Abroad (5 page)

Word traveled among the nobles, and money was raised for a proper sarcophagus. A girl like this did not deserve such a death. Carved into the stone, a relief of Iphigenia.

It was noted that there would be more deaths like this. The undeserved deaths of women in need of proper burials.

At this, a small Compagnia was formed. They gathered at various houses, planning, waiting for the next one.

Adriana Soevii, fifteen years old, 1st century BC

4

In the Etruscan Museum in Rome, one can see room after room of relics of a sophisticated, pleasure-loving society. Beautifully engraved plates and wine goblets, combs, pumice-holders, necklaces, bracelets, earrings. While the working class—for the classes were strictly divided—lived in comparative modesty, the wealthiest subjects surrounded themselves with luxury to the point of ostentation. They kept monkeys, dogs, and ferrets as pets. The men wore togas over tunics, bronze jewelry, high-topped boots. The women wore tunics with belts, often embroidered with gold.

And the parties, the parties. Banquets, sometimes two a day, were elaborate, served at huge tables heaped with meat, fruit, and wine. Men and women reclined on sumptuous sofas, their legs covered in blankets. They ate flatbread, fava beans, faro, eggs, pomegranates, grapes. The Etruscan wine cups were wide-mouthed, their platters long. Beneath the tables, animals rummaged for scraps. Sometimes, plied with wine and music, the guests would watch a wrestling match, followed by a fight to the death between gladiators. When one of the men was finally beaten, his bleeding carcass was dragged behind the gates of the arena, then fed to the waiting lions.

*   *   *

A few days after my trip to the museum, a thick cream envelope appeared in the hallway of our cottage. I’d been having my tea at the kitchen table, studiously using my Italian-American dictionary to look up the words I didn’t understand in that day’s local paper, when I heard a rustling and saw the letter shoot under the door. I’d only been in my new home four days, so, not expecting it to be for me, I didn’t bother to look at it until some time later. When I saw my name, I hurriedly ripped it open, peering out the window. But by then, of course, the courier was long since gone.

Dearest Tabitha Deacon:

You are cordially invited to be a part of the highly exclusive, top secret Brit Four Society. I’ll explain later, but for now please trust that it’s nothing weird or pervy. Really, we’ll have loads of fun. Meet us at the corner table of Nido d’Aquila at seven o’clock tonight. Wear something nice but not too whorey.

xxoo

I could hardly suppress my excitement. Obviously, the invitation couldn’t be from anyone but Jenny Cole.

It takes being away from one’s self to be a fair judge of one’s own qualities. The truth is, while I was a friendly enough girl, I was never what you would have called “magnetic.” I’d always done fine; I had some friends once I got to uni, I had my cousins and sister, and, of course, I always had Babs. But I was never exactly the center of things. Now, looking at the note again, my hands trembled with anticipation. Perhaps if I behaved properly, I wouldn’t have to spend my year in Italy suffering through Marcy’s company or shuffling about Grifonia alone. That afternoon, I showered and put on a rather prim shirt and jeans and some silver earrings my sister, Fiona, had passed down to me, and then I took the three-minute walk up to the pub.

It was a typical Enteria bar, Nido d’Aquila: a long, narrow space packed with loud foreign students. A bit nicer, perhaps, than the other expatriate establishments—cleaner and brighter, for one thing. But there was no pretense of its being a real Italian place. The walls were covered with photos of foreign students holding up shot glasses and brimming steins of Guinness, and there was no Italian anywhere on the menu. On Wednesday nights, the bar hosted a fully amped American karaoke night on the back veranda that was, by all accounts, the scourge of the entire north side of town.

The rest of the girls were already there, right out front at the bar’s most coveted outside table. You could see everyone coming up the street from there, and, more to the point, everyone could see you. As a threesome, they were—as my mother would say—
certainly worth looking at.
Jenny had on a sundress that made the most of her ample chest and shoulders. She was at the head of the table, her ever-present designer bag beside her. On her left was the redhead, very thin, with skin the color of a marble bust and watery blue eyes. She was attractive but slightly sickly looking, as if she might be suffering from a permanent cold. To Jenny’s right was the black girl I’d seen. She was the most classically beautiful girl of the group, body coiled and tight, with cheekbones that seemed to soar off either side of her face and amber eyes that scanned the street with detached interest. All three were dressed in lovely clothes, not the cheap frocks or tight pants I’d seen hanging on the doors of the shops on the smaller streets, but beautiful things—loose, knee-length tunics of silk and linen, glinting with embroidery and accented with delicate, expensive belts.

