Italian for Beginners (26 page)

“So?” Marco asked after a moment. “Would you like to go first? Or shall I?”

I looked up at him in surprise. “Go first?” I repeated.

“Do you mean you think I’m going to stick my hand in that thing’s mouth?”

He laughed. “That’s the general idea.”

“Well, you go first,” I said quickly.

He arched an eyebrow at me. “What’s wrong? Are you scared?”

“No!” I said.

“Then go ahead.”

I looked up at him, startled that my heart was hammering to such an extent. It was just a carved marble head; what did I think
was going to happen? But it was impossible to see into the depths of the carving’s mouth. How did I know what was behind the
wall?

“Well?” Marco urged.

I took a tentative step toward the wall and reached my hand out, little by little, toward the sinister face. With every inch
closer, my trepidation multiplied. What if there was someone behind the face, waiting to grab my hand? What if something in
the stone shifted and collapsed? What if the legend was true and the carving somehow knew that I was lying to myself about
my feelings for my mother and her family?

“I can’t,” I admitted, pulling my hand back and shuddering.

Marco laughed and shook his head.

“Well, let’s see you do it!” I said, feeling a little silly.

He laughed again and shrugged. “If you say so.” He took a few steps forward and slowly inserted his hand into the mouth. I
held my breath. He pushed his hand farther and farther in, and I watched his fingers disappear into its depths, then his entire
hand. He turned to smile at me, but just then, a look of pure agony crossed his face.

“Augh!” he yelled, twisting back to the statue. His hand seemed to be struck. He twisted and writhed, trying to pull away.

I screamed and rushed toward him, pulling at him from behind. Moaning, he finally pulled his hand from the mouth of the evil
face.

“Oh, my God!” I cried. “What happened?”

But Marco held his hand up for me to see. It was fine. And he was laughing.

“What happened?” I demanded again.

“I was joking with you,” he said with a wink.

I stared at him, openmouthed. My heart was still pounding. “You jerk!” I exclaimed, punching him playfully in the arm. “I
can’t believe you did that! You scared me!”

I shook my head and tried to catch my breath. Marco was smiling at me, and when I looked up to tell him again what a jerk
he’d been, he silenced me by pulling me into his arms in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into the top of my head. “It
had to be done. You’ll appreciate it later.”

I pulled back a little and looked up at him, confused. “I’ll appreciate that you just scared the heck out of me?”

“Yes,” he said cheerfully. “You will.”

He pulled me back into the embrace, and we stood there for a long time, wrapped together, until I could feel the beat of his
heart as the solemn face, which didn’t look quite so evil anymore, looked on.

* * *

That evening, after we dropped by Marco’s place so that he could change out of his waiter uniform and by my place so that
I could leave my camera at home and change out of my own sweaty, dusty clothes and into a clean sundress, we went to dinner
at a little café just around the corner from Squisito. It sat nestled just to the right of the Pantheon, and while I had showered
in my apartment, Marco had called ahead to ask for one of their outside tables. We were seated along the street with a breathtaking
view of the Pantheon’s facade and the obelisk and fountain in the middle of the Piazza della Rotonda.

Marco ordered champagne for both of us to start. Once the bubbly arrived, Marco smiled and we clinked glasses. I made sure
to look into his eyes this time.

“To Rome,” he said. Then, as he looked closely at me, he added, “And to us.”

“To us,” I echoed.

We chatted through our meal. I told Marco about my father and sister and about the recent wedding, and he told me about his
three brothers and three sisters and how he’d come here to Rome to open a branch of the family restaurant his father had started
in Venice.

“You’re from Venice?” I asked.

“
Sì
,” Marco said. “I worked in the restaurant there for years, but I’ve always wanted to have my own. So I came to Rome five
years ago with all the money I’d saved up and with a dream of opening a place.”

I stared at him. “Pinocchio is yours?”

“
Sì
,” he said.

“Oh.” I was surprised. “I didn’t realize.”

“Ah, so you’re not after me for my money,” Marco teased.

I laughed. “No.”

“Good,” he said. “Because I have none. I’ve spent it all on the restaurant!”

As he began to talk about the challenges of opening a new restaurant in Rome and about how gratifying it was to see his dreams
come to fruition, my mind wandered a little, back to Michael. I’d never known a restaurant owner before, and it seemed a strange
twist of fate to be sitting here with one while the owner of Adriano’s in New York still lurked in the corner of my mind.
It was foolish, of course, that he’d even still be in my realm of thought, especially when I was sitting here with the handsome,
kind, and, most of all, available Marco.

“Don’t you think?” Marco asked, concluding a chain of thought I hadn’t entirely heard.

I shook my head. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “My mind was wandering. What did you say?”

He laughed. “I’m boring you already?” He winked at me. “I was just saying that I opened the restaurant because I think it’s
worth the risk to pursue your dream, even if you don’t know if it will work out. Don’t you think this is the case?”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure,” I said. I thought of Karina’s words. “Apparently, I like to live life on the safe side.”

“There is value in that, too,” he said. “But I think that is the difference between living a small life and living a big one.”

“What do you mean?”

He thought for a second. “I mean, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to live a safe life,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been unhappy
if I had stayed in Venezia. I probably would have continued to work in the family restaurant, I would have gotten an apartment
in Mestre near my family, and I would have married, had children, played on the family
futbol
team on the weekends, and one day inherited the restaurant along with my brothers.

“But,” he continued, “my world would have been so small. You understand? I might have traveled, and I might have done little
things here and there. But my dream would have died in my head. And I never would have made any real difference in the world.”

