Saturday morning—the next day I would go home to see Matteo and Luisa. I had to survive one more night. The emerald dress hung on my door like an executioner’s blade.
I woke at ten and stared until my eyes stung. I couldn’t touch it. Outside, Tuscan light poured through the shutters—thin, dusty stripes across terracotta tile. The air smelled faintly of lemon oil and old books; somewhere beyond the cypresses a chapel bell tolled once, like a warning. My phone skated across the nightstand.
Tomorrow! Noon pickup. Café first. I miss you—Luisa had written.
Can’t wait to see you. So much to tell!—from Matteo.
At two there was a knock. Ferraro stood immaculate in the corridor, beside him, Signora Giulietta, elderly and glowing, cradled armfuls of supplies.
“Signora Giulietta has kindly agreed to help you prepare for tonight,” he said.
“So beautiful, cara. I’m honored,” she beamed, breath faintly of anise and coffee.
“I don’t think—” I began.
His eyes hardened for one second—the photos—and smoothed. “It’s so generous. Grazie, Signora,” my mouth replied.
He kissed Giulietta’s hand. “I’ll finalize arrangements. Take your time. Make her beautiful.” To me, mild and absolute: “I’ll be in the hall.” The door clicked shut, neat as a boundary I did not own.
Giulietta laid out dye, scissors, a palette, a curling iron older than my mistakes. The little residence room felt suddenly too small—whitewashed walls, a crucifix no one discussed, a window framing olive silvers and a slice of ochre hillside. “Sit, cara. It takes time.”
The dye bit my scalp. “Ninety minutes,” she said, chatting while the chemicals rewrote me. “I remember your mother on Venetian Summer. So kind. She let me try three ballroom styles.”
Knives wrapped in lace. I nodded and let her build a shrine while swallows stitched the sky outside and the gravel path below glittered like salt.
“That emerald dress—magnifico. And her hair, dark and shining. Just like this will be.”
We rinsed. Water ran brown into the stone basin. Blonde disappeared. She cut—snip, snip—leaving shoulder-length dark waves that didn’t belong to me yet. Makeup next: foundation, sculpted cheekbones, drama at the eyes, a darker mouth. Another curtain lowered over the girl trying to breathe.
“Now the dress.”
Emerald fabric spilled like cold water. Vintage, fitted, loyal to no lungs. I wriggled in; the zipper became law. The silk held the day’s heat the way the hills held sun—relentless, impersonal.
She led me to the mirror. My mother looked back—dark hair, dark eyes, that green burning. Bella exited the chat.
“You could be her twin!” Giulietta clapped, delighted. “Come, let’s show everyone!”
We walked the corridor—staff double-took, whispered. Giulietta presented me like a masterpiece.
At seven the great hall opened. Thirty people—staff, patients, administrators—tables and flowers arranged with surgical precision. Low arrangements of wild fennel and white roses perfumed the air; Sangiovese breathed in crystal under frescoed ceilings where angels pretended not to watch. Music hummed like wallpaper. Ferraro in a dark suit stood at center, a geometry of correctness. His eyes found me. Heads turned.
“Is that—?” “She looks—” “Incredibile—”
He took my hand, courtly, fingers cool as polished stone. “Bellissima,” he whispered. “Perfect.” To the room: “Thank you for celebrating Isabella tonight.” Applause.
A flute appeared in my hand as if conjured. The song from Venetian Summer began—strings like sugar glass. He pulled me to the floor. His palm settled at my waist: anchor and stamp. The chandeliers trembled slightly in the evening draft; outside, cypresses trailed black needles against a violet sky.
“You look just like your mother,” he said as we orbited. The tone was a case note—trigger, stimulus, expected response. “I wrote letters. She never answered. I wasn’t good enough.” His grip tightened one breath.
There it was: I wasn’t a person; I was the replacement part. Reflection as resurrection. An adult man had bent my softness into the shape of his shrine. The hall blurred—Renaissance oil, the metallic glitter of cutlery, lemon leaves sighing at the open doors. I felt nineteen and suddenly a hundred.
The music ended. Compliments fell like confetti. “You two look stunning.” “Che meraviglia.” I smiled, nodded, hollowed out more. Somewhere a cork popped. Somewhere someone delighted in me without seeing me at all.
In the bathroom, the emerald stranger stared. The mirror held a woman I had been arranged to resemble. I pressed cold water to my burning cheeks and watched a drop chase mascara like a race I was losing.
Near midnight, when the crowd thinned to embers and the courtyard crickets took the melody, Ferraro leaned close. “Come. I want to show you something I’ve kept for twenty years.”
We moved through a side corridor where plaster cooled the night air and our footsteps sounded false. He unlocked a door marked Private Residence.
The bedroom was spare: burgundy sheets, wooden nightstands, a reading chair by the window where the moon made lace of the curtains. Monastic. Except for what hung above the bed. It was a framed poster: my mother in Venetian Summer, emerald dress blazing, her smile enormous over his pillow. At the bottom, in silver pen: To Luca, with warmth—Gianna.
“He had slept under her every night,” my mind observed, too calm.
“She signed it at a charity gala,” he said, eyes on her. “Three months before she died.”
He turned to me—the copied dress, the copied hair, the copied face. “And now you’re here. In my room. Wearing her dress. You look exactly like her.”
He closed the door. The lock clicked, small and absolute.
Inside that click I heard everything he had done: mapped grief onto a girl and called it fate; wrapped ethics in daylight and used them as a veil at night; praised my “observational acuity” while teaching me to vanish.
I thought of the dye, the scissors, the zipper, the choreography; of olive terraces under starlight and how even old stone could feel like a cage. This wasn’t love. It was an arrangement. Curation. A shrine that demanded a living sacrifice.