Lost in Rome (9 page)

“Look.” I pointed to the crowd outside the door. “That's why they're here. I can't let them down.” I added, “It's for the good of Amore Pizzeria.”

She sighed. “What do I have to do?”

I thought for a moment.

“Put people looking for matches on this half of the dining room. That'll be my half. Rico can wait on the other half.”

“Fine. You know Aunt Maria is going to be mad when she finds out about all of this.”

“But she's happy about all the customers. Maybe she'll be happy and mad,” I said. “Then I'll tell her how hungry I am, and I'll just eat and eat. That will make her more happy than mad.”

“Probably.”

My section of the restaurant filled up quickly. I took orders and studied customers. Some of the matches jumped out at me right away, and some were more complicated.

I delivered sausage to a woman and called out, “Who ordered the garlic?” A man yelled in Italian, but I figured he was claiming the garlic. “Come over here.” I set the garlic plate next to the sausage. “You two enjoy your lunch.” They giggled and shook hands.

“Who has sliced zucchini?”

A girl raised her hand.

“Come on over here and sit with this gentleman.”

This was the way I made the matches, by moving people around. I watched the customers and took notes on an extra order pad. When I finished, I stashed it under the register. I didn't know if I'd made true love matches, but lots of people looked happy. Obviously, they all loved their pizza.

Aunt Maria came out from the kitchen and manned the cash register as customers left.

“How was your lunch?” Maria asked the sausage customer.

“It was great,” she said.

“And the pizza was delicious too,” the man who ordered garlic added.

Gianna glanced at her phone. A huge grin crossed her face, and she hunched over in the corner as she thumbed a message. I had a pretty good idea who she was texting.

When she returned to her job, she sat a table in Rico's section, where a waiter who I'd never seen took their order and gave it to AJ. I found Rico sitting at a table, sipping an espresso.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“What? You mean that guy? He's a friend of mine.” He shrugged. “And he has some serving experience.”

Aunt Maria rang up one of the last customers and caught my eye with a menacing glare. Then she stuck out her finger and bent it in, like,
Come here
.

Gulp.

She looked way mad, like, angry with a side of enraged.

I smiled. “I'm starving.”

“We talk.”

“Can I eat first? I think I'm gonna pass out.”

“Fine. Get some food and come right back.”

In the kitchen AJ said to me, “She looks pretty angry.”

“No duh,” I said. “Can you make me a meatball sandwich?”

“One sec. I'm outta sauce.” He put the empty pot in a pile of dirty dishes and lifted another simmering pot from the back to the front burner. Then he scooped three lovely meatballs onto crusty Italian bread and covered it with the sauce from the new pot. “Cheese?”

“Why in the world would anyone eat a meatball sandwich without cheese?” I asked. “Do you know the only thing that goes better than cheese?”

“What's that?”

“More cheese!”

He smiled. “Toasted?”

“Put 'er in.”

He slid the pan with my sandwich into the oven. It took only a few Mississippis for the cheese to melt.

I took my plate back to the cash register with Aunt Maria and braced myself to be yelled at in Italian.

“Want a bite?” I asked her.

“No.” She held up the newspaper. There was a picture of me. The headline read,
MATCHMAKER AT AMORE PIZZERIA.

“Look. I'm sorry. I know you said not to. You said, ‘
Capisce?'
But then that reporter came in. I matched her the other day as an experiment. And that went really well. She wanted to do an article. She said it would be good for business. And I love you so much and love Amore Pizzeria so much that I couldn't let—”

She held up her hand for me to stop talking.

A few beats later, she broke into a huge smile. Then she pushed a button on the cash register and the drawer flew open. It was full of money. “It worked!”

“So you're not mad?”

“I'm furious. But I'm so happy.” She hugged me. “You eat!”

I was just about to sink my teeth into the sandwich when a customer yelled, “Water!
Acqua!
” He grabbed a glass and chugged it, half of it spilling down the front of his shirt. “That sauce! It's too spicy! Are you trying to kill me?”

The sauce?

I touched the sauce on my sandwich with my tongue. “Yowww! He's right,” I said to Aunt Maria, and grabbed my own glass of water.

Aunt Maria yelled to AJ, “Where did that pot come from?”

AJ said, “The walk-in fridge. It's the batch you made Wednesday.”

She looked at the bubbling pot, grabbed a spoon, and tasted the sauce. She immediately spit it out.

“Someone has ruined my sauce,” Aunt Maria yelled. “Who would do that?”

“Mamma mia!”
Aunt Maria shouted. “What happened to the sauce?”

AJ said, “I'll take the extra pot out of the fridge and pop it on the stove.”

“Do not ‘pop' anything,” said Aunt Maria. “Just heat it.”

“That's what I meant,” AJ said.

“Then do not say ‘pop.' I no understand you kids anymore.”

AJ retreated to the kitchen, while Gianna told the customer that we were making a new lunch for him.

“The sitch isn't that bad,” I said to Aunt Maria, who was now fanning herself with an empty drink tray. “We didn't make any pizza with that sauce yet.”

“ ‘Sitch'?” Aunt Maria shook her head. “Is good we have the extra pot, but that will change the sauce-making schedule. We will run out before Wednesday.”

