Italian for Beginners Read online

  Michael. I sighed and shook my head. I couldn’t believe he was coming to Rome—or, given my sister’s sketchy recollection, might even be in Rome now. The odds of me running into him were, of course, slim. But just knowing that we were, or would soon be, in the same city unsettled me. I tried to shake off the thought.

  Just then, there was a knock at the door.

  The first thought that flashed into my mind, just because I’d been thinking about him, was Michael. But that was insane, wasn’t it? Surely Karina would have warned me.

  Still, when I opened my door and found Nico there, there was a tiny, ridiculous part of me that felt disappointed.

  “Hi, Signorina Cat!” he said excitedly.

  “Well, hi there, Nico,” I said, smiling down at him.

  “Mamma sent me up to see if you wanted to come down to dinner. At the restaurant. It is slow there, and she says she has not seen you in a few days.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I’ve been sort of busy.”

  “Doing what?” He blinked up at me.

  I hesitated. “Taking pictures, actually.”

  “Pictures? Of what?”

  “Of Rome,” I said. I realized it sounded silly, but Nico just looked curious.

  “May I see them?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the computer. “I have them on my computer if you want to watch as they upload.”

  “Oh, yes, please!” Nico said. He grinned at me and walked into my apartment. He sat down on the edge of my bed and stared at the screen of my Thinkpad. “I’ve never seen a computer this small before!”

  I looked at the laptop. “You haven’t?”

  He shook his head. “Mamma and I just have an old computer. It doesn’t even do pictures very well. But I can e-mail!”

  “Well, that’s exciting.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. He stared at the screen for a moment. “You took all these photographs?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. I sat down beside him, and together, we watched photo after photo materialize on the screen.

  When they were finally done loading, Nico looked up at me. “Those are really good,” he said solemnly.

  “Oh, yeah?” I smiled. “Well, thank you, Nico.”

  “Do you have any of America?” he asked, looking at me hopefully. “On your computer?”

  I paused. I wasn’t accustomed to showing my photos to anyone. But it was silly to feel self-conscious about showing them to a six-year-old, wasn’t it? “Sure,” I said. I leaned over to the computer, clicked open a folder, and started the slide-show function.

  Nico sat transfixed for ten minutes while image after image of New York popped onto the screen. There were street shots of New Yorkers going about their days, businessmen absorbed in cell phone conversations, women hailing cabs, kids playing in Bryant Park, couples strolling in Central Park. There were black and whites of Magnolia Bakery and the Empire State Building, bright-hued photos of springtime in Central Park, sepia photos of the park’s Boat House. As I watched with Nico, I smiled. I, too, was feeling transported to the Big Apple from the edge of a twin-size bed in Rome.

  When the slide show was finished, Nico turned to me with wide eyes. “Those were amazing,” he said.

  I smiled. “Thanks. They’re nothing special.”

  His eyes widened farther. “You are crazy, Signorina Cat! They were the best pictures of New York I’ve ever seen!”

  I laughed. “Well, thanks,” I said. “But I’m sure there are many New York pictures out there that are much more beautiful than mine.” After all, how many New York photos could one little Roman boy have seen?

  He shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “I have seen hundreds! Thousands! Mamma takes me to the library every week, and I check out the books about New York. But these pictures, these are the best.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

  “Really!” He nodded vigorously. “And the pictures of Roma, they are beautiful.”

  “Well, thanks, Nico,” I said. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  He thought for a minute. “Say you will take some pictures of me and Mamma before you leave,” he said. “And maybe Nonna, too.”

  I smiled. “Of course I will, Nico.”

  “Good, good.” He seemed to think for a moment, his little face growing solemn. “So we shall go to dinner, then? Before Mamma gets angry?”

  I laughed. “Yes. Let’s go to dinner.”

  After a delicious dinner of cold, rice-stuffed Roman tomatoes with salad and a glass of prosecco, eaten with Nico chattering away about America, I went back up to my room. I wanted to do some laundry in the sink and then head to bed so that I could get an early start tomorrow. I planned to be outside Vatican City by dawn with my camera, in time to see the sunrise over the Tiber as it lit the buildings of ancient Rome on the east side of the river.

  I was just hanging my dresses up to dry on the narrow pole that ran the horizontal length of the shower when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find Karina standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “Nico said you showed him some pictures of New York,” she announced without any ceremony, sweeping into my room and sniffing. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Washing clothes,” I said, holding up a damp dress as evidence. “And yes, Nico came in and looked at some pictures. He seemed to like them.”

  Karina rolled her eyes. “You cannot just go getting him excited about New York.”

  I looked at her in confusion. “What? Why not?”

  “It is not realistic.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  Karina sat down on the edge of my bed. “He will want to go there. And I cannot afford to take him.”

  “Oh.” I sat down carefully beside her and considered my words. “I’m sorry. But I’m sure he’ll get to go someday. I’m sure you’ll get to go someday.”

  “Who says I want to?” Karina snapped.

  I was taken aback. “Oh. I’m sorry. I just assumed… I mean, since you are teaching him English, and since you speak such good English yourself.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know as much as you think you do.”

