13 Little Blue Envelopes (14 page)

because Roman boys are some of the most amusing creatures on earth. You are a beautiful girl, Gin, and a Roman boy will tell you that in his own special way.

Unless things have changed a lot, Gin, I am going to guess that this will be hard for you. You were always so shy. It bothered me because I was worried that people might not get to know the wonder that was and is my niece Virginia Blackstone! But fear not. The Romans will help you. If there was ever a city to learn how to ask a stranger out, this is it.

Get out there, tiger. Let them eat cake.

Love,

Your Bundle of Issues Aunt

Boys and Cake

This bordered on being a nightmare scenario. This was adding insult to injury.

She followed the tour group out of the Colosseum and meandered along with them for almost an hour, stewing over this latest command.
Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out,
you shy, retarded thing!

She didn’t want to ask a boy out. She
was
shy (thanks for bringing it up). Plus, the guy she liked was in London, and he thought she was crazy. Salt. Wound. Together at last.

The tour group stopped in a large square with a crowd in the middle, all gathered around a fountain, clearly very old, carved into the shape of a sinking boat. Some dipped their hands in and drank the water. The group suddenly dispersed, leaving Ginny to her own devices once again.

She was thirsty. Her every instinct told her that she shouldn’t be drinking fountain water, especially really old fountain water, 143

but lots of people were doing it. Plus, she really needed a drink.

She took her empty bottle from her bag, found an opening along the edge, and tentatively reached out to the spray. She took a long sip and was rewarded with cold, fresh water—water that tasted very safe. She drained her bottle and filled it again.

When she turned around, three little kids were running at her. Strangely, one was holding a newspaper. They were all girls, and they were extremely beautiful, with long, very dark brown hair and bright green eyes. The tallest of the girls, who couldn’t have been older than ten, came right up to Ginny and started flapping the newspaper at her, shaking the pages. In the next second, a tall, kind of thin guy with a huge book suddenly leapt up from where he was sitting and started running at her as well, yelling things in Italian. Ginny involuntarily took a step back and heard a little squeal. She felt her foot come into contact with a tinier foot and her daypack make contact with a small, helpless face. She realized that the little girls were all circling, sort of dancing around her, and any move she made might result in taking another one of them out with her feet or bag, so she froze and started apologizing, even though she realized that they probably would not understand a word she was saying.

The guy was almost to them now and was waving around his fat, hardback book like he was trying to cut a path through some unseen foliage. The small newspaper flappers were understandably alarmed by this larger book flapper and immediately streamed away from Ginny. The guy broke his run with a few final, stumbling steps, stopping right as he got up to Ginny. He nodded in satisfaction.

Ginny still hadn’t moved. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

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“They were about to steal from you,” he said. His English was very clear but strongly flavored by an Italian accent.

“Those little girls?” she asked.

“Yes. Believe me. I see this all of the time. They are gypsies.”

“Gypsies?”

“You are all right? Has anything been taken?”

Ginny reached around and felt her pack. To her alarm, she found the zipper partway open. She opened it up all the way and checked the contents. Strangely, she checked first to make sure the letter was still in there, and then she checked for her money.

Both were there.

“No,” she said.

“That’s good.” He nodded. “Okay. Good.”

He went back to his spot at the edge of the fountain and sat down. Ginny stared at him. He didn’t look Italian. He had golden brown hair, almost blond. His eyes were light colored and very narrow.

If there was ever a guy to buy cake for, it was a guy who had just kept her from being robbed, even if that meant defending her from small children by waving a textbook.

She walked up to him cautiously. He looked up from his book.

“I was wondering . . .” Ginny began. “Well, first, thanks. Do you want to . . .”

Do you want to
was too strong a construction. It meant, “Do you want to do this with me?” She just had to offer the cake.

Everyone likes cake.

“I mean . . .” she corrected herself, “would you like some cake?”

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“Cake?” he repeated.

He blinked slowly. Maybe at Ginny, maybe at the sun.

Maybe his eyes were tired. Then he looked down into the splashing waters of the fountain. Ginny looked into them as well. Anything to keep her eyes off him in this painful pause, during which he had to be trying to figure out a way of telling a weird American girl to leave him alone.

“Not cake,” he finally replied. “But a coffee.”

Coffee . . . cake . . . close enough. She had asked a guy, and the guy had said yes. This was nothing short of a miracle. She stopped herself just short of bouncing on her heels.

It was no problem finding a coffee bar. They were everywhere.

The guy went up to the long marble counter and turned casually, ready to take Ginny’s order and pass it to the stiff-aproned server.

“I usually get a latte,” she said.

“You would like a glass of milk? No, you mean a caffè latte.

Would you like to sit?”

She pulled out a few euros.

“It costs more if you sit,” he explained. “It’s ridiculous, but we are Italians.”

It cost a lot more. Ginny had to pass over about ten dollars’

worth of euros, and in return, they were presented with two very modest glass cups, each nestled in a tiny metal basket with a handle.

They sat down at one of the gray marble-topped tables, and the boy began to talk. His name was Beppe. He was twenty. He was a student, studying to be a teacher. He had three older sisters. He liked cars, some British bands Ginny hadn’t heard of.

He had been surfing in Greece. He didn’t ask Ginny a lot about herself, something she could easily live with.

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“It’s hot,” he said. “You should have a gelato. Have you had one yet?”

He was horrified to hear that she hadn’t.

“Come on,” he said, getting up. “We’re going now. This is ridiculous.”

Beppe led her down a few more streets, streets that got progressively more crowded with people and more colorful.

These were streets that shouldn’t have had motorcycles and scooters barreling down them but did anyway. People calmly stepped out of the way just inches from their deaths, sometimes offering a choice word or gesture if they’d actually been brushed.

Beppe finally stopped in front of a small, unassuming stoop.

