Italian for Beginners Page 6

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. I looked away. “Look, this has all been very enlightening. But I have a really busy day ahead of me. So I’m afraid I have to get running.”

  My dad sighed and let go of my hands. “Will you think about it, at least? You don’t even have to see your mother’s family, kiddo. Just go over there and remember what it feels like to be happy again.”

  “I was a lot happier before I came over here this morning,” I muttered.

  I stood up, and we awkwardly kissed good-bye. I expected to feel angry with my father and Becky as I marched out of his house and headed up the street to the subway. But all I felt was a strange emptiness surrounded by a question. And at the center of it all, I kept coming back to Francesco.

  That night, after running errands, cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, watching TV for a few hours, and trying to fall asleep, I finally gave up, got out of bed again, and turned on my computer. It booted up slowly, and I found myself tapping my foot impatiently, way too eager to get on to the Internet.

  I logged on to AOL and pulled up my address book. I’d been on AOL since college, and I had saved Francesco’s e-mail address. I hoped he still used it. I clicked on his name in my AOL address book and watched Francesco Valeti11@hotmail.com came up in the SEND TO field of a blank e-mail. Just seeing his address again made my heart leap. I remembered how many mornings in Rome I’d started with e-mailing him a brief, “Thinking about you… xoxox, Cat” note. I also remembered with a pang how many times I’d tried writing to him in vain after I returned home. I must have sent him fifty unanswered e-mails before I finally let it go and decided to salvage the remainder of my pride.

  Twelve years had passed since I’d last tried to reach out to him, yet he was burned into my mind as clearly as if I had seen him yesterday. What if he didn’t feel the same way?

  I took a deep breath and began writing.

  Forty-five minutes and six drafts later, I finally had an e-mail I felt okay about. I read it over one more time.

  Dear Francesco,

  Hi. It’s been a long time. I hope you remember me;

  I know I could never forget you. You meant more to me than you could have known. I wonder where you are and what you’re doing these days. I still think of you often. I’d love to hear from you.

  xo,

  Cat

  I closed my eyes and hit SEND before I could reconsider. I hoped I wouldn’t regret this in the morning.

  I logged off, shut down the computer, and crawled back into bed. And for the first time that night, my mind was silent. Finally, I slept.

  By the time I got to work the next morning, I felt like I had kicked up a huge sandstorm of dormant emotions. What had I done?

  My work in-box was filled, as it usually was, with dozens of messages from over the weekend. I read through them quickly and gritted my teeth when I saw michaelevangelisti@adrianos.com on one of the return addresses. I hadn’t given him my e-mail address, so he’d obviously Googled me to find it. It annoyed me to no end as I pictured him holing up in his apartment and furtively searching for me while his unsuspecting wife played with their child in the other room. I hit DELETE before I could think any more about it.

  There was nothing in my AOL in-box from Francesco. And a strange gnawing had begun in the pit of my stomach.

  By noon, I had gotten a little work done, but I had also wasted a ton of time refreshing my AOL mailbox every few minutes and hoping that Francesco had responded. With every hour that ticked by without an e-mail from him, I was growing more and more nervous—and feeling sillier and sillier for even trying. I kept doing the mental math in my head. By noon our time, it would be 6 p.m. in Italy, and he’d be heading home if he was still working as a computer programmer as he had the summer I’d known him. Did he check his e-mail at home, too? Maybe he had read the e-mail at work and was at war with his own emotions about how to respond.

  “You look deep in thought.” Kris popped her head up over my cubicle wall with a grin.

  I cleared my throat. “No. Just busy with some e-mails,” I said innocently.

  “On your AOL page?” she asked with a smile, nodding at my screen.

  I reddened, which was evidently all the answer she needed.

  “So who are you waiting for an e-mail from?”

  I glanced nervously at the screen. “No one,” I said quickly.

  She raised an eyebrow. “No one?” she repeated. “Interesting, considering you’ve checked your e-mail, like, a hundred times today, and you seem to be breaking out in a cold sweat.”

  I could feel the blood rise to my cheeks.

  “And now you’re blushing,” she continued smoothly, “which pretty much confirms my suspicion that it’s a guy. I’m hoping it’s not the married restaurant dude.”

  I shook my head. “Definitely not.”

  She was silent, staring me down. “Then who?” she finally asked. “You have another new guy?”

  “Well,” I said. “He’s not exactly new.…”

  Just then, my computer made a little clicking noise, alerting me to a new message. My breath caught in my throat as I turned to look and saw the familiar e-mail address I’d been waiting to hear from all day: Francesco Valeti11@hotmail.com.

  Francesco had written back.

  Ignoring Kris, I turned quickly to my computer and clicked on the message. My heart was pounding. In a second, the e-mail popped up on the screen. I read it hungrily.

  Bella!

  Greetings from Italia! I think to you still. You are written in my memory. Please, you must come back to Italia to see me. My heart longs for you.

  Love and kisses,

  Francesco

  I read and reread the e-mail breathlessly. I could hardly believe that he had written me back, but to tell me I was written in his memory? That his heart longed for me? I felt a little woozy.

