The Sweet Life

by Rebecca Lim

  As Janey bent down to take her shoes briefly off her aching, blistered feet, someone draped a muscular arm around her waist from behind, pulling her close. The stranger slurred something crude-sounding in Italian, to which Janey disgustedly replied, ‘Non capisco! I don’t understand.’ She tried to wriggle free of the man’s tight hold, but he was really strong, and (double ick!) really hairy to boot. Janey had had enough of strange guys coming up and touching her that night to last a lifetime. Most had been harmless, but there was something about this guy that shrieked super creepy. She struggled harder.

  Instead of letting her go, the man crushed Janey even closer to him and purred into her hair, ‘Lei vuole X? The ecstasy? You want?’ He shook a bag of bright pills just by her ear. Janey felt a stab of real fear.

  ‘It’s about control, and about self-respect,’ her mother had said when the subject of drugs had come up at home, while they’d been watching something together. Lydia had been a cool mum who never lectured her daughter. ‘I’m never going to try and stop you doing anything,’ she had added. ‘But always be aware that things can turn in an instant. And some things can never be undone. Don’t stuff your life up over one cheap thrill, that’s all I’m saying.’

  Janey remembered this now and shook her head, struggling to escape the man’s embrace. But he laughed harshly and tried to pull her face around for a kiss. Twisting her head away, she lost her balance as he let go of her, and fell into an untidy heap of arms and legs on the ground. A couple of people looked up disinterestedly before returning to their conversations. Janey was glad that in the moodily lit space, no one could see the tears in her eyes.

  The dealer laughed as Janey struggled to her feet, badly shaken. She batted her way furiously out of the marquee, holding her borrowed heels.

  Hours after she and Freddy had been separated, Janey – on the verge of tears – had had enough. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, she’d been pawed at by a tonne of strangers, she’d had to fight off a creepy drug dealer and, ironically, had never felt so alone in all her life. The night that had started so promisingly had become a nightmare. She just wanted it to be over.

  Without looking back, she limped barefooted towards the Piazzale Ugo La Malfa and the first taxicab she could flag down.

  Celia, arms crossed and wearing a wrap over her nightgown, launched herself at Janey as soon as she let herself into the apartment. ‘You’re late! And you look like a train wreck. Do you know how worried I’ve been about you?’

  Janey glanced at the hallway clock, which read 2.49 a.m., and her insides turned to ice. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she mumbled, pushing hair out of her eyes, ‘but I lost Freddy. Looked for her all night. No watch.’ It seemed too hard to put everything she’d gone through into words.

  ‘You could have called her!’ Celia hissed. Janey remained miserably silent. Freddy had told her mother they were carrying mobiles; telling Celia that Freddy had lied right from the start was probably a sure-fire way of not improving Celia’s mood.

  ‘But you didn’t, did you, because you had other plans!’ Celia accused. ‘Freddy told me you got through the turnstiles together but you pretty much ditched her straight away for the first stoner you saw!’

  Janey froze. How could Freddy have told her that unless she was home already?

  Celia nodded as the realisation dawned in Janey’s eyes. ‘She said she spent the rest of the night looking for you but gave up and came home early when she realised how late it was, and how hopeless it would be trying to find you in a crowd of twenty thousand people! She was so exhausted, she went straight to bed.’ Celia pointed at Freddy’s bedroom door.

  Janey was struggling to process what Celia was saying. ‘That’s not true!’ she insisted. ‘I lost sight of her. And some guy did put his arm around me but I pushed him away. She probably saw him do it and misunderstood. I’ve been looking for Freddy for hours, just like she’s been looking for me.’

  ‘Which explains why you’ve got bruise marks on your arms and knees, and lipstick smeared across your face,’ Celia retorted. ‘I can’t believe how wrong I’ve been about you, Jane! I don’t need more issues, not with you too. You’re new to this city, and you’re in my care. A thousand horrible things could’ve happened to you. Clean yourself up and go to bed. We ’ll talk about this in the morning.’

