One Step to You

by Federico Moccia

  “You look so sexy this evening.” One after another, the memories came back to Babi, implacable, melancholy, sad, and distant now. The weekends they’d spent together, fleeing on the wings of this lie or that. Always the four of them, with Pollo and Pallina, at the beach or in the mountains, at little restaurants, out on delightful moonlight strolls, standing somewhere chatting at night, or sitting on a low wall, lying on a beach, lost in the shadows on some uncomfortable cot.

  Her eighteenth birthday party in Ansedonia. Ten at night, a sudden roar of motorcycles. All the guests rushing over to the edge of the terrace. Finally something to talk about. Step, Pollo, and all his friends had arrived. They dismounted from the motorcycles and strode into the party, laughing, brash, bold, and confident, looking around, his friends on the hunt for some pretty girl or other, and he on the hunt for her.

  Babi had run to meet him, losing herself in his arms, between a loving “Happy birthday, sweetheart” and an irreverent deep French kiss. “Hey, hey, my folks are here…”

  “I know, that’s why I did it! Come on, come away with me…,” Step said.

  After the birthday cake with the candles and the Rolex her folks had given her, they’d run away together. She’d allowed herself to be captivated by his laughing eyes, by his fun ideas, by his fast motorcycle. Away, racing downhill, toward the midnight sea, through the scent of broom, far away from those pointless guests, escaping Raffaella’s contemptuous glare and the chagrined expression of Claudio, a father who just wanted to dance a waltz with his daughter like any other father.

  But Babi wasn’t there anymore. She was far away. A little more grown-up now, she was lost in another world, dancing amid Step’s kisses, to the music of soft, salty waves, a romantic moon, her young love.

  “Here, this is for you.” Around her neck there gleamed a gold necklace studded with turquoise stones, the blue of her happy eyes. Babi smiled at Step, and as he kissed her, he even managed to convince her the following was true.

  “I swear to you that I didn’t steal it.”

  It was the eve of her final exams. How funny that time had been, at home studying until late. Continual guesswork about the subject of the main exam, exchanging secretive tips. Everyone thought they knew the subject of the written essay. They’d share confident phone calls, all of them certain that they’d nailed the topic.

  “It’s the sesquicentennial of Leopardi’s death… a new essay by Manzoni has just been found…it’s about the French Revolution, for sure.”

  Some said they’d received the news from Australia, where the test had been given to Italian students there the previous day. Others had heard it from a friend who was a teacher or a member of the examination board, and some talked about having consulted a medium. When, the next day, the future turned into the present, they learned that the teacher wasn’t such a good friend after all, that the medium was nothing but a con artist, and that Australia was too far away to bother with their problems in Italy.

  But then, when the scores were posted, that enormous surprise. Babi had achieved a sixty. Sixty out of sixty. A perfect score. She’d run happily to tell Step, thrilled at her achievement.

  He’d laughed, needling her good-naturedly. “You’re a grown-up now. You’re so mature. In fact, you might even be overripe, like a squishy peach…”

  He’d undressed her, laughing as if he’d known, as if he’d expected that result. Then they’d made love. And she’d gloated over her victory. “Would you ever have thought it? Here you are, a humble forty-two out of sixty, enjoying the unrivaled honor of kissing an eminent sixty out of sixty. Do you even realize how lucky you are?”

  He’d smiled at her. “Yes, I fully realize.” And he’d embraced her, in silence.

  Sometime later, Babi had gone to see Signora Giacci. In the end, after all their disagreements, her teacher seemed to have taken a shine to her. She’d started treating her well, with kindness and with an almost excessive modicum of respect. That day, when she went to visit her at her home, Babi had learned why.

  That respect was nothing more than fear. Fear of being forced to live alone, fear that she’d never get back her one and only friend and companion. Fear of never seeing her dog again.

  Babi was left speechless. She’d stayed to listen to her teacher’s furious outburst, her rage, her vicious words. There Signora Giacci sat, facing her, with her little Pepito back in her arms. The older woman seemed even wearier than before, more bitter and disappointed in the world and, especially, in its young people.