Once Ginny stepped inside, however, she saw that its size didn’t reflect its offerings. There were dozens of colorful gelatos packed into a glass case. Two men behind the counter quickly shoveled out heroic portions with a flat-edged spoon. Beppe translated the labels. There were normal flavors like strawberry, chocolate. But there were also ginger and cinnamon, cream with wild honey, black licorice. One was rice flavored, and there were at least half a dozen with special liquors or wine.

“How did you come here?” he asked as she selected her flavor, which was the unimaginative strawberry.

“By . . . plane?”

“You are with a tour,” he said, but not as a question. He seemed certain of this.

“No tour. Just me.”

“You came to Rome by yourself? With no one? No friends?”

“Just me.”

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“My sister lives in Travestere,” he suddenly said, giving Ginny a short nod, as if she should know what this meant.

“What’s that?”

“Travestere? The best place in Rome,” he said. “My sister will like you. You will like my sister. Get your ice cream, then we will go to see my sister.”

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Beppe’s Sister

Travestere
couldn’t
be a real place. It looked like Disney had attacked a corner of Rome with leftover pastel paint and created the coziest, most picturesque neighborhood ever. It seemed to consist entirely of nooks. There were shutters on the windows, overflowing window boxes, hand-lettered signs that were fading perfectly. There were wash lines hung from building to building, draped with white sheets and shirts. All around her were people with cameras, photographing the wash.

“I know,” Beppe said, eyeing the photographers. “It’s ridiculous. Where is your camera? You can take a picture too.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Why don’t you have a camera? All Americans bring cameras.”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “I just didn’t.”

They walked on a little farther and finally stopped in front of an orange-colored flat-faced building with a slightly 149

green-tinted roof. He pulled some keys from his pocket and opened up an ornate wooden door.

The inside of the building was nothing like the outside. In fact, it looked like Aunt Peg’s old New York apartment building—chipped tile floor and dented metal mailboxes. She followed Beppe up three flights of stairs to a stifling, dark hallway. From there, he showed her into a very clean, somewhat spare apartment. It was just one room, carefully divided into sections with folding screens and furniture.

Beppe pushed open a large window above the kitchen table, and they had a good view of the street and the bedroom of the neighbor across the way. She was sprawled on her bed, reading a magazine. A fat fly came in through the unscreened window.

“Where’s your sister?” Ginny asked, looking around the empty room.

“My sister is a doctor,” he explained. “She is very busy, all the time. I am the student, the lazy one.”

This wasn’t exactly an answer, but there were a number of family pictures around the room, several of which included Beppe. There was a tall girl standing next to him, with honey-colored hair and a distracted scowl. She looked kind of busy.

“Is this your sister?” Ginny asked, pointing at the girl.

“Yes. She is a doctor . . . with babies. I don’t know the English for it.”

Beppe opened a cabinet under the sink and produced a bottle of wine.

“This is Italy!” he said. “We drink wine here. We’ll have some while we wait.”

He filled two juice glasses halfway. Ginny sipped at her 150

wine. It was warm, and she suddenly felt exhausted but also very content. Beppe was talking with his hands now, touching her hand, her shoulder, her hair. Her skin was sticky. She looked out the window at the light blue of the building across the street. The woman from the bed had gotten up and was adjusting her blind and watching them with a detached interest, like she was watching the progress of something cooking in an oven.

“Why do you wear your hair like this?” he asked, holding up a braid and scowling.

“I just always do.”

He pulled off the rubber band that held the braid, but Ginny’s hair, so well trained (and still a little wet, she guessed), refused to debraid itself.

Her first thought when he kissed her was that it was way too warm for this. She wished there was an air conditioner.

And it was so awkward at the kitchen table, leaning across the chairs. But this was kissing. Real, unquestionable kissing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be kissing Beppe, but for some reason, it felt important—like she should be doing it. She was making out with an Italian boy in Rome. Miriam would be proud, and Keith . . . who knew? Maybe he’d be jealous.

Then she realized she appeared to be slipping down out of her chair onto the floor. Not in a falling kind of a way—in a

“guided down by Beppe to have more room to make out” kind of way.

This, she really didn’t want.

“There is a problem,” he said. “What is it?”

“I have to go,” she said simply.

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“Why?”

“Because,” she said. “I just have to.”

She could see from the baffled look in his eye that he hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. He didn’t seem to understand.

“Where’s your sister?” she asked.

He laughed—not meanly. Like she was a little dim. It annoyed her.

“Come on,” he said, sounding conciliatory. “Come sit back down. I am sorry. I should have been more clear. My sister isn’t here often.”

He started in again. He was giving her quick little kisses on her neck. Ginny craned her head to look out the window, but the woman across the way had lost interest and was gone.

Now Beppe was reaching for the button on her shorts.

“Look,” she said, pushing him back, “Beppe . . .”

He was still working at it.

“No,” she said, starting to get up. “Stop it.”

“Okay. I will leave the button alone.”

She pulled herself to her feet.

“Americans,” he said dismissively. “All alike.”

Her head was thrumming as she raced down the steps. Out on the street, Ginny’s sneakers squeaked mercilessly in the humidity. The noise echoed down the narrow street, so much so that diners at a small outdoor café looked up to watch her pass.

Strangely, though the wine had made her groggy, it actually seemed to sharpen her sense of direction. She confidently walked back to the metro station and managed to get herself back to the Colosseum.

The gates were still open, so Ginny went in, weaving her way 152

back through the crumbling things and the half walls, all the way back to the remaining pieces of the virgins.

She grabbed the button that Beppe had been reaching for and yanked it from her shorts. She leaned over the metal bar that kept people back from the statues and tossed it onto the ground between two of the most complete ones.

“Here,” she said. “From one virgin to another.”

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