Now or Never

by Ruth Hay

  There was no chance of conversation. Lucy was reluctant to distract Maurizio from the job of steering deftly between and around cars, trucks and other scooters. She noticed other girl passengers with hair flying, coffee in hand, and caught scraps of their laughing conversation as they zoomed past. One attractive pair of girls in short skirts even exchanged a comment with Maurizio. Probably laughing at the sight I make here, she thought. When will this end?

  Eventually, buildings loomed in the distance and the fields and farms of the countryside became parks and gardens. They passed through a towering arch decorated with sculptures which actually caused the traffic to slow down temporarily and allowed Lucy to catch her breath. She could feel sweat gathering on her hairline and longed to be rid of the helmet.

  The university buildings were nearby. It was a complex of ancient, mismatched, ivy-covered ruins to Lucy. They looked nothing like the elegant, pale stone structures of the university in London that she had seen from Western Road. She had little time to compare, however, as Maurizio quickly found a tiny parking spot in a small area beside one of the buildings.

  Lucy gladly untangled herself from the scooter seat and tried to disguise the fact that tension had cramped every muscle in her legs and arms. She pulled off the offending helmet and watched as Maurizio casually looped it over the handlebars. A quick glance confirmed that there were no other helmets in evidence.

  Well, I guess I could always spot which scooter I came on even in this mass of similar scooters, she thought with a sigh. For the first time she was happy to be returning to the villa with her mother and not with Maurizio.

  “I’d better make the best of the time we have together,” she exclaimed, not realizing she had spoken aloud.

  “Mi scusi, Lucia? Are you well?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing Maurizio. But I really need that coffee now.”

  Chapter Seven

  Maria sat at a table in the Piazza Maggiore with a coffee and a glass of water in front of her.

  Lucy would be joining her in an hour or so but for now she had time to sit and watch the passing crowd as they marvelled at the magnificent basilica, and the grand palazzos and walked the covered porticos admiring the luxury goods on display.

  Paul had been so right, she mused. This time away was a brilliant idea and I really am hopeful that Lucy and I can connect at last. She has been reasonably polite to me recently and I am sure that she will like my travel plans for us in the next few days.

  She shuffled the folders again, considering, between sips of coffee, which tour would appeal the most. Florence would be the most educational, of course, but Lucy might prefer Venice.

  Rome was too far to go from here and really deserved a separate holiday to do the ancient city justice. The mosaics at Ravenna were not too far away but would Lucy want to tour old churches?

  Maria looked up at the formidable basilica with its huge doors built on a scale to intimidate any sinner who might enter. She couldn’t see her daughter appreciating this type of architecture.

  It was likely to mean an argument if Maria insisted on touring the usual tourist sites.

  A new tactic could have the potential for more success with Lucy, she thought. What would work for a teenager? Fashion is something we both have in common, although we each have a completely different vision of what fashion is about.

  “Here I am in the midst of the best shoe shopping city in the whole of Italy!” she declared, to the surprise of an elegant couple who were passing her table. Maria noticed that they nodded their heads in approval at her statement. A good sign that I am on the right track, she decided.

  Even if their clothing styles did not correspond, Lucy could hardly complain about looking around the footwear shops on every street in Bologna. There were outlet stores and both shoe chains and independent manufacturers nearby, drawing their stock from the many factories in the villages around Bologna.

  Maria remembered that Lucy had admired a treasured pair of purple suede boots bought on her mother’s last trip to Italy. This could work, she realized, with a feeling of confidence that had been lacking until now. I know my way around fashion and I do have to do some business for the store while I am here. Lucy may not respect me as a mother but she does value my skills as a business woman even if she doesn’t acknowledge them very often.

  Maria started a new list on the back of one of her folders.

  - Lunch, then shoe shopping in Bologna followed by window shopping in the Ugo Bassi arcades before the cab ride home.

  - Day trip to Milan for serious high-fashion, designer clothes.

  Lucy would love the stores around the Piazza del Duomo and Italy’s leading department store, La Rinacente, was located there.

  Maybe Lucy would like to walk to the Corsa di Porta Ticinese where there were funky boutiques and vintage shops?

  Maria’s list grew longer as she became more excited at the prospect of finally sharing her love of fashion with her daughter.

  “Why didn’t I think of this before?” she chided herself. “If we can’t connect here in one of the world’s fashion capitals, we can’t connect anywhere. This would never work for Theresa, but it must work for Lucy. It must!”

  “What’s that you’re saying about me? What must work? I thought we were here for a holiday.”

  Maria looked up and found her daughter standing beside her table.

  “How did you get here so soon?” she asked. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour or so.”

  “Huh!” Lucy plopped down onto a chair and grabbed her mother’s water glass.

  “Things didn’t work out the way I wanted with Maurizio,” she complained between gulps of water. “He dropped me off a minute ago and was I ever glad to be shot of that awful Vespa! It’s a horror story and that helmet you made me wear did nothing for my hairdo, believe me.”

