by Anna Premoli
“You should have gone to a strip club, Bertha, not a museum...”
“Why, are you offering to come with me?” he laughs.
“By the way, I have to admit you were right about one thing: all things considered, I’m waaaaaay less extreme than I thought.”
“That’s a shame. And there I was expecting you to do something crazy. At least come with me while I buy some souvenirs,” he proposes. “I want to take Giovanni, Stefano and Luca something characteristic.”
“What? Herring?” I ask innocently.
“Better than that,” he says proudly. “Let’s go and find the biggest condom shop in the city!”
I shake my head but follow him, because now that I come to think of it, I need to get something original for Lavinia and Ale and this might be just what the doctor ordered...
The Holy Grail of condoms is just around the corner, and it even contains it’s own small museum.
“I hope you know we’re not going in there!”
He looks at my expression and smiles. “Well you’re clearly uncomfortable!”
“About a couple of condoms?” I asks, trying to display mocking superiority. But there are more than two of them - there are an infinite range of colours, flavours and sizes.
“Bertha, I’ve found the extra small ones you were looking for!” A group of young lads nearby overhears and begins to chuckle.
He comes over to me and bends his lips to my ear. “Keep going like that and you’re going to come to a nasty end,” he whispers in a rather sensual voice that sounds more like a promise than a threat.
I look up into his eyes. They are so intense.
I walk away from him trying to make nothing of it and stop to look in one of the displays. “I think I’d like something fruity...” I say with a laugh. “Look, here is a box of twelve in various flavours.”
“Perfect! How many boxes do we need?” he asks me as a girl approaches to serve us.
“Well, your three friends plus my two... five boxes. Plus two more for us. You wouldn’t want to go home without a souvenir for yourself, would you?”
He looks at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.
“So you do have an imagination after all, then...”
“I certainly do. And I also have a boyfriend,” I remind him.
“And what have I got?” he asks me in a strange voice.
“You? You’ve got women crawling all over you... They might even fight over the flavours!” I say, bursting out laughing.
“Ok then, seven boxes please,” he says to the girl, who stares at him in surprise before going off to retrieve our order.
“I get the feeling she thinks we’re sex-addicts,” I whisper. It ought to be embarrassing, but it’s actually quite funny.
I turn to Ari, who is also doing his best not to burst out laughing.
“Once we get out of here, we’re going to get drunk. I need alcohol - a lot of alcohol.”
“Ah! Bertha, you’re finally starting to think straight...”
*
The next morning my face tells the story. I crawled out of bed the moment the alarm went off, but I only got five hours of sleep. Or maybe more like four and a half... Not exactly a great beauty treatment.
My eyes are so sunken they look like they are sitting in craters on the moon, and as for my skin... well, let’s just say it’s not exactly glowing. Last night Ari and I ended up in this place that had a massive list of local beers and we spent the evening drinking like fishes before eventually dragging ourselves off back to the hotel.
I put on my grey trouser suit and head to the breakfast room, but I’m not hungry at all. I’m going to knock back a couple of aspirins and that’s it.
As soon as I arrive I see the table occupied by my colleagues: Iris and Marco are talking amicably while Ari, who is sitting in front of them, looks even worse than I do. Ah, the joy that comes from discovering that you are not suffering alone.
“Good morning,” I say as I sit down.
Everyone turns to look at me and Iris gives me a smile that says she knows plenty. “So did you have a big night too?”
“Who, me?” I lie. “No, I went to sleep right after dinner...”
Ari raises a doubtful eyebrow and looks at me with pained eyes. I pass him an aspirin under the table. It might not work miracles, but at least it’ll get you to the end of the day in one piece.
“The agenda for today includes a meeting at ten,” Marco is informing us. “Then we will be meeting the company’s lawyers at three and at seven we have our return flight. Check out is after breakfast, as we’ll be going to the airport straight from the office,” he says as he gets up from the table. “I’ll see you all later, I’m just going to finish packing.”
“I’ll go too,” echoes Iris, putting down her cup and trotting off after him like a little dog.
Ari and I find ourselves looking at each other’s agonised faces.
“I am never drinking again,” he says dramatically.
Although I feel crappy, I still have enough strength to laugh. “You drama queen... I thought you said you could handle your booze?”
He shrugs his shoulders “What do you want me to say – this job must have made me grow old suddenly...”
Ari has on his classic grey suit, one of his beloved monogrammed shirts and the dark blue tie. His body looks like it came through the evening in mint condition, but his face looks a bit green and his eyes are bloodshot. Nothing an aspirin can’t heal, though.
“Do you reckon we’ll make it through today?” he mumbles.
“Of course we will. Come on, let’s get a coffee.”
“Or three,” he suggests.
*
Willpower can achieve extraordinary things. Otherwise there’s no explanation for the super efficient way in which we’ve managed to do our job: we actively participated in the meetings, made intelligent remarks, took notes and then headed off to the airport as if nothing had happened. And after Ariberto’s moment of take-off terror, we slept like a couple of logs.
When we touch the ground in Milan the hostess actually has to shake us to get us to wake up. Apparently, a hangover is a pretty good method for overcoming Ari’s terror of flying - and in fact he continues to sleep happily next to me as if nothing had happened.
