To Tuscany with Love (2 page)

Hearing footsteps behind her, Bella turned around. Two beautiful twins with matching long, wavy blond hair stood at the open door. Each wore a backpack and held a suitcase far nicer and years newer than Bella’s, and between them they carried a flattened jumbo rucksack.

They were perfect—skin, hair, clothes, teeth, and penetrating green eyes. The “perfect” twins.

“We’ve got company,” one of the guys called out. He scrambled to turn off the cassette player.

Bella felt his arm drape over her shoulders.

“I’m Rune.” His finger ruffled Bella’s long curls. “If you give me a chance, I’ll ruin you this summer.” His slicked-back pompadour made him look older than everyone else in the lobby.

The twins giggled.

“Lee.” A male voice piped up in self-introduction from the other side of Bella. Curly black hair surrounded his chinless face.

“I’m Phillip.” One deep blue eye winked at Bella before he nodded to the twins. His sun-streaked brown hair fell in waves around his ears. Tanned, Phillip had the look—and muscled body to match—of a multisport athlete.

As much as she longed to escape, Bella knew it wasn’t an option. She was stuck here. She sucked in a deep breath. At least these college kids acted friendly. Maybe she’d actually survive the long summer months ahead.

The auburn-haired guy danced his way in front of Bella. He stopped in front of the twins. “Stillman Jackson.” Bella held in a chuckle. Stillman Jackson was a Southerner with auburn hair who liked to dance the moonwalk. Stillman was a far cry from Michael Jackson.

“I’m Hope,” the large girl called out from the back of the group.

Stillman turned around to face Bella. “You.” He pointed both index fingers at Bella. “You look Italian. Can you speak the lingo?”

Bella tapped two fingers to her closed lips and shook her head.

Stillman smirked at her. “I’ll bet you’re Italian. Surely you know the naughty words, don’t you?”

Bella shrugged her shoulders. People speaking another language were commonplace in her New York City neighborhood. Of course, she knew the naughty words.

“Asshole,” Phillip said.

Bella turned her head away from Stillman and winked at Phillip. He had come to her defense, after all.

Phillip threw his head back with laughter. “She got you, man.” His palm slapped Stillman’s back.

“Bella Rossini.” She smiled at Stillman. “I only speak English. My Oral Comm prof claims even that’s marginal. As far as Italian goes, I might know one or two nasty phrases, but that’s it.”

Bella looked past him at the twins. Their perfectness made her feel plain. And how could they be so perky after the long flights? Bella motioned to the empty rucksack. “Did you lose stuff already?”

She regretted her words and tone of voice as soon as they’d escaped from her mouth. Bella had promised her mother she’d give people a chance this summer and make new friends. Not much chance of that happening, if the first ten minutes were any indication.

The twin on the left answered with a shake of her long tresses. “No. It’s for all the stuff we buy and want to bring back.” She set down her end of the handle carefully, as if the bag held fragile treasures. “I’m Karen, and this is Meghan.”

“We’re from Chicago,” the second twin said.

Rune’s head ticked like a pendulum between the twins. “Karen ... Meghan. Meghan ... Karen.” He rubbed his palms together in circles and leered at them. “I’m hoping there’s a birthmark placed in a strategic—normally hidden—spot that we can use to tell you two apart.”

Lee spoke. “Their eyes. Meghan’s have flecks of brown.”

Meghan’s grateful smile zeroed in on Lee.

“I like my way of telling them apart better.” Rune peered out the door and craned his neck to view the street. “God, it’s hot in here. Let’s see if we can find a beer. I’d even take a glass of wine. Our assigned babysitter isn’t due back for a couple hours.” His eyes canvassed their faces. “How ’bout it?”

They trotted out as a pack.

Bella followed them out the door. It was hot, and she was thirsty. Her eyes swept the ancient buildings that lined the narrow street, even narrower than those in Manhattan’s Little Italy. She tried to soak in every detail—the pale-colored cornerstones, the window boxes of red geraniums, and the laundry that hung on line after line to dry in the hot shade of the five-story buildings.

Bella half-listened to the chatter about music, movies, schools, majors, and hopes for the summer. What did she have in common with this group? They all had more money and were all more rad than she was.

She thought of her mother. They had argued at the airport, and Bella had tried refusing to board the plane, but how could she do that after everything was paid for? Shipping her off to Italy was a major overreaction. Could Bella help it that the cops were on high alert after one of the stores near their protest had been looted and burned the night before? Her mother was acting as if she were a drug dealer or something.

Bella recalled their goodbyes at the airport. Even though excitement lit her mother’s face, why had her eyes shied away?

3

A
fter a stroll through the streets of Florence and a stop for beer and wine, the group returned to their hotel, dazed from the combination of alcohol and jet lag.

A tall, thin Italian man stood reading a paperback book beside the luggage they had abandoned in the lobby. He introduced himself as Paolo and nodded at them with a skeptical look on his face. Following minimal discussion and room assignments, he dispatched them to their rooms with keys and an admonition to be in the building’s lower level for breakfast and coffee promptly at eight tomorrow morning.

Bella trudged up the stairs with her suitcase behind Hope, her roommate for the summer. Paolo had matched up Stillman with Phillip and Rune with Lee, and put the two perfect twins, Karen and Meghan, together.

