Standing next to the bathroom, I can hear moaning and groping. I hold the bathroom door closed and smile at the boy. He does not smile back. Right now, I am his very least favorite person on the face of the planet. In fact, the man with the beard is also now awake and also not my number one fan. As the sounds of satisfaction grow louder and more satisfied inside the bathroom, I continue to hold the door, turning away from the man and boy, pretending to examine my nails (I have none). I begin to sing the first loud song that comes to mind: “La Bamba.” I know about one third of the words, can’t carry a tune, and don’t speak Spanish.
After what seems like the loudest, longest orgasm I’ve ever heard (making me slightly jealous), things quiet down inside the bathroom. Then a shriek from the train car. I turn back around to see Leopard Lady entering through the back door as her son, now standing in his seat by an open window, is smoking a cigarette. SHIT! Where did he even get that? The woman shoots me a look. But before I can say, “Where do you think he learned it?” there’s a push on the bathroom door. I release it and out comes the brunette.
“Couldn’t see from your seat, mate?” she says, not a hint of embarrassment.
“Actually, we all had a pretty good view,” I say, pointing to the boy. The petite blonde emerges. Seeing the boy, she looks horrified. She chastises her girlfriend in a flood of angry, whispered French.
“I am so sorry,” the blonde says to me. “Thank you for holding the door. It’s my girlfriend. I told her to wait but she is very insistent and hungry for me all the time.”
“Clearly,” I reply. The brunette winks at me.
“And now I’m thirsty,” the brunette says. Her accent is British, but not snooty, starchy crisps British. It’s fat, greasy chips British. “Come on. I’ve got a bottle,” she says. It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.
“Me?”
“Oui,” come have a glass of wine with us. We owe it to you,” the blonde smiles. I look over my shoulder and see Leopard Lady still staring daggers at me.
“Three cars up,” says the brunette, holding the carriage door for her girlfriend.
“In first class?” I ask.
“Oui” smiles the blonde as she exits.
“And you came back here to . . . use the bathroom?”
“Course, mate. Not looking to get kicked out of our posh seats, are we? How barmy would that be?” She begins to hum “La Bamba,” and winks as she exits, the train door slamming closed behind her.
“Right,” I say.
Chapter 10
How Not to Earn a Nickname
Train, Roma to Napoli, Italy: Tuesday, 10:43 a.m.
HELPFUL TIPS FOR BONDING WITH INTERNATIONAL GIRLFRIENDS:
1. Tell them you’re Canadian.
2. Don’t guess where they’re from by deciding which actor they sound like.
3. Don’t try to hug them. They’ll know you’re American.
4. Don’t try to imitate their accents.
5. When they figure out you’re American and ask about the last election, tell them you were in a coma.
6. Don’t ask to see their passports. They have WAY more stamps than you.
7. Don’t ask why Europeans don’t wear deodorant.
I’m now seated comfortably in first class next to my new international friends, Yin and Yang. Complete opposites, they seem like they’d fall apart if separated. By the second plastic cup of wine, I begin to understand why. Yin is a delicate, blonde, Parisian fairy. She attended Surval Montreux, an elite girls’ boarding school in Switzerland. Yang calls it the princess academy because it’s literally a storybook castle on a hill. Here, Yin learned four languages and seven ways to orally pleasure another girl. By contrast, Yang grew up in Brixton, a colorful, rough neighborhood of London, where she went to public school and played rugby. Yin depends on Yang to interpret any pop culture references of the last fifteen years. Yang depends on Yin to tell her when her shirt is inside out or needs to be washed. Yin’s a people pleaser. Always second-guessing others’ needs, she’s got a menu of options. Par exemple:
“Marina, do you want to sit in the middle so you can talk to both of us? Or maybe you’re more comfortable by the window, or you like the aisle better? We are having un petit pique-nique. Do you like rosé wine? We have some red also if you prefer. It goes well with the cheese. Do you prefer cow or goat? Maybe you’re not hungry? Do you prefer the window open?”
