Italian for Beginners Read online

  Karina laughed. “There is a sciopero.”

  “What?”

  “A sciopero,” she repeated. “I believe you say it ‘strike’?”

  “There’s a strike going on?”

  “Sì. All transportation workers. Including taxi drivers. Until tomorrow night.”

  “They have a strike schedule?”

  Karina looked surprised. “Of course,” she said. “It is printed in the newspaper. How else do we know they are striking?”

  I was puzzled. “But what are they striking for?”

  Karina shrugged. “Who knows? Better wages, maybe. Or shorter hours. Or maybe they are just having a sciopero because they haven’t had one in a while. Along with calcio, it is our national pastime, you know.”

  I smiled wanly, wondering how on earth my feet would carry me all the way home before the rest of me collapsed. My head was spinning a little, and I longed to lie down.

  “Come on,” Karina said, taking me by the arm. “It is not that far.”

  We started back along the way we’d come, weaving through alleys and side streets. I tried to keep up with Karina, but my tired limbs couldn’t keep the pace.

  “Miss America, I don’t have all night!” she snapped over her shoulder. I could see her temperament changing again. She didn’t look as warm or as pleasant as she had earlier. “Can’t you keep up?”

  “It’s just that I’m so tired.…”

  “We’ve already stayed out way too late,” she said sharply, like it was my fault. “Now I’ll be exhausted all day tomorrow at work.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said meekly.

  “Phhhh!” She made a noise of annoyance.

  I tried to quicken my pace. “So,” I said, trying to make conversation so I stayed awake. “Tell me about Nico.”

  “What do you want to know?” She turned a sharp right and then a sharp left into another alley, with me dragging behind, panting now.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s six,” she said. “He’s like a six-year-old.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling dumb.

  Karina sighed and slowed down a little bit to wait for me. “He’s very smart,” she said. “He knows how to write his name already, and he knows how to count in a few different languages. He speaks English and Italian, like me. I want him to be bilingual.”

  “Wow,” I marveled. “A bilingual six-year-old?”

  “It’s not a big deal.” Her face was a little flushed. “He likes to be read to. I read him Harry Potter every night, in English, but I leave out the scary scenes. He is too young.”

  “What about Nico’s father?” I asked after a moment as I tried to drag my tired feet along after her.

  Karina stopped so quickly in her tracks that I almost slammed into her. She turned around and looked at me. “What about his father?” she asked slowly, her voice suddenly icy and dangerous.

  Startled by her sudden coldness, I took an inadvertent step backward. “N-n-othing,” I stammered. “I—I was just wondering where he is.”

  “He is not here,” Karina said. Her eyes had narrowed into two catlike slits as she stared at me.

  “Oh,” I said. I struggled for words.

  “And it’s not any of your business, Miss America.”

  I held up my hands defensively and tried a smile. “I was just making conversation.”

  But Karina just looked angrier. “This is your idea of conversation?” she demanded. She laughed harshly. “You know what? You can make your conversation somewhere else. I don’t need someone—especially not some American—coming in and telling me I’ve made a mess of my son’s life.”

  I stared at her, stunned. “But I didn’t mean—”

  “Enough!” Karina said sharply, holding up her hand to stop me. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were filled with anger and focused on me. “I don’t need you judging me, Miss America. You’re not so perfect, either, you know.”

  And then, before I could say another word, she strode quickly away, her hands clenched in fists by her sides and her hair swishing rhythmically behind her like a manic pendulum.

  “Wait, Karina!” I yelled after her. But she had already turned a corner without looking back, and the sound of my voice echoed off the buildings lining the alley. A dog started barking somewhere nearby, no doubt awakened by the volume of my voice. I swallowed hard and hurried along in the direction Karina had gone.

  But when I got to the end of the alley and looked right, in the direction I’d seen Karina disappear, the street was empty. “Karina?” I asked hesitantly. The sound echoed again, bringing on a cacophony of barking dogs. I looked around guiltily and began walking down the street as quickly as I could, even though my legs were still dragging and I longed to curl up and go to sleep. “Karina?”

  But she was nowhere to be found. I looked down alley after alley, street after street, but there was no trace of her. I couldn’t even hear the sounds of her footsteps, heels against cobblestones, echoing between the buildings. The street was deathly silent.

  Finally, I stopped walking and looked around. I had no idea where I was. We’d gone through such a maze of city streets to get here that I’d lost all sense of direction. I paused and listened for anything that might give me a clue—a nearby street filled with traffic noises, for example, or the lapping of the water against the banks of the river Tiber. But all was still.

  I began walking again until I saw a small street sign a few blocks ahead. Via Paloma, it read. The name meant nothing to me. I cursed myself for not bringing my Rome map with me tonight; Karina had been in such a hurry to get going that I’d forgotten it. Besides, I’d assumed that I’d have her as my guide. I never left home without an idea of where I was going.

  Don’t panic, I said to myself. No reason to panic.

  After all, how hard could it be to find a main street and ask for directions?

