“Michelangelo had our age when he did this,” I told Brandon.
He stared at it a long time and finally said, “Impressive. Michelangelo really left his mark on the world.”
“Is one of the most great artist.”
“I want to be like him,” Brandon said.
“You an artist?”
“There’s different ways to make your mark. I’m going to make mine, you’ll see.”
Looking at him and how he continued to stare at this masterpiece in front of us, seeing the conviction in his eyes, I definitely believed him.
. . . . .
Later that evening, when we arrived at a restaurant near the hotel, I thought we were just stopping to eat there because it had looked nice. But they had been expecting Brandon. They had a table waiting for us outside.
“You arranged this?” I asked.
“Of course. I wouldn’t take you all the way to Rome without making sure it was special.”
“Wow, I can no believe it.”
Brandon held my chair for me. The night was warm and smelled sweet. Brandon waved his hand to someone in the piazza. A man selling roses hustled over. Without even asking the price, Brandon bought a bouquet for me and paid the man. As the waiter poured wine for both of us, a violin player approached, playing “Io Te Vurria Vasà,” the most romantic Napolitano song ever written.
I couldn’t have been more impressed and moved. How could an American man be so romantic, more than any Italian I’d ever dated? I smiled to keep from crying.
When that song ended, the man immediately began playing a song I didn’t recognize right away. Then, after a few notes, I realized what it was. Bryan Adams’ “I Do It for You,” the song we danced to that first night at the Marine dance. Brandon stood up and held out his hand for me to dance with him. I melted.
. . . . .
By the time we went back to the hotel, I felt like a princess. My knight in shining armor had spoiled me and protected me and made me feel special in a way I had never felt before.
He left the light off in the room. Through the window was the glow from St. Peter’s dome, a dim light that illuminated the desire in Brandon’s eyes. He slowly reached up and touched my shoulder. The feel of his skin against me made me shiver with a longing for more of his touch. His other hand glided up my other arm then held that shoulder.
I could feel how strong he was when without much effort he moved my body against his. I could feel his eagerness pressing against me. I peered up into his eyes.
“I want to make you feel pleasure in every possible way,” he said. As he spoke, his lips moved slowly toward mine, and he kissed me. It lasted until I couldn’t breathe any longer. When we parted, I barely had the air to speak.
“Make me feel,” I whispered.
And he did. We didn’t sleep at all that night. We made love over and over. Brandon kept going until I was exhausted, but I still didn’t want to stop. I moaned for more. And that’s what he gave me. I felt a rapture with him that I had never felt before. I’d only been with one other man, and that had been nothing like this. I knew then that this was love. What I had had with Nino hadn’t even been close.
After we went back to Naples, it was as if we had unleashed something that could not be contained again. Our love, both physical and emotional. We made love again in my father’s apartment when everyone else had gone out for a short while. We did it over and over, not wanting to stop, but fearing that my father or one of my siblings was going to come in and catch us.
Brandon became so much a part of my life that I had to see him every day, touch him, feel his body close to mine. One time, when I hadn’t seen him for two days, I missed him terribly and began to wonder if something was wrong. I called him several times, but he didn’t answer. When night came, I drove to the base. I needed to see him.
The atmosphere outside the gate was strangely quiet. At first the Marines standing guard told me I had to go, but I knew them. They were friends of Brandon that I’d met on several of our dates, and when they recognized me, they agreed to call Brandon and let him know I was outside.
It wasn’t long before he arrived and came outside the gate. His Marine friends stayed on the other side, trying to give us some privacy, but they all looked nervous. Brandon did, too. He was carrying a rifle and wearing his camouflage uniform. He had always been happy to see me, no matter where were. But tonight for the first time he seemed not to want me there.
“Why you haven’t called me, Brandon?” I asked.
“You have to go, Luisa.”
“Why aren’t you calling me?”
“I can’t talk now. You need to go. The base is under alert.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you can’t be here. I’m going to get into trouble.”
“Brandon.” I needed him. I reached up to touch him and he quickly took a step back.
“Don’t,” he said. He lowered his voice. “Luisa, there are guns pointed at you right now. It isn’t safe. Please go home. I’ll call you when this is all over.”
I didn’t know if it was his harshness with me, or fear for his safety, or just that I needed him and couldn’t have him, but I started to cry and needed him to hold me. But he didn’t.
“I love you,” he whispered, and I could see that it was taking all his strength for him not to hug and comfort me. “You don’t understand. It will be okay. I promise. Just go home. I’ll call you when I can.”
