Beautiful Ruins

Debra blushed at his boozy agitation; she knew it was mostly rum talking, but like so many of Alvis’s drunken rants, it made some kind of sense.

“Your parents don’t get to tell your story. Your sisters don’t. When he’s old enough, even Pat doesn’t get to tell your story. I’m your husband and I don’t even get to tell it. So I don’t care how lovesick this director is, he doesn’t tell it. Even fucking Richard Burton doesn’t get to tell your story!” Debra looked around nervously, a little stu

She kissed him hard, grateful but also trying to shut him up, and when she pulled away, another mai tai was waiting for them both. The love of her life? If Alvis was right and this was her story? Sure. Why not.

Dee stood shivering outside her open car door, staring up at the dark Space Needle, while Alvis slid into the Corvair. “Let’s see what the problem is.” Of course, the car started right away. He looked up at her and shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. Are you sure you turned the key all the way?”

She put a finger to her lip and did her Marilyn voice: “Gosh, Mister Mechanic, no one told me you had to turn the key.”

“Why’n’t you climb in the back with me, ma’am, and I’ll show you another feature of this fine car.”

She leaned over and kissed him—his hand found the buttoned front of her dress and he flicked a button and slid a hand in, across her belly and down her hip, his thumb pushing under the waistband of her pantyhose. She pulled away and reached down to take his hand. “My, you’re a fast mechanic.”

He climbed out of the car and gave her a long kiss, one hand behind her neck, the other at her waist.

“Come on, ten minutes in the backseat? The kids are all doing it.”

“What about the babysitter?”

“Why not? I’m game,” he said. “Think we can talk her into it?”

She’d known the joke was coming and still it made her laugh. She almost always knew what was coming with Alvis, and still she laughed.

“She’s go

Still holding her, Alvis sighed deeply. “Baby, when you’re fu

“Ask anytime you want.”

“And risk you saying no?” He kissed her and then stepped away, swept his arm, and bowed. “Your chariot.” She curtsied and climbed into the cold Corvair. He pushed the door closed and stayed there, looking down into the car. She flicked the wipers and a slick of wet goo washed over the edge of the car and nearly hit Alvis.

He jumped away, and she smiled as she watched Alvis walk to his car.

She felt better, but she was still puzzled about why Ron had angered her so much. Was it just because he was a horny prick? Or was there something familiar and cutting in what he’d said—the love of your life? Maybe not. But it didn’t have to be like that, did it? Couldn’t you outgrow the little-girl fantasy? Couldn’t love be gentler, smaller, quieter, not quite all-consuming? Was that what Ron made her feel—guilt (You use people), perhaps over the suggestion that, at a tough point in her life, she’d traded on her looks for an older man’s love, for some security and a brand-new Corvair, given up on love for her own reflection in his lovesick eyes? Maybe she was Maggie. This started the crying again.

She followed the Biscayne, mesmerized by the blinking taillights. De

“You really need a new car,” she said. “Why don’t you get another Corvette?”

“Can’t.” He shrugged. “I’ve got a kid now.”

“Kids don’t like Corvettes?”

“Kids love Corvettes.” He waved his hand behind him, like a magician, or a girl in a showroom. “But there’s no backseat.”

“We can put him on the roof.”

“We’re go

“Are we having five?”

“Did I forget to talk to you about that?”

She laughed, and felt the urge to . . . what, apologize? Or just to tell him, for the thousandth time—perhaps reassuring herself—that she loved him?

Alvis put a cigarette in his mouth and capped it with the car lighter, his face lit by the yellow glow. “No more picking on my car,” he said. Then he winked one of his bleary brown eyes, stepped on the gas and brake at the same time, the big motor yowling, tires begi

17

The Battle for Porto Vergogna

April 1962

Porto Vergogna, Italy

Pasquale watched Richard Burton and Michael Deane scurry toward their rented speedboat, his Aunt Valeria chasing them, screaming and pointing her crooked finger: “Murderers! Assassins!” Pasquale stood uneasily. The world was fractured, broken in so many ways that Pasquale could barely conceive of which shard to reach for: his father and mother both gone now, Amedea and his son in Florence, his aunt screaming at the cinema people. The pieces of his broken life lay on the ground before him like a mirror that had always stared back, but which had now broken to reveal the life behind it.

Valeria was wading into the water, cursing and crying, spittle on her old gray lips, when Pasquale reached her. The boat had backed away from the pier. Pasquale took his aunt by her thin, bony shoulders. “No, Zia. Let them go. It’s okay.” Michael Deane was staring back at him from the boat—but Richard Burton was staring straight ahead, rubbing the neck of the wine bottle between his palms as they made their way toward the breakwater. Behind them, the fishermen’s wives watched quietly. Did they know what Valeria had done? She fell back into Pasquale’s arms, weeping. They stood on the shore together and watched the speedboat putter around the point, its nose rising proudly as the pilot gu

Pasquale helped Valeria back to the hotel and put her in her room, where she lay in her bed weeping and muttering. “I did a terrible thing,” she said.

“No,” Pasquale said. And even though Valeria had done a terrible thing, the worst sin imaginable, Pasquale knew what his mother would want him to say—and so he said it: “You were kind to help her.”

Valeria looked up in his eyes, nodded, and looked away. Pasquale tried to feel his mother’s presence, but the hotel felt emptied of her, emptied of everything. He left his aunt in her room. Back in the trattoria, Alvis Bender was sitting at a wrought-iron table, staring out the window, an open bottle of wine in front of him. He looked up. “Is your aunt okay?”