  Twenty long minutes later, I felt on the verge of collapse, but I finally emerged on the Via dei Fori Imperiali. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was a street name I knew; in fact, it was a street that anyone would know had they spent time in Rome. I knew it cut a straight line across Rome from the Piazza Venezia to the Colosseum. Indeed, I looked right, and behind me, I could make out the looming ancient structure, dark, hulking, and foreboding in the dead of night. I shuddered and tried not to think of all the death that had taken place there, all those scenes from the movie Gladiator that had stayed imprinted on my mind.

  But the road, normally busy, was nearly deserted, probably because of the late hour—it was almost 2 a.m.—and the strike. I began walking away from the Colosseum, because my rudimentary knowledge of the city indicated that the Pantheon was in that direction. The crumbling Forum rose up from the shadows to my right. Five minutes later, I saw a young couple hurrying along on the street toward me. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

  “Excuse me!” I said, hurrying up to them. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can you tell me where the Pantheon is?”

  The couple stopped and looked at me warily. They exchanged glances. Close up, they were younger than I’d thought.

  “Cosa?” the young man asked, squinting at me.

  “Um, the Pantheon?” I asked hesitantly. “Where is it?”

  The man shook his head. “Non parlo l’inglese,” he said uncertainly.

  I racked my brain for basic Italian. “Um, dov’è il panteon?” I choked out haltingly.

  The couple exchanged looks again. Then, the woman began speaking to me in rapid Italian, gesturing wildly and pointing this way and that. I gazed at her helplessly. “Non capisco,” I said miserably. “I don’t understand.”

  The woman sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. Her boyfriend said something to me in rapid Italian, gesturing in the direction I’d been headed.

  “It’s that way?” I guess. “The Pantheon is that way?”

  “Sì, sì,” the man said, looking relieved. But I did
n’t feel comforted. He didn’t seem to know what I’d just said.

  “Grazie,” I said finally. They nodded at me and hurried on their way.

  I continued walking in the direction they’d pointed, feeling wearier with every step. I wasn’t even sure we’d been communicating. For all I knew, they were sending me to Vatican City or the Spanish Steps. Besides, I realized, once I found the Pantheon, how would I find the apartment? I actually had no idea where it was. Karina had led me through a series of back streets, and although I knew it was only a short walk from the famed dome, I could be wandering the twisting alleys all night trying to find it.

  The realization made me feel even wearier. Exhausted now, I was walking at a snail’s pace, searching in vain for another person to ask for help. Stupidly, I hadn’t brought my wallet with me, only my passport and forty euros, twenty of which I’d spent at the bar. I had no choice but to continue on in hopes of stumbling upon my apartment. At least I had thought to bring my key—the one small saving grace of the evening.

  A few minutes later, my exhaustion got the best of me. I could barely put one foot in front of the other anymore. And then, like a mirage in the desert, I noticed ahead of me a little brick wall, about the height and width of a bench, by the side of the street. “Thank God,” I murmured. I dragged myself toward it and flopped down on it. I sighed in relief. It felt incredibly good to sit, to take the weight off my weary feet.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. My head was spinning, and with my eyes shut, I felt almost normal for a moment.

  “I’ll just sit for a moment,” I murmured to myself.

  I leaned back and breathed in deeply, feeling amazed at just how inviting the cold brick surface was. At that moment, it outclassed my feather bed at home a thousand to one. It was almost unbelievably comfortable.

  I opened my eyes and gazed out on the street, turning my head slowly from side to side as I strained to keep my eyelids from falling again. I vowed I would never take another sleeping pill. This was horrible. I looked around me. The road was deserted but for a stray car here and there, zooming by.

  I’ll just close my eyes for a moment, I reasoned. I won’t go to sleep. I’ll just rest here for a second. Then I’ll be on my way. I’ll feel better once I sit for a few minutes.

  That train of thought finally gave me permission to close my eyes. I took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. I knew I should get up and move, but sitting there felt so good. It was such a relief. I was so tired.…

  Those were my last thoughts before I drifted off into a blissfully ignorant sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  Strangely, I dreamed of Michael Evangelisti. The dream was vivid, but it was nonsensical. I was on the same little brick wall, but when I opened my eyes in the dream, it had relocated to the corner of Columbus and West Ninety-third in New York, just outside Michael’s restaurant. I tried to get up and move, but I found that I was stuck. I couldn’t budge.

  Michael came out of the restaurant just then and gazed at me with amusement. “I knew you’d come back,” he said.

  I tried to ignore the way his eyes sparkled. “I’m stuck,” I said. “Can you help me?”

  “I can help you with a lot of things,” he said. He sat down next to me and folded his right hand over mine. “If only you’d give me a chance.”

  I hesitated. I really did need help getting unstuck from this wall. It was like I’d been superglued there. But what else was Michael suggesting? “I don’t give chances to married men,” I said coldly.

  He looked wounded, and for a moment, I felt bad.

  “You don’t understand, Cat,” he said gravely.

  “What is there to understand?” I demanded.

  “But, Cat, you’re the one I want!”

  My blood boiled. I hated the way he was teasing me, pulling at my heartstrings when they weren’t his to pull. “Go back to your wife!” I said irritably.