  Celia disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door. Entering her own bedroom, Janey took one look at her bedraggled reflection in the wardrobe mirrors and burst into tears. She’d never broken curfew before, ever, and then as soon as she met the long-lost family she so wanted to impress and keep in her life, she looked like a complete flake!

  The one person who could’ve made her feel better about the whole fiasco – her mum – was beyond reach. The thought just made Janey cry harder. Lydia would’ve just laughed about the misunderstandings. And she would’ve been proud of how Janey had stood up for herself against that drug-dealing gorilla in the chill-out room.

  The thought that Celia’s opinion of her had surely sunk only made Janey feel more lonely and lost than ever. Until it dawned on her several moments later, as she lay looking at the ornate ceiling through a teary haze, that she did have someone she could pour her heart out to.

  Janey crept down the hall to the study, closed the door and switched on the desk lamp beside the computer. She logged in via her aunt’s login screen. ‘Please be there,’ she pleaded under her breath. It was around eleven o’clock on Saturday morning back home. One of them had to be online.

  She scanned the desktop icons and brought up the Skype welcome screen. She typed in her Skype name and password and pulled up her contacts list. Only Gabs was online.

  Janey picked up the headset lying beside the computer, checked the position of the webcam above the monitor and hit the start button on the screen, crossing her fingers that everything would work.

  As Gabs’s wonderfully familiar features sprang into focus, Janey kept her voice low. ‘Hey, Gabs. It’s so good to see you. You don’t know how good.’

  ‘What happened to your face, Janes?’ Gabs exclaimed from her perch in front of her grandma’s computer. ‘Are you wearing leopard print?’

  Janey started crying again, making what remained of her make-up run even more. Her story tumbled out in short bursts as she sniffed and hiccupped.

  ‘Why would Freddy say that?’ Gabs burst out after she’d managed to piece together Janey’s night.

  Feeling a little calmer, Janey sighed. ‘Maybe she really did think I’d ditched her for that guy, I don’t know. It was dark. He just grabbed me, plus he was half naked. It would’ve looked pretty bad. You can’t blame Freddy – she’d bent over backwards to help me get party-hearty all day, which I was pretty amazed about! All I know is that Celia now thinks I’m some kind of skank.’ Janey hadn’t known it was possible to feel so homesick, or so low.

  Gabs frowned. ‘That is the wrongest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Whatever the opposite of a skank is, you’re it. Now get some sleep. I’ll update the others.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Janey yawned. ‘I’ll do it via MySpace before I go to bed. I want to get my impressions down while they’re still fresh. Leaving aside the Goa trance fiasco, the whole thing was a pretty surreal experience. Parts of it were mind-blowing.’

  ‘Just keep us posted,’ Gabs replied in a troubled voice. ‘And stay out of Celia’s way for a while until she cools off. I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding and you guys will laugh about it tomorrow.’

  ‘I will,’ Janey promised. ‘I’ll log on daily – once the coast is clear.’

  ‘And stay away from leopard print,’ said Gabs with a grin. ‘It does nothing for you!’

  Centro Storico

  When Janey opened her eyes the next morning, everything that had happened the night before flooded back in reverse order.

  She grinned as she remembered Gabs’s parting words on Skype, winced as she recalled the argument with Celia, and gave a mental shudder as she remembered her horrible encoun
ter with the sleazy drug dealer. She’d been lucky to get off so lightly.

  Then Janey smiled as she recalled how the strobes had lit up the sky over the Circus Maximus. Parts of the night had been beautiful, and filled with happy strangers. And she never would’ve experienced any of it if she hadn’t gone. But one more thing made her stomach flip over, and that was the memory of Luca’s disdain.

  Luca.

  Janey’s mouth turned down. She’d been a huge chump for even letting the guy get under her skin.

  Busty blondes! she thought to herself. Ha! She definitely wasn’t going to be one of those when she grew up.

  Janey crawled out of bed, still wearing the things she’d gone out in the night before.

  As she stumbled out of her bedroom to the kitchen, Janey mentally rehearsed the kinds of casual, breezy things to say to an aunt who thinks you’re some kind of subterranean troll, and to a glamour-puss cousin who believes you’d hook up with the first stranger who walks by. So she was very relieved to find the kitchen empty of all life – apart from a note.

