Mad About You

by Anna Premoli

  His tongue touches mine once, twice, three times, and then it wraps itself around it completely, only stopping when it comes into contact with the stud in my tongue. It’s the classic reaction of someone who isn’t used to kissing a person with a piercing - at the beginning there’s always a bit of surprise.

  Fortunately, the pause breaks the spell and I open my eyes furious with myself for not having punched him right at the start and with him for having played a dirty low-down trick like that. And the fact that his kiss is making my head spin is something I’m determined not to think about, now or ever.

  Since Ariberto’s mouth is still pressed against mine, my only option is to do what I’ve been threatening to do all evening: I raise my hand and hit him hard on the biceps with my pointed studs. He emits a distinct cry of pain as my feet touch the ground again. Not only that, he actually jumps back. Thank God – it was long overdue.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he asks me as he rubs his arm in pain, an outraged expression on his face. I might even have torn his shirt. Never mind, he’s bound to have another thousand of them at home. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  Ah, I see – so I’m the one who’s in the wrong...

  “Don’t you ever, and I mean ever, dare try doing something like that again! And if by chance you see me in the faculty, I would strongly recommend that you keep on walking, otherwise I will be more than happy to give you a knee in the balls so hard that you’ll remember it for the rest of your life. The wisest thing you can do is forget about me as quickly as possible, capisce?”

  And without even giving him the chance to reply, I turn and walk off towards Alessandra.

  “Have you seen Lavinia?” I ask. I’m still feeling very shaken up.

  Her little heart-shaped eyes are the most telling answer she could have given me.

  “Seb’s here!” she shouts enthusiastically.

  “Well you don’t say?” I shout back, pretending to be surprised. “Who would have thought it...”

  At that precise moment Lavinia joins us with Seb in tow.

  “I’ve finally understood why you wanted to take that picture...” she whispers in my ear.

  “The situation was getting ridiculous. Someone had to give you two a gentle shove in the right direction. And anyway, I was sick of you always having that depressed expression on your face. Being tragic doesn’t suit you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I don’t mind you saying so, unfortunately for me.”

  “Fortunately for you, you mean,” I correct her.

  Vinny shakes her head and smiles at me.

  “I’m going. You two have fun. And Giada - don’t kill anyone, please!” she implores, peering behind me with a questioning look in her eyes.

  “He’s still alive,” I assure her. “And I will do everything possible to make sure he stays that way, but only because I love you.”

  Vinny smiles as she walks away to say goodbye to Giovanni. Ale and I stand there and watch her leave hand in hand with Sebastiano. Ah, how romantic ... Fortunately, though, I have no inclination towards all these sickly-sweet sentiments myself. Fil and I are both proud of having a relationship without any unnecessary drama. No recriminations, no pathos, nothing... In fact, now that I come to think about it, nothing is exactly the right word for it these days.

  “Listen, all this racket has given me a terrible headache. Do you mind if we get out of here too?” I ask my friend. “I wouldn’t mind walking for a bit to clear my head.”

  Saint that she is, Alessandra immediately agrees to come. “Of course! I could do with a bit of fresh air myself...”.

  As far as I’m concerned, I’m done with places like this. Forever.

  Chapter 2

  Three months later

  “So, what kind of internship are you interested in?” asks Alessandra, raising her nose from the laptop. We are gathered together in my studio flat because we have big decisions to make. The first semester of our final year ended successfully and we don’t have any more exams to do - goodbye sleepless nights spent memorizing entire encyclopedias! Perhaps one day I will actually have fond memories of this period of my life, but at the moment all I can remember is how stressful it has all been.

  So now the only things missing from the checklist is the thesis and an internship. Which are really big things. There’s much more to finding a good job than just passing your exams: the internship will be our calling card and it’ll say more about us than the grade we get in our degree. Everyone at the Bocconi University knows that being chosen even for an internship by the best of the best automatically gives you an edge in the job market. We are like marathon runners who are approaching the end of the route: the final miles are always the most important ones – they determine how you to cross the finish line. And needless to say, nobody here is in it to lose.

  “I desperately need to get one with some big multinational. Someone that also has offices over California way,” Lavinia repeats for the thousandth time, as though it wasn’t already absolutely clear at this point that the purpose of her life is to follow her boyfriend to a foreign country. The move has been the cause of numerous arguments between them, but they seem to have reached an agreement: once he has graduated, Seb will accept one of the software engineering jobs he’s been offered in the United States, and Vinny will go with him because she can’t live without him. It’s embarrassing but it actually does make sense: they are an annoyingly loving couple who are sweet enough together that could give you a terminal sugar rush.