  Lucy’s complaints were part of her usual tactic of distracting herself from the real problems that worried her. On this occasion she was trying to get to grips with the shock of discovering that her stylish outfit for the trip to Maurizio’s university had fallen flatter than a pancake when she saw the style of the female Italian students. No one wore pink, or any bright colour, and even when she removed the offending vest and stuffed it under her arm, her black outfit was nowhere near the sleek, tailored slacks and leather boots worn by the majority of students. Strangely enough, her long knit sweater seemed the right style to fit in with the crowd, but she had to swiftly unclip the cascade of silver necklaces and stow them in a pocket since not one student wore any jewellery other than discreet gold earrings, or silver hoops, and large man-styled watches. No tattoos or nose rings were in evidence. Lucy was grateful, for once, that her parents had placed these adornments on the forbidden list while she was still in junior school.

  Lucy had never felt so out of place in her life and she had made excuses so Maurizio would cut short the planned tour of the university and take her into town.

  Well at least she can’t run away, thought Maria as she contemplated her daughter’s disgruntled expression. I have a captive audience and I will make my pitch as soon as she has had some food.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Maria called over a waiter and ordered panini and gelato for them both. The restaurant was notoriously expensive and not a place she would have chosen to eat but the opportunity to change Lucy’s mood had presented itself and Maria knew better than to miss this chance.

  Over lunch, Lucy warmed to her mother’s suggestions and seemed willing to explore fashion Italian style. Her real bout of enthusiasm startled Maria and came from a most unexpected place.

  Lucy was glancing over one of Maria’s maps as she finished her raspberry gelato when she almost choked on the ice cream and grabbed at her mother’s sleeve.

  “How do you say this name?” she insisted.

  Maria turned the map around almost tearing it to get it out of her daughter’s grasp.

  “That’s San Gimignano. It’s a medieval town not too far from
the villa. Why? What’s got you so excited?”

  “Mom, it’s the place! It’s where they filmed the crucial scenes at the end of the movie. Can we go there? Please can we go there?”

  “Sure, we can go there but I didn’t think you would be interested in sightseeing, Lucy.”

  “But this is the same town shown in New Moon. You must see how important that is!

  My friends at school would faint to be there where Edward nearly died and Bella saved him at the very last minute. We watched the DVD at home that night. Don’t you remember?”

  Maria had a vague memory of sitting down late one evening to watch something with Lucy but she had fallen asleep long before the ending. She did, however, recall that it was the Twilight series of books that had been made into movies and caused all the girls to go crazy for a vampire named Edward Cullen.

  “Oh, right!” she said with a nod of her head but she needn’t have worried, Lucy was not about to require more details of her mother. It was sufficient to know that they would be going to the actual site soon.

  Maria suddenly realized this was the new development she could capitalize on since Lucy was so enthused about movies. She scanned the map again with a new focus. What movie places might be of interest to Lucy? She discarded several locations immediately. Lucy was too young to have seen some of the classic movies that she and Paul had enjoyed together. What had appeared in cinemas recently?

  What about Verona? If Lucy did not appreciate the setting for Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, perhaps she would be more interested in the movie “Letters from Juliet”.

  “Would you like to see Verona?” she asked tentatively.

  “Do you mean it? The real Verona where girls actually post letters and a team of women send advice and answers all over the world?”

  For once, Maria had her daughter’s full attention. For once they were having a civil conversation and Maria could provide something her daughter needed and wanted. Maria almost cried with the sheer emotional relief of this novel experience.

  “Oh, I think we can manage it!” she managed to force out from her constricted throat.

  “I haven’t seen the movie myself so you will have to fill me in. I take it these are love letters from young girls?”

  Lucy became even more animated as she described the movie to her mother. She had watched the special footage on the DVD a number of times with her school pals and they knew, and could quote, whole sections of the dialogue.

  “Oh, this is going to be so cool!” she concluded. “I can use Dad’s Flip video. Did you know the number of letters to Juliet has doubled since the movie came out? I read about it online.”

  All thoughts of Maurizio disappeared in a haze of excitement as Lucy imagined the impact of her video on the gals at school and the new, exclusive, European look she would be wearing on the video after the shopping expeditions her mother had planned.

  Maria began the shoe trek right after lunch. She didn’t want to waste a moment of this new and improved attitude of Lucy’s. They even linked arms as they walked along the streets and Maria kept up, despite her growing fatigue, when Lucy found more and more shops to visit.

  The bags with their purchases grew heavier as the afternoon sunshine dimmed towards sunset.

  Lucy had fallen for a gorgeous pair of black leather boots, a dazzling sequined sneaker and the requisite suede high heels. The latter took considerable time to select as the colours were so brilliant.

  In the end, Maria said “Take two pairs, Lucy! I can’t choose between them either!”

  Super-laid-back-Lucy jumped up and hugged her mother at this generous gesture and once again, Maria had a hard time restraining her tears. She could not remember the last occasion when her daughter had been so spontaneous, or so genuinely happy in her mother’s company.

