When in Rome (11 page)

“Oh, you poor thing! Don’t pretend like she violated you. Are you some kind of animal in heat, one that absolutely has to satisfy its carnal instincts?”

My words, in my jumble of emotions, are vulgar and harsh. Luca runs around the room like a hurricane, still shirtless and smoking with ferocity.

“And you think you’re so much better than me? What good does your hypocritical holier-than-thou attitude do for you? ‘Oh, I don’t sleep with anyone unless it means something. Oh, other women are sluts, but I’m so chaste. I’m just waiting for my prince.’ And then some guy comes along and gives you some shitty compliment. You don’t know anything about anything, so you go along with it, and he makes you puke when he kisses you!”

His nastiness and words all baffle me. But I won’t let him win.

“It’s not the same thing! I’m talking about my sister. I’m not telling you what to do with your dick; just don’t put it in Erika! Even with all your theories about doing it with people to avoid complications, you thought you could just do my sister and it wouldn’t matter? Don’t you see how complicated it is? My whole family thinks we’re together. Did you forget that? And now they think that my boyfriend has to cheat on me because I can’t satisfy him. Poor Carlotta, the loser, who finally had sex for the first time when she was twenty just to get rid of her virginity. Poor Carlotta who can’t keep a man, who will die without ever having kids because only a complete Neanderthal would want to procreate with her. Who’s only ever been with grabby Catello and drooling Tony Boni! Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Wrinkles knot between his eyebrows as he stares at me. He bites his lower lip and asks me a stupid question that exasperates me.

“Did you sleep with Tony?”

“You know, Luca, I think you’re right,” I say. “It’s useless for me to pose as a prude, because the truth is, I like sex. I like sex a lot. If I want to sleep with a man, I will. Isn’t that your go-to advice? Haven’t you told me millions of times to just go out with somebody? I think the time has come to act on that advice.”

“So is that a yes?”

“What?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says. “Is that a yes?”

“Are you jealous or something?” I say, trying to provoke him.

“Carlotta!” He spreads his arms, apparently discouraged and sick of me. “Is that what you think? That is so fucking ridiculous. Jealous? Me? Over you? If I wasn’t so pissed off, that would make me laugh. I even gave you a condom before you left, remember? Excuse me for caring about you. From now on, I’m just going to mind my own business. You should do the same.”

He leaves the room, whisking his cigar and his anger away with him. It’s as if, suddenly, a mountain collapses on our home. I hear him slam his bedroom door and collapse on his bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides to move out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks me if I want him to. Right now, I just lay my head down on the pillow and try to fall asleep.

I’m still cold even with my pajamas on, so I seek refuge under the covers. Submerged and alone, I let myself cry. No one can spy on me here. A part of my soul, perhaps the best part, disappears along with my tears.

NINE

“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur! Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr . . .”

Neither Sheldon Cooper nor his mother is singing this song to me. It’s Emma. I don’t know how she learned it, but she sings it with conviction, as if it were a spell that will heal my invisible wounds. The morning after that awful night, I took a taxi straight to Lara’s. I need Emma’s innocence. I need this hushed peace. She caresses me and sings to me even though she doesn’t know what’s bothering me. But it only lasts until she goes off to kindergarten for the day. Then Lara and Giovanna decide to hold a war council. They plot revenge sitting around the sofa where I’m curled up.

“What Luca’s done is unforgivable, but your sister is a grade-A bitch,” Giovanna growls. With her high-heeled boots, she’s almost as tall as the ceiling—and formidable.

“Yes, but Luca is a pig. As usual, he just thinks with his little head, not his big head,” Lara mutters. She’s not very tall, but the anger she’s accumulated against all the men on the planet makes her seem like a giant.

“But how do you explain all this shit?” Giovanna asks me. “I mean, you and Erika are sisters! This behavior is just so exaggerated. Are you sure you didn’t do anything to provoke them?”

“He must have forced her into it,” Lara says. “If men are even remotely decent-looking, they think they can do whatever they want.”

“It didn’t seem forced,” I murmur, remembering how Erika’s back danced. “Luca doesn’t have to force women. I don’t know, guys. I often wonder what I did, but I’ve never figured it out. We were like two peas in a pod when we were kids. Then she grew up and became beautiful. Our mother taught her what she had wanted to teach me and couldn’t—to use my looks to get what I want. It was like Erika was brainwashed, and it was only a matter of time before funny, weird Carlotta wasn’t worthy of her presence anymore. Then she enrolled in private school and started hanging out with catty girls. We just drifted apart.”

“You know what I think of your mother,” Lara says. “She’s horribly sexist. She only values women if they’re the eighth wonder of the world. Who knows what she put in Erika’s mind? Of course, her classmates probably didn’t help, either. That’s why my daughter is going to public school and why she’ll never have anything expensive until she can buy it with her own money. But you have to kick Luca out immediately. You can’t keep turning a blind eye. If you weren’t in love with him, you’d never excuse his behavior. He transforms your apartment into a brothel every night. Let me look over the lease, and I’ll dismantle it in two seconds so you can kick him out on his ass.”