  “Who’s this Francesco?” Kris cut into my thoughts, sounding amused. She had come up behind me and was reading over my shoulder.

  “No one,” I mumbled, hastily closing the message and blinking a few times to steady myself.

  “No one?” she repeated. “Come on, Cat.”

  And so, after a brief pause, I told her the whole story, beginning with the day I first saw him at a nightclub in Rome and ending with my eventual e-mail to him last night. When I finished, she was staring at me with her jaw hanging open.

  “How come you’ve never mentioned him before?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. He was in the past, you know?”

  “Well, he’s not in the past anymore,” Kris said. “So?” She paused and looked at me closely. “What are you going to do?”

  “Do?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “The man of your dreams, apparently, has just invited you to Italy. Don’t tell me you’re not going to go.”

  My face turned even hotter. “I can’t go to Italy!”

  “Why not?”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that. “I d-d-don’t know,” I stammered finally. “I mean, it’s just impractical. I can’t afford it. I have work to do.”

  “You haven’t taken a vacation day in years!” she said. “You could probably vanish for a month with all the time you have saved up.”

  I cleared my throat. “Nine weeks, actually,” I said.

  Kris widened her eyes. “Seriously, girl? What are you waiting for?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably. “What if my dad needs something? Or maybe Becky will need some help getting settled in the new apartment she and Jay are moving to. Or what if one of my clients needs me?”

  “Cat,” Kris said slowly, as if talking to someone whose comprehension skills were delayed. “You have a hot man in Italy who wants you to come visit him. Isn’t it time you put yourself first for once in your life?”

  “But I—” I began to say. Kris cut me off.

  “Seriously, Cat,” she said. She sounded stern now. “It’s truly ridiculous if you don’t go. You deserve this. You need t
his.” She paused and added, “If you don’t go, I think you’ll always wonder about what could have been. And that’s no way to live.”

  “I don’t know… ,” I said, my voice trailing off.

  Kris stared at me for another long moment. Then, without a word, she stepped into my cubicle, nudged me aside, and hit the REPLY button on Francesco’s e-mail.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she typed something into the computer. I watched nervously over her shoulder as the words appeared on the screen.

  Are you sure you want me to come? It’s been a long time.…

  She hit SEND before I had a chance to protest.

  “Kris!” I exclaimed. “I can’t believe you just did that! What if he was just kidding? What if he didn’t mean it! What if…”

  Just then, my e-mail clicked again, to let me know I had an incoming message. I stared in disbelief as Francesco’s address came up on the screen again. Wordlessly, Kris maneuvered the mouse and clicked. Holding my breath, I read over her shoulder.

  Of course I want you to come. True love, it lives forever, no? Please come to Roma. Soon, my bella.

  “Oh,” I breathed.

  Kris smiled at me. “Okay, Juliet,” she said. “Let’s send you off to your Roman Romeo.” I tried not to think about how that particular story ended. “Do you have your passport?” she asked.

  I nodded, numbly.

  “Fantastic,” she said briskly. “Give me your credit card, and I’ll get started on booking you a flight. You start with filling out the vacation request paperwork.”

  “ But—” I began.

  “Just do it,” Kris said firmly. “I’m not letting you back out of this one. Now, when would you like to go? Thursday? Friday?”

  I snorted. “Are you kidding me?”

  Kris shrugged. “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

  I felt like I was in a fog—or perhaps living someone else’s life— as I walked down the hall to HR to pick up a vacation request form. Amber, the HR coordinator, looked at me like I was nuts.

  “You want to take a vacation?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “My God!” she exclaimed. “Hell has frozen over!”

  I stared at her, not sure how to respond. “I don’t have to go,” I backpedaled. “I mean, or I can take the vacation whenever it’s convenient so that I don’t put anyone else out.”

  Amber rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for you to request a vacation for the past five years. Please! Go!”

  “ But—” I began.

  “Don’t say another word,” she said firmly.

  While Amber was still laughing I walked out with the vacation request form clutched in my hand, still not really believing that I was going to do this.

  Until I got back to my desk.

  “So, I’ve booked your outgoing flight for Thursday,” Kris said cheerfully. “When would you like to return?”

  “Wait, this Thursday?”

  Kris turned and shrugged at me. “I found a great deal on Travelocity. A last-minute fare. Don’t blame me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Kris. This is crazy.”

  She smiled at me. “Yeah,” she said. “It is. And that’s exactly why you have to do it. When have you ever done anything crazy or irresponsible in your life?”

  “Nothing good has ever come out of being irresponsible,” I said stiffly.

  She studied my face for a moment and sighed. “Cat, life is messy. Sometimes you have to take chances. You have to step outside your comfort zone. You have to do things that are irresponsible or downright stupid. Does it leave you open to getting hurt? Yeah, of course it does. But how can you say you’ve lived if you’ve never really gone out on a limb for anything?”

  I considered this as a knot formed in the pit of my stomach. “It just seems like such a dumb thing to do,” I said.

  “Cat, sometimes you have to do dumb things,” she said. “Life works out the way it’s supposed to, anyhow. For goodness’ sake, do you think I was supposed to be with Dani’s dad? Was he really the smartest choice for me? Of course not. But I followed my heart, and now I have my little girl, and I have absolutely no regrets. Sometimes you have to break out of your comfort zone to get to where you need to be in life.”

