Love & Gelato

by Jenna Evans Welch

  He met my eyes, and suddenly I wished with all my heart that I could evaporate, like the steam still curling off my pizza.

  I pushed away from the table. “I . . . I need to find the bathroom.” I sprinted to the front of the restaurant, barely making it inside the restroom before the tears started rolling.

  Being here was awful. Before today I’d known exactly who my mother was, and she certainly wasn’t this woman who loved violets or sent her daughter mysterious journals or forgot to tell the father of her child that—oh, by the way, you have a daughter!

  It took all three minutes of “Here Comes the Sun” to get myself under control, mostly deep breathing, and when I finally cracked the door open, Howard was still sitting at the table, his shoulders slumped. I watched him for a moment, anger settling over me like a fine dusting of Parmesan cheese.

  My mother had kept us apart for sixteen years. Why were we together now?

  Chapter 7

  THAT NIGHT I COULDN’T SLEEP.

  Howard’s bedroom was upstairs too, and the floorboards creaked as he walked down the hall. I didn’t know about you. Why?

  The clock on my bedroom wall made an irritating tick-tick-tick. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, but suddenly the noise was unbearable. I pulled a pillow over my head, but that didn’t help, plus it was kind of suffocating. There was a breeze blowing through my window and my violets kept swaying like Deadheads at a concert.

  Okay. Fine. I switched on my lamp and took the ring off my finger, studying it in the light. Even though my mother hadn’t seen Howard in more than sixteen years, she’d worn the ring he’d given her. Every single day.

  But why? Had they really been in love, like Sonia had said? And if so, what had torn them apart?

  Before I could lose my nerve, I opened my nightstand drawer and felt for the journal.

  I lifted the front cover:

  I made the wrong choice.

  A chill moved down my spine. My mother had written in thick black marker, and the words sprawled across the inside cover like a row of spiders. Was this a message to me? A kind of precursor to whatever I was about to read?

  I mustered up my courage, then turned to the front page. Now or never.

  MAY 22

  Question. Immediately following your meeting with the admissions officers at University of Washington (where you’ve just given official notice that you will not be starting nursing school in the fall) do you:

  A. go home and tell your parents what you’ve done

  B. have a complete panic attack and run back into the office claiming a temporary lapse in sanity

  C. go out and buy yourself a journal

  Answer: C

  True, you will eventually have to tell your parents. And also true, you purposely timed your appointment so the office would be closing as you walked out. But as soon as the dust settles I’m sure you’ll remember all the reasons why you just did what you did. Time to walk yourself into the nearest bookstore and blow your budget on a fancy new journal—because as scary as this moment is, it’s also the moment when your life (your real life) begins.

  Journal, it’s official. As of one hour and twenty-six minutes ago I am no longer a future nursing student. Instead, in just three weeks I will be packing up my things (aka, whatever my mother doesn’t smash when she hears the news) and boarding a plane for Florence, Italy (ITALY!), to do what I’ve always wanted to do (PHOTOGRAPHY!) at the Fine Arts Academy of Florence (FAAF!).

  Now I just have to brainstorm how I’ll break the news to my parents. Most of my ideas involve placing an anonymous call from somewhere in Antarctica.

  MAY 23

  Well, I told them. And it somehow went even worse than I expected. To the casual observer, The Great Parental Fallout would have sounded something like this:

  Me: Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you.

  Mom: Good heavens. Hadley, are you pregnant?

  Dad: Rachelle, she doesn’t even have a boyfriend.

  Me: Dad, thanks for pointing that out. And, Mom, not quite sure why you jumped straight to pregnant. [Clears throat] I want to talk to you about a recent life decision I’ve made. [Wording taken directly from a book called Savvy Communication: How to Talk So They’ll Agree.]

  Mom: Good heavens. Hadley, are you gay?

  Dad: Rachelle, she doesn’t even have a girlfriend.

  Me: [Abandoning all attempts at civilized conversation.] NO. What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not going to nursing school anymore. I just got accepted to an art school in Florence, Italy, and I’ll be there for six months studying photography. And . . . it starts in three weeks.

  Mom/Dad: [Prolonged silence involving two trout-like open mouths.]

  Me: So . . .

  Mom/Dad: [Continue gaping]

  Me: Could you please say something?

  Dad: [weakly] But, Hadley, you don’t even have a decent camera.

  Mom: [regaining voice] WHATDOYOUMEANYOU’RENOTGOINGTONURSINGSCHOOO . . .

  [Neighborhood dogs start howling]

  I’ll spare you the lecture that followed, but it basically boils down to this: I am throwing away my life. I’m wasting my time, my scholarship, and their hard-earned money for six frivolous months in a country where the women don’t even shave their armpits. (That last tidbit was contributed by my mother. I have no idea if it’s true or not.)

  I explained to them that I will pay for the entire thing. I thanked them for their contributions to my education. I assured them that I’ll keep up on my normal grooming routines. And then I went up to my room and bawled my eyes out for at least an hour because I am SO SCARED. But what choice do I have? The second I had that art-school acceptance letter in my hand I knew I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I’m going because it feels scarier not to!

