Tales From a Broad (33 page)

Without saying a word, I looked up at the
ceiling and took a deep breath. He just didn’t get it.

“I even packed you a nice picnic,” he added
in a pleading voice.

I gazed into the mirror with narrowed eyes,
exchanging a suspicious look with myself. Unless Cooper had a
personality makeover overnight, I hardly thought he could take
credit for packing a picnic.

“Luce? Are you there?” Cooper said.

“Yep,” I sighed. “I’m here.”

We hung up the phone, and I got dressed while
trying to figure out what to do. I decided to love the one I was
with: Good old reliable, dependable, me. And I deserved the
best.

However, contrary to the pleasures of
yesterday, today, the best didn’t mean a chauffeured car. It meant
being me, the real me whom I had started to truly enjoy. I put on a
tank top and a skirt I’d bought at a street fair in Munich, and
left the room as a semi-single girl who felt confident enough to
walk around a new city by herself.

When I stepped outside, the car was waiting
out front. The same driver from yesterday must’ve seen me coming
because when I approached the car, he quickly jumped out of the
car.

“Buon pomeriggio
!” he exclaimed,
opening the passenger door.

“Ciao
,” I smiled. “I’m so sorry, but
I’m going to walk today.” I twisted my hands and looked at him
apologetically.

The driver looked at me in confusion, so I
held my hands flat and moved them as if they were walking.

“Ah. Si
,” he nodded. “
Es una bella
giornata
.” He pointed a finger up to the sky.

“Molto
.” I stood up a little
straighter and felt proud of my ability to have a two-line
conversation.

He reached into the car and extracted the
picnic basket. “
Buon appetito
,” he said, handing it to
me.

“Oh,” I said with surprise as I reluctantly
took it from his hand. There were starving backpackers all over the
city; I probably shouldn’t let a gourmet picnic go to waste.
“
Grazie
.”

The driver took off his jacket and while he
neatly folded it up and placed it in the backseat, I took a peek
inside the basket. There was wine, foie gras, caviar, and all sorts
of unrecognizable delicacies. While it looked delicious, something
about sightseeing with a premade lunch made me feel as if I were
cheating. It was like moving out of your parents’ house, but
returning home for dinner on your first night alone. I didn’t want
to be half-independent today. It was going to be all or nothing. I
needed to cut the cord.

The driver closed the passenger door and
reopened his own. That’s when I handed the basket back to him.

“For you.
Per favore.
”

“No? You no like?” His forehead crinkled as
he frowned.

“It looks great, but I want...” A man walked
by with a long sandwich that he nibbled out of a bag. “That,” I
said with a firm point of my finger.

The driver took a step back and looked at me
as if I were crazy. “
Che
?”

“Si
,” I smiled. “Enjoy.”

He gratefully accepted the basket, got back
into the car, and pulled away from the curb. After it had
disappeared into traffic, I planted my feet firmly on the crowded
sidewalk and looked around the narrow road. It had been a while
since I’d been part of the rush hour crowd and it was interesting
to see real life in a different city.

Just like in New York, pure chaos was
happening around me. Loud conversation, frantic honking, and
vibrations from vehicles on the cobblestone street mixed as
motorists sped along on their way to work. It was a little before
ten, and rush hour still appeared to be in full swing. While all
sorts of mini-cars whizzed past, I was surprised to see the
majority of the vehicles on the thin cobblestone street were
scooters.

A silver one pulled up alongside me, and I
could tell immediately its driver was a beautiful woman. Long,
auburn hair spilled from beneath her helmet and cascaded down a
very tanned back. She wore a cream-colored pencil skirt and
halter-top, and the red soles of her black Christian Louboutin
pumps peeked out as they rested on the footboard.

When the light turned green, she expertly
balanced a cup in one hand, cigarette in the other and left behind
a trail of perfume, gasoline, and coffee. She reminded me of an ad
for liquor. Or sex.

My cell phone rang, and I saw that it was
Tess.

“Hello?” I shouted. I ducked out of the way
as an older group of women on a Segway tour came barreling down the
sidewalk. I strained to hear Tess over their peals of laughter.

