A Not So Lonely Planet

by Karina Kennedy

  5. Fumble blindly because your head is forced the other way and yank the gearshift out of park by mistake.

  6. Panic as you realize your arm is stuck, throwing your full weight against the little car, trying to pry your arm out.

  7. Scream as the car now begins to roll downhill toward the pool, dragging you.

  8. Grab onto a small sculpture as you roll past, pulling it over to the ground.

  9. Realize you can turn the wheel and steer the car away from the pool.

  10. Run over a lounge chair as you steer the car . . . into a small fountain.

  “My next trip, I’m going somewhere with no fountains,” I groan from the ground as Uncle Gandhi helps me pry out my arm and opens the car door. I rub my arm as I stand up. That’s going to hurt later. I stare at Frantonio’s front wheel in the fountain. That’s going to hurt more. I look up and find Regina and her driver both staring at me from the valet area. Shit.

  “My dear, are you okay?” she calls, concerned.

  “I’m okay!” I call back. “Just moving the car into the shade.”

  “I think you’d better come with us now dear,” calls Regina. “Frantonio loves that car more than his own mother.”

  “Go,” Uncle agrees. “Quickly. My nephew is on his way.”

  “But, the car!” I object. “He’ll blame you.”

  “What’s he going to do? Fire me?” smiles Uncle Gandhi. I kiss his cheeks goodbye and thank you. I reach into the back seat and grab the bottle of Brunello we didn’t drink last night.

  “Good move,” Uncle Gandhi smiles. Turning, I start up the hill toward Regina. Suddenly, I stop. Shit! Will’s book. I had to get it back.

  “Uncle, could you help me with one last, little thing?”

  Road to Roma: Saturday, 1:43 p.m.

  For the first part of the ride Regina is on the phone, making arrangements for her upcoming trip and meetings, but after we stop for coffee she asks me about myself. It is way too easy to talk to her, and now I find myself babbling about my Roman holiday, my capers on Capri, the brothers Sicilian, my book, my blog.

  “You’ve had quite the Italian adventure,” she laughs. I nod, and find myself wondering, for the first time since I’ve been in this country, how much longer I’m going to stay. One of the reasons the airline buddy pass was so appealing was the open-ended return. I could leave (or try to leave) whenever I wanted. But was I ready? With a twinge of guilt I realize I haven’t video chatted with my mother in a week.

  “Yes. Maybe enough adventure for one trip. You know you’re getting homesick when you actually miss talking to your mother,” I quip. Regina chuckles.

  “I miss talking to my mother every day,” she says. I cringe.

  “Sorry, I didn’t—”

  “Non è niente, cara. Everyone complains about mothers. They are the universal constant. They pull when you push. They give when you take. Nobody wants to be like her mother until she becomes a mother and realizes how great her own mother was. Then, we change our minds,” she smiles.

  “You’re a mother?” I ask. It never dawned on me that Regina might have kids.

  “Sì! I have two grown sons. One is a lawyer in New York and the other is at university. And neither call me.”

  “Was your mother like you? My mother and I are so different.”

  “We were alike in the most important ways, like the way we connected with others. Our love of giving and sharing. Our capacity for joy. These are the things she taught me. You may feel different from your mother because you want different things. But, you are who you are because of her.” Regina pats my leg in motherly fashion. Suddenly, I miss Rosalie very much.

  “I should think about going home soon. But I have so much more work to do on my book.”

  “The Influential Women of Italy?” she smiles. “It’s a big topic for a first book.”

  “I guess so,” I admit. “I’ve never been intimidated by big goals. I just throw myself into it completely and stumble my way through. Discover things. Screw up as I go.” I laugh.

  “But see, this sounds like the interesting book. The discovery, the journey.”

  “That’s what my friends say. They want me to write about my travels, my goof-ups, and the sex. But that’s why I’m starting the blog. I just can’t see how to fit the two ideas together.”

  “Reading about women who have accomplished so much will be interesting and inspirational, but also a little intimidating. No? They may seem too good to be true, unreal,” she says. I see where she’s going.

  “So mixing in the adventures of a screw-up will be good contrast?” I smile.