  I set the journal down. A straight-up monsoon was happening in the general vicinity of my face, and the words kept running together in a big, blurry mess. This was why I couldn’t read her journals. They made me feel like I was overhearing her talking on the phone to a friend and then when I looked up from the page and she wasn’t there . . .

  Pull it together. I rubbed my eyes ferociously. She’d sent me this journal for a reason, and I had to find out what it was.

  JUNE 13

  It seems like a bad omen to be leaving on the thirteenth, but here I am. Chilly good-bye from Mom, then Dad dropped me off at the airport. Hello, unknown.

  JUNE 20

  I’M HERE. I could write fifty pages about my first week in Florence, but suffice it to say, I am here. FAAF is exactly what I pictured: tiny, cluttered, overflowing with talent. My apartment is right above a noisy bakery and my mattress might be made of cardboard, but who cares when the world’s most gorgeous city is right outside my window?

  My roommate is named Francesca, and she’s a fashion photography student from northern Italy. She wears all black, switches effortlessly in and out of Italian, French, and English, and has been chain-smoking out our window since she the moment she arrived. I adore her.

  JUNE 23

  First free day in Italy. I was looking forward to a lazy morning involving a fresh jar of Nutella and some bread from the bakery downstairs, but Francesca had other plans. When I came out of my room she instructed me to get dressed, then spent the next thirty minutes arguing enthusiastically with someone on the phone while I sat waiting for her. When she finally hung up she insisted I had to change my shoes. “No sandals. It’s after eleven o’clock.” She made me change twice more. (“No dark denim after April.” “Never match your shoes to your handbag.”) It was exhausting.

  Finally we were out on the street and Francesca started giving me a speed-dating version of Florence’s history. “Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance. You do know what the Renaissance is, don’t you?” I assured her that everyone knows what the Renaissance is, but she explained it anyway. “A third of the population died in the bubonic plague in the 1300s, and afterward Europe experienced a cu
ltural rebirth. Suddenly there was an explosion of artistic work. It all started here before trickling out to the rest of Europe. Painting, sculpture, architecture—this was the art capital of the world. Florence was one of the wealthiest cities in history . . .” and on and on and on.

  She was weaving in and out of the streets, not even taking a second to make sure I was following, and then suddenly I saw it. THE DUOMO. Intricate, colorful, Gothic Duomo. I was completely winded, but even if I hadn’t been, it would have taken my breath away.

  Francesca put out her cigarette, then led me to the Duomo’s side entryway and told me that we were climbing to the top. And we did. Four hundred and sixty-three steep stone stairs, with Francesca pogoing up the steps like her stilettos had springs. When we finally got to the top I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Florence spreads out like an orange-tinted maze, towers and buildings jutting up here and there, but nothing as tall as the Duomo. There were green hills in the distance, and the sky was the most perfect shade of blue. Francesca finally stopped talking when she saw how in awe I was. She didn’t even get mad when I reached my arms out wide, feeling the wind and this new feeling—this freedom. Before we headed back down I gave Francesca a giant hug, but she just peeled me off her and said, “All right, all right. You got yourself here. I just took you to see the Duomo. Now let’s go shopping. I’ve never seen a sadder pair of jeans. Really, Hadley, they make me want to weep.”

  “No way,” I whispered to myself. What were the chances that I’d read this entry on the day I’d seen the Duomo for the first time? I ran my fingers over the words, imagining my twenty-something-year-old mom running to keep up with tyrannical, springy Francesca. Was this part of the reason my mom had sent her journal? So we could experience Florence together?

  I marked my place and switched off the light, my chest heavy. Yes, hearing her voice was the emotional equivalent of a damaged ship taking on water. But it felt good, too. She’d loved Florence. Maybe reading her journal would be like seeing it with her.

  I’d just have to take it in small doses.

  Chapter 8

  I HAVE TO TELL ADDIE about the journal. The next morning I tumbled down the stairs without even changing out of my pajamas. Ren had been totally wrong about the jet-lag thing. Once I’d finished reading the diary entries, I’d tucked the journal under the covers with me and then slept a solid thirteen hours. I felt like a well-rested hummingbird.

  Right before I escaped up to my room, Howard had told me he’d leave his cell phone out for me, and I was ridiculously grateful that I didn’t have to ask him for it. If last night’s drive home were a book, it would have been titled something like The Longest, Quietest, Most Miserable Ride Ever, and I really wasn’t looking forward to a sequel. The less interacting, the better.

  Back in my room I closed the door, then powered up the phone. Country code first? Area code? Where were my instructions? After three tries, the phone finally started ringing. Ian answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ian. It’s Lina.”

  A video game blared in the background.

  “You know . . . the one who lived with you for five months?” I prompted.

  “Oh, yeah. Hi, Lina. Where are you again? France?”

  “Italy. Is Addie there?”

  “No. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Isn’t it like two a.m. there?”

  “Yeah. I think she stayed over at someone’s house. We’re sharing a phone now.”

  “I heard. Could you tell her I called?”

  “Sure. Don’t eat snails.” Click.

