A Not So Lonely Planet

by Karina Kennedy

  “Piazza Navona, Circo Massimo where the chariots were, by the Colosseo and L’Arco di Costantino, Vaticano, e Lungotevere . . . along the Tiber River. This white one is called ‘wedding cake.’ It is Altare della Patria, for Victor Emmanuel, but this is new.”

  “New?”

  “Middle eighteen hundred.”

  “So new,” I laugh. “It took Rome a long time to get her shit together, huh? This makes me feel better about myself.” Ernesto laughs too. “In Roma we say: Roma Capoccia! This means, Roma is the head.”

  “Of the country?”

  “Of the world,” he smiles.

  “Oh really?” I tease him.

  “Sì. Roma is the Eternal City,” he says. “She is older than time, but even still more beautiful. She is envied, e fraintesa . . . misunderstood, and hated but amata da sempre, always loved. She has fallen many times, but will never die.” He smiles. I’m impressed. Ernesto is a poet after all.

  “Roma capoccia,” I practice.

  “Perfetto,” he smiles proudly. This is clearly his favorite word.

  “You speak like a writer,” I say. “A few moments ago I was still an outsider peeking in, seeing only the tiny, tourist postcard of Rome. But now, I feel like I know her.” His eyes gleam. He loves this.

  “Benvenuta a Roma, Marina.”

  “Grazie, Ernesto Hemingway.” Ernesto takes me in his arms and kisses me sweetly.

  Villa Pamphili, Lago del Belvedere, Roma, Saturday, 1:17 a.m.

  Ernesto parks his scooter under some trees on the banks of the beautiful little lake that rests in the middle of this huge, gorgeous park—away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I try to put visions of thieves camped in the bushes out of my mind and focus on the soothing gurgle of an unseen fountain and the sounds of crickets. Ernesto lithely climbs one of the nearby trees. I hope he’s not expecting me to join him—I’ve had enough climbing for one night. A bag lands on the ground next to me. He swings down and lands like Tarzan, smiling at me in the moonlight. Sexy little devil. Next he unzips the bag and takes out a blanket. He unrolls this blanket to reveal a bottle of wine.

  “You’ve done this before?” I ask.

  “Sì, many times,” he replies.

  “This is where you bring all the American girls you pick up?” I tease, a little surprised. He had seemed so innocent.

  “No! Bella! I just like to read here. And drink. See.” Ernesto reaches into his bag and pulls out a copy of A Farewell to Arms. My heart melts. I’m even more attracted to him. He spreads out the blanket and pats it.

  “Sit.” He smiles. I do. “The opener is in the bag.” I pull out a corkscrew and pass it to him. “Perfetto,” he says. I decide this is my favorite word too. Inside the bag I also see: a candle, matches, and some condoms. Cheeky monkey! I guess I’m not the only girl he’s brought here, but somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. And I actually feel safer. If he’s slept out here before without wolves or Romulus and Remus (legendary twins who founded Rome) tearing him limb from limb, then we should be okay. Ernesto lights the candle and then hands me the book.

  “Will you read to me?” He smiles. Read? That’s not exactly what I thought we were going to be doing on this blanket, but how can I say no to that dimple? I open the book and begin to read. He listens for a few moments, and then I feel his hands gently guide me to my back. I stop reading, waiting for his lips to find mine. “No. You must not stop,” he says. He wants me to keep reading? Seriously? Okay. So, I keep reading. Soon, I feel his fingers unbuttoning my dress . . . all the way down. Exposed to the night air, my breasts quiver beneath my black bra (thank God I wore the sexy one).

  I keep reading. His fingers slide beneath the lace. His thumbs circle my nipples, which are now standing at attention in the moonlight. My breath catches in my throat as his strong lips wrap around first one nipple and then the other. “Keep reading,” he whispers. My body tingles. My tummy trembles as he runs his tongue down it, ever so slowly, finding my navel. My breath quickens as I struggle to read. And then, his hands find my alligator panties, pulling them gently from my hips, down my legs, and completely off. My heart is thumping hard. I can feel my blood racing around my body and my groin aching for him.

  “La tua figa è come un fiore,” whispers Ernesto. I stop reading and sit up on my elbows, watching him over the fast rise and fall of my breasts.

