A Semester Abroad (16 page)

“You’re crying?” Gaetano asked once after a ride, noticing my full eyes. But I blamed it on the wind–
il vento,
and he nodded, seemed to accept that, but still watched me closely.

Gaetano and I spent a lot of time together. Now that we spoke only Italian, he no longer tried to show off the bits of English he knew. He accepted my make-believe boyfriend and seemed to respect that we were only friends. He asked me about the boyfriend occasionally, and I made stuff up on the spot, hoping I wouldn’t be caught in a lie.

Part of me wanted to like him. I knew he still wanted to be more than my friend in spite of what I said. It would have been easier in some ways if I could just let my guard down, but I didn’t know if I ever was going to stop finding Jonas in my thoughts late in the evenings when everything else was gone.

Once we passed the monastery where he lived. Visitors were allowed into the church and on the grounds, but the dormitory was for monks and male students only. I teased him that he was like a little monk.

“If I am a monk, it’s because of you.” He knew how far to go with me. “You are a sly fox.
Quanto sei forba
.”

Slowly, I relaxed around him. I relied on him for certain things and enjoyed the teasing between us, as long as he wanted nothing more, or if he wanted more he could contain it. We had gotten past the point of just hooking up, and I liked having him as a friend. I suspected that sometimes he took the hillier roads so I had to hold him tighter on the
vespa
.

But, I would not let myself expect to see him outside the
università
. If the class got out early, I went to Lucy’s apartment or to buy lunch.

Wednesdays, when the stores were closed in the afternoon, I went to the outdoor market to browse the clothes and shoes I couldn’t afford. Sometimes, when I didn’t see Gaetano after class, I sensed that he was following me. But when I looked up, he wasn’t there.

On the
festa della donna
, the feast day celebrating women, he brought me mimosa flowers and took me out for lunch at the Osteria la Chiacchiera, where I got
pici boscaiola
, the thick pasta of Siena in a rich creamy mushroom sauce. After lunch we walked
in giro
around the city. Every woman had a bunch of mimosa. I was happy to be one of them. For once I felt a part of Siena, a citizen.

Gaetano stopped at a
palazzo
and asked me to wait for him outside the building while he picked something up from a friend. I leaned against a wall, holding my spray of mimosa, staring up at the window he might be behind. It was cold and I wished he had asked me up.

I envisioned someone crashing through the glass, being thrown by him and then I knew what he was doing, why he didn’t ask me up. I remembered when we first met what Dino said about him being a criminal. I thought of the fight the second time I saw him. When he came back down, I glanced at his jacket, suspecting it was fuller, that there was money in his pocket.

“What?” he asked. “How did you know where I was?”

“You saw me looking? I just guessed that was where you were. I expected someone to come flying out of one of the windows.”

“Why would that happen?” he asked, playing dumb.

“Because you’re like a bookie, aren’t you? That’s what it is.” I nodded at his expression of surprise. He understood the English word
bookie
. I kept walking when he stopped. After a while he caught up to me.

“Gabi, I told you it’s normal for many men of the south to do things that are a little illegal.”

“A little illegal?” I turned to him and shook my head. “And you wonder why you have the bad reputation if Southerners do what is
a little illegal
.”

“
Gabi, aspetta
,” he stopped me on the street, to concentrate fully on the conversation. It was impossible for him to multitask. “I do this, so I will have more money. I need it. I don’t have enough for what I need.”

“Gaetano, I don’t really care how you get money. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not your girlfriend. It doesn’t bother me in the least. Do what you want.”

He smiled at the way I said “
non mi fregga niente
” about his activities with the passionate dispassion of a true Italian. There was nothing else for either of us to say about this revelation. We shrugged at each other and decided to get an espresso.

“Did you get mimosa?” I asked Olivia when she came to see me on Friday. We were sharing a loaf of
pane proscuitto
that I bought for her in the
macelleria
with the big pig out in front. I finally had the courage to go in. It was down the road from my apartment and every single tourist seemed to need a picture with the big pig. They made the best proscuitto bread, though, and Olivia was a fiend for it.

