Italian for Beginners Read online

  I could feel the blood rising to my cheeks. “Er,” I said.

  Marco winked at me. “One must never drink alone,” he said. “It is bad luck. Perhaps you will allow me to join you?”

  I swallowed hard and gestured to the empty seat at my table. “Of course,” I said.

  He nodded. “Meraviglioso,” he said. “Do you mind to wait one minute?”

  I shook my head and stared after him as he disappeared back into the kitchen. He emerged momentarily with the apron gone and a second flute of prosecco in his hand. He crossed the room and sat down.

  “Cin cin,” he said. I smiled and clinked glasses with him, averting my eyes.

  “Wait!” Marco said sharply, just as I was about to take a sip.

  Startled, I paused with the flute halfway to my mouth. “What?”

  “You must look at me while we toast!” he exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “This is serious,” he said. “There is an old superstition about not meeting someone’s eyes when you toast them.”

  “What’s the superstition?” I asked.

  Now, Marco looked a little embarrassed. “Honestly?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “The superstition says that if you avoid someone’s eyes when you toast”— he paused and leaned forward conspiratorially—“it’s seven years of bad sex.”

  I could feel my face heating up again and had no doubt that I was probably tomato red.

  Marco studied me for a moment in apparent amusement. “Well,” he said finally, “I can see we have a lot to toast to.”

  He repeated the toast, and this time, despite my embarrassment, I looked into his eyes as we clinked glasses and as I took my first sip.

  I looked away and took another long sip of my prosecco, feeling its tiny bubbles tickle my tongue and my throat on the way down. We drank in silence for a moment, me averting my eyes and trying not to blush, Marco staring at me.

  “Cat, why are you here?” Marco asked abruptly, cutting the silence short.

  I swallowed hard. “I just wanted to get a drink,” I said a little defensively.

  “No, not here at the restaurant.” He laughed. “Here in Roma, I mean. Why are you really here?”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t know what to say. There were so many answers on so many levels. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just needed a break from my life in the United States,” I said finally. It wasn’t a lie. Coming to Rome had been a break from my boring, routine daily grind at home.

  But Marco didn’t seem to be buying it. He was looking at me closely. “Please, Cat,” he said, his expression graver than I’d ever seen it. “Tell me the truth.”

  I paused.

  He looked intently at me and added softly, “The one thing I ask of people is that they are honest all the time. Lies only get us in trouble.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said defensively.

  “But you are not telling the full truth, either,” he said. “If you are not comfortable discussing it, that is fine. But truth is always the best.”

  I thought about what he’d said.

  “Fine,” I said. I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I came for a guy. It was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.” And with that, I launched into the story of Francesco, pausing here and there when Marco interjected with words of astonishment. When I finished, I held my breath, waiting for his response.

  “Cat, this Francesco is a fool,” he said finally. “You are beautiful, intelligent, and interesting.”

  “No one else seems to think so,” I said softly.

  “No, I think it is quite the contrary,” Marco said thoughtfully. “I think this Francesco did realize all those things about you. But that is not what he was looking for.”

  “What?”

  He paused. “Some men are not looking for a partner. They are looking for someone who needs them, who worships them. And you would never feel that way about this Francesco.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not true,” I said. “I could have loved him. I did love him at one point.”

  “It’s not about love,” Marco said. “Not for some men. They want to feel like they are needed. Not like they are loved. And you, you are mature. You are responsible. You are smart. For a man like this, that is not enough. He is not looking for a partner. He is looking for someone to make him the center of her universe. And that is not you.”

  I looked at Marco for a long time. “How do you know all this?”

  He shrugged. “I like to study human nature,” he said, “the way you like to photograph things that move you.”

  He paused.

  “But that isn’t all, is it?” Marco asked after a moment. He was gazing at me evenly, and I had the disturbing sense he could see right through me.

  “What?”

  “That is not what drew you to Roma,” he said. “Perhaps it was the push you needed to come back. But it is not why Roma captured your heart in the first place.”

  I looked down at my lap and took a few deep breaths.

  “It’s your mother, isn’t it?” Marco said after a moment.

  I nodded. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.

  “It is not so easy to confront ghosts,” he said.

  I shook my head, still not looking at him.

  After a moment of silence, Marco said, “I have an idea. I will return in a moment.”

  He took our empty prosecco flutes and hurried into the kitchen. I saw him talking to the other waiter, and then he logged on to a computer and scrolled through a few screens. He made a phone call, turning his back to me, and I could hear a few strains of unintelligible Italian. When he hung up and came back a moment later, he was smiling.

  “If it is okay with you,” he said, “we will go now.”

  I glanced around. “Go? Where?”

  He smiled. “There are some things I would like to show you.”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I talked with Antonio,” he said, nodding at the other waiter, who was drying and stacking dishes. “He’s fine here alone. The dinner staff will be here in less than an hour.”

  “But where are we going?”

  His eyes seemed to sparkle. “You shall see,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

  I hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes,” I said.

  I followed him out the door, wondering what I was getting myself into.

