A Semester Abroad (30 page)

“You seem so sad tonight,
tesoro
. What is it? What happened today since I saw you?” I shook my head. I still didn’t want to talk. He pulled my head onto his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head like a brother. He cared for me so much. I thought I was alone in this world until I saw him.

I sighed against his shoulder. Then without thinking, I tipped my head up to him, closed my eyes. He kissed my lips, hesitantly. I let my lips stay against his. On my leg, his hand tightened. But I didn’t want any of the others to see, so I pulled away.

I finished my glass of wine and poured myself another. All the while, he watched me. I looked around the room. My heart was still beating. I could breathe. His hand was still on my leg, less certain.

I didn’t want to think about this, I didn’t want to see the projection of where this night was going. I didn’t want to wonder if it was a good idea. I had already thought too much.

“You are strange tonight,” he said in my ear. I shrugged. “What is it?”

I shrugged again. When I turned to him, I felt the
vino
replacing some of the sadness. I felt heavy. I shook my head.

“Okay,
tesoro
, I am going to go.”

I nodded. Maybe this was really best. I told him I would see him out. We walked through the hall, where Pam and some drunk Italian were lying on the floor, cuddling, starting to make out. They didn’t stop when I opened the door. Gaetano stared at me.

“Do you want me to go?” I shrugged again. He looked past me to where Pam and the guy were now listening to us. He took my hand and pulled me out into the hallway, turning on the electric timer light.

“Come here, come talk to me here. Tell me what it is.”

I stared at the floor. If I looked up at him, I might start crying again. He put his hands on my shoulders. He crouched down and tried to place his face under mine to look into my eyes. The moment I looked at him the lights in the hall went out.

Then I surprised both of us.

I felt the sob about to come, so I pulled him to me and kissed him. My mouth opened to his. He led me into the alcove in the hallway. He did not stop kissing. He was afraid that I would change my mind. His hands moved quickly and with a certain desperation onto my stomach. He found the button of my jeans and unzipped them. There was no second base in Italy.

His fingers found me. He took a chance and moved his mouth down my neck, holding his breath until he realized that he was not going to be stopped. I began to tremble against him.

“Gabriella? Gabriella?” Suzie’s voice came out in the hall as a door opening. Gaetano and I froze where we were.

He moved his other hand to bang the wall behind me, pissed we had been interrupted. He cursed in dialect. “
Pesce della mamita
.”

“Gabriella?’ Thankfully, she didn’t turn the light on.

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to go to bed, okay? Can I sleep in your room?”

“Is it just you?” I was confused. I thought that Suzie would wind up with someone.

“Yeah,” Suzie said. And I wasn’t sure if I heard regret or confusion. “Just me.”

“Okay, I’ll be in it a bit.” To Gaetano I said, “It’s okay.”

I stopped kissing him. Other people came through the hall, newly formed couples leaving for the night. I hugged Gaetano to me in case they turned the light on. I wrapped both my arms around him, pulling him close. He whispered in my ear.

“Come home with me, Gabriella. Come back. You can brush your teeth, and in the morning we can get you a nice breakfast.” I laughed hard into his shoulder. He believed he was saying the words an American would want to hear.
Dentifricio
and
prima colazione
became words of seduction. It was that simple for him. Problem solved with breakfast and toothpaste.

He couldn’t understand why I was laughing so hard. He moved away from me, shaking his head. He reached for the light muttering “
pazza
.”
Pazza
and
crazy
mean the same thing, but for me they were slightly different. I was
pazza,
but not Crazy. I zipped up my jeans, suddenly sober, suddenly modest and now feeling almost giddy.

“
Perché ridi?
” He questioned my laughter. But at that point I had forgotten why. I couldn’t stop so I kept laughing. “
Madonna
.”

“
Mi dispiace
,” I apologized. I hugged him. “I have to go to sleep.”

“
Sei veramente pazza
.” I
was
truly
pazza
but not Crazy. He wasn’t mad at me. He was just confused. I stopped laughing but couldn’t stop smiling at him. He was dear to me and I couldn’t help but say the word he hated to hear. I said it better now than when I first arrived.

“
Grazie
.”

“
Pazza,
” he said again, shaking his head. We kissed on both cheeks. And then he was on his way, leaving me to creep back through my apartment. Pam and her boy were under a blanket in the hall. Janine and Andrea were in her room. Another couple was on the chair where Gaetano slept.

In my room the lights were off. Suzie was on the floor. I whispered again, although I knew that Suzie wasn’t sleeping. “You could have taken the bed, Suze.”

“I’m okay,” Suzie said.

I hesitated before asking, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?” she asked. I waited again, thinking about the ups and downs of the night.

“Yeah.”

In the morning, I woke up. I slept hard and well. I crept through Lisa’s room. Pam was now in Lisa’s room with her Italian. The dining room was smoky, littered with bottles and cigarette butts put out in glasses. Lisa was on the floor wrapped in her winter coat.

“Hey,” I said jostling her awake. “Go sleep in my bed. I’m up.”

I opened the window in the dining room. I made myself coffee, a good strong espresso on the stove, not the instant stuff.

I stared out the window, over the red and brown rooftops. This view never disappointed me. I would be leaving soon but not yet. This country I loved. This city.

Suzie came out into the dining room. Her eyes were red. I poured her a glass of water and the rest of the espresso. We stood together, looking out the window.

“I feel like I’m never going to get over this,” Suzie said. “I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore.”

I didn’t know what to say. Some day it would get better but when?

“This doesn’t even make me happy,” Suzie said, pointing out toward the countryside. “I want to go home. I want to see things that are familiar, you know?”

