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Dan books a one way flight to Venice.
Because it’s obvious, because it’s not fashionable, because he troops in with other gawking Americans with their fanny packs and flip flops. Because it smells like the sea but there’s no way to swim. Because there’s no possibility of running into her, arms full with paper bags, sunglasses, slim ankles, little piqued mouth, Humphrey, what are you doing here?
It’s obvious, but he’s not the subtle kind anyway. He can’t deny the little trill of excitement when he sees the Piazza San Marco from the ferry, hands clenching a tourist guide in his jacket pocket, when he steps from the rocking boat to solid ground. He is in a book, in a photograph, in a postcard, and all he wants to do is write on it, “Wish you were here.” Big red letters, in that lipstick shade she likes so much.
Someone’s selling fake Prada while he’s looking at the Bridge of Sighs, and as if on cue, Dan’s phone begins to ring.
"Where are you?”
"Venice. Hello to you, too, Blair."
She ignores this. “What are you doing there? What are you, a teenager looking for an exotic place to get drunk on overpriced alcohol?”
"I needed some inspiration," it sounds lame, and he knows it, can practically see Blair eyeing it with distaste. "And I’ve never been to Venice." Everything feels like a little rebellion when she doesn’t approve.
"And we haven’t started our queue," and just like that, the disapproval gives way to a little whine.
"Aren’t you busy, you know, with the whole wedding thing?" Someone crowds him out from his spot and he ambles away, one hand still clutching his brand-new Travellers Venice. He doesn’t mention she hasn’t contacted him for a month. He doesn’t mention that he’s been waiting.
She doesn’t reply, and it’s dead quiet wherever she is, because he can practically hear her pacing around, heels clicking on the floor. He imagines her lips forming that word, please, imagines all the other things she could be pleading him to do, but stops before it goes any further.
He expects her to hang up, but instead she says in a soft voice that almost sounds wistful, “What’s in Venice?”
Not you. "Seagulls. Gondolas. Tourists. Lots of tourists." He leaves out the fake Pradas because Blair can only take so much.
Blair laughs. “Sounds fabulous,” she says in a way that might be the closest thing to something that sounds like I miss you.
"Old buildings and winged lions," he walks, seeing it for her, the structures that people have left behind. "Cameras, cafes, a string quartet playing badly." He’s not writing a story in his head as he does this, he’s not imagining a girl in a dress and sunglasses, alighting from a gondola, looking for him. That girl is not here.
"When are you coming back to New York?"
"Soon." The word escapes before he even has time to think about it. Irrelevantly, he remembers that it’s 2pm in Monaco, that the shadows are falling the same way wherever she is. "I just needed to see Venice, I guess."
"Venice and its tourists and winged lions," Blair says, and he can practically hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
Venice is not New York, and that should be enough. The city is an absence that he wants.
He’s suddenly aware that they’re both quiet now.
"Dan…"
"Yes."
"Let me know when you’re back in New York, okay?"
It’s a one-way ticket, and I just got here, he wants to say. She’s stopped pacing, waiting for his answer.
"Yeah," it slips out, and it’s humiliating how easy it is to say it. "I’ll be back soon." It sounds strangely intimate, a husband coming home.
"I give you leave to at least try a gondola ride," Blair is smiling now, but she hangs up anyway without waiting for his reply. Dan shakes his head and tucks away his phone.
I’m not booking a flight back, he tells himself, calculating hours.
At the end of the day, Venice gives him a story and it starts like this—
A boy falls in love with a girl sailing away from him.