“Just give me the fuckin’ bottle.” Yang doesn’t give a shit what you want. You’re getting red wine. Yang’s tough and toned, but not a bruiser. She’s smart but not as knowledgeable as Yin. She drinks too much but doesn’t do drugs. Yin’s tried every pill on the black market. Yang likes the spotlight. Yin doesn’t. Yang likes reggae and raves. Yin likes opera and orgies. Yang reads comic books to Yin and explains them. Yin reads poetry to Yang and explains it. The Brit can cook. The Frenchie cannot. The irony doesn’t end there. Yang likes black and white, French New Wave films. Yin likes Guy Ritchie.
Yin’s mother, a world-renowned human rights lawyer, never has much time for her. Yin’s father, the head of an NGO, is in prison for embezzling 5.5 million euro. Yin needs to be wanted, desired, needed.
Yang’s the daughter of an alcoholic Irish bartender from Brixton and a beautiful Afro-Spanish Flamenco dancer. Cliché right? Wrong. Her father’s the dancer: sensual, expressive, and passionate. Yang’s convinced he’s a sex addict. Her mother’s the bartender: high school dropout and perpetual student of human behavior. Yang learned to cook from her father, who believes that food is a spiritual way to access your body’s pleasure receptors. Yang’s mother taught her how to make a dirty martini when she was eight.
Yin is quiet and sweet. Yang is brash and unapologetic. She likes to fuck with you. Por ejemplo:
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re after, mate,” Yang growls at me when Yin leaves to get us lunch from the dining car.
“What?” I ask, nervously. Yang is suddenly in my face, nostrils flaring like a bull.
“You were on your way to that bathroom before I got there. That’s why you came to sit with us. Even now you’re waitin’ to get her on your own.”
“No! I swear to God.”
“I see you lookin’ at her. Checkin’ out that tight little ass and those perfect little titties.” Yang leans closer and closer to me. “I know you’re thinkin’ about kissin’ ’em. Lickin’ ’em. Suckin’ ’em. You wanna slip your finger down her—”
“I don’t! I’m not—I am not,” I say, horrified. Yang smiles.
“Yeah, I know. I’m just fuckin’ with you, mate,” she laughs. “Cause if you were, I’d have to take that wine bottle and shove it so far up your ass I’d get a stool sample and then I’d make you suck it out of the bottle.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. WTF?
“I don’t—” Words fail me.
“Got ya! You’re too easy. Just takin’ the piss, mate. I’m not really the jealous type. Yin either. We’re givers. Unity and community. She’s got mad skills, and I got like this rockin’ body, yeah. Would be a shame not to share. Check out these tits, see?” Suddenly she’s hiked her top up, revealing a red lace bra two sizes too small, overflowing with beautiful, brown breasts. “Go on, give ’em a squeeze. They’re like grapefruit.” She grabs my hand and shoves it into her cleavage.
“Oh! Very nice. But I’m straight,” I whisper, reclaiming my hand. Yang smiles.
“Yeah, I know, mate,” she laughs. “You’re like so straight it’s like comical.”
“Comical?”
“Like obvious, mate. When that muscly guy with the suit and tie helped you put your bag up in the rack, you looked like you were ready to offer him a blow job as a thank you.”
“I was just flirting. He was cute.”
“Yeah. You love dick. It’s like somebody drew an arrow on your cheek pointing to your mouth: insert dick here.”
“Well, I do enjoy the male body.” I blush.
“Yeah you do. You’d like, eat a dic
k sandwich for lunch every day. Dick, egg, and cheese. Grilled dick sandwich. Barbeque dick sandwich.”
“Um, no.” I can’t help but visualize these and I’m kind of disgusted.
“French dip dick. Nutella and dick sandwich. Dick and pickle sandwich.”
“Definitely not.”
“Oh, right. You’re American. You like peanut butter and dick sandwiches,” Yang snorts.
“Well who doesn’t like those?” I laugh. Yin enters with a tray of food.
“Anyone want a sandwich?” she smiles brightly. Yang laughs even harder.
“Do you have a DLT?” I ask innocently. Yang loses her shit, doubles over with laughter, tears in her eyes. Yin looks at me. I shrug. “Just takin’ the piss, mate.”
Train, Roma to Napoli, Italy: Tuesday, 11:15 a.m.
“So what’s the deal with you, DLT?” asks Yang. She’s latched onto this nickname like a pit bull on a Pomeranian. “Why you travelin’ alone? Get in a fight with your man and leave him at the train station?”
