Backlight, p.1
Backlight, page 1
BACKLIGHT
Christina Dennison
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
BACKLIGHT
First edition. September 30, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 Christina Dennison.
ISBN: 978-0999355541
Written by Christina Dennison.
Also by Christina Dennison
The Francesca Trilogy
Paparazzi
Soft Focus
Backlight (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Christina Dennison’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Christina Dennison
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Also By Christina Dennison
About the Author
To the ladies:
Amy, Daniela, Diana, Jackie, Karoun, Kathryn, Liz, Maria, Mary, Rachel
We make our own happy ending.
Chapter One
Francesca Garancini sat on the cold terrazzo floor of her apartment surrounded by colorful shoeboxes. Their names rang out like beautiful music—Giuseppe Zanotti, Manolo Blahnik, Roger Vivier, Jimmy Choo—but their love songs were no longer meant for her. She opened each box and wistfully removed the shoes from their dust covers, stroking the python skin or the smooth kid leather, trying them on her feet and studying them from several angles, standing to look in her full-length mirror. And then she boxed them up again and sent them to one of two piles marked with sticky notes: KEEP and SELL.
The "sell" pile was small in comparison to the "keep" pile and the stack of boxes yet to assess. She'd eliminated a pair of MiuMiu red and black checkerboard watersnake heels—they'd always pinched—and a pair of Alexander McQueen sandals with gold skulls over the toes. She was ready to get rid of those; the shoes she'd worn to Moscow with Selim. The shoes she'd worn to her abortion.
She paused after granting clemency to her favorite pair of neon yellow Jimmy Choos—would it ever be possible to find that color again? It was so bright it was practically a neutral!—and lit a cigarette from the half-empty pack of Marlboros tossed on the floor. As she inhaled, she kept from pursing her lips; she could barely afford wrinkles now. No money for Botox, yet she had to keep her skin youthful if she was going to find another rich man.
Not that she had any hope of meeting one. Opening night at La Scala last night and she had to read about it in the newspaper: her Uncle Marco, a grand patron, squiring her sister-in-law Giulietta to box seats; her ex-boyfriend Paolo Romaldo with a leggy blonde (another leggy blonde) on his arm where just a year ago Francesca had been. Giulietta's gown was overwrought with ruffles; the blonde wore a Zara mini-dress; Francesca closed the Corriere della Sera in disgust.
She finished her cigarette, stubbing it out in a white china saucer overflowing with the detritus of the only vice she could afford to maintain. Selim had said she was a beautiful smoker. He'd probably told his wife the same thing.
When she'd doubled the size of the "sell" pile—four pairs she'd managed to part with, or at least to consign to an online listing—she retrieved her camera only to find the battery was dead. She hadn't used it in weeks. She found the charger in a suitcase she'd used more than a month ago. Monte-Carlo. The last trip she'd taken with Selim.
Just the thought of it made her want to shower again. But if she showered, she'd have to use her drugstore shampoo, a fragrance that hadn't bothered her in the shop but lingered in her thick hair like matronly perfume. It was supposed to maintain her light blonde color, a necessity since she wasn't getting highlights anymore, not at €300 a pop. But all these concessions to frugality grated on her nerves.
She wandered into the kitchen in search of sustenance. A quick survey turned up a sleeve of crackers and half a bottle of red wine, good enough for a November lunch in the middle of the week. If she sold a pair of shoes, she'd go grocery shopping again.
She'd never realized how quiet Milan was in the middle of the day, with everyone else squirreled away in the commercial districts or lunching in chic cafes near the Duomo. She kept the television on for background noise constantly now, whether she was watching black and white movies or garishly bright game shows. The only programming off limits was sports—she couldn't bear to see anything related to Paolo.
She took her tumbler of wine back to her bedroom and stood before her open wardrobe. She'd have to be more judicious if she was going to live off the profits of her closet. Four pairs of shoes, even if they were from desirable designers, would only last a couple weeks. And that was subsistence living. If she ever wanted to go on vacation again, she'd probably have to sell her Birkin bag.
She could hear the theme of her favorite game show from the living room. Three in the afternoon. Time to go to group.
DURING THE DAY, THE room was used as a classroom for pre-schoolers, and their finger paintings covered the walls, fighting the dreariness of the worn carpet and the dull paint. They sat in a circle of bright chairs, slightly too small for adults. She recognized most of the people today, and Regina waved to her. Francesca sat beside her one friend.
“You’re early today,” she said.
“I’m on time,” Francesca replied. “I thought they told us not to be early so we don’t have to see the kids.”
“On time is early for you. How’s your week?”
Francesca shrugged. “Fine.”
“You going to be sharing today?”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel like it.”
“I think you should. You didn’t share last time.”
