Kissing in Italian

I’m looking at a portrait of a young woman, hung on the wall of an art gallery. And washing over me is the oddest kind of déjà vu, a dizziness that’s making my head spin a little. I can see my own face reflected in the glass, overlaid on hers, and it’s reminding me, suddenly, of the last time I saw myself inside an ornate gold portrait frame. Of how my summer Italian adventure started.

I’m in Italy, on a hot July afternoon, grateful for the thick stone walls of the Siena art museum, cooling the air. And the reason I’m in this country is that a few months ago, back home in London, in another museum, I saw another painting—of a girl who looked so like me that it made me feel something I had wondered about for most of my life
might be true after all. That portrait sent me on a search to find out how I could possibly have had a twin in eighteenth-century Italy.

Thank goodness, this picture doesn’t look anything like me. Quite the opposite, in fact. The girl, or young woman, is pale, with a long nose that seems to follow straight down from her high, extremely plucked, winged eyebrows. There’s a flush in her cheeks, and her lips are dark pink, pressed firmly together, set with determination, the same determination that comes through clearly in the firm jut of her chin. And when you look down to the baby she’s holding in her arms, you understand why she looks so resolved. Because that’s not just any baby; it’s Jesus.

“I like her,” I say quietly to Kelly, who’s standing next to me.

She nods, looking dazed. Kelly isn’t used to going around proper museums. Unlike me, lucky enough to have been taken on trips and to lots of art galleries and sent to an expensive private school, Kelly isn’t from a privileged background. These extraordinary paintings and sculptures we’ve seen in Siena today have hit her like a ton of bricks; she’s staring in absolute awe at each one.

This Madonna and Child is definitely having a powerful effect on us. As I lean forward to look at the mother’s expression, my face appears in the glass again, and I feel it’s a reproach for having abandoned my quest. I came to Italy to find out why, when I don’t look anything like my parents, I have a Tuscan double from the eighteenth century—only to find myself tangled in a web of family secrets that I had never anticipated. I thought I might have been adopted, or
was maybe some weird kind of genetic throwback, and I was prepared for that. I love my mum and dad with all my heart, but I still needed to know why I look so very different from them.

What I hadn’t expected—how could I have?—was to find myself falling for the son of the family that lives in the castle where the portrait was painted. And to have to face the fear that Luca, the boy I find so desperately attractive, might be—dare I even think it again—my half brother. That his playboy dad might be
my
biological dad too. I backed off my search when I realized that awful possibility.

But looking at the Madonna in front of me, at the strength of purpose I read in her face, I feel ashamed. I let myself be distracted from my quest by my feelings for a boy. I pushed the whole thing under the carpet, pretended it never happened, because I was scared to find out that Luca and I are blood relatives.

Well, time to get back on track, Violet!
I tell myself decisively.
There are plenty more fish in the sea besides Luca di Vesperi! You have to woman up, as Paige would say. Finding out the truth about who you are is much more important than spending time with a boy you fancy. Boys come and go, but knowing who you are and where you come from is priceless
.

I feel myself setting my chin decisively. I have to write to my mum. I can’t put it off anymore. I thought I could find out the truth without upsetting her; I was too scared to ask her before, since she’s never said anything to me. We love each other so much that I’ve been afraid of doing anything that might make her sad. But I need to know the truth about myself. I can tell her some of the story—not that I came to
Tuscany on this mission, but that by coincidence, we visited the castello and I met the
principessa
—who blurted out that I looked just like the people in her husband’s family. It’s raised the question even more strongly of why I don’t look anything like Mum or Dad, anything at all.…

I heave a deep sigh, fully understanding for the first time in my life the expression about a weight falling from your shoulders. The sense of relief is overwhelming. I feel as if I could float off the ground, like smoke rising gently into the air.

“I’m going to write to my mum and ask her to tell me everything,” I say to Kelly, who knows the whole story and is quick enough to grasp immediately what I mean.

“I think that’s a brilliant idea, Violet,” she says seriously, and takes my hand. “You need to know. Do it as soon as we get back.”

I nod, swallowing hard.

“Omigod, look at that
hair
!” Paige exclaims, coming up behind us. “It’s like they had hot rollers in ancient times!”

She’s not talking about the Madonna, whose hair is pulled back under a translucent white veil, but about the angel standing behind her. The angel’s tresses are an impressive riot of golden curls. It’s typical of Paige to focus on the most frivolous aspect of the painting.

“Painted by Francesco di Giorgio in 1471,” Kelly says, reading from the plaque.

“They all look exactly the same,” Paige continues, looming over us. “All these girls.”

“It’s what was fashionable then,” Kelly explains. “Their
ideal of beauty. They only painted women who looked like you were supposed to look.”

“That’s
harsh
,” Paige says, her wide mouth opening in surprise. “And
unfair
. Kendra?”

She turns, and with a wide swing of her arm, her bangles jingling, waves over the fourth member of our summer course, who strolls over to join us. Heads turn to look at Paige, mostly with disapproving expressions at the noise she’s making, but Paige is oblivious. These two American girls are unself-conscious in public, with none of the self-effacing, be-quiet-and-don’t-call-attention-to-yourself manners we British have.

“Hey, Kendra!” Paige continues. “Did you know that long ago you had to have a certain look for people to think you were beautiful?”

Kendra raises her eyebrows. “Times haven’t changed that much,” she says dryly. “I don’t see many girls my color on the cover of fashion magazines.”

Kendra is African American. I haven’t thought about it before, but now that she makes the point, I see what she means.

“There are some girls like you on magazine covers,” says tall, blond Paige. “Aren’t there?”

Kendra says tersely, “Hardly.”

Kelly, who’s redheaded and definitely on the curvy side, says pointedly, “But all the girls in magazines are thin like you, Kendra.”