A Semester Abroad (25 page)

I felt bad for him, stuck in the apartment. He was not getting to see much of Italy at all.

“Maybe you guys should go south or to Cinque Terre or something. They have great hiking over there and it’s not too far,” I suggested as I was eating lunch after my class one day.

“Now she’s the travel agent,” Janine said to Adam. Janine was never at ease with two other people. She always had to gang up with one against the other to prevent them from ganging up on her.

“It was just a suggestion,” I said, looking at Adam. He seemed like he wanted to get out of there, too.

“You’re the one that’s always traipsing here and there with all your friends,” Janine said. She turned back to Adam. “This one gets more mail than anyone. You should have written me more.”

Janine disguised all her digs as complements unless she was certain that you were weaker than she was. I got up from the table they were commandeering, washed my dishes and went to meet Lucy.

“Ciao,” Janine called to me on the way out. She wanted to prove her Italian savvy to Adam.

One afternoon, Janine didn’t come home from class. She left Adam sleeping in her room and never returned. He looked up expectantly when I opened the apartment door. I gathered he had been pacing in the kitchen for hours. His face was disappointed. I apologized.

“No, I just thought you’d be Janine.”

“Do you want to go out? I could give you my key. I have a paper to work on.” I doubted Janine actually went to class.

“No, I should wait for her.”

“You could wait all day.” I regretted saying that as soon as I did. I felt bad for him. He came here expecting something and wasn’t getting it. I listened to the mixtape he made Janine. She tossed it at me when I asked if she had any music to lend. I imagined it was a tape someone made for me. I held up my bag of groceries. “I went to Crai, the grocery store. Want some bread and cheese?”

“No, if Janine wants to eat…” he said, shrugging.

“Right.”

I put my groceries away and brought my lunch into my room. I opened the window to let the breeze come through and distract me as I read about the Medicis. I bought this book about them in the English bookstore, but now I had to translate my facts into Italian. It seemed that pretty much everything in Tuscany from art to architecture had something to do with the rich fourteenth-century family and their patronage. After a couple of hours of trying to make sense of it all, I checked on Adam. He was lying on Janine’s bed, staring up at the ceiling. He sat up when I knocked.

“You sure you don’t want my key?” I asked. He was trapped.

He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, his feet in their socks. He didn’t realize how foreign he looked in this country. He looked nothing like the American I left behind, yet there was something so similar. They would never have recognized it in each other, but they were a part of the same crew. Countrymen. His T-shirt fit his shoulders in that same angry way.

Somewhere, back home, there was probably some poor girl wishing that Adam wasn’t so preoccupied with someone else.

That might be the secret to the American boy. Maybe it was the way they chose to be miserable when they didn’t have to be, swinging between choices, refusing to make them. They made you want to save them. They made you their mother. They brought out the nurturer the way the Italians brought out the other stuff. Maybe it was the challenge, thinking you could gentle them and love them and make them turn out okay.

Adam shook his head and looked at the palms of his hands. I felt bad for him. I reached out to touch his shoulder when the front door opened, surprising us. I pulled my innocent hand away. It was Janine. She finally returned to find us in her room together, doing nothing, but still undeniably alone.

That night, Janine and Adam went to Venice.

Kaitlin arrived on a Saturday morning. I offered to meet her in Florence, but she took the train straight into the Siena station, where I met her. I helped her with her giant backpack, and we rode together on the bus back to town. It was surreal to have her there. She marveled at the skinny streets as I had and asked me tons of questions that I mostly knew the answers to, thanks to all the walks Arturo took us on with the culture class.

After her giving her the initial tour of Siena and lunch of the hearty bread soup,
ribollita
at La Chiacchiera, Kaitlin and I sat in the
campo
. Olivia had rubbed off on me, and I had planned out pretty much every minute of Kaitlin’s first day. Then I realized that what she really wanted to do was chill. The Piazza del Campo was filled to capacity and the place to get the best look at Sienese life. The sun shown down on the light pink brick of the piazza and, for once, the ground was warm beneath my butt.