Regina, her friend, had ragged cuticles and a crucifix in black ink on her inner wrist; she had quit her job as a waitress after her assault. Not because she had been assaulted by a patron, as Francesca had imagined, a man in the fancy restaurant who thought a generous tip could purchase her husky voice and sloe eyes. She’d been in a relationship that had grown more controlling and constraining until one day, her boyfriend flushed her birth control pills down the toilet and then raped her for a week. Regina became pregnant and didn’t tell him; she took time off from the restaurant and went to a clinic for medication. She bled alone in her apartment for two days and changed the locks.
When her vacation days were over, she gave notice to the restaurant; she didn’t want her boyfriend to find her there. Now she worked at a call center and gnawed on the skin at her fingertips. She’d taken Francesca out for coffee after the first time she’d shared—out for real coffee, not the stale carafe on the low table near the finger paintings—and told her the whole story, because after hearing Francesca, she knew how it felt. And Francesca realized, for the first time since she’d started smoking in the hotel room in Moscow, that she wasn’t alone.
“It’s embarrassing,” Francesca whispered.
“So you do have something to share.”
“I guess I could, but I don’t see the point, you’re all just going to tell me what I already know.”
“Maybe you need to hear it.” Regina turned to the circle assembled in their too-short chairs. “Francesca’s going first today.”
Their group leader was a social worker whose phone had a cracked screen, though she put it away every week after she’d taken attendance notes. She nodded at Regina and Francesca. “No new people today,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“I went out last night,” Francesca said. “Just to a bar a few streets over. I was so tired of being alone.”
It was a chilly night. She came in from the cold and the sounds of the bar assaulted her. The memory of Monte Carlo was too fresh, the Kazakh, the girl, the room she nearly didn't escape. Selim's mercenary tendencies. She dug her nails into her palm.
A man sat at the bar with a short, cloudy drink, maybe some sort of digestif; he wasn't conventionally handsome. An ugly man would more likely pay to drink with her.
"May I sit here?" she gestured to the empty seat beside him.
"Sure." She tried to imagine him without his blue checked shirt and decided there may be muscles beneath the sleeves. He was younger than she thought—she'd pegged him for forty, but close-up, he was nearer thirty.
His hotel room was warm, and the wine hit her—two glasses, each more expensive than the bottles she had at home, and then the pastis he’d insisted they drink together.
She'd always liked pastis, its bewildering transition from clear to milky as she stirred in one, then two ice cubes, its heady licorice flavor of disobedience and danger. The first sip was arresting. She almost coughed, but the next coated her throat like the kid leather of her gloves.
"I'm going to wash my face," he said.
She turned on the light and looked around the bedroom. He had a jacket hanging over the back of the desk chair, a laptop on the desk, a sheaf of papers beside it. A French novel on the bedside table. She didn't want to get any closer, didn't want to know any more about him. This was enough.
This ugly man was sexy; he moved like a panther, his dismissive attitude made her want him more. She kicked off her heels and moved into him, reaching between them to feel him through his pants. Hard. Her favorite moment, ripe with anticipation, layers of clothing between her and her desire—creating her desire. She slid her hand up to his chest and pressed her thigh be tween his legs, breathing heavily into his neck.
He leaned over her, pinning her arms to the bed, still standing, thrusting. She closed her eyes and focused on sensations—fullness, friction, force—everything this Frenchman was doing to her that hadn't been done since she left Selim.
She had to shower so she could dress again, so she wouldn't take home the sweat and scent of his strange body, so it wouldn't be absorbed into the knit of her dress or the texture of her hair. It hadn't been bad, it had been nice, to feel that way again, to be fulfilled with someone else for a little while. But it was over.
She walked home with wet hair.
The group sat in silence when she’d finished speaking, and she wished she had a bottle of water. She swallowed twice against the dryness of her throat.
“Are you sure you should be getting involved with someone now?” The woman asked tentatively. Francesca thought her name was Sandra but she couldn’t be certain.
“It’s not involved, it’s just sex.”
“Are you sure you should be having sex with anyone?” That was the group leader, a steely woman whose straight talk had earned Francesca’s trust and terror—the reason she avoided sharing. Her question had cut to the heart of her fear. Francesca sat on her hands and stared at the carpeting. After a while, she didn’t think an answer was required.
“You never said how it made you feel.” The voice was a boy’s, Francesca guessed he was in his late teens but still too young, she thought, to be in a place like this. He was an age when sex should be fun. Instead, in fits and starts, he told them about a horrific night of bullying, of physical and emotional assault, cigarette burns and worse. All at the hands of his older brother, trying to beat the gay out of him. After that, she wanted to find Timo in Paris and give him a hug, to let him know he was perfect, just as he was. And out of kindness to this boy, Andrea, she felt compelled to answer.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Am I ever going to feel sexy again? It seems like a frivolous question, but that’s what I wanted when I went out last night. I wanted to feel sexy again. I thought if I dressed up like I used to and went out like I used to, there was a recipe for getting that feeling back.”
She looked around the room and saw affirmation rather than judgment.
“Are there other ways to feel sexy?” the group leader asked.
“For me?” Francesca had just exposed herself. She had heard the penetrating questions in the weeks she’d sat in the circle. She didn’t know what else to give.
