I quickly avert my gaze and realize that not only are the two girls heading straight for us, they’re the same two I saw at the airport. The ones with the pillows. Super-smart, super-confident. Who were laughing at me and Mum at Heathrow.
They’re the two other girls on the course. Oh, brilliant.
“It’s, like, wobbling like Jell-O!” trills the blonde, laughing as if this is the funniest joke in the world.
“Use your core strength,” the black girl says dryly. “Like Natalie says in Pilates.”
“Oh, jeez, I so hope they don’t have Pilates in Italy!” the blonde says. “I always think I’m going to fall off the ball. It’s so unstable.”
“That’s kinda the point, Paige,” the other girl says even more dryly.
“Oh! Yay! Villa Barbiano!” Paige exclaims, pointing at the sign that Catia is holding up. “That’s us!”
They come to a halt in front of our little group. I see that their trolleys are heaped high with luggage; they must have brought two suitcases each, plus their carry-ons. Their pillows are stuffed into the wire baskets at the front, bulging out like big white airbags.
“Did you think they didn’t have pillows in Italy?” Kelly asks bluntly, which makes me snort.
Paige tosses back her blond locks.
“American pillows are the best,” she says. “My mom says so.”
Catia Cerboni claps her hands.
“Allora,” she says, “you are all here! Good! Welcome to Italy and your course. I am Catia Cerboni.” She sweeps her hand in a big circle in the air, as if she’s blessing us. “You will all introduce yourselves as we go to the car,” she says, turning on her heel and shooting out the automatic glass doors, clearly in a hurry to make it out of the car park before she has to pay for that extra hour.
“I’m Violet,” I say as we follow Catia out into the blinding sunshine, flicking my sunglasses down from the crown of my head. “And that’s Kelly.”
I nod at poor Kelly, who’s busy struggling with her cases once more.
“I’m Kendra,” says the black girl. “And that’s Paige.” She nods at her taller, whiter, bouncier companion.
“Oh, we saw you at Heathrow!” Paige exclaims to me. “Was that your mom? She was, like, freaking out! You must have been like, Mom, stop embarrassing me! I’d be, like, mortified if my mom made a scene like that! It was like a movie or something—I thought she was going to yell ‘Don’t take my baby!’ ” She wrinkles her forehead. “I don’t remember where I saw that.”
“Probably a Lifetime movie,” Kendra says in what sounds like a sarcastic tone.
“Probably! I love Lifetime movies,” Paige says happily.
I fall back to keep pace with Kelly, so cross with Paige that I’m literally biting my tongue to avoid snapping at her; I don’t want a feud to start before we’re even in the car. Kelly’s got a good hold on her case now, and is bumping it along, though it’s making an awful scraping sound and I doubt she’ll be able to use it again.
“Right old natural blonde, that one,” Kelly says, nodding at Paige. “Not much between the ears.”
I know she means that to console me, and I warm to her. We’re walking along a path between banks of green grass on which rounded, odd-looking bronze statues are set at intervals. Wide banners flap in the breeze, proclaiming the dates for the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, bright colors against the blue sky. There’s even an outdoor café with smiling people sprawled at tables, smoking, drinking beer, eating pizza; Pisa airport is nicer than most town centers I’ve seen in the UK.
“Come along!” Catia’s shouting, and Kelly and I hurry up our steps obediently, crossing through bollards to the parking lot, and a large, rather bashed-about jeep with its baggage door open. The American girls’ enormous luggage is taking up almost all the space; Kelly and I, by dint of much pushing and shoving, manage to wedge our suitcases in. I reach up and slam down the hatchback just in time, before one of the cases comes sliding out again.
“Okay!” Catia says, pulling away almost before Kelly and I have managed to jump into the jeep. Kendra is in the front, which I suppose is fair, as she’s the tallest, but it would have been nice to have been asked. I’m in the middle, and I glance sideways at Paige, who’s already plugged in earbuds and is listening to her iPod, humming tunelessly.
