CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (29 page)

“I still don’t understand you.”  He shook
his head.  But if you don’t want me to wait with you, I’ll wait in the car.” 
He was bargaining for a compromise.  “They won’t even realize that I’m here.”

“Fine!”  Marika steadied herself.  “Then
go!” she told him, terrified that if they delayed any longer, all of her good
intentions would melt away like frost in the first rays of sun.  “They’re
already on the way.”

Matteo made as if he wanted to give her
one last goodbye, but she pulled away.  “OK,” he muttered, before turning
lethargically away toward the parking  lot, unable to truly go.

Marika smiled sadly, encouraging him to
put an end to this slow torture.  She lowered her face to the ground in order
to avoid watching him walk away, when she felt a force drag her toward him and
soft, scorching hot lips press against her mouth.  Uncontrollable thrills of
passion, consuming her, ran through their bodies in a fire that had been
released by that intimate union of body and soul, ice and flames.   She craved
him so badly as his lips collided with hers.  Then a feeling like a cold wind
on her wet lips indicated that their bond was over.

“I can’t,” he sighed as their breath
mingled.  “I don’t  want to hurt you.”  Matteo took her face between his hands,
caressing her delicately with his fingers.

She instinctively moved her lips toward
his when she felt him slipping away.

“Stop,” he panted, ordering her not to
move.  He had to keep her at a distance in order to control the wild desire he
felt for her.

“Why?”  Marika smiled, enchanted by his
spell, the copper freckles on her nose glowing.

“This is a mistake.”  Matteo lowered his
arms, mortified.  “I’m sorry.”

“What?”  She pushed him away violently.  “No,
don’t say that!  Please don’t say that!  Don’t apologize for this!”

“Forget what just happened.”  He was
paralyzed by what he was about to do.

Marika was stunned, unprepared for this
rejection.

“You’re free.  You can fall in love with
whoever you want.”  He was trying to stifle his own emotions in order to think
about her first, and himself second.

“I
am
in love... with you,” she
stuttered, confused and bleeding.

“Promise me one thing, though.”  Matteo
reached for her hand, wanting to make sure that she understood what he was
about to say.

“This is a nightmare!”  She started
swaying, off-balance.

“Promise me that you won’t just throw
yourself at the first guy you see in order to punish me, or because everyone
else does it.”  He squeezed her hand, a gentle look on his face.  “Respect
yourself above all things, and love someone who can love you back, someone
special for you.”

“Can you hear what you’re saying?”  Marika
broke away from him and leaned against the castle wall.  “You don’t need to
justify yourself or grasp at the first excuse that comes to mind.  Go back to
Lucrezia, or to any other girl who is up to your standards!”  She stared at him
with the angry eyes of a wounded animal.  “Because we both know that she is
beautiful and sexy and who knows what else!  And me... I’m just....”

“You are ten, a hundred, a thousand times
more beautiful and sexy than any Lucrezia on the face of the earth,” he
interrupted her, reaching out in hopes of connecting.

“But not nearly as
good
as her,”
she said allusively.

“There’s no comparison between the two of
you.”  Matteo felt her sharp claws rasping at his heart.  “And there never has
been.”  The pain was intense, and his knees too weak to react.  “Anyway, you
should know by now that not everyone wants the easy girls.”

“Oh yeah?”  Her face was full of disdain. 
“Then I wonder why everyone is always after her, why everyone wants her.”

“Everyone, as you call it, just want one
thing from her.”  He wanted to be a blunt as possible so that she understood.  “Don’t
confuse sex with love: they are two very different things, and they don’t
always go together.”

“What a philosopher!  Don’t give me a
sermon when you wanted the exact same thing from her,” she reminded him
angrily.  “I haven’t forgotten your tongues, intertwining disgustingly and
vilely at the Villa.”  She watched him as he lowered his eyes to the ground.  “And
I bet you enjoyed having sex with her that time too!”  She was like a beaten
and humiliated dog, foaming at the mouth.  “Or maybe it was
love
.”  She
died at the thought.

