Flirting in Italian

by Henderson, Lauren

  “It’s so big,” she says nervously, shying away to put me between her and the horse. “It can’t jump the fence, can it?”

  “Of course not!” I say as confidently as I can, though actually I have no idea.

  “I’ve never been that close to a horse before,” she confides. “We’re not big on the countryside in my family. We go to the sea. You know? Fish and chips on the pier, and the arcades. My gran likes bingo.”

  The horse nickers amiably and wanders away. A cat slips across the path in front of us, its eyes gleaming orange in the dark; an owl hoots in the distance, a white shadow flitting through the sky. Kelly jumps again. Everyone’s out for the night, I think, smiling. Looking for their own particular party.

  We’re at the base of the drive now, in front of the house, which looks very small from this angle. A wooden door is slightly ajar, golden light spilling out from inside, but Leonardo and Andrea ignore it, taking a stepping-stone path down the side of the hill that curves around the house, revealing it to be built into the slope. A stone terrace, lined with lemon trees in terra-cotta pots, stretches out over the edge of the hill, with what must be, in daytime, a wonderful view of the valley below.

  But no one’s looking at the view tonight. Huge yellow candles are burning in shallow stone dishes, and an insistent bass is pounding at the walls of the house, forcing its way free and out into the evening air. The terrace spreads out into a rough oval, the dance floor. As at the club in Florence, there aren’t that many people actually dancing. I remember Luca saying that Italians prefer to stand around and show off their outfits.

  Agh! I catch myself. Stop it with this Luca stuff! You’re getting as bad as the pathetic girls you just said you despised!

  So instead, I think: Great—more room on the dance floor for me! and follow the boys, Paige, and Kendra as they head along the terrace and through the wide french doors, thrown open to let people flow in and out of the house. The first thing I see inside is gobsmacking.

  “Is that wine?” Kelly exclaims.

  It’s a huge glass bottle of wine. No, not a bottle. A vat. A huge glass vat of wine shaped like a bottle, standing on a solid wooden table, with a plastic tube coming out of the top and finishing in a plastic spigot. The tube is hanging over the edge of the table, over a big plastic tub that’s presumably there to catch the drips. Leonardo picks up the spigot and presses a lever, holding a series of plastic cups underneath it, filling them one by one, gesturing to us to come over and take a cup each.

  “Omigod!” Paige yodels, and everyone who hadn’t noticed our group before looks over and keeps looking. “It’s like a keg party! Only with wine!”

  I see Leonardo wincing at the loudness of her voice, and realize that it’s because she’s called attention to the fact that an Amazonian blonde and a stunning black girl have arrived. It’s a feeding frenzy. Boys swoop in from all directions to surround Paige and Kendra, trying to cut the girl of their choice off from the rest of the group, peacocking in front of them, showing off their clothes, their command of English, their handsome smiles. Kelly and I edge back by the side of the table and stand watching the attempts of Leonardo and Andrea to wedge their way back to Paige and Kendra.

  Kelly sips some wine and makes a face. “It’s a bit rough.”

  “It isn’t even in bottles,” I point out. “What do you expect?” Thank goodness my stomach’s back to normal; I sip some myself. “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. Just ’cause you’ve got the good palate, you’re showing off now.”

  Kelly grins. “I am not,” she says.

  “Really?” I tease her.

  “Okay. Maybe just a little bit,” she says. But then she looks over at the group around Paige and Kendra, and her face falls. I think that it’s basic envy of the sheer level of attention they’re getting—envy I totally share—until I realize that her stare is fixed on one particular person; her head’s turning to follow his movements.

  It’s Andrea. Kelly likes Andrea. Who’s forged a path to Kendra’s side and is doing his best to shoulder away all the other guys as he monopolizes her with quick-fire conversation.

  Oh dear, I think. Kelly doesn’t stand a chance with Andrea. My heart sinks. I want her to be happy, have a great time—

  And then a stocky dark boy wheels up in front of us. He doesn’t even look at me; his gaze is entirely fixed on Kelly as he says to her, smiling appreciatively:

  “O bella rossa! Come ti chiami?”

