A Semester Abroad

by Papa, Ariella

  There were a smattering of warm days. I pulled out the few summer dresses and skirts I had hidden in my closet. I began to shed layers and not see my breath in front of me. Everyone was getting spring fever. Lucy was infatuated with one of the butchers on her street and was constantly devising ways of talking to him. Her terrace faced the door of his macelleria, so it was pretty hard to get her to do anything but spy on him after class. I didn’t mind sitting in the sun with her. I hiked the skirts above my knees and drank in the light.

  Even Lisa was happy. She and her boyfriend–who I never got to meet but apparently existed–visited her friend in Barcelona over spring break and since she got back she kept managing to say the word Barcelona in the same lisping manner as the Spanish did. She scandalously skipped the first week of class. Even her skin was clearing up.

  I went to Firenze to visit Olivia a couple of times. The guy who sold the bus tickets still corrected me. Apparently, I was pronouncing the silent g in biglietto right, but I still wasn’t mastering the double t’s. I yearned for the day when I could ask for my ticket and have him simply nod and give it to me instead of openly correcting my pronunciation.

  But still no Gaetano. Duccio said he hadn’t seen him around either, that he might be busy studying for exams. I tried to gauge if he was telling the truth or not, but couldn’t. Michelle promised to get the straight story, but all she could find out was what Duccio had said, that he hadn’t seen Gaetano at all.

  One day Lucy and I went to the botanical gardens and then to Lucy’s for a pranzo of speck, hard cheese and bread. We were drinking vino bianco because it was lighter than the red wine we usually drank. Around us, grass was growing and a sweet smell was in the air. Everything was getting ready to come out and be reborn.

  That day, Lucy was feeling particularly forthcoming. She let her skirt ride up so high I could see the dagger tattoo on her thigh, and she admitted to having four more, though she didn’t tell me where. She told me about her past, almost testifying about her history of drugs and delinquency. That’s why she was in college so late. She had even been married once.

  “Do you ever miss him?” I asked about the husband. We were on her balcony overlooking the armed guards coming to get money from the bank next to the butcher shop across the street. All the guards had their machine guns out. The women looked tougher than the men.

  “Sometimes,” she said. “But it was never going to work. You’re not meant to be with the person you love at nineteen or twenty.”

  She said this so easily, like it was something I should know, like only a fool wouldn’t.

  It brought me down, as Gaetano would say, “Un po’ giu.”

  16.

  And then, at last, again, Gaetano was waiting for me.

  It was unexpected. I was coming out of Arturo’s culture class with Michelle. It was almost six, but still bright out, and there was Gaetano on his vespa, smiling, like I had just seen him. I looked at Michelle. She smirked and shrugged.

  “Duccio said he’d been looking for you.” She gave me a little push. “I’ll see you later. I’m going to go see my ragazzo.”

  “Hi,” I said in English, walking closer to the bike.

  “Hi,” he said, smiling, pronouncing the h like a harsh breath of air. And then in Italian. “Did you forget this language in Paris?”

  “No.” I was at the bike now, not sure where to go. He clucked his lips the way that I thought meant no in Italian. He got off the bike and opened his arms. Instead of kissing me on each cheek, he hugged me. It was almost American of him. I thought I could feel his heart pounding, but it might have been mine.

  “I’m so happy to see you. I’ve been trying to find you.” I said.

  “I came by here a couple of times, but you weren’t here. Don’t you go to class?”

  I explained to him that we got out of class early almost every day. I did an impression of Signora Filmona and the nasal way she said bene and then quacked like a duck and said bene like a quack. He laughed and called me pazza–crazy. He didn’t take his hands off my arms. He was happy to see me, but he seemed different somehow.

  “I thought you were mad at me.”

  “How could I be mad at you, tesoro. You are my dear friend. You changed my life.” He said this with such certainty. It was partly Italian melodrama, but part of me believed it.

  “Thank you. You have changed me, too. I missed you, when I thought you were mad…” I didn’t realize how I felt until that minute. To see him, I realized how important his friendship was to me.

