I just got a text from Lane. It’s a video of Paige and Burt on the beach, pushing Mark into the ocean on a wheelchair surfboard with Gloria and the minister photo bombing in the background. I reply with a picture of all of us on top of the Spanish Steps with the caption The Wishwellians are taking over the world!
“I thought you had to have a lot of sex to get a urinary tract infection,” Janie says, after Mom texts us that she’s skipping the jazz club to take care of Aunt Rose.
“You can get urinary tract infections from sex?” I can’t believe how little I know about these things.
“Duh.”
“Maybe she was banging Eddie,” I say.
“Or Burt.”
I’m getting anxious. We’re out on the hot sidewalk, waiting for the rest of the family to come out of the Sistine Chapel so we can go back to the hotel. It was breathtaking for the first hour and a half, but I got a neck cramp from looking up.
Gram gave Janie her diamond studs. They’re her something old, since the diamonds go back as far as the North family estate. Janie feels special because they’re worth more than the sapphire, but I know who won this contest.
Jeb got Grandpa Martin’s vintage Rolex. I doubt Jeb will ever find anyone to marry him, but he can wear the Rolex to my wedding. Who knows, maybe he’ll surprise us.
Bob comes out, and the three of us ditch the others. Bob tells us he can’t wait to go to the jazz club to see their old friend Celia Hobbes.
“So who is this Celia Hobbes person?” Janie asks. I grip the door handle of our microcab.
“We met her at the Birdland jazz club. Your gram and I pulled a lot of strings to get in, and the vibe in the club was electric. After that, we went to Celia’s shows all over town. She was way up there with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Man, those were the days.”
Bob is so animated when he talks about the old days.
“It was Celia who gave us a nickname, Cookies. She once joked that we looked like a half-moon cookie. People would say, ‘Are the cookies coming out tonight?’ That was us: black, white, and sweet on each other.”
“Aww. You still are,” Janie says, climbing out of the cab.
“Yes we are.” Bob smiles like a schoolboy. “Yes we are.”
1. I have a date tonight. 2. She’s kind of cute. 3. I’m not excited at all.
I text back. 1. Strange coincidence, me too. 2. He’s not bad, if you like the exotic Euro type. 3. But he sucks at Whac-A-Mole.
“I would do you,” Janie says when I twirl for her in my forties dress.
“What if he was beer goggling the whole time on the ship and he’s disappointed when he sees me?”
“Stop. Don’t turn into one of those annoying insecure girls. Repeat after me: He’s just a boy.”
“He’s just a boy,” I say, so aware that he is not just a boy.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m going to see him at the jazz club and hang out. Then what? Never see him again?”
“Just live in the moment, for once. God, you worry way too much. You’re hooking up with a hot guy tonight. That should be good enough.”
Gram texts, Our chariot awaits.
Francesca sent a limo to pick us up. Uncle Billy and Wes scroll through pictures from Paige and Burt and the Ornaments. It’s nice to see my uncles being nice to each other.
My ass is sore. I can’t believe I have a tattoo.
“Don’t do anything to embarrass me tonight, kids. I worship this woman,” Gram says, checking her lipstick in a hand mirror.
“Mom’s telling us not to embarrass her. That’s a good one,” Uncle Billy says.
The basement club has black-and-white checkerboard floors and posters of famous jazz musicians on the walls. We sit to the side of the stage and, within seconds, the drinks start flowing.
“Cheers to good people and great music,” Bob toasts. I take a sip of champagne. It tastes like my constipation medicine.
We tap feet and fingers, and my curls bounce to the beat of the horns. My head is on a permanent swivel, searching for Enzo. Celia Hobbes walks out during an instrumental set. The crowd cheers. She’s a tall, thin African American woman with a platinum-blond wig, lots of bling, and a voice that defies her ninety years. Gram and Bob jump up to grab her after the first set.
“Still drinking straight bourbon, Miss Celia?” Bob shouts.
“You bet. It has preserved my insides like a jar of pickled beets. Oh, lord! The Cookies are here, ghosts from a Fifty-Second Street graveyard. It is good to see you two.” They walk off to catch up as a young Italian woman belts out one of our favorites, “The Man I Love.”