“I don’t have a Gaetano, Gabriella. I’m not going to get mimosa from anyone.”

“He was just doing it to be nice. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“But
you
are his
tesoro,
” she teased.

“I really think he understands that there is not going to be anything between us. I think he knows that we are just friends.” Olivia looked at me with an expression that was becoming quite familiar. She narrowed her eyes and tipped her chin in disbelief. “Okay, okay, well, I understand that there is going to be nothing between us. So there is going to be nothing between us. We won’t even see him tonight, okay?”

“I like seeing him. I want to see him. He’s funny. I don’t get mimosa from him, but I still think he’s cool. And he’s cute too, those sexy eyes.” Gaetano was endearing himself to her. I wondered if this was his evil plan. “Why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you get with him? You don’t really have anyone at home, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

That was the sad truth. I didn’t say anything else, and she let the subject drop.

I called the monastery, but I couldn’t get in touch with Gaetano. Olivia and I drank a few glasses of wine with some pasta at my apartment. Then we went to Le Colonial.

“Look, your roommate is here,” Olivia said. She was looking over to where Janine was holding court with two guys. She was wearing a low-cut black shirt. Her blonde hair was pulled dramatically off her face. Olivia turned to me. “She is able to get that look with the cheap blow dryers from the Upim?”

“She’s a pro. Do you want to stay?” Olivia shrugged. It was stupid of me to not want to be where Janine was, but I thought about avoiding her completely. Janine caught my eye and waved us over.

“Hey, Janine, what are you up to? You remember Olivia?”

“Hey,” said Olivia. Janine gave her a big smile that didn’t hide the fact that she was no longer happy with the boy-girl ratio. She introduced us to the guys, Luigi and Carlo. I gathered that she didn’t know either one of them and that she was out alone, because Michelle was with Duccio.

Luigi couldn’t speak English as well as Carlo, so it made it harder for him to speak with Janine. She focused on Carlo. But Luigi was beautiful. He smiled at me. We were communicating. He didn’t understand me as well as Gaetano. I would be self-conscious of my accent if it weren’t for the buzz.

I laughed at his hemmed jeans. Luigi told me I had a good liver–
un buon fegato–
and that’s why I could drink so much. I was drinking glass after glass of
gintonnico
, saying
buon fegato
over and over again. I liked understanding new phrases right away and alcohol helped me do that. I leaned into Luigi. I wanted to be normal; I wanted to forget and get caught up in something like every other American girl in Italy. I didn’t have anyone at home. It was true. I was free and I should act it. I wanted to kiss this Italian. I told Olivia so in fast English.

“Do you want me to go back to Firenze?” Olivia asked.

“No,” I said, taking Luigi’s hand in my lap. “I’m not going to do anything.”

But that was a lie. It was not my intention. I wanted something. I wanted to get over this hump with this man.

Olivia started to say something, but then I saw Olivia looking up at Giovanni, Gaetano’s friend. He caught me before I had done anything wrong. We waved to him, but he didn’t come over. Luigi wanted to know who he was, if he should be worried.

“
Amico
,” I said, assuring Luigi that he was a friend. My eyes were scanning for Gaetano. This wasn’t going to help my fake boyfriend story. Everyone was finishing their drinks. They wanted to leave. Olivia asked me again if I wanted her to come home with me. Yes, I told her. Carlo and Janine were holding each other tight as we started to walk out. Luigi pulled me into his chest. Then I saw Gaetano with Paolo, saw that he already understood everything that was going on. His gray eyes were on fire. I was no better than any of the other American girls. And then I thought of his temper and that time I saw him fight.

“I’ll be right out. I have to go to the bathroom,” I said to Luigi. And to Olivia, “Come with me. It will look better.”