  “My what?”

  “Your figa—” he plants one soft, gentle kiss on my pussy. “Like a flower.” A shudder runs down my aching body. My figa wants more. He looks at me. “You wish me to stop?” he asks quietly.

  “No. Don’t stop,” I say, my heart pounding. “Please.”

  “Then keep reading,” Ernesto grins. “Perfavore.” Seriously?

  “What is this? Some sort of oral book report?” I ask.

  “Esattamente,” he laughs. So I continue. And so does he. The climax of the book is reached on page two. Hemingway is just that good.

  DURING ORAL BOOK REPORTS IN PARKS WITH ITALIAN BOYS, DO NOT:

  1. Lose all self-control, grabbing his shirt and yelling out as you orgasm, knocking the candle over and catching the book on fire.

  2. Try to smother the flame with the blanket, catching it too on fire.

  3. Jump up and drag the blanket into the lake, half spilling the bottle of wine.

  4. Leave your wine-soaked shoes near the blanket to attract an ant block party.

  5. Pick a bush nearby to pee because it’s dark and you’re afraid to go too far.

  6. Remain silent as you notice your urine trickle downhill toward the blanket, because it’s already wet, burned, and soaked with wine so he won’t notice.

  7. Rub ANY unidentified leaf on your “soft, delicate figa” (vagina).

  8. Let the conservative, Anglo-American ideas about sex with strangers that your mother worked hard to instill in you get in the way of your good time.

  Chapter 8

  How Not to See Roma like a Tourist

  Roma is simply too historical, too beautiful, and too big to see in four days—unless of course you have a handsome boy on a scooter shuttling you from vista to museum to his personal favorite pizzeria, Est Est Est.

  SUGGESTED ITINERARY FOR YOUR ROMAN HOLIDAY:

  1. Follow a paid tour around the Forum until you’re noticed and then find another one to follow. (Repeat.)

  2. Kiss in the senate where Julius Caesar was murdered. Make out behind a row of columns and get your figa tickled.

  3. Walk around the Colosseum.

  4. Kiss in the prison where Christians were fed to the lions.

  5. Eat gelato while watching the Gattare (old cat ladies) feed stray cats in Largo Argentina.

  6. Kiss in the sunlight beaming through the ceiling of the Pantheon.

  7. Eat gelato on the Spanish steps and make fun of the tourists, pretending you are not one.

  8. Peddle around the Villa Borghese on one of those stupid bike carriages.

  9. Sneak in the back way to the Baths of Caracalla to watch the second half of the opera Carmen, then make out under the bleachers like you’re in high school.

  10. Go to a Roma football game and get him to teach you the songs. Celebrate Roma’s victory by sneaking him into your convent room.

  Enoteca Antica: Monday, 7:42 p.m.

  While Ernesto works, I sit in the back, drinking free wine and eating free mozzarella while I do research for my book. For my first Italian woman of influence, I decide on one everyone knows.

  NOTES ON ITALIAN WOMAN OF INFLUENCE: Sophia Loren

  1. Born in 1934 as Sofia Villani Scicolone, in Rome.

  2. Her mother was a piano teacher, father an engineer of noble descent who abandoned them both, leaving Sofia to live in poverty for the first fifteen years of her life—shy, lean, and nicknamed “Little Stick.”

  3. Met her father three times: ages five, seventeen, and forty-two (at his deathbed).

  4. Spotted in the Miss Italia beauty pageant at fifteen by film producer and future husband,
Carlo Ponti, her acting career promptly began.

  5. Starred in Hollywood films opposite Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and Clark Gable, among others.

  6. In Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women, 1960, she portrays a mother protecting her twelve-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy. She herself had been hit by shrapnel during an Allied air raid.

  7. This performance won her the first Best Actress Oscar ever awarded for a foreign language performance.

  8. Her memorable striptease for Marcello Mastroianni in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow was paid homage to in the film satire Prêt-à-Porter by Robert Altman.

