Finding Juliet Read online

  But that was nothing compared to the crassness displayed by promoters in Moorhead, Minnesota, on February 3, 1959. Early that morning, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson had died in a snow-swept cornfield when their plane went down after a gig at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The plane was heading to Moorhead, and the radio station hosting that show inserted a 15-year-old singer named Bobby Velline onto the bill even as the bodies of Holly, Valens and Richardson lay in an Iowa morgue. Bobby Vee, as he came to be known, launched a successful career mere hours after hearing news of the crash on the radio during his high-school lunch break. The tour was finally canceled after the next night’s performance at the Shore Acres Ballroom in Sioux City. Misery had trumped money. Nick had never been able to track down a verifiable stub from that show.

  Most acts had the decency to halt tours when key members or loved ones checked out, though, and Nick had tickets to many of those famous canceled dates: Led Zeppelin, Chicago, November 12, 1980; Courtney Love and Hole in London, April 9, 1994; the Grateful Dead in Boston, September 13, 1995; even Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, October 4, 2003.

  Nick snared his treasures mostly through online auctions, but he’d sometimes go directly to the source when his research turned up a promising contact. He even picked up pre-release championship baseball caps directly from the South Korean manufacturer (they made victory hats for both teams, and then supposedly burned the loser’s lot).

  He could extrapolate an alternate history of American pop culture from his collection. It would be a world in which baseball crowned a 1994 World Series champ, Kurt Cobain lived to headline at his own Vegas showroom, John Lennon kept turning down Beatles reunion offers, and Nick Moore finally figured out what the hell to do with his life as his thirty-first year rolled around.

  Chapter Four

  As Lia put away the breakfast dishes and surveyed her father’s spotless apartment, she realized he was right: She needed to get out more. In fact, she needed to get out of the cramped quarters Salvatore filled with his silent concern for her happiness. And she needed to get out of her marriage to Antonio Valerio, that shit, and become plain old Lia Cattaneo again. But she doubted she’d ever be able to get out of her head long enough to silence the voice that berated her for not following through with her career plans, for not starting a family, for not figuring out what to do next and, most of all, for not refusing to marry Antonio after he’d cheated on her the first time.

  When she managed to escape that voice, her voice, for a few hours, Lia would start making plans—thinking of friends with whom she could share an apartment, studying the application to the cooking school that would help hone her natural culinary talent, even dreaming of the restaurant she’d always wanted to open. But then the low drone of criticism would creep into her brain and Lia would be shoved back to square one, abandoned by a philandering husband and fussed over like a 28-year-old child by a sweet old man who didn’t mean to drive her nuts but always did.

  Looking for a way to avoid making the week’s shopping list and plunging headfirst into another meaningless day, Lia ran her fingers along the cracked leather spines of her father’s Shakespeare collection. Salvatore knew the plays best in their Italian translations, but her parents had started teaching her English with this musty set when she was twelve, filling her head with archaic phrases along with thrilling adventures and, of course, romance.

  Shaking her head, dark curls bobbing, Lia recalled how both her father and mother had encouraged her to read these plays after she finished her homework. It was an indoctrination into the romantic sensibility that had drawn her parents to each other and kept them dancing in the kitchen every night until her mother found the lump. Six months later, she was gone, and Lia stopped believing in everlasting love.

  She felt betrayed, at first, that her father refused to abandon his romantic worldview. But as she entered her adult years, Lia came to realize Salvatore was simply driven by love and kept the memory of her mother close regardless. There was never anyone else, but he refused to become a broken shadow embittered by the loss of the younger wife he’d counted on to see him through to his own death. No, after six months of quiet mourning, Salvatore had dipped into the deep reservoir of his heart and started pouring affection onto Lia, the young women of Club di Giulietta, and the lovesick correspondents who undoubtedly cherished his kind advice.

