Lost in the Plaza - Short Story by Fay L. Loomis

 

 

Lost in the Plaza

Short Story by Fay L. Loomis

            Dante rushed toward his publishing house, disappeared into the crowd at the edge of the red-bricked plaza. We had stood in the granite circle, hugged, and said our goodbyes. Tears, sharp as glass, lacerated my cheeks.

            I, too, had to hurry or miss my flight. Wheeling, my foot kicked something that made a metallic sound on the hard surface. Dante had dropped his keys.

            On our last night together, he had used one of the keys to open the vault door that held his rare book collection. I was dazzled by the number of volumes and asked how many lined the mahogany shelves.

            “I no longer know.” Pointing to a stack on a Rococo table, he said, “I don’t know when I will find time to catalogue my most recent gems—though I never forget a title.”

            My eyes riveted on a slim, bland-colored spine with red lettering. It was Hemingway’s first collection of short stories In Our Time. The Paris edition. I longed to caress it.

            “Come, beloved,” he said. “It’s already two. Let’s spend our last hours making love.” He sensed my disappointment and added, “I have given you a glimpse into my heart; perhaps another time you’ll take a deeper look.”

            He led me to his bower, draped in lilac gauze; we sipped the nectar of love until we drowned in sweetness. After a languorous breakfast of café au lait and freshly baked croissants, we reluctantly walked to the plaza where I now stood.

            I pretended to tie my shoe, surreptitiously slipped the keys into my pocket, and glanced at my watch.

            Inside the apartment, I slipped the gilded key, which looked like a snub-nosed, feathered arrow, into the vault door. I carefully pulled my book from the stack, locked the door, and left the keys on the entryway table. Dante would think that in the last minutes of our love thrall he had forgotten to take them.

            Everything went like clockwork:  train on schedule, just in time for the boarding call.  Settled, I pulled the red-lettered volume from my valise. Head back, eyes closed, I held it in my hands for a long time.

            I was in Paris, watching Hemingway struggle to find his clipped, packed writing style and wrest themes of loss, grief, and isolation from his tortured life. 

            What shape would Dante’s angst take when he discovered the missing book? Hemingway, a brutal writer and person, had lost all his early manuscripts. I consoled myself that Dante had lost only one.

            When I got home, there was a tender message from Dante. “Don’t wait a second, beloved, call me right now.”

            I never returned Dante’s call. Nor did I ever sell the book.

            A line from the Book of Common Prayer,” Give peace in our time O Lord,” inspired the title of Hemingway’s anthology. Those invocative words have become my life meditation.

Fay L. Loomis lives in the woods in Kerhonkson, New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers and Rat’s Ass Review Workshop, her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications. A stroke, combined with the pandemic, have woven quietude into Fay’s life.