One Step to You

by Federico Moccia

  “But there must be some reason, like…” Step gave her a small, insinuating smile.

  “No, you dummy, no reason. It’s just that I don’t want to. Maybe when you learn not to curse so much, well then, maybe…”

  Step turned onto one side and started doing pushups. One after another, faster and faster, without stopping. “I can’t believe it. Tell me it isn’t true. I’ve figured it out.”

  He was smiling as he spoke between one pushup and the next, slightly out of breath.

  Babi fastened her bra back together and buttoned her blouse. “What have you figured out? And stop doing pushups when we’re talking…”

  Step did the last two pushups on just one hand. Then he lay down on his side and gazed at her with a smile. “You’ve never been with anyone else.”

  “If you’re trying to ask whether I’m a virgin, the answer is yes.”

  That admission cost her a great deal. Babi stood and brushed off her skirt. A few stalks of wheat fell to the ground. “Now take me back to school!”

  “What, are you angry?” Step took her in his arms.

  “Yes. You have a highly irritating way of dealing with people. I’m not used to being treated like this. And would you let go of me…” She wriggled free from his embrace and walked briskly toward the Union Jack.

  Step went after her. “Come on, Babi…listen, I didn’t mean to insult you. I apologize, for real.”

  Babi turned around. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, say it again.”

  Step looked around, annoyed, and then stared at her. “I apologize. All right? Listen, I’m happy that you’ve never been with anyone else.”

  Babi bent over to pick up the Union Jack, and she started folding it. “Oh, you are? Why?”

  “Well, just because…because I am. I’m happy, and that’s that.”

  “Because you think you’re going to be the first?”

  “Listen, I apologized. Now enough’s enough. Let’s be done with it. God, you’re difficult.”

  Babi smiled. “You’re right. Truce.” She handed him one of the hems of the flag. “Here, help me fold it.”

  They stepped apart to hold it out flat and then stepped closer again. Babi took the other end of the flag from his hands and gave him a quick kiss. “It’s just that the topic gets on my nerves.”

  They walked back to the motorcycle without speaking, and Babi climbed up behind him. They drove off, down the hill, leaving behind them the broken stalks of wheat and a conversation left halfway finished.

  Chapter 21

  Stop!” Babi shouted, and grabbed tight to Step’s waist. The motorcycle practically froze to a halt at her command.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my mother.”

  Babi pointed at Raffaella’s Peugeot, parked a short way farther on, in front of Falconieri High School’s steps. She got off the motorcycle and looked at her watch. It was only a few minutes before one thirty. She had to at least give it a try.

  She kissed Step on the lips. “Ciao, I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  She hurried off, hunching low along the line of parked cars. She moved along cautiously. When she was in front of the school, she slowly stood up. There her mother was, just a few yards away. She could see her perfectly through the glass of a parked Mini. She was fiddling around with something in her lap. Then Raffaella raised her left hand and checked it. Babi understood. She was manicuring her nails. A moment later she lifted the nail file she was holding in her right hand. Sure enough, she’d guessed it.

  Babi huddled against the car and checked her watch again. The other students should be coming out right about now. She looked to her right, to the end of the street. Step was gone. She smiled. She wondered what he must think of her. She’d call him later. Suddenly she remembered that she couldn’t do that. She didn’t have his phone number. She didn’t even know where he lived.

  The bell rang, marking the end of the school day. The first classes appeared at the top of the stairs. The younger girls started descending the steps. Another bell rang. Now it was the turn of the ninth- and tenth-grade girls. One of them looked at her curiously. Babi lifted her finger to her lips, in the universal command of silence. The young woman looked away. They were all accustomed to secrets of every sort.

  Finally, it was Babi’s class’s turn. Slowly, Babi stood up again. Her mother was still distracted, so this was the exact moment to go. Babi emerged from her hiding place and mingled with the other girls. She said hello to a few and then, careful not to let herself be seen, turned back to look at the car. Raffaella hadn’t noticed a thing. She’d pulled it off.