  9. She is a record holder of six David di Donatello awards.

  10. She is the mother of two boys, Carlo and Edoardo Ponti.

  Wow, imagine going from “Little Stick” to internationally famous film star and sex symbol. I close my eyes and try to picture her on that warm day in Naples, in September, 1950, as she prepares to step on stage for the pageant. Is her mother there fixing young Sofia’s thick mascara and hoisting her daughter’s fifteen-year-old breasts up in her padded bikini top? Does the destitute piano teacher, desperately hoping she will change her daughter’s future, have any idea what is about to happen? And now I find myself wondering, were there any moments after my father left when my mother thought to herself, “How the hell will I raise this child alone?” If there were, I never saw them.

  ON YOUR LAST NIGHT IN ROME, DO NOT:

  1. Worry about what to say to him before you leave.

  2. Drink so much that you end up in another fountain.

  3. Pretend that you’ll email or message each other. Neither of you will. This romance is for the here and now. Enjoy it.

  4. Go to sleep before 5:00 a.m. You can snooze on the train to Naples.

  5. Forget to say Grazie mille.

  Chapter 9

  How Not to Ride in Coach

  Stazione Termini, Rome, Italy: Tuesday, 7:20 a.m.

  A NOTE ABOUT EUROPEAN TRAIN STATIONS:

  1. You will see people smoking beside no smoking signs.

  2. Wear your backpack on your front, no matter how dorky you look.

  3. Your train will not be posted on the automated board until an hour before it is scheduled to leave.

  4. Your train will also not be posted on the automated board if you’re not actually at the right train station. (Most cities have more than one.)

  5. Do not sit down on your bag and rest your eyes, “just for a second.”

  Stazione Tiburtina, Rome, Italy: Tuesday, 8:25 a.m.

  When I woke in a panic and realized that I was not even at the right station, I opted for a taxi instead of calling Ernesto. It cost me almost as much as the train ticket. But I wanted his last images of our short but glorious romance to be: sexy, American vamp blowing twilight kisses through a convent window. Juliette of Verona. Not: crazed American bimbo, puffing on her asthma inhaler and knocking children over with her rolling bag as she races to her train only to be left behind, crumbling to the ground in sobs as if auditioning for a Pasolini film. Nobody needs to see that. Now I’m in a very long line, hoping to exchange my original ticket for one on the next train, which leaves in an hour.

  When I was dating Will, he was the one who always kept me from screwing up, or from freaking out when I did. He’s got a calm strength that’s impossible not to feel. That’s why I call him Cowboy. Not because he grew up in Central Florida on a farm, which he did, or because of the straw cowboy hat he always wears, but because Will’s demeanor is like Sam Elliott’s voice doing yoga: alluring, irresistible, comforting. Will is solid. But this is also the challenge. There can be a tempest inside him and you won’t see a ripple.

  He signed up for that narcotics task force right after we broke up. Apparently, meth heads and smugglers are easier to deal with than I am. They’re more predictable, he says. They know what they want, he says. Jerk. I know what I want. I want things I’ve never seen, never experienced, never dreamt of. Will’s the guy who orders the same thing every time at a restaurant. I’m the girl who tries a new restaurant every time. He’s just doing drug busts to make me worry about him. It won’t work.

  I get out my tablet to pass time. It arrived yesterday, thanks to Will. I’ve sent him messages to say thanks, and photos of myself at various landmarks (alone). Now I’m realizing he may wonder who was taking those photos. On my tablet, I decide to delete the sexy photos I’m still hoping the doughnut girl didn’t sell to anyone. In the trash folder, I catch sight of an old photo of Will. He’s standing on top of his kayak, perfectly balanced in a crystal clear river, trying to reach his straw hat that I tossed in the tree. I took the photo expecting him to go over. He did not. I stare at the photo. He looks good with his shirt off. I hope he’s not getting shot today. I drag the photo out of the trash.

  YOU WILL KNOW YOU’RE IN FIRST CLASS IF:

  1. You see a 1 on the outside of the train car.

  2. You see large, clean seats that recline.

  3. You see nice folding tables between them.

  4. You see electrical outlets.

  5. You see signs for Wi-Fi.

  6. You hear soft classical guitar or whimsical accordion music.

  7. You smell hints of leather and honeysuckle in the air-conditioned air.

  8. People around you are smiling.

  YOU WILL KNOW YOU’RE IN SECOND CLASS IF:

  1. You see a 2 on the outside of the car.

  2. You see small seats you suspect have been repurposed from prison transport vehicles.

  3. You smell old urine and vomit.

  4. You hear the banging of a bathroom door that doesn’t latch.

  Train, Roma to Napoli, Italy: Tuesday, 9:24 a.m.

