“Are you sure you want to go to Barone Rosso?” I asked when I noticed Kaitlin sway a little as she stood.
“Uh, yeah.”
When we got to the crowded bar, we didn’t see Gaetano, but someone called my name and it was Duccio. He pulled me over to where Michelle was. He didn’t seem to know about our fight, because immediately he saw someone else and left us alone.
“Hey,” Michelle said to me, her smile was small and shy. The color had returned to her face and she looked healthier. She asked Kaitlin. “How’s your trip been so far?”
“Awesome, I’m sorry I have to leave.”
“But you’ll be back, right?” Michelle asked. “I mean Gabriella says she’ll come back for the Palio.”
“Yeah, I hope.” Kaitlin said.
Michelle looked around for a minute, her smile was bigger now, but she looked like she was holding her breath. “Listen, sorry about the other night.”
I felt a pang in my chest when she said that. I hadn’t gotten into details with Kaitlin, and I hoped that Michelle wasn’t feeling embarrassed.
“No worries,” Kaitlin said. “Hey, anybody need a drink?”
“I’ll take a gin and tonic,” Michelle said.
“I’ll have one of those big beers. A birra alla spina,” I said. “Do you want me to come with you to translate?”
“No, I think I can make myself understood. It’s alcohol, that’s what I know,” Kaitlin said, smiling. She put her hand up and gave me a little nod so I would know that she thought I should stay and take advantage of the moment.
Michelle and I looked at each other for a second. In spite of my buzz, there was tension.
“So, um,” I gestured over toward Duccio. “Everything going okay with the boy?”
“Yep, all is forgiven,” she nodded.
I hesitated and then said. “Here, too, I hope.”
She nodded and the tightness left her body. “Most definitely.”
Then we hugged each other and I was grateful for what I had to drink for making it easier to be okay with each other like I wanted to be.
“Gaetano will come soon,” Duccio said when he came back. He kissed Michelle. I smiled at them. He was in love with her. It was obvious, though I thought someone looked at me like that one time, too, and it hadn’t meant anything.
Stop.
“You’re warm,” he once said, rolling over the length of my body. “How can you be so warm? How can you warm me up so much?”
Don’t.
I felt a cold glass on my neck. It was Gaetano coming to rescue me from my thoughts. His team won the soccer game and everyone was pumped. He gave Kaitlin a big hug as if it had been longer than two days since they saw each other. Over his shoulder, Kaitlin winked at me, reminding me of what she said the previous night. She was too late. I was thinking of someone else.
It was like any other night at the Barone Rosso, the women in short skirts passing with trays of drinks held high, the crowd singing and swaying. I was comfortable with my friends. All of this should have been familiar. And then someone put a song on. It was an Italian song called “Ricordati di me.” Remember me. I had heard it before. I didn’t want to hear that song right now. I did not know how to get Jonas out of my head. I could not stop myself. I had to know if he really existed. How could he have? How could any real person made of flesh have affected me so much?
I began to feel like two separate people. One was enjoying that night like any other in the bar, but the other was somewhere else. I knew Crazy was waiting for me as she often did, waiting to get me alone. I had been doing too well and now it was time for a little visit.
Kaitlin’s eyes were beginning to cross; she was swaying a little, far too drunk to be responsible. I wasn’t drunk enough. I was not too drunk to take advantage, to confirm that he existed, that we did in fact know each other, that someone felt that way about me. Once.
I asked her if she remembered a time long ago when she called the room we shared and I asked her not to come back.
“I was with Jonas. He said he didn’t want to let me go.”
His name was foreign on my tongue after so long. It escaped me like a hiccup. Kaitlin wasn’t sure why I was telling her this. She nodded. She was too drunk to worry about me. I had been doing so well. Maybe she wouldn’t remember in the morning. But I was happy that she remembered. One of my memories was almost confirmed.
“Do you feel okay?” I asked, guilty for having taken advantage.
“Yeah, you know, I just have to spit.”
“What? Are you okay? Spit?”
“Yeah, I’m going to go outside. My mouth is dry. All the wine today. I’ll be right back.”
