Ginny hated her backpack. It kept falling over on the scale because it was so weird and lumpy and tumor-like. It was more purple and green than ever in the fluorescent light of the airline counter. And it was obvious that the millions of straps (which she wasn’t really sure she had laced right, so the entire thing could come apart at any second) were going to catch on the conveyor belt and stop it and all of the luggage would get backed up. Then the flight would be delayed, which would throw off the entire airport schedule and disrupt events in several countries.
Also, the nasally BudgetAir check-in woman had taken a little too much delight in telling Ginny, “Five kilos overweight. That’ll be forty pounds.” She was clearly unhappy when Ginny yanked on some of the straps and managed to get one of the pouches off, making the bag just the right weight.
As Ginny walked away from the check-in, she realized that this flight could not be safe if five kilograms made that much of a difference. This flight had also been purchased online that morning for the insane sum of £35. (It was called BudgetAir for a reason.)
Richard was standing by a slowly rotating display for duty-free liquor, wearing the same slightly baffled expression he’d worn when they’d met days earlier.
“I guess I should go,” she said. “But thanks. For everything.”
“I feel like you just got here,” he replied, “like we didn’t even get a chance to talk.”
“I guess we didn’t.”
“No.”
They began nodding at each other again, and then Richard swooped forward and gave her a hug.
“If you need anything—anything—don’t hesitate to call. You know where to find me.”
“I know,” she said.
There was nothing else to say, so Ginny carefully backed into the crowd. Richard waited there until she turned and headed off to her gate and was still there watching when she checked with a glance back as she entered security.
For some reason, the sight made her very sad, so she turned around sharply and kept her back turned until she was sure that he was out of sight.
When BudgetAir said the plane would land in Rome, they weren’t being literal. What they meant to say was, “The plane will land in Italy; that much we will guarantee. The rest is up to you.” Ginny found herself in a small airport that clearly wasn’t Rome’s main hub. There were a few small airlines represented, and most of the passengers getting off had “where the hell am I?” looks on their faces as they wandered the terminal.
She followed a trail of lost people headed out the door into the balmy evening. They stood on the sidewalk, heads swiveling back and forth. Finally, a flat-fronted, very European-looking bus pulled up with a sign that said ROMA TERMINI, and everyone got on. The driver said something to her in Italian, and when she didn’t respond, he held up ten fingers. She gave him ten euros. This proved to be a good guess, and he gave her a ticket and let her pass.
Ginny had no idea a big square bus could go so fast. They rocketed along a highway and several smaller, curving roads. It was very dark, with occasional houses and gas stations. They were cresting a hill now, and below them Ginny could see a warm bright glow hanging in the air. They had to be coming into the city.
As they entered Rome, the bus was moving quickly enough to make everything a wondrous streak. The buildings were colorful, lit by multicolored lights. There were cobbled streets and hundreds of cafés. She caught a glimpse of a magnificent, massive fountain that hardly seemed like it could be real—it was built into the front of a palatial building and was composed of enormous sculptures of godlike human figures. Then there was a building right out of her history textbook chapter on ancient Rome—tall pillars, domed roof. It could have had people in togas standing on its steps. She started to feel a bubbling excitement. London had been amazing, but this was something totally different. This was travel. This was foreign and old and cultural.
Another sharp turn took them down a massive boulevard, and the buildings became more practical and industrial. They came to an abrupt stop in front of a massive glass-and-metal box of a building. The driver opened the door and sat back and said nothing. People peeled themselves from their seats and pulled their luggage off the rack. Ginny suited up with the pack and lumbered out.
She managed to wave down a taxi (at least she thought that was what it was, and it stopped) and passed the letter forward, showing the driver the address. A few minutes later, after cheating death by speeding down roads just barely wide enough to fit the car, they pulled up in front of a small green house. Three cats groomed each other on the front step, oblivious to the squealing machine that had just arrived in front of them.