“
Come va
?” I asked Gaetano. He smirked at me. I kissed him on both cheeks. He nodded his head.

“
Bene. Ciao, Olivia
.” We looked at each other until I felt Paolo, Giovanni and Olivia getting uncomfortable. I am not yours to be jealous of, I wanted to tell him. I am not anyone’s. I am alone. Now there was a dark cloud on my good night.

Awkwardly, I told him that I got a good grade on the homework he helped me with. He shrugged. I kissed him again on both cheeks, twice. Four kisses.

“My friends are waiting for me,” I said.

“Then of course you must go.
Ciao, Olivia
.”

“
Ciao
,” Olivia said and kissed him goodbye.

Outside. Outside Carlo and Janine already started hooking up hard against the wall.

“Will you walk us home?” I asked Luigi.

“
Si
.”

“I’ll walk behind you.” Olivia said.

“Don’t be silly,” I said. I felt grateful to her but also somewhat embarrassed for my behavior. I couldn’t be as carefree as I wanted to be.

“C’mon, have your moment.”

“Okay, here’s my key. Walk ahead. Leave the
portone
open and the door to the apartment. You can take my bed.”

“You got it.”

We looked at the two still passionate against the wall. Then we started to walk. Olivia walked much faster until she was comfortably ahead of us. I shrugged at Luigi and tried to find that feeling again. He laughed and took my hand. His hands were warm. His eyes were blue and almost like Jonas’s. It was not the first time I noticed that. Luigi asked me again about the boys I was talking to in the bar. I told him they were friends.

“You have a lot of friends.”

I was charmed by the way he spoke, his Tuscan accent dropping the
c
when he asks about my
casa
. He walked me through the
campo
. I looked up at the tower. It grounded me. One thing solid and still in a swimming night. Our fingers were interlaced. I wanted to feel his warmth. He wrapped his arm around me.

At the
portone
, he told me he would call me.
But I don’t have a phone. Well, he’ll see me then.
We smiled. I wanted to kiss him, see those eyes close and open. I did. My hands reached up into his hair as he groaned in his throat. It was a good kiss but not the best I ever had. And while I was hoping my stomach would drop like it does when you kiss someone new, I felt a pang in my sternum. My heart hurt. It felt so different to me, bittersweet. This confirmed something I already knew. I smelled the bread starting to cook in the air. The baker was up, working. We hugged. We kissed again. This night should be wonderful even though it was the wrong boy

I didn’t invite him up. We kissed again and he left. I didn’t want to go into my apartment. I lingered in the hall until the electric light shut off. Then I went inside.

Olivia was passed out on the floor in spite of my offer. I almost tripped on her in the darkness. When I apologized, she said nothing and I whispered her name. Part of me wanted to get her up to talk. When she didn’t wake up, I turned on the light. I wrote drunken scribbles in my journal. I had been trying not to write about Jonas. What more was there to say? But I wrote instead in a sloppy hand, “When will I be over this?”

“Promise me, you’ll never start or end anything drunk.” Where did that voice come from? Once it came from me. I said it to Jonas. We thought we had it under control. It didn’t matter that we were sleeping in the same bed, for a while. We could do this.

I thought that Jonas was going to kiss me that night, but he didn’t, he hugged me. His fingertips touching my back like eyes seeing. That was all he would do at that point. So many memories are about waiting. It was easier to remember the waiting than the way it was once I got what I wanted. It hurt less, physically.

And so I was getting sober, lying in a tiny bed in a faraway place. The kiss of a beautiful Italian boy reminding me of the words of a beautiful American. Why couldn’t I shake it? When would I be over it?

Sober, no longer normal or carefree. Me once again. His.

Of course, I didn’t hear from Luigi. And I didn’t really mind. I didn’t know how I could have. I guessed an American girl who doesn’t really put out isn’t that interesting for a Tuscan man as cute as he was. It was for the best. I would always be expecting something more from his blue eyes.