“What?” I asked, startled. I felt a little heat rise to my cheeks.
“That’s what I call Italian men like that,” she continued. The guys had backed away now, sour expressions on their faces. “They go out all dolled up, like prize racehorses, with their greased-back hair and their sleek clothes and their wandering eyes. They pick out a woman, usually an American, who looks like easy prey, and they go for it. They have all the lines down, but it’s a different girl every night, you understand? If you want to be loved for six hours—and that includes five hours and fifty minutes of them snoring loudly into your pillowcase—they’re your guys.”
I giggled and glanced back at the men. Now that Karina mentioned it, they did look like a type. They had matching, greasy black haircuts, similar white shirts that were unbuttoned nearly to their navels, and tight designer jeans.
Come to think of it, they looked a lot like Francesco.
“See their crucifixes?” Karina asked. I followed her eyes to the big gold cross that each man had hanging from his neck, amid his chest hair. She winked at me. “They have no idea they are even being ironic,” she said.
I laughed.
“Seriously,” Karina continued. She seemed to be warming up as she went. “They have no problem sleeping with different women six nights a week and then taking their mamma to church on Sundays and kneeling in front of Gesù Cristo.”
I wondered if this is why Karina seemed, in some ways, so bitter and quick to judge. Perhaps she’d been hurt badly by one of these smooth-talking men. Although I couldn’t imagine Karina being suckered in by some greasy guy’s moves. She seemed like she’d been born too smart for that.
Karina ordered two drinks in rapid-fire Italian. The bartender, a cute, fair-haired guy about our age, bantered with Karina for a moment with a grin on his face while he prepared our drinks. When he pushed them toward us on the bar and she reached for her purse, he shook his head and held up a hand. She argued back in Italian and then laughed and shrugged.
“On the house, as you say in America,” she said. She handed me a drink, which was bright red.
“A Campari spritzer?” I guessed.
She laughed. “Not tonight,” she said. “That is an afternoon drink, typically. This is that drink’s big brother, the negroni. Emmanuel here makes them perfectly.” She nodded to the bartender, who grinned at her adoringly. “Cento ani,” she said, turning back to me. “To an American in Roma,” she said.
I smiled. “To an American in Roma,” I agreed, clinking glasses with her.
I took a sip of the drink, which was sweet with a strangely bitter aftertaste. It was cool and tasted strong, and in fact, after a few sips, I could already feel it. Yet Karina was downing hers like it was going out of style. A few minutes later, when she pushed her empty glass across the bar, Emmanuel had a new one waiting.
“And for you, signorina?” he asked, eyeing me, his English slow and halting.
“No, thank you.” I shook my head. I planned to drink much more slowly. Plus, I had the feeling the sleeping pill was starting to kick in again.
Karina and I toasted again, and I felt a little woozier.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at me closely.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I stifled a yawn.
She wagged her finger at me. “No yawning,” she warned. “We are going to have fun tonight.”
The band launched into a Hootie and the Blowfish song, but instead of singing, “I’m tangled up and blue,” they were singing, “I’m tangled up in glue,” which nobody seemed to notice but me. It made me giggle.
I scanned the room. People were packed in clusters into every corner of the dark bar. It wasn’t anything like the bars I’d frequented as a student here. My classmates and I used to spend many an evening at places like the Drunken Ship on the Campo dei Fiori, or the Fiddler’s Elbow near Santa Maria Maggiore, both of which might as well have been plucked straight from a New York street corner. Even the patrons were 90 percent American, British, or Australian. I had loved those places, because they felt like pieces of the home I’d left thousands of miles away.
But tonight, I felt like Karina had ushered me into another realm of Rome. All around us, darkly tanned women with tumbling ebony curls like Karina’s looked warily at heavy-lashed, olive-skinned men. Everyone was puffing cigarette smoke in each other’s faces and gesticulating wildly. A few newly formed couples braved the dance floor, the men looking their dance partners up and down hungrily. People cin cined, tipped back tall glasses of beer or potent shots, and moved dangerously close to each other.
“The Italian way is to seduce by getting right up next to someone, attempting some silly pick-up line, and then, if that doesn’t work, resorting to grabbing,” Karina said as we surveyed the scene.
I laughed and nodded. “Sounds a little like men in New York.”
The smile immediately fell from her face. “Italians,” she said, her voice suddenly icy, “are nothing like you Americans. Don’t ever say that again.” She muttered something about having to use the bathroom and strode quickly away before I could even reply.
I stared after her with an open mouth. I didn’t know what I’d said to offend her.
Less than a minute after Karina had disappeared, her spot was filled by a tall man wearing what appeared to be the male uniform here—designer jeans and a white button-down shirt with the top several buttons open.
“Ciao, bella,” he said, looking me up and down unabashedly and then licking his lips, as if he had just stumbled upon an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Um, buona sera,” I said warily. I glanced around, hoping that Karina was simply being dramatic and would reappear at any second. No such luck.
Winking at me, the man unleashed a rapid string of Italian words I didn’t recognize. I shook my head. “Non parlo l’italiano.”