  But her mother’s death had torn a hole inside Lia, one that she’d tried to fill with Antonio. Lately, she feared his betrayal had drained the last drops of hope from her soul. When she turned to Shakespeare’s plays, Lia could only smile in grim recognition at lines of loss and anger. In Romeo and Juliet, which Verona’s tourists seemed to have forgotten was a tragedy, Lia now skipped over young Capulet’s soliloquies, and instead took cold comfort in the line of her nurse: There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers. Or, as the Friar said, She’s not well married that lives married long; but she’s best married that dies married young.

  Lia pulled the volume from its place of honor on the top shelf and turned to Act III. “These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old,” she whispered slowly, without focusing on the page. Then she slammed the covers shut, pushed the collection back into its nook and turned to grab her half-filled shopping list from the counter. Enough pitiful self-indulgence for one morning, she thought. It was time to get out.

  Chapter Five

  Salvatore made his way past the usual battlements, bridges and palazzos of old Verona on his short stroll to the Club di Giulietta offices on Via Galilei. Architecture from the Roman, Veronese, Visconti, Venetian, Etruscan and Austrian periods towered over cars, newsstands and other modern encroachments. He kept to the Adige river side of the winding cobblestone street, but still noticed the condom machine on the far side. Swastika graffiti assaulted the shop wall behind it.

  Both of these things were against his religion, but a condom—il preservativo—protected life while the swastika had been twisted into a symbol of its elimination. A man must have his faith, Salvatore thought, but he also had to know his own heart, and follow what it told him was right.

  As they did most days, Salvatore’s musings soon delivered him to the Church of San Francesco, where Shakespeare set Giulietta’s secret wedding, and then up the street to the club’s decidedly more modest offices. Yes, the place was a bit threadbare, much like him. But what had started as a lark among artist friends in the early seventies—answering letters addressed to one of the most famous characters in drama—had blossomed into an unlikely institution resting on a solid foundation of love and whimsy.

  And Lia was right: Salvatore did enjoy his role as the old gamecock watching over his five chicks. In fact, he delighted in mingling with Giulietta’s young volunteer secretaries, soaking up their spirited gossip, basking in their daughterly attentions. They looked after each other, he and they, exchanging advice and support as easily as they passed the paper tubes of Illy sugar around the conference-room table during their frequent espresso breaks.

  Judging from the conversation he heard from the meeting room as he entered, they had started without him this morning. Sure enough, Club di Giulietta veterans Anna, Serafina, Maria and Simone were debating the finer points of casting the fall festival’s lead role while the newest member, Fortunata, stared into her espresso cup, brooding and uncharacteristically silent.

  The only redhead in this collection of brunettes, 24-year-old Fortunata usually lived up to the bold and brash reputation so often hung on women of her hair color. She was also proudly curvy, while the club’s other members maintained the sleek, chic figures for which the nearby Milan fashion houses designed. Salvatore had worried for months that Fortunata’s overly aggressive manner would lead the rest of the women to ostracize her, and now it appeared his fears were being realized. He’d at first thought she was merely overcompensating for the fact that she’d come all the way from Calabria with her family
in her teens and had suffered the usual petty prejudice from northern Italians conditioned to look down on anyone from the south. But now he wondered if Fortunata’s need for attention and hunger for fame—even if it had developed in response to her outsider status—wasn’t leading her down a dangerously selfish path. Perhaps if he could help her get the spotlight she craved—and, more importantly, develop a true friendship or two in the club, she would adopt a more sociable attitude.

  “What are we talking about?” Salvatore asked. The old man gave Fortunata’s right shoulder a squeeze as he made his way past her to the espresso machine. But after favoring him with a brief, sad smile, she bowed her head again.

  “We were just discussing last year’s disaster,” Serafina said as she raised a clump of glossy black hair from her shoulder. A psychologist with a budding practice, she enjoyed helping the letter writers contend with their romantic predicaments, but, at 32, she didn’t take the club’s public activities too seriously. Her warm, open smile perfectly complemented fine cheekbones and lively green eyes. With a personality as polished and appealing as her look, Serafina served as an informal mentor and role model to the other club members.

