Lost in Rome (2 page)

Why does she need cheering up?

Ahhh!
I recognized the smells of roasting garlic and simmering tomatoes from my great-aunt Maria's signature secret sauce. I hadn't smelled it in years.

“Lucia! Gianna!” Aunt Maria called from the kitchen through a big rectangular opening in the wall. The hole was for passing hot food from the kitchen to the dining room. It had a ledge where the cook could set plates while they waited to be picked up. “The girls are here!” She shuffled out.

Aunt Maria looked older than I remembered; her hair, which used to be black, was now peppered with gray. She grabbed hold of me—thankfully, her snug embrace hadn't changed. She switched to hug Gianna and then back to me again. Either she'd shrunk or I'd grown—probably both—but now I was taller than her.

I said, “It's good to see you, too.” After three rounds of embraces, Gianna and I were both dusted with flour from her hands and apron.

She stepped back and studied us from head to toe. “Look at you.” She grew teary. “You are so
bellissima
, beautiful.” She lifted the tomato-sauce-speckled apron and wiped her eyes. “I am so happy you girls are here. You are like a breath of the fresh air.” She took us each by the hand and led us to a table. “Look at how skinny you are. I am getting you the pizza.” She frowned at our figures, then hustled behind the counter. “Sit. Sit. It will take me one minute.”

•  •  •

I hadn't been to Amore since first grade. Even though I didn't remember the visit well, I knew the familiar scent of spices seeping out of the walls like ghosts of old friends.

Now the pizzeria looked worn, like Aunt Maria had tried to redecorate at some point but hadn't finished. Paint covered the exposed brick wall. The chairs and tables needed attention—they were chipped, stained, and a little wobbly.

A picture of my great-uncle Ferdinando hung in the center of a wall covered with framed photos that looked like they hadn't been dusted in months, maybe years. There was a ledge holding trinkets that seemed to be layered with a thin coating of Parmesan cheese.

Aunt Maria returned with two plates and three bottles of Aranciata (an Italian orange soda that I love!). Not sure why she had brought the extra bottle. “
Mangia, mangia
,” she said. “Eat, girls.”

Crispy crust.

Aunt Maria's signature sauce.

Steamy, melty mozzarella cheese.

Ooey, gooey, cheesy, and crispy.

It was, like, delicious with an ice-cold glass of
mmmmm
.

We had totally hit the jackpot with these temporary summer jobs.

Let me tell you about Amore's pizza, because it's different from American pizza: First, they're round, not triangle, slices. It's like everyone gets their own small individual pie made specifically for them. And the toppings are different. The ones she brought out were smothered with roasted garlic.

“It's quiet in here,” Gianna commented.

“
Sì
. There are not so much customers.” Aunt Maria sighed sadly. Maybe this was why she needed cheering up. “You like the pizza?”

“It's as good as I remembered,” I said through a mouthful of cheese.

Aunt Maria nestled herself into a chair across from us and exhaled as she took her weight off her feet. “I have something to tell you.” She looked us both in the eye. “You cannot work here.”

Splat!
Those words landed like a meatball plopped onto a plate of spaghetti.

“What?” Gianna and I asked together.

“Well, one of you can,” she clarified. “But not both.”

One of us has to go home? But we just got here!

“How come?” Gianna asked. “What's wrong? We promise we'll work hard.”

“It is not that. It is the Pizzeria de Roma.” Aunt Maria spat the name. “It's an old pizzeria in the piazza by the Fontana del Cuore.” That's the Fountain of the Heart. “Now it has a big new flashy sign and shiny new forks,” she said. “Everybody go there. They see it right there in the piazza!”

“How's their pizza?” I asked.

“You think I know?” She pinched her fingers together and flipped her wrist back and forth as she spoke. “I never go.”

“Then how do you know that they have shiny forks?” I asked.

“Signorina Jane Attilio. She live upstairs.” Aunt Maria pointed up. “She see them when she walk past.”

Gianna and I looked at each other. “Are you going to send one of us home?” I asked.

“No. No. No. You stay. Signorina Attilio, she says one of you can help her. She is very busy.”

“Oh great,” I said. “Let me guess. She works at a funeral home, or a toothpick factory, or vacuuming dirt out of USB ports?”

(I didn't think there was really any such thing as a toothpick factory.)

“What is this ‘ports'? No. No,” Aunt Maria said. “She is a tailor.”

Gianna's eyebrows shot up. “Like, she makes things? I'm great at that.”

“Sì?”
Aunt Maria asked.

“Yeah. See these jeans?” Gianna stood and showed the rhinestone embellishments on the back pocket. “I added them myself.”

“
Bella!
You are good at the designs,” Aunt Maria said, admiring the bling. “You will like to work with Signorina,
sì
?”

“I think I will.”

“Then you are the one,” Aunt Maria said to Gianna.

Phew!
I would've skinny-dipped in the Fontana del Cuore before I'd have given up working at Amore.

At that moment, a boy walked in Amore's front door. Not just any kind of a boy. He was extremely cute, with a thick head of dark hair to match his thick arm muscles. He looked like he was Gianna's age. Gianna's eyes popped out of her skull at the sight of him.

“
Buongiorno
,” he said.

“Hi,” we said.

