“Thanks for letting me go shopping,” Ashley said once her mouth was no longer full. “I know that sightseeing is important to you, so I promise, the shopping bug is out of my system, for now.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Alex smiled. “Besides, look what we can see in the distance?” She looked out of the main window of the cake shop, and Ashley followed her gaze.
“Oh, no way,” Ashley breathed. There in the distance was the Eiffel Tower gracefully hanging above the nearby buildings, looking down on them and the rest of the city.
“So we did get to see it.” Alex smiled. Then she hailed a nearby waitress and asked her to take their picture, with the distant tower the backdrop.
Smiling at the camera, both girls held up a brightly colored macaroon, looking the image of happiness.
“Merci,” Alex said sweetly to the waitress as she handed back her camera.
“Get you, starting to sound French,” Ashley noted, impressed.
“Well, when in Rome,” Alex joked.
“Speaking of Rome, I believe it is our third and final stop.”
“Indeed.” Alex felt happy and sad at the same time. She didn’t want their vacation to end, but she was excited to visit the historic Roman city.
“Oh, before I forget.” Ashley rummaged amongst her Chanel bags and then passed one across to Alex.
“What’s this?” Alex asked, confused.
“It’s for you. Open it,” Ashley urged.
“Ash, I can’t—”
“Don’t be silly. Just open it,” Ashley pressed.
As instructed, Alex opened the bag and reached in beneath the Chanel logo tissue paper to find the beige quilted bag she’d previously slung over her shoulder. When she looked back at Ashley, her eyes were bejewelled with teardrops.
“It’s for when you start your hotshot job in New York,” Ashley explained, becoming equally tearful.
“So when you go to work each day, you’ll wear it and think of me. That way, you’ll never forget about me,” Ashley said shyly.
“Ash, as if I could ever forget about you!” Alex cried, hugging her friend tightly. “You’re my best friend in the whole world!”
“You too,” Ashley confirmed. “Now you make sure you rock that bag! It certainly suited you when you gave it a try in the store.”
“You saw that?”
“I told you; I’m hardwired for designer shopping. I don’t miss a trick!”
****
Alex watched Paris become dwarfed beneath her as the plane ascended out of the airport, the Eiffel Tower now merely a tiny dot on the landscape.
Leaning back in her seat, she sighed contentedly. She felt relaxed and happy, and for the first time in what felt like forever, her mind felt fresh and revived, no longer haunted by thoughts of either Oscar or Mark. The vacation had done her good. She was finally breaking free from the men of her past, at least for the time being.
“As excited as I am to see Rome,” Ashley said, stretching in her aisle seat, “I am not enjoying all the travelling.”
Alex noticed that her friend seemed paler than usual.
“You okay, Ash?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Ashley retrieved some travel sickness tablets from her satchel and eagerly swallowed them down.
“It’s just planes, trains and automobiles have left me travel fatigued, and my travel sickness has really kicked in.” Ashley sighed wearily.
“Can I get you anything?”
Ashley shook her head and declined the offer of the snack served during the flight. Alex also declined, sensing that if she ate too close to her nauseous friend, she might prompt her to be sick.
After landing in Rome, as they hauled their luggage off the carousel, Ashley finally started to return to her normal tanned hue.
“Feeling better?” Alex asked as she lifted her duffel bag up onto her back.
“Yeah.” Ashley nodded, taking tentative sips from her bottle of water.
“Well, this is our final stop, so no more travelling for you to suffer through.”
“It’s a good job we didn’t decide to do a world tour,” Ashley joked.
“I don’t know,” Alex said sadly, mulling the idea over. “In an ideal world, our vacation would never end.”
****
Rome was considerably hotter than both London and Paris had been. As they exited the airport and stepped out into the Italian sunshine, Ashley eagerly put on her Ray-Ban Aviators, glad that she was finally able to wear them.
As a city, Rome seemed to throb with an ancient energy. The chaotic traffic was reminiscent of Paris, with drivers taking crazy risks and people on mopeds constantly darting through the dense wall of traffic.
“I could never drive here,” Ashley said, bemused as their own taxi lurched out in front of another car.
“It’s like there are no rules,” Alex agreed.
They were staying at a small boutique hotel in the center of the city. There was a rooftop pool, which would offer some pleasant respite from the heat.
Their hotel room was Mediterranean in style, with terracotta-tiled floors, beige walls and wooden shutters on the windows. The room had high ceilings, with a ceiling fan in the center.
“This room is so hot,” Ashley declared as they began to unpack. “Can you turn the air-conditioning on, please?”
Alex glanced around, looking for the central control for the cooling system. There was a light switch but nothing else apart from the fan on the ceiling, which she could already see was too high to have any impact on the temperature of the room.
“I don’t think the room has air-conditioning,” Alex said apologetically.
“What?” Ashley dropped the clothes she was unpacking and looked at her friend in amazement.
“There’s no air-conditioning,” Alex said again.
“That’s ridiculous!” Ashley declared desperately. “This room is boiling!”
“I know,” Alex agreed.