  I considered this. I glanced at the computer, where Travelocity’s return flight options loomed in full, vibrant color. I thought about Francesco’s e-mail. Please come to Roma. Soon, my bella. I thought about how I’d never taken any real chances with my life since that summer in Rome. I thought about how it felt to fall asleep in Francesco’s arms and hold his hand and look into his eyes, and how I hadn’t felt that with anyone since I’d last seen him.

  I swallowed hard. I had nine weeks of vacation time accumulated. My sister was all grown up. My dad could certainly take care of himself.

  “I’ll go for four weeks,” I heard myself say. “I can afford four weeks in a hotel.”

  Kris stared at me in disbelief, then broke into a wide smile as I stared, stunned by the words that had just come out of my mouth. As I fumbled to take them back, I watched in horror as she quickly clicked SELECT, filled in my credit card information, and hit BUY TICKET.

  “You’re going to Rome,” she said, sitting back in the chair, her face glowing with satisfaction.

  “But… ,” I said weakly.

  She grinned. “Too late to back out now,” she said. “The ticket is nonrefundable.”

  “Oh, my God,” I muttered. It was all sinking in now. I was going to Rome. By myself. In two days. To reunite with a man I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. What if he didn’t find me attractive anymore? What if he had changed and I no longer liked him?

  While I agonized, Kris was cheerfully e-mailing Francesco back. I gazed weakly at her response, feeling suddenly disconnected from the whole situation.

  Francesco,

  I’ve gotten some time off work and can be there Friday. I’ll try to find a hotel.

  Cat

  He wrote back immediately.

  Cat,

  Friday? You make my heart sing. I will wait for your arrival. Send me your flight information, and I will arrive to pick you up. I cannot wait to see you again, bella.

  Molti baci,

  Francesco

  “There you go,” Kris said, turning to me triumphantly after I read Francesco’s reply. I felt like I wanted to pass out. “You’re all set.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I murmured, still staring blankly at the computer screen.

  “I can,” Kris said happily. “It’s about time you stop living life on the safe side.”

  Chapter Five

  Becky and Jay came back from their honeymoon the next morning, and I met them for dinner at my father’s house. They’d already gotten prints of a hundred of their honeymoon pictures, and my sister chattered nonstop while she talked us through all the minute details of their trip. Jay looked bored, and I could see my father’s eyelids beginning to droop by about the sixtieth photo, but I tried to focus on what she was saying. After all, it was important to her, and I always tried very hard to pay attention to the things that mattered to my sister.

  She didn’t finish her honeymoon stories until long after Dad and I had cleared away the remnants of the walnut butter pasta and chopped salad I’d made for dinner. It wasn’t until the four us settled in for coffee in the living room that I finally dropped my bomb.

  “I’m going to Italy on Thursday,” I said casually, hiding my smile behind the rim of the cracked DAUGHTERS ARE LIFE’S GREATEST GIFT mug my father always insisted I drink out of.

  Becky spit her coffee out. “What?”

  Jay wiped her coffee splatters off his shirt and echoed, “Italy?”

  My father simply smiled. “Good girl,” he said.

  I looked at Becky, Jay, and then locked eyes with my dad for a long time. I shrugged. “I think you were right,” I said. “I think maybe it’s something I
need to do.”

  “Thursday?” Becky said, still staring at me. “But that’s, like, two days from now.”

  I nodded. “Blame Kris for that,” I said. “She found me a cheap last-minute ticket. But it’s probably better. It won’t be enough time to talk myself out of it, will it?”

  “That’s great,” Jay said, nodding. “Italy. Wow.”

  “But that’s really sudden, Cat,” Becky said, laying a hand on his arm to quiet him. “I mean, are you sure about this?”

  I glanced at my father and then back at her. “I thought this was your idea,” I said to her.

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “But I didn’t think you’d actually do it. You never do anything.”

  Uncomfortable silence settled over us for a moment. My father cleared his throat. “Well, she’s doing this, and I think it’s wonderful.”

  “Thanks,” I said softly, feeling suddenly uncertain. Becky was right, wasn’t she? This was completely out of character for me, completely foolish. My heart started to sink. But then she clapped her hands together and smiled at me.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Totally right. It sounds super fun. I’m just jealous I can’t go.”

  “Where are you staying?” Jay asked.

  “I don’t want to spend a fortune, but I want to be in a decent, safe place,” I said. “There’s actually a great little hotel near the train station where rooms are about seventy-five dollars a night, which is really reasonable for Rome. With all the taxes and everything, it comes out to about twenty-five hundred for the month.”

  Becky whistled, long and low. “Whoa,” she said. “That’s a ton of money. That’s, like, twice what our honeymoon cost.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll be gone for four weeks,” I said. “It’s actually not that bad for that amount of time, I think.”

  “You have that kind of money?” she asked.

  I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. I talked about other people’s money all day long but hated talking about my own. “I’ll manage,” I said. I shot my dad a weak smile. “Plus, I’ve been told that’s what credit cards are for.”