  Marco led me around to the back of the restaurant, where there was a silver Vespa parked against the wall.

  “Get on,” Marco said, nodding to it with a slight smile.

  “It’s yours?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Have you been on one before?”

  I shook my head. “They seem dangerous.”

  “I promise I’ll keep you safe,” he said. “But you have to trust me.”

  I hesitated. “Okay.”

  Marco offered his hand, and I stepped onto the scooter, wishing I had worn pants today instead of a skirt. I wasn’t sure how to sit gracefully. I adjusted myself so I was sitting sidesaddle.

  “Is this okay?” I asked, feeling a little foolish.

  He laughed. “I would say it’s perfect.” He shook his head, muttered something in Italian with an amused expression on his face, and climbed on in front of me. “Put your arms around me,” he said.

  I hesitated and then did as I was told. I was surprised by how taut and muscular his back and shoulders felt through his plain white shirt.

  “Hold on tighter,” he instructed as he gunned the engine. I wrapped my arms around him more tightly, and as I pressed into his back, a powerful wave of attraction swept over me. Even in the broad daylight, out in public, there was something that felt very intimate about touching him this way.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready,” I said. And with that, we lurched forward. I shrieked a little, startled, and he laughed.

  “Just hang on,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  We set
off through the streets of Rome, darting down alleys on the scooter. Even with the size of the thing, I still felt safe. I somehow believed that Marco wouldn’t let anything happen to me.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and felt the wind in my hair. I held a little tighter to Marco, enjoying the solid, safe feel of him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I opened my eyes and smiled. “Yeah,” I shouted over the engine.

  We whizzed by fountains and churches with aging stone facades, apartments with clotheslines outside, little parks with kids sliding down slides, piazzas with teenage girls sitting on steps, fluffing their glossy, dark hair. We passed tourists taking pictures, street vendors hawking their wares, mothers walking toddlers. Finally, we pulled up in front of the crumbling Colosseum. Marco pulled to the side of the street, cut the engine, and turned to smile at me.

  “I should take you inside,” he said. “But we have only half a day. And I want to make sure we get everything done.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously. “But you have been inside before, correct?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good, then. We’ll continue. Hang on.” He gunned the engine again, and off we went, shooting back into the streets of Rome.

  A moment later, we pulled up to a stop sign, and Marco turned around to talk to me. “Now I know you’re probably hoping to kick me off, so you can ride around by yourself and get us in trouble,” he said with a mysterious smile. “But I’m afraid we can’t do that today. I don’t have my American News Service card on me.”

  “What?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

  But he just laughed, shook his head, and took off down the street again. “Hold on!” he yelled a moment later. I squeezed tight, and he took a sharp right onto a side street. A street market had been set up, and as I stared, wide-eyed, hanging on for dear life, he steered the Vespa deftly between stands selling produce, cheese, wine, and meat, and around vendors waving scarves, toys, and flowers in the air. When he emerged on the other side, miraculously without mowing down any innocent bystanders, he braked and turned to look at me. “You okay?” he asked.

  My heart was hammering a mile a minute.

  I stared back at him for a moment. And then, to my surprise, I started laughing. “What did you do that for?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder and then back at him. I couldn’t stop giggling. I think it was a combination of nerves and amusement at the whole situation. As risky as it had been, it had also been exhilarating.

  “It’s all part of the plan,” he said mysteriously. “Hold on.”

  We set off again, zipping southward on the broad Via Celio Vibenna, with a sprawling green park to our left that Marco identified as the Parco Ninfeo di Nerone. We turned right after the park and cut toward the river. Finally, Marco drew to a halt in front of a large brown church with several arched entryways and a bell tower.

  “It is called Santa Maria in Cosmedin,” he said. He got off the scooter and held out his hand. “Come on.”

  He must have seen the reluctance on my face, because he laughed, took my hand, and said, “Trust me, Cat.”

  “Cosmedin means beautiful,” Marco explained as we walked toward the structure. “If I remember correctly, it received the name in the eighth century after it was dubbed one of the loveliest of its time.”

  “I feel like I should be paying you for a tour,” I teased.

  He made a face at me. “Just listen,” he said. We continued strolling toward the church. “It has quite a history,” he said. “There were two popes elected here and one antipope. And its bell tower is the tallest medieval belfry in all of Roma.”

  We had reached the steps of the church now, and Marco led me toward the dimly lit entrance. He smiled at me and then pointed down the portico to a huge, cream-colored marble circular decoration on the outside wall, through a series of a half-dozen arches. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.

  I looked at it for a moment. It appeared to be a man’s face, with a flowing beard, sockets for the eyes, and nostrils and mouth. It was chipped and cracked at the edges and seemed to be decaying with age. It looked vaguely familiar to me, perhaps from some books I’d studied of Rome, but I’d never seen it before in person. “No,” I said finally.