  Babi had hurried away, apologizing, not knowing what else to say, no longer knowing who she even was, who she was surrounded by, what her score would be—her real score, the one she’d truly deserved.

  Babi went to the window and looked out. An array of Christmas trees were blinking on and off on the terraces of the other apartments, in the elegant drawing rooms of the mansions across the way. It’s Christmas, she thought. It’s a time to be kind. Maybe I should call him. But all those times I’ve been kind though. All those times I’ve forgiven him.

  She remembered the differences in the way they saw the world, their screaming fights, and then the sweet truces that followed in blithe hope that everything could change. But that’s not what had happened. Arguments and more arguments, day after day, and her folks waging war on her. The phone ringing late at night, her mother picking up, Step hanging up. And her, grounded, more and more frequently.

  That one time that Raffaella had thrown a dinner party at their house, forcing her to attend. She’d invited an array of respectable people and the son of a very wealthy friend of the family. A good catch, Raffaella had told her. Then the doorbell had rung again. Daniela had opened the door without thinking twice, without calling out to ask who it was. Step had shoved the door open, hitting her in the head. “Sorry, Dani. It’s not you I’m mad at, you know that!”

  He’d grabbed Babi by the arm and dragged her off, amid Raffaella’s useless shouting and the best efforts of the good catch to stop him. That good catch had found himself suddenly flat on his ass with a fat and bleeding lip.

  Babi had fallen asleep in Step’s arms, weeping. “How difficult it’s all become. I so wish I could be somewhere far away, without any more problems, without my folks, without all this craziness, someplace quiet, outside of time.”

  He’d smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I know where we can go. No one will bother us there. We’ve been there plenty of times before. It’s enough just to want to go.”

  Babi looked at him, her eyes full of hope. “Where?”

  “Three meters above the sky, the place where people in love live.”

  But the next day, she went back home, and it was from that point that everything started, or, perhaps, ended.

  Babi had enrolled at the university. She’d started attending courses in business and finance and spent her afternoons studying. She’d started seeing less and less of Step now.

  One time, she went out with him in the afternoon. They’d gone to Giovanni’s to get a vitamin shake. They were standing outside the café chatting when suddenly two horrible guys rolled up. Step wasn’t fast enough to realize what was happening. They were all over him in a flash. They started headbutting him, holding him helpless in their combined grips, taking turns slamming their foreheads into his face in an appalling, bloody seesaw ride. Babi had started screaming.

  In the end, Step had managed to struggle free, and the two guys had made their escape on a souped-up Vespa, vanishing into traffic. Step was just lying there on the sidewalk, dazed. Then, with her help, he’d gotten to his feet. He’d tried to stem the flow of blood from his nose with paper napkins, but his Fruit of the Loom T-shirt was a bright red mess.

  Later, he’d driven her home in silence, uncertain what to say. He’d talked about retaliation for a brawl long ago, before they were even dating. She’d believed him, or maybe she’d just badly wanted to.

  When Raffaella saw her come home, her blouse covered with blood, she nearly had a heart
attack. “What happened to you? Babi, are you hurt? What’s all this blood? This is all that hoodlum’s fault, isn’t it? Can’t you see that this isn’t going to end well?”

  Babi had gone to her room and changed her clothes in silence. Then she’d lain down, all alone, stretched out on her bed. It had become clear to her that this wasn’t working. Something was going to have to change. It wouldn’t be as easy as taking off a bloody blouse and tossing it into the laundry hamper.

  A few days later, she’d seen Step again. He had a new cut on his face. He’d been given stitches to his eyebrow.

  “What else happened to your face?”

  “Well, you know, to keep from waking up Paolo, I didn’t turn the light on in the hallway when I came home. I walked right into a door. You can’t imagine how it hurt. It was really painful.”

