by R.S. Grey
When I get there, I kill the engine and heave a deep breath.
Panic hasn’t fully set in. We don’t know what’s going on. We’ll assess the tire and then worry about what we need to do after knowing what sort of dire situation we’ve found ourselves in.
“Stay in here and I’ll check it out,” Noah tells me, bracing himself before he opens his door and goes back out into the rain. I turn off my windshield wipers so I don’t make it worse for him as he inspects all the tires. Then I cross my fingers.
Please don’t be flat. Please don’t be flat.
He flings his door open and stuffs himself back inside the car as quickly as possible. In the rush, his elbow accidentally jabs my side. “Shoot, sorry. Are you okay?” He sounds like he really cares.
“No broken ribs. Promise. How’d everything look?”
He points out his window. “This tire up here is toast. I’m surprised we made it as far as we did. We were scraping metal at the end.”
“Are you serious?”
He knows my question is rhetorical.
For a second, we sit in silence, individually processing what this means.
We’re still two hours from Rome, on the outskirts of Sperlonga, without phones, and now we have a flat tire.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. Then as reality really sinks in, I say it again, with emphasis. “OH MY GOD! Noah! What are we going to do?”
“Listen, it could be worse. We’re not totally in the middle of nowhere. I saw some shops back about a mile. I’ll go and see if I can find a mechanic who can tow us and fix the tire.”
Already, I’m unbuckling my seatbelt. “I’ll come with you.”
“Absolutely not. Walking along the highway in rain like this is pure lunacy, but I don’t see any other way around it. You’re staying here. Lock the doors and sit tight. I’ll be back. Okay?”
“Wait. Wear this.”
I hand him my pink baseball hat from my bag.
He’s thoroughly confused.
“Just…so you’re more visible.”
He laughs. “Thanks, but it won’t fit on my head.”
Right. I dig around in my bag, but I have nothing else to give him. I wish I had a neon vest. Glow sticks. Something.
He’s about to open his door and leave when I reach out and grip his bicep, panicked. “Don’t do anything stupid! Walk as far away from the road as you can!”
He turns back to look at me, his eyes narrowed with good humor. “Careful or I’ll start to think you might actually care about me.”
Right before he’s gone for good, I lean over. “Don’t you dare die out there, Noah Peterson!”
Then his car door slams and I’m absolutely, utterly alone. I don’t even have my crossword book to distract me.
I turn around and find Noah walking along the road. I watch him for as long as I can, and when he drifts out of view, my lower lip starts to wobble.
No.
Keep it together.
Noah is doing the brave, hard work. I’m just patiently waiting. I can be good at this. First, I count the cars that pass, and when I get to a hundred, I change course and start reciting Edgar Allan Poe poems that live in my head rent-free. When that gets boring, I decide to look in every compartment in the car, nosing around. There’s not much to work with. Some napkins. A tin of mints that have gone bad. Official-looking Italian documents in the glovebox. Nothing salacious, unfortunately.
Noah has a bag on the floorboard, and though I’m tempted to, I don’t rifle through it—on principle. I’m better than that. But, would you believe it? My pen gets caught on the edge of his bag, and I can’t just leave it like that. Clumsy ol’ me, when I reach down to get it, the pen sort of tugs open the whole bag so I can see clear inside.
Dead cell phone. Soggy hat. Wet book.
I tilt it a little to the side so I can read the title, expecting it to be that economics book he had on the plane.
Night by Elie Wiesel. A favorite book of mine to discuss in class. Judging by the little bookmark between the pages, he’s almost done. Wait… I lean over and squint so I can make out the tiny computer type visible on the scrap of paper he’s using to mark his place.
Ms. Cohen’s Eighth Grade English Class - Required Summer Reading List
Before I can help myself, I reach down for the book and carefully flip it open, extracting the wet paper.
He’s marked through most of the books on my list, tracking his progress. He’s left little notes in the margins. Liked the ending. Reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye. Favorite so far.
Dumbstruck, I replace the paper and tuck the book back into his bag, right where I found it.
