rowing,” I say. “I joined a rowing club. It’s helping. It’s beautiful on the river. Quiet.” And it’s not really a lie—not if I make it true, which I will. If I can just get past this call, get to sleep, get to the next morning with its clean slate.
“That sounds nice,” Kate says softly. Then, “Call tomorrow. Call tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”
I hang up the phone and take off my skirt, my body racing. I lie down on my bed. Dinner seems far away now. The club seems far away. Home, farther still. I am propped up here without a backdrop. I am stiff, straight. Not soft like my sister, as I should be. She is a question mark, I think, before I fall asleep. Miles away, curled in the dark, she is a question mark and I am an exclamation point. And it seems to make everything come clear that all I need is to become a question mark again.
Tomorrow, I will begin to bend. I will begin tomorrow.
A gymnasium. Three girls lined up, standing at attention—why? The boy, smirking. I dreaded this boy who went down the line pointing his finger, labeling our breasts. Flat as a board. Mosquito bites. Melons. He was no taller, no stronger, and still we took in his smirk and watched him take in our blank faces, our failure to respond. His smile grew, became something I couldn’t find my way around. He walked away then, satisfied. We did not look at one another. We did not speak of it.
But that’s not right. That was a story people told me. This is where it begins, they said, pointing at screens and billboards and smirking boys with sharp fingers who would become men who lose the smirk and do not point and yet both are felt. But that is not where it began. Not for me. Still, years later when I saw school groups at the museum, I waited for this boy to emerge with that same small smirk. I watched as he circled girls like me, wanted to silence him before he could speak, wanted to follow him into the cluster and make them all scatter like birds. Would that have helped? Children do this, after all. Children do this and they don’t end up like me.
The next morning I find the city transformed. The Italians have returned, reclaiming Florence at this early hour, and the city moves, not yet weighed down by the slow stroll of tourist traffic, amoebic and unpredictable. Instead the old stones rumble with cars and rattle with bikes; buses pull up and just as quickly away as suited men and women hop on and off; the mopeds that have lined the curbs in double layers all night zip out one by one and join the buzz over bridges; and delivery trucks sit stubbornly outside grocery stores, bringing whole streets to a roaring standstill. I feel high on the new energy as I cut through the center. This is Florence in September.
I use a self-service photo booth near the train station, blinking hard each time it flashes. The four photos are identical. My eyes look surprised, my nose large, my smile too wide. Look at you. Is this me?
But no one hassles me as I make my way to the club. No one sees me, it seems. Not the men in crisp shirts and loafers. Not the women in heels and sleek skirts who dismount their scooters with ease. All weaving in and out of the din of cramped coffee bars—each one a humming polis this morning—before disappearing through doors that must lead to offices and schools, vanishing from the scene before it fills with the second wave, and I’m relieved to be able to join them in my own way as I duck into the club, determined to make true my words to Kate.
“Per la carta,” I explain to a woman in the office, handing her the photo after she charges my credit card.
She looks at the photo, doesn’t say, Look at you, only “Sì” with a smile. She slides it into a membership card and hands it to me. “Eccola.” I am official.
Tracing yesterday’s path, I tunnel down to the locker rooms. Voices echo loud from the men’s room, but the women’s room is empty, tiled in cool white and hushed. I change quickly.
“Ciao, Anna of Boston,” Manuele says when I enter the coffee bar, full today. Like the city above, the locals have returned, only here they are all men and I’m no longer invisible as eyes dart up. I hurry out into the sunlight. More eyes. Old men—Nico in his unisuit among them—are parked in chairs on the grass. They peer up over their newspapers and the murmuring begins. It fills me with rage, their whispering. And it makes me want to hide.
“Attenta, Hannah!”
I turn and almost collide with a large boat that rests heavy on the shoulders of Stefano and two other men.
“Buongiorno,” one of them says as they pass, their uneven steps pounding the length of the metal dock. They transfer the boat from their shoulders to their palms, the movements automatic, then rotate the wooden body, gripping its edges before lowering it into the water. Stefano stands up, wiping his hands on his thighs.
“Aspetta,” he says to his companions. He gestures to me to come down and takes my hands in his, kissing each of my cheeks, and this quiets the grumbling of the old men.
“Ti presento Sergio.” Stefano grasps the forearm of his teammate, a compact man with uncharacteristic red hair and large teeth who smiles at me broadly.
“E Giovanni.”
The third man—tall with a small beard and sparkling eyes—takes my hands: “Per gli amici, ‘Gianni.’”
I haven’t had this much physical contact in weeks. Not since Kate gripped me tight at the airport, my body stiff in her arms, rejecting the embrace. Take care of yourself, she kept saying. Then, I love you, but it felt like a chokehold.
These hands aren’t prying or controlling, though—only warm—and I feel elated. As if sensing this, Gianni releases me, spreads his arms wide, and throws his head back. “Che bello giornata, no? Sunshiiiiiine!” he shouts, a tall elegant bird greeting the day in neon stretch pants.
“Our first day of training since the vacation,” Stefano explains.
“Ragazzi, che giornata!” A fourth figure emerges from the darkness, four oars gathered on his shoulder.
“Ecco Luca,” Stefano says.
Luca smiles, surprised, and I recognize him then as the laughing man I’d met at the club’s entrance the day before.
“Hannah,” I say, my face hot again.
“Buongiorno, Hannah. Welcome back,” he says with that same laugh. He doesn’t say more, though, doesn’t give me away. He slaps Stefano on the shoulder and passes the oars to Gianni and Sergio, who slide them into the rings at the boat’s edge. Then he steps into the shell, one hand on the dock, and lowers himself onto the second seat.
“We train together for years,” Stefano says. “Since…” He puts his hand at waist level. “Questi ragazzi sono i miei—how do you say?—old friends.”
“Best friends,” Gianni shouts, taking his place in the boat, followed by Sergio.
“Sì. I miei grandi amici,” Stefano says expansively.
They all nod except for Luca, who looks up at me, unsmiling. “My great friends? Io, no,” he says, “I don’t like these guys,” provoking a chorus of moans.
“Allora, Hannah. You practice today?” Stefano asks.
“Inside on the machines.”
“Ci vediamo presto, okay?” Stefano gives my arm a squeeze before taking his place in the first seat.
“Alessandro, vieni qua!” Gianni shouts, and an adolescent boy dashes past me and climbs into the front of the boat, facing Stefano, his legs folded beneath him. He grasps a rope that connects him like reins to the rudder behind him. The coxswain. They push away from the dock and pause.
“Pronti!” Stefano’s voice cuts a straight line, and the boy adjusts the rope, pulls it taut, as each man lifts his oar in preparation. “Via!” Stefano calls, and they