  She stood up from the bed and began pacing distractedly. I watched her, feeling a little amused, considering that this was a difficult apartment in which to pace. Karina was able to take only three small steps before she had to turn back around and head in the opposite direction.

  Suddenly, she stopped abruptly. “Can I see them?”

  “See what?”

  “The pictures,” she said impatiently. “The photographs.”

  “Oh. Of course.” I paused. “The ones of New York?”

  “What else do you have?”

  I shrugged. “I took some of Rome, too,” I said. “In the past few days.”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “Why?”

  I squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t know. I like taking pictures.”

  Karina nodded. She gestured to my computer. “So?”

  I felt uncomfortable, but with her plopped on the edge of my bed, I couldn’t exactly say no. So I booted up the computer, pulled up the New York photos first, and pushed PLAY.

  I pretended to be absorbed in the laundry, but I kept sneaking looks at her face to see how she was reacting as the photos flashed across the screen. I kept expecting judgment, criticism, or, at the least, Karina’s signature sarcasm. But she just continued to stare, wide-eyed, as the images materialized. She barely even blinked. As I watched her out of the corner of my eye, it struck me how very similar to her son she looked when she wasn’t posing or yelling or thinking about how she looked.

  Finally, Karina looked up at me. “The pictures are done,” she said softly.

  “Oh.” I crossed the room to the computer and cleared my throat. “Um, want to see the Rome ones, too, then?”

  Suddenly, I felt her hand on my arm. She didn’t say anything, so finally, I looked up.

  Her eyes were still wide, and she
was staring at me. “Those are amazing, Cat,” she said.

  I shrugged. “They’re just pictures.”

  “They’re beautiful pictures,” she protested. “Like Nico said, they are art.”

  Art. I’d certainly never thought of them that way. “No,” I said. “They’re just photos.”

  “They are art,” Karina repeated firmly. “And don’t you dare tell me they are not.”

  She looked a little angry. I shrugged again. “It’s no big deal.”

  She thought for a minute. “This is what you do for a living at home? In New York?”

  “What? No! I’m an accountant.”

  She looked confused. “What?”

  “An accountant. Um, I work with a bunch of businesses. I do their taxes, figure out their expenses. Things like that.”

  “But I don’t understand. What do you do with the pictures?”

  I stared at her. I didn’t understand what was so difficult to grasp. “Nothing. I just like taking pictures. It’s just a hobby.”

  “A hobby?”

  “Yes, you know, like, something I do for fun.”

  “I know what a hobby is,” she said sharply. “I was not looking for a definition.”

  “Oh,” I said. She seemed to be glaring at me now. “Are you angry with me for some reason?”

  She shook her head. “You are just foolish, that is all.”

  “What?”

  She paused and glanced back at my computer screen, which was illuminated with the final photo from my New York series, a shot straight up from the base of the Statue of Liberty at dusk, with a few stars already dotting the darkening sky overhead.

  “You are foolish,” she repeated. “You are an artist, Cat. And for you to waste your talent would be like…” She paused and seemed to search for the perfect analogy. Her face suddenly lit up. “… It would be like Leonardo da Vinci painting bathrooms. Or Michelangelo constructing pool decks.”

  I laughed. “Did they have pool decks in Michelangelo’s day?”

  Karina glared. “You are missing the point.”

  I was at a loss. I just shrugged.

  Karina looked at me for a moment. “Can I see the Rome ones?” she asked.

  “Are you going to criticize me for those, too?”

  “I am not criticizing you,” she said sharply. “Do you not know a compliment when you hear it?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. She had a strange idea of what constituted a compliment. But I acquiesced and pulled up the Rome pictures I’d taken over the past few days. “I haven’t had a chance to edit these or anything,” I mumbled. “I just uploaded them today.”

  Karina made a face at me and pushed PLAY. Slowly, I sank down on the bed next to her and watched as photograph after photograph illuminated the screen. There were hundreds of them, and I was sure Karina would get bored. But she didn’t move a muscle and didn’t say a word. She uttered an mmm sound here and there, but I honestly wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a compliment or an insult. Looking at my photos of New York was one thing. But seeing her own city through the eyes of a camera-toting American outsider was quite likely another.

  When the slide show ended, Karina sat silent for a very long time while I took slow, shallow breaths, waiting for her reaction.

  Finally, she stood up and took a few steps toward the door. I thought she was going to leave without saying anything. But then she paused, with her hand on the doorknob.

  “Cat, what do you want from your life?” she asked softly, without looking at me.

  “What?” It wasn’t a question I’d expected.

  “What do you want from your life?” she asked again. She looked up, and for a moment, her eyes looked sad, which I couldn’t understand. “If you really had to choose, what do you want to do with your life?”

  I shook my head. “Karina. I’m about to turn thirty-five. I’m already doing what I want to do. I have a good job. I live close to my family. I’m happy.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  I half laughed, but her words made me feel uncomfortable. “Yes, I am.”

  She stared at me, long and hard. “So your life’s goal is to calculate taxes and to live close to your father and sister in case they need anything?”

