I had not seen Elena in several weeks. But it was July and I had just returned from a trip to Lake Como where I stayed at the Villa d’Este. The shock of being back after a week of marble and frescoes, brocade and gilt and lake water lapping outside my terrace was hard to endure. I pined for my Renaissance experience. I played it back in my mind’s eye because I had memorized every detail with the help of five overheated senses.
After getting settled in my apartment, I noted that Elena and I had still not met up. I assumed she was in Venice where every July she stayed at the Danieli. I was looking forward to a rich exchange: my lake experience for her Venetian lagoons. When finally we met she questioned me about my holiday. I was happy to relive it with someone who was so impressionable. During pauses in my narrative, I noticed a pained look. I was sure she was despondent. How could that be after her Italian outing?
“Elena, are you okay?”
“Frankly I’m feeling a bit blue. Not to say I’m depressed. I still put on my makeup in the morning.”
Her voice trailed off in eloquent silence. I waited.
“I realized the other day that I’m a woman of a certain age. I’ve peaked. I used to be noticed on the street. Now I’m invisible.”
“You’re an enormously attractive woman,” I countered. “You exude chic from every pore. The other day I ran into your neighbor, Joy. She commented how you’re always well groomed and fashionably dressed. She thought you the most elegant woman in the building.”
Her face brightened but soon dimmed like a cloud scuttling over the sun to produce shadow.
“It’s sweet of you to say so. But I can’t deny I’m not seen any more.”
“You don’t feel desirable, is that it? There isn’t that pleasurable glance from a male pedestrian; or that smile from a woman admiring how you put it all together. Surely you weren’t invisible in Venice. At the Danieli, the male waiters are full of complements for la bella signora.”
“I never went.”
“So that’s it, no Venetian input. What a loss. I was reminded this summer how much pleasure Italians take in giving pleasure. The head waiter would beam when I praised the food or wine he selected for me. Pleasure is in their genes. You missed being the recipient of it.”
“It was foolish not to go. I just redid my apartment and decided to pull back on spending.”
“If you had had your share of adoring smiles and flirtatious comments, would you be feeling invisible?”
“No. I would have chalked it up to the tendency of New Yorkers to turn a blind eye to everything except what needs to be done; whereas Italians always make time for beauty even if age has burnished the patina. I’ll have to endure invisibility till next summer when I return to Venice.”
Her voice halted but I finished her thought: “And you’re again pleasurably seen and esteemed.”
“Meanwhile I’ll see my dermatologist and ask him to be more aggressive in staving off the telltale signs.”
“It’s one thing to age, Elena, another to get old.”
“You’re being sweet again. I’ve done enough apartment renovations to know if the ceiling’s ready to collapse you do what’s necessary to keep it up.”
We left each other but my imagination was tweaked by her final remarks. The rest of the day I concocted a story about facial renovations that went too far. By coincidence, I ran into Elena the next day. We lingered on the corner of 15th and Fifth where I shared my story.
“I must tell you of a friend who also felt invisible. He had just turned seventy: charming, distinguished, financially independent and a widower. He was tired of being alone. He looked to be with thirty something women. But they never noticed him. So he visited his dermatologist who bowed to his demand for aggressive interventions.”
“What did he have done?”
“He had acid peels and his eyes done. Of course there were fillers and Botox and tightening of the neck. His face took brilliantly to the treatments. Liver spots were lasered; he dropped ten pounds and became buff at the gym. His salt and pepper hair was more pepper than salt. He looked no more than forty-five like George Clooney in his heyday. Suddenly he was dating attractive younger women every week. His vanity relaxed as his desirability peaked.”
“What happened?”
“He was rather unhappy.”
“Why? He found what he was looking for.”
“He accepted what he found and they’re not the same thing.”
“Wasn’t it knowing he was still desirable?”
“Yes, but it came at a great price. When he was with women half his age, the generational gap was too great. There was little to talk about, no shared interests. Emotionally, they were looking ahead while he was looking back. They didn’t see him for who he was because the extreme makeover was so successful. He pined for the face on his passport. When he returned to women friends, they were loath to go out with him. The disparity between their natural maturity and his unnatural youthfulness was too great. He was invisible again and alone.”
“What happened next?”
“I don’t know. What I’ve told you is as much as I’ve imagined.”
“You mean this never happened?”
“It did in my imagination. You triggered the story. It’s yours to do with as you please.”
She said nothing but leaned over and kissed me.
“Do you know how much I like you?”
“I do. It’s because you make me feel visible.”
Joseph Roccasalvo is a professional writer.