  In any case, since Lavinia has no intention of being a stay-at-home housewife, she has decided that she will put her Bocconi degree to good use. Despite the fact that we’ve known each other for almost five years, Vinny has only recently confessed to me that she is not at all sure that she wants to work in the financial sector for the rest of her life. Since she met Sebastiano, though, she’s been much less inclined to self-pity and often takes a pretty pragmatic approach to reality, so at the moment she seems almost happy that she let her parents bully her into taking a degree course that allows her to move and work pretty much anywhere on the planet. Her parents aren’t exactly over the moon about the idea of her moving overseas, but they are slowly coming around to it. They’re not blind, after all, and you’d have to be blind not to immediately realise how strong the bond between Lavinia and Sebastiano is. Seb is a weird, taciturn and very thoughtful type, but he is also a highly promising and frighteningly intelligent engineer, which is why Lavinia’s parents are gradually getting used to the idea: they know that she could have done worse for herself. Not to mention that Vinny’s mother will be able to boast to her friends how her daughter’s boyfriend is part of the brain drain. I know my mum would certainly do the same – showing off is always her number one priority.

  “Look at this one: that might suit you,” says Alessandra, handing her the laptop and pointing to the internship offer published on the university’s website, then turning to me. “And what do you want to do, Giada?”

  “I’d like to give it a go with a consulting company,” I reply as though it was no big deal.

  Vinny spins round and stares at me. “You’d like to what?! Do you really want to work for the kind of company that has practically re-legalized slavery?” she laughs. “Besides, didn’t you want to be an accountant?”

  “Yes, and I still do. But before I find a large company where I can do my apprenticeship, I’d like to give myself a bit of breathing space. And I’ll admit it, I’m curious to see this competitive workplace everyone’s always going on about first hand,” I reply, half joking and half serious. “All in all, I don’t mind the idea of getting myself enslaved for a few months.”

  “Only you could make that sound like something enjoyable,” comments Ale.

  “Hey, some people get their rocks off by whipping themselves,” I say, unable to resist the opportunity to jerk their chains, then I grab a thick lock of my black hair and start playing with it. I was too red so a few wee
ks ago I changed colour again. I enjoy being a chameleon. It’s my way of escaping from some of the expectations I have to put up with: being a model student, being a model daughter... I tried not working hard at school for a while, but getting bad results just isn’t in my DNA. I’m a fighter and I like to win. And as far as being the perfect daughter that my mother would have liked so much to have goes... well, let’s say that I make up for it by being pretty much a model student.

  “Are you into all that fetish stuff?” asks Lavinia quietly.

  “No, I’m not,” I hastily reassure them. “If push came to shove, at most I could maybe whip someone else. You both know very well that what matters to me is being the person with the whip hand.” I’m laughing, but everybody who knows me knows that it’s true – I always want to have everything under control and I don’t like the unexpected. I don’t like it at all. I’m no good at handling unplanned situations, which is why I always try to plan every little detail.

  “Aaaaaaaanywa, we were saying - a big consulting company,” says Ale, wisely changing the subject. “And if you really want to experience the thrill of the chase, you should choose the consulting company par excellence - the one with the most ruthless reputation. Look, there’s an ad for them at the bottom.”

  She passes me the PC and I see that she’s right: M&K is looking for candidates for internships lasting six months inside various departments within the company. You need perfect grades, an impeccable knowledge of English, the ability to work in a team, adaptability, a gift for improvising and an absolute refusal to give up. Are they sure they don’t want people who don’t need to sleep, eat or stuff like that too while they’re at it? Maybe people who have a bit of X-ray vision too, just to be on the safe side?

  “Even the job description is scary...” comments Ale, and I can’t say that she’s wrong. It’s not so much what they’re asking for - all companies only want first-rate candidates, that’s natural – it’s the tone of voice that you can practically hear even in these few trivial lines of text. But anybody selected by them immediately gains visibility. Leaving university with even an internship in the most prestigious consulting firm in the business is practically a guarantee of getting a good job somewhere.

  Six months spent in a shark tank would be better training than five years spent attending lectures at university and there’s no point me pretending otherwise - my resume could really do with such a calling card. And anyway, I’m in the mood for a challenge: I’ve been bored for too long, I need to do something about this perennial grumpiness of mine. I’m feeling weighed down and dissatisfied. By which I mean, even more weighed down and dissatisfied than usual. With a job like that, maybe I wouldn’t even have time to feel sorry for myself and have the sensation that even if I’m doing well at school, I’m a total disaster on all other fronts.

  “You know, I think I actually will send them my CV. And then I’d better start preparing myself,” I reflect aloud. Being selected for an interview is only the first step. Then you need to pass an endless series of tests and above all convince them that you’re the right person for the job. Am I up to it? I hope I am.