Bella dropped her bag and backpack on the floor. Their tiny room held two single beds, a table barely large enough to hold the lamp on top of it between the beds, a wooden armoire, and a closet not much wider than Bella. The one window was closed, which made the room stifling.

She crossed to the window and leaned over the coil of hot water pipes to pry it open. It was stuck. Hope must have had the same thought, because a minute later, she stood next to Bella and tugged at the window, too.

“Damn, it’s hotter than Hades in here,” Hope said. She grunted and gave a ferocious pull on the window. The paint stuck around the frame made the upward progress a challenge. Sweat poured down the sides of the large girl’s face. Finally, they had raised it to its maximum level.

Bella collapsed onto the closest bed, biting back her frustration and realizing that this summer would have fewer creature comforts than she knew in her mother’s small apartment.

Hope had left the window and peered under each bed, opened and closed the armoire and then the closet. “God does have mercy.” She held a small metal fan in her hand, which she had found on the upper shelf of the closet. Hope set the fan on the radiator in front of the opened window, plugged it in, and turned it on. She stood by the fan, letting the moving air wash over her.

Bella took a position beside Hope in front of the fan. It was a far cry from air conditioning, but at least the movement broke the oppressive, stale air. “Thank you. I didn’t have the energy to think about, much less look for, a fan.”

Rooming with Hope was off to a good start—the girl was a problem solver. “Do you want the bed next to the window?” It was the least Bella could do, since she was so exhausted she hadn’t been able to think past opening the window.

“Do you mind?” Sweat still rolled down Hope’s face.

“It’s yours.” Bella moved her belongings to the other bed. She opened her bag and stacked her clothes on her bed beside the suitcase. “I saw the bathroom at the end of the hall. I’m going to try to beat the crunch and go wash up. However you want to divvy up the storage space is fine with me. Go ahead and settle in.”

“Will do.” Hope turned to the armoire with a stack of underwear in her hands. “Good thing I didn’t bring much clothes,” she chuckled, “since a big girl like me has jumbo-sized everything.”

An hour later, Karen and Meghan joined Bella and Hope in their room. The twins sat cross-legged on Hope’s bed, in front of the fan. They already knew the basics about each other, from the group’s time in the café, where they had exchanged info on colleges, hometowns, and majors.

Karen rubbed her palms together. “OK, girls, let’s get to the good stuff—boyfriends. I’ve been dating Ed for two years, and he’s jealous I’m here with other boys.”

“None for me,” Meghan said. “How about you?” She smiled at Bella and Hope.

Bella shook her head. She’d never really had a boyfriend. A casual date here and there, but work and school took most of her time. She didn’t even have many friends, not until the group planning to spend the summer protesting about Nicaragua had befriended her.

Bella had met one of the girls when she was studying outdoors, beside the large fountain at the entrance to their urban campus. The girl had plopped herself down next to Bella and started chatting, soon inviting Bella to join her and her friends that night for pizza.

Their political fervor had been contagious, partly because there was lively discourse and teasing among the group. Bella longed to expand her family to include more than her mother; after all, it had been only the two of them her entire life. Following their politics had been more a means to be included in the group than an active decision to support their causes.

Hope spoke with quiet pride. “I’ve been dating Charlie since high school, and we’ll be married after I finish college. He was in the Marines four years. He’s got a great business job. We could afford to get married now, but he wants me to finish college first, since my folks will help pay for it if I’m not married.”

Karen leaned forward, and her eyes had a mischievous look. “Did he like you coming to Italy?”

Hope shook her head. “Not at all.” She dropped her head and gazed at her hands. “I almost backed out at the last minute, but the money was nonrefundable, and it was something my mom really wanted for me.”

Karen nodded. “So it looks like you’re off the market. Right?”

Hope nodded.

Karen jumped off the bed and held up four fingers on one hand and three on the other. “Good odds, I’d say. Four men, three eligible women.”

“You’re not eligible,” Meghan said. “You’re practically engaged to Ed.”

“But I’m not. Not yet.” Karen wiggled her hips back and forth. “And I intend to have fun this summer. Other than Lee, who I’ll bet is a bookworm, they all seem to have potential."

Meghan nodded, a broad smile across her face.

Bella had to admit that the guys were a good-looking bunch. Lee was the most serious. Phillip, a total stud, acted a little standoffish. Was it because he had an attitude as an athlete? Stillman was definitely hot, friendly, and had that sexy Southern accent. Rune had kept them all laughing during their walk and had flirted with all of the girls.

These kids were friendlier than the students filing in and out of classes at City College. Maybe this summer in Italy wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

“Woo-hoo,” Rune said. “At UCLA, I’m used to the beach babes in California, but those twin blondes are hot. You can look at their eyes all you want, man,” he nodded at Lee, “but I plan to find other ways to tell them apart, and then I’ll be able to report on whether or not they’re natural blondes.”

Lee responded by throwing one of the hard, flat pillows at Rune’s head.

Stillman had invited Lee and Rune to come to the room he shared with Phillip after they had unpacked.

Phillip seemed a little put off by the lack of air conditioning and having to share a bathroom down the hall, but Stillman didn’t care. His first memories of the farm in Georgia with his mama and the preacher were when their only toilet was in a hot, airless bathroom added to the side of the house.

“I’m not sure I’d win if I arm-wrestled Hope,” Stillman said, “but she seems like a straight-up gal. Bella, on the other hand, matches her name. Beautiful. I call dibs on Bella.”