A Winter in Rome Read online

  Table of Contents

  A Winter in Rome

  Book Details

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  About the Author

  A Winter

  in Rome

  FRANCIS GIDEON

  Craig is a man adrift, never quite feeling like he belongs or like he's as successful and settled as those around him—especially his lovers, Alan, an art professor he met while in college, and Sybil, who tutored him throughout his Italian class. When Alan goes to Rome life becomes even shakier and the only grounding point becomes the corkboard of memories Craig creates for the three of them.

  By the time Alan returns, Craig isn't certain how his relationships will change—especially when Alan starts to fall for Sybil, bringing two pieces of his world completely together and leaving Craig worried it will create a world that has no place for him.

  Book Details

  A Winter in Rome

  By Francis Gideon

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Emelia Vane

  Cover designed by Natasha Snow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition November 2015

  Copyright © 2015 by Francis Gideon

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781620046357

  Print ISBN 9781620046364

  For Travis

  Chapter One

  "Gloria" by Patti Smith came on the radio in the car. I shut it off after the first few lines, Patti's wrangled voice echoing in my ear as I gripped the steering. Alan wasn't due back from Rome for another twenty-seven hours. I had another fifteen minutes before I had to go to work, and then an eight-hour shift before I could see Sybil for our date after work. I wondered if she knew Alan's departure time. And if she did know, was it because I had mentioned it each time I had checked the airline website, or because she was now checking for the plane time after four months away, too? I could never tell with her.

  My phone buzzed and I picked it up. Italian stared back at me. I struggled to remember what limited words I could recall over my heart pounding in my chest. After Google Translate, the message read: This is costing me a fortune, but I wanted to tell you I'm fine. I have stories for you.

  Alan. I texted him back—but in English. I haven't taken Italian in years. Be nicer to me. But I accept stories as payment.

  Good, bonne. Mon amour.

  That's French, I wrote him back. Italian for 'my love' is mio amore.

  I thought you said you haven't taken it in years? Alan was writing in only English now. You're playing me for a fool, Craig.

  I grinned so hard that my face hurt. The car's air conditioner wasn't working anymore, and my keeping it in idle before I had to drive to the café wasn't comfortable anymore. But Alan, I thought. Alan was always going to be worth it.

  I can't forget how to talk about love. One of the many good things Sybil taught me, I texted back. There was a pause on his end. I wasn't sure if it was him trying to remember Italian words or our Canadian phones doing a terrible job of keeping up with the distance. I soon added: And you, of course. You've taught me a lot and I'm sure you'll have more for me now.

  Of course, of course. You have to work now, don't you? You're always working. Go do stuff. I will be home soon.

  I paused on the word 'home' on the screen, then looked up at Alan's apartment in front of me. The small, eight-storey building was just outside the downtown core of Toronto where he taught. It wasn't an expensive place—a blessing in this city—and in spite of the long bus ride to the university and back (or shorter car ride, if Alan took my small Mazda with rust everywhere), it wasn't too far from his job. It was also halfway between Sybil's small apartment and my job at the local café.

  When Alan had gotten the contract for a research position in Rome, he had needed someone to take care of his apartment—and monitor his mailbox at the university—while he was gone. I had been the obvious choice to step up and put out any student issues on campus and water his plants. But I had also moved into his place, more or less, since he had been gone. Before then, I had been living with friends I had known since my undergrad who weren't really my friends anymore. Our apartment building was falling apart, the heat never worked, and David had a girlfriend who was practically moved in, anyway. When I had picked up my things to leave "for a few months," David hadn't said a word; just gave me the silent guy-goodbye I had come to know from him. Now that my stuff was in only one place, I hoped that when Alan got back, we could just pick up where we had left off. His trip to Rome to collect artefacts for the university had gone well according to expensive text messages and stray postcards from Italian tourist spots. And because this trip had gotten him what he had always desired—a chance to see the great masters and to visit the Sistine Chapel so he could almost touch the hand of God—I hoped he could see that it had also given me what I needed: a home.

  I miss you, I texted. I've been keeping the place warm for you.

  I know you have, Craig. I can't thank you enough.

  My breath was shaky. I could hear his voice in the text message: low and quiet, like he was whispering to me with our foreheads pressed together in bed. I decided I would just tell him my plans in that moment, instead of merely hoping. I'm not moving out. After a pause, I added a comical. Mostly because I'll be broke after this phone bill.

  Good. Wouldn't want you to leave after missing you so much. We have lost time to catch up on. And now—go to work, Craig. Give Sybil my regards.

  I will, I texted back with another sporadic declaration of love. I wanted to hold my phone to my heart and keep it there a little longer, but as if Sybil had heard her name, my phone buzzed again with her ringtone.

  Craig, where are you? I can only hold your shift so long…

  Sorry, be right there. I turned the key in the ignition fully and cranked the radio as I drove to work, a smile still on my face.

  *~*~*

  "Craig! Thank God."

