“Why not?”
“You’re a child,” he said.
I stepped back like he’d slapped me. “I’m a child.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You . . .” I was shaking, I was so hurt and mad and utterly crushed. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Well, you’re a tease, then. Play me something on your violin, Angela. Take it off, Angela. You . . . you were toying with me.”
He looked up. Anger flared in his eyes. “No. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t need this.”
“Great. Fine. I don’t need you either. You . . . asshat,” I blurted out, and then I charged for the door. I couldn’t stand to be in his presence for another second. I ran. Out of his flat. Down the cobblestone streets, all the way back to my grandmother’s, where I flung myself down on my bed and cried harder than I’d ever cried before.
How stupid of me, I thought later, when I could form coherent thoughts again. How adolescent. I touched my lips where the memory of his kiss still lingered. How foolish. I should go back, apologize.
But when I did, he was gone.
CLARA
“So who’s the dead guy?” Angela asks.
We’re in the Sistine Chapel with Phen. There is so much here, so many different frescoes and murals and tapestries, that I don’t know where to look. It’s giving me a headache, to be honest.
“That’s Moses,” answers Phen. “It’s called The Discussion Over the Body of Moses.”
“Looks like a pretty heated discussion,” Angela says. “Who’s the angel with the spear?”
“Michael.”
I can’t help myself. I turn and look, and yep, there’s my dear old dad, wearing golden armor and some kind of feathered helmet, threatening to poke the devil. He even sort of resembles my dad, something in his face that reminds me of Jeffrey. I swallow. I haven’t seen either of them, Dad or Jeffrey, since the week of Mom’s funeral.
“So Michael’s kind of a badass,” Angela says, the side of her mouth hitching up in a half-suppressed smile. She meets my eyes, practically winks at me.
Phen scoffs. “He thinks so. He’s called The Smiter, after all.”
I quickly look away, struggling to keep my face neutral. I’m so going to strangle her later.
“And who’s the angel in green?” she asks.
Phen squints up at the fresco. “Hard to say. Uriel, probably.”
“Why, because Uriel is fond of the color green?”
He scoffs again. “Because Uriel is Michael’s bosom friend.”
Okay, bad idea or not, I have to admit this is interesting. We’ve been hanging out with Phen for only a couple of hours and already I’ve learned so much stuff I didn’t know before. Like my dad has a best friend. Uriel.
“So the left side is the life of Moses, and the right side is the life of Jesus, and the ceiling is creation,” Angela’s saying as I wander off a few steps. I crane my neck to see the famous depiction of God creating Adam on the ceiling. It’s always struck me as ironic, how the figure of God is reaching, his body almost fully extended in his effort to touch Adam, and there’s Adam all blasé about it, like he can’t be bothered to even lift his hand that far.
“What about this?” I hear Angela whisper as she and Phen make their way over to look at the back wall, Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment: a tangle of naked writhing bodies, some of them being lifted up toward heaven, some being dragged down.
“What about it?” Phen says after a long moment.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” she asks. “We’re all going to be sorted? In the end?”
I want to hear this. I move closer, hold my breath so I can listen over the shuffle of feet and quiet chatter of the tourists around us. For a minute Phen looks like he’s going to say something serious, impart some crucial piece of knowledge about the universe, life and death, heaven and hell, eternal rewards and everlasting punishment. Then he smiles.
“If I told you it’d spoil the surprise,” he says.
She whacks him in the arm. “Fine. Don’t tell me.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
“You’re a jerk, you know that?” she says, but she’s laughing.
Phen wants to climb to the top of the dome at St. Peter’s. Good thing I’m wearing decent shoes, is all I’m saying. It takes us a while to get there. First we have to take an elevator and then climb something like three hundred and twenty-three steps in this claustrophobic, shoulder-wide spiral staircase. But then we’re outside, and it’s like standing on top of the world, Rome stretched out beneath our feet all ablaze in the setting sun.
It takes my breath away. Well, that, and I just climbed all those stairs.
“This is amazing,” breathes Angela.
“Yes,” Phen says, and I guess he should know amazing when he sees it. “It is.”
I stand at the rail and take a few pictures of the view, but I realize there’s no way that my camera will be able to capture how beautiful it is. Then I turn and impulsively snap a picture of Phen and Angela. I know the second I see it flash across my screen that I’ve taken a gorgeous photo of them, standing close together but not touching, Phen not looking at the sunset but at Angela, openly admiring the way she’s bathed in golden light, strands of her long, dark hair blowing around her face as she gazes out with a rapt expression. In that instant I get the sense that this might not be a one-sided thing, their relationship. He might like her, too.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. It seems wrong to me, an eighteen-year-old in love with someone who’s older than dirt—literally—but who am I to judge? My mom married an angel too, after all.
Age is only a number, right?
I should go, I think, slip away and let them have this romantic moment together.
But then Angela says, “I have to pee. I’ll be right back.”
I stare at her, baffled. “You’re going to go all the way down to the bottom? I’ll come with you,” I offer.
“No. You stay,” she says, and I recognize the no-nonsense tone. This isn’t about her having to go to the bathroom. This is about her wanting me to be alone with Phen.
“Wait,” I say, but she’s already gone.
“Women,” Phen says with a laugh. “They always pick the most inopportune times to powder their noses.”
“Yeah, women are so dumb that way,” I say, irritated. I don’t like to be manipulated, even if I understand why she’s doing it. I should be nice, make small talk, try to get to know him. And he is likable, I’ll admit. Funny. Charming. I can see what Angela digs about him, and I know that this is important to her, that she wants me to approve of him, but I can’t help it, hypocritical or not. For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, he makes me uncomfortable.