Flora hadn’t moved from Italy to New York City specifically to grow up. But she had assumed that would occur automatically once she got there. Unfortunately, life there turned out to be a rapid-fire series of events that excited her but left her dizzy. And somehow the constant activity froze her emotionally. The more she did the less she changed and matured. It was a lot of fun though.
She fell into her job at Bella Figura Leather Goods on West 43rd Street after getting a tip from an acquaintance of an acquaintance. It was the sort of job that featured more intrigue than actual work. Her gossipy co-workers loved to ask her about Paul, the American medical student she met one Saturday night while dancing at The Palladium. He was well over six feet tall with platinum blond hair and his skin was so pale that Flora’s co-workers joked that he looked like a hologram. They were even more intrigued by his singular behavior. Unlike most people caught up in the perpetual motion of 1990s New York, he was unusually still, able to sit for long periods without moving or saying much at all.
Of course Paul spoke to her the night they met at The Palladium by literally bumping into each other on the dance floor. Dark-haired Flora was tiny and Paul hadn’t even seen her at first. He asked if she was all right and she shook her head to say yes. Then by instinct they began to dance together for nearly 40 minutes. It was a phenomenal night. All the dancers, those that were heavily drugged and those that were not, including Flora and Paul, fell into a nearly trance-like state. There was so much electricity in the air that no one seemed to care when it became obvious that, contrary to rumor, the divine singer Prince would not make a surprise appearance that night.
Flora never fell in love with Paul as such. But she had never met anyone like him before and she appreciated his peculiar ways. His steadiness was comforting. She even thought he had a strange grace. Unfortunately he also had a detached clinical mind and Flora would have preferred that he had a better sense of humor. But he was relaxing to be around.
Besides she already had figured out they wouldn’t be together forever. She assumed that their relationship most likely would wind down amicably when he completed medical school and moved elsewhere. Much later Flora would realize that Paul’s steady, mysterious quietness had helped her settle easily into hyperkinetic Manhattan as if that were a simple feat. Paul had been easy to underestimate because he had so little ego that he seemed to take up almost no psychological space. And, so, it did not occur to her that she should seriously consider going to Baltimore with him when he began his residency at Johns Hopkins, although he invited her to do so.
As far as she could tell moving to Baltimore would have meant being surrounded by frumps. And Downtown New York in the mid-1990s was an extraordinarily exciting place for young people like Flora who followed fashion passionately. She was not ready to give up on her dream of designing outlandish clothes under her own label, although she had no idea how she might accomplish that. At that time in New York there was an intoxicating sense that anyone could become anything that they liked. To reinvent yourself all you had to do was snap your fingers. She wasn’t sure if New York was the real world or not, but she could not imagine leaving this fascinating place with its own laws of gravity just yet.
The week Paul left The Palladium closed and Flora found herself spending Saturday night alone at home for once. She was missing her favorite club and Paul. There were other Downtown clubs she could have visited with her work friends but she did not like them as much. Places like The Tunnel were too degenerate for her taste. But her fourth-floor walk-up on East Houston was also depressing. It was miniscule, badly maintained by her landlord, and the fire escape outside her only window was falling apart. She had never expected to live in such a squalid place. But her co-workers insisted the apartment’s condition did not matter because there were so many good reasons to go out.
On Monday she returned to work at Bella Figura where business was slow. Actually, the store never had many customers and no one could figure out why. To pass the time the manager, a nosy American woman named Beth who wore her brown hair in a tight, precise bun, asked if Flora had heard from Paul.
“Not yet,” Flora replied.
“Are you worried?” Beth asked.
“About what?”
“I don’t know… are you worried whether he is okay or maybe are you worried that he will forget you?”
“He is okay and he will not forget me.”
“Well, you will forget him. He was a bore. We all used to laugh about how dim he was.”
“You shouldn’t say that!”
Beth didn’t reply. At 35 she was ten years older than Flora and she seemed to think that her seniority in age and in the Bella Figura hierarchy exempted her from apologizing. Flora knew that she had not done a good job of explaining her relationship with Paul to her co-workers because it, like Paul, was not easy to explain. But she was stunned that Beth and others had reached their own mean-spirited conclusions about him.
“There aren’t any customers today – do you think it would be alright if I left early?”
“Well, you never know when someone will come in. But go if you must.”
The following day Flora dressed for work in an incongruous but very stylish outfit consisting of gym pants paired with a fake Chanel jacket, the sort of attire she had often worn to The Palladium. The phone rang and she was not surprised to hear Beth’s voice telling her not to come in for the rest of the week.
Flora realized that her status at Bella Figura was shaky. But the week off was welcome. She walked and walked, roving from Gaseteria to the FDR Drive. She enjoyed seeing her Lower East Side neighborhood on a weekday for a change. Like other young Europeans she had been drawn to the Lower East Side’s vitality and sense of possibility at a time when prospects at home for working in the arts, or working at all, were waning. She loved her hometown Otranto, yet there had been nothing of a professional nature to keep her there. Indeed Italy had not offered her much of a future at all, at least not the future she envisioned for herself.
