Stella turned the card over, revealing a short prayer.
‘Santa Caterina da Bologna,’ she read aloud.
Quickly googling the name on her phone, Stella’s heart skipped a beat.
Patron saint of artists.
cinque
That evening, Stella sat quietly at the dining table with her sketchbook, paper, paints and coloured pencils. In front of her were the sketches she had managed to scribble down on her afternoon walk, as well as Alina’slupa romana. Leaning against her wash pot sat the little napkin featuring the payment promise from Marco, kept company by Santa Caterina’s prayer card.
Staring back at her, Stella half expected Caterina’s eyes to follow her as she worked.
‘What would you do, huh?’ she asked the little printed face. But her question fell on deaf ears. ‘Yeah. I don’t know either.’
She wanted to reach for her watercolour palette and her delicate brushes, but knew that wouldn’t be the most helpful point of departure. Whatever she did needed to be big and bold, and something told her it had to betypicallyRoman. Far from what she usually painted, of course, but this mural wasn’t for Stella. It was for Marco and Bar Luna e Lupa.
Steeling herself, Stella reached for her sketchbook and began piecing together some of the smaller sketches from her morning’s walk – a Corinthian column from theForo Romano, the statue of Oceanus from theFontana di Trevi, a close-up of the eyes of theBocca della Verità– but came to a dead end. She couldn’t string the smaller elements together; there was no harmony, no connection between them. It all missed a certain unifying thread.
Remembering the immense size of the wall, Stella exhaled, releasing some of her frustration. Tearing the page from her sketchbook, she scrunched it into a ball and tossed it across the room.
Cedereis the verb you’re looking for, Stella. To give up. To forfeit.
‘Everything alright?’ Vincent asked, peering around the wall that divided the kitchen from the living area.
With her forehead now resting on the table, Stella mumbled, ‘I’m a fraud.’
‘Fraud?’ Vincent joined her.
‘I’m so way out of my comfort zone here.’ She looked up and was caught off-guard by his good looks – his broad defined chest, those muscular arms . . .
At everyinconvenientturn. A vice clamped around her already knotted stomach.
Noticing the mess spread across the dining table, Vincent asked, ‘Want to talk about it?’
She cleared her throat to reset her focus. ‘I started a new project today. An amazing project. Something completely unlike anything I’ve ever done before.’ She looked up at him, annoyingly aware of the fact that she must have appeared bleary-eyed and unattractive.
‘So, why do you look like that?’ He gestured to her drooping shoulders.
‘I . . . I just don’t think I can do it.’ Stella shook her head, rubbing her temples as she did so. ‘But I need the money.’
‘What do you mean youcan’tdo it? What’s the job?’
‘Last week I met this guy, Marco. He’s opened a bar not far from thecampoand he asked me to paint one of the walls for him.’
‘You mean, paint it a new colour?’ Distracted by the sound of a saucepan bubbling over on the stovetop, Vincent rushed back into the kitchen.
Apprehensively, she said, ‘Not quite. He wants me to paint a mural.’
‘A mural?’ he asked, rummaging around noisily in the pot drawer. ‘What does he have in mind?’
‘Nothing at all. It’s completely up to me. But my watercolour worlds won’t work on a massive mural, so I need to think—’
‘The opposite of what you are naturally programmed to do?’
She exhaled. ‘Yes. Exactly! I spent most of today wandering around, trying to find some kind of inspiration, but it’s only frustrated me. I have to shut down my natural instincts and just give in to Roma. Gorgeous, proud, bold Roma.’
The noise in the kitchen stopped and Vincent reappeared by the table, colander in hand. Eyes wide, he said, ‘I see why you’re at a loose end.’