  “Babi!” Pallina ran toward her.

  The two girls hugged. Babi looked at her with a worried expression. “How did it go? Did anyone notice anything?”

  “No, it’s all under control.” Pallina handed her a sheet of paper. “Here, this is the classwork and homework they handed out today. There are the names of everyone who was tested too. All perfectly accurate and precise, you could hire me as your secretary. Well, did you have a good time?”

  “A very good time.” Babi stuck the sheet of paper in her bag and smiled at her friend.

  “Let me guess.” Pallina stared at her for a second. “Breakfast at Euclide on Via di Vigna Stelluti. Cappuccino and pastry with whipped cream.”

  “Almost nailed it. Same order, but at Euclide on the Via Flaminia.”

  “Of course! Much more private. Perfect. Then a quick ride to Fregene and frantic sex on the beach, am I right?”

  “Wrong-o!” Babi walked away with a smile on her face.

  “About Fregene or all the rest?”

  “All I can tell you is that you got one thing wrong.”

  Babi got into the car, lying to her friend and leaving her there in front of the school, dying of curiosity. In reality, she’d got both things wrong.

  “Ciao, Mamma.”

  “Ciao.” Raffaella let Babi kiss her on the cheek. Their relationship seemed to have returned to normal.

  “How was your day at school?”

  “Fine. I didn’t get tested.”

  Daniela arrived too. “We can go. Giovanna says that she’ll get home on her own from now on.”

  The Peugeot took off. While they were waiting at the traffic light on Piazza Euclide, Babi suddenly felt something pricking her. Without letting herself be seen, she stuck her hand under her blouse. Caught under her bra was a small, golden stalk of wheat. She pried it loose and put it between the pages of her notebook. Then she stared at it for a moment. That enormous little secret. Step had touched her breasts.

  She smiled, and just as the light turned green, there he was, parked to the right of the piazza. Laughing, he was waving the Union Jack, her own flag. She wondered when he’d stolen it from her. Then she remembered the most important detail. Step was like Pollo: he, too, stole things. She was amazed that it hadn’t occurred to her before. She was dating a thief.

  Chapter 22

  The first A was too skinny, the second one had too long a stroke, plus the letter itself was too short, and anyway the line itself was too faint. Babi tried to imitate her mother’s signature again. She filled up several pages of her math notebook before she decided that the result was passable, at least.

  “Dani, do you think this could pass for Mamma’s signature?”

  Daniela looked at that last signature for a second. She pondered, lost in thought. “Here, the G is too skinny. You gave it a belly that looks little. Mamma always starts the surname with a really big G. Here, look.” She opened her notebook and showed her sister one of the authentic signatures. “See?” She pointed to the G of their last name the way their mother did it.

  Babi stared at it for a second, checking it against the one she had done. “They look identical to me.” She turned and went back to her bedroom, pleased as punch.

  Daniela got up. “Do what you think is best. But to me, that G is too small. And another th
ing, I don’t understand why you always ask me what I think if you’re just going to go ahead and do whatever you want to.” She shut the door.

  Babi opened her notebook to the excused absences page. She filled one out. She wrote down the day, and then, where it said reason for absence, she wrote in: Ill health. Actually, it was true. The idea of not running away with Step made her feel sick. She smiled.

  Then it was time to forge the signature. She turned serious again. She tried another one on a sheet of paper at hand, under dozens of previous attempts at Raffaella Gervasi. This last effort turned out even better. It was perfect. Her own mother would have had a hard time picking it out from a string of authentic ones. But at this rate, she could even fake a check to buy herself a Peugeot Metropolis scooter. She realized she’d overdone it. After all, she didn’t need money. She just needed a note justifying her absence.