But her timing in New York wasn’t great either. She was about a decade late. The party was not exactly over, but its best moments had passed. There were still places to dance the night away, but the dynamic art and fashion scene born on the streets of her neighborhood had turned greedy and mercantile. Flora had no idea if it made sense for her to try and stay and carve out a life of her own in this changing New York. Actually, she wasn’t sure if she had a future anywhere.
Beth called the following Sunday night to tell Flora she had been let go permanently. Flora’s sly manager did not have the courage to face her. So the following day Davide, another Italian who worked at Bella Figura, was sent over with Flora’s final check and a sweater she had left at the store.
“You look well. I guess you are taking the news well.”
“I guess I am. I am going to stay until the end of my lease. Maybe I will find another job and stay longer. But it is hard to stay and work here without residency.”
Flora explained that she entered the U.S. legally on a student visa, after being accepted for an NYU master’s program in Art History. But she became so entranced with Downtown night life that the study of old masterpieces began to seem quaint and irrelevant. Not to mention the fact that she stayed out so late that she often slept through her classes. She ditched the program on a whim. But now that her perch in the U.S. was growing shakier she was nervous.
“Davide, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Are you here legally?”
“If I tell you the truth you can’t tell anyone. It could put me in danger.”
“Oh I would never do that.”
“I am married to an American woman.”
“Really! Did you ever bring her to the store?”
“No, I couldn’t. She lives in Syracuse and I hardly ever see her. It’s not a real marriage. I paid her $15,000 to marry me so that I could stay here.”
“How did you meet her?”
“There is an under-the-radar network of people. I had to pay $2,000 just to meet her. She was a nice woman but had a lot of bad luck and needed money.”
“Do you ever see her?”
“I go to Syracuse every six weeks for a weekend. We always make a show of my arrival so the neighbors see me. And I leave some things at the house in case immigration agents check. There’s even a photo of us that looks like a wedding ceremony.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of play-acting.”
“It is, but what are my options? I have two engineering degrees but there was no work for me in Italy. Being married will let me apply for residency and work here one day. Are you interested? I met an American man on Staten Island who is looking for a similar arrangement. I won’t charge you.”
“Isn’t there a less drastic way that I could get residency? I’m not sure I could manage a fake marriage.”
“Well you could apply for the Green Card lottery at Federal Plaza. Every year the US gives out 50,000 immigrant visas to people who apply.”
“Why didn’t you try that?”
“Oh, I did. But I didn’t win. Almost no one does. But go ahead and apply.”
Flora agonized over whether to meet the man on Staten Island, sitting up late at nights in her gloomy apartment debating with herself. She had never knowingly broken a single law anywhere and hadn’t realized until after she quit NYU that doing so placed her legal status in jeopardy. She was a lover of the flamboyant in art, fashion and life generally, but that didn’t mean she was some sort of taboo-smashing law breaker. And fabricating a sham marriage could put her in trouble with the U.S. Immigration authorities.
But at length it occurred to her that meeting the Staten Island man did not obligate her to marry him. She would just be exploring an option. She called Davide at his Manhattan apartment but got his answering machine and left a message. She wondered if he was up in Syracuse playacting with his “wife.” A few days later Davide called back. He had indeed been in Syracuse.
The next day Davide knocked on Flora’s door. He explained that all their arrangements needed to be made in person to avoid surveillance. He already had set up an appointment for her to meet the man the following evening. Her prospective “fiancé” was named Doug and had worked as an auto mechanic until he injured his back working under a car. He hadn’t worked in a year which was why he was willing to marry a stranger for a fee.
The trip to Staten Island was an exotic experience for Flora, who was as unfamiliar with most of New York City as she was familiar with the Lower East Side. The ferry ride from lower Manhattan to Staten Island felt like a momentous crossing. She was entering a new world, the world of deception and chicanery, and it felt horrible.
Doug was not waiting for her in the ferry terminal on Staten Island. She was expected to go to his apartment, which meant boarding a bus and traveling for several miles, passing blocks of dull-looking apartment buildings. The area looked like the middle of nowhere. She was feeling worse and worse as the ride wore on. Finally, the bus driver told her where to get off and she made her way to her “lover’s” building where she waited outside for 20 minutes. Eventually another resident let her in. Then she walked up three flights to the floor where Doug lived.
A tall strangely familiar-looking man with platinum hair and ghostly white skin opened the door. Flora gasped. Doug looked eerily like her old boyfriend Paul. What were the chances that something like this would happen? She wondered if she had wandered into a set-up. Was Davide playing a nasty trick? She murmured something about being in the wrong place and fled.
