Tutti Italia: A Novel (6 page)

“What?  You’re looking at me like I have a second head or
something.”  She looked back at him with a half-smile.  He shook his head.

“No, it’s not that.  I just didn’t know that you spoke
Italian.  I should have just let you order for me, too.”  Rachel blushed a
little at the praise, and modestly denied it.

“I don’t speak Italian, I just studied the dictionary that
my parents gave me.”  He gave her an odd look.  “What?”  He looked like he was
trying to come up with a delicate way of putting into words what he wanted to
say.

“You…lived with your parents before you came here?  How old
are you?”  Rachel could tell that he viewed her as being a mama’s girl or
something for living with her parents.  She immediately went on the defensive. 

“I lived at home because I went to community college.  It
happened to be literally five minutes up the road from our subdivision.  I went
to school fulltime and I worked fulltime.  Yes, I was living at home because it
was cheaper and convenient.  Is there something wrong with that?”  Her eyes
were hard and shiny like pieces of flint, and her chin was raised in defiance. 
She was challenging him to say something to her, demean her in some way because
she lived at home until she was twenty.  Rachel decided not to mention how old
she was.  He didn’t need to know that if he was going to be an ignoramus about
other ways of life.  He threw his hands up in a defense.

“I didn’t mean anything by it.  I just wasn’t raised that
way and it’s different than what I’ve known, that’s all.  I’m sorry if you took
offense to it, I didn’t mean anything by it.”  She raised her eyebrow ant him,
not knowing if she should believe him or if he was just covering up his
opinions because he now knew that she was irritated with him for what he’d
said.  Rachel had to stop herself.  She didn’t know Jason very well, so she
should give him the benefit of the doubt.  He hadn’t done anything to make her
think that he was a bad guy, so maybe her paranoid tendencies were creeping up
on her.  She decided to let it slide.  The wait staff came back, each one with
two plates in his or her hand.  Their waiter came and set the first course down
in front of Rachel and Jason.  Rachel looked up at the man’s nametag.  It said,
‘Stefano’.  She smiled up at him as he put her first plate in front of her.

“Grazi mille, Stefano.”  He gave a little mock bow, and
joined the other waiters and waitresses as they stood in the back of the room watching
the Americans have their first taste of real Italian food.  Rachel sniffed
appreciatively at her plate.  There was what looked like a game fowl of some
kind, smothered in a lemon sauce, with sautéed vegetables and orange slices. 
Her mouth watered all on its own.  She didn’t even want to look over at Jason’s
plate. She wanted to dive in to her own meal.  Out of the corner of her eye,
she could see him carefully dividing up the things on his plate, making sure
that both halves were as close to even as he could get them.  She felt a little
guilty about not doing that right off the bat herself, but she quickly remedied
the situation.  The rest of the courses were tastier than the last, and Rachel
was starting to feel like she needed a nap.  Her belly was filling, and there
was no end in sight.  Their chaperone got up, and walked into the middle of the
horseshoe.

“Can I get everyone to pay attention up here for just a
second?”  She waited until everyone was watching her before she continued on. 
“So, we’re about half way through the courses, and I want to ask if anyone is
starting to feel a little sleepy?”  She waited, and one by one, everyone’s hand
went up.  She smiled.  “That’s why Italians take an afternoon nap.  They love
their food, and they take their time eating it.  They’ll sit and talk for hours
and keep eating little by little, until they can’t stay awake anymore, then
it’s time for an afternoon nap.  You’ll notice that most of the stores around
here are closed for a few hours in the afternoon.  The only ones that aren’t,
are the ones that try to cater to Americans.  Just remember that if you plan on
going to the mall or somewhere to shop or get groceries.”  She went back to her
seat, and the wait staff came by to pick up the empty plates.

“They’re not kidding.  I feel like I could fall into bed
right now and not get up till tomorrow morning.”  Jason stretched and let out
an enormous yawn.  Rachel was in the middle of yawning, herself, so she had to
wait to answer him.