“This is awesome,” Kaitlin said, smiling and people watching. I was happy that this was enough to impress her. “I love the buildings here.”

“Cool. Let me know when you want to move on,” I said.

“I will,” she said. She pulled her feet out of her sneakers and socks and lay back onto her sweatshirt and that was that.

I looked across the piazza and saw Michelle walking quickly, eating a giant cone of gelato. I called to her, anxious to introduce her to Kaitlin. She came over and offered us each a bite of her ice cream. Kaitlin loved it.

“I’m definitely getting one of those every day I’m here,” she declared.

“Are you kidding? I eat like five of these a day,” Michelle said. I laughed and looked at her. She wasn’t acting like she was making a joke. In fact, she didn’t seem herself at all. She was hyper.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Yeah, you guys can still have our room, but I’m probably going to stay in yours, G.” With Janine gone and Michelle splitting her time with Duccio, I planned on Kaitlin and me staying in their room with the better bathroom.

“I thought you were going to stay with Duccio.” He lived in his parents’ house, but snuck Michelle in all the time.

“Yeah, he’s pissing me off.” She looked at Kaitlin to explain. “Italian boys–assholes.”

“Really,” Kaitlin smiled. She didn’t notice that anything was wrong with Michelle. She gestured around the piazza. “They seem pretty cute to me.”

“That’s the problem. They’re so cute, you forget yourself, and then it’s like you try to fight with them and you don’t even understand the language you’re fighting in. Don’t bother.” Beneath her smiling warning to Kaitlin, Michelle was agitated about something.

“What happened?” I asked. “You guys always understood each other, I thought.”

“Who knows? I couldn’t even figure out what he was trying to say at lunch. They’re so dramatic about everything. You know how it is.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t bothering her. She looked at Kaitlin. “Wait until you meet Gaetano.”

“Do you want to sit down with us?” Kaitlin asked.

“No, I’m starving. I think I’m going to go get a
panino
or something. I’ll see you guys later.
Ciao
.”

“Okay,
ciao
!” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” Kaitlin said.

When she was gone, Kaitlin motioned over to a group of good-looking men. “I don’t know about Michelle, but I think I could forgive those guys anything.”

“Yeah, it’s weird, she’s not usually like that. I didn’t think they fought ever. I wonder what it was about.”

“She seemed pretty cool.”

“Yeah, she’s my favorite roommate,” I said. I was glad that Kaitlin liked her, but something wasn’t sitting right with me about our meeting.

“This one’s really hot,” Kaitlin said, looking past me. I turned to see Gaetano, smiling as he came closer.

“The American beauties are in town, at last,” he said in Italian. I stood up to greet him with two kisses on the cheek. Kaitlin was at her feet, too.

“K, this is Gaetano.
Gaetano, ti presento, Kaitlin.”
I introduced them.

“Bella, come va?”
Gaetano said.

“Hey there,” Kaitlin said. “Can he understand me?”

“
Piacere,
” he said. He took her extended hand and pulled her in to kiss both her cheeks.

“Oh, okay,” Kaitlin said, giggling. She looked over his shoulder at me. “I like this.”

“I look you from deh,” Gaetano said in English, gesturing to the other side of the piazza. “I say you are Kaiti, de fren of dis beautiful. I look your,” he pointed down to her bare feet “ and know beautiful
americana.”

“Cool,” Kaitlin said, smiling. She looked at me. I was smiling at the way he said her name. “No idea what he just said, but I caught the beautiful part and I like it.”

I laughed. It was weird to hear Gaetano speaking English. It had been a long time. He couldn’t express exactly what he wanted. I wanted Kaitlin to understand how smart and funny he was and worried it wasn’t going to translate.

“They think it’s weird to go barefoot here.”

“She doesn’t understand my English?” he asked, almost hurt.

“It’s not your words,” I lied. “It’s the, uh, accent.”

“HHHHow de tren?” Gaetano asked, trying again. Did he really hear my h’s that hard when I spoke English?