Somehow I made it back to my car and drove home. I cried much of the night. Days passed before I was finally able to talk to him on the phone. He explained that a woman had showed up at the base earlier, and she’d had explosives strapped to her body. The Marines didn’t know if I was another terrorist, there to blow them up. Brandon told me that someone complained to his commander, and questioned him about me, accusing me of being a suicide bomber or a prostitute.
I wanted to cry when I heard that, but I was heartened when Brandon told me that he insisted to the commander, “No, sir. She is my girlfriend.”
. . . . .
A few months later, Brandon was again stuck on the base and I had to go without seeing him. One day, after fighting with my father and with Rodolfo, and after working all day and no one appreciating me, I really needed my boyfriend, so I called Brandon and told him how important it was that I see him.
He told me to wait two hours then drive to the base and park my Fiat alongside the wall in a dark area out of view from the gate. He said not to get out of the car, just park and wait. I did as told, feeling a tingle of excitement that we were breaking the rules for love. I waited for a few minutes, and then out of the shadows came a tall figure in camouflage. At first I couldn’t tell who it was and I started to think of what I was going to say, but then I saw Brandon’s face. He slid into the car beside me and kissed me hard.
“I’m crazy about you,” he said when our lips parted. “I know you’re going to get me into trouble.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too, but you have to understand, I’m a Marine and Marines can’t always leave the base when they want. We have to follow orders. I need you to understand, Luisa.”
“I understand, but…”
“No buts,” he said. “This is the last time this can happen. Okay?”
I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“You don’t have to be sorry, just understand.”
He kissed me and said, “Now you go home. I’ll call you when…”
Before he could finish, I kissed him, smothering his words. I couldn’t control my feelings. This kiss was much longer and more passionate, and befor
e I knew what was happening, we were peeling off each other’s clothes. We made love, bent into the front seat of the car, in the darkness along the wall of the base.
When we had finished, I was surprised at myself that I could be so free and wild.
. . . . .
Someone saw us making love in the car that night and reported Brandon. His punishment was thirty days confinement to his room. There was also a threat that they would take his corporal’s rank away from him and make him a private again.
“I’m so sorry, is all my fault,” I told him on the phone. “Is not fair that you punished.”
He wasn’t even supposed to have phone privileges, but a buddy of his bent the rules so he could call me.
“No, it’s my fault,” he said. “I wanted to see you. It’s my responsibility.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, not to see you for thirty days. My God.”
“Listen, my love, I’ll call you in a few days. I have a plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll let you know in a few days.”
. . . . .
He did call three days later.
“My love,” he said, “Can you be at the west gate at six pm? Just park your car and wait.”
It was summer and the days were long. It was still light out when I arrived. I parked as instructed and waited. I decided that if I got caught, I wasn’t going to mention Brandon so he wouldn’t get into further trouble.
A few minutes later a Marine approached the car. He came up to my opened window.
“Are you Lance Corporal Cloutier’s girlfriend?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t understand Brandon’s plan, how he was going to get outside, but something had gone wrong.
“No?” the Marine said.
“No, I just waiting for a friend.”
The Marine leaned over, closer to the window and spoke in a low voice. “Brandon sent me to get you and bring you to him, if you’re Luisa.”
Bring me to him? How is that possible? “Yes, I’m Luisa. How can…”
He held up his hand to stop my question. “Just do what I say please, Ma’am.”
He opened the door and gestured for me to get out. I did. I had done my best to look good for Brandon, with make-up, a tight dress that complimented my curves, a tailored jacket. My high heels clattered on the pavement as I walked.
“Just stay by my side,” the Marine said as we headed toward the gate, “and don’t say a word. Have your ID ready.”
I did as he said. We walked to the gate. He showed his Marine ID the way Brandon always did when he took me onto the base to go to the club or the restaurant. I showed the guard my ID. I didn’t know if I was supposed to smile or not, so I didn’t. I barely looked at the man checking documents. The Marine Brandon sent kept walking. I didn’t wait for the guard to gesture me in. I just stayed beside Brandon’s friend.
The base was fairly busy that evening. Marines hurrying to get from one building to the next. A few were tossing an American football on a grassy area. Humvees roared by. We headed toward the big building that I had been inside many times before. I felt giddy with anticipation. We were obviously doing something wrong, but I was doing it in order to see the man I loved and that made it exciting.
Without even looking at me, Brandon’s friend said out of the corner of his mouth, quietly, so no one else could hear, “When I say run, you run. Follow me.”
I nodded.
When we reached the building, instead of going in through the main entrance, he led me to another doorway with stairs going down. He checked to make sure no one was looking and then opened the door and gestured for me to go inside.
As soon as I did, he rushed in behind me, pulled the door shut and yelled, “Run!”