“Are you sure?” Kaitlin nodded. It made sense to me. I wanted it to so that I could be alone. I needed to be alone. It was a compulsion. I watched Kaitlin make her way out of the bar.
Then I was in the bathroom, with all my disparate thoughts. I locked the door. Like I used to do so many nights back at school. When it got bad, I could be counted on to go into the bathroom and shoot the shit with Crazy. But I had not done this yet in Italy. I hadn’t left a place to do this. I had stopped myself, squelched it, stuffed it down, forced myself to believe I could forget him if I kept myself from these kinds of Crazy. Tonight, something set me off. The look Duccio gave Michelle, the song, just being around Kaitlin, the foolish confidence that I was actually okay. Whatever it was, I couldn’t help myself. This is what it must feel like to make yourself puke. Free and scary all at once.
And there Crazy was in the mirror. She looked a lot like me. Sometimes, in the past, her eyes burned with scheming delight, but now they were black.
No one told you to come here. No one told you to lose control. You were doing so well. You were fitting in, getting better. Isn’t that the point? Have you looked at where you are? Do you appreciate any of it? You think this is a real problem? You don’t know pain. People suffer and die all the time. And you, surrounded by beauty, you cling to this belief that you are hurting.
This was a trick of Crazy’s to play devil’s advocate. To taunt you so you wind up arguing her case. To mock you for your emotions. I knew this all too well. And still I played my part.
“I’m losing him. I’m losing him.” I was growing frantic, whispering a yell into the mirror. It’s how she drew me to her.
Let him go. You lost him already.
“I can’t. I haven’t. I don’t want to. He misses me. He has to miss me.”
If he missed you he would be here. He would have found a way to tell you himself.
“No.” I grabbed at my chest where it began to hurt and I continued to be cruel to myself. But it was not me. I wouldn’t be fooled. It was Crazy waiting to bring me back.
Fuck! I banged the mirror. I put my hand up in my hair and tugged, gritted my teeth. I began to remember what I didn’t want to, what Crazy was leading me to all along. How I made the choice that he didn’t want to that last night we were together.
A thumb is traveling, zigzagging down my bare chest. Jonas is above, smiling. He doesn’t know me as well as I know him. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him he needs to choose.
He’s laughing at my eyes as the thumb moves down, teasing me. His pretty eyes are tired. We have not been sleeping, only dozing, wrapped in each other, waking to breathe each other again, keeping each other afloat with words.
“I’m remembering, I’m remembering,” his voice a singsong joke. A long summer apart is coming. He still thinks he won’t have to remember that I will always be what he wants, where he wants. Too many women have given him their flowers to hang up and dry. He expects this from me.
When his thumb is below my navel, I take him by surprise. I place the palm of my hand onto his beautiful sleepy eye, with my other hand grab his wayward fingers, unbalancing him onto me. I dig into his eye until he takes me seriously. I put my mouth against his ear. I speak from a place the thumb hadn’t yet found.
“Go back to her. I’m deciding. Not you. It
’s my choice, you fucking coward, but know that I have bruised my name across your body,” I say with a hesitant confidence. “And I will walk my walk across your daydreams. You are too weak not to go back to her, but when you do…” I pause, steel myself to continue, find the courage that is just a show–“she will sleep beside you and you, you will reach out and up into the night, hoping to find my hair. I will not be there. You will never be done with me.”
I cursed myself to nothing. This was the price because I was scared to hold on, scared to leave it up to him. Because I knew all along that I should have worried. No matter what he said, I knew that I shouldn’t have trusted him with my heart. But still I did.
Crazy wore me down with memories that were clearer than ever. I could feel the thumb on my skin, the way it made me tremble. But Crazy always finished by reminding me that in spite of all of it I was alone.
He was done with me.
And then there was the choice, give in to the black that she offered. Let go. Go off the edge. If I did it right, it would release me. The only other option was to live with the truth.
He wouldn’t ever be mine again. I wouldn’t know him anymore. He was just a part of my mind now, a symptom of Crazy. He would always disappoint me. He would never say what I needed to hear.
That I knew.