I expected him to back off, but instead, his eyes lit up like he’d won the lottery.
“Ah, an American!” he said in a very thick accent. “I love America!”
“You’ve been there?” I asked, trying to be polite. I glanced around once more for Karina, but she was nowhere to be found.
“No, no. But the women, they are all so nice.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”
The guy’s brown eyes sparkled as he leaned in closer. “And you? You like the Italian men?”
“Not at the moment,” I muttered.
“Non capisco,” he said.
“Um, yes, Italian men are, um, fine,” I said, looking around again for Karina. Seriously, what could be taking her so long?
“Ah, yes, you think Italians are fine,” the guy said, bobbing his head enthusiastically as he drew out the last word. “Good, good.” He took a step closer until he was standing practically on top of me. I wanted to step back, but I was pinned against the bar, meaning that my personal space had all but vanished. He smelled like salt, cologne, and cigarette smoke, and as he leaned closer, I could almost taste the Peroni on his breath. “So, would you like to go? With me?”
“What?”
“Go? Would you like to, em, leave with me? This bar? To my home?”
I stared at him, startled. After having spent a summer here as a twenty-one-year-old, I should have been more prepared for this kind of behavior, these unabashed come-ons, this brazen expectation. But most of my summer here had been spent linked with Francesco, and prior to that, I’d always been one of a gaggle of American girls, and I was never the prettiest or the bubbliest or the most outgoing, so I was usually an observer while my classmates giggled at Italian men’s advances and often disappeared with them into the night. I know better, I used to tell myself, perhaps a little smugly. And then there’d been Francesco, and common sense had abandoned me.
“Well?” The Italian guy was waiting for an answer.
“No,” I said firmly, embarrassed that I’d even hesitated. It wasn’t that I’d been considering his offer; I’d just been marveling at the audacity of it.
“But why is this?” he asked. He was wearing a wounded sulk now. “You do not like me?”
“I do not know you,” I said, searching once again for Karina.
“Ah, yes, bella, but how better to get to know me than to accompany me home this evening?” he asked. “You want to, no? I can see it in your beautiful eyes.”
I rolled my beautiful eyes. “No,” I said.
He looked at me in consternation. “But it is the natural way of things, you see.”
“What?”
“I am a man. You are a woman.”
“Yes, thanks for clearing that up,” I said.
Now he looked even more confused. He reached down and took my right hand in his. His touch was surprisingly gentle, which is why, I think, I didn’t pull away immediately. “But, bella,” he said. He tilted my chin up to face him. “Listen to your body,” he said.
The way he drew out the i in “listen” and the o in “body” made the words sound almost lyrical—but way too practiced, like he’d used the ridiculous line on many an unsuspecting American.
“What?” I choked out while trying to stifle a laugh.
He apparently mistook my amusement. “Listen to your body,” he repeated more firmly, flashing me a smile that was, no doubt, intended to charm.
“Does that line actually work?”
He looked at me blankly. “A line? I do not get your meaning.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, hang on.” I paused and cocked my head to the side.
“What are you doing?” he asked after a moment.
“I’m listening to my body.”
His eyes glistened hopefully. He looked me up and down once more, his eyes lingering a little too long on my chest. “And is your body speaking to you?”
“Hmmm,” I said thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, I’m getting a message.”
“Yes?”
“It’s saying no.”
He looked taken aback. “Che cosa?”
“Yes, loud and clear. It’s saying no.”
The guy stepped closer and was just about to say something else when I caught the eye of another man a few feet behind him. He was broad-shouldered with sandy-colored hair, pale green eyes, and richly tanned skin—classic Northern Italian good looks, the kind you found all over the place in Venice and that many people associated more with Austria than with its neighbor to the south. He looked back and forth between me and the dark-haired guy, seemed to assess the situation quickly, and stepped forward.
“Stai bene?” he asked, looking intently down at me as he stepped between us. “Are you all right?”
I hesitated and nodded. “I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you.”
He looked uncertain for a moment, then he nodded. He turned and said something to the man in rapid Italian. The dark-haired guy grumbled something in return, shot me one last look, and shuffled away, leeching onto the next group of women he came across.
“You are visiting from America?” asked the light-haired man, turning back to me.
I nodded. “How did you know?”
“Your accent,” he said. “And your clothing.”
I looked down, wondering what he meant.
“And,” he added, “the fact that Giuseppe was drawn to you right away. He has American radar. In any case,” he added, “I am sorry about Giuseppe there. He is impossible.”
“You know him?” I asked, surprised.
The light-haired man shrugged. “When you live in Rome, it is like you know everyone.” He smiled down at me.
“Well,” I said, suddenly feeling nervous. Despite the fact that the room was still swimming in front of me, I could tell that this man was very attractive. And he’d been kind enough to save me from an ill-intentioned Romeo. “Thank you,” I said.
“It is not a problem,” he said. He tipped his head slightly and winked. “Enjoy your evening. And my country.”
And with that, he vanished back into the crowd, leaving me alone before I could even ask his name.