Then I sit back in my seat and stare out the front window, utterly speechless.
My hands are shaking.
The gesture strikes me straight through my heart. Books are my love language. Picking up a story and getting lost in a fictional world—to me, there’s nothing better. The fact that he’s taken the time to read these books might as well be a bouquet of red roses, a mixtape left on my front doorstep, a silent speech delivered on white poster boards at Christmas time.
Thunder grows louder overhead, and I turn back over my shoulder and strain my eyes, trying to find Noah in the downpour. Without a clock in the car, I have no idea how long he’s been gone. I can’t even track the sun because of the rain, but let’s get real, it’s not like I could MacGyver a homemade sundial anyway.
I sigh and turn back, resting my head against the window and trying not to worry. Eventually, I must doze off.
Tap, tap, tap.
A finger pounds on the glass beside my head.
I jolt awake.
“Unlock the door!”
SHIT. I’m being robbed.
Chapter Sixteen
“Audrey! Unlock the door.”
Noah!
I immediately come to my senses. “Oh shoot. Yeah, okay.” I try to be helpful, but I do the thing where I accidentally engage every switch and lever on my door except the one that disengages the lock. Then finally, there. Noah opens my door and dips his head into the car.
“Come on. This guy’s going to give us a ride back to his house. Grab the bags.”
He’s what? We’re going where?
There’s no time to get answers because Noah’s already tugging me up and out of the car along with our stuff. He doesn’t so much lead me to the old idling truck a few yards away as he lifts and carries me over the puddles, opens the passenger door, and deposits me inside onto the bench seat like I’m a backpack he’s lugging along. Then he slides in after me, bumping me with his hips and makes introductions over the sound of the rain.
“Giuseppe, Audrey. Audrey, Giuseppe.”
Giuseppe—who I’m now wedged directly next to—is an Italian man I would place somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties. He has a fantastic salt and pepper mustache, wild white Einstein hair, and a nice big friendly smile. His hands are stained with oil and he smells like rubber tires. He’s wearing coveralls that barely make it over his round belly and I don’t at all get the sense that he wants to murder me, so that’s good.
When Noah introduces us, Giuseppe reaches out to shake my hand, and his grip is firm. He pumps my hand up and down so enthusiastically he moves my whole body with it.
“Giuseppe owns the mechanic shop a few miles back,” Noah explains. “He agreed to help fix our car, but he can’t do it until the morning. He’s worried about getting the tow truck stuck out in this mess. Tonight, we’ll stay at his house.”
“Wow. That’s really nice.”
I’m glad I manage to sound reasonably sane, because in my head, I’m a detective who’s lost track of the case. Mechanic shop owner. Tire. Morning. House. What?
“Yeah, I mean, I think that’s what’s happening. There’s a slight chance some things could have been lost in translation. I could have it totally wrong.”
“Go home,” Giuseppe says in thickly accented English. “Eat.” He mimes putting food in hi
s mouth and honestly, so far, I like where this is going.
He pulls out onto the highway, and I glance worriedly over at the little canary yellow Fiat with its wonky tire.
“It’ll be okay there overnight?”
“It’ll have to be,” Noah assures me. “The roads are getting worse. There’s nothing we can do.”
It occurs to me that Noah has been doing this all evening: calming me down, fixing our problems, staying focused instead of freaking out.
I peer over at him and rock my shoulder against his. “Thanks.”
He looks down at me and I can only imagine what he sees: a marshy street urchin, a wide-eyed scaredy-cat, a puny thing who needs him now more than ever.
There’s real sincerity in his gaze when he nods, and then he looks away quickly as if he’s embarrassed.
Giuseppe lives in the Italian countryside, somewhere between Sperlonga and Rome. His house is old and small and filled with all the makings of a happy life: the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen, a black cat trotting over to wind its way between Giuseppe’s legs, antique picture frames arranged on a table by the door, all those smiling faces greeting us.
