That feeling of not belonging had only intensified with the arrival of Sasha. Sasha was everything Jenny wasn’t. She was tall and thin, with long, straight blond hair, perfectly sculpted features, and an icy blend of hauteur and strength that Jenny associated with the Norse Valkyries. It was easy to imagine Sasha hoisting dead warriors from the battlefield and not even noticing when her grasp loosened and they plummeted to worlds below. Sasha had come from Minneapolis, of all places, to model in Milan. Three months later, having appeared on the covers of a dozen fashion magazines, she’d decided that modeling was a bore. She’d left Milan for Rome at the invitation of a minor duke who wanted to ensconce her in his palazzo. He’d given her a French locket that had been in his family since the 1500s. It was a round disk of bright yellow gold edged with pearls, inscribed: L’amour dure sans fin. While the duke’s love may have lasted forever, Sasha’s didn’t. She’d left the palazzo two weeks later on the day she met Carl on the Spanish steps. Sasha, who called Carl Carlo, said she’d foreseen his coming into her life in a tarot reading. She said it was karma that they’d met, that their spirits had long been intertwined, that theirs was an ancient and powerful connection. Carl said Sasha was “mystical,” which Jenny translated to mean “weird but interesting.” Now they were driving through Tuscany, en route to Florence, where in three weeks time Jenny and Carl would catch their flight back to the States. The hows and whys of it were a mystery to Jenny, but somehow Sasha had invited herself along.
Jenny watched as the gas station attendant removed the gas pump from the VW and informed Carl he’d given him forty-five liters of petrol that cost 65,000 lire. Carl paled and said, “Jen, I need you to cough up some dinero here.” That was another thing about Carl. He was always broke.
Jenny reached into her pocket. She still had travelers’ checks left but was running low on cash. She needed to find an open bank. She handed Carl 15,000 lire, saying, “That’s all I’ve got right now, and it’s lire, not dinero.”
Carl took the money and traced the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. “Lire, dinero, drachma, yen,” he chanted in the voice that always made her feel like a princess favoring a pauper with her charms. “Does it really matter, Jenny-o? You know what I mean. You always do.”
Jenny’s irritation faded. Carl simply didn’t take things as seriously as she did. He was a lighter spirit, Sasha said, something Jenny sensed yet never put words to. But she’d always known that his gift to her was that he lent her a little of his ease, a little of his unshakable belief that no matter what, things would be all right. She remembered the first time they made love — afterward lying in his arms and him whispering, “You just sleep now, Jenny-o, ’cause everything’s going to work out fine”—and later waking up amazed that she actually believed it.
Carl counted out her 15,000 and raised one eyebrow. “That’s only twenty-eight thou.”
“Why don’t you see what Sasha can cough up?” Jenny suggested.
“Good idea,” Carl said, and walked around to knock on the back of the VW. Inside, Sasha had fashioned an elaborate bed for herself, covered in midnight-blue silk velvet. Carl emerged from the back of the bus a few minutes later with a handful of bills. He paid for the gas then pocketed the rest, making Jenny wonder just how much Sasha had given him.
He came around to where Jenny stood, wound a hand through her dark hair, drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth. “You feeling all right?” he asked gently. Jenny had woken up with a headache that morning.
“I’m better now,” she said.
He kissed her again. “I’m glad. So … if you’re feeling better … would you mind if Sasha rode up front for a while?”
It was a reflex by now to go along with whatever Carl wanted. Jenny almost said, “Sure, no problem,” but caught herself. Something inside her was simmering, something she’d been ignoring for the last two weeks.
“Actually, I would mind,” she said, and got back into the front of the bus.
She regretted her decision at once. The back of the bus may have been converted into Sasha’s private bedchamber, but the front, Carl’s domain, was a disaster. Carl often bragged that Chaos Theory was his moral and aesthetic code. What this actually meant was that he couldn’t be bothered to clean up after himself. Jenny, on the other hand, was meticulous by nature, a devotee of order. She took this difference between them to be a sign that she was Carl’s perfect mate. She might not be beautiful or artistic; she certainly didn’t have Sasha’s gift for exotic ennui; but she kept things organized. Without her, Carl wouldn’t find his way into his own vehicle. Despite her frequent attempts to clean it, the front of the bus was filled with Carl’s dirty laundry, remnants of yesterday’s lunch, and an assortment of maps, none of which even seemed to show the road they were on. The VW stank of cigarette smoke, damp socks, and overripe cheese. The smell was beginning to make Jenny queasy.
Carl got in beside her and pulled out onto the road. Sometime while they’d been at the filling station, dusk had turned to darkness. Jenny remembered how the rain had started earlier that day as they’d driven through a small walled village. She’d marveled at how the evergreen of the cypress trees became gray-green in the rain; how the red-tile roofs went dark as carnelian, and the sun-faded stone walls of the castello took on the grainy silver-brown of sand beside the sea. She’d never seen the Tuscan hills in sunlight. In the rain everything seemed deep and vibrant, as if the land leached color from the sky.
Carl turned on the windshield wipers. “The rain’s getting worse,” he said.
Jenny sat silently, grateful that he was driving. The road bent back on itself in a hairpin turn, and Carl remained calm as a Fiat barreled toward them then swerved out of their lane at the last possible moment.
“If you don’t mind telling me,” he said, “what have you got against Sasha?”
Jenny considered the question. She and Carl had been going out for two years, living together since last Christmas when Carl was kicked out of his dorm. Jenny assumed that they’d marry, probably next year, as soon as they graduated. They were total, complementary opposites. Yin and yang, they needed each other. Then Sasha had draped herself across their lives like a beautiful filmy curtain, and something had changed. He’d never said so, but Jenny knew that Carl now saw her through the curtain of Sasha; even more unnerving, Jenny had caught glimpses of herself through that same veil.
“Why is she coming to Florence with us?” Jenny asked. She waited for his answer, wondering how he’d phrase the inevitable evasion.
Nothing could have prepared her for Carl’s blunt answer. “I asked her to come. I think I’m in love with her.”
Jenny shut her eyes, suddenly nauseatingly sick. Her head was pounding, and there was a giant hollow space between her ribs that felt as if it had been eaten away by acid.
Carl kept driving, his eyes on the red taillights ahead of them. “Look,” he said at last. “It’s not that I don’t care for you. You’re a wonderful woman, better than I deserve, and we’ve had some good times—”
“But—”
“But …” His voice trailed off.
“There’s Sasha now,” Jenny said helpfully.