Abroad (18 page)

“Yup,” Claire said. To my horror, she reached over and took three pieces at once. The B4 were in the habit of taking just one, in case Jenny—a more enthusiastic eater than the rest of us—wanted seconds.

Anna, who apparently couldn’t take the silence that followed, turned to Claire politely. “So what are you studying?”

“Italian. Politics. Lit. You?”

“Same, same,” Jenny said impatiently. “We’re all studying the Italians. Obviously. What I want to know is, are there any nice lads?”

“Sure,” Claire said.

“Maybe you could bring some around for Taz. She’s having rather a dry spell.”

I studied my plate, as if the patterns of basil held a secret message for me.

Claire paused, her pizza midair. “Taz doesn’t need my help.”

“Speaking of lads, are you recovered from last night, Taz?” Anna asked.

“That was fun,” Jenny said. “Those people we met were
hilarious.
”

I looked at her. We had only gone to the ghastly Red Lion. And it hadn’t been particularly fun, which is why I kissed the fat boy from New Jersey.

“Where did you go?” Claire asked.

“Just a place,” Jenny said coldly.

I expected Claire to look confused, but instead she just smiled again.

“But it sounds like
you’ve
met a lot of guys.”

“Yes, here and there,” Jenny said. “When in Rome, or Grifonia. You know. No one I really like.”

“Now that’s where we differ,” Claire said, finishing her wine and pouring another glass. “Because I fuck every night, too. But I actually
like
them all.”

Everyone else at the table froze. Claire crammed more pizza into her mouth with her fingers.

“Every night?” Anna asked.

“Oh, sure,” she said with her mouth full. “Hang on.” She swallowed. “First, I totally fucked a guy on the train from Germany. In the bathroom.”

“What?” Jenny said, recovering. She gave a merry laugh. “You little slut!”

“Oh, I’m from Montana. Nothing to do but screw in barns. They give out condoms in kindergarten.”

“Taz, did you know this?” Jenny asked.

“I—”

“She doesn’t know, ’cause I don’t bring the guys home.” Claire licked the cheese off her fingers. “That would be rude. I just screw them where I can. Outside. In alleys, or work. You know.”

“You’ve got to be lying,” Luka said. Anna just stared.

Claire shrugged.

“Well,” Jenny pressed, “if only you could rub some of your …
mojo
off on poor Taz.”

“Oh, I fuck Taz all the time,” Claire said, smiling.

I leapt up from the table. “Bathroom!” I cried, rushing off. Miraculously, it was empty. I locked the door, splashed water on my face, then put my head down. How bad would it be if I left? Could I say I was sick? Or faint?

The knocking started after four minutes. When the all-out banging began, I relented.

“Sorry,” I said to a stormy-faced Umbrian woman holding two children. When I spotted our table, I stopped in horror. Claire’s head was thrown back, and she was …
singing
while clutching a glass of wine.

“
OOONLY to find Gideon’s BIIIIIIble…
”

I wove through the tables. Even the impossible din of the pizzeria was beginning to fade in surprise.

“She’s drunk,” I whispered to the others.

“No I’m not. I just fucking love to sing.” Her eyes were like two chips of green glass.

Most likely not by coincidence, the bill came an instant later. Luka grabbed it.

“What do I owe?” Claire asked.

“We’ve got it,” Jenny said.

“What? Why? No, I can—”

“Just drop it. We’ve got it.”

Claire slowly turned and looked at Jenny. “I’m sorry, but why should I drop it?”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Fine. Give us ten fucking euros, if you’re going to be that way about it.”

“I guess I just don’t get it.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Jenny. “British tradition and manners and all that. Well, we’ve got to shove off. Taz, we’ll see you later at the Club. Allie, we’ll … see you.”

“Claire.”

Jenny stood and looked down at her. Before, I had thought of Jenny as a pretty girl, but I could see why she was threatened. Claire flattened Jenny’s advantages. She seemed, for the first time since I’d known her, ordinary.

My friend from Nottingham smiled and picked up her formidable purse.

“Oh, right,” Jenny said. “Claire. Well, don’t worry. If I see you again, I won’t forget.”