  Salvatore winked at his lovely second-in-command before turning to address the others. “The tourists didn’t seem to mind the unexpected hair color,” he said.

  “We were a laughingstock,” snorted Maria, 22, a graduate student in chemistry and the youngest club member. “I still hear about it everywhere I go.” After inadvertently driving away several young suitors, Maria had joined the club to soften a prickly personality that too often overshadowed her quick intelligence and fresh collegiate look. Even though she had blossomed into an effervescent charmer over the past two years, what others thought of the club’s endeavors was still quite important to her. Negative notices brought her claws out.

  “A blonde Giulietta!” added Anna, shaking her head. “It was shameful.” The most serious writer of the bunch, 28-year-old Anna saw herself as part of a literary tradition stretching all the way back to Shakespeare. She agonized over her responses to incoming letters, and so turned out very few of them. But what little she did write was so good, no one begrudged her the extra time.

  “We took a vote,” said Simone, 25. “From now on, only a brunette Giulietta will do.” Always hanging back to get in the last, definitive word, Simone claimed to have the club’s most sensuous soul. That she was the prized only child of a quintessentially romantic Frenchman and a soft-spoken Neapolitan beauty was strong evidence in her favor. And despite her boyish figure and pixie haircut, Simone could ignite the flames of passion with a toss of her teased brown locks and a sly smile that lit up her hazel eyes. She brought that same intensity to her letters as well.

  Now it was clear why Salvatore’s ruby-feathered chick was pouting around the henhouse. Downing the strong shot without adding sugar, he considered the problem like a wise rooster should.

  “I understand the aesthetic argument,” he began, recalling the mini-scandal that had erupted last year when their star had shown up with a platinum dye job. “But could no one other than a raven-haired woman embody the spirit of Giulietta?” For the first time since he’d entered, Fortunata looked up at him, eyes glistening.

  “What are you getting at?” Maria demanded, pushing her fashionably chunky black glasses up on her freckle-dusted nose, as if to get a better look at the man who dared question her.

  “Just this: Should a smart, lovely and spirited young woman, perfect to play Giulietta in every other way, be excluded from consideration just because she doesn’t have long, black hair? Isn’t there another solution? The festival is a theatrical production, after all.”

  “Salvatore’s right,” Serafina said. “If our Giulietta shows up without the proper hair color, we’ll just have to provide it for her. Certainly we have enough extra money in the budget to afford a proper wig to go with the costume.”

  “Or we could just cut off your perfect locks,” Simone said.

  “As hot as it’s been this summer, I don’t think I’d mind adopting your style for a few months,” Serafina replied with a smile.

  “It could work,” Maria allowed. Even Anna, the literary historian, nodded her assent.

  Camaraderie restored, Salvatore moved on to the next order of business. “So, less than three months until the big day,” he said. “Any candidates?”

  “Only the usual middle-aged housewives and unfortunate dreamers,” Maria said.

  Salvatore prayed that age and experience would soften Maria’s judgmental nature. But for now, he simply nodded.

  “Lia would be perfect,” Serafina said. “Why don’t you ask her again?”

  “I’m afraid that subject is closed,” Salvatore replied. “My daughter has made it clear she has no time for frivolous celebrations of romance.”

  “It’s a pity—her hair’s even more perfect than Serafina’s,” Anna said. Another long-haired beauty, Anna still took every opportunity to rank herself behind Lia and Serafina in the attractiveness sweepstakes, perhaps because she still felt self-conscious about being at least a head taller than most of her female friends.

  Why did women always compete like that? Salvatore wondered. So many of them always seemed to set themselves up to lose.

  “We’d better post more audition fliers,” Maria said. “And maybe even place an ad in the paper. The rest of us have had our turn as Giulietta, and the locals like a little variety.”