“Why don’t you dance with your sister?” I can tell Dad’s a little tipsy on half a glass of champagne as he pushes Jeb toward me.
“Care to dance?” Jeb’s tipsy, too. I reluctantly dance with my old ballroom lesson partner and try to ignore his alcohol garlic breath. Bob gets up and serenades Gram and Celia Hobbes with a trumpet solo.
A group of people enters through the dim back entrance. I see Enzo right away. My stomach flips. He’s wearing a gorgeous suit and a boyish grin. I push Jeb out of the way and smooth my dress. I want to run toward Enzo and leap into his arms, but I wait for him to come to me.
He stares at me for a few seconds and smiles. “Hi, Maddie.”
His smell, the slight scruff on his face, the smoothness of his hand when he grabs mine and leads me over to meet his sister—everything makes me feel faint.
I meet his sister, Claudia. She’s stunning and elegant and perfect. Francesca talks about Holly, but I can’t think about that right now. I need a break from all the sadness. I need to be with Enzo.
Gram and Francesca and Claudia and Dad and my uncles and even Celia Hobbes swarm around us. Enzo and I are talking to them, but we’re looking at each other. The intensity grows. It’s hot and noisy, and I’m panicking that the swarm won’t ever leave us alone.
“Maddie.” I love hearing him say my name. “Let’s go. I want to show you Rome. Come on.”
I tell Dad I’m going exploring with Enzo. Dad is buzzed and embarrassingly silly, and he lets me go. Enzo takes my hand and leads me up toward the lively sounds of Rome on our perfect summer night. The fountains cast a filmy light over the city. We walk a minute or two before he pulls me into the shadows.
“Maddie,” he says into my ear.
Then come the kisses. It’s more like one long, delicious kiss infused with the smell of subtle European aftershave and him. He has a smell all his own. We can’t stop kissing. I let out little sounds, and he kisses me harder. I feel his hands on my back, up my back, in my hair, on my ass.
“Ow.” I grab his hand and step backward.
“I’m sorry.”
I laugh. “It’s fine. This is going to sound ridiculous, but… Gram kind of forced me to get a tattoo on my ass today.”
“Today?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see it?”
“Later.” We walk toward a busy square.
“Would you like to see my house?”
“Sure.” Of course I want to see Enzo Ivanhoe’s house. I want to see his bed, his sock drawer, his baby pictures, and the spoons he uses to eat cereal.
The streets buzz with people who don’t seem to realize it’s two in the morning. Enzo’s house is a giant villa in the middle of Rome, with an open-air patio in the center of the building. A fountain gurgles between two terra-cotta benches, and crisscrossed vines of flowers fill the courtyard with color. This isn’t a house. It’s a palazzo with its own piazza.
“Let’s have a bite to eat.” He leads me into a cavernous marble and rustic wood kitchen, with cured meats and cheeses and fruits lined up on a cluttered counter. Enzo selects a hunk of cheese from under a glass dome.
“Here, try this. It’s infused with truffle oil.” He feeds me the cheese, and then a red grape and a bite of sausage. We share a lemon soda and a biscuit, which turns out to be a cookie. I haven’t quite finished chewing when he
pushes me up against the counter and kisses me again. Our kisses move to the rhythm of the courtyard fountain. He presses against me, and all the nerves in my body respond.
Francesca and Claudia burst into the kitchen. I jump awkwardly toward the sink.
“Look at our lovebirds!” Francesca is as over-the-top as Gram.
“We’re eating, Mum. Do you want to join us?” he says in a polite tone.
“No, darling, you two enjoy each other, but not too much. Astrid will murder me if you get her granddaughter pregnant,” says Astrid Junior.
“Mum, please. You never cease to humiliate me.”
“Maddie, Enzo says you love fashion,” Claudia says.
He talks about me.
“Yes. I’ve been interested in fashion since before I could dress myself.” I want to impress her.
“I have, as well. I’m in merchandising for Gucci. It’s a really nice job.” Of course she has the best job ever. She’s perfect. Maybe I should get pregnant, just to permanently attach myself to these people and their genes.