*   *   *

On the way home, Claire started talking. I’d expected as much. Even when silence was earned, she couldn’t ever stand to be quiet.

“Crikey,” she said.

“What?”

“What? Seriously?”

I didn’t answer.

“Did you want to fucking go with them? To that Club place?”

“It’s not a club. It’s just an apartment. Where Luka lives.”

“You can totally go, you know. I can walk by myself.”

“No, I’m tired. Thanks.”

“Look, Taz, let’s air this out. Those other two seem all okay, but that Jenny girl—”

“She’s my friend, Claire. I’ve known her since my first year at Nottingham.”

“She’s so
mean
to you. Why would you want to be around somebody like that?”

I looked at her, blinking. How could she not see why I would want to be with them? How smart, funny, and amazing they were?

“You just don’t understand the British sense of humor. It sounds cutting to Americans.”

“Come on. I’m not an idiot, okay? I mean, personally, I hate this word. But she’s a serious cunt. Why would you spend time with someone who treats you like that?”

I bit my lip, thinking of the other side of Jenny, the confessions she’d made to me.

“I think you just don’t get her.”

“I get that you’re better than that Eurotrash. You’re a nice person, Taz. A smart person. Don’t let yourself get … I don’t know. Fucking pulled
under.
”

We had wandered in the opposite direction from our cottage. Claire stopped at the city wall, looking at the vast valley below. The holy city of Assisi twinkled in the distance, its cathedral jutting out from the mountain. In that moment, I wanted to go there and never come back.

“Look, it doesn’t matter to me at all. But you matter. Is it worth feeling like crap just to be able to hang out with her? Is that what you’re looking for?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’m looking for a lot of things.”

She laughed a bit too hard. The unbalanced nature of it frightened me. I stepped away.

“What?”

“We’re
all
looking for a lot of things, Taz.”

Drunk as I was, an unfamiliar sense of agitation rose in my chest. I felt the surprising urge to slap her face. I was the youngest in a loud Irish family. If there was one thing I hated, it was unsolicited advice.

“Should we go back?” I said, stopping at the top of a stairway leading toward our house.

“Nah,” she said. “I think I want to go out for a little.”

“You have friends in the square?”

“No. I’m just going to see what’s going on.”

The rain had thickened from a fine mist to large, sloppy drops.

“I’m sorry if you’re angry,” I said. It was true. It made me nervous, seeing her upset.

“I’m not pissed at you,” she said. “I’m pissed
for
you.”

“Don’t be.”

She nodded and played with a button on my coat for a moment.

“I’m going on, I think,” I finally said.

“So am I. Hitting the Red Lion. Those girls made me want a serious drink.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “See you later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, starting down. “Bye.” As I descended, I looked ahead to make sure the streetlamp was lit. I longed for bed, or one last healthy swallow of wine.

“
You’re fucking better than they are
,” Claire yelled, suddenly. I was halfway down the staircase now, and she stood at the top, looming, backlit by the spotlights above. I couldn’t see her face, but her voice was shaking. Before I could speak, she turned and, in that quiet way of hers, sauntered away.

14

Sometimes on my walks, if the square was crowded or if I took a quick turn down an alleyway, I’d bump into a couple, disturbing the cloying sweetness of their connection. Perhaps the woman would be looking at a scarf while her lover waited, or the man would be studying the menu in front of a restaurant. They might glance at me briefly—not in a rude way, just,
What are you doing here?
I’d hurry away, feeling dirty and cheated, a cold panic creeping through. What if I was never loved, I wondered? It happened, surely to some people. You just never knew.

The night of Marcello’s party came slowly. Even Professor Korloff’s class crawled by that day. My neighbor had said ten, but I didn’t dare go down before eleven. By nine-thirty, I could hear the stirrings of a party below me. Music pounded through the floor. I fluttered about in preparation. I was a neat person, almost obsessively so, but that night my room was wrecked with clothes and makeup. Feist on the stereo, “1234.” Butterflies in my stomach over a boy.

I hated all my clothes, but when I gingerly poked through Claire’s closet, I found that the most feminine thing she had other than the horrible blue frock was that yellow dress, which was stained. I decided on my own shortish black skirt—
A skirt? Should I really?
—with tights and a modest sweater, then settled on the couch with a book and a drink to pass the time.