Sometimes it’s better to hope than to know.
I didn’t want to know.
I looked up at Crazy, her eyes were warm now; she opened her arms to let me in. To comfort me from what I knew, what was too hard, too unbelievable. Too true.
But then. Then. Someone banged on the door. I heard an Italian yelling, annoyed. An impatient Italian saved me from her embrace. I stopped talking to the mirror. To myself. I was in Italy, not in some single dorm room bed half a world away with him.
I was sane. I could delude myself a little longer. Maybe he was still thinking about me. Maybe. I could still hope. Not done. Never done. But I was free for a time.
Fuck you, Crazy.
Back in the bar, I saw Gaetano. He was standing with the others. He was holding tight to the bar. When he saw me, he smiled at me. There was no sign of Kaitlin.
“Dove sta Kaitlin?” I asked. He shrugged. I had to find Kaitlin. “Aspetta qui, okay?”
He nodded, willing to wait. I made my way through the crowded bar, saying “permesso” as I passed, like one of the barmaids. On the street, there was no sign of her. I panicked for a second and then I turned right up the street. I turned again and then I saw Kaitlin, crouching in a doorway, throwing up. Her body looked small. Kaitlin saw me.
“Gabriella.” Her voice was so tiny. I ran to her and put my hand on her back.
“This is some spitting you’re doing.” There’s way too much puke in my life these days, I thought. I put one of Kaitlin’s arms around my shoulders and pulled her up.
“Wipe your mouth. Hold on to me.” We walked awkwardly down Via di Citta. I was holding her tightly. Now I had a purpose. We got to the apartment on Via Stalloreggi. We made it up into the elevator because I figured it would be easier than the stairs. When we got to the floor, Kaitlin paused, gagging. Of course the automatic electric light in the hall went out. I scrambled my hand along the wall, hoping that Kaitlin wouldn’t puke in the darkness. I found the light switch in time and got Kaitlin into the apartment. I had just put the garbage pail under Kaitlin when she got sick. It was close to dry heaves now. I brought her some water.
I led Kaitlin into my bedroom. I peeled off the vomit-stained dress I lent her earlier. I threw it in the bidet in my bathroom, let some water run over it. In the end I would throw it away. I brought back some aspirin and tucked her into bed. When Kaitlin’s breath steadied in sleep, I went back to find Gaetano, leaving the trash pail next to my bed.
I passed Michelle and Duccio on the street on the way back. I told them that Kaitlin was there, and I asked Michelle to look in on her.
Gaetano was drunker when I returned. The crowd had thinned, but those who remained were all singing. He didn’t see me as I approached. Then he did and I liked the way his face changed when he turned to me.
“Ohe, Gabi.” He greeted me like one of his soccer bodies, but he looked at me like I was a woman.
“Sei ubriaco,” I said.
“Tu sei bella.” Only in Italy was it appropriate to answer a woman’s accusation of drunkenness by telling her she was beautiful. He was still celebrating the victory, shouting bits of the game in dialect to his friends. He insisted I have another cocktail with him, saying we were “drinking like Americans.” I ordered a tequila sunrise I wouldn’t be able to finish. His friends were smiling at us. I drank and laughed at the passion of the Italians as they sang Nirvana, fucking up the words. I tried to let Gaetano’s happiness spill onto me.
Finally, I told him I had to get back. I needed to see Kaitlin and I couldn’t drink any more. I was past the point of really being drunk now. I was just full, and my head was starting to pound.
Gaetano led the way out, staggering slightly. He was not used to drinking as much, as hard like we Americans did, just for the sake of drinking. Outside the bar, there was a crowd. It was a fight. Gaetano put his arm around me and guided me away, but we heard the man with the Tuscan accent.
“Okio, stai a Siena,” the voice said.
I didn’t understand the slang at first, I didn’t quite hear it right. Gaetano explained to me that they were telling some kid, a southerner most likely, to watch out because he was in Siena.
“Stronzo,” said Gaetano and then in dialect, “Pesce della mamita.” I knew if he were alone he would fight for having heard that. At first he had his arm around me to protect me as we left, but then he was leaning against me, like Kaitlin. He was drunk. I understood that he planned on driving the borrowed vespa home, and I made a decision not to let that happen.
