We'll Always Have Paris (8 page)

A half hour into the tour of London Dungeon, Katie and I looked at each other in disgust. This was no fake monster ride. It was a historically accurate, excruciatingly graphic glorification of brutality. “I want to get out of here,” I said.

“Me too,” Katie replied in a hurry.

I tapped a woman in costume who moments earlier had been barking threats at us and told her we needed to leave. “Right then, loves,” she said sweetly. “Let’s get you out.” She took Katie by the hand and led us away from the group. When we were out of earshot, she said to Katie, “Everything is a show in the Dungeon.” We walked down a dark hallway and she continued. “We’re all actors and students having some laughs, nothing to be afraid of.” With that, she opened a door as the three of us flinched at the daylight. The woman extended a bloody arm, pointing the way out, and cheerfully wished us a good day in London.

Katie and I headed to a tea shop in Notting Hill with white eyelet curtains and small tables made from pinewood. I half expected Goldilocks to come walking through the door at any moment. We ate scones and leafed through the ample selection of children’s books until we were ready to walk about and look at charming brick buildings with brightly painted doors and weathered shutters.

The next day, Molly took us to Oxford despite the fact that there had been a minor bombing days earlier. I was impressed that Katie was so interested in visiting the university until I found out that she only wanted to see the locations where Harry Potter was filmed. Wherever we traveled, we saw others with the book. Potter fans would give each other a knowing nod, then compare how far along they were in the tome.

As Thandie suggested, we saw
Mary
Poppins
and took in a few other shows in the West End. In my mind, I’d mixed up the harmlessly campy musical
Guys
and
Dolls
with the dodgy sexed-up
Chicago
and purchased tickets. I couldn’t wait to see Brooke Shields play Adelaide and sing about how a person could develop a cold. Katie’s eyes lit up as the curtain rose and prison women in fishnet stockings and bustiers sang about how their murder victims had it comin’. At intermission, I asked Katie what she thought. I could hear a few fellow theatergoers quiet their companions because they too wanted to hear this child’s take. “I totally fancy this show!” Katie said, borrowing another expression from Megan. “I just have one question.”

“Hush, love, I must hear this,” a woman behind us whispered to her husband.

“What the heck is it about?” Katie asked.

The woman laughed. “Precious,” she said. “Has no idea what it’s about, but loves it. I do long to be a child again.”

I turned around and smiled at the woman.

She returned the smile, then offered, “You do know
Mary
Poppins
is playing.”

On our final day in England, we woke to the sound of rain banging on the windows of Molly’s house.
Oh
crap
, I thought. “It’s torrential out there.”

Katie sat up excitedly, her hair still molded to the shape of the pillow. “I bet there’s no line for the London Eye today!”

“Maybe we just…” I began, then stopped myself. “All right, let’s buy some umbrellas.”

After our Ferris wheel ride through a cloud, Katie spotted a bronze statue of Salvador Dalí’s melting clock. “What the…?!”

A man dressed like the surrealist approached us and asked if we would like to visit Dalí Universe. Floating eyeballs, lobster phones, melting clocks—what child wouldn’t love this?

Inside the museum, Katie was agape. “This guy is crazy!” she said, looking at Dalí’s sculptures and paintings. “And by crazy, I mean brilliant. It’s like this guy has no rules at all. In art class, I once colored my cat green, and the teacher was all, ‘Cats aren’t green.’ I’d like to hear what she’d say about this guy.”

“Clocks don’t melt,” I suggested.

“Elephants don’t have long skinny legs,” Katie added.

I wondered if Katie was simply a fan of surrealism or gearing up for a rebellion against her highly structured, possibly overregulated life.

“Can I have a Dalí-themed ninth birthday party next year?” Katie asked.

“A what?” I asked.

“A Dalí birthday party?”

“What would that even look like?”

“Definitely a melting clock cake,” she said. “And we could paint surreal self-portraits and they’d be all weird and it wouldn’t matter.” As if reading my mind, she continued, “And we could hire an actor to play Salvador Dalí like that time Winnie the Pooh came to my party.” Katie saw that I was warming to the idea and persisted, suggesting my friend. “Milo could play Salvador Dalí. I bet his accent would be better than that guy outside the museum.”