Giovanna immediately sides with Lara. “This has been going on for such a long time. It makes no sense, Carlotta. Are you hoping that one day he’ll fall in love with you? That only happens in the movies. In real life, he’s going to keep this up until he’s fifty.”

“Luca’s not like that,” I declare, surprising myself.

“Not like what?” Lara looks like a lioness whose cubs were just threatened.

“He’s not bad,” I insist, knowing that’s a contemptible opinion. And how could it not be? I came here with mascara running down my cheeks, my hair in tangles, and a cry for help streaming from my lips. I can’t expect my best friends, who have both taken the day off work to be with me, to show any kindness toward the person who ruined me. Especially when the air is foggy with “I told you so.” But I just can’t think badly of Luca. I can’t hate him. A part of me knows he is a better man than his actions show.

“Please,” I whisper, my eyes burning with tears again. “Can you stop giving me advice? I know it’s for my own good, but can you just treat me like Emma did for a little bit? I swear I’ll really think it all over. I’ll figure out what to do about Luca. But right now I just want to sleep and cry—and sleep some more.”

Giovanna comes to sit next to me and strokes my hair. “You’re in a sorry state, little one,” she whispers. Lara heads into the kitchen to make me one of her infamous cups of tea that she claims are good for your health but really taste like toilet paper. I sip it slowly. I don’t like it, but it was made with love—that’s good enough for me.

I close my eyes after I finish my tea. Lara starts to hum the song Emma was singing, and then Giovanna chimes in. After a few minutes, both of my friends are tenderly singing together, cradling me with the repetitive melody.

“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr.”

And I fall asleep.

I know. I have to do something. I need to get Luca out of my heart. I should ask him to move out. But I don’t have the courage, cunning, or stupidity to do it. I prefer cold war to bloodshed.

We haven’t spoken since that night. I don’t see him very much, but I’m okay with that. When I get up in the morning, he’s already out for a run. When I come home in the evening, he’s always just about to go out. We greet each other coolly and exchange a few awkward words. We are two distant planets sharing the apartment, two parallel lines observing each other from afar and hoping not to run into each other. The thing that hurts the most is that I know I’m right, but he couldn’t care less.

I’m too upset to call Erika. She would see right through me, and her feelings of triumph would triple. It’s better to leave her alone. But I do imagine the kind of medieval torture I’d subject her to if I could . . . Which scares even me.

Meanwhile, my work at the theater has become even more complicated than Franz said it would. Internet research has confirmed my suspicions. Most of the dolls that Rocky wants are either unavailable or outrageously expensive. How am I supposed to snag Scarlett O’Hara Barbie in her green dress, or Happy Family Barbie with her third-trimester belly, or Talking Barbie with her fundamentally important phrase, “Who do you have a crush on?”

One afternoon, Giovanna calls me as I’m leaving the theater to check out some toy stores.

“Can you please watch Bear tonight? Something came up at work and I have to run back to the set, but if he stays locked up inside much longer he’ll start howling like a werewolf and tearing the couch apart!”

I readily say yes. Bear and I are very similar. We’re both a little crazy and have a lot of hair. We don’t like to be on a leash, so we jerk around whoever’s walking us—him to chase other dogs and invisible smells, me to check out cute clothes in shop windows. Neither of us ever gets what we want—whether that’s buying everything or quarreling with a particularly unpleasant pug—but it’s the chase itself that we enjoy.

My hairy escort in tow, I head into an old, windowless toy shop full of shelves packed with colorful boxes. Flirty plastic girls peek out from them. It seems more like a junk shop, with boxes stacked everywhere and secondhand toys strewn about on dark wooden shelves. The shopkeeper sells and repairs vintage and antique toys. A young girl who looks to be about five or six is here with her mother. She solemnly hands the shopkeeper a doll.

“Make her better,” she tells him. He nods and sizes up the doll. She’s small and plump, with big eyes, a floral-print dress, and black flats with bows. One of her arms is detached, and there’s a cut on her cheek. I’m almost tempted to ask what happened, as if we were in a doctor’s office waiting room.

“She’ll be ready to go home in three days,” the shopkeeper says. He’s small and stout, with white hair, like an elf. Feeling reassured that her little baby will be all better soon, the little girl leaves. Unfortunately, as I list all the dolls I’m looking for, he shakes his head sadly.

“I’m sorry. At the moment, I don’t have any of those. They’re rare and very expensive. The first Barbie you mentioned goes for about seven thousand euro. They’re collectibles, not children’s toys.”

“I know. I scoured the Internet, but they’re either impossible to get or crazily expensive. I don’t know what else to do.”

“You won’t be able to find them in stores. You should try talking to collectors.”

“Do you know any?” I say, as solemn and pleading as the girl who left him the broken doll.

“You’re in luck. I sold some of these dolls to some amateurs a while ago. I think they wanted to complete their collection. They ended up asking me to buy them back, but they’re too expensive. And what if I couldn’t find a buyer? With the state of the economy, sometimes this business is tough. I can’t afford it. Maybe you can contact them and see if they’ll offer you a better price.”

“Probably not, but it can’t hurt to try.”