“I’m going to take Maddie back to the hotel.” He moves closer and puts his arm around my waist.
Double cheek kisses and hugs good-bye, and I wonder if they can smell Enzo on me.
I’ve never needed my friends so desperately. Do it. Do it. That’s what they would say. Or maybe Do him. The stakes are so high. I can’t think.
I tell Enzo to come back for me in the morning, and I’ll be all his, at least for our last day in Rome. Part of me worries that I’ll lose him, that some outrageous Shakespearean comedic tragedy will befall our situation and separate us before I can see him again. But if this trip has taught me anything, it’s that the only thing guaranteed is this very moment. And in this very moment, I give Enzo a kiss he will most certainly want to repeat.
Enzo’s text wakes me only a few hours after I fall asleep. I have a seven-thirty football match. I’ll pick you up after. Or you could come watch. I reply: I want to watch…
“Get up.” I tackle Janie. “We’re going to watch hot Italians play soccer.” That’s all she needs to hear. I make her check my tattoo before we leave.
“You should pay me for these services. You’re the grossest person I’ve ever met, other than Jeb. Who gets crust on their tattoo?” Janie got a tramp stamp of the New York skyline inside a snow globe before she left for college in Vermont.
Janie and I hate sports. We hate it when Dad and Jeb talk about scores and boring stats. I spent countless hockey, football, and lacrosse games making plans with the E’s while pretending to give a crap about the games. Sometimes I even put on sunglasses and dozed off.
But this is different.
Janie and I take a cab to a spectacular Roman park where hot shirtless European men are doing sprints in shorts and cleats. They’re all running back and forth wearing sweatbands and cute little ponytails. This is our kryptonite, and I have gotten my hands on a hunk of it.
Enzo gives us a wave as he runs down the field, but he’s dead focused when the game starts. He’s sweaty, fast, and so very skilled with the ball.
“This is almost too much to handle,” I tell Janie. I can see it’s too much for her, too, and she needs to sit. I’m afraid she’s going to implode and dissolve into a pile of pheromone-laced ash.
We sit on the grass and, for the first time in our lives, pay attention to what’s going on.
The game ends, and Enzo runs over and kisses me on the lips in front of the other guys. He says something to them in Italian as everyone gathers their stuff. A bunch of them say, “hi” and “bella something bella.” Enzo is speaking Italian. There are no words.
One of the guys fixates on Janie. He whispers something to Enzo and gives Janie a “ciao, bella,” before slowly strutting away.
“Janie, my friend Pietro wants a piece of you. I think that’s the direct translation,” Enzo jokes.
“That would be a deep and meaningful relationship,” I say.
“Tell him I’m taken.” Janie is resisting the kryptonite. She’s blowing my mind right now.
“Well, that was fun. Now if you guys will excuse me, I have a date with my uncles.” Janie puts her earbuds in and jogs away.
“Does she even know where she’s going?” Enzo asks.
“She’ll be fine,” I say.
And here we are again. He puts his arms around me and kisses me.
“Sorry I’m sweaty,” he says.
“I like it.” He raises his eyebrows and smiles.
“Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for having me. I think you wanted to show off your stellar soccer skills.”
“Actually, I wanted to show off my beautiful American girlfriend. Come on. Let’s walk.”
The park’s vistas overlook all of Rome. It reminds me of the view above Corcovado Mountain.
When a girl is about to lose her virginity, she needs her friends around her for support. That is a universal truth, except maybe for people like Rachel. I can’t picture Rachel having sex, but I’m sure it will happen during a Comic-Con. I am also pretty sure she’ll be wearing pigtails and some sort of anime costume.
It seems terribly lonely to be enjoying this dream without sharing every detail with the E’s. But I can’t worry about that. Today is my day.
Enzo and I sit by a lake and share a water bottle. I love the intimacy of sipping from the place he just sipped.
He tells me about the internship he landed in Egypt, where he’ll be working with world-famous anthropologists, and how he’s learning Arabic online.
I tell him about the Blue Lagoon and the Jules Verne volcano and rainbows and elves. I tell him about Venice and Bled and the forever tree.