  “Contrast, depth, sincerity. Sharing your own experiences will connect more with readers, allowing them to enjoy your journey as you learned about these impressive women. And you, my dear, are also an impressive woman.”

  “Well, I make an impression. We’ll leave it at that,” I say, but my cheeks burn self-consciously with the praise. “I guess throwing an imperfect woman in with the perfect ones does shake things up a bit. Thank you.” Regina smiles.

  Mike’s Room, Hotel de Russie, Rome: Saturday, 6:45 p.m.

  “You hitched a ride with Regina Lombardi and didn’t introduce me to her?” Mike berates me. He’s still trying to decide what to wear to dinner and has changed twice.

  “You weren’t here yet, Mike.”

  “Stylish vest and button-down or sexy tight tee?”

  “Exactly who are you trying to impress? Michael’s at home.”

  “Exactly everyone! We’re going to Alfredo alla Scrofa for dinner and then we’re going to dance our asses off in Testaccio. What are you wearing? That’s your bed over there. Unless you get lucky tonight!”

  “Mike, honestly, that’s the last thing I want.” I open my suitcase and dig out my last clean dress as he changes his shirt again.

  “You may change your mind after a few drinks when you have Mario and Luigi grinding you from both sides on the dance floor.”

  “As appealing as a Super Mario Brothers sandwich sounds, I just had a full night of amazing sex with a man I’d totally fallen for, only to realize he wasn’t the man I thought he was after all.”

  “Who is?” he says.

  “I still don’t know,” I answer.

  “I was being rhetorical or metaphorical or something.” Mike rolls his eyes.

  “Well, I was being specific,” I say. “I have no clue who I’ve been exchanging midnight texts with over the last few weeks. It’s not Frantonio. It’s a French number. Ernesto’s number is Italian, but he was always running out of credit and texting me from other numbers. I doubt it’s Tango. His musical education was limited to American pop and Italian opera. And the messages started before the brothers Sicilian. That’s everyone on my romance roster.”

  “Not everyone,” he says as he puts back on his vest.

  “Regina’s assistant doesn’t count. That was a sympathy screw.”

  “Not the assistant, silly. You’ve been using Skype for years and never noticed when you message a phone number from your computer it uses a French country code? It’s a French company.”

  “Crap . . . it could be anyone. Someone I don’t even know.”

  “Or . . . someone who can’t quite let you go,” he says pointedly. “Back home.”

  “Will?” The thought stuns me like an electric jolt. Like the time I put my hand on my grandpa’s electric cattle fence—the entire world freezes, flips, then starts up again slowly, leaving a sick, tingling feeling in my chest and stomach. Will knew more about music than anyone I’d ever met. Then I remember the last video call we had. I was naked in bed, in Sicily. Tired of the song lyrics from Frantonio (I thought), I had sent:

  Serenades are lovely, but the words of others.

  I wait for your real voice, under the covers.

  And then . . . Will had called. How could I be so blind? With a terrible lurch I remember telling him I was expecting a call from someone else. I remember the hurt in his eyes on the computer screen.
That was the last message for days and days, until yesterday, when I had apologized to him . . . accidentally. “Please forgive me,” the Bryan Adams song title I’d texted him. And he had answered me . . . when I was lying (naked again) in Frantonio’s bed.

  I can’t believe it. Even accidentally, I had somehow managed to hurt Will again. This was awful. I long to see him, to explain. But what? That I was sorry I’d left? I wasn’t. Sorry I’d been with other men? Nope. That I still loved him? I didn’t. Did I?

  “I think you’re right,” I say to Mike.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing, now. I left home to research my new book, see new places, meet new people, have new adventures—and new relationships. And that’s what I’m doing. I’m adding to the living, breathing, tangible record of my life. My Collection of Being.”

  “Florida Woman Fucks Italy to Find Herself,” Mike announces with glee as he adjusts his hipster hat in the mirror.

  “You completely missed my point. Sex is not the destination, it’s the gas in your car along the way.” I pull out the ridiculously uncomfortable stilettos I haven’t worn since the pond incident at Regina’s.

  “You’re wearing those?”

  “I have to, because you look pretty damn stylish and handsome right now,” I answer.

