What She Knows, She Knows
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It was not such a big surprise to hear her complain so bluntly about how she thought that New York City was totally overrated and that she did not see what the big deal was all about. Anyone who follows the typical tourist routine, sleeps at a Theater District hotel, eats a $14 pastrami sandwich down at the Carnegie Deli and goes shopping in those mega stores that stole the city's very soul away might very likely confuse New York for something it is not, tourist hell on crack.
The last time Antonia and I met, things were very different. She was a young college student at the University of Sienna, and I, a traveling journalist who was working on a new book that dealt with the historical sexual curiosities of the Tuscan people. The city of Sienna is nothing like New York City. The city of Sienna is like no other city in the world. With its small roads, car free street, Renaissance architecture and old stone buildings, it was hardly similar to where we found ourselves so many years later.
By now, Antonia was a relatively successful art saleswoman who worked in a fashionable gallery situated along Porta Volta Avenue in Milan. By now, I have published one more book, this one, an academic account of the basic conflict within the American psyche in regards to sexuality and Puritanism.
Antonia was a bit heavier than I remembered her to be. She of course must have thought the same.
But that was not the main area of contention on this unexpected reunion. The main issue was Jenny, my girlfriend of two years.
When I first heard her voice on the phone, I froze if only for a moment. Nothing that I could Jenny could reassure her in regards to my old Italian flame. Antonia was the stuff of legend. Her sexuality well documented as well as inspiration to my works and writings (using pseudo-names of course).
Things would not be nearly as bad if it wasn't for all the difficulties Jenny and I are having these days. To be perfectly honest, things are not going that well between the two of us these days. In the sack we are strangers, in the living room just as bad.
And now Antonia came back into my life even if only for a short visit. She is no longer a woman in my eyes. She has no faults nor bad memories attached. She was and will always be the highlight, the one I left behind, the one that got away and now she came back into my sphere and things are about to get messy in my life.
I agreed to meet her down by Pennsylvania Station. She took the train from Philadelphia and would arrive on time. We checked her carry on into the Pennsylvania Hotel across the street. Her room would not be ready until around 3pm.
Jenny would not be back from work until 6pm. I had some time to steal.
We walked around and looked around the buildings. Antonia immediately disliked the city. She did not like the large quantity of people, the bums who asked for change, the noise of traffic and ambulance sirens that rang across the ears.
In Sienna, I remembered, we used to walk around the tiny streets every evening around 7:30pm. We were not the only ones. Everyone took a walk around this magical town when the sun began to yield. The great square beneath the church was filled with friends and neighbors who strolled along the Old Italian tradition.
This sucks she said, NYC is nothing but a huge shopping mall for fat American tourists. I held her by the hand and walked her down the subway station. Heading down towards the lower east side, I would show her the real New York, the Old New York, my New York.
Like the monthly cycles of a woman, this city had many faces and not all were easy for us men to digest.
A bottle of red wine down on Grand Street was not the true catalyst for the tension that was about us.
Antonia knew that I was no longer her man. She herself was not entirely available as Marco was waiting for her back in Milano.
But time cannot fix what time cannot mend. Once there, it is never gone. Once felt, it is always there.
Two people who were once in love sat across the table. One glows with wonder and youth, the other beaten by the years. Neither one is the cheating type, not the man nor the woman.
They talk about it out load, think of it internally.
When I saw Jenny that night, I held her hand and kissed her fingers. What she knows is what she knows and what I know is mine.
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