I nodded.

“Part of me thought I should travel with you all this summer, but I don’t think I can. I’m going to go home next week. I’m going to leave, and I hope that makes me feel better. I feel like such a fool. I don’t understand why.”

I didn’t know what to say. I put my arm around Suzie and I kissed her cheek.

We dressed and walked to the bus station. Suzie bought a pack of cigarettes and we smoked one before the bus.

“Ciao,” Suzie said before she got on the bus. We hugged goodbye.

“
Ciao, bella, ciao presto. Ciao,
” I shouted, waving, as she walked down the aisle to her seat. I watched her through the window and kept waving.

I wouldn’t see Suzie again and neither would Olivia. Suzie would go home and return to her college and be the beautiful popular co-ed she was before. She could smile fondly when she was asked about Italy, but she would never return. She would forget and for her it was better that way.

When I returned to the apartment, no one was there except Lisa. She looked up at me with the report. “Everybody’s gone out.”

“Good,” I said.

I made tea for both of us. We sat together at the table, not saying much. I worked on research for my papers. Then, when the outside light started to fade, I called Gaetano from the gaming alcove. I only needed change for that call. He was there when his dorm mate called down the hall for him. I heard his footsteps coming down the floor.

“
Ciao, bella
,” he said, exhaling smoke. “What are you doing?”

“I was studying. Do you want to go out tonight? Do you want to get dinner?”

“Of course, I will be there in an hour.”

As I waited for him, I tried to piece together the night in my journal at the dining room table. I wondered if it would be strange to see him. Just when things had gotten so normal between us, I had to go and fuck it up.
Che pazzia
.

Then he was at my door. I opened it and smiled. We kissed two kisses on the cheek. I was anxious to move through the hallway, the scene of the crime.

We went to a
trattoria
that I had passed many times on the way to Lucy’s. There was a large family there celebrating something.

“It’s the family of the proprietor,” Gaetano said.

“Well, can we sit?”

“
Prego
,” said the proprietor, putting his napkin on the table. Another woman in the family brought us bread. Gaetano ordered the wine. I got my default–the pasta with truffle sauce. It came wrapped in foil. I opened it up and inhaled. I smiled over at the proprietor’s family.

“Your favorite,” Gaetano said, gesturing with the fork in his left hand down to my dish.

“I think so. Well, one of them.”

Our conversation was easy. We avoided talking about the night before. I didn’t feel uncomfortable, but I kept wondering if I should bring it up. I wasn’t sure if now, we were supposed to get together. The events of the night before had been so strange.

Gaetano invited me, Michelle and Duccio to see his game on Sunday. “You must see me play with the right shoes.”

“Okay, if Duccio will drive.”

“He will drive if it is what Michelle wants.”

“You’re right.”

“Just as I’ll do whatever it is you want.” I nodded, studying him to decide what to say. He changed the subject. “There is a bar near where I have my game. We can go there after.”

“You think all I do is drink.”

“Well, you do. I don’t know how you can stand to just have espresso. Should we order some Vin Santo so you can avoid the tremors?” I laughed.

“No, let’s go get some gelato.”

“Ah,” he said, “the other American addiction.”

When I left the restaurant, I waved to the family at the table and said
grazie
and
ciao
. Gaetano was laughing when we came out onto the street.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Is he your uncle? Is he a friend of your family?”

“What? No? What do you mean?”

And Gaetano rubbed my face in the way he did when he thoroughly enjoyed watching me do something foolish.

“I shouldn’t have said that?” I had no idea what I did wrong.

“No, it was too familiar.”

“
Ciao
? Oh, God, I’m so stupid.”

“You aren’t. It was just funny. You’re so funny.
Allora, tesoro
.” He held out his arm to me. “Come, let us get you your gelato.”

“Before I get the shakes.” And we walked
in giro
around the streets of Siena with out
gelati
. We walked through the
campo
and said hi to Dino and Paolo who were smoking at the fountain. It was so easy

I was waiting to have to explain my actions to Gaetano, but he never asked for anything. We were just hanging out, as usual, having fun.

We grabbed a beer with Dino and Paolo. Then Gaetano needed to get back because of his game in the morning. Even our goodbye wasn’t awkward. He took me to my door and kissed me on the cheek. His voice was soft in my ear, “
Buona notte
,
tesoro
.”

In my bed, I could smell his cologne on me. I liked that he didn’t try to kiss me. He had changed. He changed me. If I let myself have fun, maybe I really could.

“G, get up. Gabriella.” It was Michelle standing above me in some outfit, tapping me lightly with what looked like a whip. She was laughing. Duccio was standing in the doorway of my room, smiling nervously. He wouldn’t come in. For him, it would be impolite.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m waking you up to go
fare al cavallo
. And Duccio’s freaking out because he had to walk through Lisa’s stinky room.
Che schiffo
.”

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. I smiled at Duccio. His expression was so sweet. He shook his head.

“
Che pazzia
. I go on table out.”

“
Si, vai a
table.” Michelle said in their funny mixed up language.

“What should I wear?” I asked. Maybe I hadn’t thought riding a horse through.

“Something, you can squat in.” Michelle jumped up onto my bed, straddling me and hitting me with the crop. “Giddyup, G-dog.
Vai. Dai. Dai. Andiamo.”

I covered my face with my hands. My laughter and Michelle’s jumping were shaking the tiny bed. I thought we might crash through it onto the floor. Duccio called Michelle from the dining room. “Yes, go to him. Get out, you
pazza americana
. Save these moves for him.”

“Oh, I do, I do.” Michelle said, wiggling her hips provocatively. “I give it to my
uomo ogni notte
.”