  Exactly what she had invented as an excuse that other time. She’d learned the truth later from Pallina, by pure chance, while chatting on the phone. They’d gone for Talenti to Zio d’America. They were all carrying clubs and chains, and they were led by Step. A gigantic brawl, a genuine vendetta. There was even an item in the newspaper.

  Babi had hung up the phone. There was no point in arguing with Step. He was going to do what he wanted to do. He was stubborn. She’d told him a thousand times that she hated violence, fighting, and bullies.

  She’d started sorting out her bookshelves, pulling down a number of notebooks and dropping them on the wall-to-wall carpeting without any interest. Notebooks from years gone by, from high school of course, and old textbooks.

  “What do you want to do tonight? Should we go to the motorcycle races? Come on. Everyone else is going,” Step had said.

  “I certainly hope you’re joking. It’s out of the question! I never again want to set foot in that place. Maybe I’d run into Maddalena and I’d have to punch it out with her again. There’s an after-dinner party, if you feel like coming.”

  Step had put on a navy-blue blazer. He’d spent the whole time sitting on a sofa, looking around, doing his best to find anything amusing in the things he heard and saw, but failing utterly. He’d always hated those college people. He’d crashed parties like that only to smash everything up, having the time of his life with all his friends as they stole things from the bedrooms, throwing things out the windows.

  His friends. Who even knew where they were right now. At the Greenhouse, popping wheelies at eighty-five kilometers per hour, on their motorcycles with friends all cheering them on, with Siga taking bets, with the chamomiles riding on back and all the rest.

  What a bore this party is. His eyes met Babi’s. He smiled at her. She wasn’t happy because she knew perfectly well what he was thinking.

  Babi even managed to get her hands on the book that was higher than all the others. Then she remembered as if it had just happened.

  The intercom buzzing insistently, insanely. The lady of the house rushing through the living room, the door opening and Pallina standing there, pale, horrified, bursting into tears.

  It had been a terrible night. Babi stopped thinking about it. She just started picking up the books that she’d tossed onto the floor. She pulled out others and set them down on the table, and then, when she bent over again, she saw it.

  There it was, light colored, brittle, yellowing, as faded as the times gone by. Broken, lying on the dark wall-to-wall carpeting, lifeless now for all this time. The little stalk of wheat that she’d put in her notebook the first time she skipped school with Step. That morning, in the wind that was announcing the arrival of summer, those kisses that smacked of skin with the scent of sunshine. Her first love. She remembered how certain she was that there could never be another one like it.

  She picked it up. The stalk of wheat crumbled between her fingers, like some old thought, like gossamer dreams, like feeble promises.

  * * *

  Step leaned over the stove and examined the espresso pot. The coffee still wasn’t bubbling up. He turned the flame a little higher. Nearby, there was still a small pile of ash and one last piece of yellowed paper. His beloved drawings, the graphic novel panels, from the hand of Andrea Pazienza. They were originals. He’d stolen them from the newsroom of a new newspaper, Zut, when Andrea was still alive and was contributing to the paper.

  One night, he’d broken a pane of glass in an upstairs window with his elbow and then climbed in. It had been easy. He’d only stolen the panels drawn by the legendary Paz and then made a quick escape out the door.

  But just as he was leaving, someone had emerged from the adjoining room and had grabbed him by the shoulders. “Stop!”

  Step had the panels pressed against his body, and he’d given whoever it was a shove, shaking them off and then throwing a punch. A hard, straight right to the face, followed by a bitter surprise. It was a woman. Her name was Alessandra, and she was an unfortunate graphic artist, an unlucky volunteer. She was working late, laying out the publication. That night she’d thrown in the towel early, but certainly through no fault of her own.

  Step leaned over and picked up the panel that was supposed to be coming out in that week’s issue and made his way into the night, happy, with the drawings of his idol clutched tightly in his hands. It wasn’t long after that that Andrea Pazienza died.

  That was in June. A photograph of Andrea in a newspaper. Gathered around Andrea was the whole newsroom staff, including the graphic artist that Step had punched. That photo must have been taken a few days after his burglary. In fact, Alessandra was wearing a large pair of sunglasses.

