Burning The Map

4

“I will pick you up at 9:00,” Francesco says, “and we will have a special dinner, as I told you.”

I push down the flicker of excitement that rises in me, trying not to notice how odd it is, how long it’s been since I’d felt that particular rush. “What about Alesandro and Massimo?”

“They will not be joining us,” he says, without explanation.

“Where? I mean, what kind of place are we going? What should I wear?” Something similar to terror replaces my excitement as I realize that this sounds more and more like a date. I know I should protest, explain that I have a boyfriend, and traipse off to Trastevere with my friends, but I can’t. I just can’t get those words out of my mouth.

“Wear whatever you like,” Francesco says in his liquid-honey voice. “It does not matter.”

Easy for him to say.

I immediately begin trying on every article of clothing packed by myself, Kat or Lindsey. They both attempt to offer advice, neither commenting on my obvious anxiety, but their pearls of fashion wisdom do little to calm me. To make matters worse, because of the weight I’ve put on this summer, I can’t wear the majority of their clothes for fear that the seams will explode and take out everyone within a mile radius. This leaves me alone with my meager wardrobe. I can think of fifty outfits in my closet back home that would be perfect for tonight, while I cringe at everything I packed.

I finally decide on my most slimming skirt and a sleeveless white top with a loose, semi-sheer black shirt over it.

“Are you nuts?” Kat says. “You can’t wear that black thing. It’s one hundred fucking degrees out.” She gives me a disgusted look while she fastens the diamond studs into her ears.

I glance at Sin, still on the bed, who notices the same thing and scowls at Kat. Those diamond earrings again.

“I’m trying to hide my arms,” I say, mumbling as I climb on a spindly wooden chair, where I attempt, unsuccessfully, to get a full-length glimpse of myself in the foot-long mirror above the dresser.

“Oh, please,” Sin says. “Your arms look fine. What’s gotten into you?”

“About ten pounds,” I say.

She sighs. “I remember at Michigan when we used to have to beg you to wear a coat over your little outfits, even in the dead of winter.”

This is true. I dressed like a slut in college, most of my clothes more suited for a provocative music video. I always groan and roll my eyes when I look back on pictures of myself in those getups, but the sad thing is that I was happy and completely confident in them.

“Oh God,” Kat says, brushing out her long chestnut hair, a grin taking over her face. “Remember that blue dress that was up to your crotch and showed every bit of your tits except the nipples?”

Lindsey gives a shout of laughter. “And what about that silver bustier she used to wear with the black pants?”

“Times change,” I say, smiling despite myself. This, I like. This reminiscing about how we used to be, even if it is at my expense.

“So,” Sin says, and I can hear the shift in her voice from lighthearted to something more serious. “Did you call John yet?”

“Not yet.” I get down from my chair, having decided to go for beauty over comfort and stick with the outfit. I don’t mention that my plan is to not call anyone for at least a week or two. Not John, not Gordon Baker Brickton, Jr., my newly assigned partner and boss at the firm, and certainly not my mother. This trip is intended to be an escape. Avoiding phone calls with anyone from my real life is a means to that much-needed end.

“Why not?” Sin says, refusing to give up.

“I think he’s out of town this weekend.” This is a total lie. He’s in Chicago, and I know exactly what he’s doing right now. He’s in his apartment, puttering around the kitchen, making chicken Alfredo. He’ll work on a file while he eats at the kitchen table, and then he’ll head to Stanley’s to meet his buddies for one or two beers—at the most. He’ll be missing me by now. I’m sure of that. Despite his crazy schedule lately, he turned all moony and sad when he realized I was leaving for three weeks.

“The place won’t be the same without you,” he’d said a few nights ago as we stood in his living room, his pale green eyes big and turned down at the corners.

I get a sick flash of guilt, but I’m not sure if it’s caused by my memory of John that night or the way I’m now trying to push it out of my head.