“Hey big man, we’re there,” I say.
But there’s no answer and those heavy eyelids stay shut.
“Bertha! Oi, Sleeping Beauty, wake up!”
Ari slowly opens his eyelids and for a moment I watch as he struggles to focus. When he sees me, such a sincere smile appears on his face that I freeze for a moment. But then his brain gets into gear and he puts two and two together and his expression goes back to being more neutral.
“Are we there already?” he asks in surprise.
“Yep. We’re back in Milan, safe and sound.”
From the back of the cabin Iris is waving goodbye and telling us to take a taxi. “Keep all the receipts, please. See you in the office on Monday.”
“A weekend off,” murmurs Ari in surprise.
“She must have taken pity on us, given the state we were in...”
“Don’t remind me.”
“The sooner we get home, the sooner we can jump into bed,” I remind him.
“Together?” he laughs. He’s obviously not feeling so bad after all, then...
I punch him on the arm. “That’s enough talking rubbish, Bertha. Get your arse in gear and let’s get off this plane.”
He opens the overhead locker and pulls out both our bags. I reach out to grab mine from him, but he heads off straight down the aisle carrying them both.
“I can carry my suitcase myself, Bertha!” I say angrily. It is a kind gesture, and for this reason I find it a bit confusing.
He turns in my direction and smiles at me. “I know you can, but I want to do it anyway.”
All this gallantry makes me feel weird, but I certainly can’t argue with him here with all these people around just
because he’s helping me with my suitcase. They’ll think I’m a complete nutter.
We await our taxi in silence and then take one together.
“Two stops. First the young lady.”
“Yes, Viale Bligny 36, thank you.”
“So now I know where you live.”
“It was hardly a state secret.”
“And what are you going to do tomorrow? Are you going home?” he asks me after a few moments of silence.
“Yes, I think so. But I haven’t organised anything yet. I didn’t know we would have Saturday off. What about you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies hastily. “I haven’t thought about it.”
We spend the rest of the journey in silence and when the taxi pulls up in front of my house and the driver leaves to retrieve my suitcase, I turn around one last time, unsure of how to behave.
“Well, goodnight, then,” I blurt out in embarrassment. It’s weird to think that just twenty-four hours ago we were running around sex museums together.
“Goodnight”, he says and then leans instinctively over towards me. I see him reflect for a fraction of a second and then place a loud kiss on my cheek. “See you on Monday.”
I nod and, stunned, climb out of the taxi.
It was only a kiss on the cheek, I repeat to myself as I go upstairs to my apartment. A totally ordinary, innocent kiss on the cheek. People do it all the time for all kinds of reasons.
So why is my heart beating so hard?
Chapter 5
Lavinia scrutinizes me with careful eyes as if though she were a doctor and I were a clinical case.
“So, it was an educational trip, then, was it?” she asks. I don’t really know what makes her think there’s anything to know about it. I feel the same way I always do. More or less.
“Very much,” I reply with a full mouth. This morning I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping late, and now I’m starving hungry. Thanks to the hangover, I ended up eating practically nothing yesterday, so that’s why I’m demolishing croissant after croissant like someone who has just returned from a desert island instead of from Amsterdam.
Vinny and I are having breakfast together at the bar while we wait to be joined by Ale. Who is late, as per usual...
“And how did it go with Ari?” she asks, just as I’m taking a sip of my cappuccino, which of course is hot and goes down the wrong hole. I start coughing and it takes me a while to regain control of myself. To be honest, I was hoping I’d have the chance to fill my stomach before we got onto talking about him.
“With Ari what?” I ask, pretending not to understand.
“Did it go okay? You didn’t fight? You didn’t kill him?”
“Absolutely not. In fact I think I might have been a bit unfair towards him...” I admit, lowering my gaze. I’m not great at repentance.
“Well you don’t say...” my friend cries mockingly. “So you’ve finally realized he’s not the spoiled rich kid you thought!”
“Hang on, hang on! He’s totally a spoiled rich kid! But he is nice... in his own way...” There isn’t really much more I can say without looking like a total nutter.
“He’s always been nice, it’s just that you immediately decided you had more of a problem with him than some religious fundamentalist would have with birth control. And at the beginning I couldn’t understand the reason why. I mean, you’re sarcastic and catty with everyone, but there almost seemed to be something personal going on with him...”
Well, the way I see it, having Ari’s tongue in my mouth was something personal. I mean, come on – it doesn’t get much more personal than that.
But yes, apart from that little incident, I’d basically decided to hate him from the off, long before he kissed me. I’d already made a list of a thousand annoying things about him before he even opened his mouth. Now that I come to think about it, the ‘incident’ might have been his form of revenge. I’m often pretty unbearable when I’m ill at ease and don’t want to admit it.
“I... was in a bit of a grumpy mood that night,” I say in an attempt to justify myself. Not that it excuses my failings, but I had just finished another long-distance fight over the phone with Fil. Once we had at least the good sense to only argue face to face, but lately even that rule seems to have fallen by the wayside.