“The train?” Kaitlin said, looking at me to confirm. When I nodded, she answered, her voice louder than usual. “It was long.”

“You slep?” Gaetano asked and this time held his hands up to the side of his face to convey sleep.

“No, I couldn’t,” she said, dramatizing her disappointment. “Too much–” She moved her hands like the motion of the train and Gaetano nodded.

“Where are you going to take her?” he asked me. “You have to show her a good time. You should show her that Italy is beautiful. You should take her to my town, but Siena will have to do.”

I laughed. “He’s worried that you won’t like Italy.”

“No, I like it. I like it already,” she said, nodding emphatically. She was talking so much louder and more exaggerated than she usually did. People were so funny in other languages.

“Okay,” he said. He pointed to her face and used a word I didn’t know. “I like.”

“What did he say?” she asked. I shook my head, then I got it.

“Oh, freckles, he likes your freckles.” He mentioned her red hair and I translated.

“Thank you.”

He took her hand. “Very beautiful
Americana.”

She was smitten. “I love it here. Are they all like this?”

I shrugged. It was good and bad.

“Where are you going? Do you want to hang out with us?” I asked him.

“No, I’m going to the library to study. What about tonight?”

“Dinner and then the bar. Don’t worry yourself. That’s all I have to show her to make her love Italy. Will you be at the Barone Rosso?”

“Yes, but you should see. She looks tired,” he said, smiling at her. “She should sleep.”

“She’ll be okay. Tomorrow, we’re going to Cinque Terre.”

“
Brava
,” he said, approvingly. He lit a cigarette and put his sunglasses on. He offered us cigarettes that we took and smoked with him. Kaitlin was appreciating all of this. When he was done, he nodded and kissed Kaitlin again. “Okay, bella.
Mi raccomando con questa pazza. Ci vediamo stasera.”

“Whatever,” Kaitlin said, smiling, accepting his kisses.

“He’s warning you about hanging out with me, I think, and says that he’ll see you tonight.”

“Oh, okay,
ciao
,” Kaitlin said.

“
Brava
, she spek Italian,” Gaetano said in English so she would understand. He kissed me goodbye. And Kaitlin sat back down on the ground. He looked at me. “Have fun tonight. If you don’t make it tonight, call me when you get back.”

“
Okay, ciao
.”

I sat back down next to Kaitlin, and she looked at me.

“You didn’t say how hot Gaetano is,” Kaitlin said. I shrugged. She studied me. “You didn’t even notice, did you? You never want what you can get.”

I looked away. There was truth to what she said. And I wondered when I was going to stop wanting the things I couldn’t have.

We went to my favorite
osteria
with the Etruscan ceilings. They sat us at my favorite table, which was like a little cave. We drank a lot of wine, and Kaitlin learned the heavenliness of the truffle. I laughed at her expression when she took the first bite.

I wanted to take Kaitlin to the Barone Rosso, but she was spent. After the overnight train, she was content to sit in the stone alcove with the complimentary
cantucci
and Vin Santo that came after the wonderful dessert of tiramisu. I taught Kaitlin how to dunk the small hard cookies into the pink dessert wine.

“Are you sure you don’t care if we pass? Is Gaetano going to be waiting?”

“No, it’s no big deal. We can go when we come back from the coast. We left it open. It’s funny, he knew you were going to be tired.”

“I like him. You should hop on that. Have you hooked up with anyone?” I shook my head and held my
cantucci
in the Vin Santo.

“No, not really.”

She nodded. We didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Thank you,” I said. It was so many things, just making sure I was okay every day and being there to listen to me. She was such a friend.

“For what? We’re going Dutch,” Kaitlin said, winking.

“For last year.” Kaitlin nodded, knowing exactly what I meant but still uncomfortable talking about it for too long. I gripped the
cantucci
a little tighter.

“You’d have done the same for me.”

“I know, but I didn’t have to.”

“I know,” she hesitated. “Do you feel better? You seem to.”

“I do. I really do. How could I not?” I looked around the room.

“Well, I mean, you can always feel bad even surrounded by this. Do you still think about him at all?”