Giuseppe calls out and his family comes into the living room: a wife and an adult daughter with a baby on her hip and two toddlers clutching her legs. They greet us with curious, round eyes as Giuseppe rattles off rapid-fire Italian. My imagination runs wild.
Tonight, we’ve had great fortune. I brought us back these two dimwitted Americans. We’ll roast them and chop them and put them in stew. The big one will feed us all winter.
Since we’re still sopping wet (thanks to the dash from Giuseppe’s truck to the front door of the house), the first order of business is getting some dry clothes. Giuseppe’s wife—Eva, pronounced eh-va—immediately takes me by the arm and leads us through the house and up a rickety set of stairs, toward a room that looks like it used to be an attic.
She deposits me there with Noah and holds out her hand as if to say, Stay.
So we do.
Giuseppe’s house is old, practically medieval, and the room we’re in is sort of the overflow, catch-all space. There’s furniture stacked up against one wall. An antique marble-topped commode sits hidden underneath a wooden rocking horse and a child’s stool, both of which look handmade. There’re a few boxes shoved in a corner, probably filled with family memorabilia. A stack of books has tumbled over. A few cobwebs and dust bunnies lurk in the corners. The ceiling slants in a way that means Noah can only stand to his full height on one side of the room, over by the window.
The bed situation—which I’ve tried to put off thinking about for as long as possible—is as expected: awkward.
Just one lonely mattress on a short frame in the corner of the room, placed there like an afterthought.
Noah wouldn’t fit on it by himself.
We definitely won’t fit on it together.
Outside, lightning lights up the sky and thunder chases it, clapping so loud I jump a little.
Noah stands at the window with his back to me, watching the rain with his hands propped on his hips. I get the impression he’s trying to figure out some way to get us out of this situation, but short of walking home, we’re stuck here overnight.
He’s probably not impressed by the bed situation either. He’s likely already imagining all the aches and pains he’ll wake up with tomorrow morning. I wish I could think of some way to help.
There’s a soft knock on the door and then Eva steps in with a bundle of clothing in her hands.
She speaks Italian, probably hoping we’ll understand some of it, but when it’s clear we don’t, she walks over and hands the clothes to me, pressing them into my chest so it’s understood that they’re meant for us.
It strikes me suddenly how generous Giuseppe and his family are being, allowing us entry into their home, giving us fresh clothes, a meal, a dry place to sleep.
She’s about to go, to give us privacy to change, but I catch her hand. “Grazi.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. I wish I knew more ways to thank her in Italian. I repeat it again and again. She smiles and ducks her head.
“Vestire,” she says, pointing to the clothes. Then, she mulls something over before testing her English. “Come for cena. Erm…” She’s trying to think of a word, and when she gets it, she grins. “Supper.”
Noah and I thank her again and then she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.
I drop the clothes on the bed and sort through them. There’s a long dark blue summer dress and sweater for me, pants and a linen shirt for Noah.
It’s not ideal. I don’t have a bra or underwear to put on once I take my swimsuit and cover-up off. Noah will most assuredly not fit into either the pants or the shirt. He has almost a foot on Giuseppe.
We lock eyes and shrug, coming to the same conclusion: beggars can’t be choosers.
I take my clothes and curve around Noah so my back is to him. I stop when I’m a safe distance away and drop my clothes on a short stack of boxes before I start to pull my cover-up off over my head.
We give each other privacy as we change. I don’t see an inch of Noah’s skin as he unties his board shorts and slips on his borrowed clothes, but I hear it all. I imagine everything.
For a brief moment, after I’ve pushed down my one-piece, I’m totally naked and my heart races. My skin heats and I go quicker, yanking the dress on over my head and tugging it down until it covers me completely. I look down and blanche. Without the sweater, my cleavage is indecent. I belong in the Playboy Mansion.
Noah laughs and I peer over my shoulder. In the too-tight shirt and too-short pants, he’s mid-transformation as the Hulk, about to wreak havoc on the nice folks in the Marvel Universe. The clothes must be from when Giuseppe was much, much younger.