“Hi, Aunt Lu.”

“Tess! I feel so out of touch with you.
What’s happening?”

“You tell me.
Please
tell me you did
not have a threesome last night,” she said in a hushed tone.

“What?”

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had been
thinking about sex.

“Well, first I saw Simon go up to your room,
and then moments later, Cooper followed. But Mark dragged me away
before I had the chance to see either one of them come down.”

“Oh they went down all right. Simon even
dragged me down with him.”

Tess gasped.

“Not like that,” I groaned. I filled Tess in
on what had happened.

“Yikes,” Tess whispered after I finished the
account.

“Yikes is right. I mean, who does Simon think
he is? Can you believe he even said those things?” I demanded.

“Well...” Tess didn’t have to finish her
answer.

The silence on the other end of the phone was
an affirmative. Since I was feeling footloose and fancy free, I
decided not to even go there. I wasn’t in the mood for another
lecture.

“So tell me,” I quickly interrupted. “How was
your night? No twosomes, I hope?”

“Aunt Lu. Give me a little credit, please.
Although ... I did get locked and loaded,” she said with a giggle.
“Mark wrote our names on a lock, fastened it to the bridge and then
tossed the keys into the Arno.”

“Wow, Tess. That’s like the Italian version
of writing your names on a tree.”

“I know!” she squealed with delight. “The
Ponte Vecchio is glorious at night. We drank some wine, I got
sloshed, and he was a perfect gentleman,” she said
matter-of-factly.

I ran my hand through my hair and frowned
into the phone. “From what you can remember, anyway,” I said
doubtfully.

“Oh, I remember everything. He’s incredible.”
Her voice oozed with enthusiasm. “I don’t think I ever met a kinder
man in my life.”

Tess continued to gush, and I was so
engrossed in conversation that I was caught off guard when someone
bumped into me. I took a step back and whirled around.

“Bella, mi scusi!”
A handsome man held
the hand of a little girl and looked at me with apologetic eyes.
From the looks of their attire, a suit for him and a plaid uniform
for her, I guessed he was taking his daughter to school on his way
to work.

I smiled and waved my free hand to let him
know I wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He winked and walked
off.

The little girl was so involved in stepping
over the cracks in the sidewalk, she didn’t notice when her father
tossed me another glance over his shoulder. I politely smiled again
as I listened to Tess, and he in turn, narrowed an eye and slowly
ran his tongue over his upper lip.

I opened my mouth in horror, did an about
face, and started to walk briskly down the street in the other
direction.

“Ew, ew, ew. I just had my first encounter
with a horny Italian man,” I hissed into the phone. I felt
violated.

“Where are you?” Tess sounded amused. “I’ve
been chewing your ear off and have no clue where you even are.”

“I just stepped outside the pensione. I was
supposed to go out with Cooper, but something came up.”

“I’m sorry.” Tess paused for a moment. “Does
that mean that you’re free for a little shoppy shop?” she said
hopefully. “Yesterday’s fashion show really inspired me.”

I felt a stab of guilt. “Tess, I’m so sorry.
I never even asked you about that. How was it?”

“Oh, it was fun. I’ve never been to a real
runway show, and it was cool to see all the far out fall fashions,”
she said with a chuckle. “Some of the dresses were amazing. I sat
next to a buyer for an Italian department store, who also happens
to own a little boutique in the Piazza Santa Trinita. She invited
me to a trunk show at her store today. Do you want to come?”

I looked around and wrinkled my nose. “You
know what, Tess? It’s so nice out, and to tell you the truth, I’m a
little more in the mood to bop, rather than shop. You go check it
out, but please let me know if you see something for your old
auntie.”

We said our goodbyes and promised to see each
other later in the day. After I hung up the phone, a touch of the
blahs came over me.

Tess sounded so elated. And here I was,
having just rekindled things with the love of my life, yet I didn’t
feel one iota of the way she did. Was it because, despite the break
we’d just had, we were still nothing more than an old couple who
had grown comfortable with each other? I wondered if I ever even
had that same excitement for Cooper that Tess had for Mark.

