Last Rites

by Danielle Vega

  I squint at the flower box, spotting movement. A black cat waits outside, pawing at the glass.

  “Ooh, now you get to meet Lucky.” Mara unlatches the window and pushes it open so the cat can slip inside. It rubs the length of its body against Mara’s arm and then leaps to the floor, vanishing beneath my bed. “He’s a stray, but we feed him, so sometimes he comes and hangs out here. He likes to sit on my feet while I read.”

  “He also likes chewing up expensive leather handbags,” Harper mutters, glaring at Lucky. “Which is why he’s no longer allowed in my room.”

  “He’s so cute.” I scoot to the edge of the bed and lean over, spotting two yellow eyes in the darkness. I reach out a hand. “C’mere, Lucky.”

  “We should let you get settled in,” Harper says. I’m still upside down, so I can’t see her, but the sound of her voice tells me she’s hovering near the door. “You must be exhausted, what with jet lag and everything. You want to take a nap?”

  I flip my head up, pushing my hair back with one hand. I wasn’t planning on sleeping, but now that she’s mentioned it, my eyes do feel a little heavy. I swallow a yawn. “Maybe a short one?”

  “Totally,” Mara says, and pulls my door shut. Their footsteps thump down the hallway.

  Lucky races out from beneath the bed and leaps up next to me. A second later, he’s curled himself into a ball on my pillow, purring.

  I don’t know how long I sleep, but I wake to the sound of giggling.

  I groan and lift a hand to my face, blinking. The light seeping in from beneath the curtains is no longer gold and dusty—now it’s a deep, hazy blue. I frown and push myself up to my elbows, upsetting Lucky. He meows, lazily, and hops off the bed.

  The giggling outside my door gets louder.

  “Oh my God, you’re so bad!” Mara squeals.

  Then Harper: “Shh . . . you’ll wake her up.”

  What the hell? I climb out of bed and creep across the room, easing my bedroom door open a crack.

  Mara and Harper hover near the front door. They’ve changed clothes: Mara’s in a strappy black top over cutoff jeans, wobbling a bit on towering high heels that she’s obviously borrowed from Harper’s closet, while Harper wears a gauzy white sundress with brown sandals laced around her ankles. She’s got her purse balanced on her hip, and she’s rooting around inside for something.

  “Hurry!” Mara whispers, giggling into a fist. “We don’t want to—“ She lifts her head, eyes meeting mine, and her pale face goes a shade lighter than it is already. “Shit.”

  Lucky slips between my feet as I step into the hallway, still rubbing the last of the sleep from my eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Harper pulls her hand out of her purse, fingers clutching the heavy set of keys. “We didn’t know when you’d wake up.”

  “You’ve been napping for hours,” Mara adds, studying her fingernails.

  I try to ignore the hurt building in my chest. “So you were just going to leave without me?”

  “No!” Harper says, too quickly. She and Mara exchange a look. “It’s just . . . a bunch of people from CART are at the trattoria down the street. We were going to go hang with them until you woke up.”

  “We figured you might want to sleep for a while,” Mara says.

  “We left a note,” Harper finishes, lamely.

  I don’t believe they actually left a note. In fact, I don’t believe anything they just said. They’ve been acting weird since I got here, and I’m about a million percent certain they were going to ditch me tonight.

  I don’t look half as cute as they do, in my plane-rumpled clothes, my face still red and puffy from my nap, but I’ll be damned if I let them leave without me. I snatch my tote bag from the back of the door. “I’m up now. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Harper and Mara’s CART friends take up an entire table in the back of the tavern. They seem cool enough. They all smile and say hey when Harper introduces me, but their faces blur together, and I quickly lose track of their names—they’re all called Emma or Emmy or Emilia.

  Mara immediately gets drawn into a discussion about the relationship between two modern artists I’ve never heard of before. I try to follow along, but I know nothing about Italy or art or anything else they’re talking about. I turn to Harper, hoping she’ll talk to me, but she’s admiring some girl’s new leather shoes and seems to have forgotten that I’m there.