“Before today, you had no idea who Dalí was,” I reminded her. “Will any of your friends care about some painter they’ve never heard of?”

Katie shrugged. “So Milo will come and tell a story about who Dalí is and why he’s cool and stuff.”

“We could play Pin the Mustache on
Mona Lisa
,” I suggested. “But that’s really more Dada than Dalí.”

“Dada? I don’t know who that is and I don’t care, it’ll be fun,” Katie said.

“If you’re still excited about this idea in March, we’ll do it,” I told her.

She continued, “We can get candles that look like fingers.”

I smiled, realizing that we were very likely having a surreal birthday party.

“And bugs on the cake,” Katie whispered again.

“Bugs?”

“Yeah, plastic ants crawling across the cake like that picture we saw in the Dalí book of that lady who had a loaf of bread going through her head and bugs crawling across her boobs.”

“Okay,” I said. “We can put bugs on the cake.”

Katie kissed my cheek and thanked me, knowing that she had closed the deal.

The second part of the deal was the one I made with myself. I silently promised that Katie and my mother-daughter trip would not be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, but something we did as often as we could reasonably afford. Home maintenance be damned—our next stop would be Italy.

The three years between our first European adventure and the next rolled along on the pleasant treadmill of middle-class suburban life: soccer tournaments, Girl Scout meetings, and elementary school science projects. I rushed to make writing deadlines and carpool pickup times; William suited up and went to his law office every day. Our lives intersected at Katie’s games and events, family meals, and theater nights, briefly touching then darting off in other directions.

William was famous among the neighborhood kids for his four-cheese macaroni and cheese. I was the mom who led improv games in which we’d sing songs in divergent styles, like nursery rhyme gospel and show tune rap. Life was good, but our obligations—many of which we imposed on ourselves—left us with too little time, something I felt acutely since I was convinced that I was on the same mortality schedule as my father.

“I want to take another trip,” I told William one evening as we were getting ready for bed.

“You just got back from Europe!” he said after spitting out his mouthwash.

“I’m not talking about tomorrow. I figured if I save religiously, I can afford to go when Katie finishes fifth grade.”

“Or we could fix the bathrooms,” William offered. “Or the kitchen, or the windows, or put the money into Katie’s college fund.”

“This is kind of an educational investment,” I said.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Jen. If you want to take a trip, don’t try to pass it off as summer school for Katie.”

“Okay, I want to go to Italy.”

“Italy?” William asked with a sigh.

“They seem like they’ve got the same
joie de vivre
as the French, but with pasta.”

“And how long do you plan to
joie
your
vivre
?”

“A month.”

“A month?!” he said louder than he expected.

“I want to take our time,” I said. “We’re living life at a breakneck speed, William. I want to take my time when we travel, you know, sit down and read a book in the park rather than trying to cram everything in.” I reminded him that Katie and I could travel free on frequent flyer miles and of how frugal we were on our last trip. I promised I would pace my work so I could miss a month’s pay. I looked at him hopefully. “If you really think it’ll get us into hot water financially, we won’t go.”

“Jen, if this is important to you, you should do it, but if you have kitchen envy when one of the neighbors remodels, I do not want to hear about it.”

“I will not have kitchen envy,” I said.

“You have kitchen envy all the time. Every time we see someone’s new kitchen.”

“You will never, ever hear about my kitchen envy ever again.”

“That, my dear, is a deal I will take.”

***

On the plane ride to Rome, I wondered why I ever thought overseas travel was a good idea.

“
Signora, signora!
You must come out of the bathroom right now,” the flight attendant demanded as she pounded on the door. “We are landing.”

I felt the plane descending but could not muster the strength to stand, unlock the door, and return to my seat. I was vomiting, so my goals were much simpler. With one hand bracing the wall and the other being used as a ponytail holder, I squatted, my legs bent like a frog. I hoped to keep my balance so I wouldn’t topple over. This had become my travel routine: fail to sleep, get a headache, then puke.

