Love & Gelato (13 page)

“Almost there.”

“Finally. I thought we were driving to France or something.”

“Wrong direction. Hold tight.”

He accelerated and we sped up a long, tree-lined driveway. Where were we? I hadn't seen a single house or building in more than ten minutes.

“Just wait for it. Three . . . two . . .”

We rounded the corner and I exploded. “
What
?”

“I know. Crazy, right?”

“That's a house? Does anyone live in normal places here?”

“What? You don't know people who live in gingerbread houses back home?”

Elena's villa was a palace. The house was several stories high, and huge—like museum huge—with towers that rose on either side of a large arched doorway. I started to count all the windows, then gave up. It was that big.

Ren slowed down, navigating around a large circular fountain that sat in the center of the tennis-court-size driveway. Then we bumped off the pavement to park next to a bunch of other scooters. My mouth was as dry as the Sahara. Eating churros in Dylan's basement was really more my speed.

“You okay?” Ren asked, catching my eye.

I gave him the world's most unconvincing nod, then followed him past a wall of sculpted hedges to the sort of door you imagined angry villagers storming with torches and battering rams. I was about three seconds from throwing up.

Ren nudged me. “You sure you're okay?”

“Fine.” I took a deep breath. “So . . . how many people live here?”

“Three. Elena, her mom, and her older sister, when she's home from boarding school. Elena told me there are rooms that she's never even set foot in, and she and her mom sometimes go days without even seeing each other. They have an intercom system so they don't have to walk across the house every time they want to talk to each other.”

“Are you serious?”

“Totally serious. I've never even seen her mom. There are theories she doesn't actually exist. Also, this place is ridiculously haunted. Elena sees a ghost like once a day.” He pushed hard on a brass doorbell and there was a loud
clang
ing noise.

“Do you believe that? About ghosts?”

He shrugged. “Elena does. She passes the ghost of her great-great-grandmother Alessandra on the stairwell every night.”

Ghosts had never made sense to me. When my mom was gone, she was just
gone.
I'd give anything for it to be otherwise.

Suddenly a loud
bang
ing noise made me shriek. I stumbled back and Ren caught me.

“Relax. It's just the door. It takes a long time to unlock it.”

After what felt like ten minutes, the door slowly creaked open and I took a step back, half expecting to be greeted by Great-great-grandmother Alessandra. Instead, a casually dressed teenage girl stepped into the doorway. She was curvy with a diamond stud in her nose and thick black hair.

“
Ciao
, Lorenzo!” She threw her arms around Ren and pressed her cheek to his, making a kissing noise.
“Dove sei stato? Mi sei mancato.”

“
Ciao
, Elena.
Mi sei mancata anche tu
.” Ren stepped back, then gestured to me. “Guess who this is?”

She switched from Italian to English as quickly as Ren did. “Who? You must tell me immediately.”

“Carolina.”

Her mouth dropped open into a perfect O. “You're
Carolina
?”

“Yes. But I just go by Lina.”

“
Non è possibile!
Come!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, kicking the door shut behind her. The foyer looked like something out of a
Scooby-Doo
episode. The hall was dimly lit with a few electric sconces, and tapestries and old-looking paintings covered every inch of wall, and wait—was that a
suit of armor
? Elena was looking at me.

“Your house is really—”

“Yes, yes. Creepy. Spooky scary. I know. Now come with me.” She linked her elbow with mine, then dragged me down the hall. “They will be so surprised. You wait.”

At the end of the hallway she opened a set of double doors, then shoved me inside. The room was a lot more modern-looking, with a jet-size leather sectional, a big-screen TV, and a foosball table. Oh, and twenty people. Give or take. And they were all looking at me like something that had managed to escape from the zoo.

I gulped. “Um, hi, everyone.”

Elena took my hand and held it triumphantly in the air. “
Vi presento,
Carolina.
Ragazzi
, she exists!”

A collective cheer went up in the room and suddenly I was being swarmed.

“You are here. You are really here!” A tall boy with a French accent patted my arm enthusiastically. “I am Olivier. Welcome.”

“I won the bet! They all said you'd never show.”

“Better late than never.”

“
Che bella sorpresa!”

“I'm Valentina.”

“Livi.”

“Marcello.”

Half of them reached out to pat me. Did they think I was a hologram?

I stumbled backward. “Nice to . . . meet you all.”

“Guys, quit mouth-breathing on her!” Ren shoved a couple of people back. “You're acting like you never meet anyone new.”

“We don't,” a boy with braces said.

They started raining questions.

“How long have you been here?”

“Are you going to AISF in the fall?

“Why didn't you start school last year?”

“Was that really tall man your dad?”

I took another step back. “Um . . . which one do you want me to answer first?”

They all laughed.

“Where do you live? In Florence?” It was a redheaded girl on my left working on a big wad of gum. She sounded like she was from New Jersey or somewhere.

“My house is kind of near Ren's.”

“It's in the American Cemetery,” Ren clarified.

I shot him a look.
Way to make me the weirdo.

He patted my arm. “Don't worry. Everyone here lives in weird places.”

They all started chiming in.

“My family is renting a medieval castle in Chianti.”

“We live in a farmhouse.”

“William lives at the American Consulate. Remember when his sister ran over that foreign dignitary's foot with a Razor scooter?”

An Italian boy with shoulder-length hair stepped forward. “
Ragazzi
, she will think we are very strange. Sorry for all the questions.”

“It's fine,” I said.

“No, we're weird. We don't meet new people all that often. We're totally sick of each other,” a Hispanic-looking girl on my left said.

Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around me and I was lifted off my feet. “Hey!”

“Marco! Down, boy!” Ren yelled.

“Heel!” Gum Chewer said.

Was Marco a Rottweiler? I wriggled away and turned to see a muscly guy with short black hair.

