“The fictional character?”
“Well, sort of,” Amie explained. “Each year, thousands of people send a letter addressed to Juliet, asking for her guidance in their love lives. And there’s a group of people who live in Verona, they call themselves Juliet’s secretaries, and they answer each letter on her behalf. By hand.”
“That sounds like a big responsibility.”
“I know. I certainly don’t think my advice could be trusted when it comes to romance,” she said. Then an odd look of entrancement settled upon her face. An idea, or perhaps a memory, visibly dancing across her mind.
“You look like you’re lost in thought,” Ben said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I do that sometimes.” Amie smiled, looking slightly embarrassed. “I was just remembering this woman who could have really used Juliet’s counsel.”
“A friend of yours?” Ben asked.
“No, not at all. Just someone whose story intrigued me once. Funny enough, I actually read about her in a letter. This woman named Gertrude.”
The word nearly knocked Ben off his chair, the name an electric jolt. Gertrude.
Those simple syllables awakened every other recognition, as if the similarities between Amie and the mysterious “A” had been slowly piling up since they’d met, at last standing tall enough to be viewed in full. Both were English teachers in Manhattan, both lived on the Upper West Side. And this letter about Gertrude, it had to be his letter, right?
Ben’s heartbeat started to accelerate. It couldn’t be. Absolutely not.
Could it?
“I just realized,” Ben said, “I’ve never asked you what school you teach at?”
“Oh, it’s called the Connelly Academy, on the Upper East Side,” Amie answered. “I know, it’s much more posh than I am.”
Ben opened his mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out, so he quickly lifted his cup to cover his face, to give him just one moment to compose himself. But he nearly choked on his coffee.
Amie taught at the same school where Ben sat every Sunday night, where he left his letters each week. It had to be her, he thought. He could feel it in his bones, if that were even possible.
He knew, in the rational part of his brain, that there might still be another answer, but he felt that there was simply no alternative. It had to be her.
Nina
On their final day in Italy, Nina and Maura boarded the hour-long train from Venice to Verona.
The day trip was Amie’s recommendation, and both Nina and Maura had agreed that the literary city was worth a stop. Verona was also far less crowded than Venice, except for one corner off the main piazza, where lovers and bookworms and tourists alike all made the pilgrimage to the Casa di Giulietta.
As the women made their way to Juliet’s courtyard, they passed beneath an archway at the entrance. The inner walls of the arch were completely covered with layers of names scrawled on top of each other, accumulating year after year. From afar, it looked like a chaotic web of graffiti, illegible scribbles in thick black Sharpies and pens of every color, filling the entire wall with markings. But, upon leaning in more closely, they could untangle individual names and signatures: Marko and Amin. Giuli & Simo. Angela + Sam. Manuel and Grace. Nick & Ron. M+L. Teddy was here.
Maura glanced at Nina, who could always be trusted to carry a pen, and they each signed their initials on the wall, wherever they could find some blank space. Then they emerged from the walkway onto a patio, where a few dozen visitors had gathered to gaze at the storied stone balcony above and take photos with the bronze statue of Juliet, standing demurely in the center.
The couple was rather disheartened to learn, almost immediately, that another popular custom was to rub the young girl’s breasts, the way other statues’ toes or shoes are touched for good fortune.
“Mi scusi.” Maura caught the attention of a woman near them. “Perché la toccano?” She gestured toward the tourist with a hand on Juliet’s chest.
The woman turned out to be a fellow American. “Are you asking me why they grab her boobs? I think it’s supposed to bring you good luck in your love life.”
“Because Juliet was so lucky in that department,” Nina whispered skeptically.
“Well, this is just upsetting.” Maura winced, watching two teenage boys who seemed desperate for love.
So the two of them sidestepped the crowd waiting in line for their turn with the statue and headed to the wall behind Juliet, filled with hundreds of messages written on small Post-it notes and jagged-edged pages ripped from journals, as each new visitor partook in the time-honored tradition of leaving a letter for the tragic heroine.