“You clearly don’t know what you’re
saying.”  Matteo kept his distance, incapable of controlling his need to hold
her in his arms.  “Just being near you is strange for me: it’s like taking a
drug that I didn’t even know existed.”

“Is that all I am to you?  A line of coke
that you sniff in the bathroom?”  She grimaced.  “That’s  terrifying.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “in a certain sense,
you are.  It scares me sometimes, throws me off balance and fucks up my plans. 
It’s like an addiction, but it’s no fiction, it’s real.”  The pleasure he felt
before returned instantly to his lips.  “Nothing has ever been so real for me.”

“Well, then, that’s great!” she replied
sarcastically.  “Thanks for the compliment!”  It was like going from the frying
pan into the fire.  He didn’t even have the decency to lie in order to cover up
this calumny.  “I’m flattered.”  She was dripping with sarcasm.

“How come you don’t understand me?”  His
head drooped in his torment.

“Why do you think
I
am the one who doesn’t
understand?”  Marika’s mind wandered like a nomad amongst her phantoms.   “You’ve
been talking shit for over an hour now, and not a word of  sense!  ‘
You’re
incredible
’ – of course! – ‘
but I can’t.  Wait for that special guy to
come along!
’”  She imitated his voice.  “And then that crap about your
balance.  Standing ovation!”  Clap, clap, clap.  “But just explain one thing to
me now....”  She was at sea without a compass.  “What the hell is the moral of
this story?”  Her voice was aggressive and sadly cruel.  “Aren’t I enough for
you?”  She stared him down.  “Then say so, and let’s be done with this farce!” 
Her words echoed in the dark.

“Listen to me.”  He grabbed her arms and
pushed them to her sides.  “Marika, listen to me!”  Matteo tried to stop her
restless movements by pulling her to his body.  “Kissing you was absolutely
incredible.  A rush of emotions that I could never explain to you in words.  I’ve
never had another experience like it in my entire life.  And you have to
believe me when I tell you that no one could ever be as beautiful as you are at
this very moment, because I could never want anyone more than I want you right
now.”

“Bullshit!  That’s all bullshit!”  Her
humiliation had clouded up her senses.  “Why do you want to hurt me?”

“No, I swear, it’s not like that.  It’s
the last thing in the world that I want.”  Her accusation was like a blow
straight to his heart.  “You are important to me.”  He counteracted her
hostility with his own intimate secrets.  “You always have been.”

“Cut it out!  Shut up!  I don’t want to
hear it.”  She covered her ears with her hands.  “What you’re saying doesn’t
make any sense.”  Matteo’s eyes, brilliant and watery in the lights of the
approaching Mini, seared like a brand onto her memory.   “Get away from me!” 
Marika hurled all of her frustration onto him.

He nodded, backing up.  “Say goodbye to
your parents for me,” he said, hitting her with one last, unforgettable smile.

She didn’t answer.  She didn’t even look
at him.  She stood there, immobile, unconscious, her heart cold.

“Marika!”  Matteo called her again while
the Mini pulled up alongside her.  “I wish I could have been that special one
for you.”  He hurried down the dirt path while his tears, which he had held
back all this time, began to flow bitterly.

“You are,” she whispered to herself,
watching him recede further and further away.

“Matteo!  Hey Matteo!  Hey!!”  Dario was
waving his hands and trumpeting like an elephant, while he rolled down the
driver’s side window.  “Is something the matter?”

“No.”  Marika got inside, closing the door
nervously.  “He probably just didn’t hear you.”  She watched the running lights
of the Alfa come on and then disappear behind the castle while a diabolical
feeling of winter took over her body and the radio gave testament of life in an
anonymous key.

“So, how’d it go?”  Carlotta turned her
spotlight on Marika, but like high-beams on a foggy night, all she could see
was a thick wall of gray.

“Fine,” she said, trying to disappear into
her seat.

“Matteo looked, well, odd!” she said to
her cousin, sharing a side glance with her boyfriend.  “Did something happen
between you two?”

“No, why do you ask?”  Marika was annoyed,
and tried to put her cousin off track.  “Why should anything have happened?”