“You can’t go home,” I said as I walked him up the stairs of my apartment building. He was laughing and protesting; his smile was unguarded. He was following me, though. And again the lights went out. I took the opportunity to get close to him, to reach into his pocket and find the keys. He was too slow to stop me, testament to how drunk he was.
“Che fai?” he asked, following me into the apartment. I sat him on the comfy chair in the dining room. People fucked there; it was good enough to sleep on. I got one of the other chairs and put his feet up. I took off his black leather shoes. He was still protesting jumbled words. Tomorrow he had another soccer match early. He said he could drive. He was accusing me of being too American. It was something he heard about, taking the keys, but he didn’t quite understand it and he was so far drunk it wouldn’t make sense anyway. I waved my hand at him and stood before him, shaking my head.
“Senti, Gaetano, if you leave, I will never speak to you again. Do you understand? Never.” He nodded. He understood. I may not have said it right, but I knew he understood my tone.
“The way you Americans drink,” he said, slurring a bit. “It’s too much.”
I nodded. I found him a blanket; I took one that Kaitlin kicked off the bed. She was sleeping peacefully in my house full of drunks. When I returned to put the blanket on Gaetano, he was out. I kissed his forehead.
Back in my room there was the slight smell of sickness. I didn’t have the energy to wash up. There was another blanket on the floor, I spread this out and bunched some dirty laundry under my head. I hid the keys to the vespa beneath it.
I woke to Gaetano kneeling above me saying my name. I sat up. It was late morning, he missed the beginning of his game. He had to hurry. I searched for the keys beneath the laundry pile. He looked exhausted but laughed anyway at my resourcefulness. He bent to kiss my cheek and whispered beautiful Italian in my ear.
“Last night you saved my life, tesoro.”
I woke up again hours later with a hangover, a deep pain behind my eyes. Kaitlin lay helplessly dehydrated in my bed.
Gaetano rang the doorbell. He dropped off pastries and a package of espresso. He didn’t stay, le
aving me with two kisses on each cheek and best wishes for Kaitlin’s trip back to Paris.
I got Kaitlin more water and made the espresso. I bit a piece off each delicious pastry, but that was all I could stomach. I put them in the fridge.
And later, when I got back from bringing Kaitlin to the bus station, I was hungry. Of course those pastries were gone save for a bite of one that mocked me. The out-of-control food thief struck again.
Cazzo!
I stood in my kitchen, hungry and livid. But I was alone in the apartment; there was no one to complain to or yell at. I stood there, listening to the stillness and looking out the window. I was alone, but for a change it didn’t make me anxious. It was peaceful. My anger left me.
I thought of how it had been so long since I’d seen Kaitlin that drunk. Maybe she hadn’t let herself go in months because she always had to keep track of me, but last night, finally, she thought she could relax.
What if I wasn’t fooling her about getting better? What if I was actually starting to do okay?
And Gaetano was the one that I always leaned on, but last night he let himself lean on me. I thought about how we “Americans drink.” Not all of us drank like that, but I did. Sometimes it was too much. I needed to get to a place where it was just enough but not too much.
My stomach nagged me again. I looked for the loaf of bread I split with Kaitlin before I took her to the station. That bread was gone, too. Oh, the fucking food thief. I was trying not to let it get to me, but I needed to eat.
I found three eggs in the fridge next to a brown bag of hardened rolls. I took them all, becoming a food thief myself. I entertained the notion that maybe the whole “food thief” thing was just a series of misunderstandings and desperate hunger and I laughed. How I wished that were true.
I wet the rolls with some water so they softened and I cut them in half. I cracked the eggs into a bowl, but I couldn’t bring myself to whisk them just then. I admired them, in spite of my hunger. These were eggs from the Crai supermarket but the yolks were a bright yellow, unlike any I had ever seen at home. I wanted to talk to Gaetano sometime about the “Italian way” of eating and all he probably took for granted.
A Semester Abroad Page 20
