The House in Amalfi (6 page)

After that I seemed to see the ghost of my father at every corner. . . a glimpse, a shadow. And I also saw the skinny little pigtailed girl I used to be, skipping down that alley where I now began my walk into the past.

I stared hopefully up at those old kitchen windows, but there were no more friendly “grandmothers” to wave at me. And the peeling stucco buildings that in my day had sheltered half-a-dozen or so apartments had been gentrified into smart homes with fancy wooden doors. Their polished brass handles gleamed, and the names of the apartment owners had
electric buzzers next to them instead of the old bell pushes. No lines of laundry hung over the alley, and manicured tubs of flowers lined the fancy pergolas on the rooftop gardens, instead of rusty cans and old pots of wilting greenery.

I hardly recognized my old building. It was painted an immaculate rosy pink with dark green trim. I studied the names next to the six buzzers. There was no one I knew. I stepped back and peered up at the top floor with its tall shuttered windows and minuscule iron Juliet balcony. I used to hang over the edge of that balcony rail, looking out for Jon-Boy, waiting for him to come home for his dinner. Sometimes he did and I was happy, and sometimes he didn’t and then I would sit on that balcony and eat my sandwich alone, waiting. Which now I recalled, surprised, was more often than not. I always seemed to be waiting for Jon-Boy.

I’d eaten many spaghetti dinners at my “grandmother’s,” hauled off my Juliet balcony by one or other of them, clucking angrily in Italian, too rapid for me to understand, though I knew it was about how bad Jon-Boy was to leave me alone. Again. And how many times had Jon-Boy finally come looking for me, smiling his easy smile, golden-brown eyes a-twinkle, agreeing with all their criticisms.

“Bene, bene,”
he’d say. “
Sì la piccolina è mio tesoro, mia bambina
. . . .
Sì è una preciosa, chiaramente, signora, ed io I’adoro. . . . Va bene,
and here I am to collect her.”

He would charm them into reluctant smiles as I—the
tesoro,
the “treasure”—was handed back into my erring papa’s loving care. And I would laugh because I knew he meant all those things and that he would always come back and that he would always guard me with his life.

Now, though, a tabby cat gazed calmly back down at me from my Juliet balcony, looking as if he owned the place. And
of course, now he did. There was no trace of me or Jon-Boy left here.

I emerged onto the sunny piazza, relieved to find that at least the newsstand was still there, and the flower stall. The Pizzeria Vesuvio, with surely the best pizza in all of Rome, was still on the corner too, and most important of all, so was the Bar Marchetti, though now it was all glossed up with a shine of dark red paint and smart white
ombrellini
shading its outdoor tables.

I checked the newsstand but the vendor was a young man with disinterested eyes for an American tourist. A much younger woman had replaced the flower seller Adriana, and when I asked after her the woman merely shrugged her shoulders; she knew no one around here. For old times’ sake I bought a pink carnation and tucked it into my hair, then walked apprehensively into the Bar Marchetti.

The men standing at the bar, some business suited, some in workmen’s clothes, eyed me speculatively, the way Italian men always do, and I smiled and elbowed my way expertly through with a pleasant
“scusi, scusi, permesso.”

There was a young man behind the bar, not Angelo. He flicked me a brief glance as he wiped the portion of the tiled counter in front of me and said,
“Signora?”

“Cappuccino, per piacere,”
I said,
“e un cornetto.”

He lifted a brow and threw me a skeptical look because no Italian would ever dream of drinking cappuccino after eleven
A.M
. and
cornetti
were eaten only at breakfast.

Glancing round, I saw that changes had been made. The cappuccino machine looked to be the latest large model and the bar had been expanded with tall stand-up tables. The menu chalked on a big board behind the bar now included a “pasta of the day” and salads, as well as soup and wonderful
panini
piled high with ham and salami, and mortadella and fontina and pecorino. The tables outside had always been half-empty because it cost more to sit while you ate. Now they were filled with tourists willing to pay more to rest their city-weary feet, and I smiled hearing that familiar screech of iron-legged chairs on paving stone.