  Mike beams. “You bet your ass I do! It’s my birthday.”

  “Buon compleanno, bello!” I grin. “Neither of us is getting laid, but we are going to eat until we’re sick, flirt until we hurt, and dance until we drop.”

  “Yes! I’ll get the front desk to call us a taxi in ten minutes.” Mike hurries to finish getting ready as I head to the bathroom, but my phone buzzes on the bed. I stop in my tracks and look back at the phone, then at Mike who is staring at me. I smile, leave the phone where it lies, and enter the bathroom.

  TIPS FOR NOT GETTING PICKED UP WHILE CLUBBING IN ROME:

  1. Don’t wear stilettos. Or legs. Or breasts.

  2. Don’t tell them you date women. That turns them on.

  3. Don’t pretend your friend is your boyfriend because he’s already flirting too, and this leads to ideas about three ways.

  4. Don’t wear earplugs even if the music is loud enough to make you feel like an old lady.

  5. Don’t nod and smile because you’ve got no clue what they’re saying—you may be nodding yes to something you shouldn’t.

  6. Don’t try to sit on the top of the trashcan even if you wore your stilettos and there is absolutely nowhere else to sit down in the entire club. It will collapse.

  Bathroom, Club Caruso, Testaccio, Rome: Sunday, 12:25 a.m.

  The garbage is now cleaned off my dress. I was wrong, there is one more place to sit down in the club. Covered in sweat, swollen feet throbbing, completely exhausted, I sit on a cold, germy toilet. I have now made it six hours and forty-two minutes without checking the message on my phone. It was Mike’s birthday and my sordid love life was not going to take center stage. But now, it’s after midnight. Not Mike’s birthday anymore. I click open the message. It’s a link to a music video for a song called “The Promise.” I hold my phone to my ear and plug the other one so I can hear the song over the muffled din of the club. The notes and lyrics strike something deep inside me.

  Maybe it’s the four cocktails I’ve had. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent the last two hours peeling the hands of smelly, sweaty strangers off my body. Or, maybe I just know these lyrics are true. He’ll always be there. My screen suddenly blurs as I fight back tears. I will not cry on the toilet in the most disgusting bathroom I’ve ever seen, as the girl in the stall next to me pukes. I will not. There is no toilet paper. Perfetto.

  Someone bangs on my stall door. “Fai la cacca a casa!” I stuff my phone into my bag, fish out a used gelato cone wrapper, wipe, flush, wash, and escape. The flashing lights of the club pulse through me as the loud music bounces my brain. Across the room Mike is dancing in his own world. I find a dark spot under the stairs, ignore the couple making out to my left and the smelly garbage can (I just sat in) to my right, and I pull out my phone again to look up the song online. “The Promise” is by an English New Wave group called . . . When In Rome. Wow. Perfect. I read the lyrics to the song on my phone. The singer apologizes over and over for not knowing the right words to say, fumbling with the wrong words, but ultimately promises to make the listener fall for him.

  It’s definitely Will. And he knows I’m back in Rome? Not likely. But he’s a cop. He’s got ways of finding things out. Was he tracking me? I close my eyes and wonder if I should answer the message. And then it happens. As if my life were one of those silly romance movies Will used to make me watch, “The Promise” now begins to play in the club. Impossible. This was the difference between me and Will. I was an intrepid escapist hunting down adventure. Will was a hopeless romantic waiting patiently for his happy ending to come to him. Sure, I like romance films, but I watch them for the meet, the chase, and the sex. Not the über-sweet, implausible happy endings. Real life is never happily ever after. Right? But now, as I listen to the words of the song, I look up and see something that makes my heart leap.

  Across the club, through the crowd, in the darkness I see Will’s unmistakable straw cowboy hat. I blink, and he looks over at me. His face is shadowed. This is not happening. This cannot be happening. But . . . maybe it’s just the sort of desperately romantic thing he would do? Jump on a plane and come find me? I take a step forward, but suddenly my hips are grabbed and I’m spun around. It’s one of the many guys I’ve been dancing with tonight. He laughs, twirling me, and Will blurs. When I stop spinning, I look back but Will is gone. My dance partner pulls me close and I pry myself out of his sweaty grip. I see Will’s straw hat, sandy blond hair, and broad shoulders headed toward the door. I fight my way through the crowd, around the bar, and finally, out the front door. The moonlight is dim. Cars are crammed into every corner of the lot. Kids laughing and smoking. In the neon glow of the club sign, I spot him by a tree looking away.