  Marco smiled. “Good.” He led me down the hall and up to the circular sculpture. He nodded at it. “It is called La Bocca della Verità, the Mouth of Truth,” he said, “and it was brought here in the seventeenth century. It probably came from an ancient Roman fountain. The legend is that if you put your hand in the mouth and you’ve been lying, your hand will be bitten off.”

  My eyes widened. “What?” I looked from the carved face up to Marco. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, not at all,” he said gravely. “It is true. The truth is very important.”

  I stared at the statue. The mouth was just tall enough for a person’s hand to be inserted comfortably. And although the face had looked benign just moments before, knowing this legend somehow made it look a little sinister. In fact, the longer I stared, the creepier it looked. I made a mental note to return one day, when the lighting was better, to photograph it.

  “So?” Marco asked after a moment. “Would you like to go first? Or shall I?”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “Go first?” I repeated.

  “Do you mean you think I’m going to stick my hand in that thing’s mouth?”

  He laughed. “That’s the general idea.”

  “Well, you go first,” I said quickly.

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “What’s wrong? Are you scared?”

  “No!” I said.

  “Then go ahead.”

  I looked up at him, startled that my heart was hammering to such an extent. It was just a carved marble head; what did I think was going to happen? But it was impossible to see into the depths of the carving’s mouth. How did I know what was behind the wall?

  “Well?” Marco urged.

  I took a tentative step toward the wall and reached my hand out, little by little, toward the sinister face. With every inch closer, my trepidation multiplied. What if there was someone behind the face, waiting to grab my hand? What if something in the stone shifted and collapsed? What if the legend was true and the carving somehow knew that I was lying to myself about my feelings for my mother and her family?

  “I can’t,” I admitted, pulling my hand back and shuddering.

  Marco laughed and shook his head.

  “Well, let’s see you do it!” I said, feeling a little silly.

  He laughed again and shrugged. “If you say so.” He took a few steps forward and slowly inserted his hand into the mouth. I held my breath. He pushed his hand farther and farther in, and I watched his fingers disappear into its depths, then his entire hand. He turned to smile at me, but just then, a look of pure agony crossed his face.

  “Augh!” he yelled, twisting back to the statue. His hand seemed to be struck. He twisted and writhed, trying to pull away.

  I screamed and rushed toward him, pulling at him from behind. Moaning, he finally pulled his hand from the mouth of the evil face.

  “Oh, my God!” I cried. “What happened?”

  But Marco held his hand up for me to see. It was fine. And he was laughing.

  “What happened?” I demanded again.

  “I was joking with you,” he said with a wink.

  I stared at him, openmouthed. My heart was still pounding. “You jerk!” I exclaimed, punching him playfully in the arm. “I can’t believe you did that! You scared me!”

  I shook my head and tried to catch my breath. Marco was smiling at me, and when I looked up to tell him again what a jerk he’d been, he silenced me by pulling me into his arms in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into the top of my head. “It had to be done. You’ll appreciate it later.”

  I pulled back a little and looked up at him, confused. “I’ll appreciate that you just scared
the heck out of me?”

  “Yes,” he said cheerfully. “You will.”

  He pulled me back into the embrace, and we stood there for a long time, wrapped together, until I could feel the beat of his heart as the solemn face, which didn’t look quite so evil anymore, looked on.

  * * *

  That evening, after we dropped by Marco’s place so that he could change out of his waiter uniform and by my place so that I could leave my camera at home and change out of my own sweaty, dusty clothes and into a clean sundress, we went to dinner at a little café just around the corner from Squisito. It sat nestled just to the right of the Pantheon, and while I had showered in my apartment, Marco had called ahead to ask for one of their outside tables. We were seated along the street with a breathtaking view of the Pantheon’s facade and the obelisk and fountain in the middle of the Piazza della Rotonda.

  Marco ordered champagne for both of us to start. Once the bubbly arrived, Marco smiled and we clinked glasses. I made sure to look into his eyes this time.

  “To Rome,” he said. Then, as he looked closely at me, he added, “And to us.”

  “To us,” I echoed.

  We chatted through our meal. I told Marco about my father and sister and about the recent wedding, and he told me about his three brothers and three sisters and how he’d come here to Rome to open a branch of the family restaurant his father had started in Venice.

  “You’re from Venice?” I asked.

  “Sì,” Marco said. “I worked in the restaurant there for years, but I’ve always wanted to have my own. So I came to Rome five years ago with all the money I’d saved up and with a dream of opening a place.”

  I stared at him. “Pinocchio is yours?”

  “Sì,” he said.

  “Oh.” I was surprised. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Ah, so you’re not after me for my money,” Marco teased.

  I laughed. “No.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I have none. I’ve spent it all on the restaurant!”

  As he began to talk about the challenges of opening a new restaurant in Rome and about how gratifying it was to see his dreams come to fruition, my mind wandered a little, back to Michael. I’d never known a restaurant owner before, and it seemed a strange twist of fate to be sitting here with one while the owner of Adriano’s in New York still lurked in the corner of my mind. It was foolish, of course, that he’d even still be in my realm of thought, especially when I was sitting here with the handsome, kind, and, most of all, available Marco.