A second man, younger than the first and with a waiter’s white apron swathed around his middle, dashed back and forth bearing carafes of wine and enormous sandwiches. The young man behind the counter slid my cappuccino toward me. Eyes closed, I inhaled the familiar aroma of fresh coffee. Then I took a sip and was instantly transported back in time. I was that little girl again, balancing on the bar’s brass rail with powdered chocolate and cappuccino foam on my nose, flirting with Angelo. . . .

“Ciao, bella.”
Angelo’s familiar voice sent my eyes flying open. “It
is
you, Lamour Harrington, isn’t it?” His smile as he reached for my hand was so familiar, so warm, I beamed. “Welcome home,
cara.
What took you so long?” he said.

I clutched his hand in both mine, hardly able to believe it was true. Of course Angelo’s hair was gray and his olive-skinned face was broader and crisscrossed with lines and maybe his teeth were not so big and white and shiny as I remembered, but his warm brown eyes with their long straight lashes were the same, and they welcomed me the way they always had.

Still breathless with shock, I said, “Angelo, the last time you saw me I was eight years old. How on earth did you recognize me?”

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “What other woman would wear a pink carnation in her hair and order cappuccino and a
cornetto
at lunchtime?” He grinned and handed me the familiar pastry in its square of wax paper. “Besides,” he added, “you are as beautiful now as you were then, when you were
just a lonely
piccolina,
haunting this piazza, looking after your father, and running wild in the streets of Trastevere.”

“But I never felt lonely; you were my friends, the whole neighborhood. . . .” I didn’t want to believe my memories were not as good as I remembered.

“È allora,
the neighborhood has changed. Maybe it’s for the better; at least that’s what my sons tell me, but myself, I’m not so sure. The people who used to live here were like family to me; I miss them. Now I have tourists for customers. I make more money, but . . . ,” he sighed and shrugged regretfully again, “I miss the old ways.”

I dusted chocolate powder from my lips then licked my finger. “That’s exactly what we were, Angelo. Just one big extended happy family.”

He looked warningly at me.
“Cara,
please don’t go searching for what no longer exists. Remember, we must keep up with the changes. And now, Lamour, tell me about you. Are you married? Children?”

He smiled hopefully at me but I glanced away. “I was married,” I said. “He died.” My tight lips told my unhappy story more than any words and Angelo’s eyes narrowed with pity.

“Poor girl.” He patted my hand gently. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.” It was an awkward moment and I stared into my coffee cup, silent again.

Then Angelo said, “Did you know I married Adriana? You remember the flower seller? She will be pleased to hear about you again. These are our sons.” He waved his arm at the two busy young men. “They are good fellows, and soon we hope to have grandchildren.” He turned and looked deep into my eyes. “Perhaps it would have been easier,
carina,
if you’d had children. Life goes on through them.”

I shook my head and the pink carnation fell, forgotten, to the floor. “Better I didn’t.”

Angelo’s shrewd eyes took in my haunted expression and I knew he saw my unhappiness. “So, little one,” he said, changing the subject, “your father the
dottore,
turned out to be a great man after all, though we all worried about the way he neglected you.”

I had to smile at the way he used
dottore
to describe Jon-Boy.
Doctor
was a title Italians bestow on all men of letters.

“Neglect had its advantages,” I said. “I was the free-est child in Rome. Free to go where I wanted, do what I wanted . . .”

“And always alone,” Angelo said. He didn’t add “just the way you are now,” but I knew that’s what he was thinking.

“I’m visiting Rome with a friend,” I said defensively. “We just arrived. She was tired, but I’ll bring her with me next time.

The bar was getting crowded and Angelo needed to get back to work. Life goes on, I thought, as I gathered up my bag, smoothed back my hair.
“Domani,
Angelo,” I called, already edging through the crowd, though even then I knew I would not come back again.