  She picked up the pen, fearfully staring at the dotted line immediately below the printed word: SIGNATURE. Then she leaned in and went for it. She started with the R and so on down the line, sliding as naturally as possible until she reached that last dot on the i. Then, still shaking from her extreme concentration, from the grueling effort of writing perfectly just like her mother, she looked at her signature. It had turned out even better. Incredible.

  Chapter 23

  Later, after Babi’s parents had gone out for the evening, Step came by to pick her up. The whole group was downstairs waiting for her. Schello, Lucone and Carla, Dario and Gloria, the Sicilian, Hook, Pollo and Pallina, and a couple of other guys in a VW Golf with two girls. They rode their motorcycles toward Prima Porta and then veered right toward Fiano.

  By the time they got there, Babi was chilled to the bone. The restaurant was called Il Colonnello—The Colonel—and it was very far away. Babi couldn’t understand why they’d picked a place like that for dinner. There were two big dining rooms with a pizza oven open to view and rows of perfectly ordinary tables. Maybe the place was especially affordable, she supposed.

  They sat down, and a young waiter showed up to take their orders. There were fifteen of them, and they were all constantly changing their minds—all except for her, who had decided from the outset to have a salad without too much oil.

  The waiter was confused. Every so often, he’d try to go back over the list of pasta dishes so that he could proceed to the entrées, but by the time he made it to the side dishes, there was always someone who’d come up with a different selection.

  “Listen, waiter, we’ll take a couple of pappardelle al cinghiale.”

  “Make that three.” Then there was a fourth order of pappardelle, and then a fifth. After which two others decided to get polenta, or a carbonara. It was the most indecisive group Babi had ever watched order in a restaurant. As if that weren’t bad enough, Pollo tried to help out every time by repeating all the orders, which only mixed things up worse.

  At last, they all laughed heartily. It had turned into a sort of game. The poor waiter walked away. The only thing he knew for sure is that he needed to bring them fourteen medium draft beers and one…What was it that pretty blonde with the blue eyes had asked for? He checked his pad, covered with scratch-outs, and headed into the kitchen, reminding himself to add a Diet Coke to the list.

  The dinner went on in the throes of utter confusion. Every time a dish was brought to the table, whether it was prosciutto or mini mozzarellas or bruschetta, there was a general assault on the serving dish, with everyone lunging at it, and in an instant, it was gone.

  A group of girls whose eyes were too heavily made up laughed in jolly amusement. Babi looked at Pallina, in search of a smidgen of understanding. But by now her friend seemed to have merged perfectly into the group.

  Babi caught Step’s eye. He was smiling at her. She tried to respond, but she wasn’t all that sure of herself. She dropped her gaze. Her mixed salad without too much oil had arrived, and she ate along with everyone else.

  Then, no one knew how it happened, but a chunk of bread flew through the air. Then it was a hail of bread chunks, a genuine all-out food fight with leftover meat, flying potatoes, and beer.

  They threw anything that came within reach of each other. The girls were the first to abandon their seats. Babi and Pallina hurried quickly away from the table, closely followed by the other girls. The boys continued to throw scraps of food at each other, hard and vicious, indifferent to the other tables in the restaurant, even though they were hitting customers sitting nearby.

  The high point came when the waiter tried to stop them. He was smacked dead center in the face by a wet chunk of bread, and there was a standing ovation. That waiter had never been more popular in his life.

  Then the check arrived, and Pollo offered to collect the money. Step locked arms with Babi and led her out of the restaurant. One after another, everyone else left. In pairs or little groups of three, they all started their motorcycles. The ones in the VW Golf were the first to leave.

  Babi pulled out her wallet. “How much do I owe?”

  Step smiled. “Are you kidding? Forget about it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just get on.”

  Step started the motorcycle. Babi climbed up behind him.

  “So who should I thank? I heard Pollo say that he was going to collect the money.”

  “No, that’s a sort of password.”

  At that very moment, Pollo came running out of the restaurant and jumped onto his motorcycle. “Let’s go, boys!”