“So you have a whole weekend free?” asks Vinny, handing me a chocolate biscuit.
“Incredible, isn’t it? I ought to work on my thesis, but I think that for once I’ll allow myself a couple of days of doing nothing. I really need to relax...”
“Are you going home?”
“Yes, I was thinking of catching the eleven o’clock train.”
What I don’t tell her is that I totally don’t want to. Seriously, right now, the thing I most want to do is stay in Milan and sleep, but I know that my feelings of guilt towards my parents and towards Fil would mean I couldn’t relax. I’ve always had this terrible character defect: I can’t seem to not give a damn about other people.
At that precise moment two things happen: Ale walks into the bar and at the same instant my phone beeps. I recognize the WhatsApp profile pic even before I read his name.
Good morning. I’m feeling like a new man today! How are you doing?
“Damn...” I mutter, but I smile anyway, because at least he had the good sense not to use the picture with the phallus but the other more normal one. I mean, he could have avoided that one too, but whatever. What will his numerous female friends think of a photo that looks pretty intimate, even though it actually isn’t?
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m late...” whimpers Ale neurotically as she sits down next to me. Alessandra is always the same - chronically late and with cheeks as red as Snow White’s from running.
“By the way Vinny, I understand that a few weeks ago you decided to pass my phone number around,” I say reproachfully.
“Yeah! Giovanni asked me for your number, now that you remind me. Shouldn’t I have given it to him?” she asks with the expression of someone who knows more than she’s letting on. It is obvious she knew the number wouldn’t stay in Giovanni’s hands. “In fact, he asked me for yours too, Ale...”
Ale starts to look embarrassed.
“Yeah, see... Giovanni... I...” she mutters, not knowing what to say.
Both Lavinia and I turn to stare at her.
“Really?!” Lavinia asks. “You and Giovanni?”
“Well... he recently started an internship near where I work, and sometimes we meet during lunch break,” she says sheepishly.
“Hey, you don’t have to feel guilty about it,” I reassure her. “As you can see, our Lavinia is happily paired off, so Giovanni is free to flirt with whoever he likes.”
“Very happily,” confirms Vinny with a big smile. “But my happiness doesn’t mean that I’m any less perceptive, my dear Giada: who’s this who’s messaging you? Somebody interesting?” She points to my phone. Ah, Vinny and her nose for a clue: she ought to put it to more worthwhile ends, like truffle hunting.
“You, sweetheart, are jumping to a lot of conclusions...”
She shrugs her shoulders, an imperturbable expression on her face. “We’ll see. What’s he saying?”
“Curious, eh? Nothing – he’s just telling me that he’s alive and in one piece.” I don’t even try to deny that it’s Ariberto. It wouldn’t help, Vinny had figured it out in two seconds flat.
“Who?” asks a confused Ale. “What the hell are we talking about?”
I keep quiet while Lavinia gives a satisfied smile. “What do you mean, who? Ariberto Castelli!”
“And why wouldn’t he be? Alive and in one piece, I mean,” says Ale.
“Because he was in a bit of a state after our trip to Amsterdam,” I confess with a laugh. “We went out for drinks and got absolutely wrecked – we were like a couple of zombies yesterday. It wasn’t exactly my finest hour.”
“Did you see that smile too or was it just a figment of my imagination?” Lavinia asks Ale.
“Oh, no, I definitely noticed it too,” she replies enthusiastically.
“What are you two on about?”
“Just that you smiled in a... I don’t know... a meaningful way,” replies Vinny with conviction.
“Yeah – sort of... dreamy,” adds Ale.
“Have you two been putting brandy in your cappuccinos this morning?”
“Well look at that, she even jokes about it! But I have my own theory, which I will be happy to discuss with you in due course.”
It sounds a bit like a threat, so - preferring not to go further into the discussion - I decide instead to answer Ari’s message.
I’m not feeling like a new man, luckily, but I am feeling like a new woman... :-)
A few seconds pass and my phone beeps again.
Yes, he’s definitely feeling himself again, I deduce, with a wry smirk.
“Is that stupid smile because she’s made peace with Fil?” Ale asks Vinny.
I lift my head and look at Lavinia’s smug expression.
“No no, she’s just chatting with Ari, aren’t you Giada?”
My cheeks blush a guilty red.
“It’s,,, a work thing,” I dissemble unconvincingly.
“Of course it is... I would never have thought otherwise.”
“Anyway, who wants another pastry?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject.
Predictably, all three of us raise our hands. I’ve always felt that there is no more solid glue for a friendship than sharing a passion for carbohydrates.
*
I’m standing in the middle of my parents’ dining room and the absurd thing is that I have come all this way for nothing. There’s not a trace of them anywhere.
“Where the hell are you, Mum?” I say into the phone.
“We’re at the club for lunch, Giada. And please moderate your tone. Anyway, you’re still in time to join us, if you like.”
At the end of the day I’ve only got myself to blame, because I didn’t warn anyone of my arrival. I’ve always been a fan of surprises: I’ve learned over time that if my mother has no way of preparing herself for me coming, she’s a bit more manageable. But that doesn’t change how disappointed I now feel.