  “It’s okay, bella. I am not mad.”

  “I know. I know,” I said, nodding. I kept looking him in the eye. His eyes sparkled against the tan he must have gotten down South. His skin was as dark as an Arab’s.

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We should do something.” For once, I wasn’t in the mood to drink. I kind of just wanted to hang out. I wanted to talk to him.

  “Yes. I don’t have much money. I should get some tomorrow.” He paused for effect, because he knew I knew how he would get the money. I ignored it. “How about I cook dinner for you?”

  “Bene,” I said, impersonating the nasal Signora Filmona.

  Together we walked across the glistening pink shell of the Piazza del Campo back toward my apartment. We passed my fruttivendolo.

  “Do you want to stop?” I asked. He shook his head, clucked his tongue. “No vegetables?”

  “I know Siena better than you, americana. I will show you an even better, even cheaper fruttivendolo.”

  That night we had the apartment to ourselves, but I didn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. I told him about Paris, about walking through the streets, the museums, how big it was. I told him everything except about Jonas’s ghost.

  “I feel like I know your friend Kaitlin, the way you talk about her.”

  “You would love her,” I said. “She’s wonderful.”

  “You are,” he said smiling. “It sounds like you didn’t miss Italy at all.”

  “No, I missed it. I missed you. I thought you were mad. I know, I know now you weren’t but I thought you were. I had a good time, but I couldn’t think about coming back without thinking it wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t here.”

  He made some decisions, he told me. He was going to get more serious about his studies. He said a lot of his feelings changed the night I was sick.

  “I wanted to help you, but I couldn’t do anything. I just used an old trick from my country, but I should have been able to treat you. You have helped me see.” He kissed the top of my head and called me bella.

  Later we made coffee and smoked cigarettes at the dining room table. I did all the dishes. Then I walked him downstairs and watched him start the vespa.

  “Tomorrow, Olivia is coming. I think she wants to see you. Maybe we can all go out with Michelle and Duccio.”

  “Bene,” he said with a nasal accent, smiling. Then he quacked like a duck, making my impression his own.

  The next night when Gaetano came to see me, he looked significantly less happy. His face was cold when I kissed him. “What’s up?”

  “They stole my vespa.”

  “What? Who?” I asked.

  “Boh!” It was the way Italians said they didn’t know.

  “Fuck,” I said in English and so he switched, too.

  “Yes, fuck. If I find, I keel.” He was so dramatic in English that I laughed and he made a face at me. “Stronza.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m laughing. I wasn’t laughing at your accent. I was laughing at your, your. . .” and I couldn’t think of the word. “The way you are, like an actor. What will you do without the vespa? Can you call the police?”

  He shook his head at the word polizia. He didn’t want any dealings with them. A southern Italian man he told me didn’t make trouble with police in the north. “No, it is gone. It was outside Siena. Dino has another one, I think. He’ll lend it to me this weekend. Tonight I’ll take the
bus. Where is Olivia?’

  “She is coming soon, I think.”

  We waited a while, assuming she missed the bus and would be up in an hour. We drank the red table wine Gaetano brought. After an hour and a half, Olivia still hadn’t arrived. The candy store with the phone across the street was closed, so Gaetano and I walked down the street to the arcade alcove, where there was a phone and I called Olivia’s house.

  “Hey,” Olivia said when she came to the phone. “I thought you would have called by now.”

  “I thought you would have been here by now.”

  “Yeah, can you come here instead?” Olivia asked. She lowered her voice. “Suzie is flipping out. Can you hear her?”

  I heard something behind her, something muffled, but I couldn’t make it out. “Not really. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t really explain. Kurt turned out to be a…well, a dick. I don’t want to leave her. I’m sorry, but there was no way to get in touch with you.”

  “Yeah, I know, shit.” I said.

  “Can you come here?” she asked.

  “Do you think Suzie will want me around? I mean, maybe she wants to be alone.”