The woman who opened the door looked about fifty years old. She had short black hair, streaked elegantly with gray. She was carefully but not overly made up, and she was dressed in an attractive blouse and skirt. She wore heels. She ushered Ginny inside. This had to be Ortensia.
“Hello,” Ginny said.
“Hello,” the woman replied.
She had a nervous look in her eye that said: “That is all the English I know. Go no further because all I will do is stare at you.”
The backpack, though, could be universally understood. The woman pulled out a small preprinted card that said 20 EUROS PER NIGHT in English as well as some other languages, and Ginny nodded and passed over the money.
Ortensia led her to a tiny room two flights up. It looked like it was originally a crawl space, since there was just enough headroom for her to stand and just about enough room for the cot-bed, a small dresser, and her backpack. A realtor would have described it as “charming.” It was kind of charming, actually. It had been painted a happy mint green (not a sad, cinder-block–gym-wall mint green). Plants filled every available space. It would have been very nice in the winter, but now it was the holding tank for all the rising heat. Ortensia pushed open the window, and a lazy breeze came in, circulated once, and went home.
Ortensia said a few words in Italian that Ginny was pretty sure meant good night, then descended the narrow spiral stairs that led to the room. Ginny sat on her neatly made bed. It was quiet in her little room. It made her heart pound. She suddenly felt very, very alone. She told herself to stop thinking about it, changed for bed, and lay awake, listening to the Roman traffic out on the street.
Virginia and the Virgins
Every once in a while, Ginny remembered that along with being charming and whimsical, Aunt Peg could sometimes be a little flaky. She was the kind of person who absentmindedly stirred her coffee with her pinkie and was surprised when she burned herself or left the car in neutral instead of park and laughed when it was occasionally in a different place than where she had left it. Those things had always been funny before. But now, with the massive, ancient city of Rome sprawled out around her and absolutely no guide, Ginny had to wonder how good (or funny) the “no map” rule really was. Her sense of direction wasn’t going to help her much here—there was just too much Rome and no point of reference to work from. It was all crumbling walls and huge billboards and wide squares and statues.
On top of that, she was terrified of crossing the street, since everyone drove like a stunt extra from a movie car chase. (Even the nuns, of which there were plenty.) Ginny confined herself to one side of a road and crossed intersections only with groups of more than twenty.
And it was hot. So much hotter than London. It was real summer here.
After an hour of wandering around what seemed like the same tight streets of pharmacies and video rental stores, she spotted a tour group walking along with flags and matching travel bags. Lacking any other plan, she decided to trail them loosely in the hopes that they’d be going somewhere big and touristy. Then at least she’d be somewhere.
As she walked, she noticed a few things. The tourists wore sandals or sneakers and carried heavy bags or maps. They looked hot, and they guzzled bottles of water or soda. She even saw a few people buzzing themselves with tiny, battery-powered handheld fans. They looked ridiculous
, but Ginny knew she wasn’t doing much better. Her bag was stuck to her back. Her braids were limp in the heat. The little makeup she wore had dribbled off her face. She was developing a nasty sweat pocket at the middle of her bra that was going to start showing through her shirt at any second. And her sneakers were squeakier than usual.
The Roman women flew past on Vespa scooters with their designer handbags resting by their feet. They wore huge, fabulous sunglasses. They smoked. Talked on their cell phones. Threw dramatic glances over their shoulders at people who passed them by. Most amazingly, they did it all in heels, gracefully, without teetering over on the cobblestones or getting stuck in a crack on the uneven pavements. They didn’t break down and cry from the blisters that had to be forming as the sweltering heat caused the leather of their stilettos to suction to their perfectly pedicured feet.
They were hard for Ginny to watch. They made her nervous.
She followed a group down into a metro station and lost them as she struggled to buy her tickets. She went over to a map and found, to her relief, that there was a stop marked Coliseo, with a drawing that looked a lot like a doughnut. When she emerged again into the blinding Roman sunlight, she was on a busy road. It seemed certain that she had made a mistake until she turned and found that the Colosseum was directly behind her. It took her a few minutes to make it across the street.