It took six hours for Flora to find her way back to the Lower East Side in the darkness. When she was finally in her apartment she felt tremendous relief. The sight of Paul’s weird double had spooked her. She wanted to forget that she ever made the desperate voyage to Staten Island. Yet the uncanny encounter with Doug helped her to make a decision. It was settled: she would stay until her lease ended in four months and that would be the end of her life in New York. It was unthinkable that she could ever enter a cynical fake marriage to a man who so closely resembled the kind person who had been her real lover. She did not have sufficient artifice in her psyche for that.
Flora resolved to enjoy her remaining months in New York even though she was alone now that Paul was gone and she had faced the fact that her old co-workers weren’t true friends. She made a list of every museum and gallery and vowed to visit each one before her departure. That would fill her remaining time.
One day in the middle of Flora’s good-by tour of the city’s art scene she answered a knock on her door and found her beautiful first cousin Ornella standing outside. Flora was stunned because Ornella had traveled very little within Italy and never mentioned a desire to venture outside it.
“I can’t believe you’ve come!”
”I wanted to surprise you!”
The two cousins had grown up together and resembled each other. Ornella was a few inches taller and two years older than Flora. However, at times Ornella seemed to be much older, almost like a member of their parents’ generation. Flora often felt flighty when she was around Ornella. It was as if one cousin had been born old while the other was incapable of maturity.
When the two women finished their greetings, Ornella appraised Flora’s dingy apartment with alarm. She often had trouble understanding Flora’s outrageous taste and seemingly strange choices. She thought that living in this dumpy walk-up apartment was by far the weirdest thing Flora had ever done.
“I never in a million years thought your New York apartment would look like this. It’s so small and, if I may say so, so ugly.
“I know but living in this kind of place is much more common in New York than you would think. Everything costs so much that young people often live in extremely small and shabby places. It’s the price of living in New York. ”
“What time do you have to be in class?”
“Oh, to tell you the truth, I don’t.”
Flora was stalling. It was going to be hard to explain to Ornella that she had dropped out of a prestigious university in order to pursue Downtown night life and the vague possibility of a fashion career.
“Why don’t you have class?”
“Well, as it turns out, I am no longer enrolled.”
“What?”
Ornella looked shocked. Flora asked her to sit down while she made espresso for them both. Then she explained as concisely and truthfully as she could the entire story of her year in New York to her stunned cousin. When she got to the part about dropping out of school she could only say that it had “made sense at the time.” Ornella looked even more dazed when Flora explained to her that she had declined her medical student boyfriend’s offer to accompany him to Baltimore in order to spend time with fashion types at dance clubs.
At the end of Flora’s amazing tale, Ornella reached over and kissed her cousin on the forehead.
“I came for a surprise visit, but I think it would be best if I take you home with me when I leave next week. This city is not good for you. You keep doing crazier and crazier things without even realizing it. Nothing you have done here has made any sense at all.”
Given Ornella’s reaction, Flora decided it would be best if she omitted the final and wildest chapter of her tale: her recent nocturnal visit to a prospective husband-for-hire on Staten Island. That news would terrify her cousin.
“You will be fine once you come home. You have done these senseless things because you are not at your best in such a strange and sprawling place. But in Otranto you will meet another man and you will find some work. It may not be possible for young people to have a great career in Italy these days, but you can find some sort of job. Maybe you can work in an office like me.”
Flora smiled sweetly. She already had resigned herself to returning to Italy and to the likelihood of a job as opposed to a career. She had concluded that some things simply were not in the cards even before Ornella’s unexpected knock on her door. And the ever sensible Ornella was right: Flora would be better off when she was once again surrounded by her family and old friends. In time her year on the rugged Lower East Side would be a distant and amusing memory. All would be well.
It was a nearly perfect week once the two women had gotten the sad conversation about Flora’s misadventures out of the way and come to an agreement about her future. During that week Flora left her wilder dance club outfits in the closet and put on a pair of handsome well-tailored grey slacks and a black and grey checked blazer to accompany her cousin around town. She and Ornella spent most of the week far from the Lower East Side, visiting the Metropolitan and other museums along Upper Fifth Avenue and eating in nearby restaurants.
At the end of that superb week Flora found herself helping her cousin into a taxi that would whisk her to JFK Airport. Ornella had repeated her wish to bring Flora back with her to Italy on the same flight. But Flora had resisted. She had a few months left on her lease and needed the time to pack up and visit a few more galleries and perhaps a dance club or two. She was certain that she would be back at home soon enough. She just wanted to enjoy a few last pleasant adventures in this enchanting but impossible place.
And that is exactly how Flora’s New York sojourn would have ended if she had not found a letter from the U.S. Immigration Services waiting for her when she returned to her apartment that day. The letter explained that she was one of the very few and very lucky entrants in this year’s lottery to be selected for a Green Card granting her permanent residency in the U.S. She was welcome to stay forever. It seemed that the U.S. had just been testing her all along.
“My God,” she blurted out, although no one was there “What will Ornella think now?”
And then a question formed in her mind. It was the question she would spend the rest of her life pondering: was she lucky or was she stuck?