  Pallina held on tight, and they all took off, tires screeching. The motorcycles shot forward, turning their lights off. The waiter and a few others came running out of the restaurant. They shouted, to no avail, trying unsuccessfully to read the license plates.

  The sound of motorcycles echoed loudly through the narrow alleys and lanes of Fiano. One after the other, leaning around curves at high speed, they made their way out of town, taking the smaller streets, laughing and shouting, honking their horns. Then, practically flying by this point, they took the Via Tiberina, shrouded in the chill of the road. Only then did they dare to turn their headlights back on.

  Pollo rode closer to Step. “Oh, that’s pretty good food at this colonel’s place. Too bad we won’t be able to go back for a while.”

  “Hey, you know where we could go on Saturday?”

  “Where?”

  “Up to Nervi. There’s a really excellent restaurant. Farinello and the others have gone to it. They say it’s great.”

  Pollo looked at him, worried now. “How much do they charge?”

  “About forty apiece.”

  “Too expensive!” He put on his little kid smile and then hit the gas and raced off with Pallina, laughing crazily.

  Babi leaned forward. “So are you saying that we didn’t pay?”

  Step slowed down. “Why, is that a problem?”

  “A problem? Don’t you realize that they could report you to the police? They might have read one of your license plates.”

  “They can’t see a thing with the lights off. Listen, we’ve always done this, and nobody’s ever caught us. So don’t jinx us!”

  “I don’t jinx anybody. I’m just trying to get you guys to listen to reason. Even though that strikes me as quite the challenge. All right, let’s say they never catch you. But don’t you ever think of the people at the restaurant? Those are working folks. They’re in the kitchen all day, sweating over the stoves, setting tables for you, serving you food, clearing up after you, keeping the place clean, and this is how you treat them? You humiliate them, you spit on their work. You don’t give them the slightest consideration.”

  “What do you mean I don’t give them any consideration? I just said that I really like the food they serve in that place!”

  Babi remained silent. It was pointless. She’d leaned back a little on the seat of the bike, creating some distance from him. Around her, the night wind and the damp air of the woods rushed past her, giving her shudders from the chill. But that wasn’t
all that was making her shiver. She was dating a guy she didn’t understand, whom she couldn’t understand.

  She looked straight ahead. It was a crystal clear night. The stars glittered far away. Small diaphanous clouds were caressing the moon. It would all be so lovely, if only…

  “Hey, Step.” Lucone pulled up beside them, with his voluminous blond girlfriend, Carla, riding behind him. “Are you ready to bet fifty thousand lire on which of us gets to the center of town first, riding wheelies the whole way?”

  Step didn’t have to be asked twice. “You’re on.” He upshifted and twisted the throttle without warning. The motorcycle reared up.

  Babi was barely in time to grab hold of Step’s waist. “Step! Step!” she shouted, pounding both fists hard on his back. “Stop it! Drive normally.” Step gently eased up on the gas. The motorcycle touched down on both wheels. Lucone continued on a little farther, crowing in victory.

  Step turned to look at Babi. “What’s come over you? Have you lost your mind?”

  “No more wheelies, no more brawls, no more high-speed chases, I can’t take it anymore, don’t you understand?” Babi was shouting now. “I want a normal, safe life. With people who ride a motorcycle like anybody else. I don’t want to run out of restaurants. I just want to pay the check like everyone else. I don’t want you to keep getting in fights. I hate violence, I hate fist fighters, I hate bullies, I hate people who don’t know how to live right, who don’t know how to talk decently, who don’t know how to engage in a civil discussion, who have no respect for others. You hear me? I hate them!”

  They rode awhile in silence, letting themselves be lulled by the constant speed of the motorcycle and by the wind that slowly seemed to be calming her down.

  Then Step burst out laughing.

  “Do you mind telling me what’s so funny?”

  “You know what I hate though?”

  “No, what?”

  “I hate losing fifty thousand lire.”

  Chapter 24