  Sorry, overreacted.

  Worried as hell. Had to get to work early.

  Deadlines. Talk tonight?

  Celia xx

  Janey binned the note and made herself a coffee before heading back to her room to survey the damage, studying herself in the mirrored doors of her built-in robe.

  Celia had been right. She had come home looking like a train wreck. And she’d been so exhausted that she’d climbed straight into bed after her late-night computer bender, still wearing full war paint and the improbable outfit that Freddy had somehow brainwashed her into wearing.

  ‘You look like a clown,’ said Janey to her own reflection. ‘No wonder he thinks you’re a joke!’

  Her eye make-up was smeared down her cheeks and looked like a surrealist painting, while her lipstick had migrated across the lower half of her face. The paleness of her freckly skin highlighted several bad bruises on her arms and legs. And in the morning sunlight, her red mini and loud empire-line top were just Eurotrash awful. Sure, it was a look that Kate Moss might’ve pulled off, but on Janey, it was just bad.

  Disgusted with herself, Janey dragged off Freddy’s clothes, scrubbed her face and had a long shower. Back in her bedroom, she changed into the comfy grey T-dress and pulled her hair back into a low side ponytail.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said out loud, opting for a little light coverage to hide the huge dark circles under her eyes. ‘Now, if we could try and have a nice, humiliation-free day today, that would be just fabulous.’ She gave her reflection a tired, lopsided grin.

  Janey was just getting her guidebooks out of her backpack when her mobile phone rang, the one that Celia had given her two days before. In the stillness of the apartment, the shrill and unfamiliar ringtone froze Janey in her tracks.

  She dug the phone out.

  Luca (mobile).

  She relaxed and broke into a broad smile, until she remembered that Luca had thought her responsible for the way she’d looked last night. So her ‘Ciao, Luca,’ was a little uncertain.

  ‘Ciao, cara,’ Luca replied in his familiar, deep drawl.

  Note to self, thought Janey as her stomach swooped, then hastily righted itself. Look up what that means!

  They both started talking at once.

  ‘I shouldn’t have . . .’ started Janey.

  ‘You looked . . .’ Luca began.

  ‘You first,’ said Janey. ‘And I didn’t mean to call you a beast. You were right. I did look really, really terrible.’

  ‘Not terrible,’ Luca replied amusedly. ‘Just like the B-grade movie star! Though I could ’ave put it better.’

  ‘You could have,’ Janey laughed ruefully. ‘But you’re also too kind. I looked thoroughly F-grade. Now did you, um, mean to call me? Celia’s not home, if that’s who you’re looking for.’

  Because there has to be a logical explanation for why we’re talking, thought Janey wryly.

  ‘Certo,’ Luca responded. ‘I am indeed calling you. It is my, how do you Australians say, “off ” day? And my many girlfriends, they are busy, so . . . you are free for a little walking?’

  Janey tried to keep the astonishment and delight out of her voice. ‘I am most assuredly free for a little walking.’ The day suddenly looked very much the opposite of ‘off ’. She tossed the guidebooks back into her daypack as Luca disconnected, after promising to be there in fifteen minutes.

  Pretty soon, the buzzer sounded and Janey checked her reflection critically one more time before bounding out of the apartment and out through the villa’s grand front entrance. Luca was leaning up against the low brick wall that separated the villa’s immaculate formal gardens from the street, with his hands in his pockets. The smile that lit up his eyes as soon as he spotted Janey did something funny to her breathing. He really does seem happy to see me! she thought wonderingly.

  Of course, he was also looking totally crush-worthy in a sleek, black, open-necked shirt with the shirt sleeves rolled up each tanned forearm, worn jeans with hems of just the right degree of frayed-ness, and black leather slides. Janey had to stop a huge, goofy grin from breaking out all over her face.

  ‘Come sta, signorina?’ Luca smiled as he pushed away from the front wall and slid his blue-tinted aviators onto his nose. He looked down at Janey’s feet, which she presented for his inspection, telling herself fiercely not to question her luck or pry about those other (grrrr!) girlfriends.