  “What?” he asked, but suddenly, his voice sounded very far away and had taken on the trace of a foreign accent.

  “Go back to your wife,” I repeated more resolutely.

  Michael looked hazy all of a sudden, and from nowhere, I felt a firm grip on my shoulder. I looked at Michael in confusion, noting that both of his hands were in front of him. Who was grabbing my shoulder?

  Then, as clear as day, a sharply accented deep voice spoke in my ear. “Well, I don’t have a wife, so that might be a little difficult.”

  The voice was enough to snap me out of my dream. I blinked a few times and realized, to my horror, that not only was I not on a street corner in New York with the married restaurateur but that I was on a dark, deserted street in Italy with a sandy-haired man sitting beside me, his face inches from mine, looking into my eyes.

  I screamed and scrambled away. Startled, the man let go of my shoulders and jumped back, too.

  “Relax, relax!” he said, holding up his hands. “I was just trying to wake you. I was worried.”

  “ Who—who are you?” I demanded, shrinking away to the far corner of the bench. As my hammering heart began to slow, I realized with a start that it was the sandy-haired guy from the bar, the one who had stepped between me and the persistent Giuseppe.

  “Well, I’m not Joe Bradley,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me. “But do not worry. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “ I—I’m fine,” I said, wondering who Joe Bradley was and why this was relevant. I studied his face and realized that I kind of liked the way his green eyes sparkled in the light of the street lamps.

  He grinned at me and, with a fake, exaggerated American accent, said, “I think you better sit up; much too young to get picked up by the police.”

  I stared at him. “Police?”

  He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Classic,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded. “And why are you talking like that?”

  “What, like Joe Bradley?” he asked, now back in his Italian accent, looking amused.

  “Who’s Joe Bradley?” I demanded. I was utterly confused now. I scooted away. Perhaps this guy was crazy after all.

  “Oh, come on,” he said, shaking his head and smiling at me. He looked pointedly at my outfit.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What?” I demanded.

  He laughed again. “Okay, if you want to play it that way,” he said. “But you are okay, right?”

  I hesitated and nodded. “I think so.”

  He seemed to consider this for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “But may I ask why you are sleeping on the side of the road in the middle of the night?”

  I opened and closed my mouth, but I realized I didn’t know what to say. After all, where would I begin? New York, where I’d made the decision to shake up my boring life? The airport in Rome, where I thought I was falling into the arms of a man who loved me? This morning in that same man’s apartment, when he told me to get out? Or this evening, with my crazy landlord storming away from me in the street while a sleeping pill gradually muddied my brain?

  The man stared patiently at me and then sighed. “Okay, this is very charming, but don’t you think you’re taking the Roman Holiday thing a little too far?”

  I looked at him blankly. “Huh?”

  He shook his head again and said something in Italian under his breath. Then he said, “I mean, we run into this in Rome all the time. American tourists who want to think they’re Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. And really, it’s fine if you want to play make-believe. But you can’t just go around sleeping on streets by yourself. Not all Italian men are as nice as me.”

  He smiled. I still wasn’t following. I’d never seen Roman Holiday or any other Audrey Hepburn movie. I’d avoided them quite deliberately.

  “Audrey Hepburn?” I asked flatly.

  “You don’t have to pretend,” he said. “It’s very clear what you’re doing.”

  “No, no, no,” I said quickly. “I’ve never even seen Roman Holiday. I
swear. I got separated from my friend—well, not even my friend, really, my landlady—and we had a fight, even though I don’t even know how, and, well, now I have no idea where she lives or how to find her place. I think I’m even more lost now than when I started. And I was just so tired.…” I was embarrassed to feel my throat closing up.

  I blinked back tears and stood up. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I just—it’ll be morning soon, and I’ll find her, okay?”

  The man stared at me for a long moment, as if trying to figure out if I was telling the truth. Then he extended his hand formally. “I’m Joe Bradley,” he said. I hesitated and reached out, letting him shake my hand.

  “But I thought you said you weren’t Joe Bradley,” I said. “And what kind of a name is that for an Italian guy, anyhow?”

  He just looked amused. “And I presume you are Anya Smith?”

  “Who? No, I’m Cat Connelly. What are you talking about?”

  “You’re not going to quote a Shelley poem to me?”

  “Why would I quote a poem?”

  “Okay,” he said. He looked me up and down, shrugged, and extended his hand again. “My name is Marco Cassan. And I apologize for any misunderstanding.”

  I shook his hand hesitantly.

  Marco looked satisfied. “Shall we?”

  “Shall we what?” I asked.

  “Shall we go?” he asked. I raised an eyebrow in disbelief. But he didn’t seem to be looking at me in the vulturelike way the men at the bar had.

  “Go where?” I asked tentatively.

  “I can’t just leave you here sleeping on the street the rest of the night.”

  “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  Marco made a face. “No. This is not safe. You will come home with me.”

  “I will not!” I declared hotly.

  Marco raised an eyebrow. “I meant that we could go to my apartment, just so that the Roman version of Jack the Ripper doesn’t come get you in the middle of the night.”

  I considered this.

  “How do I know you’re not the Roman version of Jack the Ripper?” I asked.