The Gilder Read Online Free PDF Page A

your face—”
    Sarah laughed. “Thomas, stop. You’re making her blush.” She turned to Marina. “And did I say that he’s a terrible flirt?”
    Was there something in her tone, an undercurrent of warning? Marina looked from one to the other but wasn’t sure.
    Thomas scowled and picked up his menu. “Let’s order.”
    Sarah translated the menu, describing their favorite dishes while Thomas slouched in his chair and picked at his fingernails. After they ordered, Sarah put her elbows on the table and leaned toward Marina. “So, tell us what you’re doing here in Florence.”
    Marina was not sure if it was nerves or so many days without a good conversation, but she ended up telling them her life story—how she had grown up in New York an art brat, then fallen in love with Florence as an adolescent, eventually giving up on her mother’s promise to bring her to Italy and funding the trip herself by working as a waitress. Laughing, she told them about ending up at the seaside by mistake and her middle-of-the-night arrival. She’d found a language class that was about to start, and was registered for a gilding and restoration course. Now the only thing missing was an apartment.
    Marina took a breath, then realized the food had arrived and Sarah and Thomas were well into their tortellini. Her own fork was in her hand, so she stopped talking and twirled it in the nest of angel-hair pasta that was dressed in a pink sauce laced with mushrooms and pancetta.
    Sarah put down her fork and wiped her mouth, leaving a smear of peachy lipstick on the white napkin. “It sounds to me like you plan to stay on here after the gilding course is finished.”
    Marina nodded her head emphatically as she chewed, then swallowed. “That’s my plan. I’m hoping to find an artisan who will take me on as an apprentice.”
    Sarah and Thomas exchanged glances. Thomas, who hadn’t said a word through dinner, put down his fork and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, and I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I’ve been in Florence a long time and I’ve never seen a female apprentice anywhere.”
    Thomas’s statement lay on the table between them like a deflated balloon, but Marina just shrugged, dipped her fork back into the pasta, and, with more conviction than she felt, said, “Then, I guess I’ll have to be the first.”
     
    Marina spent the next few days immersed in the collection of gilded furniture and objets d’art at the Pitti Palace. The palace, commissioned by a Florentine banker in an attempt to outshine the Medici family, was an exercise in excess, every inch of its interior embellished with gold, frescos, mosaic, or tapestries, a grandiosity that distracted her from the furniture and frames she wanted to study. Adding to this frustration were the velvet ropes that, once again, kept her at a distance from the details she wanted to experience firsthand, forcing her instead to consult the catalogues for details she’d rather touch. Her fingertips ached for the burnished surfaces, but she knew it would be foolish to attempt an escapade like the one in Santa Croce.
    Typically, after two or three hours, sensory overload set in and Marina would head for the palace garden feeling light-headed and slightly nauseated, as if she’d eaten too many sweets. In the Boboli Gardens, a potentially overwhelming eleven acres of manicured flowerbeds, hedgerows, fountains, statues, and even an amphitheatre, Marina managed to find a stone bench in the crook of a lush pathway. She sat there, taking deep breaths as if surfacing from a long dive. The spring sun warmed crisp shadows and carried the scent of apple blossoms across the plump heads of tulips and daffodils. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was to be able to spend her time among such treasures, things she had only read about, fantasized about working on. It seemed too good to be true, and she wished she had