Pick and Choose

  Around New Year's Eve every year, I received a phone call from my cousin. We seldom spent time with each other; all he spoke of was drinking to our successes in Venice. It was all talk. If I so desired to scald my gaze on his figure, I would have to travel to London, a cesspool of mediocrity that knew no greater wrath than mine.

        Florence, I'd discovered, suited my talents. I'd been born and raised in the city, but felt no need to branch out; most of Europe remained in tatters, and America had never regained her wits after the war. Italy, it seemed, was the one country still bathing in glory and culture. Our class and skills were peerless.

        My decision to leave the city I so adored was easily the worst I'd ever made, but my options were finite. My neighbours and my friends labeled me paranoid, so I refrained from telling alerting them as to where I planned to go. The only man I informed was a man I'd never met before: a cab driver named Niccolo.

        My cousin didn't phone me on New Year's Eve. I couldn't say I was disappointed. If I were, I would have taken our communication into my own hands. Truthfully, the thought of sipping on Rosso di Montalcino with the worm that was my cousin could be matched by none other in repulsiveness. I found it odd, however, that he didn't dial my number two months after my aunt had tipped me off concerning Derrick's fiancée.

        I found it difficult to believe, at first, considering both his vulgar appearance and his equally venomous personality, but the longer the idea occupied my thoughts, I came to realise it was true. My aunt wasn't a liar. She was incapable of keeping plans for a surprise birthday celebration under wraps. Either she'd been duped into believing Derrick had procured a woman desperate enough to become his wife, or he was genuinely nigh marriage. The fact that this fiancée of his shared our same genus and species astounded me; Derrick, in all his crookedness, would have been charmed for a creature so purposive as a cow to accept his proposal.

        I was not one to sit back and let another man decide what I should and should not know. I hastily dialed my operator, who directed my call to London. When my Aunt Holly picked up, her aging voice greeted me with a very British, "'Ello?"

        "Zia! It's Castello!" I said brightly. "How are you, darling?"

        While I spoke English just as well, if not better, than my relatives across the Channel, they'd bothered to add a solitary Italian to their vocabulary: zia. Now, this feat would have been altruistic had they been aware of its meaning, but to that day, my father's family thought "zia" an endearing byname. It meant nothing more than "aunt."

        "Castello! It's been ages!" Aunt Holly exclaimed piercingly. I held the telephone a fair distance from my ear, though it didn't affect the clarity of her words on the line's opposite end. "I've been getting along just fine. Have you heard? Derrick's found himself a partner! It's about time, wouldn't you say?" I was forced to endure her grating cackle for several seconds before she allowed me another word.

        "Yes, I agree, zia," I said through an obligatory chuckle. "It's about ti--"

        "What about Julietta, Castello?" she interjected. I put a hand to my forehead, stifling an exasperated sigh. "Do you intend to marry her? When is your wedding?"

        "Julietta was a painting, zia. I sold her," I explained, earning myself a relieving solitude. I'd just opened my mouth to say something more, when, once again, I was cut off by my Aunt Holly's obliviousness.

        "Women are not things to be sold, Mr. Di Angelis," she told me firmly.

        I interrupted her just in time to avoid a lecture on the importance of respect for the fairer sex. "Zia, enough of this nonsense! Where is Derrick? It's New Year's. He always phones me."

        "Derrick said he was going to Florence. Did he forget to tell you?"

        I ran a hand through my dirty blonde hair, offering no immediate reply.

        "Castello?" Aunt Holly said after a pause. "Castello, are you there? Castello?"

        Once the initial panic had passed, I returned the telephone to my ear. She hadn't given up on ferociously shouting my name into the receiver, and continued on in vain until I remarked absently, "He didn't forget, zia. He neglected to tell me." I hung up without awaiting a response, and hurried to my chamber to pack a few select items.

        I shoved some shirts and pairs of pants in a suitcase, then abandoned it by the front door. The objects of my concern tenanted an unrelated room.

        I knew exactly what Derrick wanted, and I knew he would be predisposed to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

        At the time, I possessed only three finished works. My inaugural excitement over their completion had faded, but, fortunately for me, that of Florence's patrons hadn't. I'd been offered more than thirty-thousand euros for paintings, double that price on my latest creation. The same piece Derrick so lustfully pursued had attracted many a buyer, but guileless little Castello resolved not to sell such a painting until his inevitable hatred for it arose.

        And therein lay my fatal blunder.

        I glanced at my wristwatch, clutching the two of three paintings. Six o'clock PM. My neighbours would still be awake.

        I hopped across the street in my wool overcoat and rainboots, doing my best to ignore the torrential rain plunging from heaven's maw. The paintings, wrapped tightly in plastic, collected enough water to hydrate Rome for a month by the time I reached my destination. I pounded on the door, wringing liquid from my sopping hair while I waited.

        A hunched elderly man pulled open the door not long after I knocked. He smiled when he recognised me. "It's good to see you, Castello. What are you doing in the rain?"

        "I brought you a gift, Mr. Abbadelli." I held out the paintings to him, shuffling where I stood. "I decided not to sell them."

        The smile faded from his weathered face. "Are these your paintings?"

        I nodded enthusiastically. "They were, but now they belong to you."

        He raised an eyebrow. My rigid grin spread like blood through water. "These are worth thousands of euros," he stated suspiciously.

        "I can always paint more." I gave a casual shrug and urged the pieces a bit closer to his chest. "Gifts. To you and Mrs. Abbadelli."

        Begrudgingly, he took the works from my hands. "If you need us to hide something, just say so, boy."

        I shut my eyes tightly, a sudden calm settling over my shoulders. "Bless you, Mr. Abbadelli."

        "Say so, boy," he said again. I planted a kiss on each of his cheeks before saying anything more.

        "I need you to hide those for me, Mr. Abbadelli. Thank you sir. Thank you."

        With wide eyes, he warned forebodingly, "You were never here," and slammed the door in my face.

        I wasted not a second in scrambling back to the apartment. Snatching up the remainder of my belongings, I embarked on a grueling walk to Florence's Main Street in hopes of finds myself a driver.

      In less than two hours, I'd managed to abandon my home on speculation. Perhaps I was wrong; I'd overlooked the possibility that Derrick wasn't such a vile fiend after all. Maybe--just maybe--the majority of my neighbours were accurate in labeling me paranoid.

        By the next week, I'd learned to trust my instincts.