I’m embarrassed to admit how intimidating I find the American girls. They’re so confident, as if they own the world. They’re as beautifully groomed as if they were models; I assume they’ve traveled over from the United States, while Kelly and I just had a short flight from the UK, but the American girls, despite having had a much longer journey, look fresh as daisies. Paige’s skin is smooth and glowing, her cheekbones accentuated with blush, her lips glossed with clear shine, her lashes thick with mascara. Though she’s probably wearing a lot more makeup than me and Kelly, she looks more natural; the English style is to wear theatrical, showy makeup. Kelly and I have lots of eyeliner and bright nail polish on, and it’s really obvious, while these two girls are much more subtle.
I glance sideways at Paige’s fingernails, perfect beige ovals tipped with white; they put my scabby scraped ones to shame. I curl my fingers into my palms to avoid the comparison. And she smells lovely—like bubble gum and apples. Her hair, caught back in a silk scarf tied at the nape of her neck, is thick and smooth. She has a huge pink pashmina wrapped around her throat, which she adjusts tighter because of the air-conditioning, stretching out her jean-clad legs, humming away.
Everything she’s wearing is new and shiny, or looks it. And Kendra’s even smarter; diamonds gleam in the lobes of her ears as she turns to look out the window, and her hair, clubbed into a short ponytail, is perfectly smooth, pulled tight to show the elegant shape of her head.
I realize what’s taken me aback: the American girls must be the same age as us, but with their poise, their grooming, they seem so much older. They make me feel like a snotty-nosed, scruffy, immature fourteen-year-old, looking up to the sixth-formers at school in awe because they seem so grown up, so trendy. It’s not a sensation I enjoy. I wonder if Kelly feels the same.…
The jeep makes a right-hand turn, rolling me into Paige’s side; she yelps in shock, an annoying little yipping noise, like a startled Chihuahua. We’ve been on the motorway for quite a while, but now we’re coming off, onto a slip road, through a series of villages with beautiful names: San Vincenzo a Torri, Cerbiano, Macario a Monti. Almost immediately, the road starts to wind back and forth in tight curves, and we have to hold on tight in the back not to bump into each other constantly. And the jeep starts climbing, the road gets steeper, as we travel up into the Chianti hills; Catia is changing down gears, the old jeep clanking as it adjusts to a sharp incline.
I’m mesmerized by the views. It’s like the color of the Adriatic Sea; you don’t believe that anything could be that amazing aquamarine in real life, not till you see it with your own eyes. The Chianti landscape is just as extraordinary. It’s like a whole series of postcards brought to life. Perfect stone farmhouses built on steep hillsides, with olive groves and vineyards laid out in equally perfect rows, cascading down green slopes in a patchwork of delicate colors: rich green grass, the darker emerald of the vine leaves, fluffy gray-green puffball-topped olive trees, gray stone buildings. Tiny cars, bright flashes of color, wind their way up narrow little roads lined with cypress trees, clouds of white dust trailing in their wake like jet streams behind airplanes. Occasionally, there’s a vivid chemical flash of blue, a perfect rectangle of tiled swimming pool.
My fingers are itching to pick up a pencil, crayons, a stick of charcoal, and start sketching. My friend Milly is really into photography, but that’s never been my thing; I’ve always liked to see the picture I’m making grow slowly on the sketch pad or canvas even though I don’t have much experience in art.
But now, my eyes wide as I take in one spectacular panorama after another, I wish, with all my heart, that I’d been to a school that maybe did proper art O-
and A-levels, not just a few art classes. Because the small drawing ability that I have is not going to be able to do justice to the amazing views that I’m dying to get on paper.
“I feel sick!” Paige whines beside me, snapping me out of my reverie. “I’m getting totally carsick! These roads are way too bendy!”
“Open the window and put your head out,” Catia snaps, driving, if anything, even faster.
“Ugh! My hair’ll get all messed up!” Grumpily, Paige buzzes down the window and pokes her nose out, holding her hair flat with both hands clamped to the sides of her head. She gulps in deep breaths of air as the vehicle lurches along.
“She looks like a dog,” Kelly mutters to me. “You know, when they stick their heads out of car windows?”
“A golden Labrador,” I mumble back. “Big and shiny, but no brains at all.”
