Lost in Rome

This is a book about sisters, so this is for Sue as well as all my other special gal pals whom I consider sisters.

In the pizza of life, sisters are the pepperoni.

Writers often ask me for advice, and I always tell them to find trusted partners. I'm lucky to have this in Gale, Carolee, Josette, Jane, Chris, and Shannon, and the Northern Delaware Sisters in Crime group: John, KB, Jane, June, Chris, Janis, Susan, and Kathleen.

Thanks to my friends, who understand that I talk to imaginary people and are fine with it.

Mille grazie
to my literary agent, Mandy Hubbard, and editor, Alyson Heller. Sometimes we're so like-minded that it gets scary.

As always, to my family: Ellie, Evan, Happy, Kevin, my parents, nieces and nephews, sister, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and mother-in-law, thank you for your continued encouragement! Special thanks to my niece Taylor and daughter, Happy, who for the low, low price of a diner breakfast helped me plot out a Summer Rome-ance with Extra Cheese.

Also a
grazie
goes out to my helpful translators: Shari, Eddi, and Vic.

To teachers, librarians, and, most of all, my readers: I love getting your e-mails, letters, pictures, selfies, posts, and tweets. . . . Keep 'em coming!

I'd been planning to be a counselor-in-training at Camp Hiawatha, but there was an issue with fleas, mice, lice, and snakes and the camp closing, leaving my summer
wide open
.

The only question was, what would I do with all my free time? Thankfully, my parents were able to make alternate plans.

“It's all set,” my mom said.

“For real?” I asked.

“Totally for real,” Dad confirmed. “Your great-aunt Maria can't wait to have you.”

My great-aunt Maria was my dad's aunt, and she was more than
great
, she was my favorite relative in the adult category. She was sweet, nice, an amazing Italian cook, and she owned this insanely cute pizzeria. Plus, I always felt like she and I had some kind of special connection—like a bond or something. I can't explain it exactly.

Oh, and that pizzeria she owned? It just happened to be in Rome. Rome, Italy!

Basically, Aunt Maria is all that and a plate of rigatoni, if you know what I mean.

“When do we leave?” I asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” Mom said. “But this isn't going to be two weeks of sightseeing and touristy stuff. I told her you wanted to work.”

“At the pizzeria?”

“Yeah,” Dad said. “She's planning to teach you how to make her signature sauce.”

“The secret sauce?” I asked in awe.

“That's the one,” he added. “
I
don't even know how to make it.”

“That's a major deal,” Mom said.

Just then a girl who looked a lot like me—long dark curly hair, light skin, brown eyes, except she was taller, prettier, older, and more stylish—walked into our parents' room, where we were talking. A cell phone was glued to her ear.

“It's on!” I said.

“For real?” she asked.

“For real!”

She pumped her fist in the air. “I'll call you later. I'm going to Rome!
Ciao!
” She hung up the phone, looked at herself in the full-length mirror, fluffed her brown curly locks, and practiced, “
Buongiorno!
”

Maybe I should tell you who “she” is: my older sister, Gianna. She's like my best friend. There's no one I'd rather be with for two weeks in Rome. Next year she'll be a junior in high school, where she is most often seen with a glitter pen and scrapbooking scissors.

Me . . . not so much. I'm more of a big-idea gal. Then she builds or glues or sews or staples my ideas into reality.

This fall she'll start looking at colleges. She's excited about it, but the idea of her leaving home makes my stomach feel like a lump of overcooked capellini. Maybe some sisters fight, but Gi and I are tight. (Okay,
sometimes
we fight like sisters.)

Mom said to Gianna, “I told Lucy that you girls are going to work at the pizzeria.”

“I love that place,” Gianna said. “I hope it's exactly the same as I remember it.”

“Do you think she still has Meataball?” I asked. I had visited Aunt Maria and her pizzeria years ago, and I vaguely remembered her cat.

“The cat?” Dad asked. “He has to be dead by now, honey. But maybe she has another cat.”

“Gi, she's gonna teach me how to make her sauce.”

“Just you?”

I shrugged. “Maybe she loves me more.”

Mom said, “No. She loves you both exactly the same.”

