The sound of a pencil gliding across transcribing paper and the never ending scent of peaches will linger in my brain until I die. I'm known for being over dramatic, but things like these are symbolic for certain moments in my life, and I don't think they're prepared for their final scene quite yet. Possibly, not ever. I will have to fight the urge to not look back. If I look back, the trees around this house of wood will hug me as if to ask me to stay. I would cave.
"Elio!" Mafalda calls me from down the hall, presumably from the top of the stairs. Typically, she'd see this as rude. Clearly, I'm running behind.
I pack what's left of my closet into a small suitcase, finishing with the blue cotton button-up, gifted to me years ago. Rushing around my bed as I lead the zipper to its end, I take one last glance of my room and close the door behind me. "Mi dispiace, Mafalda," the words fumble from my tongue as I skip a few steps down the stairs. Glancing into the main room, I can see my father speaking with my mother. They seem closer than any typical conversation. I hadn't given them being apart much thought, but now it seems like a lonely idea. America would love her if she could come.
One guest only, Mr. Perlman!
The letter written to Papa, inviting him to this years Annual Archeology Summit, had been clear and to the point. They must have mentioned the limitations at least seven times. Thus, here we are.
"Il padre è pronto?" (Is father ready?) I delicately trace my hand over the basket of peaches on the counter. Selection has never felt more important than now. When would I have another real peach? I've heard horror stories about the chemicals America puts in their food.
"Sì," looking at me up and down, she shakes her head. "Se hai intenzione di vedere Oliver, potresti voler cambiare i vestiti." (If you plan on seeing Oliver, you might want to change your clothes.)
The mention of his name makes my fingers skip over a section of the peaches. "Cosa intendi?" (What do you mean?)
Instead of receiving an answer, she looks at me again, smiles and shuffles to the outdoors. She knew?
"Elio!" my parents chant simultaneously. I turn to see their smiling faces. Quickly, to cover my confusion towards Mafalda, I laugh.
"Are you ready, my son?" my mother grabs my hands and kisses them nearly a hundred times.
"Yes! Never been more so," I take my sunglasses with one hand and flick them open. Wearing them, I imagine myself as Ferris from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"; unseen and misleading. Then panic surges through me. What if I'm not misleading? What if I'm noticeable.
"What is it, Elly?" My father glances over at me as we walk through the entrance hall to this old house.
"What if I'm- well," I pause for a moment. Speaking to anyone about my attraction to men has never been a strong suit of mine, "-easily read in America?"
My mother's voice intervenes with a reassuring, yet unintentionally cold observation, "They'll just think you're italian, Darling."
And she was right.
—
The flight from Barcelona to New York makes me tremendously hungry. Smells of smoke and peanuts filled the plane cabin, so I never worked up much of an appetite for food until now. It's already the next day at 8 in the morning. Ironically, time did not fly while sitting in a cramped cushion seat nearly 12 kilometers above the ocean.
"Hotdogs," I say. Father looks at me with a mix of confusion and excitement.
"Hotdogs? You want hotdogs for breakfast?" he laughs in bewilderment with a slight shake of his head. "Alright, hotdogs it is."
The next few hours are boring. If I feel like the plane ride was long, New York traffic is worse. Ultimately (5 hours later), we arrive at our hotel with full stomachs and a dire need of rest. Luckily for us, American hotel rooms are air conditioned and apparently luxurious. The hotel room my father's work bought for him, that is.
Stepping out of our taxi, the arch way entrance stands easily ten feet above my head. A man arrives to us from the door, asking for our bags. Father hands them over, so I do too. Before today, I didn't exactly know much about culture shock. I had read about it numerous times, but experiencing it is far different. Especially when you hear a woman in her fifties yell for a cigar and a beer at 9 in the morning, near a hotdog stand. She had been yelling this at nearly anyone who walked past her. Father says she was homeless, which doesn't seem too far off considering she looked lost and hurt. A feeling I've come to know all too well. I shouldn't hope to know it to that extent at any point in my life, but if I do, I will be to some extent prepared.
"Elly," I come back from my thoughts as we step into a gold plated elevator, the floor made of shining reflective glass. It's a wonder how it stays clean. "I'm required to attend a dinner tonight. You can join if you like."
The first few floors make the elevator ring at us, and I still haven't answered. The idea of possibly seeing Oliver at that dinner made me want to lock myself in a closet. And if I were allowed to go, then there's no doubt that his wife would be at his arm. I begin to laugh quietly, almost as a cry for help. "The mystery of life and love, it's a cold sting isn't it?" It's the only way I can say yes without giving myself a false hope of security.
Silence follows with the slowest nod I've seen from my father. He knows that I have accepted his offer out of courtesy, but he also knows that along side my respect will be the hands of heartbreak at my throat. I will have to act. I will have to give the show of a lifetime. No longer can I be a boy made broken by the ghost of love. I have to be Elio, a man after life's greatest moments. I have to accept the idea of a seven year gap. Most of all, I can not let my guard down.
In that moment, along with other realizations, I feel a sense come up to me that I had never felt before; a realization that will probably end up haunting me, but sacrifices are made to break. And what has broken out of me for the first time in years is war. The final ring announcing floor 8 sounds, and I can't help but to think it has an eerie similarity to the start of a boxing round. Match 1.