I nodded. Suddenly, my heart felt like it was pounding. “I know what you mean,” I said softly.

“But here in Roma, things are different,” he said. “For a year there, I barely had enough money to eat, and I had no time.
I was working twenty hours a day setting up the restaurant. And at the beginning, we had no business. It was terrible. I felt
like I was going to fail.

“But I didn’t let go of my dream,” he added. “And today, I am so happy, Cat. My life is not perfect, but it is good. That
is all I can ask for.”

“That’s amazing,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Do you have dreams, too?” he asked. “Beyond what you are doing now?”

I thought for a minute. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I do.”

A
fter an amazing dinner of fried seafood—a Venetian specialty, Marco explained—and a bottle of pinot grigio, followed by espresso
and a shared dessert of tiramisu, Marco said that he had another surprise for me, if I would trust him.

We climbed onto the Vespa and set off through a series of small city streets, eventually winding up on the Via dei Coronari,
heading toward the river. I closed my eyes and held on tight as we drew closer to the water. I could smell the salt wafting
in through the evening air.

Marco finally parked the Vespa near the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the marble pedestrian bridge that spans the Tiber with a series
of arches, overlooking the Castel Sant’Angelo. It had always been my favorite place in Rome. The bridge is flanked with ten
angel statues, all of them holding things like a crown of thorns, a cross, or whips. I’d read somewhere that all ten angels
carry instruments of Christ’s crucifixion. Although I wasn’t deeply religious, there was something about the statues that
had always moved me.

“This is one of my favorite places in Rome,” I said to Marco as he took my hand and we began strolling toward the bridge.
I briefly remembered discussing it with Michael, the look on his face when I said it was my favorite spot to be alone. But
I shook off the thought just as quickly. “How did you know?” I asked Marco.

He looked surprised. “I didn’t,” he said. “But it is a place I’ve always loved, too.”

I expected us to cross the bridge toward the towering, cylindrical
castello
, which looked almost magical bathed in pale yellow light. But instead, Marco took a sharp turn to the right as we reached
the bridge and led me down a series of stone steps toward the riverbank below.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He squeezed my hand and continued down the stairs ahead of me. “You’ll see.”

As we descended, I could see a small boat docked up ahead. It looked as if it had been hastily strung with several strands
of sparkling white lights. Marco shouted something to the man standing on the deck of the boat, and the man waved back.

“You know him?” I asked.

Marco nodded and smiled at me. “It’s my friend Nari. He is the only person I know with a boat. I asked him to meet us here.”

I looked at him, puzzled, as we reached the base of the stairs and began walking toward the boat. “You did? Why?”

“I looked everywhere for a barge that was hosting a dance tonight,” he said with a mysterious grin, “but I could not find
a single one. So I had to make my own.”

“A barge hosting a dance?”

“You will understand later,” he said. “But tonight, it is just a dance for two. Well, three, if Nari stays. But I think I
can persuade him to go get an espresso while we use his boat.”

I was completely confused now, but I followed Marco aboard the small white vessel and shook Nari’s hand when we were introduced.
The man barely spoke English, so Marco translated a few pleasantries between us and then slipped into a rapid conversation
in Italian while I looked around the boat.

It was small, the kind we might have taken out on Long Island to sunbathe on deck for a few hours in the summer. It looked
like there was a small cabin below. There was a big, shiny, wooden wheel toward the back of the boat, and behind it, a motor.
On the front of the flat, wooden boat, two small seats were set up, facing the river, and a small stereo was tied to the capstan,
presumably so that it didn’t pitch overboard.

“Nari is going to take my Vespa and go get some coffee,” Marco said finally, turning away from his conversation. Nari, who
was standing behind him, nodded to me, smiling. “He said we can use the boat for a couple of hours while he’s gone.”

“But where are we going?” I asked.

Marco smiled. “Nowhere.”

Puzzled, I shook Nari’s hand again and watched as he hopped nimbly from the boat to the bank and made his way up the steep
stone stairway toward the bridge. A moment later, he vanished, and I turned to Marco.

He smiled and offered me his hand. “Would you care to dance?”

I laughed. “Here?”

“Where better?”

I paused, shrugged, and put my hand in his. He bent to turn on the stereo with his free hand, and then he fiddled for a moment
with the tuner until he found a station playing what sounded like old-time, big band era classics. “
Perfetto
,” he murmured. “Shall we?”

He pulled me onto the makeshift dance floor and put his right hand on my waist. He lifted my right arm in the air, into a
proper ballroom dancing stance, and together, we slowly swayed for a moment. The song changed, and Marco smiled, twirled me
around, and dipped me. When he pulled me back up again, he moved his left arm to my back and drew me closer.

We swayed that way to the music for a few songs, without saying a word. I pressed my head against his chest and listened to
his heartbeat as we rocked back and forth to the music, with the boat moving gently beneath us. I looked out on the river
and at the glowing Castel Sant’Angelo on the opposite bank, its windows blazing bright, its cross seemingly illuminated from
within. It looked like a magical palace under a dark sky full of bright stars. Up above, the moon was nearly full and filtered
down onto the water, where its diluted reflection rippled and winked at us. Occasionally, a small boat would motor by, or
we’d hear a faraway voice from the bridge above, but for the most part, it felt like we were all alone in the midst of this
city of two and a half million people.

“This is amazing,” I murmured.

“Yes,” Marco agreed. “It is.”

I looked up, and slowly, he tilted his head down, and his eyes met mine. We stood holding each other for a moment, staring
into each other’s eyes. And then, in what felt like slow motion, he slowly lowered his head and touched his lips to mine for
the first time.