  Laden with parcels, they could not go too much farther, but a cab to Ugo Bassi dropped them off at a family restaurant where they ordered pizza after a long discussion about which type of crust and which fillings were preferable.

  “How come you can read Italian but you don’t speak it much?” asked Lucy after Maria had given their order to the young waiter.

  “I can understand what’s said,” replied Maria, “and I can read anything if I say it aloud in my head first, but I don’t get the chance to speak the language much now.”

  “Didn’t you learn Italian from your mama and papa when you were growing up in Toronto?”

  Maria realized she had never talked to her girls about the time in Toronto after her parents had immigrated. She had taken it for granted that her parents had told them about those first years during visits to their Little Italy home when the girls were younger. Maria figured it was time to fill Lucy in on some family history.

  “You need to understand that immigrant families have many decisions to make when they arrive to settle in a new country,” she began. “Your grandparents wanted their children to be a part of Canadian society as soon as we went to school. Some of our friends attended Italian school on Saturdays to keep up the old language but our parents preferred to let us take part in sports and hobbies on the weekends and there was always homework to do.”

  Lucy’s eyebrows raised at this. Homework, other than art projects were never a favourite part of her weekends.

  “My mama and papa talked to each other in Italian at home, of course, especially when they had a disagreement they didn’t want us to know about, or when one of them was so annoyed with us they burst into a flood of rapid Italian that none of us could follow. We learned the language by osmosis because we were immersed in it but we were never encouraged to converse with each other in Italian. Mama would say, ‘English please! English!’ “

  Lucy thought this over as she dipped bread sticks in plates of spiced olive oil and looked around the restaurant at the long tables where whole families were eating together and talking rapidly with many strange hand gestures and much laughter.

  “It seems to me that people should keep their culture alive when they move to another place. We’re always hearing about the multicultural society in school. Some of my friends could speak two or three languages before they came to school and the internet says the jobs of the future will depend on the ability to do business across continents and language barriers.”

  Maria had never heard her daughter speak so eloquently before. This had been a day of surprises for both of them, she thought.

  Two large pizzas arrived at their table and brought her train of thought to an abrupt halt. Lucy dived into her ‘quattro fromaggio’ and exclaimed over her mother’s choice, replete with olives and sausage and with fresh herbs strewn over its surface. They decided to share.

  Maria watched as Lucy happily replaced some of the energy she had spent in shopping.

  She still had a treat in store for Lucy. The chestnut vendors were always set up on Ugo Bassi at this time of year. Maria felt sure the aroma of salted, roasting chestnuts would convince her daughter to sample the very Italian treat of hot chestnuts newly split apart with the heat from their roadside grills.

  Lucy would have a hard time choosing between examining the crowds of elegant evening shoppers strolling the covered porticoes and checking out the fine goods in the windows of the big-name stores. The hustle and bustle of street life in Bologna would be something entirely new to Lucy. Her evening hours were spent at home or in friends’ homes texting and listening to music or watching movies online.

  Maria sipped her wine and sat back contentedly. She could not remember ever feeling so comfortable and content with her daughter. She sent a silent prayer of thanks aloft. I think we have made a new start, Lucy and I, and it’s just in time.

  Chapter Eight

  “Theresa, is that you?

  Yup, it’s me calling from sunny Italy.

  Dad’s away up north by now and I can’t reach him, so I thought I’d bring you up to date with life here.

  Oh, it’s totally awesome! I know I didn’t want to go at first but it
’s turning out to be a blast. I met this crazy good-looking cousin, or something, and he’s been taking me about on his Vespa, a kind of motor scooter thing. We went to his university and he showed me around.

  Bologna’s pretty neat. It’s an old place with really old buildings like churches and stuff and plazas they call piazzas with fountains and everything but the best part is the shops.

  T’resa you would not believe the shoes they have here! They are actually hand-made and the colours !!! Wait till you see what Mom bought for me. They are beyond gorgeous and we only just started shopping.

  No, that’s not even the best part. You know the Twilight movies? Well, we are going to the town where they filmed the scenes from New Moon. I kid you not, sis!

  My homies will just die when they see this. And that’s not all! I am going to post a letter to Juliet in Verona soon. What? You missed it? It’s a movie about girls who have love problems. Oh, never mind, I’ll rent it for you when I get home.

  Yeah, Mom’s fine. She’s not so bad when you get her away from the mall.

  Listen, I’d better go. It costs a bomb to call trans-Atlantic, so they say.

  If Dad calls you, be sure to tell him I’m having a great time.

  If the school calls, tell them I’m never coming back! Ha! Ha! I wish!

  Bye, T’resa!”

  * * *

  “Honest to God! Will that girl never grow up?”

  Theresa’s husband groaned and turned around, pulling the bed covers over his shoulders and muttering about people who didn’t understand that late night calls should only be for emergency situations.

  “That’s the least of it,” replied Theresa. “If she has woken the kids, I’ll murder her when she gets back!”