Just then, Karina reappeared beside me with a cross expression on her face. “I see you were having a chat with Giuseppe,” she said sourly.
“You know him?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I know all of them, Miss America,” she said.
She turned to the bartender and ordered two shots. She handed me one and nodded at it.
“Drink,” she said simply.
I studied the shot. “I really shouldn’t,” I said. “I took a sleeping pill a couple hours ago, and—”
Karina cut me off. “Stop being so good. It must get exhausting.” She clinked her shot glass against mine and tilted her head back, pouring the brown liquid straight down her throat. I hesitated and did the same, against my better judgment. It tasted like licorice and went almost straight to my head.
Karina cracked a small smile and took my shot glass from me, stacking it with hers and placing it on the bar. Her face looked a little softer now. “I’m sorry I left you alone for so long. I forget sometimes how much these men like to bother American women.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.” I scanned the bar for my sandy-haired rescuer, but I didn’t see him.
“I mean, you bring it on yourselves,” Karina continued. “All those college girls who come over here with their money and their fake blond hair and their egos that need stroking. Americans are easy prey.”
“I’m not like that,” I said right away.
“You are very defensive,” Karina shot back.
After a few minutes of surveying the dance floor, Karina suggested we walk outside to get some air. I agreed; it was hard to hear anything inside other than the lyric-mangling cover band, and besides, I’d noticed since Karina had returned from the bathroom that many of the men were looking at us warily and avoiding our area of the bar. I found this amusing; clearly, Karina had quite the reputation here.
I followed her, and we sat down on a bench outside the bar. The night air was humid and warm but not uncomfortably so. Karina pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out. She put it between her lips and glanced at me.
“I didn’t realize you smoked,” I said.
She looked at me sharply. “I don’t,” she said. She pulled a book of matches out of her pocket, struck one, and lit the cigarette with it. She inhaled deeply then gracefully removed the cigarette from her lips, tapped the ashes on the edge of the bench, and took another drag.
“Okay,” I said dubiously.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Are you the moral police?”
“No, I just—”
She cut me off. “I almost never smoke. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I didn’t mean to be rude.” I felt like squirming under her icy gaze.
“I don’t smoke at home,” Karina continued after a moment. “I quit after I found out I was pregnant with Nico. I only have a cigarette here and there, okay? And never around him.”
“Nico?” I asked.
She took another drag and closed her eyes. “My son.”
I stared at her. “You have a son?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” she asked. She looked almost amused as she glanced at me. “What, you do not think I am mother material?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said quickly, aware that I was turning red. “What I meant was—”
“That I’m not a good mother,” Karina filled in drily. She glanced at me. “It is okay. I don’t care what you think, though. I am a good mother to him. I am.”
“I believe you,” I said. We were silent for a moment. “How old is he?”
“Six,” she said. She smiled and added, “Six going on thirty-six, I sometimes think.”
“Six,” I repeated. I just couldn’t envision wild Karina joining a Mommy and Me group or taking a little boy to the playground. “Where is he?”
“I left him home alone,” Karina said. Then, seeing my horrified expression, she laughed and said, “You are so gullible. Of course I would not leave him by himself. He is with his gran
dmother. He stays with her during the days while I work. I asked if she could watch him tonight, too.”
“You did?”
Karina rolled her eyes. “You are like a little lost puppy, Miss America,” she said. “I needed to get you out. Besides, the best way to learn about someone is over a drink, no? And I must know you if you are to live in my apartment.”
I nodded, lost in thought.
“You do not have any children?” Karina asked after a moment.
I paused. “No,” I said, glancing away. “I’d like to one day. But I’m not getting any younger.”
“You are very negative, Miss America,” Karina said softly. But she dropped the subject.
I felt myself yawning again, my eyelids feeling heavier than ever.
“You’re a mess,” Karina noted with a wry smile. “You can’t handle the alcohol?”
“It’s not that,” I protested. “I took a sleeping pill a couple hours ago because I couldn’t fall asleep. I guess it’s not out of my system yet.”
Karina rolled her eyes. “You Americans,” she said. “You think a pill is the magic answer to everything.”
I shrugged, once again feeling strange to be the one responsible for all of my culture’s apparent shortcomings.
“All right,” Karina said. She smiled and stood up. “We shall go, okay? I don’t want you falling asleep in the streets of Rome.”
I smiled weakly. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be boring.”
“I know.” Karina smiled mischievously. “But sometimes, when you’re really good at something, you don’t have to try.”
Perhaps I should have felt insulted, but I was starting to warm up to Karina’s good-natured ribbing. She seemed to run hot and cold; one moment, her temper was on fire; the next, she was sweetly understanding; and the moment after that, she was devilishly sarcastic.
We stood to leave, and I felt unsteady on my feet. It wasn’t quite like the sensation of being drunk, because I was coherent. It was just that all my limbs felt heavy. It felt as though it took a great effort even to put one foot in front of the other to follow Karina out onto the street.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Can we take a cab?” I asked weakly, recalling the quite long walk we’d taken to get here.
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