Again, she met another tour group, and she trailed along behind, following them under one of the massive archways that led inside. The guide seemed to take a little too much pleasure in reporting the bloodshed that had made the Colosseum so popular back in the day.
“…and at the inaugural, over five thousand animals were slaughtered!”
A woman in a long, double-sided apron was walking toward them. She opened a large bag she was carrying. Within a moment, a flurry of cats appeared around them. They seemed to leak from the walls. They jumped from hidden ledges high up in the stony walls. They rushed from behind Ginny and gathered together in a tangle, mewing loudly. The woman smiled and began pulling paper takeout containers full of bright red raw meat and pasta. She set these down on the ground, allowing a few feet between each dish, and the cats swarmed around. Ginny could actually hear them frantically chewing the food and purring loudly. When they were finished eating a few moments later, they surrounded the woman, rubbing hard against her ankles.
Ginny and the tour group crossed through a passageway into the Roman Forum. The Forum looked like a very old place that had been run through by a giant bowling ball. Some columns, though cracked and worn, were still standing. Others were just little nubs in the ground, strange little stone tree stumps. Ancient buildings sat on the rocky outlines of other, even more ancient but now-missing buildings. The group split up to explore. Ginny decided to ask the guide where to go—he didn’t seem that aware of who was with him.
“I’m looking for the vestal virgins,” Ginny said. “Their temple is supposed to be in here.”
“The virgins!” he said, raising his hands in delight. “You come with me.”
They made their way through the labyrinth of walls and paths and columns to two rectangular pools made of stone, obviously ancient but refilled and planted around with flowers. On one side was a line of statues on tall square pedestals. All women, all wrapped in flowing Roman robes. Most of them were missing their heads. Some, most of their bodies. Eight figures stood, with a few empty pedestals between them. The other side was full of empty pedestals or just remnants of pedestals. The pedestals and statues were protected from the crowd by a low metal rail—nothing much, no more than a mild request not to touch.
“The virgins,” he said proudly. “Lovely.”
Ginny leaned into the rail and looked over the statues. She felt that weird guilt she sometimes got when she knew she was looking at something very old and important and she just didn’t…get it. The story behind them was interesting, but they were still just a bunch of broken statues.
Come to think of it…it was a little annoying that Aunt Peg had sent her to look at a bunch of famous virgins. What exactly was that supposed to mean?
For some reason, this made her think of Keith. That memory stung. She pulled off her daypack very deliberately and dug around inside. She had a few euros and euro coins. A gum wrapper. The key to her room at Ortensia’s. The next letter. Her eye patch thing from the plane. Nothing that seemed like an appropriate gift to give a bunch of ancient statues. This whole thing was suddenly very annoying. It was too hot. The symbolism was a little too pointed. This entire exercise was stupid.
She finally found an American quarter at the bottom of the bag. It seemed as good an offering as any. She lobbed it softly onto the grass between two of the statues, then pulled out the next letter. It was painted all over with pictures of tiny cakes.
“Okay,” she said, tearing open the seal. “What now?”
* * *
#6
Dear Virginia,
Sorry. If there was ever a moment to use your proper name, this seemed like it. (This is one of those things that isn’t funny…isn’t it?)
So here you are, standing around in a big courtyard of broken stuff, probably surrounded by tourists. (You are not a tourist…you are on a quest. You are a quest…ioner. Ooh. I should stop, huh?)
Anyway, what do we learn from this, Gin? What do our girls the vestals tell us?
Well, for a start, single chicks are powerful chicks. And in some situations, dating can be bad for you. However, since at least a handful of the vestals risked everything for a little loving, we also know that…sometimes, it just feels like it’s worth it.