  “I know, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I want you to come,” she said.

  “Okay, well, I can’t come tonight. I sort of already told Michelle we’d hang out with her. I’m sorry. I’ll take the 10 A.M. bus tomorrow, okay?”

  “Cool, thanks.”

  I cursed and explained to Gaetano that Olivia wasn’t coming because Kurt was a stronzo. He nodded. We went to 115 bar. It wasn’t as popular as Barone Rosso, but it was dark and there were big wooden tables where you could sit with your cocktails for hours. Plus, they gave you nuts.

  At the bar, we met Duccio and Michelle. Their faces were pressed close together. Gaetano and I slowly walked to the table, not wanting to interrupt. But, Michelle saw us and looked up smiling.

  “Are you guys spying on us?” she teased.

  “Yeah,” I said, “Siamo spies.” Then it took a while for us to explain what a spy was to Duccio and Gaetano so they could translate the word. The Italian word for spy, Gaetano said shrugging his shoulders was spia.

  “Where is Olivia?” Michelle asked. “I thought she was coming for the weekend.”

  “I’m going there tomorrow. Suzie and Kurt broke up, and Olivia didn’t want to leave.” I explained.

  “Shit. What happened?”

  “She couldn’t say, but I think Kurt was a dick.”

  “Dick?” Gaetano asked, questioning the word. “Cazzo?”

  “Si.”

  “Stronzo,” said Michelle and then we all switched to Italian, except for Michelle and I who spoke to each other in the weird Italian-English hybrid that had become our language.

  “You thought Italian men couldn’t be trusted,” Gaetano said to me.

  “Maybe all men can’t be.” I smiled, teasing him.

  “Oh, Gabi,” he said and rubbed my cheek. “Tesoro.”

  As usual we drank a great deal of alcohol and I took too many of Gaetano’s cigarettes. At midnight, Gaetano looked at his watch. “Ohe, Gabi, I have to go. The bus.”

  Duccio offered to give Gaetano a ride, but Gaetano declined. He never wanted to be a bother. I still wanted to hang out more, and Michelle and Duccio didn’t want the night to end either. “Gaetano stay.”

  “I cannot, bella.”

  “Dai,” I said, “You can stay in Lisa’s room.”

  Lisa was visiting a schoolmate in Bologna.

  “Or you can stay in Gabriella’s,” Michelle said, laughing and winking up at Gaetano. Duccio cracked up too.

  “Better in Gabriella’s room,” said Duccio.

  “Or Lisa’s if Lisa was there,” teased Gaetano.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “But you never know,” said Michelle and in English, “That girl could be a frrrreeeeeeak.”

  For his comment, I refused to tell Gaetano what freak meant until he agreed to stay over in Lisa’s room. He agreed. Then I told him. And we kept drinking.

  And it was fun. They way they treated us. They listened and laughed at what we said, but there was something else. These men reminded you in their every action of sex. I felt this. It was everything about them, the way they smelled, the way they declared how they felt so strong and the way they looked at us. Always respectfully but acknowledging our bodies, too. I was aware of myself, of my shape, of things long dormant. I recognized what my body was made for. I was young and could feel my youth because of the wine and because of an arm around the back of my chair, brushing my shoulder. It’s just Gaetano, I thought. We were clear on everything, but it was there.

  I looked over at Michelle. She was still skinny, but she had put some weight back on since she got back. I was there when Duccio first saw her after she got back. He swept her into her arms, calling her principessa and telling her how beautiful she was. And then, he pulled back, looked her body up and down and said, “But too skinny, I must feed you.”

  And he must have been. Her body was in bloom. Michelle was happy. She caught me looking at her.

  “What’s up, G?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Always thinking.” She looked at the boys and tried to translate. Pointing at me and her own head. “Questa sempre pensa. Troppo.”

  “Yes, she thinks too much,” Gaetano said. “She is very sly. Mi raccomando, Michelle.”

  When we crept back into the apartment, all four of us were drunk. Ubriaco. We were trying to be quiet to not annoy any of our neighbors. We walked so slowly that the electric light turned off while we were on the second landing.