  Sybil rushed over and kissed my cheek when she saw me enter the small café of Rotunda Bar. She still wore her black-and-green apron, her blonde hair pinned over her shoulder in a loose ponytail. She looked good in spite of the apparent stress. Two other workers remained at the barista area, so Sybil could take my hand and pull me behind the counter, into the back room, where I could prepare for my shift.

  "Sorry I'm—"

  Sybil cut me off, her hand waving my apology away. She looked curt and angry as she moved, but I had known her long enough to understand what was going on. Sybil was taking on too much weight, as always. She talked a mile a minute, like she normally did when things were rough at the café, rehashing instructions and complaining at the same time. I let her talk, getting my own apron out and punching into work. She needed me then, like she did after every shift, to listen to the asinine customer stories, so that she could move on.

  Sybil had gotten me my job six months ago, after I had graduated with an eclectic mix of classes and had absolutely nothing to do with them. She had another job at the local counselling centre, and she was also in a graduate program, so this café was her smallest priority. She often gav
e her shifts to me so she could have an afternoon off or get caught up on a research project. I had pretty much been promoted to full-time in a matter of months, and didn't mind taking on any extra work Sybil was willing to throw my way—especially if it made her feel better. Sometimes our schedules overlapped, like they did today. I always liked when they did.

  "So of course, even though it's the middle of April, we still have Easter stuff left over from early March, which just confuses customers, since they have no idea when Easter actually is. Useless holiday, but…" Sybil went on informing me of some of the new changes to our menus as I placed my hand on the small of her back.

  "Hey, hey," she said, pausing. She stopped her fidgety movements, smiling slightly before glancing around the café. No one could see us in the back room with all the sticky syrup, so she let my hand stay against the small of her back. She was always scared about people seeing us in public. Since I was also with Alan, and that was the more dominant relationship that stuck in people's minds, what she and I had together was often hard to speak about. She preferred to never get into the conversation with other people, especially those she worked with, since to Sybil, "love is always private." She loved me, I loved her, and Alan was also there. It worked for us—so why did anyone else care?

  Sybil's eyes darted back to mine. She slipped her hand along my elbow before kissing me. I opened my mouth to deepen the kiss as her fingers squeezed my skin. She pulled away first, almost breathlessly.

  "Are we still on for tonight?" I asked.

  "I have to work."

  "You always have to work. Besides, isn't most of your stuff for school just reading?"

  She narrowed her eyes. "It's still important."

  "I didn't say it wasn't. Only that you can still read in bed with me. Without pants."

  "Since when do I ever get work done that way?"

  I laughed. "Fair enough. But we have a date, don't we? That was how we were both going to tolerate minimum-wage hell. We meet one another at the end of it—always. Right?"

  "It's the only way to get through hell—keep going."

  "At your apartment, then? I can bring you fancy coffee, or herbal tea. I'll rub your back as you read…"

  She considered it for a moment, her face scrunching up. "Okay, fine."

  "Good," I said, pecking her again. She stepped away to change out of her outfit and settle anything else she had for the end of her shift. I fixed my apron, my eyes wandering to the clock. I heard the dull thrum of the after school crowd come in. I sighed, knowing it would be a long, long shift, but then moved to take my post behind the counter.

  "Do you need anything else from me?" Sybil asked, her face growing weary as she looked at the long lines. There were other people working, but Sybil knew their capabilities all too well. Most of them were high school kids who didn't know what they were doing.

  "I'm fine, love. I just want to see you tonight."

  She narrowed her eyes at the pet name. I heard her complaints in my head: People don't understand, Craig! People are stupid. They will say something if you keep calling me your love, especially when Alan comes in here all the time to have his office hours and you practically sit in his lap. I don't want to be a scandal, a soap opera. I knew all of my rebuttals, too. We're not a soap opera, we're in love. Fuck everyone if they don't understand. This is real, Sybil, and I want to share it with the world.

  But the world is cruel, Craig, she would add. And that was where our talks would always end. She always got me there.

  "You'll see me tonight," she said.

  "Good," I told her. "Because Rome awaits in another twenty-seven hours."

  "Don't you mean Toronto awaits Alan?"

  "Rome's still coming with us. He has artefacts and stories."

  "Ah yes," she said, undoing her long blonde hair from the ponytail. She was getting tense, having this conversation around customers. So finally, with another wave, I let her go.

  I waited until I saw her blonde hair and khaki pants disappear around the corner before I got to work. For a long time, I always felt as if I was letting them go. Not just Sybil, but Alan, too. Both of them were always so busy, always so full of things they wanted to do and accomplish. Ever since I had met Alan in my second semester of school, he had wanted to go to Rome to see where all his favourite painters had lived and worked and loved. So when the time came, I let him leave without thinking of what four months away could to do me—and to us. When Sybil had decided, around the same time period, that she wanted to get another degree, to become a counsellor, I had supported her. I always supported them—there was no other option—and while they were off living their dreams, I dealt with demands for coffee. All of it was okay, I told myself, so long as I got to have them.

  Alan would be home in another day, and I would see Sybil tonight. I could do this, I told myself, psyching myself up for my shift. I got to have them, so I was happy.

  "Hello ma'am," I greeted the first customer, an older woman with gray hair and thick glasses, "how can I help you today?"