  Finally I lean across the table, taking advantage of a break in the conversation. “Should I grab the first round?”

  Harper gives me a thumbs-up without looking up from the shoes. I don’t think Mara hears me.

  I take my time heading across the trattoria. This isn’t what I’d been expecting. I kind of figured things would be weird—the three of us haven’t had a chance to hang out since I got back from the institute—but I didn’t think they’d be this weird. Harper and Mara have been nice enough, I guess. But there’s something beneath the smiles, something that makes me wonder if they want me here at all.

  I slide my elbows onto the sticky bar and wave over the bartender. “Um, three—whoops, I mean tre—uh, shots of”—I point to a bottle filled with vibrant green liquid—“whatever that is. Grazie.”

  The bartender pulls the bottle down from a wooden shelf and pours three shots. She jerks her chin at the CART students.

  “You’re with them?” she asks in perfect English, the barest trace of an Italian accent curling her r’s.

  “No, I’m not in the program. Just visiting for two weeks.”

  “Ah.” She smiles, showing off a mouthful of perfectly straight, white teeth. She’s a classic, curvy Italian beauty with wicked eyes and thick, dark hair that she wears in a short shag. It’s dark in here, but I think I see green strands just behind her ears. She pushes the shots toward me. “Did you just get in?”

  I fiddle with the wad of euros I just pulled out of my purse. “Is it that obvious?”

  “A tiny bit.” The bartender flicks a hand at my money, laughing. She has tiny tattoos around her hand: horseshoes and stars. They remind me of Lucky Charms. “The first round is on the house. Welcome to Italia.”

  I thank her and curl my hands around the shots, taking them back over to Mara and Harper. I squeeze in at the end of the table and set the shot glasses down, sending a drop sloshing over my fingers.

  “Ooh, shots!” Harper says, eyes lighting up.

  Mara raises her eyebrows. “That was sweet of you.”

  “In honor of my first night,” I explain, handing them out. I lift a glass: “To the best trip of our lives.”

  The three of us clink our shot glasses together and drink. Mara and Harper cringe and crumple their faces, like they’ve never had alcohol before, but I don’t mind the taste of the liquor. In fact, I hold it on my tongue for a second longer than necessary, relishing the burn.

  I look around just as a crowd of Italians enter the trattoria, talking and laughing.

  “Ooh, the tour guides have arrived,” Harper says, wiggling her eyebrows. “The Demons’ Walk tour ends right next door, so they all end up partying here after freaking out tourists with stories of human sacrifice.”

  “Harpy, look, it’s our favorite,” Mara says, pointing. Harper giggles as Mara nudges my shoulder. “See, right over there? He doesn’t come every night. Dreamy, right?”

  I turn. A guy stands near the door, and at first, I think there’s no way he’s worth drooling over. He’s facing away from me, but he looks pretty nondescript. Tall and thin, with dark hair and tanned skin, just like every other Italian in this town.

  Someone calls his name—Giovanni—and he turns, smiling. His hair is a little curly in the front, and his nose is long and straight in a way that reminds me of old pictures of Roman emperors. Black stubble shades his jaw and cheeks, and I can see the fan of his dark eyelash
es from all the way across the room.

  I swallow and turn back around, revising my initial opinion. Dreamy suddenly seems too soft a word for the tall, dark tour guide. He looks like he stepped out of a painting.

  “He’s the best guide in town,” Mara is saying, “and not just because he’s gorgeous. He’s really smart, too. I’ve already done the Demons’ Walk tour twice.”

  Harper laughs. “Yeah, Mara, you did the walk twice because he’s smart.”

  I turn, catching another glimpse of Giovanni leaning over the bar. He pushes his shirtsleeves up to his elbows, revealing tanned skin and lean muscle. The bartender with the green strips dyed into her hair says something, and Giovanni laughs, the sound rising over the rest of the tavern’s noise. I feel a small twinge of jealousy. They look right together, beautiful and hip.

  Then, out of nowhere, Giovanni turns, shifting his gaze toward the back of the room. For just a second, I think he’s looking right at me. But then his dark eyes flicker away.