  “Mi chiamo Kelly,” Kelly says carefully in Italian, and I realize that he called her a “beautiful redhead.” Wow. What a way to start talking to a girl. No wonder Italian boys are famous for being incredibly charming.

  “Io sono Gianbattista,” he says, and he takes her hand, the one that isn’t holding the wine cup. “Andiamo a vedere le stelle.”

  He starts to pull her away, and she throws me a look over her shoulder, wide-eyed, brimming with incredulity, her cheeks flushed, her freckles standing out on her nose.

  “I’m going outside with Gianbattista. To look at the stars,” she says, trying to sound matter-of-fact. I notice that she glances over hopefully to see if Andrea’s noticing that she’s made a conquest.

  “They don’t mess around here, do they?” I say, because Gianbattista has already got her halfway to the french doors. “Have fun!”

  “Che bonona,” another boy says, staring after Kelly as she disappears onto the terrace with her star-viewing guide. I make a mental note to remember that word and ask what it means as I take another sip of wine and look around the room, which is a big open-plan living room, a kitchen visible through an archway at the far end. I can barely see the furniture because the room is full of Italians, lounging on the sofas and flicking through coffee-table books of photographs, standing in groups waving their hands around as they talk in the loud, emphatic way that I’m coming to realize doesn’t mean they’re arguing or even disagreeing with each other: it’s just their way of having a conversation. They’re wearing white linen and blue denim. Their hair is shiny; they’re well groomed; the boys are smooth-shaven or sporting designer stubble, the kind you do very carefully with an electric razor to get the effect just right; and the air smells of perfume and aftershave.

  I know it’s early in the party—the huge wine bottle’s still almost full, and the night is young—but I’m impressed at how good everyone looks. And sober. No one’s pink-faced and stumbling, no one’s slurring their words. The groups of people are all mixed. It’s not like the London parties I’ve been to, with boys at one end of the room getting drunk enough to build up the courage to talk to the girls, who are at the other end giggling and pretending to ignore them.

  This is impressively grown up.

  And Luca was bang-on in his assessment of me. I’m standing here alone, no one coming to talk to me. I think I look pretty nice: I did myself up in my best makeup, dark smoky eyes and red lipstick. I wish I could wear white, like Kendra, who looks amazing in it, but I’m a little too body-conscious for that. Kendra has an athlete’s body, and I don’t. I’m okay with not being really thin, but I’d feel like a great white whale if I wore a white outfit.

  Is it a whale? I wonder. Or a shark? I shrug. These are the kind of questions you find yourself pondering when you’re at a fantastic party, all your girlfriends have been snapped up on sight, and you’re busy propping up the drinks table with your bum because no one wants to talk to you. There aren’t any girls to talk to just to look busy.

  Get a grip, Violet. No self-pity. And no more than one glass of wine.

  I walk out onto the terrace, watching the flames burn liquid in the big shallow terra-cotta dishes. The wax inside is yellow, the color of the lemons in the little trees. Citronella candles, I think. To keep off mosquitoes. My grandmother burns them in Norway, by the lake, but I’ve never seen ones this big; the scent is sharp, a chemical citrus. I prop my elbows on the stone balcony and watch the party in full swing around me; it seems like everyone knows everyone else, but then it always
does at parties when you don’t know anyone at all—apart from your three girlfriends, who you can’t even see because they have boys packed around them three-deep.

  Something else that’s different about Italian boys, I realize. If they see a girl they fancy, they go up to her and start talking. If an English boy likes you, he’ll mostly avoid you not to seem too keen. Which is barking mad, of course.

  Generally, things on the dating side do seem to run much better here. Except if you look like their sister.

  Luca’s voice is in my head again. Naturally, I’ve been scanning the terrace, but I haven’t seen him.

  Right, that’s it. I’m not going to stand here any longer, looking like a lemon, mooning over Luca and not talking to anyone; what would he think if he came onto the terrace and I am all by myself? He’d laugh, tell me he’d been right, that he’s the only one who’s interested in me. I try not to lie to myself, and although I’m head over heels about Luca, I have to admit that he is not the nicest boy I’ve ever met in my life. The sexiest, definitely, but not the nicest. He can be sarcastic, abrasive, cynical, even mean and bitter.