“Ladies, meet Tabitha,” said Jenny, looking up with an efficient smile and sliding a glass to me. “Also a Nottingham girl. And our final member to arrive.” She winked. “What you need to know about her is that she is always late.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“It’s in the dossier. Anyhow, it’s a sin, one we’ll have to beat out of you.”

“That’s right,” the girl with the amber eyes said. “We killed the last girl who held us up.”

She stood and extended her hand.

“I’m Luka, that’s Anna. Don’t remember seeing you back at school, but glad to know you.”

“Thank you.” We settled into our chairs. Now that I saw her up close, I realized that I had, in fact, seen Luka on campus, usually embedded in some exclusive, raucous group or another.

Anna’s face, though, was new to me. She turned toward me now and smiled warmly. “I’m so glad you’re here. We need a fresh opinion on Dottori. Luka says once a Fascist, always a Fascist, but I say just look at his work. After Mussolini’s fall, the paintings are really
very
socially conscious.”

Luka shrugged. “Murderers don’t change their minds. Once you witness a killing, you can’t go back.”

“Jenny?”

“
I
think the things are hideous. Fascist, Statist, Socialist, whatever. The paintings give me a headache.”

“I love you, Jenny,” Luka said. “But I’d wager you’re just saying that because you don’t
have
an opinion.” She turned my way and winked. “Fact is, doesn’t matter who the artist is. It’s the
work.
I don’t care how many Jews his party murdered. I still bloody love the paintings.”

“
Please
stop saying things about Jewish people,” Anna said. “I’ll have to leave.”

“Anna had a Jewish boyfriend once,” Jenny explained. “Old guy, of course. What, fifty or something, Annie? She says he was very funny. Damned good in bed, too.”

Anna blushed. “I never told you that.”

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Everyone
knows
it. They try harder. Taz, what do you think?”

“I’m Jewish,” I said quickly, trying to stay calm. “Well, half. But my mother is—”

“What the hell. We don’t care about that,” Luka said. “So, seriously. What do you think of Dottori?”

“I’m so sorry to say, I haven’t—”

“Don’t let her make you uncomfortable,” Anna said. “We only know him because we happened to go to a party at the contemporary museum last night.”

“
I
bloody knew,” Luka said. “And I’ll be damned if I don’t leave this town with one of his pieces.”

“He’s a local twentieth-century painter,” Anna said to me. “You should have a look.”

“Hell of a lot better than all of those damned pietàs. Virgin Mary, my ass. What a whore she was!”

“Really, Luka.
Must
you work so hard to shock?” Jenny said.

Luka sat back and drained her glass rather forcefully, as if making a point.

As they chattered on about the paintings, I sat there, my wineglass frozen in place, my face arranged in what I hoped was a knowing expression. It’s not that they were ignoring me, exactly. In fact, they were rather pointedly inclusive, stopping from time to time to smile at me or shake their heads conspiratorially, yet they made no genuine effort to catch me up. It was as if I was expected to participate in this esoteric conversation because they had unanimously decided I
was
one of them already.

I felt a hand on my elbow. “I’m so glad you finally came out with us,” Anna said to me softly. “We’ve been asking for you for quite a while.”

What could she possibly mean, I wondered, thinking of the nights I’d spent dodging Marcy.

“Well,” Jenny said. “We had to be certain.”

“Please let the record stand that
I
was for you all along,” Luka said. “These other girls were awful.”

“I—”

“Luka, Luka,” Anna pleaded.

“You’re getting ahead of us as usual.” Jenny made a drinking motion with her hands. “Do shut up.”

“I can tell her,” Luka said. “She’ll laugh. Okay, so there was Libby, who shagged a German in the back of Club Lazar, right in front of us. Paula, dull as toast. And then that bulimic—”

“It’s not like we’re against handicaps,” Jenny said. “We just can’t have anyone slowing us down to throw up after every bloody meal.”