I laugh and he looks back, sees me in my dress, and his smile melts right off his face. Oh, right. I grab my sweater and make quick work of tugging it over my head. It’s scratchy and thick and much too warm for a summer night in a house with no central air conditioning, but I don’t have a choice. I can’t go down for dinner without it.
“I wish I had a camera to document this,” Noah tells me when we finish and turn to fully face each other again.
“You and me both.” I step closer and wave my hand over his outfit. “The blackmail potential is endless.”
He hums. “I can see it now. Schoolwide newsletter. My photo, blown up, front row, center.”
I scoff. “Give me more credit than that. The newsletter is so…blasé. Barely anyone reads it. I’m thinking flyers. Pasted on every locker. I’d spring for full-color printing.”
He whistles. “That ain’t cheap.”
I shrug. “It’d be worth it.”
If someone asked me my absolute favorite thing about Noah, first, I would lie and say I don’t have a favorite thing about Noah and everything about him is bad. But in truth, it’s this: our ability to riff with one another. When we get going, we’re two musicians playing perfectly in sync. Something just…clicks.
“You’ll boil in that sweater,” he says, reaching out to feel the cuff on my right hand.
“It’s not so bad,” I lie.
His brows tug together as he stares down at where his hand is still toying with the fabric. “I could ask if they have something else you could borrow.”
“No. They’re doing enough for us as it is. This is fine.”
To prove my point, I take the elastic band from around my wrist and tie up my mass of thick wet hair into a high ponytail. Already, I feel better.
“Ready to eat?”
Downstairs, there’s a flurry of activity as Giuseppe and his family finish setting up for dinner. The small dining area is right off the kitchen. Eva delivers orders in Italian that the whole family heeds without question. Giuseppe brings two more mismatched chairs in from the living room and tugs them right up to the table, shifting every seat a little closer together. The two toddlers add forks and spoons to
the place settings at the table, not quite getting it right but looking adorable all the same. Giuseppe’s daughter still has the baby on her hip while she helps plate the food and she looks like she has it under control (the way moms do), but I still feel bad not being put to use since I have two free hands.
I rush forward. “How can we help?”
Giuseppe shoos away my offer and ushers us to the table where there are already glasses filled with red wine and a basket filled with warm, steaming bread. We’re given the spots right on the end, side by side.
The smell in the house is simply…mouth-watering. My appetite hasn’t been the first thing on my mind this evening, but now I realize how starving I am.
Plates start getting carried to the table and Noah shoots to his feet to help. Once everyone has a heaping amount of food in front of them, we bow our heads as Giuseppe says an Italian prayer, and then we dig in.
“Pasta alla puttanesca,” Eva tells us, pointing her fork at the main dish she’s prepared. The pappardelle pasta has obviously been homemade. It’s covered in a thick tomato-based sauce laced with bold flavors I can’t get enough of: red wine, garlic, anchovies, olives, and capers. It’s so distinctly Italian and so delicious. Alongside it, she’s prepared crispy-tender green beans, roasted with garlic and lemon and sprinkled with pine nuts. On top of everything, there’s freshly grated parmesan. I barely come up for air after I take my first bite. It’s hands down the best meal I’ve had in Italy, and I make sure to let Eva know.
She eats up our praise, smiling wide as we voraciously clean our plates. She won’t hear of us turning down seconds either. More food gets piled on, and I sop up the tomato sauce with chunky pieces of flaky bread. The red wine pairs nicely, and I finish a glass and a half before I cut myself off.
After we’ve finished literally scraping every last morsel from our plates, I help Eva and her daughter clear the table. They try to wave me away with their dish towels, but they don’t succeed. There’s no way I’m going to let them wait on me hand and foot. I’m happy to help.
Noah ends up in the living room with Giuseppe and the kids. When I walk over to clear a few more dishes from the table, I peer in and see Noah on the floor, on his hands and knees, pretending to be a great big bear. He rears up onto his hind legs (his knees), turns his hands into claws, and growls ferociously. The toddlers squeal with delight, running around the room like they’re about to be eaten alive.