“I know what you mean.  But I don’t want to go back yet. 
This food is absolutely amazing, and I don’t want to miss any of it.”  She
rearranged herself on her chair, and was seriously contemplating opening the
button on her jeans so the waistband wouldn’t be so tight on her.  After all,
they still had a few courses to go…not to mention, dessert.  Rachel and Jason
stuck to their plan of ordering food and switching plates half way through.  In
that sense, the two of them were getting double the courses that everyone else
was.  The funny thing was they were the only ones that sent back empty plates
every time.  Another thing that was different here in Italy was that the
Italians didn’t believe in doggy bags for food.  A few of the restaurants near
the base had started the habit, but not this place.  Rachel wasn’t going to
miss out on anything.  She could digest later.

Chapter 8

Rachel dozed on the bus ride home.  She felt so fat she
was surprised that her pants hadn’t split yet.  She woke up just before the bus
went through the gate of the base.  She could make out Jason in the seat next
to her, snoring softly, with his head thrown back against the head rest of the
seat, mouth wide open.  She smiled to herself.  She knew he was young, in his
twenties, but the way he looked when he was relaxed made him look twelve.  The
bus went over the speed bumps, and it jerked Jason awake.  His eyes were wide
open now, and he was staring around like he was looking for someone to jump
him.  She laughed lightly and he blushed.

“Sorry, I’m just used to looking around me for trouble any
time I haven’t been paying attention to my surroundings.  It’s a habit.”

“It’s ok.  I’m sure I would be the same way if I went
through military training.”  He still looked a little sheepish, but he smiled
back.  Once the bus came to a stop in the parking lot of the mini mall, he got
up and let her out.  She thanked him and made her way to the door.  She didn’t
really think anything about whether or not he wanted to stick around and talk
to her. She just crossed the street and disappeared up the stairs to her room. 
She was tired, and she wanted to get a shower before she went to bed.  The next
day they were going to be going wine tasting.  She wanted a good night’s
sleep.  When she got in the front door of her room, she came face to face with
her roommate. 

“Hi!  I wasn’t even sure I had a roommate.  I never hear
you in there,” joked Rachel.  The girl just stared at her.  She was shorter
than Rachel by about a head and a half, toothpick thin, pale as paper, pierced
and tatted up, and had medium length black hair.  She took something called
Muscle Milk out of the fridge and went into her bedroom.  Rachel was a little
miffed.  She may not have told a funny joke, but that didn’t mean the girl had
to be so rude to her.  After all, they’d never even met.  She decided right
then and there that she didn’t like the girl, and she wasn’t going to talk to
her unless she had to.  She slid her card into her door, and made her way into
her room.  She went into the bathroom and locked the door that led to the other
bedroom, signally that she was going to be using the bathroom.  She got the
water started. Then, she went back into her bedroom to get undressed.  She threw
her clothes in her hamper and got under the hot spray.  Rachel sighed in
pleasure.  There was nothing better than a hot shower at the end of the day, in
her opinion.  It loosened up all the knots that had accumulated throughout the
day, and it washed all the dirt away.  Then, she washed her long hair and quickly
got out so she could go to bed.

The next morning, Rachel knew it would be a bad day before
she ever left her room.  She woke up to thunder and lightning raging outside
her window.  Rachel only liked thunder storms if she was wrapped up in a thick
blanket, sitting in a window seat, with a book and hot chocolate.  Seeing as
none of that was available to her at the moment, she gritted her teeth, tucked
her coat tighter around her, and left her room for the building across the
street.  When she got in the door, she shook out her coat as best as she could,
and tried to dry her shoes on the mat that had been put right inside the door
for that very purpose.  She wasn’t quite sure if it would work, but she did it
for the benefit of the person that had put it there.  She made her way into the
briefing room, and was about to take the same seat that she’d had all week,
when Jason flagged her down from the corner of the room. 

“Hey!  Rachel, over here.”  She blushed, but she walked over
to him.

“Good morning, how are you?”

“Oh, I’m alright.  I wanted to talk to you more last night
but by the time I got off the bus you were gone.”  Rachel felt guilty now.  She
hid her face in the notebook that she clutched to her chest.