  ‘Flats – no more “too-high-shoes”,’ she grinned, recalling Luca’s words from the night before. ‘Although I can’t do much about my too-big feet. And no more “signorina” from now on, as Freddy ordered. It’s just Janey.’

  Luca smiled and shrugged before taking one of Janey’s hands in his, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. To him, maybe! thought Janey, telling herself firmly not to get too excited, because he probably did this with everybody. She tried hard to act normal and not hyperventilate all over the place. And with that, began one of the most perfect days of her life.

  They started with coffee and pastries at a dimly lit little café just north of the Stazione Centrale Roma Termini, where the few locals who were about on this hot, sleepy Sunday morning took their breakfast standing up as they browsed through the morning’s papers.

  ‘Just keep walking,’ Luca insisted laughingly when Janey queried where they were off to next. ‘We have much to see.’ He wrapped his fingers through hers again and they were off on a day-long magical mystery tour that served up a mind-boggling mix of ancient wonders, awe-inspiring window-shopping and people-watching opportunities and – Luca having read Janey well – plenty of pit stops for eating.

  ‘This granita is an absolute godsend,’ sighed Janey as they sat at a tiny, marble-topped table in one of the narrow corridors packed with portraits and landscapes that the Antico Caffè Greco – located in the heart of Rome’s designer shopping district – was world-famous for. They’d been criss-crossing the ancient city centre for hours already and had seen so many frescoed churches, galleries, museums and public buildings that Janey had run out of space on her camera’s memory card. It was stuffed with photos of obscure obelisks, ceremonial arches, columns commemorating long-forgotten battles, carved marble angels by the score and, of course, photos of Janey clowning around Rome’s many fountains. Luca had ducked out of the frame with a smiling shake of his head the few times Janey had tried to capture him doing the same.

  Luca threw his head back now and laughed. He looked coolly out of place among the flushed and badly dressed tourists thronging the almost 250-year-old former hangout of poets, lovers, kings, composers and artists. Janey had spent most of the afternoon pigging out on what Luca had decreed the world’s best tartufo, gelato, piadina, antipasto and bruschetta. ‘Miracolo!’ he said. ‘That there is room in your stomach, even for that . . .’

  Janey giggled as she scooped up the last of the lemon syrup-infused ice drink with a silver spoon and snaffled the last piece of
torrone from the plate that lay between them. ‘Me and buffets?’ she grinned, popping the sticky-sweet nougat confection into her mouth, ‘it’s not pretty. Where to now?’

  It was almost four, and they’d also managed to name-check the flagship Valentino, Fendi, Armani, Gucci, Versace and D&G stores. Just being with Luca had made her less nervous about breezing through as if she could actually afford anything inside! Janey wasn’t sure how much more of the city she could take in, though she was loving it all and not wanting the day to ever end. Though it had been slightly marred by the number of mobile phone calls Luca had had to take. And the vast majority of them had been from girls; Janey could tell by the way Luca’s eyes softened and his sexy voice suddenly implied that the caller was the most important woman in the world. Each time he hung up, he would apologise, making Janey yearn for a little less impeccable politeness from him. Maybe if she suddenly grew a bust or got, like, a metre of blonde hair extensions, she might have more luck, Janey thought as the phone rang for the umpteenth time.

  Though she told herself not to be stupid. She was the person he was holding hands with after all. And after their fight last night, today was a gift. She pushed away the niggling thought that Celia would not approve.

  ‘Just one more place,’ said Luca after the call ended, refusing to elaborate as they walked back out into the hot afternoon sunshine and headed back up the winding streets towards the Via Veneto, the place that Janey had called Em from the other day, centre of all things Fellini. ‘To reach the villa, we must pass it.’

  They dashed across the always psychotically busy Piazza Barberini together towards yet another church – located at the foot of the Via Veneto – which stood in stark contrast to the functional-looking government buildings, fancy hotels, sports car showrooms and bus stops that surrounded it on all sides.

  Luca said quietly, ‘Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. Built in 1626 by Cardinal Antonio Barberini. It is one of our city’s greatest secrets. All the people I drive, for the embassy, this they always want to see.’