See, I had a problem, Gin. I was very into this idea of being a single woman, committed to a higher purpose, like the vestals. The way I saw it, the great artists didn’t want to be comfortable. They wanted to struggle—alone—them against the world. So I wanted to struggle.
Whenever I got too comfortable anywhere, I felt like I had to move on. I did it with all kinds of things. I quit whenever I started liking a job too much. I broke up with guys whenever things got too serious. I left New York because I was just too content. I wasn’t moving forward. I know that it must have been hard when I left without a word…but that’s how I always did it. I would sneak off like a thief in the night, maybe because I knew there was something just a little bit wrong about what I was doing.
At the same time, I still have this thing about Vesta…this love of the home. Part of me wanted to embrace that. I love this idea of a goddess who guards the fire, blesses the house. I am a mass of contradictions.
One of her other symbols was bread, anything baked. Bread was life itself to the Romans. On Vesta’s holiday, animals used to be decorated with garlands of cake. Garlands of cake! (Screw flowers. Can you imagine any garland better than a garland of cake? I can’t.) So, let’s take this idea and celebrate Vesta with some cake. But let’s do it the proper Roman way.
I want you to ask a Roman boy out for cake. (Or girl, if that turns out to be your preference. But good luck with that—Roman women are tigresses.) For the sake of argument, I’m going to say boy because Roman boys are some of the most amusing creatures on earth. You are a beautiful girl, Gin, and a Roman boy will tell you that in his own special way.
Unless things have changed a lot, Gin, I am going to guess that this will be hard for you. You were always so shy. It bothered me because I was worried that people might not get to know the wonder that was and is my niece Virginia Blackstone! But fear not. The Romans will help you. If there was ever a city to learn how to ask a stranger out, this is it.
Get out there, tiger. Let them eat cake.
Love,
Your Bundle of Issues Aunt
* * *
Boys and Cake
This bordered on being a nightmare scenario. This was adding insult to injury.
She followed the tour group out of the Colosseum and meandered along with them for almost an hour, stewing over this latest command. Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out,
you shy, retarded thing!
She didn’t want to ask a boy out. She was shy (thanks for bringing it up). Plus, the guy she liked was in London, and he thought she was crazy. Salt. Wound. Together at last.
The tour group stopped in a large square with a crowd in the middle, all gathered around a fountain, clearly very old, carved into the shape of a sinking boat. Some dipped their hands in and drank the water. The group suddenly dispersed, leaving Ginny to her own devices once again.
She was thirsty. Her every instinct told her that she shouldn’t be drinking fountain water, especially really old fountain water, but lots of people were doing it. Plus, she really needed a drink. She took her empty bottle from her bag, found an opening along the edge, and tentatively reached out to the spray. She took a long sip and was rewarded with cold, fresh water—water that tasted very safe. She drained her bottle and filled it again.
When she turned around, three little kids were running at her. Strangely, one was holding a newspaper. They were all girls, and they were extremely beautiful, with long, very dark brown hair and bright green eyes. The tallest of the girls, who couldn’t have been older than ten, came right up to Ginny and started flapping the newspaper at her, shaking the pages. In the next second, a tall, kind of thin guy with a huge book suddenly leapt up from where he was sitting and started running at her as well, yelling things in Italian. Ginny involuntarily took a step back and heard a little squeal. She felt her foot come into contact with a tinier foot and her daypack make contact with a small, helpless face. She realized that the little girls were all circling, sort of dancing around her, and any move she made might result in taking another one of them out with her feet or bag, so she froze and started apologizing, even though she realized that they probably would not understand a word she was saying.
The guy was almost to them now and was waving around his fat, hardback book like he was trying to cut a path through some unseen foliage. The small newspaper flappers were understandably alarmed by this larger book flapper and immediately streamed away from Ginny. The guy broke his run with a few final, stumbling steps, stopping right as he got up to Ginny. He nodded in satisfaction.
13 Little Blue Envelopes Page 9