  I groaned. Ian’s track record meant that my message had a less-than-zero chance of ever getting to Addie. And I really needed to talk to her—about the journal, about what Howard had told me, about . . . everything. I paced around my bedroom like my grandma’s OCD cat. I really didn’t feel ready to go back to the journal again, but I also really couldn’t just sit around thinking. I quickly changed into my running clothes, then went outside.

  “Hi, Lina. How’d you sleep?”

  I jumped. Howard was sitting on the porch swing with a stack of papers on his lap and dark circles under his eyes. I’d been ambushed.

  “Fine. I just woke up.” I propped my foot up on the banister and gave my shoelaces total and complete concentration.

  “Ah, to be a teenager again. I don’t think I saw the morning side of a sunrise until I was in my late twenties.” He stopped swinging and sort of stumbled into his next sentence. “How are you feeling about what we talked about last night? I wonder if I could have told you that in a better way.”

  “I’m not upset,” I said quickly.

  “I’d really like to talk to you more about your mother and me. There are some things she didn’t tell you that—”

  I yanked my foot off the banister like I was a Rockette. “Maybe another time? I’d really like to start my run.” And I want to hear my mom’s side first.

  He hesitated. “Okay, sure.” He tried to meet my gaze. “We’ll take it at your pace. Just tell me when you’re ready.”

  I hurried down the steps.

  “You got a phone call at the visitors’ center this morning.”

  I whipped around. “Was it Addie?” Please be Addie.

  “No. It was a local call. His name was strange. Red? Rem? An American. He said he met you yesterday while you were out running.”

  A handful of confetti rained down on me. He called? “Ren. It’s short for ‘Lorenzo.’ ”

  “That makes more sense. He said you’re going to a party with him tonight?”

  “Oh, yeah. Maybe.” The whole Howard/journal thing had done an awesome job at crowding everything else out of my brain. Was I feeling gutsy enough to go?

  Howard’s forehead creased. “Well, who is he?”

  “He lives nearby. His mom’s American and he goes to the international school. I think he’s my age.”

  His face lit up. “That’s great. Except . . . Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “I started grilling him because I thought he was one of the guys who chased you when you were out running. I think I might have scared him.”

  “I met Ren behind the cemetery. He was playing soccer on the hill.”

  “Well, I definitely owe him an apology. Do you by chance know his last name?”

  “Ferrari or something? They live in a house that looks like gingerbread.”

  He laughed. “Say no more. The Ferraras. How lucky that you ran into him. I didn’t realize their son was your age or I would have tried to arrange for you guys to meet. Is the party with your other classmates?”

  “Potential classmates,” I said quickly. “I’m not sure if I want to go.”

  His smile just increased in wattage, like he hadn’t heard me. “Ren wanted me to tell you that he can’t make it until eight thirty. I’ll make sure dinner is ready before then so you have plenty of time to eat. And we should look into getting you a cell phone—that way your friends won’t have to call at the visitors’ center.”

  “Thanks, but that would probably be overkill. I only know one person.”

  “After tonight you’ll know more. And in the meantime you can just give people my number so they don’t have to call the cemetery line. Oh, and good news. Our Internet connection is finally sorted out, so FaceTime should work great.” He set the papers on the porch. “I need to head down to the visitors’ center, but I’ll see you a little later. Enjoy your run.” He turned and went into the house, whistling quietly to himself.

  I squinted after him. Was Howard my mom’s wrong choice? And what about the party? Did I really want to go meet a bunch of strangers?

  “What about this?” I walked up to my laptop and twirled around so Addie could see what I was wearing.

  She leaned in, her face filling the screen. She’d just woken up and her smudged eyeliner was kind of making her look like a blond vampire. “Hmm. Do you want me to be nice or do you want me to be honest?”

  “Is there
a possibility that you could you be both?”

  “No. That shirt looks like it’s been wadded up in the bottom of a suitcase for three days.”

  “Because it has.”

  “Exactly. My vote is the black-and-white skirt. Your legs are killer and that skirt is maybe the only thing you have that doesn’t look awful.”

  “Whose fault is that? You’re the one who talked me into binge-watching America’s Next Top Model instead of doing my laundry.”

  “Listen, it’s all about priorities. One of these days I’m going to grow ninety inches, and then I’m totally going to be on that show.” She sighed dramatically, attempting to wipe some of the makeup off her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going to a party. In Italy. I’m probably just going wind up stuck at Dylan’s again night.”

  “You like going to Dylan’s.”

  “No, I don’t. Everyone just sits around talking about all the stuff we could do, but then no one makes a decision and we end up playing foosball all night.”

  “Look on the bright side. He has that downstairs freezer full of burritos and churros. Those are pretty good.”

  “You’re right. Eating mass-produced churros totally sounds better than going to a party in Italy.”

  I picked up my computer, then flopped onto my bed, setting it on my stomach. “Except I don’t like going to parties, remember?”

  “Don’t say that. You used to.”

  “And then my mom got sick and no one knew what to say to me anymore.”

  She set her mouth in a line. “I honestly think some of that’s in your head. People just don’t want to say the wrong thing, you know? And you have to admit you shut people down a lot.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t shut people down.”