  “Will?” The broad shoulders turn and a handsome American guy, much younger than Will, with freckles and a pointy chin, grins at me.

  “Nope. But I wish I were,” the guy answers with a thick drawl. “I’m Patrick. From Texas. You’re the first American I’ve seen. These Italians sure like the music loud. I needed a break.”

  “Yeah,” I laugh, trying desperately to stuff down my bitter disappointment. Of course it’s not Will. What was I thinking? I’m drunk and tired, and—

  “You solo?” Patrick asks.

  “I’m here with a friend. Better get back.” I feel the tears coming again.

  “Okay then. Nice to meet you.” He tips his hat the same way Will does, which breaks the dam. I turn away as the tears flood down my cheeks. Around the corner of the club, I pull my stupidly uncomfortable shoes off and sink my feet into the damp grass, leaning against a cool stone wall. The moon is a sharp crescent above me, stars blinking around it, despite the clouds moving in. A breeze cools the sweat on my dress, sending a shiver through me. I wipe my face.

  Yes I’d left Florida to research my new book, see new places, meet new people, have new adventures and new relationships. And I had. My collection was growing. But Will was still part of it. He’d never not be. Somehow, the realization of this settles onto me like a warm, cozy blanket and I stop shaking. The moon sails through the patchy clouds like a tiny, glowing yacht cutting through a dark frothy sea. My fingers find the tiny gold star around my neck. Celestial navigation was one of the first things my father taught me. So I could always find my way back home. I look up at the stars above me. Maybe it was time now.

  I wrap my arms around myself, close my eyes, and conjure up the texture of Will’s favorite blue shirt against my cheek and forehead. I can hear his strong heartbeat, smell the salty sweet scent of his skin. Did I really miss him that much or was I just finally homesick?

  “You okay, Marina?” Mike’s voice pulls me back to the nightclub, the muted s
ounds of the pounding music, and misty cold of Testaccio.

  “Yeah. I just want to go home.”

  “Okay, yeah. This club sucks.”

  “No, I mean . . . home.”

  Chapter 37

  How Not to Choose Your Ending

  Gate 34B, Fiumicino Airport, Roma: Tuesday, 11:05 a.m.

  I have heard nothing from Frantonio and cannot say that I’m surprised. Clearly what we had was just another tryst for him, and maybe that’s what it was for me. Now that our cat and mouse game was over, I was ready to move on. The airline’s standby list for my flight is seven people long. I’m number one on the list and have chosen not to ask Mike what he had to do for the flirty gate agent to make that happen. Although the last name of the passenger listed just below me is Johnson, I don’t make the connection until Ruby of the Vegan Goat Farts wheels her plaid grocery cart up to the bench and sits down next to me.

  “Wow, this is a coincidence. We’re both trying for the same flight on the same day, again,” I say, forcing a smile. She looks exhausted.

  “Not really,” she says. “I’ve tried for all four flights to Miami for the last four days.” I cringe inside. “So I’ve seen a few familiar faces. How was your trip?”

  “Pretty incredible. You?”

  “My great-granddaughter is cuter than any angel in the Sistine Chapel,” she beams. “This trip has meant so much to me.” She eyes the standby list. “Huh. In Miami, I was ahead of you on the list, but now you’re ahead of me.” I know it’s because Mike’s pulled strings. But this is all Ruby says. Maybe she’s too tired to fight. Ruby pulls out a photo, a printed snapshot. “To add to my collection.” I nod and smile. Her word “collection” sinks into me like a cold stone into warm water, dragging me down to thoughts I’m struggling to resist. Collection of Being. “The flight’s oversold. We’ll be lucky if there’s even one seat. I had a great trip, I’m just really ready to go home. I’ve had enough pizza and pasta for a year,” she laughs.

  “Me too, but I could eat that caprese salad with the buffalo mozzarella, tomato, and basil every day.”