He writes down the names and addresses on a sheet of paper, and I thank him. As I’m about to leave, I turn and ask him, “Will you make her better? That little girl’s doll, I mean.”

“I’ll make her better,” he says. He smiles at me the way my father did when I brought him a hurt caterpillar I’d found while playing outside.

I take Bear to the park. He goes crazy, straining against the leash and wagging his tail, once he catches a whiff of the earth, so different from the smells of asphalt and smog. He sniffs the butts of Labradors, Great Danes, and Pomeranians, and they all courteously reciprocate. I feel bad about keeping him on the leash when he so desperately wants to run free, so I make him swear—paw to his heart—that he’ll behave, and then I let him go.

It’s hot today, and the sky looks like an upside-down ocean. Bear seems as happy as only a dog chasing other dogs in the emerald-green grass can be. I get emotional watching him. I’d love to be him, a simple, trusting creature who just needs a good run and a sniff under the tail to feel at peace with the universe. I sit down on the grass and watch him chase the joy of living. Run, my furry friend, run!

Oh, God. Don’t run too far!

I lose sight of him as he disappears into the trees ringing the park. I told Giovanna to get him neutered to spare him the suffering of chasing after female dogs. People think it’s nice when male dogs go after a female in heat. Nice, my ass! At the very least, you risk them fighting with other dogs; at the worst, he’ll father dozens of puppies. What if they’re not purebred and no one wants them?

I head into the trees to look for Bear, calling him with increasing desperation. After what seems like hours, the culprit appears, all fresh and combed. By which I mean, he’s covered in mud and weeds, and a lizard’s tail is sticking out of his mouth. If I scold him, he’ll think I’m saying, “Bad dog! You shouldn’t have come back.” So I pet him in spite of myself.

I put him back on the leash and take him to a fountain to try to clean him up. He paddles around, very pleased with himself. The scenery is beautiful. In the distance, a pond glitters like silver paper, and nearby a park cafe’s tables and umbrellas are clustered under a clump of trees. I decide to sit down and order a drink. Finally exhausted, Bear falls asleep under the table.

As the waiter passes by, he ignores me completely—perhaps he has no work ethic, or perhaps he was just not captured by my radiant beauty. Tall and lanky, he looks like he just came from his grandmother’s funeral. So, looking like the nerdy student who knows all the answers, I raise my hand to get his attention. But this giraffe-man hybrid walks right by me again, tray in hand, toward tables hidden among the trees as if I’m not even here. More and more people sit down around me, and the lanky guy continues to ignore me—and insolently, too.

Now I’m just pissed off. I don’t want anything to drink anymore, but he can’t just treat me like some insignificant shrub. As he passes by with two iced coffees on his fake silver tray, I sneakily extend my leg and trip him. He sways for a few seconds, and the glasses slide—an impossible balancing act. He curses as they tumble to the ground. The iced coffee splatters everywhere; whipped cream lands in his ear. Bear raises an eyelid as if to say,
Please be quiet; can’t you see that I’m resting?
I hold back laughter while the waiter glares at me.

“You did that on purpose!” he says.

“What do you mean?” I say. “I’m not even here, am I? You’re talking to a shrub!”

He gets up, mumbling. If he did get it, he pretends not to. He goes over to someone sitting a few tables over and explains that he needs to resubmit their order because a crazy lady tripped him. I get up, ready to do it again, but then I sit right back down. The voice I hear responding to the waiter belongs to Luca, and he’s not alone. I get up and, protected by the trees, follow his voice. I could recognize it in the middle of a U2 concert, no matter what sound he was making—a laugh, a moan, a yell, and lately, the silence that feels like a slap in the face.

I peek out from behind a hedge and see them sitting at a table under an umbrella. He’s with
her
. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the elegant young woman that I saw him with outside of the apartment. Close up, even with the hedge obstructing my view, she’s even lovelier than I thought, and she’s not wearing sophisticated makeup or expensive clothes. Her hair is pixie short.

From here, as I listen to snippets of their conversation, I feel unsettled and slimy, like a snake. He’s slightly tense, sighing like a teenage boy in love. In a nasty tone, he says something about not letting her father get in the way. I feel like crap, and not just because I’m playing secret agent over here with a twig in my right nostril and bird poop on my shoulder. It’s because I can tell that Luca loves this woman. She seems to belong to the traditionally wealthy class. The watch on her wrist could pay for my apartment. I’m willing to bet that dear old dad learned that his daughter has the hots for a guy like him (read: a statuesque guy with a modest savings account) and has decided to exile the guy and lock up the girl. If only.

Luca alternates between nervousness and moments of strange sweetness. All of a sudden, he starts to talk about their love. “It’s a crazy thing!” he says, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin in his hands. “Damn, Paola, I feel like I’m high.”

“My darling,” she says. “I’m happy. It amuses me, too, to see you so flustered.”

“Are you mocking me?” His eyes glisten. He looks lost.

“No, my dear. I’m just relieved. You know, bad boy Luca, the guy who devours women and spits them out. . . To see you so uncertain . . . and then to find out . . .”