“I live right across the street.  It was less than a five
minute walk to my dorm.  I feel terrible now.  You must have thought that I
vanished into thin air.”  Jason chuckled a little as she sat down next to him.

“Yeah, something like that.  I was a little tempted to
check the skies to see if maybe you had flown off on a broom or something.” 
Rachel playfully punched his arm.

“Hey!  I’m nowhere near as evil as a witch!”  He pretended
like the punch had hurt him, real bad.

“Oh, ouch.  She’s broken my arm!  She’s so strong.” 
Rachel’s whole face turned bright red in embarrassment.  She saw a bit of
regret flash across his face.  Good, maybe he wasn’t the type of guy that liked
to embarrass women for his own amusement.  That was good to know.

“Oh, stop it you big baby.  It didn’t even hurt.”  He
stopped rubbing his arm, and laughed once more.

“I know it doesn’t hurt, but you’re really cute when you
blush.”  That statement made her blush even more, and she watched as he grinned
at her in a self-satisfied kind of way.  She looked away from him to try to get
her normal coloring back, and saw that the chaperone from the day before was
back.  She strode up to the front of the room and cleared her throat to get
everyone’s attention.

“Good morning, class.  Normally on Fridays, we go to the
outdoor flea market in a town that’s close by and we spend the afternoon wine
tasting.  It’s raining pretty good outside, but we will still go on our trip. 
The weather here in Italy is strange.  It doesn’t always know what it wants to
do.  Maybe by the time we get to Pordenone, the rain will have stopped.  If
not, there are plenty of stores in the area and little café’s that we can wait
out the storm in.  If the weather
is
bad, then the wine tasting will be
that much better.  If you need to use the restroom, do it now.  We will be
getting on the bus in fifteen minutes.”  Rachel got up to use the restroom. 
Jason stayed sitting down, and that led her to believe that he would be waiting
for her to get back before he got on the bus.  She was right.  When she came
back, the two of them did their best to stay dry from the door of the building
to the door of the bus, but to no avail.  Rachel’s hair was about five shades
darker when it got wet, and it curled tightly around her face.  Her mom always
told her that it gave her a younger, fresher look.  A pang of homesickness shot
through her, and she stumbled on the step.  Jason heard her slip and spun
around to try to catch her arm.

“Thanks.  I didn’t realize that the steps would be that
slippery.”  He pulled her up in front of him.

“Here, you go ahead of me, just in case.”  Rachel was
mortified again.  She’d made a fool of herself in front of this handsome young
man that may or may not be in her life past today.  If he was, then she didn’t
want to look like a perpetual klutz.  If he wasn’t, she didn’t want to be
remembered
as a perpetual klutz.  Either way she was afraid it was a lose-lose situation. 
She made her way towards the back and found a seat.  He sat down next to her
and stretched his long legs into the aisle. He shook out his coat, as much away
from her as he could get.  He was considerate of trying not to get her wet. 
All in all, a gentleman.  The chaperone got on the bus and counted heads before
she took the seat right behind the driver.  She hadn’t told them how long the
ride was going to be, but it was alright.  Rachel was happy with watching the
scenery, even if it
was
through a rain streaked window. 

It was almost an hour later when the bus came to a stop in
a crowded street that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere.  When they
got off the bus and it drove off, however, Rachel could see what was hiding
behind the monstrosity.  There was a street fair going on despite the light
drizzle.  The chaperone had been right.  The weather really
did
do what
it wanted.  The Italians didn’t mind though.  They had tents and hastily
erected overhangs that covered their wares, and the customers just scurried
from stall to stall to stay dry.  Rachel had to smile at their dedication to
shopping.  It warmed her heart, because she was a self-proclaimed power shopper
herself.  Jason gave a sort of groan behind her and she spun around to face
him.

“What was that for?” 

“Shopping.  As a man, I simply hate doing it, regardless of
the company.”  He scrunched up his face like he was getting ready to ward off a
verbal assault about what he’d just said.  Rachel laughed and just stuck her
tongue out at him.  He raised an eyebrow at her, then laughed.  “I don’t think
anyone has stuck their tongue out at me since I was in the fifth grade.”