Prior to our departure, I asked my doctor to give me a mask filled with nitrous oxide, like the ones used to knock out patients before surgery, but she laughed and assured me that the sleeping pill she prescribed would do the trick. I reminded her that she’d made the same promise when I left for Paris three years earlier and I didn’t sleep a wink on that trip. “You need to let go and allow the medication to work,” she told me.

After twenty-three years in Southern California, I still hadn’t gotten used to the New Age undertone: mechanics who ask about my automotive
issues
, a former boss who did astrological readings, and a doctor who urged me to let go, let pill.

“You must return to your seat,
signora
!” the flight attendant insisted, pounding on the door again. My eyes welled with tears as my stomach contracted. “One moment, I’m sorry,” I said, offering a weak pound back.

A few minutes later, I collected myself and made it to my seat, where Katie was beside me, sleeping soundly. She had grown ten inches since our last trip to Europe, but still folded neatly into her space. She wore her hair in a long brown ponytail and sported a natural, Ivory Girl look. As the plane hit the ground, I jostled my eleven-year-old. “We’re here, Katie.”

As our plane sped down the runway, Katie’s eyes popped open and, with the energy of a person who already had her morning shower and coffee, she asked, “Is this Rome?”

“It is,” I said, masking my discomfort.

“You look kind of…gray.”

“Just a little motion sickness,” I explained.
It
can’t be something more serious, can it? What would we do if I became sick in a foreign country? What if I die in Italy? What then?

My stomach twisted with anxiety at the thought of William having to fly to Rome to collect Katie after she spent a day alone at Child Protective Services. Would they cremate me here and continue with the itinerary I’d set for Katie and myself, sprinkling my ashes over the Roman Colosseum and ruins of Pompeii? I hoped so. There were so many non-refundable deposits.

I wondered how William and Katie would manage without me when they got back to San Diego. I imagined a sink filled with dishes and a Vesuvian mountain of laundry, washed once a month, if that. The towels would never be properly folded again. I shuddered to think what the Christmas tree would look like without my decoration micromanagement. The idea of missing Katie’s middle school and high school years became a crushing pain in my chest. Never again hearing her little voice call me
Mommy
. I gasped a sob.

“Why are you crying?” Katie asked.

“I’m just so happy that we’re in Italy,” I said, wiping my nose with a shirtsleeve.

Forty-five minutes later, Katie and I were in a taxi, racing through the streets of Rome, weaving around cars and pedestrians. The sharp turns slid Katie and me to one side of the back seat, then a hard left threw us to the other. The taxi wheels jumped onto the curb then pounded back down onto the road, our driver scarcely missing whatever was in his way. It didn’t matter to him whether he narrowly averted another car, a pedestrian, or a dog. The road was an obstacle course, and there seemed to be no points off for casualties.

When I noticed the driver checking me out through his rearview mirror, I assumed he was concerned about my health. Instead he had other plans. “First time in
Roma
?” he asked me. When I confirmed, he smiled and placed a tattooed arm on the back of his seat. He looked in his mirror again. “You no look a so good,” he said without an ounce of sympathy. In fact, he suppressed a laugh.

When the cab driver dropped us off at our bed and breakfast, he took the ten and fifty euro bills I handed him, turned away, then pivoted to face me again. He presented me with two tens. “
Signora
, you no give me enough money.”

“I didn’t?”

“The ten and fifty euro, they are the same color,” he explained. “Honest a mistake.”

At this point, there were two versions of myself battling. A small voice within squealed,
You
are
being
swindled. Raise your hands in the air, shout and make a fuss about how he is trying to cheat you.
The larger part of me just wanted to lie down on the sidewalk and beg the world to stop spinning. The latter voice, rather unconvincingly, said,
Maybe
you
made
a
mistake. You’re tired and sick and you have no way of proving anything.
The imbecilic me peeled another fifty bill from my thinning cash fold and gave it to him. With a smarmy, self-satisfied smile, the driver said, “Welcome to
Roma
!” He peeled off quickly, a tourist jumping out of the way to avoid him.

When we reached the lobby of Casa Banzo, our bed and breakfast, I counted my money. I’d left San Diego with two fifty-euro bills and several smaller ones. Now I was left with only twenties and tens. I would have to find an ATM sooner than I’d planned.