After ten minutes of a more thorough search proved fruitless, Ashley finally accepted that the room was indeed lacking any form of air-conditioning, and they were resigned to opening the windows and hoping that some semblance of a breeze would float in and alleviate the heat.
Despite the warmth in the room, it was a welcome change to finally be able to wear summer clothes, instead of covering up against the rain.
Alex put on some denim hot pants and a baggy white T-shirt, and Ashley wore a bright yellow playsuit, which accentuated her olive skin.
“Where shall we go first?” Ashley pondered once they were ready.
“How about the Coliseum?” Alex suggested.
****
When Alex imagined the Coliseum in Rome, she pictured a grand, historic structure similar to the one on the film Gladiator. She anticipated that it would be so large in scale that she’d have to crane her neck to see the top of it. The reality was far removed from what she’d conjured up in her mind.
The Coliseum, or rather what remained of it, was within the city but surrounded by busy, frantic roads, offering a strange juxtaposition of the modern city against the historic remains.
“It doesn’t seem that impressive.” Ashley frowned as they exited the taxi.
“No, it doesn’t,” Alex agreed sadly.
The landmarks in Paris and London had been whole and intact, retaining their awe-inspiring grandeur. Seeing the remains of what had once been an architectural wonder made Alex feel strangely sad. What if all great things would one day be reduced to this? A glorified roundabout of ancient stones?
“I just thought it would be… bigger,” Ashley said softly, trying not to rain on the parade of sightseeing.
“Me too,” Alex agreed.
They looked out at what remained of the Coliseum and tried to imagine how it had once been. How the circular seating would have reached up to the heavens and how the roar of the eager crowd would be carried on the soft wind for miles around.
“I bet it was great once,” Ashley said.
“Let’s go have dinner somewhere!” Ashley declared brightly, noticing how her friend’s face had suddenly dropped.
“And it must be Italian! After all, when in Rome,” she joked, and Alex managed to smile a little.
****
They settled upon a small bistro close to their hotel. Even though dusk was fast approaching, the city retained its heat, and most restaurants seated a majority of their patrons outside, creating a bustling atmosphere upon the streets of Rome.
The girls were shown to a small table for two that overlooked a busy street. Around them, couples and families were already dining, tucking in to great bowls of pasta. A handsome waiter with jet-black hair and deep brown eyes came to take their order.
He greeted them in Italian, and Ashley instantly waved her hand to stop him.
“We’re American. I’m sorry, but we don’t speak any Italian.” Even though she had said she was sorry, she certainly didn’t sound it.
“Okay, American, great,” he said in surprisingly fluent English, flashing them a dazzling smile, which made Ashley blush slightly.
“I am Ricardo. I will be your waiter,” he introduced himself, with Ashley hanging on his every word.
“If there is anything you need, just let me know.” He smiled, and as he turned and walked away, Ashley made sure to admire the view.
“Ashley!” Alex berated her friend. “Behave! This is a man-free zone, remember?”
“I’m avoiding men, not dead,” Ashley retorted cheekily. “And Ricardo is delicious! Shame he isn’t on the menu!”
Keeping within the native theme, both Ashley and Alex chose rich pasta dishes from the menu, accompanied by a locally grown red wine. One bottle led to two, and as darkness fell over the city, the girls were quite tipsy, edging on drunk.
“We need to have some fun!” Ashley declared, though she felt heavy and sedated by the amount of pasta she had consumed.
“We are having fun.”
“No, we need to go out! We need to dance!”
“Okay, where?” Alex squinted at her friend. “We don’t know where to go here.”
“True, but Ricardo will.”
Ashley fluttered her eyelashes seductively at the waiter when he returned with their bill. She all but purred her question at him while Alex shrivelled with embarrassment.
“We want to go out dancing,” she told him. “Like a club. Where’s a good place to go round here?”
Ricardo smiled coyly, enjoying the attention. He told them about a club close by that was always busy and open until dawn.
“Sounds perfect,” Ashley told him, sounding as sexy as she could. “Might we see you there later?”
“Maybe,” he replied in his accent, matching Ashley in the flirtation stakes.
“He is really cute!” Ashley enthused as they walked away from the bistro in the direction of the club.
“What happened to the no-men policy?” Alex asked, struggling to pronounce the last word, the effects of the wine really starting to kick in.
“I’m lonely,” Ashley answered with surprising honesty. “I hate and love men in equal measure. And I want to find somebody. Is that so wrong?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Alex consoled her. “Though I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think that Ricardo is your somebody.”
“Gosh no!” Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know enough Spanish to marry him.”
“Italian,” Alex corrected her.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“Ricardo is just a bit of fun,” Ashley declared, smiling cheekily to herself. “We all deserve to have a bit of fun.”
They arrived at the club that was already pulsating with loud, dance music neither of them recognized.
“Are we going in?” Alex asked tentatively, the walk through town beginning to strip her of her drunken haze.
“Absolutely!” Ashley declared decisively, pulling them both into the club.
They danced until the sun rose, until their feet ached and the dancers around them blurred into one.