“I don’t have a man. I came to Italy alone to travel around and research a series of books I’m writing. Herstory: Women Who Changed the World. The first book will be Italian women. That’s why I’m here, for my research and inspiration.” Yang pretends to snore loudly. Yin smacks her.
“Nobody’s going to buy that book. Do people even buy books anymore?” Yang asks.
“Ne sois pas aussi grossière!” scolds Yin. “Sorry, she gets like this when she doesn’t get enough sex.”
“It’s been like an hour since the bathroom,” I say, surprised.
“Exactly. You know how some people have low blood sugar,” Yin says. “It’s like that.”
“It’s my da’s fault. He’s a sex addict.”
“I would buy your book, Marina,” Yin says apologetically.
“She would,” agrees Yang. “But she’s got a shelf of books she’s never read.”
“I’ve got one in my suitcase,” I tell Yin. “Haven’t even cracked it open.”
“Who are the women for your book?” asks Yin. I open my journal and show them my list.
“Trotula of Salerno?” Yang asks. “Artemisia Gentileschi? Eleonora Pimento Cheese? Who the hell are they? What about Lucrezia Borgia? You gotta have sex in the book, DLT. This is Italy.”
“There are already enough sexploitation books about women.”
“Then what’s that? I can see the words ‘firm cock’ right there!” Yang points at a page in my journal. I close it quickly, embarrassed.
“That’s just my own travel diary. I’m using the same notebook for book notes.”
“Well, that stuff is what people want to read, DLT! If you don’t want to sex-ploit the historical ladies, sex-ploit yourself.”
“Don Quixote isn’t about sex and it’s the most popular book in history,” objects Yin. “Over five hundred million copies sold.”
“What about Lady Chatterly’s Lover?” asks Yang. “I’m telling you, it’s got to have a lot of sex in it. Like two hot lesbians on a train—wait, hold on a tick, is that what you were scribbling before?”
“What?” I squirm.
“Are we in your travel diary, DLT?” Both girls look at me.
“No.”
“You lying?”
“Yes.” I jump up from the seat. “Please don’t shove the bottle up my ass.”
Chapter 11
How Not to Stick to an Itinerary
Castel Sant’Elmo, Napoli: Tuesday, 1:35 p.m.
I’ve convinced my new friends to come with me to see the medieval fortress that overlooks the city of Naples. It was built in the fourteenth century but was seized and changed hands many times over the centuries. In 1799, the people of Naples, inspired and led by revolutionaries like Eleonora Pimentel, gained control of the fortress. But when the republic fell, the fortress was used to jail those same people. She was imprisoned here until she was hung. Unfortunately, it’s Tuesday, so the museum is closed. But the grounds are open. As we meander down ancient walkways, I read Yin and Yang some of my research notes.
ITALIAN WOMAN OF INFLUENCE: Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel
1. Lived from 1752–1799 (only forty-seven years!).
2. Italian poet and revolutionary.
3. As a child, she wrote poetry and read Latin and Greek.
4. A pen pal of Voltaire.
5. Beaten by her husband, which caused two miscarriages.
6. Imported values of the French Revolution to Italy.
7. A leader of the Neapolitan revolution that overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and installed the Neapolitan Republic.
8. Wrote and edited the bi-weekly newspaper of the Republic.
9. After the monarchy was restored, she was hanged.
10. One potential reason was that she wrote pamphlets denouncing the queen as a lesbian.
“See, don’t fuck with the lesbians,” says Yang.
“True,” I laugh.
Christmas Alley, Naples, Italy: Tuesday, 4:50 p.m.
Hallmark Channel addicts beware. You will leave Christmas Alley with no money, if you leave at all. For the rest of us, twenty minutes of shop after shop with handcrafted ornaments, wooden mangers, wreaths, and creepy looking wise men is enough to make you want to barf candy canes.
“I have to get my mother an ornament. If I’m not out in ten minutes, come rescue me from the elves.”
“Okay,” says Yin, licking the nocciola gelato that’s melting onto her hand.
“Get her one with the god Saturn, since Saturnalia is the Roman pagan holiday the Christians co-opted when they made up Christmas, DLT,” smiles Yang.
“She’d love that.” I give her a look.