Head down, I barely noticed how utterly charming our bed and breakfast was with its dusty blue exterior and white confectionery trim. Paulo, the college boy who worked as the concierge, rolled our suitcases to our room as I told him about the taxi driver. He rolled up the yellow sleeves on his shirt and shook his head and, like a disappointed father, said, “Ah
Roma
, bad, bad
Roma
.” Then turning to Katie and I, he perked up. “You see, everything else nice for you. There is bad
fru-eet
in every country.”

Bad
fruit?
Katie mouthed behind Paulo’s back. I nodded to confirm.

She smiled and mouthed,
I
love
Rome!

Our room was suited for nuns. Between the twin beds, a small crucifix hung on a stark white wall. The twin beds were covered with white cotton bedspreads with orderly rows of stiff white pompoms, the same kind my grandmother Aggie had for as long as I remember. I wondered if there was some sort of
Catholic
Home
& Convents
magazine or if Roman Catholics just instinctively know how to create a monastic look.

As Katie and I lay in our beds for our post-flight nap, I lamented my stupidity in handing over an extra fifty euro to the taxi driver. “Maybe his mother is sick and he needs the money,” Katie offered.

“
Your
mother is sick and
I
need the money,” I snapped. “I feel so gullible.”

Katie crawled into my bed and put her hand over mine. “What would you say if it was me who made the mistake?”

“I’d say you’re an idiot.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Katie said. “Tell me what you’d really say?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

I yawned and closed my eyes. “I’d tell you that a person can make mistakes but then they can move on and have a wonderful time, even when there are bumps along the way.”

When Katie didn’t reply, I turned my head to see that she was out cold, lightly breathing beside me.

I couldn’t let go, though, constantly replaying the scene in my mind, and thinking about how I should have done things differently, how I should have paid closer attention. My mind busily imagined scenes in which the cab driver regaled his friends at the bar that night with stories of his stupid American passenger. “Drinks on me!” he would say, slapping his hand on the table. He should break a finger.

Or maybe Katie was right and our cab driver was living a life of economic desperation. We were on a budget, but hardly destitute. By world standards, our life was pretty comfortable, so maybe this man really did need the fifty euro more than we did. But it wasn’t really about the money; it was about the vulnerability of being in a place where our very first interaction was exploitative. I could part with money, but I was robbed of my sense of security.

***

As requested, Paulo knocked on our door at five o’clock sharp. Recalibrated by seven hours of sleep, I let go of the notion that Rome was a city of thieves and was ready to cautiously tackle our first evening in Italy. A mild breeze from the Tiber River swept over the cobblestone riverbank as Katie and I walked the two miles between the Jewish Quarter and the Spanish Steps.

A band of a dozen Italian men played on the steps, dressed in their ornately embroidered black hats, pants, and jackets. We dropped a euro coin in their open guitar case and sat for a moment before realizing we were starving.

We stopped at a deli with a twenty-foot long glass case displaying marinated eggplant,
caprese
, squid,
prosciutto
, and dozens of pasta salads. A blackboard listing every imaginable type of pizza caught Katie’s eye. After inquiring for the third time about the price of the salads, an older man with a plain white apron exhaled with annoyance. “What you like to eat?”

I explained that everything looked delicious, but we’d been swindled out of our daily allowance so I had to keep dinner at ten euro. “Ah, taxi steal a you money,” he said, shaking his head. “You sit, I make you dinner for a ten euro.”

“But—”

“I know what you like to eat,
signora
—everything you point at, ay?”

“Yes, but—”

“And
signorina
like a what kind of pizza?”

“Sausage,
per
favore
,” Katie offered.

Ten minutes later, the man with a gray pompadour returned with a plate piled high with all of my favorites, plus a few more he thought I would like to try. He brought Katie a generous slice of pizza with a rotund bottle of Orangina. “This is amazing, but—” I started. He walked away and returned a moment later with a glass of red wine, a basket of bread, two bowls of soup, and an enormous slice of white cake soaked in caramel syrup. I looked at him in amazement. “I can pay for this on my credit card,” I said, slightly embarrassed that I’d given him the impression we were impoverished rather than simply frugal. “There’s no way this was only—”