“I am Lorenzo,” he introduced himself in English.

“Tu!”
Aunt Maria pointed at him. To us she said, “I know who he is. He cannot come in here!”

Lorenzo set a Vera Bradley bag on the counter next to the cash register and held his hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to deliver this. It was on the ground at the end of the alley.” One of Gianna's bags must not have made it back into the Fiat. “The tag says it belongs to Gianna Rossi. Since your last name is Rossi, I figured I'd bring it over. You are lucky it wasn't stolen!”

“Yup, that's mine,” Gianna said. She got up and took the bag from him. The luggage tag clearly stated her name and cell phone number. “
Grazie
,” she said. Her eyes locked with his.

“
Bene
.” Lorenzo stared at Gianna. “You are
bellissima
,” he said to her. “Pretty.”

Gianna flipped a few locks of hair over her shoulder. “
Grazie
,” she said again, this time with a blush and a shy smile.

I rolled my eyes at her flirty maneuver.

“Are you American?” Lorenzo asked.

“Sì.”

“
Vai!
” Aunt Maria yelled at him. “Go!”

Lorenzo pointed to the cell phone number on the luggage tag, moved to the door, and mouthed, “I'll call.”

Through the window we watched him strap on a helmet and vroom away on a bright-red Vespa scooter with an unusually loud motor.

Aunt Maria placed her hand firmly on Gianna's. “He is with the Pizzeria de Roma. He must stay away.”

“But he seems so nice,” Gianna said.

“And he ain't bad to look at, if you know what I mean,” I added under my breath.

“Do not think that his words and beauty are true. He is very bad. They take my customers,” she said. She gave us both a look that meant business. “Promise me you will not talk to him again.”

“Okay,” Gianna said. I watched her cross her legs under the table. “I promise.” I was pretty sure she wasn't planning to keep that promise.

“
Buono
,” Aunt Maria said. “Now I tell Signorina Attilio to come down.” To me she said, “I am going to teach you my sauce this summer. It is true.”

“Yay!”

She shuffled to the back of the shop, picked up a broom, and klonked the handle four times on the ceiling, knocking.

Knock—knock—knock—knock.

“Are you going to stay away from him?” I asked while Aunt Maria was away.

The knocks were followed by the sound of four stomps coming from the floor above.

“You saw him. Is that even humanly possible?” Gianna asked. “Besides, it's summer break. We have two weeks in Italy, one of the most romantic places in the world. And I don't have a boyfriend.”

I didn't say anything to Gianna, but I'd had a strange feeling in my gut when she spoke to Lorenzo. It was a feeling I'd been having kinda a lot lately. Like bubbles spilling over the edges of a glass of Coke.

Aunt Maria returned. “Signorina is on her way down.” She left again with our dirty plates and empty bottles.

I felt something brush against my leg under the table and reached down to swat it. It wasn't something swattable.

“Meataball!” I exclaimed. “You're alive!” I bent down to lift him for a hug. Lifting Meataball was no small task. I kissed him. “I'm so happy to see you.”

Gianna said, “He's gotten
bigger
.”

“And heavier.” I sat down with him in my arms and scratched his ears. He purred and exposed his belly, inviting me to rub it.

As a kitten, Meataball found himself trapped in a trash can behind Amore Pizzeria. Aunt Maria kept him and called him Romeo,
her
Romeo. And Romeo, a beautiful gray tabby, grew, especially in the belly zone, and was lovingly nicknamed Meataball.

I petted him and he purred. “That is one impressive hunk of cat tummy,” I laughed.

Meataball yawned.

“He's so sweet,” Gianna said.

While we spoiled the cat, Jane Attilio swooped in from a door in the kitchen that was visible through the opening in the wall between the kitchen and dining room. She was now wrapped in an extraordinarily long plaid pashmina. I'm no fashion expert, but it didn't go with any of the other crazy stuff she was wearing.

She joined our table and patted Meataball's belly like someone looking for good luck from a Buddha statue.

“So, which one of you is going to work with me?” Jane poked a straw into the extra Aranciata bottle and sipped.

“Me!” Gianna raised her hand. “I love that wrap and those glasses.”

“Thanks. I painted them with nail polish.”

“Nail polish? Great idea. I could probably Gorilla Glue some bling on those,” Gianna said.

“Bling? I love bling!”

“The bling-ier, the better, I always say,” Gianna declared. She had just found a new BFF.

“Let me guess,” I said to Jane. “You like mushrooms on pizza.”

“It's my favorite. How did you know?”

“I haff my vays,” I said with squinty sort of mysterious eyes.

Gianna glared at me with a raised eyebrow. “Don't start with that.”

Jane asked, “What's ‘that'?”

Gianna shook her head subtly so that only I could see. She didn't want me to tell Jane about “that.”

I ignored her. I said, “ ‘That' is my unusual ability to tell things about people based on their pizza preferences. People who like mushrooms are creative types, generally; it isn't an exact science.”

“That's fascinating,” Jane said.

“That's not all,” I said.

Gianna said, “Yes, it is.”

“No,” I added. “There's more.”

“Do tell.” Jane leaned in and flipped her nail-polished glasses onto the top of her head scarf.

The sound of a plate scraping against the tile floor came from the kitchen, and Meataball struggled to jump off my lap.