From Rome, Italy. Piazza Novona. Photo Credit: Chrissie Werzinsky.
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/FICTOGRAPHY/ def. — The intersection of photography (submitted by readers) and fiction (written by me!).
The above photograph was taken by a dear friend of mine, Chrissie Werzinsky, in Rome at Piazza Navona. Chrissie works for the Baltimore Orioles, and has for years, which is how we met many moons ago. Chrissie and I have a lot in common; we both love the Hallmark Channel, Pinterest, baseball, our Orioles friends, and novels that make you feel good. Luckily, my husband and I traveled to Rome before we had children, so I got to spend time visiting Piazza Navona. I was excited to see the photo Chrissie took and use it to create a story.
To set up today’s short fiction, people have asked me after reading “Beneath the Mimosa Tree,” if I plan to write a sequel. At this time, I have no plans of it. My mother suggested that I write a prequel, featuring Vivi, who is the grandmother in—and an important part of—the story of Annabelle and Michael, and write the background of Vivi’s life. With that in mind, I wrote today’s Fictography post. So, think of it as taking place in the mid 1950s, as Vivi gets the opportunity to go to Italy—Rome—for the summer.
I’ve been trying to keep these snippets under 500 words. Today’s is 469. #flashfiction
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Viv’s Summer
Her English was broken, but Giovanna was able to get her point across. In Italian, she spoke to her niece. “Don’t-a take any wooden nickels,” and “don’t-a bring any strange-a men here,” were the two warnings that Viviana—Vivi—took away from the short lecture that she was receiving from her aunt.
In a matter of minutes, the place would be all hers, as soon as Giovanna and Ricardo left for Capri for the summer. Giovanna had asked her to come, to stay the summer, to get away from old memories and broken hearts, and Vivi had accepted. She longed to separate herself from the suburbs of New York and be back in a city, a vibrant one, and one in which she had often spent time during her summers as a teenager.
The opportunity to return to Rome, however, required her to quit her corporate job, which she did rather abruptly without blinking an eye, and days later, she was flying across the Atlantic and back to a place she would undoubtedly call her second home. It would be a chance to reevaluate her life, and she yearned to find her creativity again—to write, to paint, and to draw. It was not often that one receives the gift of a summer of freedom, and she was about to embrace every waking moment of it.
Her aunt kissed her on the cheek, and Ricardo grabbed Giovanna’s last bag. The taxi had arrived, ready to take them on their own summer adventure. Giovanna pinched Vivi’s cheeks, and kissed her on each one. “There is cheese, huh?, in the box, and bread. You go-a to the market and you get-a whatta you need.” She stuffed a handful of paper lire into Vivi’s hands, waved goodbye, and they were off in the taxi.
Vivi stood on the balcony that overlooked Piazza Navona and let her long, dark hair blow in the breeze. Her aunt’s blooms were full and rich in the flower boxes, but Vivi could still see the action in the piazza. She reached for her Comet, and began to snap photographs, needing to translate what she was seeing into images she would develop herself so she could revisit as time marched on, and her days spent here were over. The vista from the balcony allowed her to zoom in on certain shots and see the world from up above.
The sun peeked through the clouds, and the morning became even more glorious than it already was. Vivi put the camera away, slipped on her Chloe Ballerina flats, put a kerchief around her hair, and made her way out the front door, carefully placing the keys to the place in her small clutch. For a moment, she felt like Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday,” off to participate in her own adventure.