  * * *

  • • •

  People keep filing into the trattoria until, eventually, the conversation gets drowned out by the crush of other voices. Someone turns up the music. European techno. It’s weird, close enough to music I’ve heard before to feel familiar, but just off enough to sound foreign. I close my eyes and start to sway. The music is all bass. I feel it vibrating in my bones.

  “Let’s dance.” I stand, reaching for Harper’s hands. She weaves her fingers through mine, allowing me to pull her to her feet. Her eyes have gotten droopy, and she moves in a slow, silly way, already a little drunk.

  “It’s so cool that you’re here,” she says, wrapping her arms around my neck. The heat has made her makeup smear. Her face looks like it’s melting.

  “Thanks,” I say, patting her on the back.

  “Mara was, like, totally convinced you’d back out. I don’t think she really believed you were coming until you stepped off the plane.”

  The music’s louder now, with the sweaty, gyrating crowd pressing in around us. I lean in close to Harper’s ear and yell, “Why didn’t she think I’d come?”

  Harper shrugs, the movement slow and sloppy. “I don’t know. I guess she thought your parents wouldn’t let you or something? You know what she’s like.”

  Harper suddenly seems distracted by something happening behind me. I turn and spot her art-class friends crowded around the bar. One of the guys peels off his sweaty T-shirt, egged on by some blond girl called Emma or Emily, while the others all press in around him, whooping and catcalling. He tosses the shirt into the crowd, and I have to duck as it flies over my head. Gross.

  Harper’s eyes have gone glassy. She watches the sweaty T-shirt sail past and then waves to the blond girl. “Emma! Come dance with me! I miss you.”

  I want to point out that she’s spent every single day this summer with Emma, and I just got here, but it doesn’t seem worth it. Shaking my head, I start to head back to our table.

  “Sei bella,” someone says. A chill moves from the top of my head and down my spine before settling in the tips of my toes. I turn.

  Giovanni’s taller than I expected him to be, and his lips curl at the corners, like he’s fighting back a smile.

  “What did you say to me?” I ask.

  His lips twitch. “Ah. An American.” The way he rolls his r’s makes the hair on my arms stand straight up. He touches a finger to his mouth. His nails are painted in peeling black polish, and he wears a skull ring on his middle finger.

  He leans in closer. “Sei bella means you are beautiful.”

  “Sei bella,” I repeat. I glance around for Harper—an ugly, jealous part of me wants her to see the dreamy tour guide flirting with me—but she’s dancing with the shirtless guy and seems to have forgotten all about me. She stumbles backward, but the crowd catches her, putting her upright again.

  Giovanni doesn’t ask me to dance, but suddenly his hand is at my waist, and then he’s right in front of me. He smells like something I can’t quite put my finger on. Incense, maybe. And smoke.

  I want to talk to him, if only so that I can hear that sexy accent one more time, but the music is too loud. The crowd pulses around us, pushing us together. His chest is pressed to my chest, and I feel the heat of him through the thin fabric of my tank top.

  He lowers his mouth to my ear and whispers, “I am Giovanni.”

  “Giovanni,” I repeat. His name tastes like chocolate. “I’m Berkley.”

  “Berkley.” In his mouth, my name is a tangle of growling r’s and hard consonants. “It is a pleasure.”

  I don’t know what it is, exactly. Maybe the booze has left me feeling dizzy, or maybe it’s Giovanni’s intoxicating smell, or the foreign music pumping through my veins, making my heart race. Or maybe it’s just that I finally feel like someone wants me here. I didn’t realize how upset I was until Giovanni curled his arms around me and pulled me toward him.

  For a moment, it’s like I’m seeing myself from the outside. Sure, my friends sort of ditched me, but I’m still in a tiny bar in Italy, dancing with this gorgeous stranger. I turn my face an inch to the left, and my nose brushes against Giovanni’s.

  “Bella,” he murmurs, moving his face closer to mine.

  Just then, the crowd parts. The bartender is watching us from across the room, her brows knitted together, her lips half-curled. I catch her eye. I think I expect her to smile, but instead she shakes her head and goes back to pouring drinks. She looks disgusted.