Paige is definitely built on a large scale; she’s not at all fat, just big-boned, sturdy, like a lacrosse player, which she probably is; she glows with health, and her golden tan is enviable. The more I think about the Labrador comparison, the better it is.
“Any better?” Kendra twists around in her seat to look at Paige. “Do you want to swap places?”
Now, Kendra, I think, is a greyhound. Lean and elegant, not a hair out of place.
“We’re nearly there,” Catia snaps as the jeep turns sharply onto a side road, jouncing and bumping on the dirt surface. Paige sensibly ducks back in before her head gets severed by a particularly enthusiastic bounce. We’re traveling up a steep avenue lined with cypresses, as so many of the roads seem to be; the pale dust from the road surface has already coated the bases of the trees and the tangle of undergrowth on either side. The road drops away, to oohs and aahs from all of us as we see the valley below, a village in a bowl of green to our left, rows of vines flowing in straight lines down the hillside on our right. I notice bunches of tiny dark purple grapes growing on the vines, half hidden by the clustering leaves; and bright red roses planted along the edges, climbing up the stakes, twining around them lovingly.
It’s so beautiful. I’ve seen wonderful landscapes before; my mum likes to travel, and of course we go to Norway every year. I’ve seen Scottish mountains, French chateaux, even the Sydney Harbor Bridge when we went to Australia two years ago. But there’s something about Tuscany that stirs up my heart like nowhere else. I want to paint every inch of it. I can’t wait to start the art lessons.
It feels like coming home.
All the girls are squealing now as the jeep crunches over ruts and potholes, throwing us against our seat belts. We’re turning through high gateposts, down an even narrower road, almost a track; and then white gleams through the trees and Catia is swinging the jeep to a halt, wheels crunching on gravel, in front of a wide cream-stuccoed villa, pale mauve wisteria climbing up its sides and softening its square lines.
“Welcome to Villa Barbiano, your home for the next eight weeks,” Catia says shortly as she unclips her seat belt and swings herself deftly to the ground. “It is eighteenth century, built as a country home for my husband’s family, the Cerbonis. Their main palazzo was in Florence, but that has now been sold. We make our own wine and olive oil, and also some goat cheese, which is very popular.”
“Goats! Eww! Smelly!” Paige mutters, not quietly enough; Catia shoots her an evil stare.
“I will show you to your rooms,” she says coldly, “and then you may unpack and maybe have a swim in the pool before dinner.”
We all perk up at the mention of the pool, dragging our cases out of the jeep and following Catia through the big double doors of the villa. Inside it’s immediately cool, the terra-cotta tiles of the floor and the white-plastered walls cutting the outside temperature. The house is half in shade, shutters at most of the windows, stripes of bright sunlight stippling the rust-colored floor and the stone staircase we climb. The walls are hung with elegant little watercolors of fruit and flowers, and each hallway we pass has an inlaid occasional table placed against the wall, one of those half-moon shapes with a perfect flower arrangement in a vase on top, like you get in five-star hotels.
I’m amused to see that we have to climb right to the top of the house, under the sloping roof. Catia has put us in the old servants’ quarters.
“Ecco! Here are your rooms,” Catia says as we arrive, panting because of the weight of our cases, at the top of the stairs. She’s standing in a wide, stone-floored anteroom with a roof sloping away on either side to long low windows, her arms wide, like an air hostess indicating emergency exits. “There are two beds in each one, and each room has its own bathroom,” she informs us. “The beds are made up, and you will find your own towels on them. Every week you will be responsible for taking your sheets and towels downstairs to the laundry. Please do not use fake tan, as it stains the towels and we have to bleach them, which is not good for the environment. There are beach towels by the swimming pool. Do not take your house towels out to the pool. And please do not put sanitary napkins down the toilet, as you will make a blockage.”
She drops her arms, turns on her heel, and heads for the top of the stairs, picking her way past Kendra’s gigantic suitcase.
“The pool is at the back of the villa,” she adds. “Dinner is served at eight-thirty in the dining room. We dress for dinner. No shorts, please. And no skirts so short we can see what you are wearing underneath. This is a course for young ladies, not ragamuffins.”