“You first, then maybe the others can speak to their experiences.”
“I like the thrill,” she said, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. “I don’t know how else to get that.”
“Instead of going with someone else,” a shy girl across the room began, and Francesca blinked to make sure she wasn’t glaring. “You could, you know, try just doing it yourself. It might feel safer.”
Francesca had tried that. Lying on the couch, TV on, no pants, eyes closed. She'd think of Paolo, then—naked, muscled, thick and erect and ready to go. Fucking her like a machine. And when she came, she would try to forget him again. But she couldn’t forget her guilt.
“I think that’s more complicated,” Francesca said to Regina afterward. “I wish I could just take care of things myself and not even bother having to leave the house. But I always end up thinking of—” She halted, realizing that Regina knew who she was, she knew that Francesca in the sexual assault survivors’ group was Francesca Garancini from the scandals and the gossip, it was obvious, even though Francesca had never mentioned any of her partners by name, neither Selim nor the others. She looked up from her murky coffee at her one friend, four weeks ago, a stranger to her.
“I think of Paolo,” she said. “And it just reminds me of all the shitty things I did to him.”
THEY HAD HOMEWORK AFTER their sessions—not so much in preparation for the following week, their sessions were nonlinear—worksheets meant to provoke their introspection and growth. This week’s was about where and with whom they felt safe. In penance, and because the coffee was keeping her awake, Francesca sat in bed with a notebook.
She doodled on the blank page. Where she felt safe: she sketched her couch, her television, her mother’s kitchen table. With whom: her favorite vision of Domenica, leaning against the back door jamb smoking a cigarette. Her father, a dead man. And faceless people, people who didn’t know her at all. People who didn’t judge her. People who couldn’t hurt her.
That explained the Frenchman. He couldn’t judge her, he couldn’t take any part of her, he couldn’t know her, he couldn’t hurt her. That was why she went with him. It wasn’t a socially acceptable answer, but it made sense to her now. She wrote a couple sentences at the bottom of the page, below her drawings. In the morning, she’d call Regina and tell her.
Regina thought it was progress. Francesca was starting to understand her motivations.
“I have no motivation,” she said. “I don’t want to do anything.”
“Except strangers.”
“It was just sex.”
“That’s what the men who hurt you would say, too.” Regina paused. “I’m at work, but I think you should get outside. Take a walk. Practice breathing fresh air instead of your stale candles.”
Francesca shot a look over at the Diptique candle on the coffee table, white frosted glass coated with burned black carbon. It smelled like dead flowers; Regina was right.
She pulled on a pair of boots and her leather jacket. She had no need for a bag, there was nothing for her to buy, no wallet to carry. Keys, earbuds, phone.
Brown leaves clung to brittle branches in Parco Sempione. Francesca inhaled; under the smoky fragrance of fall there was a note of decay, the leaves dying and rotting beneath her feet. She watched a dog chase a tennis ball, the boundless energy commensurate with an eternal optimism she could only ascribe to animals. Certainly not to herself.
She tried listening to a podcast but couldn’t concentrate. It was about Osvaldo Borsani and though she loved his aesthetic she couldn’t visualize anything, all she could do was trace the dog’s tracks back and forth in the park. She turned on music instead. Moody songs, songs for cold days with barren trees and few friends.
A teen couple sat on a picnic blanket and ate takeout with chopsticks; in their own world, laughing and passing wontons to each other. They seemed to find safety in each other. She didn’t have her notebook, but she had her phone, and she took a photo.
She studied it. She could do better. It wasn’t the camera; it was her. She hadn’t been intentional. Nothing she’d done had been intentional. She’d just been floating through life, taking snapshots.
Francesca moved so she was in the shadow of a tree, the couple illuminated by the waning autumn light. Better. She crouched down, aligned herself with the horizon so the persimmon sun dominated the frame—she could retouch it to heighten the contrast, her phone could never capture the color adequately—and the couple in silhouette before it, two-dimensional, chopsticks askew, heads close together as if they were about to kiss.
It had been months since she’d taken a photograph with intention. Nothing about it fit with her style; it was clumsy, the backlight effect amateurish, a hint of pathetic fallacy with her heavy reliance on nature. But it was a photograph. It felt like progress.
Francesca texted it to Regina. Proof that I’m outside, she wrote. Proof that I’m a photographer, she thought.
SOMETIME IN THE MIDDLE of the night, her phone vibrated on the nightstand next to her. Dreaming that someone was calling her. But who? Not Selim. Not only would he not call her—he hadn't called yet, and it had been a month, he wasn't ever going to call. And she didn't want him to call, anyway. She'd thrown a crystal ashtray at his head. He could stay with his wife and their fetus forever; she didn't care anymore. He'd been awful to her, in the end. And the end is all that anyone ever remembers.
Paolo? Nope. Timo, who used to call from the club to see if she was still out, to see if she wanted to meet for late-night pizza and gossip, was living his domestic Parisian life with Dario, in bed early and picking out throw pillows. She rolled over; of course it was a dream.