“Ren, introduce me. Now,” he bellowed.

“Lina, this is Marco. Now forget you ever met him. Trust me, you'll be better off.”

He grinned. “You're really here! I knew you would come. I knew it all along.”

“Wait a minute. Are you my biology partner?”

“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air, then put his arms around me again and gave me another one of his specialty python hugs.

“Can't. Breathe,” I gasped.

“Let her go,” Ren commanded.

Marco loosened his grip, shaking his head sheepishly. “Sorry. I'm normally not like this.”

“Yes, you are,” the dark-haired girl said.

“No, it's this beer.” He held his can out to me. “I don't know who brought it, but it's disgusting. It tastes kind of like a urinal, you know?”

“Not really.”

“That's okay. I'd offer you a drink, but I just told you it tastes like piss. By the way, you're really cute. Like way cuter than I thought you'd be.”

“. . . Thanks?”

“Hey! Margo! Who's your papa?” He turned and loped away.

“Wow,” I said.

Ren shook his head. “Sorry about that. I wish I could say it's because he's drunk, but he's actually worse when he's sober.”

“Much, much worse,” a short boy with glasses chimed in.

“There you are.” A cool voice cut through the noise, and I turned and came face-to-face with an exquisitely pretty girl. She was tall and slim with big blue eyes and hair so blond it was almost white. She was looking straight through me.

“Hi, Mimi. Welcome back.” Ren's voice was suddenly like three octaves lower.

“I was worried you weren't going to make it tonight,” she said in an accented voice. Swedish? Norwegian? Someplace where everyone has good skin and silky, well-behaved hair?

“Everyone says you haven't been around much.”

“I'm here now.”

“Good. I missed you.” She lifted her chin at me, her eyes still fixed on Ren. “Who's this?”

“Carolina. She just moved here.”

“Hi. I go by Lina.”

She slid her eyes at me for about a millimeter of a second, then leaned in to Ren and whispered something.

“
Si, certo.”
He glanced at me. “Just . . . later. Give me a few minutes.”

She walked away, and it was like the whole group exhaled.

“Ice queen,” someone whispered.

“She's really gorgeous,” I said to Ren.

“Really? I hadn't noticed.” He grinned like someone had just offered him a lifetime supply of pink Starbursts. I'd definitely misread that moment at the gingerbread house when he'd held my hand. If Mimi was what he was used to, then forget it.

“Hey, come on. I want to show you something.”

“Okay. So . . . see you around?” I said to the rest of the people.

“
Ciao, ciao
,” one of them said.

Ren was already halfway across the room.

“Where are we going?”

“It's a surprise. Come on.” He held the door open for me. “After you.”

I walked out into a dark hall and Ren pulled the door shut behind us. We were standing in front of an enormous staircase.

“Oh, no. Is this where we go to see Elena's great-great-grandmother?”

“No, that's in the other wing. Come on. I want to show you the garden.”

He started up the stairs, but I held back. “Um, Ren? It looks creepy up there.”

“It is. Come on.”

I looked back toward the door. Creepy staircase or overly friendly international teenagers? I guess I'd take my chances with Ren. I hurried after him, my footsteps echoing off the high ceiling. At the top of the stairs Ren pushed open a tall, skinny door and I reluctantly stepped in after him.

“This place is unbelievable,” I muttered. The room was packed full of stuff, like the contents of ten rooms had been consolidated into one, and everything was covered in thick, dusty sheets. There was even a gigantic fireplace guarded by the portrait of a stern-looking man wearing a feathered hat.

“Is that for real?” I pointed to the portrait.

“I'm sure it is.”

“It looks like something from a haunted house. Like I'm going to turn around and he'll have changed positions.”

Ren grinned. “And that's coming from someone who lives in a cemetery.”

“I don't think two days counts as ‘living.' ”

“Over here.” He made his way over to a set of glass doors and unhooked a latch, then opened them to a balcony. “I wanted to show you the gardens, but mostly I wanted to give you a break from your adoring crowds.”

“Yeah, they seemed kind of hyperactive about meeting me.”

“A lot of us have been stuck together since elementary school, so we're crazy excited to meet new people. We should probably work on the whole playing-hard-to-get thing.”

“Hey, the hedges are a maze.” I leaned over the balcony. The hedges around the front door were actually part of a carefully sculpted pattern interspersed with old-looking statues and benches.

“Cool, right? They have this ancient gardener who has spent half his life pruning those things.”

“It looks like you could actually get lost.”

“You can. Once Marco wandered out there and we couldn't find him for like three hours. We had to come up here with a spotlight. He was sleeping on his shoes.”

“Why his shoes?”

“I have no idea. You want to hear something really creepy?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Elena's older sister, Manuela, refuses to live here because ever since she was little she's had this ancestor appear to her. The spooky part is that whenever the ghost appears she's the same age as Manuela.”

“No wonder she's at boarding school.” I leaned against the railing. “This place is making me feel way better about living in a cemetery.”

“Telling ghost stories?”

I jumped, practically toppling over the edge.

“Lina! You're like the Incredible Startled Girl,” Ren said.

“Sorry, guys. Didn't mean to scare you.” A boy sat up on one of the couches and stretched his arms over his head.

“Hi, Thomas. Spy much?”

“I have a headache. I was just trying to get away from the noise for a while. Who are you with?” He stood up and lazily made his way over to us.

OM . . .
And then I couldn't remember how to end the acronym, because
who looks like this?

Thomas was tall and thin with dark brown hair and thick eyebrows, and he had this strong-jaw thing going on that I'd heard about but never actually witnessed. And his
lips
. They were pretty much ruining any chance I had of forming words.

“Lina?” Ren was raising one eyebrow.
Crap. Did they ask me something?

“Sorry, what'd you say?”