  Giovanni’s arm tightens around my waist. The music grows louder. A girl’s voice rises above the beat, her scream quickly dissolving into jagged laughter.

  I feel a prickle in the air, and for a single second, I find myself wondering what just happened.

  But then Giovanni and I are kissing, and I forget the bartender completely.

  CHAPTER 4

  Morning comes too early. The smell of lemons and something earthier, like truffles, drifts in through the open window, and I can hear the bustle of people on the street below: horns honking and the sputtering motor of a scooter.

  I toss an arm over my face to block the light streaming in from the window and try to will myself back to sleep. My eyelids are lead weights, and it feels like someone’s pounding at my head with a hammer.

  The door creaks open. “Out of bed, sleepy!”

  Mara sounds annoyingly energetic. I groan and bury my face in my pillow. “How are you awake?”

  “I got up early to go for a run, and then I read over some of my notes from class last week. I was going to make us some green juice, but Harper said that eating healthy when you’re hungover is masochistic, so I guess we’re going out.” She yanks the curtains open, and sunlight streams into my room, hitting me like a shot. She grabs a T-shirt from my open suitcase, balls it up, and tosses it at me.

  “Where did Harper learn the word masochistic?” I mutter, pushing aside the T-shirt.

  Mara snorts with laughter. “God, you’re a bitch. We missed breakfast, but there’s a lunch spot down the street that puts eggs on pizza, so it’s basically brunch, except with grappa instead of mimosas. We can’t wait to hear all about your night.”

  I can’t help thinking of Giovanni. My lips still feel swollen from all that kissing. I wiggle my eyebrows at Mara, and she wrinkles her nose.

  “Slut,” she says, with a slice of a laugh. “Didn’t you get enough of him at the trattoria?”

  “Define enough.”

  “You’ll tell us all about it on the way. Harper’s so jealous she wants to die. She still can’t believe you nabbed the guide.”

  Her voice lands hard on the you. Harper’s not the only one who’s jealous.

  I climb out of bed, grab the T-shirt Mara tossed my way. Jealousy doesn’t bother me. At least now I have a story they want to hear, a reason to keep me around. It helps me feel a little less like th
e lame high school friend they wish they hadn’t invited.

  “I’ll be out in five,” I say.

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s still early, but heat rises up from the cobblestones, filling the air with a haze that makes the sky tremble. Buildings tower over us, blocking the sun, but I manage to catch glimpses of the brilliant blue sky as we twist and turn through the winding streets. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. All around me are dark stone buildings and crumbling merchant workshops. The air is thick with the smells of fresh bread and coffee. It makes my stomach grumble.

  We walk single file up a narrow sidewalk. Mara and Harper want to hear the story of how Giovanni approached me again and again.

  “Did you give him your number?” Mara turns in place, walking backward up the hill.

  “He didn’t ask for it,” I say. Something drips from the sky, landing on my shoulder. I flinch and glance up, spotting balconies crowded with clay pots and overgrown tomato plants and heavy, wet laundry.

  “Oh.” She sounds disappointed. “Well, that’s probably okay.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” Harper adds. She doesn’t turn around, but she tilts her head toward us, so I know she’s listening. I can’t make out her expression behind the dark, oversized sunglasses—a completely different pair from the ones she wore yesterday. I have a feeling she bought herself an entire Audrey Hepburn–inspired wardrobe the second she found out she was going to Italy.

  “I know,” I say. But my cheeks flush. Should I have tried to give Giovanni my number? That hadn’t occurred to me.

  We stop once we reach the top of the hill. There’s a gap in the buildings, and a medieval town spreads out below us like something from a postcard. My breath catches in my throat as I look out over the red brick walls and clay rooftops and an endless labyrinth of cobblestone streets.

  Harper pulls out her phone, muttering something about the restaurant being just around the corner. I shield my eyes and look up, catching sight of a low green hill towering over the town. I can just make out the pointy shape of something jutting up from the very top of the hill, silhouetted against the sun.