He took off. The hallway snaked through the basement. It was empty except for us. I followed the Marine around a couple sharp turns. He pulled open a door and practically pushed me through. He bounded up the stairs on the other side. In my high heels, I struggled to follow, clutching the railing to keep from falling.
We ran up four or five flights—I lost count how many—before he finally stopped at a door on the landing. He held up his hand for me to stop and wait. Then he inched open the door and peeked out. Another Marine was standing on the other side of the door. I wasn’t sure if we had gotten caught.
“Clear?” the one helping me asked this other Marine.
“Clear.”
The first Marine turned to me. “Good luck, Ma’am.”
I didn’t understand what was happening.
The new Marine looked down at me and said, “Evening, Ma’am. Are you ready to run some more?”
My feet hurt and I was perspiring under my dress and jacket, but I had never been more ready to run than I was at that moment. I nodded.
“Let’s go then.”
. . . . .
When we reached Brandon’s room, I could not believe what had just happened. I felt like I was in a movie. I was giddy with excitement, and not only because of what I’d done to get here, but more so because I was finally going to see Brandon. The door opened and there he was.
He took me into his arms and nothing else existed or mattered. I was with him. I would have done anything to get here, to be with him. We started kissing and he began to take off my dress.
“What if someone comes in?” I whispered.
“Don’t worry about that, my love. My boys are watching outside. You’re safe with me here.”
CHAPTER 6
My mother had died on the 11th of November. Exactly three years after to the day was when Brandon wanted me to take me to the Marine Corps birthday celebration. It was the biggest event on the base, the biggest celebration for any Marine.
I couldn’t believe how understanding Brandon was when I told him I couldn’t possibly celebrate on the same day as my mother’s death. He told me he didn’t want me to do anything that would make me sad. “Don’t even think about it anymore,” he told me.
But I did think about it. He said he had to go, all the Marines did. I kept thinking about him being there alone, was I being fair to him? How long was I supposed to give up that terrible day? I would mourn my mother’s death forever. But at some point I would need to continue with my life. My father seemed to have. He had a girlfriend. He rarely talked about my mother. On the anniversary of her death he was scheduled to work. My brothers and sister, too, were not reserving that day for sadness. For me, though, it seemed wrong to be laughing and dancing and drinking and having a party on the day my mother had been ripped away.
Mom’s sister Gianna must have had that date on her mind, too, because she came to the apartment a few days before the Marines’ party to see how everyone was doing. I was the only one home, doing my usual chores. We sat down at the kitchen and I made a pot of espresso.
“You’re really the one I wanted to see,” Aunt Gianna said.
“Me? Why?”
“Sometimes I think you’re the one holding the family together. Your father has his qualities, sure, but being the family glue isn’t one of them. And the other kids, they look to you the way they used to look to Lina. It must be hard on you.”
I had never complained to her or to anyone else. I did what I promised my mother I’d do. “Everyone has obligations,” I said. “It isn’t easy for any of us.”
“Of course not.” But I could see by her expression that she didn’t believe that. She changed the subject. “Tell me about that boyfriend of yours.” Gianna hadn’t met him yet. “When am I going to see him?” she asked.
I shrugged, thinking again
about the party.
“What’s the matter?” Gianna asked.
I took a breath and explained it all.
As soon as I was done, she took me by the hand and said, “Luisa, listen to me. You’re going to that party.”
“I can’t. Mamma would not appreciate it.”
She gawked at me in disbelief. “You think your mamma would want you to be a nun, to lose a good man that you love, to give up your dreams. Are you crazy?”
“No, but…”
“No, no, no.” Zia Gianna wasn’t going to listen. “No buts. You’re going. Now, what are you going to wear?”
“I don’t have anything to wear anyway and the party’s only a couple days away.”
She practically pulled me out of the chair. “Let’s go,” she said.
“What? Go where?”
“I have a beautiful sequined jacket you can borrow. We’re going to pick out a dress, get you some new shoes, go to the hairdresser. You’re going to be beautiful. You’re already beautiful, you’re going to be more beautiful.”
. . . . .
I wore a black chiffon dress that I had bought for a friend’s wedding over the summer. Enzo did my hair and makeup as if I were going to a red carpet event in Milan. With Zia Gianna’s sequined jacket and the new black suede high heels with crystals on them that I had bought, I felt like a princess on the way to the ball.
Brandon arrived to pick me up in a uniform I hadn’t seen before, white dress pants, white shoes, a deep blue jacket and a white hat. His hair, which was usually short, was cut even tighter. He had just shaved and he smelled of cologne. My prince.
His lips formed into a huge smile as he stared at me. “You look so beautiful,” he said.
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