The Sweet Life (6 page)
‘Hello Jane,’ said one of the boys finally, in an American accent. ‘I’m Brandon.’
A little flustered, Janey registered that he was very,
very
cute, in a preppy, blond, tanned, all-American kind of way, and that she was still clutching her toiletry bag in front of her, like an idiot.
‘Everyone calls me Janey,’ she replied shyly, shifting it into her left hand and holding out her right.
‘That’s not the way we do things here, Janey,’ said Brandon. Without warning, he grabbed Janey close and gave her a kiss, first on one cheek, then the other, while the dark girl and her other friends looked on in amusement. Janey blushed in confusion as Brandon let her go and stepped back.
‘The poor darling’s been flying for
hours
,’ the girl exclaimed to her friends as they prepared to leave the apartment. ‘Now get some shut-eye, Janey. Catch you later!’
Then the apartment door closed with a click and Janey’s sluggish brain ground into gear with the realisation that the girl must be Freddy, Celia’s daughter – although she looked nothing like her – and that the gorgeously dressed teens had to be friends from the posh international school Freddy attended. For a moment, she envied their witty ease with the Italian language, wondering what they’d been bantering about among themselves when they’d arrived.
Wearily, Janey poked her head into each of the spacious rooms in order to get a feel for the layout of the apartment, noting the beautiful antiques mixed in with cutting-edge Danish modern furniture and quirky ornaments gathered from far-flung places.
Feeling a bit fuzzy, she returned to her bedroom and lay down, intending to take a short nap. She wanted to be a little more clear-headed for Celia’s arrival.
But when Celia arrived home hours later, Janey was still out like a light.
For a good ten seconds after Janey woke the next morning, she wasn’t sure where she was or what she could possibly be doing there. The art deco ceiling was beautiful but totally unfamiliar, and warm summer sunshine streamed in from the tall windows beside her bed.
As she registered that she’d not only fallen asleep in the clothes she was wearing the day before (and the day before that!), but had also drooled in her sleep, Janey sat bolt upright with a groan.
‘Talk about making a great first impression!’ she said aloud. ‘Janey Gordon, once again, is all
class
.’
Getting shakily to her feet, she headed out to the kitchen. The quality of the silence in the apartment told her that she was on her own. Freddy had evidently gone out again with her posse of beautiful besties, and Aunt Celia, it turned out, had left Janey a note and a pair of keys. The note was propped up against a coffee machine that had been loaded to the brim. Janey helped herself to a mug of strong black coffee, and sat down at the high marble kitchen bench to read the note in Celia’s strong hand.
Janey dear,
So sorry to have missed you,
but didn't want to wake you.
You looked all done in.
‘And,’ Janey muttered into her coffee, ‘you seemed to be drooling in your sleep, so I left you to it!’ She shook her head with a rueful grin and continued scanning the note.
Can't make breakfast with you today, I'm afraid - meetings, meetings, meetings - but we'll have dinner tonight at my favourite trattoria, shall we?
Food 's fantastic, it isn't dressy, and we'll have all the time in the world to catch up.
Luca will swing by for you at 8.
We eat late here, as I'm sure you know.
Janey’s mouth curved into a big smile at the mention of Luca. The restaurant might not be worth dressing up for, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t make an effort!
Big key's for the security door, small key's for the apartment. Suggest you take a bus down the Via Nomentana.
Check it's going in the direction of the Centro Storico and you'll be right - that's the historical centre, in case your Italian's rusty. Excuse Freddy's absence today, but her school holidays started last week and she had a few things already planned.
I'm sure you two will catch up over the weekend.
Ciao! Ciao!
Celia.
Janey smiled before chug-a-lugging the rest of her coffee and shuffling off to finish unpacking.
After a heavenly shower in the gleaming marble and chrome guest bathroom, Janey dried her hair and tied it back loosely before slipping into the white short shorts, the silky peasant blouse and a pair of comfy leather flip-flops. She accessorised with a couple of red chunky perspex bangles, a pair of silver pirate-style hoop earrings, and a perky black sailor’s cap in the manner of boho, foho ‘It’ girls everywhere. Looking a lot more sophisticated and altogether more Ness-like than she was used to, Janey left the apartment, carrying a black daypack containing an Italian phrase book, a guidebook, her camera, the keys, Ness’s spare pair of rockstar sunglasses, and some of the Italian money she’d changed at the airport before boarding the plane.
Janey had the worst singing voice in the world, but she felt like breaking into song as she walked down the villa’s grand front steps and looked about at the bustling street scene before her. Thanks to her mega sleep-in, it was almost high noon and cars jostled for space with scooters, which in turn fought for breathing room with pedestrians, trucks, motorbikes and pigeons. The street was crowded on both sides with huge trees and brooding villas with mysterious walled gardens, punctuated by the occasional hole-in-the-wall coffee vendor or dark green, old-style newspaper stand. She’d never seen anything like it. It seemed suddenly as though life had been magnified, like she’d stepped onto the set of a foreign movie.
‘Perfect,’ said Janey aloud with satisfaction. ‘It’s just
perfect
.’ She slipped the sunglasses on and pulled out her guidebook.
The first order of business had to be brunch. Her growling stomach reminded her that she’d missed at least a couple of meals thanks to her extended snorefest. Flicking through her guidebook, she found that there was some kind of undercover fresh food market not too far away, in the Piazza Alessandria. Because the weather was so beautiful, and there was so much to just drink in, Janey decided to skip the bus ride described in her guidebook and walk there.