“Marina, you should come with us to Positano, on the bus,” suggests Yin.
“Thanks, but I’ve got an itinerary I should stick to. I’m going to stay a night here and then head south to Salerno. I’m researching Trotula of Salerno. She was a pioneer in gynecological medicine.”
“Naples is full of crime,” says Yin. “Thieves, sex workers—”
“As fun as that sounds, DLT, you should still come with us,” interrupts Yang. “You can research your Twat-ula gyno online anywhere.”
“I don’t know guys. I usually make a plan and stick to it.”
“Positano is south, on the way to Salerno,” smiles Yin. “Just make an extra stop. You’ll have fun.”
“Well . . . I did want to see Capri,” I concede.
Bus from Naples to Positano, Italy: Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.
The bus is nice. The seats are comfortable and new (the old ones were sent to second-class train cars.) There’s even Wi-Fi. A call to Rosalie is overdue.
VIDEO CALL
Call - ROSALIE TAYLOR - No Answer - 6:30 p.m.
Call - ROSALIE TAYLOR - 6:34 p.m.
“Hello? Marina?”
“Hi Mom!”
“I can hear you, sweetie. I can see myself, but not you.”
“Press the video button.”
“What’s that?”
“The one that looks like a camera.”
“Where is it?”
“Mom, hang up. I’ll call you right back.”
Call - ROSALIE TAYLOR - No Answer - 6:36 p.m.
Call - ROSALIE TAYLOR - No Answer - 6:41 p.m.
Call - ROSALIE TAYLOR - 6:55 p.m.
“Mom, I said I’d call you right back.”
“Hello? Marina? Oh, there you are! Now I can see you, but I can’t hear you.”
“Because you hit the mute button or you chopped your ear off?” I ask, staring with alarm at her right ear, bandaged like Van Gogh.
“Now I can hear you. Sorry, sweetie, I had to go to the bathroom. I put Coffee-mate in my coffee and you know what happens.”
“Mom, what happened to your ear?” I ask.
“I’m fine, it was just a hot curler accident. Donna went a bit overboard with the first aid bandages,” she says. Yin and Yang pop their heads over the seat behind me and smile and wave at my mother.
&nbs
p; “Hello mum!” they say in unison.
“Oh! Hello girls!”
“My new travel buddies. We met on the train from Rome,” I explain.
“Praise Jesus! I’ve been worried about you alone. You girls stick together, okay?”
“We go everywhere together,” says Yang. “Even the bathroom.”
“How’s the quilting going?” asks Yin.
“Marina told us all about you. Show us one of the manatees you made from repurposed sweat pants,” begs Yang. I cringe.
“Oh! Well hold on and I’ll go get all my craft samples . . .” Rosalie says, pleased.
“Mom, no. Just send us photos. I’m not sure how long the Wi-Fi will work. We’re on a bus on our way to the Costiera Amalfitana,” I say, hoping to change the subject. “Positano, Capri, Amalfi, Ravello.”
“Oh how exciting! Okay, I’ll send you photos of the stuffed flamingos I just made from a quincea-ñera tablecloth, and you send me photos of Capri.
I’ve always wanted to go there. Like in the Frank Sinatra song, ‘Isle of Capri.’” She begins to sing it. Like me, Rosalie cannot carry a tune (okay, four things in common). Yin joins in with her, a lovely soprano.
“Check out this view.” I put the tablet up to the window. The bus negotiates an L-shaped bend in the narrow road. A car coming the other direction is backing up to give us room. On one side of us is a sheer cliff face, on the other side, a steep drop hundreds of yards to the sea. Whitecaps roll in on turquoise waters.
“Just like the travel channel.” Rosalie is thrilled. I feel a pang. She’s spent her life stuck in the disillusioned paradise of Key West, Florida. My dad had all the adventures abroad and at sea.
“Too bad you’re not here with us, mum!” says Yang.
“Yeah, that would be great,” I say. Rosalie looks surprised. “We could have a glass of vino rosso together,” I add with a smile. In this moment, I actually mean it.
“Vi-no ross-o. So exotic,” she repeats. She looks away. “You girls have fun. I’ve got guests checking in and a ton of work to do.” She’s looking everywhere but the camera now.
A Not So Lonely Planet Page 6