  “But if they take you on - which I’m absolutely convinced that they will - how are you going to manage this extra work with Fil?” asks Lavinia cautiously. My boyfriend is a bit of a taboo subject, as my friends are well aware. We’ve been together for seven years and the last three have been like carrying a dying man who doesn’t want to give up on my shoulders. It’s felt like one of us should have opted for euthanasia, but so far neither has been able to pull the plug. Perhaps my friends are worried that I’m somehow deceiving myself, but that’s not the problem: inside myself, I’m well aware of all the various limits of my relationship. I know full well that you can’t resolve situations like that, so I’ve made peace with an ugly reality. Filippo was my first boyfriend, though – in fact, my only boyfriend – and it isn’t easy to admit that what was once an intense and loving relationship has failed to evolve into something more mature. Fil and I have changed a lot over these last seven years: we have gone from being little more than kids to being adults, or nearly adults, and our relationship should have grown together with us, but somehow it got left behind. Which is why nowadays we are two very different people who don’t understand each other and want opposite things out of life but don’t know how to admit it. What once united us – our passion for music and a desire to break the rules - now divides us: he still wants to be a professional musician and he has a lifestyle that’s totally incompatible with mine, while I I’m resigned to making music just as a hobby. By which I mean that I play bass in an all-girl band; we meet up once a month and let off some steam with a bit of rock’n’roll. But I have my head too firmly screwed onto my shoulders to believe that playing the odd gig is going to be enough for me. In fact I know very well that it wouldn’t be.

  Fil accuses me of not knowing how to dream and not daring to take risks, while I criticise him for refusing to grow up. At the moment our relationship is at a crossroads and I don’t even know whether to hope we’ll end up taking the same road or not. In any case, I find myself with a whole load of challenges to face, so the situation with Filippo can stay the way it is for a while. I mean, after the last seven years, what are six months anyway?

  “I talked to him about the internship thing and told him I was planning on looking for something in a sector where you really have to work your butt off. He thinks I’m completely mad,” I grumble. “But that was no surprise.” My boyfriend is lazy and doesn’t understand why anyone would want to throw themselves into a difficult situation on purpose.

  Lavinia looks at me for a long time before saying anything. “Listen, I know it’s none of my business, but your situation seems even worse lately so why the heck are you two staying together?”

  The question is a difficult and complicated one.

  “Because neither of us wants to end such a long relationship. There’s a strange connection when you’ve spent so much time with a person. He was there for me when no one else was, and at the time it made me feel... accepted. Not to mention that it’s difficult for anyone else to compete with something that intense. The time you’ve spent together means something. I mean, sure, right now we’re going through a difficult period and sooner or later we’ll have to make a decision, but for the moment I just want to get through graduation. There’ll be time to think about my love life after that.”

  My friends nod sympathetically and Ale gets up from the sofa and walks towards my mini kitchen. Not that it’s very far away…

  “You know what you need in situations like this?”

  “Chocolate?” I ask hopefully.

  “Bullseye!”

  The woman sitting in front of me is as stiff as a broom. The first thing she did was give me her a glossy business card, so at least I know her name is Iris Lombardi, Foreign Tax Office. There’s no point getting all moralistic about it, the Foreign Tax Office is a department that’s on the up, and it offers a lot of rather interesting opportunities. Who doesn’t have a registered office in some foreign country with improbably low taxes nowadays? The big multinationals were probably the first to have the idea, but since then the tax haven tidal wave has just kept growing. Until the members of the European Union find a way to agree on legislation, attracting companies through subsidized taxation will be 100% legal, and who is going to pay fifty-five percent taxes when they can get away with paying something close to zero?

  The woman’s shoulders are so tense that I’m afraid they might snap and fall off, but her business suit is very elegant and in excellent taste: tight black trousers, dark jacket with white trim over a light silk blouse. Her blonde hair is pulled into a severe chignon. Her expression... well, I might not be Miss Smiles myself, but this woman has me beat. Hands down.

  “So Giada – I can call you Giada?” she finally asks me after an hour of conversation. Perhaps even she has realised that continuing to call me ‘Ms. Borghi’ after the grilling she’s gi
ven me is a bit much.

  At first sight she can’t be more than thirty years old, but for some strange reason she is trying to look older. Is it something to do with seniority conferring authority?

  “Of course,” I say with a collaborative smile. As if I could say no...

  Iris grabs a folder that has been sitting on the table since I entered this meeting room. I suspect that it contains the results of the written tests I faced last week and that it has been placed on the table to unnerve me and to see how I handle stress.

  She opens it without taking her eyes from me while I make an immense effort to maintain my relaxed and peaceful expression. We both know I’m bluffing but in places like this, it’s important to show that you can keep your cool.

  “Your written tests went very well,” she says in an almost robotic voice. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur, holding back a huge sigh of relief. “I’m very glad to hear it.” The absurd logic games they submit you to during the selection process are bloody hard. You could have messed them up big time and you wouldn’t even realize. Whoever it was who came up with them has managed to elevate sadism to previously-unreached levels.

  “There’s only one question left to ask at this point: perfect test results aside, are you really ready to work here? Ready to be part of a team?”

  That’s actually two questions, but wisely I decide not to correct her. “I certainly am. I love a challenge, and I have no problem in working with other people.”

  I wonder why they ask such stupid questions in interviews. I mean, if I’m here, it’s obvious that I’m going to say whatever you want to hear to get me hired. I’ll even lie if necessary. Because all of a sudden I want to work here more than anything else. I desperately need a purpose. I want to come and work here and learn all the secrets of business consulting. I want to go back to being the determined ballsy girl that the world thinks I am.