At the market, she used a combination of really bad phrasebook Italian and smiling sign language to buy fresh bread, salame, soft cheese, olives and red grapes, blushing a little as the boys manning the stalls tried to flirt with her in broken English. She kept walking as she scoffed her way through her purchases, soon passing through the ancient Porta Salaria, or ‘Gate of Salt’ – a breach in the towering walls surrounding the historical heart of Rome. The city walls bore the evidence of layers of history all jumbled together. Janey stopped for a moment by the ruins of a tomb that commemorated the life of some eleven-year-old poet prodigy from the first century AD, a time so long ago that she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. And just like that, she’d entered the old city, flanked by a seething mass of kamikaze traffic.
It felt incredible to have absolutely no agenda for the day, Janey mused, crumpling up her last paper bag before stowing it away in her pack. She couldn’t remember a day recently when she’d been so free of responsibility. A sudden surge of sorrow that her mum wasn’t here to see the ancient and the new collide so spectacularly made tears spring into her eyes.
She would
have loved all this
, thought Janey wistfully.
The mad market, the
crazy traffic, all of it
. She blinked furiously before fumbling for her camera, taking a photo of the glorious chaos around her, and walking on down sun-drenched streets in the direction of the famed Via Veneto, which Em had urged her to visit.
‘Even if you never see that Fellini movie,’ Em had said, ‘and it’s probably number 581 on your list of things to do before you leave for Rome, at least you can park your bum and have a coffee where most of the people in the film used to hang out in real life. It’s a
must-do
street, and not just for sad movie-buffs like me. I have six vital words for you: tiramisù at the Café de Paris. Eat some for me, I beg you.’
Passing one luxury hotel after another on the famous thoroughfare, Janey was suddenly struck with a fantastic idea. She would call Em and the others,
right now
. She checked her watch and worked out that it was around nine-thirty in the evening back in Australia. At least one of them had to be home.
Janey ducked into The Hotel Majestic, smiling shyly at the liveried doorman who held the door open for her. She was met by a rush of cool, lightly perfumed air. The place was stuffed with antiques, towering floral arrangements, and rich-looking old dudes with blingy wives and truckloads of matching luggage. From what she could see, the hotel lived up to its name with bells on.
‘Uh, telefono?’ she asked the bored-looking concierge, who haughtily lifted an index finger in the direction of the hotel’s business centre, a compact space containing a couple of telephone booths and some office equipment, presided over by a serene young woman in a black suit.
The woman explained the rates to Janey in perfect English before motioning her into one of the booths and closing the glass door with a smile.
With excited anticipation, Janey took off her sunglasses and rang Em’s number, holding her breath as the call connected. Speaking to her friends was worth the small fortune she would probably have to pay.
‘Emily speaking,’ said Em in her proper answering-the-phone voice.
‘It’s your Rome correspondent here,’ said Janey breathlessly, ‘reporting to you live and direct from . . . Fellini central!’
Janey felt sure Em’s answering shriek could be heard with arctic disapproval in the hushed reception area. As it was, the young woman sitting just outside the phone booth raised her head briefly and smiled before returning her gaze to the fax she was reading.
‘
OMG!
’ Em squealed, back once more in over-the-top Em-mode. ‘I was just thinking of you, Janes! You’re the spookiest mind-reader
ever
! What time is it there? Where have you been? What have you seen? What have you eaten? How’s the mysterious aunt? What’s her pad like? Mega-plush? Plush? Or just semi-plush?’
‘Slow down! Slow down!’ Janey laughed, thinking with a pang how good it was to hear her friend’s voice. ‘I’m – at this very moment – sitting in a nicely appointed phone booth in a five-star hotel in the epicentre of
your
must-do street, if you must know. Haven’t tried the coffee around here yet, but I think that and a big fat serve of tiramisù are definitely next on my list. It’s about one-thirty in the arvo, my yummy paper bag brunch is a very distant memory, I’ve already eyeballed more Roman ruins than you could shake a stick at, and I
still
haven’t actually sighted or spoken with my mysterious aunt. Fell asleep soon as I got here,’ Janey added sheepishly. ‘Missed her again this morning. And her pad is
off
the mega-plush end of the spectrum. Her building’s even got one of those lifts you see in 1950s spy movies!’
Em sighed. ‘I want photographic proof of
everything
, Jane Gordon. I’m giving you permission to bore me to death with your holiday snaps as soon as you get back because it can’t be any worse than what I’m going through right now! Gabs is away at her grandmother’s beach house this weekend, and Ness is – you guessed it – working her night shift at the cinema to save up for the latest Chloé “It” bag, so I’m drowning my sorrows in microwave popcorn and ’90s slacker movies. How sad is that? I was, like,
two
when some of these were made. So seriously, are you totally loving it?’
‘Apart from Ness’s walk-in wardrobe, it has to be the most amazing place I’ve ever seen! You can’t go three steps without falling over a Roman ruin, or a crazed Vespa driver. I never thought I’d be so completely in love with a place! Not to mention meeting the guy of my dreams ten seconds after leaving the airport . . .’ Janey added tantalisingly.
‘You can’t be serious?’ Em interrupted.
‘Get this! I walk out the airport doors and he’s standing there holding a sign with my name on it and murmuring, “I’d know you
anywhere
, signorina.” And not only that, Em, he’s
total
crush material from head to toe! Tall, dark, gorgeous, and dressed like an international man of mystery. The real kind,’ Janey laughed, ‘not the Austin Powers kind.’
