The interviews were a blur. No matter what question was thrown her way, Aida had to steer the conversation back to the approved topics, her responses already half written for her. Each time she spoke, the real Aida sank further into the background, replaced by this polished version of herself that MODA had crafted. When the last reporter left, Aida collapsed onto the salon’s divan and closed her eyes, exhausted. The room was finally quiet, but her thoughts were a whirlwind. She had never been less in control of her own life.
A clap in her face startled her. “No rest for the wicked!”
She sat up with alarm and opened her eyes. Dressed in a tux as though he were going to an award ceremony, Mo settled into a chair across from her. He was far more handsome than Aida wanted to admit.
“What are you doing here?”
His lips curved into a subtle, knowing grin. “I came to congratulate you.”
Aida raised an eyebrow. “You came to Ravenna for that?”
He cocked his head, regarding her for a moment. “So skeptical. Why is that a surprise?”
“It seems a bit out of the way, that’s all. I mean, we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Mo made a dismissive gesture. “Nahh. Anything for you, Aida.” He slipped a hand into his jacket, retrieved a folded piece of paper, and handed it to her.
Aida unfolded it. It was a memo from MODA that they were boosting her salary by 10 percent.
“Close your mouth, little novelist. We wouldn’t want you to swallow a fly.”
Aida reread the memo. “This... is...”
“A lot. I agree. I tried to tell them that you aren’t worth so much, but I was overridden.”
“Wow,” Aida managed, unsure what else to say.
“Wowis right. But I suppose you did manage to win the National Book Award. So, that’s another ten thousand in your pocket too.”
Aida stared at him. “The winners haven’t been announced yet.”
He stood. “Oh, of course you’ll win. I declare it.” He headed toward the door. “Don’t spend all that in one place.”
An accolade-filled month later, Aida met Felix at his apartment in the Roman Ghetto. The late spring light filtering through the buildings seemed especially luminous to Aida. Her heart swelled with the beauty and history that surrounded her. She was living in Rome! And her book was up for the freaking National Book Award! She tried to focus on these events, but it was hard to ignore the little nagging part of her that told her it was all too good to be true.
Aida’s reverie completely dissipated when she reached Piazza Mattei, where a crew of men were repaving the little square with the blacksampietrinicobbles that were prevalent over most of the historic districts in the city. The piazza was empty, just a strange flat spot in between the medieval buildings. It tugged at her... Something was missing from the center of the piazza.A fountain, she thought, although the details were hazy. Puzzled, she walked along the edges of the construction, past theumarelli—the old men that hovered at the perimeter watching the workers—toward Felix’s building, a block past the piazza. When she arrived, she found Felix sitting on a rickety chair beside the door, scrolling through his phone.
“I can’t get the image of a fountain out of my mind,” she said to him.
“A fountain?” Felix asked, puzzled.
“Yes. And turtles. Turtles.” She couldn’t shake the thought that there were turtles connected with the fountain that was no longer in the piazza.
“And Bernini,” he said, furrowing his brow.
Aida threw up her hands in excitement. “Yes! Bernini made the turtles. There was a fountain in the middle of Piazza Mattei with young boys reaching toward the top basin and the turtles on the edge.”
Felix nodded. “I remember now... Bernini made the turtles about a hundred years after the fountain was added.”
Aida dug into her bag for her MODA phone and pulled up her calendar. She scanned through the entries and looked for Piazza Mattei, but nothing came up. She pulled off her scarf and wrapped it around the MODA phone to muffle the sound, then put it in the bottom of her bag and pulled out a notebook, flipping it open.
“What on earth is that?” Felix asked, picking up the notebook. “Alien script?”
“I take it you’ve never seen shorthand?”
Felix boggled. “Shorthand? You know shorthand?”
Aida laughed and explained that her grandmother had taught shorthand in schools before it went out of vogue and had taught it to Aida when she was growing up. She used it often to take notes, particularly when she was doing interviews for her research.