“Maybe,” I started, “she wants me to take over the pizzeria when she retires, and I'll be the Sauce Master, the only one in the entire Rossi lineage who knows the ancient family signature sauce. Then, when I'm old, I'll choose one of my great-nieces to carry on the family tradition. And—”

Mom interrupted. “Lucy?”

“What?”

“This isn't one of your stories. Let's bring it back to reality.”

“Right,” I said. “Reality.” But sometimes reality was so boring. Fiction—
my
fiction—was way better. I'm pretty sure I'm the best writer in my school, where I'm a soon-to-be eighth grader.

Gianna asked, “You're totally gonna teach it to me, right?”

“It depends on if I have to take some kind of oath that could only be broken in the event of a zombie apocalypse,” I said.

Dad suggested, “And let's try to cool it with apocalypse-related exaggerations, huh? Aunt Maria probably doesn't ‘get' zombies and their ilk.”

“Roger that, Dad,” I said.

“I'm going to pack,” Gianna said. “I can bring a glue gun, right? That's okay on the plane, isn't it?”

“I'm pretty sure they have glue guns in Italy. Or maybe you could refrain from hot-gluing things for two weeks,” Mom suggested.

“Ha! You're funny, Mom,” Gianna said. “Don't lose that sense of humor while the two of us are spending fourteen days in Italy!”

Gi and I looked at each other. “ITALY!” we both yelled at the same time.

We would've screamed way louder if we'd had any idea how much this trip would change the future—mine, Gianna's, Aunt Maria's, Amore Pizzeria's, and Rome's.

STAMP!

The customs officer, who sat in a glass-enclosed booth, pounded his stamp onto Gianna's passport.

I slid mine through a little hole in the glass, and he did the same.

New stamps in our passports!

“Yay!” Me and Gi high-fived.

A few moments later my eyes caught a paper sign that said
LUCIA AND GIANNA ROSSI
.

The lady holding it wasn't Aunt Maria. She was as different as possible from our older Italian aunt. She was young, maybe twenty-three, and was all bright colors and peculiarities. Her head was wrapped in a dark purple scarf that hung like a long tail down her back. Her sunglasses were splotched with mismatched paint, and her pants were unlike any that I'd ever seen: one leg was striped and short and snug (maybe spandex), while the other leg was flowery, long, and flowing (possibly silk).

We made our way over to her and her sign.

“Are you Lucia and Gianna?” she asked without a trace of an Italian accent. She was as American as me.

We nodded.

“Buongiorno!”
She hugged us just like Aunt Maria would have: tight, and extra long. “I'm Jane Attilio, and I've come to take you to Amore Pizzeria.
Andiamo!
”

Gi and I looked at each other, unfamiliar with the word. Maybe she didn't know that we didn't speak Italian.

“Let's go!” Jane added with a big smile. With one hand she dragged my wheely suitcase. With the other she took Gianna's hand and led us out of the airport. “We're going to have an incredibly awesome two weeks.”

Jane Attilio effortlessly crammed our bags into her small European automobile (a Fiat) and whizzed us—and I do mean “whizzed”!—through the streets of Rome. While Jane's driving was fast, it was no crazier than everyone else's. I would've buckled up twice, if that was possible.

We passed ancient and crumbling buildings and statues, monuments and ruins. When traffic stopped, we were next to a big stone wall, where a very long line of people stood.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Behind that wall is Vatican City. Those people are in the queue to go in.” Jane pointed to a half-moon of gigantic stone columns. “That plaza is Saint Peter's Square. See that big dome behind it? That's the Basilica. People travel very far to get in there.”

“So cool,” I said, and snapped a picture with my cell phone.

Jane navigated the roads onto a white marble bridge called the Ponte Principe Amedeo Savoia Aosta, which took us over the Tiber—a river that ran right through the middle of the city.

Finally Jane's little car halted at the end of a cobblestone alley. “Amore Pizzeria is down there,” she said.

Gianna started getting her bags out of the car and setting them down on the street.

Jane said, “That's okay. Leave your bags. I'll drop them off at Aunt Maria's apartment. It's not far.” She hugged us both again, real hard. “She is so excited to see you girls. You're all she's talked about since she found out you were coming.” Jane got back into the car and yelled, “I hope you'll be able to cheer her up.”