“I don’t know... problems with Federico
then?”  She twisted around to see the back seat.  “Have you been crying?”

“As if, Carlotta!” she roared.

“He didn’t cause any problems for you and
Federico, did he?”   She was in full soap opera mode.

“There
is
no me and Federico.” 
Marika clenched her teeth.

“Then between you and Matteo?” she
insinuated, trying to get the scoop before anyone else.

“Ditto.”  Her angry tone revealed all of
her annoyance at these endless questions.  “Dario, could you turn the music up,
please?  I can’t hear it from all the background noise.”

As the volume level rose, Carlotta took
offense.  “If you don’t want to talk, all you had to do was say so.”

“I don’t want to talk because there’s
nothing to talk about.”  Silence enveloped the car.  No one dared to break it. 
The occupants found themselves alone with their thoughts, like shards from an
unfinished sculpture.

On the passenger side, Carlotta was
licking the wounds to her oversized ego, while Dario was running through the
words he and Matteo had exchanged just a few hours earlier at
The Rook
,
when they were saying goodbye, surrounded by pints and cocktails:  “
I know
you care about her
,” Matteo had begun, sure that it was true.  “
Can I
count on you?
”

“
Of course you can count on me
.” 
For Dario, Marika was like a sister, even more.  “
But I can’t keep her from
being with someone else
.”

“
I know
.”  And he did.  “
That’s
not what I’m asking.  Just make sure he’s not an asshole and that he doesn’t
hurt her... at least no more than I would have
.”  The mere idea tormented
him.  “
And if she ever needs me, call me.  Promise me that you’ll do that
.”

“
I promise
.”  How could he do
otherwise?  “
I’ll take care of things here, you just worry about San Carlo
and about getting me good seats for the day you debut in Serie A
!”

“
Thanks, man
.”  A sincere, brotherly
hug had sealed that pact of loyalty between them.

Ignorant of all
this, Marika floated in the emptiness of her soul, sprawled out along the back
seat, savoring the heavenly and cruel taste that was still on her lips, while
Matteo wandered  aimlessly amongst the ruins of his heart along the highway,
directionless and unsure of himself.

The pastel yellow Mini Cooper pulled up
with a jolt at 23 Palladio Road at 8:20 pm on a wild Friday night in early
spring.  “Thanks for the ride,” Marika said, waving at the couple, lifting
herself from the cold seat.  She didn’t need to zip up her jacket or grab her
things as she left the car: she hadn’t moved a muscle since getting into it
thirty minutes earlier.

Dario couldn’t help but wonder if this was
the right moment to get involved, to try to bend the natural course of
destiny.  “Wait for me here a second,” he said to Carlotta, giving her a tender
kiss on her forehead as he slipped from the vehicle.

“Why?”  She stamped her feet.  Marika had
already reached her front gate.  “Let me come with you.”

“No, Carlotta.  Please!  I’ll tell you
everything later, but let me go alone right now....”  He left the door to the
car open as he ran to catch her before the gate slammed shut.  “Marika!” he
called, so she would know he was coming.  “I don’t know what happened between
you two, and I don’t want to know, but I’m asking you all the same: don’t hate
him.”  He was breathing heavily.  “Trust me, he doesn’t deserve it.”

“Hate him?”  Hate was, after all, the
unlucky companion of love and, like love, could unite people.  “I don’t know
what I feel for him anymore.”  She stared at Dario with emptiness in her eyes,
trying to coax the corners of her lips into a smile.  “More than anything, I
wish I could feel nothing.”  She was being brutally honest and callously
blasphemous.  “But I do appreciate your loyalty.”  She couldn’t wait to get
away from him.  “Matteo is your best friend and you’re on his side, it’s
obvious!”

“You’re wrong.”  Dario interrupted her
vehemently while Carlotta watched anxiously from the car.  “I’m not on his
side.  I’m just trying to tell you what I think.”  He held her back from
crossing the threshold of the gate.  “But you’re right about one thing: he’s my
best friend.  I know him very well, and no matter what he said or did tonight,
I’ve never seen him act this way with another girl.  No one,” he repeated, “except
you.”