As Alex emerged into the early morning light, her ears and head throbbing from the effects of the club, she groaned and realized how wretched she would soon be feeling.
In the club they had eagerly downed vodka shots, bought for them by Ricardo, who had appeared a few hours after them, joined by some friends. Ashley had been delighted, dancing with him on the dance floor, grinding up against him during the slower songs. Alex wasn’t in the mood for male attention, so she’d continued to dance close by, too drunk to care that she was dancing alone.
She understood Ashley’s desire to have fun, to flirt with guys and be carefree, but Alex couldn’t follow suit. Her heart was still too bruised to dare letting anyone get close to it.
“I am so tired!” Ashley declared as she stumbled out of the club, Ricardo holding her up.
“Careful,” he said, looking down at her fondly.
Alex felt a pang of jealousy when she saw them, which she instantly hated herself for. But she missed being looked at like that. Ashley might have said that Ricardo was just a bit of fun, but he clearly thought more highly of her than that.
“Where is your hotel?” he asked in his thick accent, looking concerned.
“It’s this way.” Alex pointed down a familiar-looking street, struggling to believe that a new day was beginning when she hadn’t even concluded the last one. It felt surreal, as though she was living beyond the realms of the real world.
Ricardo and his friends escorted the girls back to their hotel. All the while Ricardo and Ashley talked about films they loved and songs they enjoyed. They seemed to have a lot in common.
Outside the foyer of the small hotel, Alex thanked the guys for walking them back.
“Can I see you again?” Ricardo asked Ashley, his eyes wide and intense.
“Sure.” She smiled shyly at him.
He kissed her cheek and then handed her a small slip of paper upon which he’d written a love note and his number.
As Alex watched, she felt a lump form in her throat, it was one of the most romantic moments she’d ever witnessed, and it was so completely unexpected. She smiled to herself, glad that her friend was happy, glad that Ashley had briefly broken the no-man rule.
****
“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” Ashley asked for the third time as she checked her reflection in the mirror.
“It’s honestly fine,” Alex reassured her.
“But I feel like I’m letting you down.” Ashley sighed, dropping onto her bed. “I mean, this is supposed to be a man-free vacation, and here I am, ditching you on our last day in Europe to meet a guy for coffee! What am I doing? I’m the worst friend ever!”
“Ash, relax. It’s okay.” Alex smiled. “You like Ricardo; you might as well meet him for coffee today. I’d never forgive myself if I stood in the way of true love!”
“As if he’s my true love.” Ashley playfully threw a cushion at her friend in protest. “He’s just some waiter I met on vacation.”
“Then don’t go,” Alex challenged, seeing the pained look flicker behind Ashley’s eyes at the thought of not meeting with him.
“It’s okay to like him, you know.” Alex laughed.
“I don’t.”
“You do. You’re just in denial.” Alex grinned. “It always happens initially.”
“Promise you’re okay for me to go?” Ashley asked once more.
“I promise!” Alex raised her voice to reinforce her sincerity. “Now you need to get going or else you’ll be late for your date!”
�
�Okay, okay, I’m going.” Ashley got up and quickly spritzed herself with a fresh dose of perfume.
“Tell Ricardo I said hi,” Alex called after her friend, who left the room amidst the smell of vanilla and hair spray.
Alone in the hotel room, Alex wondered how she should spend her final day in Rome. There was still so much to see, so much of the culture to take in. A part of her wanted to go to Vatican City, just to see it. But then there were the museums, which were bursting with great works of art, but the Mona Lisa had been a disappointment; perhaps art wasn’t the way to go.
Suddenly, as she sat deliberating, Alex felt unbearably lonely. She realized in that moment, as she sat on the bed looking down at maps and tour guides, just how much she missed being in a relationship, having that person to connect with, to explore the world with. She knew that if Oscar were there, he’d want to take in as much art as possible. He’d haul her around all the museums, spouting wisely about each piece they stood in front of. Mark was more of a mystery; Alex wasn’t sure what exactly he’d do if he were in Rome. She imagined he’d care more for the history of the ancient city, exploring the Coliseum in detail and visiting other historic spots.
Sighing wistfully to herself, Alex wondered what the two men who haunted her mind were doing at that exact same moment, and if they, too, were thinking of her.
But then she thought of the man who eclipsed them both, her father. He was always so much fun on vacations. He’d take Alex and Andy to theme parks and join them on all the rides. Her father made life seem exciting, making each moment count. Looking back, it was almost as if he’d known that his time with them would be cut short, but of course, that was impossible. He just lived for the moment and didn’t take anything for granted.
Full of renewed purpose, Alex decided to follow her father’s lead and do as much as possible on her final day in Rome. She would visit the Vatican, stroll through museums, and absorb as much of the city as she could.
****
As the sun began to set on Rome, Alex sat alone at a small café, nursing a cappuccino. Ashley had been gone all day, as she’d anticipated even though she’d insisted that she wouldn’t be long. In eight short hours they would be flying away from Europe, back to America.
Living with Love (Lessons in Love) Page 3