We’re all so freaked out by this speech, delivered with the weariness of a woman who’s trotted it out hundreds of times before, that we’re frozen in utter silence as Catia’s heels click down the stone stair treads, one flight, two flights, and eventually recede into the depths of Villa Barbiano. It’s our first bonding moment as a foursome, and it’s over in a flash: a swift, panicky glance exchanged by all of us, the realization that we’re stuck, for the next eight weeks, in a house with a woman who seems to actively dislike teenage girls.
“You and me?” Kelly says to me as Kendra jerks her chin at Paige and heads across the antechamber to the door closest to her. It’s Brits versus Americans, I think, rolling my case in the opposite direction. Scruffs versus glamour girls. Blue nail varnish versus French manicures …
But all comparisons trail off as I enter the bedroom and goggle in shock. It’s like a suite, with the bathroom leading off one side, and it’s huge. There’s a single bed on either side of the room, a hooked cotton rug and white-painted night-stand beside each one. A big white cupboard and chest of drawers match the rest of the furniture, and a few black-and-white prints hang on the walls. It’s a blank canvas, simple and elegant, the roof sloping sharply to the right, exposed wooden beams with terra-cotta tiles lining the spaces between them.
But the real star, for me, is the window between the beds. Long and low, beneath the eaves, it frames a view of blue skies, olive groves, and oak trees in the valley below, as beautiful as a painting. Sunlight gleams through it in a long refracted ray, bounced off the eaves, hanging in the air, tiny dust mites suspended in its golden glow, glittering like dots of mica. I run over to the window seat and sink onto the stone embrasure, staring out at the panorama, for the first time really understanding what the expression “feast your eyes” means.
“Oh wow!” Kelly echoes my feelings as she thuds into the room. Her case tips to the floor with a crash. “Piece of rubbish,” she mutters, kicking it. “Didn’t even last one blooming trip.” She clears her throat. “Um, d’you care which bed you have?” she asks politely, as screams of:
“Mine!”
“No, I saw it first!”
“I put my bag on it!” shrill from across the anteroom.
“My money’s on Kendra,” I say, grinning at Kelly. “And no, I don’t care which bed I have. Do you?”
Kelly looks as if she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Slowly, she walks across the room and sinks onto the far bed.
“At home,” she says eventually, “I share with my two little sisters. They’ve got a bunk bed an
d I’ve got one of those sofa-cube things that I unfold every night. We’ve only got a little council house, and there’s six of us. This room”—she gestures around her—“is the size of our entire ground floor. Kitchen, lounge, everything.” She swallows hard. “So, no, I don’t care which bed I have either.”
“You know something funny?” I ask. “I’ll bet these are the old servants’ quarters. Right at the top of the house, under the roof.”
She’s thunderstruck.
“You’re having me on,” she breathes, looking around the huge bedroom in wonder.
I shake my head. “Of course, there’d have been a lot more people in here, all piled in, lots of beds in rows. And there wouldn’t have been a—”
More screams resound from the other side of the top floor.
“Omigod!” Paige howls. “The bathroom’s like huge, and it’s all marble!”
Kelly and I race across the room to look at our own en suite bathroom; luckily the doorway’s wide enough to let us both through. We gasp at the sight of the room, which is just as big as our bedroom: at the marble bath, the marble-walled open shower—there isn’t even a curtain, it’s so big it doesn’t need one—and the twin sinks set in a long white marble slab in front of a huge mirror.
“Those aren’t real gold taps, are they?” Kelly says in a hushed voice, as if she’s in church.
I’m trying not to smile.
“No,” I say.
“I might tell my sisters they are,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief as she looks around the room. “They’ll believe it.” Kelly sinks slowly to a squat, her head in her hands. “Flipping, bleeding hell,” she mutters slowly. “Buggering, bloody, sodding hell. Sorry. But if you knew where I started out this morning … what my home looks like … This is like—” She draws in a long breath. “Like waking up in The Princess Diaries or something.”
Flirting in Italian Page 4