  And I’m not giving him the opportunity to tease me.

  If there’s one thing I can always do at parties, it’s dance. I march across the terrace, dropping my cup in a bin as I pass, and merge into the small group of people on the dance floor. The music isn’t my usual kind of thing: it’s really retro, songs that were cult hits years and years ago, like sixties remixes done in a clever, knowing kind of way. But although I’m more used to modern stuff, I know exactly how to dance to this kind of music. Milly, Lily-Rose, and I love it, though it’s usually just one song, dropped into the end of the evening. We look cool, because we’ve practiced in front of full-length mirrors for hours. Singing into hairbrushes, giggling madly.

  Obviously, I don’t mime singing into a hairbrush now. I’m not a complete idiot. But, like at Central Park, I may not be the girl that all the boys fancy, but I can show these Italian trendies how to dance properly.

  And after a few songs, we’re jumping all over the uneven stone floor, laughing, pushing our hair back, wiggling our bums, doing comic hand movements, really getting into it as the candlelight flickers over our faces. One song stops and we catch our breath, smile at each other, and wait for the next beat to start. It’s so dark I can’t see the faces of the other dancers in detail, just smiles, shining eyes, and tanned skin gleaming as we synchronize together.

  I’m going with the music, following where it takes me. I’m getting a bit sweaty, and I don’t care. Paige would say I’m working it out, and that’s what it feels like: working everything out, letting everything go, all the tension and all the stress. A wacky song comes on with a chorus that goes “You can’t touch this”; it has lots of stops and starts, and we find ourselves choreographing an improvised routine to it, involving freezing wherever we are when it stops, like a game of musical statues, which probably looks like the stupidest thing ever from a distance, but is hilarious when you’re in the middle of it.

  By the time the song finishes, I’m knackered, laughing, my feet are a bit sore, I think I need the loo, and I’m totally relaxed and happy.

  “Oh, American! Nice to dance with you!” says a boy in a bad American accent, and holds up a hand to high-five me.

  “English,” I say, and duly high-five him.

  “Ah, English!” he says, and starts to add something, when I feel myself butted in the back, a shove that sends me off balance. I tip forward a couple of steps to avoid falling over, and the boy reaches out to steady me.

  One of the girls, I think. A bit tipsy and overfriendly. I look around rather crossly, because it was a big shove, and then I scream my head off.

  Because standing right behind me, baring a terrifying set of big yellowish teeth, its face almost level with mine, is a very large gray donkey.

  Drop It and Pop It

  I’ve never been this close to a donkey before, and I don’t like it one bit. Its teeth are really very large indeed, and it’s staring right at me as if I’m a head of lettuce it’s about to bite into. I shriek and back away, which is probably the wrong thing to do.

  Now I’ve shown fear. The donkey will sense that, and attack me with its enormous teeth. You should never show fear. It’s like with sharks—you’re supposed to swim away from them slowly, not flap around frantically, because then you look weak. Like prey.

  But what are you supposed to do when you’re faced with a grimacing donkey that just butted you in the back?

  And then the boy who steadied me laughs and reaches past me, stroking the donkey’s nose.

  “Ecco Golia!” he says, rubbing her head. “Sei venuta per tuo vino?”

  He turns to me.

  “She like wine,” he says.

  “You what?” I stare at him blankly, thinking I must have misheard. But he’s already turned away, and I jump again, squeaking in shock, as the donkey pushes past me to follow the boy, its big gray hairy shoulder shoving me out of the way. Thank God, it—or she—has lost interest in me; I watch her lumber through the crowd. Her back has a dark cross on it: a thick black line across the shoulders, a longer one following the bony line of her spine.

  The boy goes inside the french doors, and the donkey’s still following, its front hooves stepping over the threshold. I watch, amazed, as someone else gently pushes her back with a hand between her eyes. Then the boy reemerges with a bowl, which he’s carrying carefully because it’s half full of red wine. He sets it on the flagstones by the wall of the house, and then jumps out of the way—the donkey’s big head is already ducking to the bowl, her hooves shuffling dangerously close to the boy’s feet.