“And then, of course, Gram took me to get the tattoo.”
“Was it a large lady covered in tats?” He pulls down the elastic of his shorts. Right in the crease near his hipbone, he shows me a tattoo of a red teacup with a soccer-ball-shaped tea bag coming out of it. I run my finger over it.
“I can’t believe I haven’t seen this yet. I didn’t think you were the tattoo type.”
“It’s for my dad, you know, in his memory. It took him a long time to die. He fought hard. Every day at the end”—Enzo clears his throat—“I would bring him tea, and we’d watch football on TV. It was our thing.” He lies down on the grass and stares up at the cloudless sky. “God, it’s been years, but I miss him. I wish you could have met him. He had this charm. Everybody loved Dad.”
“I’d love to see pictures sometime.”
He shifts his gaze to me. “Sorry. I don’t want to be a downer.”
“Enzo, I’m on a death-with-dignity trip. It’s kind of a downer theme.”
“Good point.” He laughs, then looks back to the sky. “Mum took it harder than all of us. She lost my granddad that same year. She’s the type of person who needs to do something positive to deal with the grief. So Mum used most of Granddad’s money to start up the ship.”
“That’s amazing. Gram says when bad things happen we should take the pain and grow something beautiful. Your mom has done that.”
“She has. She works too much, but she’s pretty fantastic.” He moves closer and snaps the elastic on my shorts. “Hey, stop stalling. I want to see the tattoo.”
“Okay, but it’s a little red and crusty.” I pull down my underwear just enough to reveal my little starfish.
“It’s so cute. It’s perfect.” He looks at me with those gray-green eyes and leans in. We kiss and sink into the grass, and there is nothing left on this earth but Enzo and me and the salty sweat taste and the voyeuristic birds. He grabs my hand and pulls me up, and we walk up an embankment and behind a vine-covered temple building into a thick grove of flowering trees.
“I want to,” I say.
“Here?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
So here, in the shade of this tangled grove in the middle of Rome, Enzo Ivanhoe fishes a condom out
of his gym bag, and it happens. Just like that. It’s kind of like getting the tattoo: It’s a little painful and intense and, when it’s done, my body is permanently altered in a very good way.
We lie on our backs looking up at the trees. I lean on my elbow and stare into Enzo’s eyes. I run my fingertips up and down his tanned chest, and one word repeats itself in my head. More.
I thought a whole day together would be a gift after all that waiting. But the soccer game and losing my virginity took almost two hours. Now my family wants me to go to some underground tomb outside of Rome so I can waste the last eight hours I may ever have with Enzo Ivanhoe.
I could ignore my bee, but they will surely send the polizia looking for me, and Gram does not like no-shows.
“Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s like a haunted house, only real,” Enzo says.
“I want to stay here with you.”
“Let’s go. I have a little surprise. Trust me.”
They call the place the Catacombs. It’s hundreds of miles of tomb tunnels under the city. My family waves like a bunch of idiots when our cab pulls up.
Today, they’re a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around my head. Dad is wearing a ROMA ITALIA T-shirt. Wes is passing out granola bars and loose change to a pack of street urchins who probably pegged him as a sucker from a mile away.
“Yay, you made it,” Mom says. She claps.
Francesca comes over with tickets. She’s wearing a dress that belongs on a Greek yacht and sunglasses perched on top of thick layers of black hair. Nobody would suspect this woman is a mastermind of an illegal international death-with-dignity fleet.
“Where’s everyone else?” I ask Mom, trying to act like I haven’t just lost my virginity.
“Oh, Gram and Bob visited with Celia Hobbes until the wee hours of the morning,” Mom says. “They are spent. The two of them, and Rose, are snoring away in Gram’s bed.”
I came to be with Gram. Now it’s even more of a waste of time.
“Yeah.” I “yeah” Mom when I’m not listening. I’m pretty sure she’s going on about Aunt Rose’s infection. I’m thinking that I left my virginity back in that park.
I look over at Janie. I’m desperate to tell her, but I can’t. She’s too excitable. She’ll say something to tip off the mosquitoes.
The Loose Ends List Page 17