“Wait. . . .”

I turned to look at him.

“You forgot your
cornetto
.”

I took it, smiling my thanks, already pushing through the customers crowding the doorway.

Back on the via del Corso, I hailed a taxi. I slumped in the seat and took a bite of the
cornetto,
tasting the familiar sugary pastry.

I had made a big mistake. Rome,
my
Rome, had changed. Jon-Boy was gone and so was my “family”: the grandmothers, the neighbors . . . my friends.

I thought sadly that the old saying was true after all. You cannot “go home” again.

Jammy insisted I go shopping with her on the via Condotti, Rome’s finest shopping street, conveniently situated almost outside our front door.

“You can count it under the heading of self-improvement,” she said, eyeing my black T-shirt, black pants, and sensible flat shoes critically. In fact, looking at myself I realized I wasn’t too far removed from the way my old Italian “grandmothers” used to look. Checking out the chic, sexy Roman women who all seemed to be wearing the very latest in designer clothes, I was torn again by doubt.

Since I’d found out about Alex, I had lost any feelings of self-worth as a woman. All I was, was what I did, and I was thankful that at least I did that well.

I stared despairingly into Gucci’s windows. “There has to be more to me, the
real
me, than just some fancy new clothes.”

“Of course there is,” Jammy said, loyal as always.

But facing my somber reflection in that plate glass window I thought it was no wonder Alex had wanted to leave me for another woman. “Do you think she was sexy?” I asked.

Jammy had no need to ask who. “I guess so, but no more than you and me on a good day.” She gave me an encouraging nudge. “So how about we give ourselves a ‘good day’? See what trouble we can stir up amongst the Roman male
population,” she added with a mischievous grin that was meant to encourage me. Linking arms, we headed down the via Condotti.

That night I took Jammy to Da Fortunato, the
trattoria
on the via del Pantheon where Jon-Boy had taken me to celebrate my eighth birthday. Jon-Boy never seemed to have much money then, he also never really thought about things like clothes, so I didn’t have many. I’d been forced to wear a pink sweater that had fit me on my seventh birthday with an old plaid skirt—my
only
skirt—and brand-new sneakers. I’d shot up like a sapling tree in spring, the sweater sleeves were halfway down my arms, and the skirt was daringly short. Only the new sneakers fit. And they were blindingly white.

It was winter and chilly, and we had taken a table indoors amid the good aromas of sauces and spices and a fabulous display of antipasti. But now it was a soft early-summer night and Jammy and I were at a terrace table looking out to the beautiful dome of the Pantheon, and I was a long way from that shabby little eight-year-old birthday girl. I was wearing a new silky dress in a coral color, sleeveless, with a deep V-neck that showed a fragment of a horribly expensive La Perla lace bra that Jammy and a persuasive saleswoman had informed me I simply had to have since it did wonders for my small breasts. “Besides,” the saleswoman had said with that Roman-woman knowingness, “it is very seductive, no?” Her smile had clinched the deal. And seductive I hoped I now looked, with a peek of red lace at my breast and ruinously expensive high heeled red-suede mules on my long, narrow feet.

For once my dark curly hair was behaving itself, thanks to a pricey new cut, and it floated around my shoulders in a way I’d never experienced before. Remembering Adriana, I’d
pinned a flower in it. I was beginning to feel a
little bit
Roman, but while looking good helped, inside I was still the wounded, insecure me.

Jammy looked delicious in blue that matched her eyes, and I noticed more than one man glance appreciatively her way.

“Jon-Boy turned me into a gourmet right here at Da Fortunato,” I told her as the waiter opened the bottle of Frescobaldi Chianti I’d ordered. “I ate my first oyster here.”

“And did you like it?” Jammy was starving as usual, already devouring the bread while scanning the menu. I don’t know where she puts all that food; she’s as slender now as she was at seventeen.