Terry Salvini - Crystal Masks

"It's a great idea. If it’s okay with you, it's good for me. I promise you I’ll be brief."

***

In her seat on the plane with a glass of tea, Loreley reflected on what Dr. Legrand had told her. The fact that she became pregnant despite taking the pill regularly could be due to several reasons. The previous month she had been ill for a few days and had vomited several times. Following that episode the doctor had then prescribed her some intestinal disinfectants; and of course there were the painkillers she often took for the pain in her head. As a result, the hormones contained in the pill may have been malabsorbed with a consequent impairment of the contraceptive activity.

Now it made sense, though getting Johnny to understand it was not going to be easy. But did he deserve an explanation after his behaviour in Paris? Rightly or wrongly, he should not have reacted in such a bad way and left her alone.

What faith could she have in a man who runs away instead of dealing with the situation?

She took the glass of tea to her lips, but jumped as the plane shook slightly and a rivulet of tea splashed onto her sweater.

Damn, she was more inattentive than usual! She dried it with the paper napkin that the flight attendant had given her with the drink and her thoughts quickly returned to where they had left off.

Of late, she too had behaved in a similar way. Hadn't she run away, and on at least two occasions, from Sonny? And had she had the guts to confess to Johnny what happened between her and that man?

Slumping back in her seat, she sighed. There were some important decisions to be made: about her pregnancy, about her relationship with John, and about the outstanding issue with Sonny. She could not hope to continue down that path and point the finger at others. There was a saying that lies attract more lies, until you no longer knew how to handle them. And you finally end up with your bum on the ground!

She turned her face towards the window and looked down, but couldn’t see the earth below them.

There was still quite a lot of time before they arrived at JFK airport, where David would be waiting for her: he always kept his promises. With that thought and a smile on her lips she sank into a long, heavy sleep.

She was awakened by the voice of the flight attendant advising them of the imminent landing, inviting passengers to fasten their seat belts. She had slept a long time! At that moment she felt strangely serene despite everything that had happened.

To her great relief, her feet were once again on American soil. She found it difficult being closed in a metal box all that time: in that she was almost like John.

Outside the airport, the drop in temperature forced her to stop and fasten the collar of her coat a little tighter over the scarf and put on her hat. At the roar of a plane overhead, she looked up. The sky was a deep blue with some light streaks of orange, testifying that the sun had just set. The lights of the aircraft disappeared inside a dark cloud.

People were walking quickly to grab the cabs lined up along the sidewalk, and others were looking around for something or someone. A little like her, as she searched for her friend David.

He was standing on the opposite sidewalk. As soon as their eyes met, he smiled and crossed the road to meet her, with his long bowed legs that made her smile every time she stopped to observe them.

She raised her hand to greet him, happy to have him as a friend. To be honest, in their university days, when they’d had wild time together, she would have chosen him as a future husband, if it hadn’t been for one small detail: he had eventually realized that he was more attracted to men.

***

It’s never pleasant to return to an empty house, but for Loreley it was like being on the end of a punch in the stomach. Not only was John not there, as she already imagined, but he had taken away most of his belongings.

Half of the walk-in closet had been emptied, and he had left only summer clothes. There was nothing of his in the bathroom cabinet, apart from a disposable razor now unusable.

She checked the whole apartment from top to bottom, and opened the windows to change the air despite it being freezing outside. She searched for other signs that might give her a clue as to what John had done in her absence, but there was little to understand: he would be back only to get the rest of his things.

After unpacking her suitcase, she put her dirty laundry to wash and took a shower, being careful not to touch her hair and wet the dressing. There were still three days to go before she went to the doctor to have the stitches removed. She looked at her knee and noticed that the swelling had gone down and the asymmetry between right and left was barely visible. There was some pain if she pressed her finger against the kneecap, otherwise all she felt was a sensation of heat and numbness of the skin.

Instead of getting dressed, she put on a heavy dark red satin robe and threw herself onto the sofa to rest.

Everything in the room seemed unchanged. There was the round table of white timber with a tray holding scented candles on top of it; the cabinet full of crystal glasses and vintage dishes from the Victorian era; the shelves with books and ornaments purchased in various antique markets; a mirror with a decoupage wooden frame; the tiled fireplace with glass walls and the bar with its high stools.

Everything was perfect and in its usual place.

She, instead, began to feel a vague uneasiness, a sense of non-belonging. They had taken that rented loft together and now, without John to fill it with his presence, she didn't even feel it was hers anymore. They had always split the expenses, but now she would have to pay everything and she wasn't so sure she could afford it without chipping into the trust fund her father had given her when she had left home a few years earlier.

She had promised herself not to take a single dollar from that account. She wanted to manage by herself. To be on the safe side, though, she should leave that apartment and get a smaller one in a less expensive area. But before going to an agency, she had to be sure about which direction her relationship with John would go. She wanted to give him time to reflect and change his mind, so she wouldn’t regret one day that she hadn’t tried, and give her child what it was entitled to: a family and the love of both parents.

A rumbling in her stomach suggested she had to eat something, but in the emotional state she was in, she didn't feel like cooking. Mira could have prepared something good her for if she had been there. She had given her another day off so she could have time to think about what to do, because she didn't know what she would find when she got home.

It would be very sad if one day she was forced to tell her that she had to look for another job. She had become attached to that hard-working woman, with a thousand resources; she had a lot of confidence in her and sending her away would be a great loss. Mira seemed to be attached to her too, and often said that she had never been treated so well as in that house and that she never wanted to leave her. Poor Mira!

She touched her belly and laughed in a high-pitched, wavering, nervous way, until that laughter turned to tears, which released the tension and plummeted her into mental stagnation.

The sharp beep of her mobile phone reminded her that it needed charging. Very slowly she got up and connected it to the charger; then tried to sleep, with no success.

She decided to call Hans; she needed to hear a familiar voice. This happened to her every time she felt down in the dumps, unlike John, who clammed up.

John... he was always in her head!

With scatty gestures she typed the number.

"Loreley, how are you? Did you have fun in Paris?" her brother asked her.