“Signorina, Francesco…here…for you,” the hotel concierge says in halting English, with a heavy Italian accent.

“Yes…sì…grazie,” I mumble into the phone, knocking over the bottle of my Fendi perfume in my nervous state.

“You smell fine,” Lindsey says from the bed, where she has patiently counseled me through the difficult decision of whether to apply more perfume. I love her for this and for dropping the topic of John. “You look fine, too.”

I fuss with my hair in the mirror. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. Do you have MILK?”

I check my purse—Money, ID, Lipstick, Keys. “Yep.”

“So, go already.” She rises from the bed and, collecting her purse, yells, “Kat, let’s go!” in the direction of the bathroom.

“Two minutes,” Kat says, and Lindsey sits back down. We both know that Kat’s two minutes are more like twenty.

I inhale deeply, as I’d been taught to do in one of my self-help books. I imagine that these inhalations bring the desired calming effect. “Here I go.”

I take only three steps before it hits me.

“What am I doing?” I ask Lindsey. “What am I doing to John?”

She gives me a very long, very pointed look, during which I regret the question and fear she’s going to set me straight. So straight that I won’t be able to live with myself if I go out with Francesco. A moment goes by, then another.

Finally, she says, “You’re not doing anything to John. You’re going out for a drink with a nice Italian boy, which was what you wanted to do so desperately an hour ago.”

Neither of us acknowledges the cutting side to her supposedly light remark. Another silence. The phone rings again. Saved, I think, snatching it.

“Francesco…here…for you,” the concierge repeats.

“I’ll be right there.” I enunciate the words for fear Francesco will leave, yet I don’t move for the door.

“Go,” Lindsey says, and she actually gives me a wink.

The tiny elevator, which usually takes an eternity to run from the third floor to the first, brings me to the lobby in record time. I’m trying to catch a glimpse of my hair in the reflection of the metal doors when they open. Francesco, dressed in tan pants and a silky white shirt that probably came from his fashionable sisters in Milan, is conversing with the concierge in what appears to be rapid, raucous Italian. They gesticulate, shrug and nod all at once, as only Italians can do. Their conversation comes to an abrupt halt as I approach the desk with what I hope is a nonchalant, I-do-this-all-the-time look on my face.

Francesco turns to me. His hair is still wet, the black waves shiny, lying close to his head. “You look beautiful,” he says, drawing out the last word so that it sounds like “bee-yootee-ful.”

“Thank you. Grazie,” I say, surprised to hear my own voice coming out demure, even more surprised to find myself dipping my head in sort of a bow. I’m not usually a demure woman. This is some redheaded-stepchild part of myself I have yet to meet. It makes me wonder if she has other relatives that are usually kept in the basement, away from the guests.

If Francesco drove his scooter in a meandering way yesterday, tonight he’s in a full-steam-ahead race. I clutch him around his middle as we speed along the cobblestone streets of Rome. Charming enough to stroll down, but hell on the ass if you’re the second person on a one-man moped. I’d tried not to touch him. I tried to simply place my palms on some Switzerland-like neutral area of his body, but the dangerous speed and the bumpy effect of the cobblestones made this full-body grip from behind a requirement. So now, my breasts lie on his back, my hands hold tight to his waist. He feels so different from John who is softer and certainly not as reckless.

As the scooter hugs a particularly curved street, both of us leaning to one side, I’m sure we’re about to crash. One part of me wants to yell at Francesco to slow down, and either take it easy or take me back to the hotel and forget he ever met me. At the same time, I’m exhilarated to the point of wanting to throw my head back, like some sappy character in a romantic comedy.

I can feel Francesco’s taut, lean stomach muscles under my fingers. I clasp my hands together, one over the other, to stop the sudden, random urge to let them migrate lower. The scooter jostles over a pothole and the side of my hand nicks Francesco’s belt buckle.

“Okay?” Francesco shouts over his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Fine. Bene,” I yell into the wind.