Meeting Chiara altered the course of my life.
I was sitting against a wall on the high school campus, arms folded over my knees, head lowered, trying to get some rest. A gentle tap on my shoulder startled me. I looked up into the sun, its glare turning her into a silhouette.
“Hello,” she said softly.
I raised a hand to shield my eyes as she repeated it, almost amused. Then I stood.
She wore a long grey herringbone tweed balmacaan and black Dr. Martens. She smiled and asked my name.
“What do you want?” I said.
“I’m Chiara.”
I waited, expecting more. When nothing came, I said, “I’m Giovanni—my friends call me Nibs.”
As my eyes cleared, I saw she had long, curly brown hair, dark eyes, and a stack of schoolbooks pressed to her chest. She told me she was having a party and asked if I wanted to come. Without waiting for my answer, she wrote her address on a scrap of paper, handed it to me, and walked toward the entrance, breaking into laughter with a couple of friends who were waiting for her.
That night I arrived late with a six-pack, unaware it was her birthday party—and that her entire family was there. She took me inside and introduced me to relatives gathered in the living room and around the dining table. Her mother and two older sisters were clearing plates to make room for coffee and cake. Her father watched me closely, a hint of suspicion in his eyes, as I shook his hand; he promptly confiscated the beer.
Grinning from ear to ear as she took my bomber jacket, she said, “I can’t believe you came.”
“I never would have if I knew it was a birthday party.”
“I know,” she laughed. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
After she blew out the candles, we sat around the table and had cake. Her parents asked me a lot of questions. They treated me with polite respect, but they were clearly more troubled by the fact that I was an artist than by my shabby clothes or the beer. It turned out Chiara’s maternal uncle had been an artist—and a deadbeat—and her parents seemed to associate the two.
After coffee, she took me down to the basement. I was a little surprised her parents didn’t object. In my house, we were raised differently—young couples weren’t allowed to be alone, especially not behind closed doors, and I never would have been allowed to bring a girl into my room. It was one of the reasons I moved out and got my own place.
Alone, she admitted she’d had a crush on me for some time, and that she only made her move after learning my girlfriend, Gaviota, had moved back to Spain. It was hard for me to be upset—especially about showing up with beer instead of a proper gift—when she leaned in, and what followed went well beyond a simple kiss.
Despite her parents’ disapproval, they never treated me poorly and always welcomed me into their home. I often had dinner with them, and Chiara brought me to family gatherings. Only later did I learn that, behind closed doors, they urged her to break things off.
One of the more memorable occasions came when I was invited upstate to meet her sister Cinzia’s fiancé, Stefano, and his parents—wealthy, affable Northern Italian Freemasons who, at one point, even tried to recruit me. As the son of a bartender and a would-be starving artist myself, this did little to improve my standing with Chiara’s parents.
During that trip, Chiara and I took a long walk through the woods, the leaves turning around us. It was there that she first admitted that her parents were firmly against her seeing me. I had already sensed as much.
Back at the house, Stefano’s parents kept an expansive library in their study. While browsing the shelves, I came across a hardcover copy of The Decline of the West, which introduced me to Oswald Spengler and sent me down a rabbit hole I wouldn’t soon leave. I made it a point to find a copy of both volumes for myself.
Early in our relationship, she wanted me to meet her friends at the Atomic Club, a small, smoke-filled dive with little more than a bar, a DJ booth, and a dance floor. It would become our regular spot. The place was packed, and we pushed our way to the middle, where her friends Annalisa and Giancarlo were dancing. We joined them for a few songs before heading to the bar. There I met the rest of her circle—Luna and Aurora. After the introductions, Chiara and Giancarlo went back to the dance floor, leaving me with her three friends. I bought us a round, and the interrogation began.
They weren’t too tough, and we quickly hit it off. They were especially amused that I called her “Chester” on account of her chest—she didn't exactly hide them. Once I was welcomed in, we all grew close. We spent most of our time together at each other’s houses, on stoops or in basements, dancing, traveling, going to shows, and museums. We were almost inseparable.
Chiara was always trying to upgrade my wardrobe, though she liked wearing my old, ratty band T-shirts and polos. She said she could smell me on them. I didn’t always appreciate the fuss, but I humored her now and then, enough that my old friends started calling me a “preppy.” It didn’t help that she had me rent a tux and a limo for our school dance—a first for me.
Being an ardent drama student, she was often on stage, and I would go to see her perform; she stood out as Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Aside from a few old photo booth pictures, I still keep the inscribed hardback copy of Shakespeare on Love she gave me.
Despite her parents’ objections, things were going well—or so I thought. It was only after she had a bad dream about me that problems began. She was deeply into oneiromancy and couldn’t shake it. Though I never learned the details of the dream, she eventually broke up with me over it. We remained friends and continued to see each other with the group, sometimes backsliding, when neither of us was involved with anyone else, and we’d been drinking. In time, we drifted apart. She grew serious with someone else and eventually married him.
With her, I was exposed to a different way of life. I came from a loving home, but one that was poorer, stricter, and more disciplined. With her, I softened. There was an ease to her world, a lightness I hadn’t known. And yet, for all their comfort, her family left me wary of materialism.
Looking back, I can still trace the line of my life to that moment against the wall and the girl in the sun.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli, April 22nd, Feast of Saints Soter and Caius, Popes and Martyrs
