“I suppose I had best return home, then,” I said finally. “It would seem that our work here is complete.”
My own words brought the truth home to me: the painting was complete, and I would not be returning to Sandro’s workshop again. There would be no more delighting in the feel of his eyes upon me, of surreptitiously studying him behind his canvas, no more intellectual debate or invigorating walks by the Arno. I would still see him at the Medici palazzo, of course, and no doubt quite often; yet it would always be in the company of others, not in this world of ours that we had carved out for just the two of us. It would be back to Madonna Simonetta, and Maestro Botticelli.
The days seemed to stretch out before me in an unending, meaningless march, and I did not know how I could bear it.
For shame, I reprimanded myself. You shall use your extra time to better devote yourself to your husband, of course.
Yet as though Sandro had heard my thoughts and sought to reassure me, he took my hand and kissed it, his eyes never leaving mine. “For now,” he said. “Our work is complete for now.”
*
I was both excited and saddened when I returned home that day. “The painting is done,” I informed Marco when he arrived home and came into the sitting room, where I was reading.
His expression lit up. “Is it? And? How does it look?”
I smiled slowly, remembering, wishing I had it here to show him. “It is wonderful. A very flattering likeness. San—Maestro Botticelli has skill beyond anything I had dreamed.”
Marco’s lips twitched slightly at my slip, but thankfully he did not comment upon it. “That sounds wonderful, indeed,” he said. “And when might I expect it to be delivered to us?”
I told him about Sandro’s plans for the painting to be revealed at the Medici palazzo. “If I know Lorenzo, it may become a very grand affair indeed,” I said.
“And why should it not be, to celebrate a painting of so beautiful a model as yourself?” Marco said. “And to celebrate the painter as well, for being so fortunate as to have you sit for him.”
I had to bite back a retort at that. It is nothing to do with me, I wanted to say. If only you could see Sandro’s skill, his talent, his gift. He could make any model look beautiful simply for being alive.
“You flatter me, husband,” I said instead, lightly. “Now, shall we dine? I have had the cook prepare your favorite beef.”
“Indeed?” he asked as he followed me into the dining room. “Is it a special occasion, that we should have beef for supper?”
“It is always a special occasion when I dine with my beloved husband,” I said, smiling. “So I bade Chiara find the choicest cut she could at the market. Here, sit,” I said, “and I shall serve you.”
Marco did as I bade, and I cut him a fine piece of beef and poured his wine myself. I banished the pernicious thought that the looks of happiness and approval my husband gave me were not enough.
*
That night, when Marco took me in his arms in our bed, I went to him willingly, enjoying the feel of him moving within me. Yet true pleasure eluded me, and Marco—attentive lover though he was—did not seem to notice.
18
Within the week, a messenger came to our house with an invitation for a dinner at the Medici palazzo, to “celebrate the newest work by Maestro Sandro Botticelli, and his beautiful subject, Signora Simonetta Vespucci,” so the wording went. It would take place in a week’s time.
“Your painter wastes no time,” Marco commented to me, handing me the letter to read over dinner.
“He is hardly my painter,” I said quickly. “He is just eager to show off such an exceptional work, as he should be. I am proud of it as well, for my own small contribution.”
After that our talk turned to other matters, though Marco sent a reply the very next morning stating that we would, of course, attend.
Time, which had flown by at an exceptional pace when I was sitting for the painting, slowed to the pace of the oldest, most broken-down horse in the week before the unveiling festa. I finished reading The Republic, though since my first urge was to discuss it with Sandro, it hardly served as a distraction. For that, too, I would have to wait until the party. I tried to implore Marco to read it yet again, and again he told me that he was too busy. “Perhaps in a few months, if business should slow down,” he told me.
So I went back to my copy of Dante, and the book of Petrarch that Lorenzo had given me, and tried to read the poetry with the same critical mind with which I had read Plato. Truly the purpose of the language, especially in Dante’s Divina Commedia, I found, was threefold: to tell a story; to create a beautiful, pleasing phrase; and to enfold within it another, more subtle meaning. Of course this, too, I wished to discuss with Sandro, and so my plans for distraction were once again foiled.
Fortunately, one day that week Clarice invited me to take a midday meal with herself and her mother-in-law, so I passed a happy afternoon with the Medici women, discussing plans for the upcoming party, as well as matters of fashion.
“I do not know if you noticed, Simonetta,” Clarice said, her eyes bright with mischief, “but half the women at Mass last week were wearing gowns just like the one you wore to dinner here last.”
My eyes opened wide, shocked. “I did not notice,” I said. “Surely you are mistaken. Why would anyone have copied my gown?”
Clarice and Lucrezia exchanged knowing looks, united, for once, in their teasing of me. “Why, can it be that you do not know, my dear?” Lucrezia asked. “You are the reigning beauty of Florence. You are the one who decides the trends, the fashions.”
“Surely not,” I protested. “Why, what silliness! I have not even met many people in Florence, save your friends and acquaintances, and Marco’s—”
“Simonetta, those are all the people that matter,” Lucrezia interjected. “And just because you have not met the rest of Florentine society does not mean they do not know who you are.”
“Why, surely you notice how everyone—men and women—stares at you in the street,” Clarice said.
I blushed. “I had not noticed. Not to sound vain, but … it has ever been so. I am stared at wherever I go, and always have been. So I do not even take note anymore.”
Lucrezia sighed. “Ah, to be young, and so beautiful.”
“I shall never know what that is like,” Clarice said, laughing.
“Nor I,” said Lucrezia. “But come, we are embarrassing poor Simonetta. See how red her face grows?”
Thankfully, Clarice changed the subject, asking her mother-in-law what she had thought of the sermon from Sunday. I chimed in as needed, though I confess that most of my mind was devoted to considering this new information I had learned.