  This is where my ticket is. Perfetto. I pick a window seat, five rows from the bathroom with the swinging door, three rows behind a mother wearing a leopard print scarf and her son in a Spider-Man tee, and two rows in front of a man with a beard who is already snoring loudly. I secure my rolling bag under my seat, tucking my backpack between the window and myself. Leaning my head awkwardly onto the backpack, I close my eyes.

  Ten minutes later I’m awakened by the train conductor, asking for my ticket. My neck now stuck at forty-five degrees, I rummage through my bag and hand him the ticket, looking like a very curious dog. I go back to sleep. Twenty minutes later, I’m reawakened by my small intestine hosting a Zumba class in my abdomen. Three espressos and no food was not good planning. The bathroom is small enough to feel cramped, but somehow large enough that when seated on the cold, metal prison cell potty, I must lean completely forward in order to reach the tiny knob and hold the door with the broken latch closed. Every time the train goes around a bend, I must lean with all my might the other direction, to keep from falling off the toilet. Every time the train slows, I lurch slightly forward and the door opens a few inches until I manage to slam it shut. Finally I’m finished. There is no toilet paper left. Minnie Mouse grins maniacally at me from the kids pack of tissues I fish out of my backpack.

  “Thanks Min.”

  Back in my seat, I’m just drifting off again when I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  “Scusami. Mi dispiace. Parli Italiano?” The Italian woman with the leopard scarf is leaning over the empty seat next to me. I shake my head.

  “Sorry. I’m American, I only speak English and Emoji,” I reply.

  “Oh, okay. I just wondered, is there any way, could you by any chance, just for five minutes, watch my son while I go to the smoking car?” Of course she speaks fluent English. She points to her boy, who is wearing headphones and playing a game on his iPad. “He’s nine, almost ten. He’s fine, but I don’t want to make him come with me—the smoke, you know? I’m sorry to ask, but we’ve got almost two hours,” she pleads, embarrassed but desperate.

  “Sure, no problem,” I say. Leopard Lady smiles, relieved. I watch her walk back to her boy, speak to him in Italian. He doesn’t reply. The woman disappears.

  A few moments after she disappea
rs, a very cute, petite blonde woman in a floral romper enters the train car and goes into the bathroom. I wonder how she’s going to reach the door from the toilet. Her arms are shorter than mine. About a minute later, another woman enters the train car. She’s tall, dark skinned, and wearing a crop top to display a black snake tattoo that winds around her stomach like a belt. Her wild mane of black hair is harnessed behind her ears by a bright silk scarf. She enters the bathroom also. Naïvely I think it’s a mistake, that she’ll emerge immediately, embarrassed. She does not. Shocked and fascinated, I wonder what’s about to transpire. Drugs? Sex? Maybe the blonde just needed help with the zipper on her romper? I don’t wonder long. As the train sways, the door swings open, and slams closed. Apparently she needed help with her zipper, and her bra, and her panties. As the door swings open and slams closed again, I am mesmerized. I cannot look away.

  FLASH: hair and elbows.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: tongues.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: tongues in mouths.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: naked shoulders.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: breasts.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: lips on breasts.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: hips, moving.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: naked asses.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: hands on naked asses.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: knees in the air.

  SLAM.

  FLASH: full frontal figa, nicely groomed.

  It’s like a French, flip-book style porno, the kind they used to show in the penny arcades and nickelodeons. My brain suddenly snaps out of this sensual reverie with a rapid connection: nickelodeon→ kids→ nine-year-old I’m supposed to be watching. “Corruption of a minor!” shouts a voice from inside. It’s Modesty again. I look over and indeed, the boy is watching the same show I am. I jump up, fling myself in the direction of the bathroom, misjudge the momentum of the train, and slam into the door as I close it. I expect this to stop the action inside. Nope. Apparently that train too has left the station.