“We'll make more! You can teach me.”

“
Sì!
But I need very special ingredients. I go all over Rome to get only the best. It takes time. A lot of places. A lot of time,” she said. “Without the ingredients, I cannot teach you.”

I looked at my watch. “I'll go after lunch. Give me a list of what you need and addresses.”

“You do not know Rome. You will not find these places.”

I held up my phone. “I have GPS. It works in Rome.”

She looked at my phone and shook her head. “ ‘Gee peas'? No. You go with Rico. He can follow the map. You know a map?”

“Yes, I know what a map is.”

We looked at Rico sipping another espresso, and Aunt Maria added, “You two cannot carry everything. I make many trips. AJ and Gianna will go too.” Then she waved to Jane, who came over with her arms filled with dirty dishes. “Can you stay with me? I need the help for dinner.”

“Absolutely,” Jane said. “Anything you need.”

Rico's waiter guy lingered nearby and called over to us, “I'll help too.”

“Who that?” Aunt Maria asked, confused.

“Does it matter?” I asked. “He knows what he's doing, and he wants to stay and help.”

“Okay.” Aunt Maria pointed at him. “You stay.”

He asked, “And I can call
mio amico
?”

“
Sì
,” Aunt Maria said to his offer to call a friend.

“What if people come in for matches?” I asked her. “I'll show you the notes I've been taking.”

“You no worry,” she said. “It is under control.”

When the lunch crowd thinned, the four of us headed out with the list and instructions that directed us to three very different areas of Rome for garlic, herbs, and tomatoes.

Rico's waiter friend let us use his scooter, so Gianna and I hopped on it while AJ and Rico got on AJ's.

“Do you know how to drive that?” AJ asked me.

“No,” I said. “But how hard could it be?”

Rico got off the scooter with AJ and said to me, “Let's switch. You go with AJ and I'll drive this one.”

I sat behind AJ. Gianna raised her brows at me because I was sitting so close to a boy. She motioned for me to wrap my arms around his waist, but I was unsure. . . .

AJ put a helmet on my head and secured it under my chin. Then he hit the gas hard—I almost fell off the back—so I grabbed his waist and held on for my life. It wasn't as weird as I'd thought. Actually, I kind of liked it.

We followed Rico and Gianna.

Gianna filled Rico's ear with chatter and pointed to everything. I was content to look around and take it all in. The sun was warm on my back, and the breeze felt cool on my cheeks. I was surprised at the women on scooters—dressed up, even in spiky heels—with bread and flowers in their baskets. Men also scootered around in suits and ties. My mind spun stories about many of these people, and I wondered if they were looking for matches.

I could've ridden around all day, imagining, but we soon arrived at our first stop.

Garlic.

“Where are we?” Gianna hooked her helmet to the back of the scooter.

I pointed. “That's the Pantheon, Gi. It's kinda famous.”

“Oh sure,” she said. “I knew that.”

I rolled my eyes.

Rico unfolded the paper Aunt Maria had given us. “Well, we're at the Piazza della Rotonda. According to Maria, there's a street vendor who sits next to the water-ice stand that sells
fragola
. That's strawberry. He should have her garlic.”

“Why not just get it from a store?” Gianna asked.

AJ said, “Oh, no. She is very specific with her sauce. Everything comes from a vendor she knows and trusts. She's been going to the same places for years. It's one of the things that makes her sauce perfect. The garlic comes from a family that grows it in their yard. It's the only thing they sell. She says there's something about their soil that makes it more pungent than anyone else's.”

I was totally gonna use that little deet in a story. “That's awesome,” I said. In my mind I pictured a cottage in the country and an old gray-haired Italian man picking carefully selected cloves.

I scanned the piazza and easily counted four water-ice vendors, all next to people selling some kind of herbs or vegetables. “This could take a while. We better split up.”

AJ said, “And look for clues?”

“What clues?” I asked.

“Like Scooby-Doo. They always split up and look for clues.”

We ignored him—although I thought it was funny—and each of us ran to a different vendor. On the way to mine I stopped to eavesdrop on a tour group. Their leader said, “The columns are made of granite. They were floated down the Nile, then the Tiber River, before being dragged here. When you see columns in the US, they were inspired by these.”

I wanted to hear more, but . . . the garlic.

I waited in line at the water-ice vendor's cart. When it was my turn, I looked at the ground and mumbled, “
Fragola
?”

He shook his head.
“Limone. Caffè.”
He didn't have strawberry.

“
Grazie
,” I thanked him.

On my way back to our agreed meeting place, I lingered again by the tour. The guide said, “It was originally a temple to worship Roman gods, and then it became a church. It's also a tomb.”

Oh, how I love a good tomb story.

The guide continued, “That huge dome has an ocular—an opening that looks into the sky. It's quite magnificent. Let's get our tickets and go see.”

I wanted to see
.
I thought maybe I could blend in and tag along, but . . . the garlic.

Rico and Gianna were waiting. I showed them my empty hands. All our hope was pinned on AJ, who came back with four red granitas. He handed them out.

“
Fragola
,” he said. “Strawberry for everyone.”