“You all are so crass,” Anna protested.

“But
you
,” Jenny said. “You’re perfect! So sweet, so funny. And besides—I’ve known you for years! More or less. Look, I’m sorry I had to look into other options, but we did only have the one spot.”

“One?”

“It has to be four,” Luka said. “Even. Two is too few—we’re not lovers. And three … well, three’s bad luck. Gets everything off-kilter.”

“Right,” I said, as agreeably as I could.

“Are you terribly shocked?” Anna asked, worried.

“She thinks we’re
mad
,” Luka said, clearly delighted by the notion.

“You’ll understand everything soon,” Jenny said. “And you’ll see that this is the most reasonable thing in the world. We’re not just anyone, you know. For instance, Anna here—she’s the daughter of a fucking baron.”

“He’s dead,” Anna said. “And the title jumped. So it’s really nothing.”

“And Luka’s father is—” She named a singer I had vaguely remembered from my father’s record collection. I couldn’t remember anything but his one hit song, which was now the theme music to an overplayed Marks & Spencer television advert.

“Well. I don’t even know what to say. Thank you for inviting me.” I smiled at them. “I’m very flattered.”

“Flattered?” Jenny’s mouth pursed, as if she had just tasted something bad. “Tabitha, dear, we are offering you something very unusual.”

“Oh, of course! I mean—no!—I’d love to be friends with you all. I haven’t met anyone else but my Italian flatmates, and
they’re
pretty busy, and—”

“Taz, let me explain.” Jenny picked up her glass and swirled her wine pointedly before putting it down again. “We’re not just some clique of Enteria girls—you know, the kind you see, stomping up and down the hill, lounging on the cathedral steps, chatting with every filthy backpack-ridden turtle with a fucking
guide
book.”

My face grew hot as I remembered how she hadn’t acknowledged my own presence on the steps just a few days earlier.

“Jenny says you speak fluent Italian.”

“Maybe not completely fluent, but I’m not bad.”

“Well, we’re awful—all of us. We’ll need you to translate some. We’ve been running into all sorts of trouble.”

“Oh, I can certainly do that.”

Jenny smiled approvingly. “Taz, you’re going to have such a better year now,” she said. “No more getting stuck at those awful student parties, downing purple drinks and dodging low-level gropes. No more getting lost in that damned crowd in the square on Thursdays. You won’t be crammed into a student bar, yelling into a fucking
karaok
e machine.”

“But they have karaoke here,” I couldn’t help pointing out, gesturing toward the back of the bar.

“Metaphor, Taz.”

I felt an acute pang for Babs. What
was
this? Who outlined friendship in these … terms? And yet it was nice—being there at that table with those girls. People looked at us. Shouted over to us. One Italian boy took a picture with his phone.

“So it’s official then.” Jenny sat back in her chair, a smile on her face. “We’re the B4.”

“Must we put a name on it?” Anna whimpered. “I mean, really.”

“Seems proper,” said Jenny firmly. “It’s not the worst thing for people to know we’re different.”

“Shall we have some shots?” Luka said.

“Damn right!”

A round of grappa was ordered. And then another. A digestif usually reserved for sipping after dinner while discussing love and politics, grappa would soon come to be something I downed like water. With us thus fueled, the night began to speed up, and soon Jenny was leading us in a game of “I Never.”

Jenny leaned in, speaking in a charged, nefarious whisper.

“I never shagged in a car.”

“This game is wicked,” Anna giggled. We all looked at one another nervously, then drank.

I never cheated on my boyfriend.

I never shoplifted.

I never had sex from behind.

I never had sex with two blokes in one night.

The ugly truth quickly came pouring out. Again and again, Luka, Anna, and I found ourselves tossing back a shot. Not all of us every time, but enough that I was learning about my new acquaintances far too fast. Anna had slept with married men. Luka had once blacked out and woken up in bed with two strangers. I admitted things, too—mortifying secrets, namely how a boy at Nottingham had convinced me to try anal sex the year before in his dark, muggy dorm room. Actually, he hadn’t so much asked as flipped me over and pinned me down, mashing my face in the pillow.