  I didn’t answer.

  She rolled her eyes after a moment and said, “Yes, very fulfilling.” She paused, and her eyes bore into mine. “Cat, what do you really want to do? If you didn’t have to worry about bills or taking care of other people?”

  I was about to protest again that I was completely content with how my life was now. But there was something about the way she was looking at me that gave me pause. I closed my mouth and thought about it for a moment. “Maybe I’d be taking pictures,” I said finally in a small voice. I shook my head, dismissing the notion. “But that’s silly, Karina. It’s not practical. So what’s the point in even thinking about it?”

  “I don’t understand how it’s silly,” she said right away, shaking her head.

  I shrugged. “I have things I need to take care of, responsibilities,” I said. “There’s no guarantee I’d make money taking pictures. And I like my job. It fits me.”

  Karina looked down at the floor for a long time. When she looked up again, I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes before she blinked a few times, banishing them. “Cat, you have no idea about responsibilities,” she said softly. “I have dreams, too. I always have. But now I have Nico to take care of, so it’s not about me anymore. And that is fine. But you, you are alone. And I know you sometimes think this is a bad thing. But, Cat, you are free. You can do what you want. And you are wasting that chance.”

  The words hung in the air between us.

  “But I have bills to pay, and I can’t be irresponsible,” I said. “I’ve always been the responsible one. For my sister. For my dad. At my job. Changing all that, well, it’s not that easy.”

  “Yes, it is,” Karina said. “It is that easy. You just choose. You choose to make things different. You take a chance. Because if you do not, one day you will wake up and find that life has you in a corner, and there is no way out.”

  She blinked a few times, more rapidly now.

  “Is that how you feel?” I asked softly.

  “No,” she said sharply. “I have no regrets. Not about Nico. But this is my life now. I’ve made my decisions. You, you still have all your life before you, all your decisions left to make. And you have chosen to put yourself in a corner, because you’re scared.”

  Her words startled me. “I’m not scared.”

  “Then what do you call it when you always choose the safe way?” Karina asked quietly.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was still thinking of Karina’s words the next day. In fact, as I rose before the rest of the city, staked out a spot along the Tiber, and watched through my lens as the sky transformed from ash to fire, it was nearly all I could think about.

  I avoided Karina all day and decided to wander through Rome instead, pulling out my camera now and then to shoot street scenes that piqued my interest. But by three in the afternoon, I was hot, dusty, and exhausted, thanks to my mostly sleepless night and the early hour that I’d gotten up. I was walking back toward the Pantheon when I made the snap decision to swing by Pinocchio instead.

  I hadn’t seen Marco in days, and I wasn’t even sure he’d want to see me again. But I’d been a little worried he hadn’t known how to react to my story about my mother. Either way, Karina’s words about always choosing the safe way had made me think, although I’d never admit that to her. To stay away from Pinocchio forever would be to err on the safe side. To go there would be brave and unlike me. It meant taking a risk, the risk of seeming foolish, the risk of being rejected. It felt like something I had to do.

  The restaurant was practically deserted when I arrived; three thirty was just past the lunch rush and before neighborhood patrons began streaming in for the lively aperitivo hour on the patio. The only people inside were a couple sitting b
y the window, a mostly empty bottle of wine between them, gazing into each other’s eyes and whispering. The woman was giggling every now and then, and the man kept glancing out the window every time she looked down. I had the urge to pull out my camera and shoot them, but it would have been too conspicuous here, of course.

  I stood in the doorway for a moment, trying to let my eyes adjust to the inside light. I didn’t see Marco, although I caught a glimpse of another waiter slowly folding napkins in the back of the restaurant. He hadn’t seemed to notice my entrance.

  I considered leaving. After all, I’d come here for Marco and he wasn’t here. But wasn’t my decision to come as much about me as it was about him? Besides, perhaps it would be nice to sit down at a table to escape the heat of the day and to sip a glass of that prosecco Marco had raved about. It would be nice to relax and look through the photos I’d taken today.

  I flagged down the waiter, and he rushed over with apologies in Italian for not noticing my arrival. I waved dismissively. “Non è un problema,” I said. “Um, una tavola per uno, per favore?”

  “Soltanto uno?” he asked, looking behind me, presumably to see if someone else was coming.

  I nodded. “Sì. Soltanto uno.” It was the story of my life, seemingly.

  “Ah, va bene,” he said, nodding nervously. Then, in English, he added, “Follow me, please.”

  I ordered a glass of prosecco, and the waiter hurried back a moment later with the drink and a small bowl of glistening, crispy potato chips. Many of the restaurants in Rome that served aperitivos served complimentary chips with them, which never failed to remind me of America, although the Italian considered it a custom distinct to their culture.

  I was just about to take a sip of the sparkling wine when I heard a deep voice from across the room. “Drinking alone, Princess Ann?” I turned and saw Marco standing across the restaurant, grinning at me. He had on an apron, and he was holding a massive bunch of basil in his hands. He said something to the other waiter, set the basil down, and crossed the room toward me.