  Step picked the scrap of paper out of the metal grate over the burner. He wondered which panel it had been. It must have been the one with Zanardi’s face. It no longer really mattered. He’d taken them all and burned them that night, after the phone call.

  He’d watched those colors burn, the faces of his heroes crumple up, embraced by the flames. The legendary words of unknown poets vanishing into slow fades of smoke.

  Then his brother had walked in. “What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? Look, you’re burning the kitchen hood, the fan…” Paolo had tried to put out the flames that were leaping too high but Step had stopped him.

  “Step, what’s going on? I’m going to have to pay for this. Go do this bullshit outside.”

  That was it. Step had seen red. He’d slammed his brother against the wall next to the window. He’d placed his hand around his brother’s throat, practically suffocating him. Paolo had lost his eyeglasses. They’d flown far away, landing on the floor and shattering.

  Then Step had calmed down. He’d set his brother down and let him go. Paolo had collected his broken eyeglasses and left the room without a word. Step had only felt worse at that point. He’d heard the front door slam. While he’d stood there, staring at his drawings as they burned, ruining the hood over the stove, he’d suffered like he’d never suffered before. Was lonely like he’d never been lonely before.

  He was reminded of a song by Lucio Battisti. To punch a man in the face just because he’s been a little rude, knowing that what burns most are never the insults. It was true, Lucio had been right. And it only burned harder. That man was his brother.

  The coffee came up suddenly, burbling, as if it wanted to chime in with its own two cents. Step poured it into the cup and then threw it back in a gulp. It left a hot bitter taste in his mouth, the same taste as the memories abandoned in his heart.

  August. Riding on a motorcycle to go see Babi when the air was still cool from the night wind. Stopping on the highway to call her. A cappuccino and then he was off, back on his motorcycle, accelerating, devouring the kilometers, starving for her kisses, for her embrace, still warm from sleep. Tapping at her window, hearing the sheets rustle, her bare feet on the floor, her light footsteps. Seeing her appear behind a wooden blind, just rolled up into the morning light. There Babi would be, in the dim light of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes, thinking that this, too, might still be a dream, only nicer, sweeter than her other dreams.

  Sep
tember. Babi’s parents had bought her a ticket for London. They’d made an arrangement with Pallina’s mother. They wanted to get their daughters away from these bad new friendships.

  It hadn’t taken much to foil that project. A well-devised plan. A visit to a friend at police headquarters. A new set of passports. And on that charter for England, the two of them did board, but the tickets, changed just a few days earlier, now featured different names. The two of them who boarded were Pollo and Pallina.

  It had been fifteen unforgettable days for everyone. For Babi’s parents, laboring under an illusion but happy there, with their minds finally at rest. For Pollo and Pallina, rocking around London, in pubs and discos, sending everyone postcards purchased back home in Rome at the Lyon Bookstore. English postcards, already signed by Babi.

  And meanwhile, Step and Babi, far from them all, on the Greek island of Astypalaia. It had been an epic journey. By motorcycle to Brindisi and then the ferryboat, arms around each other under the stars, lying on the bridge in their colorful sleeping bags, singing English songs with foreigners from everywhere, working to improve their pronunciation, but definitely not in the setting her parents would approve.

  Then white windmills, nanny goats, rocks, a little house overlooking the sea. Fishing at dawn, sleeping in the afternoon, out at night, strolling on the beach. Masters of their location, their time, all alone, counting the stars, forgetting what day it was.

  Step sipped his coffee. It seemed even more bitter now. He started to laugh remembering that time that Babi had invited all his friends to dinner. An attempt to get to know them. They’d sat down at the table and behaved reasonably well, just as Step had asked and cajoled them. Then they hadn’t been able to resist any longer. One after another, they’d stood up, picking up their plates, draining their beers, heading into the living room. Never invite them over on a Wednesday. And never during championship season.