  “I hate to correct you, Maria,” Salvatore said in the mildest tone he could muster. “But not everyone has had a chance to take on the festival’s starring role.”

  “Oh, Salvatore,” she shot back, “we know you’d look good in a dress, but you’re just too old to play Giulietta.”

  “It’s my cross to bear,” Salvatore said after the women enjoyed a laugh at his expense. “But of course I was referring to Fortunata. Once that wig arrives, she might turn out to be the best Giulietta we’ve ever had.”

  Reaction to the nomination was mixed. Maria and Anna wore scowls of disapproval, but Serafina and Simone seemed open to the idea. As he’d suspected it would, Fortunata’s face lit up at the suggestion.

  “Oh, I would be so honored,” she said. “I promise not to let you down.” She turned to Maria. “That is, if you wouldn’t mind giving me an audition… And I’d want to discuss the role with Anna first, of course, to make sure I understand the important nuances of the character, how she fits into the grand scheme of la letteratura.”

  Salvatore couldn’t help chuckling at how quickly Fortunata moved to win over her critics. Her method was blunt, but judging by the softened looks Maria and Anna gave her, it was effective. If he hadn’t shown up for the meeting, Fortunata likely would have figured out another way to turn the situation to her advantage, he reflected. Still, he was glad to help her fit in better with the group. They were his extended famiglie, after all. And as the old rooster, he hated to see a precious pulcino transformed into un pecora nero. There would be no black sheep in his barnyard if he could help it.

  “Hey, snap out of it, you old dreamer,” Serafina said, waving a folded sheet of paper in front of his smiling face.

  “He’s basking in the attention of his harem,” Anna said with a smirk as Salvatore drifted back to attention.

  Serafina handed him the paper “No time for that,” she said. “We’ve got another possible suicide note.”

  Chapter Six

  While her father found purpose and solace in corresponding with strangers, when Lia needed to think, she needed to move, and when she needed to move, she fired up her beloved Vespa.

  It was a beautiful day for a loop around the old city, so Lia stopped moping, grabbed her silver helmet from the top of her dresser and trotted down the stairs to her vintage scooter, a meticulously maintained 1965 SS 90 with original electric-blue paint. Sure, it had a hand clutch for shifting gears unlike newer automatic models, and when she had a flat, Lia couldn’t just insert a rubber plug into the tire—she
had to take apart the wheel and tire and fix the tube before piecing it all back together again. But she was proud of her mechanical skills and loved the feeling of accomplishment she got after completing this or that minor repair.

  Not that anyone watching her glide by on the street would peg her for a tomboy with grease under her fingernails. Lia was neither vain nor fashion-obsessed, but when it came to riding her Vespa, appearance mattered. It all started with the hard enamel gleam of the body and the rich dark leather of the saddle that had won her heart when she’d seen it in a local dealer’s window on consignment when she was 17. She’d gotten a summer job to pay for it just before college (though her father had also chipped in), and then set about building perfect outfits around it, including a succession of chic helmets, motorcycle boots, leather riding pants with matching jackets, oversize Dior sunglasses, and always a white silk scarf dancing around her neck as she breezed along.

  Riding the scooter became her ritual of freedom, contemplation and celebration. It evened her out, and she still enjoyed turning heads as an idealized mystery girl zipping over the cobblestones. As she got older, though, she mostly tuned out that attention, concentrating instead on exploring different sections of Verona and the surrounding countryside.

  As bad as things ever got with Antonio, he never touched the Vespa or mocked her for cruising around town. It suited his romantic bad-boy image to have a bike-riding wife. And when the aging machine got too finicky for her basic repair skills to manage, a wonderful mechanic she knew kept it in sparkling trim. Lia even went on a few group rides with fellow Vespa enthusiasts. But mostly it was her solo escape—though not a solitary one. It was from her perch on the long, comfy seat that she communed with Verona and its people.