As I moseyed down the street, I decided it
was probably a good thing Cooper had cancelled on me. I needed the
alone time, and there was no better time than the present to do a
little soul searching.

About a block later, I stumbled upon a quaint
little garden that seemed to beckon to me from behind a tall
wrought iron fence. I ran my finger along the posts and walked by
the spring flowers that blossomed between the openings. Red roses,
purple irises, and blue hydrangeas burst through the fence and
jutted onto the sidewalk, creating a richly colored wall of flowers
that brushed against my hip.

By the time I reached the entrance, the
sweet, floral smells called for me to enter. I walked under a rose
trellis and descended three marble steps. Once inside the garden, I
paused to survey the beauty that surrounded me.

Flowerbeds on one side and a labyrinth of
neatly trimmed hedges on the other flanked a lush green patch of
grass. A pebble path ran directly though the grass, and after I
followed the short trail, I came upon a long, narrow alleyway
bordered by Cypress trees and classical statues.

On the cobblestone path, a lone daisy grew
from one of the cracks. I plucked it from the surrounding weeds and
slowly strolled, absentmindedly tearing petals off, murmuring,
“loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me not, loves me, loves me
not.” When I had one petal left, I held it to my nose and looked
around.

Someone sat in the far corner. My jaw dropped
a split second later when I recognized Simon. I shut my eyes and
quickly opened them. He was still there. I wasn’t imagining things.
He sat on a short stone wall, sketching on an oversized pad.

Frozen, a strange sensation came over me. It
wasn’t the fact that I was about to have a heart attack. It was
that he looked so intense, lost in his own world, and it dawned on
me I’d never thought of him as someone with a talent or a passion.
Since the man was unemployed ten months a year, I had judged him to
be somewhat of a rebel without a cause. It hadn’t crossed my mind
he might actually be skilled in other areas of life.

I stared at him for a few moments before I
took out my camera and snapped a picture. After violating his
privacy, I felt guilty, but quickly recovered and took another. A
smile crossed my face and a myriad of unanswered questions filled
my mind.

I walked a few steps before stopping again.
My stomach sank. His presence affected me so deeply that in my
excitement, I’d forgotten about last night’s exchange. Should I
even say hello? He might not even want to see me. Not knowing if I
would ever have another chance to be alone with him again, I took a
deep breath and cleared my throat.

“I didn’t realize you were such a Renaissance
man,” I called quickly before I changed my mind.

He looked up in surprise. “Lucy.”

Simon jumped off the wall and began striding
in my direction. “When in Rome, right?” He fumbled with the pad and
closed it.

“I believe this in Florence,” I said
caustically. Immediately, I regretted my condescending tone. “But I
hear you.” I smiled sweetly, patting the bag that contained my
journal. “I was hoping for a little inspiration myself.”

Silence hung in the air, and then we both
began to talk at the same time.

Simon’s face grew solemn, and he cracked his
knuckles. “Please, me first.” His eyes pleaded with me. “Lucy, I
really owe you an apology. I had no right to say those things to
you and should’ve just minded my own business. You’re probably
going to marry the guy. I shouldn’t have said that.” He closed his
eyes for a brief moment and shook his head.

“Oh,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. I
suddenly felt foolish and wondered if perhaps I’d overreacted.
“Let’s just forget it. You meant well.”

“I did,” Simon said with relief. “I would
like to declare a do-over. Friends?” he said hopefully, extending
his hand.

“Friends,” I replied.

I opened my hand and the ‘loves me’ daisy
petal fell from my palm. After we shook hands, I placed my things
on the ground, picked the petal off the grass and put it in my
pocket. I was too superstitious to cast it away. I was hardly in a
position to abandon any promises of true love.

“Where’s Cooper? Working?” Simon said
neutrally.

“That depends who you’re asking,” I
replied.

Simon stared at me for a moment, but whatever
he was thinking wasn’t showing on his face.

“Well, I’m psyched to see you, and it’s
rather nice to see the return of the old Lucy,” he said sheepishly
and tugged on my tank top strap.