  “You see?” he says, coming back to where I’m standing on the edge of the dance area, goggling at the sight of the donkey lapping up red wine. “She like wine! Only for the party. Then she will dance with us.”

  He looks at my wide eyes and open mouth, and bursts out laughing.

  “You not see this in England,” he says, grinning at me. “Un asina who like Chianti.”

  “No!” I finally manage. “No, I’ve never seen that in England.”

  “You like Chianti?” He tilts his head to one side. “Come, we drink some too. Like Golia.”

  “That’s her name?” I ask, following him back to the house. We pass the donkey, who’s completely absorbed in licking up the wine.

  “Si, Golia.” He pats her as he goes past: greatly daring, I do too. Her thick coat feels just like a hassock, rough and coarse.

  “I am Sebastiano, and your name?” he asks.

  “Violet,” I say as we step over the threshold.

  “Violetta!” he says, throwing his arms wide. “English girl, Italian name!”

  And across the room, I see a dark head turn in our direction. That much taller than the rest of the boys, he stands out, his straight black silky hair falling over his face, his blue eyes as bright and cold as the water of the fjord next to my grandmother’s summer rental cottage. I was looking for him before and couldn’t see him anywhere; now that I’ve been distracted by dancing and a Chianti-drinking donkey, he’s spotted me. His gaze flicks like a knife between me and the boy, who’s at the gigantic wine bottle now, filling cups and handing me one.

  “Salute!” Sebastiano says, touching his cup to mine, and I glance up at Luca, seeing that he’s taking this in, too.

  A rush of confusion fills me as I toast. I’m glad that Luca’s seen me with someone else, that I haven’t been a wallflower at this party, that I’ve proved him wrong, even a little bit, because there’s a boy here who seems to like me, who’s talking to me, anyway, getting me a drink. In films, in books, flirting with a boy is a surefire way to get the one you actually like interested in you, draw him over to your side. They’re supposed to like competition, the challenge of going after a girl who’s popular.

  But maybe real life doesn’t quite work that way. Because Luca arches one black eyebrow, his mouth quirks up on one side in a sneer, and h
e turns pointedly away, sliding a cigarette into his mouth and lighting it with a flip of his Zippo.

  Disgusting habit, I think as firmly as I can. I’m glad he’s not coming over, smoking a nasty stinking cancer stick.

  It’s awful when you lie to yourself. I do think smoking is foul, but I’m also more than aware that if Luca strolled over to talk to me, with that cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, I wouldn’t walk away, complaining about the smoke; I’d stand there staring up at him, trying not to grin as widely as a five-year-old meeting Cinderella at Disneyland.

  Well, Luca doesn’t seem remotely interested in coming over. He’s clearly one of those boys who like to mess girls around. I’ve seen them before. Their favorite thing is to have as many girls running after them as possible, like those circus performers who can keep loads of plates spinning on different sticks at once. This kind of boy rarely has a steady girlfriend. He doesn’t like to commit, because if he’s linked to one girl, it’s harder to keep all the other plates spinning.

  I glance over at Luca. He’s turned away, resolutely not looking at me. I realize where the expression “give someone the cold shoulder” comes from. And then I see a hand reaching up to push his hair back playfully, a girl’s hand with a heavy gold bracelet on it, big chunky coins dangling from the chain.

  I recognize that bracelet at once: Elisa. My whole body stiffens. He’s over there letting Elisa touch his hair, rather than coming over to me.

  I put my cup down on the table and smile so brightly at Sebastiano, he’s visibly surprised at my sudden enthusiasm.

  “Let’s go back and dance!” I say loudly.

  “Benissimo!”

  He follows me outside into the soft night air, and I can’t help gasping at the sight of the donkey, Golia, who’s now in the middle of the dance floor, swaying happily from side to side. People are dancing around her, stroking her head as they pass, avoiding the ropelike, flapping tail.