The woman was wearing a leopard-print blouse, and she had all of her dark hair pulled back from her head in a giant barrette with a unicorn on it. She was older, with thick cake makeup gathering in the wrinkles around her eyes and on her lips. “Ah, I speak English,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, thank you. I was interested in that dress in the front window.”
The woman’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. One of my proudest moments!”
“You made it?”
The woman laughed. “Of course. This is my store. I make everything in here. One of a kind!”
“Oh.” At that moment, Diana was determined to have that dress. But with the luck she’d had lately, she also felt sure something would stand in her way. “What size is it?”
“Size two.”
Well, there it was. That left her out.
“But all of my dresses can be let in and out for a perfect, custom fit,” she said with a smile, going over to the window. She pulled the dress form down and began to take the dress off. From this angle, Diana realized that the fabric was blue with tiny stars. “Let’s try it on.”
“All right,” Diana said, letting the woman lead her through racks stuffed with dresses, to a single dressing room in the back of the building with a red velvet curtain.
The woman swept it aside dramatically and ushered her in. “It was calling to you, no? I think dresses do. I could already tell this one belongs to you.”
If it did belong to me, it wouldn’t be a size two, she thought, quickly undressing as she looked at the dress on the hanger in front of her. Well. Fingers crossed.
She took a deep breath and slipped it on. Miraculously, not only did it fit, but it hugged her curves nicely, with plenty of room. It didn’t even accentuate her little stomach pooch. And it looked lovely, with the sweetheart neckline and graceful, flowing skirt with several layers. She stood up on her tiptoes, pretending to be in heels, and gathered her hair up, imagining herself sitting in the audience of the old theater.
Yes, it’s very nice, she thought to herself as she twirled around a bit. But I don’t have shoes and I don’t know how much it costs . . .
She pulled open the curtain to find the woman standing there with a pair of strappy heels that matched the silver-blue hue of the dress almost exactly. “These look like your size.”
Stunned, Diana slipped her feet into them, feeling like Cinderella as they fit her feet exactly, without pinching at all. And the heel wasn’t anything that would break her neck, either. At that moment, as she gazed at herself in the mirror and swished the skirt around her knees, she knew that whatever the price, they belonged to her.
It felt like . . . like . . . serendipity.
She looked up at the woman, beaming at her reflection in the mirror, and smiled. “I’ll take them.”
*
Diana would have looked up the Arena di Verona prior to taking a cab to it from the shopping district, but without a phone, that was impossible. It didn’t matter. While she was changing in the dressing room, she’d noticed a photograph of it. In fact, it looked very much like the Colosseum, though smaller, but even better preserved.
But even the photograph did not prepare her for the place in person. She gasped as she stepped out on the curb. The giant Roman amphitheater was full of ornate sculpture, columns, and arches of pink and green blocks. Diana simply could not believe that she’d be spending the afternoon enjoying a performance of Shakespeare, in a place where hundreds of years ago, gladiators would perform bloody and chilling spectacles for audiences.
It was a dream come true, but she quickly tempered her expectations as an usher took her ticket and led her down to her seat, right at the front of the theater. Remember what happened the last time you got excited about an event, in Versailles? Someone ended up dead.
She almost laughed at the thought. This was a play, not a bunch of gladiators fighting. The chances of death today were pretty slim.
Because of the age of the theater, the seats were rather small and uncomfortable, but she was right there in the center, so close she could touch the stage. The usher handed her a program, and she paged through it, as two large Italian men took the seats on either side of her.
Squeezed in between them, she sucked in a breath and opened the program. As she paged through it, she noticed with a bit of disappointment that it was all in Italian. She turned to a black-and-white photograph of the man she’d met on the train, the one who was playing Quince. He looked even more handsome in the photograph, with his white shirt, open at the throat, and even more of a beard, his thick dark hair tumbling over his forehead. It almost stopped her heart to look at him, remembering the way he’d smiled at her over the table in the train car.
Marcello Camillo. That was his name.
Without her cell phone to help her translate, she did her best, trying to decode the rest of the small biography. Born and bred in Verona. Recently played the Duke of Venice in Othello in last summer’s Shakespeare Festival and Horatio in Hamlet in the one prior. His television credits included a stint on All My Children. Received his M.F.A. from the University of Verona. No mention of family or children, though Diana wasn’t sure a bio would include something like that. She stared at the picture for far too long, then paged through the other actors’ information with waning interest.
The lights dimmed and a loudspeaker crackled. Someone said something in Italian, which Diana assumed was the usual notice prohibiting flash photography and to silence all phones. She closed the program on her lap and got ready to watch as the crowd around her silenced.
Then the play began. The curtain rose on a woodland scene, as she’d expected. Then, to her excitement, the first actors appeared on stage.
It was the palace of Theseus. Two men and a woman appeared on the stage. With excitement, she leaned forward, ready to hear the gorgeous phrases of the master wordsmith himself.
And then . . .
They spoke.
In Italian.
She listened to the lovely words, not understanding a single one of them. Shakespeare was challenging enough as it was, but in another language, it was quite impossible. The actors seemed good . . . she thought. But by the time Lysander, the mortal young lover of Hermia, arrived—at least, she thought it was Lysander—she had no idea what was going on.
The first scene ended, and then she sucked in a breath as Marcello—as Quince—appeared, dressed in a linen blouse, doublet, hose, and craftsman’s apron. She knew the play quite well, though she hadn’t seen it since her school years. This was the comedic part where Quince, attempting to put on a rousing theatrical production for Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, arranges all the rather untalented craftsmen of the town to act in the play. There was quite a lot of laughter from the audience, especially at Nick Bottom.
Marcello stole the scene, even with Nick Bottom constantly attempting to. Marcello spoke in such fluid Italian she was instantly hypnotized by his words. He was clearly talented, his voice strong and sure. As he spoke, she found herself zeroing in on him, unable to look at anything else happening on stage. She grew warm, and her bare chest flushed as she watched. For a moment, she could’ve sworn his eyes drifted toward her, and a smile appeared on his face as he said his lines.
If only she knew what he was saying!