  Chapter Two

  Alan had had his birthday in Rome. He turned thirty-five years old while on the other side of the world, looking up Palazzo Senatorio. I had carefully plotted out the time zone difference so I could text him at midnight in Italy. We had said we would only email; the university that was hosting him had put him up in the Artist In Residence room, which thrilled him to no end, even if he was a professor of art now, and not so much a full-blooded artist—which I disagreed with, where there had been a small TV and flat screen computer.

  The internet is a little shaky, he wrote. So Skype will be weird. I don't like watching your face as pixelated or frozen; I will keep my memories instead. But emails have a nice letter-writing quality about them, don't you think? You know, sometimes when I go through all of these research archives, I'll find letters that authors and artists write to one another. Remember that one painter from Canada? Dreadful stuff, but she also had a lot of travel journals and she often kept drafts of letters in them. That was how the entire department transcribing her old poetry and journals realized she had been having an affair with a poet. She had discussed it in her letters, and drafted love notes! How sweet and careless, crafty and cruel. Though I always hate that term—having an affair, cheating, two-timing. It sounds like a bad game that you're hiding in the basement, instead of sharing it. Speaking of which…

  Alan's emails were often long and rambling, a complete wall of text on my side of the screen. I didn't mind—I never minded. While Alan could somewhat curve his verbosity when he had a class to play off or me in his bed to help guide the conversation, emails left no resistance, and he would often write and write before realizing how much time had passed.

  I have to go, he wrote in that same email. To teach a class—well, a keynote speech for something—and then I have to go back to the archives. Which brings me around to the original point I had, I swear. Sometimes I see letters from lover to lover, from artist to artist, and their phrases remind me of us. I wonder if people will save what we've sent one another?

  That's all, he signed off. That's my point. Only that I wish to see you in person, not because I am turning thirty-five tomorrow and it's oh-so-important, but because I love you dearly and you shut me up when I need to be. But—let me tell you this: my thirty-fifth birthday won't be remembered. Not really; it's nothing new to me. But I hope that these letters we write to one another will be. Good day, Craig.

  I would often sip my morning coffee, sometimes still in Sybil's bed, as I read his emails. I'd absolutely need coffee—sometimes even a meal as I read—in order to get through how much he'd write. This was very different from the articles or books Alan had written on art history; he had a mind to edit and cut down on his caveats. But with me, it was always first thought, best thought, because he believed there to be passion between our letters.

  And he, like all artist and especially art professors, wanted to be remembered for something.

  I don't think ema
ils have the same allure for archivists, I wrote back. If you want to be seen in the same way as Michelangelo, you gotta start sending physical things, so I can keep them safe.

  My emails back were never as long, but he seemed to enjoy them just as much. A week after I had told him to send me something physical to hang—something that I had merely responded to because I wanted to say something back to his rambling speeches—a postcard came in my mail. It was of the Coliseum, a very small and touristy card, which he apologized for on the back.

  This feels so tacky and I want to criticize myself. I hear the lecture I've given on souvenirs, Craig. I'm pretty sure you've heard it too, so I won't give it. But I'm thirty-five now. Thank you for your text, by the way. I'm older now—almost an old man! But look at how old the Coliseum is. It still stands. And the Tower of Pisa leans like it has bad knees. There is probably hope for me, and there is so much hope for you.

  I hung the postcard up by red yarn around the rear-view mirror in my car, then asked if he wanted me to write him a postcard back. Maybe something equally tacky, like one of Niagara Falls to remind him of Canada. I could even make a bad pun about going over the falls in a barrel—of falling too much in love with you.

  No, no! he had written in an email. Write your letters to Sybil and slip them into her books, so when she studies, she is reminded there is always someone there, waiting for her, too. I already know you're waiting for me.

  I took his advice about the letters. But I knew that even if we somehow managed to become the famous artists or counsellors—or something—that we were destined to be, the people who handled our archives would get it wrong. They would always get it wrong. They'd see my letters to Sybil, her post it notes back to me, and Alan's long, verbose emails and think this was a weird love triangle. That like a bad game, we were cheating, two-timing. Even if it was never like that, and never would be like that.

  I figured that was why, while Alan was gone, I put up the corkboard in his apartment. Along the wall closest to the kitchen, with the light from his small balcony, there was blank space enough for something I picked up from Staples. At first, I just wanted the corkboard so I could stop hanging the postcards he sent me off string in my car, as it was getting pretty dangerous, and then I wanted a place where I could do a count-down to his coming back home. But as I added notes from Sybil, photographs she and I had taken in a photo booth in a mall, I realized this was more complicated than a mere push-pin board. This was our archive—this was me trying to have some control over our story and how people would see us. I needed to take everything that I thought we represented and set it up. Some days, I felt like I was a mad man arranging things with no order, no real placement, only random intervals and ricochets of emotion. But I figured this was how people who discovered galaxies and stars felt. There is nothing but space, but then all of a sudden, a pattern emerges; Scorpio's stinger moves out of the star clusters, Orion is folded into three bright points ending in Mintaka, and then the North Star shines you home.