I’d told the B4 I was too tired to go out. They hadn’t tried very hard to convince me otherwise; since Jenny’s showdown with Claire, our own friendship had chilled. It wasn’t that she was angry with me, exactly. She didn’t even mention it. Yet she hadn’t been over for tea, and twice I’d heard her and Luka talk about a particularly randy party to which I hadn’t been invited.

I stood, finishing my Campari. It was what I had taken to drinking before I went out. It had a nice lift, different from wine, somehow, though two made my head ache. Straightening my skirt for the last time in the mirror, I contemplated texting Claire to see if she’d been let off early, then didn’t. I knew it was stupid, but it was my first time without the B4, and I wanted to keep the boys downstairs to myself.

Finally, I descended the dark path behind our house and knocked at what I thought to be an appropriately late hour of eleven-thirty. Voices seeped through the walls. I wiped my clammy hands on my skirt.

It was a different boy who opened the door. His eyes widened hungrily. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Hi. I’m Taz.”

“Alfonso. Ciao.”

I hovered in the threshold. “Marcello invited me…”

“Ah.” Alfonso flung the door open for me, almost spitting his words. “Marcello! The neighbor girl is here.”

There was a brief rise of voices and laughter. I peered into the apartment, almost completely dark, lit only with candles. Trance music was playing. I could see a group of Italians on the sofa, bare limbs tangled. A bong was on the coffee table.

I could get out of this, I thought. I could say I was sick, run back upstairs, have one more Campari, and go to sleep.

“You know…,” I said to Alfonso.

“You know what?” asked Marcello, emerging.

I had forgotten about his skin. It was almost velvety. Marcello’s heaviness wouldn’t have suited many men, but on him it lent an air of permanent joviality. The right side of his face was marked by a deep dimple that hovered even when he wasn’t smiling.

I liked him.

“Hi,” I said.

Marcello took me by the shoulders. He kissed me on both cheeks and then kissed my mouth, in front of everyone.

“Ciao,” he said. “You came. I thought you might not. You’re late.”

“I was out,” I said.

“No you weren’t.”

“No?”

“No. I came up and looked through the window. You were reading.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He tipped his head back and looked at me. We were still standing in the doorway. He wore jeans and a jumper. I tugged at my hem.

“I shouldn’t have dressed up.”

“What?” Marcello moved his hand through the air, as if brushing away a fly. Grifonians didn’t talk about appropriate dress. If you pulled it off, you were appropriate.

“You don’t want to come in, do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“You don’t. You’re shy. It’s okay. It’s dead here anyway. Let’s go out.” He stepped out, closing the door abruptly. He gazed at my short skirt. “You’ll need a coat.”

“Yes. I guess I thought I was just coming here.”

“Let’s get it.”

He put his hand on the small of my back and steered me back up the hill to our apartment. My Italian was still less than perfect, but I could comprehend almost everything said directly to me now, and I could make myself understood. I was proud he wasn’t trying out his English on me, which was what most Italians did at first.

“You don’t lock the door?” he asked as we entered.

“Never.”

“You need to,” he said. “Really. Grifonia isn’t safe.”

“It feels safe. I don’t even know where my key is. And anyway, all of you are downstairs.”

“It’s not.” He put his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and walked around, inspecting. He opened the refrigerator, looked in, and closed it again. He opened the cabinets, poked his head in our rooms.

“Your house is much nicer than ours.”

“Well. We’re girls.”

“It’s not very clean though,” he said, looking at the mud on the floor. “This your room?” He pushed the door open and went in. I rested my hands on the back of one of the dining chairs. I couldn’t go in there. It’s where my coat was, but we’d only spoken a few words. I couldn’t be alone with him in my room.

“Do you want some Campari?”

“Never.”

“Wine?”

“Good.”

To my relief, he emerged again into the living room and sat on the sofa. I quickly grabbed my coat from the vacated room and threw it on the table.

“Here,” I said, handing him his drink and sitting in a chair opposite. He smiled, as if laughing at my sitting so far away.

“Where are you from?” I asked. “I don’t even know.”