  Janine wasn’t home, so Michelle yelped like a cowgirl and slammed her door shut. Gaetano and I heard them laughing behind the door.

  “Okay, we go to bed,” I said. Then I saw Gaetano’s smile. Did Italian men ever give up? “Not together.”

  “Okay,” he said, “pazza.”

  He climbed into Lisa’s bed. One of her shirts was under the sheets and he made a big deal of sniffing it and pretending, for me, that he was overcome by the smell of her.

  “Stronzo,” I said, grabbing the shirt. “But maybe when she comes home from her trip, you can stay over again. With her.”

  I bent to kiss him and pull the blanket around him as he laughed.

  “Okay, bella, buona notte.”

  “Buona notte,” I said. I went into my own room and bed.

  I couldn’t sleep right away. My room felt stuffy. I opened my window. I changed my T-shirt to a tank top and climbed back into bed. My legs felt hot. I tossed a bit in my sheets, I kicked off the blanket, then decided I wanted it around me.

  In Michelle’s room, Duccio and Michelle were having sex.

  I had not felt this feeling in a while for anyone but Jonas. And I wasn’t feeling it for Gaetano, necessarily, but I was feeling it. Restless. In heat. And it was Gaetano who just happened to be in the next room. The walls were thin. There was something happening inside me. A want I would like to satisfy. But I couldn’t, not with Gaetano.

  But what if I crept in there? What would his face look like when I pulled the sheet back? I wondered if his chest was as tan as his face. It could be so quick. We would both feel good.

  But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do something like that and not experience the repercussions. I worked so hard to be his friend. I couldn’t fuck it up. Not for stupid selfish reasons.

  I forced myself to sleep.

  When I woke in the morning, my thoughts surprised me. I was glad I didn’t do anything but kept wondering why I wanted to in the first place.

  Gaetano smoked three cigarettes and drank two espressos before he really opened his eyes. He got another espresso as we walked to his bus stop. He stuck one hand in his pocket and gestured dramatically with his cigarette. I knew that I made the right choice going to sleep. I couldn’t deal with any awkwardness. He kissed me goodbye at the bus stop and got on his bus. Then I got on mine to Florence.


  When Olivia opened the door, her hair was a choppy mess. She had been letting it grow out of her bob, but now it was kind of long in some parts and short in others. There was no rhyme or reason to her hair. It was like someone just randomly clipped off sections.

  “Don’t say a word about it,” she said, as I followed her back to her room. I couldn’t stop looking at it. “I thought I was going to a salon, but it was apparently the butcher shop. I was saying the right words. No is pretty universal, but they did what they wanted. I believe it’s anti-American sentiment.”

  “It’s not too bad,” I lied. “You should see what they did to Lucy’s hair.”

  Lucy got her hair chopped at a beauty parlor in Siena. Like most of the girls in my group who got their hair cut, she was horrified and starting wearing a baseball cap. This made her stand out even more. A month earlier, I had let Michelle cautiously cut off about an inch of my hair.

  “Let’s never talk about it again, okay?” Olivia looked me in the eye. “And whatever you do, don’t take any pictures.”

  “Va bene.”

  The family that lived in the house was out, not that Suzie and Olivia really socialized with them that much. There was a tiny bathroom attached to their tiny bedroom so they were pretty self-sufficient. There was a whole side of the apartment that they had never seen.

  “I thought we’d go to the Medici gardens,” Olivia suggested.

  “Great.” I said. “I’m doing my oral report on the Medicis.”

  “So is everyone on my group,” Olivia said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s that, Goitto or the Etruscans.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Where’s Suzie?’

  “In the shower,” Olivia said looking at her watch. “She’s been in there forever.”

  She was crying. I knew it. I pictured Suzie sitting naked on the tiny ledge of their skinny shower. Her open mouth turned up into the thin stream of water, so that Olivia wouldn’t hear her sobbing through the wall.