Yes, it was the right decision to start the last chapter of my life here in the city of cultural rebirth. When I got to the Piazza de Duomo, I took a right on Via dei Servi toward the Florence School of Italian Language and Culture. It had just started raining heavily.

The class assembled on the fifth floor. It had a long conference-type table in the middle of the room for about twenty students to sit around, with a large white board on the wall at one end near the door. We were asked to introduce ourselves and say a little about where we were from, why we were taking Italian, etc. I realized I was the only American in the class. All others were from different parts of Europe and in their late teens to late twenties. All I could think of was how out of place I was.

At the end of introduction, the professor handed out a test for us to take so he could assess our level of Italian. It was then that she walked in. She was about 5′ 7″, wearing a light tan rain coat and a kind of silly blue knit cap. She gave a quick introduction. Because my attention was on the test, all I heard was that she was an American and a singer. My thought was At least I am not the only American. I was in deep thought trying to remember how to conjugate the verb avere in the imperfetto when the chair next to me pulled out.

“May I sit here?” she asked in a voice reminiscent of Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep or To Have and Have Not. I looked up as she pulled off her cap. Her long auburn hair was falling down to her shoulders and with her right hand she brushed it back over her shoulders in a move that has been practiced by women for ten thousand years. “Absolutely,” I said.

Her big brown eyes were like dark hooks of the soul, and when I looked into them I felt a connection like I have never felt. I was mentally gone into dreamland.

“Mr. Steelgrave, Mr. Steelgrave!”

“Excuse me, Professor, what did you say?”

“Are you having problems with the test? Do you have a question?”

“No, Professor, I understand the test.” I went back to finishing the test.

My God, how big a fool must I have looked! I’d never had an experience like that. It was if I had been hit in the face with a baseball bat. After class ended, I stayed and asked the professor a question on our homework assignment, then headed out the class door into the hallway and down the stairs. I reached the bottom. As I started toward the glass front door, I saw her on the sidewalk as if she were waiting for someone. I opened the door and as I started through she looked toward me and smiled. “I think she has been waiting for me,” I said to myself, and the argument started in my head. I think she made the same connection with me. Don’t be a fool. You are at least twenty-five years older than she is. I did not see a wedding ring.