Taking Tuscany (6 page)

Arriving home, we find Adriana waiting down by the pool. She came home to visit for a few days and to wish me a happy birthday. She even brought me something I can use—a new bathing suit. Mama had obviously let her in on the birthday pool surprise.

Mama tells us all to go change into our swimsuits and meet back at the pool for birthday cake and a swim. Nonna picks up my new bikini lying on the table in front of her. “Thank you for thinking of me, honey, but it's really not my color. I think I'd like to spend some time with Saint Adelaide instead of swimming anyway.” She sets the bikini back down.

Somehow Nonna got the notion that the bikini was for her. Things like that have been happening a lot lately.

“If it's between talking to Saint Adelaide, or seeing Nonna in a bikini, I'd say she made the right choice,” J. R. whispers to me.

The cool water feels refreshing after our long, hot day in town. Everyone is splashing and diving as if we've never seen water before. It's been nearly a year since we were on the Italian Riviera. But that was only for a week. We were so used to living on the water all summer long back at the island.
The island … the island …
Closing my eyes, floating on my back, I'm instantly there … drifting with Sailor in my dinghy … rescuing hundreds of drowning ants with a stick and delivering them to safety. I can still hear Mama's voice …

“A. J., what on earth are you up to with that stick?”

“I'm savin' drowning victims, Mama. There was an ant's nest on the bank over yonder, and the wind blew a bunch of 'em right into the lake. All the young 'uns is gonna drown if I cain't save 'em.”

“A. J., if you don't cut that Southern babble right now, those won't be the only young 'uns that are going under.”

Mama has always had a way with words.

Next, I think of the clear nights, star-gazing on Juniper Beach with Danny. Danny Morgan. I wonder if he ever thinks of me when he sees the stars come out at night, like I think about him. I wonder if he ever sings “I see the moon, the moon sees me, the moon sees the one I long to see …”

Mama interrupts my thoughts. “A. J., come and have some birthday cake.” She gets everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” to me while I'm drying myself off. “Make yourself a wish—as long as it's not to have Sailor shipped over.”

Mama has had it up to her eyeballs with me begging to have Sailor shipped here. I sit down to blow out my candles. “Okay … I wish that I will be shipped back to Sailor.” I blow them all out with the help of a sudden gust of wind—I hope that's a sign from God that He's going to make sure that happens for me.

“Here you go, kiddo.” Mama holds out a bundle of envelopes for me. “I saved these to give you on your birthday—I figured they were probably sent with your birthday in mind.”

Taking the small pile of mail, I check the return addresses. A card from Grandma Angelina (most likely with cash inside). A card from my best friend, Dorie. A card from Aunt Genevieve and the Sophronias—I guess we're not back on speaking terms yet or they'd be over here for cake. And lastly, a letter … from Danny Morgan, Route 3 Box 10, Squawkomish, Idaho. I open everything but this one.

Mama removes the melted candles from my so-called cake. I'm staring at a round object, covered in blue blobs of frosting, with a few waffle wafers plopped here and there. “Wow. Who made the cake?”

“I did,” Mama says. “Guess what it is?”

That's a good question.
“Um, is it … the Sophronias' blue villa?”

Mama does not look humored. “No, it is not.”

“I know what it is,” Benji says. “It's the swimming pool.”

“Well,” Mama says, “I'm glad to see we have another creative genius in the family. Benji is absolutely right. The blue frosting is the waves, and the wafers are air mattresses.”

“Oh, yeah, now I see it.”
Kind of.
“I'd like a piece with an air mattress, please.”
Anything but the big blue blobby waves.

Mama can do a number of things well, but baking is not at the top of the list. There is something funny about this cake—apart from it being one part cake, two parts frosting. I've never tasted anything quite like it before … and will be fine if I never taste anything like it again.

It's the thought that counts.

Following cake, we swim until the moon comes up and everyone is shriveled like prunes. Reminds me of the good ol' days back at the lake. Dino announces that he's going to hightail his lizard skin off to bed. Following Dino, the rest of my party guests dwindle one by one. When it's down to just me, Mama, and Daddy, I take my cards and letter and head back up to my tower.

Sitting at my writing desk by my tower window, I slowly open the envelope and read the letter by moonlight.

Dear A. J.,

I'm hoping this reaches you in time for your birthday because I know how much it will mean to you to hear from Sailor. I've enclosed a picture of him for you. He wants to wish you a happy birthday and also wants you to know that he's enjoying his summer back on the island. He lives for the lake and only comes out of the water long enough to eat. We spent the morning playing fetch on Juniper Beach. It reminded me of the night you and I looked at the stars on your tenth birthday. I asked you what you were looking at through your new binoculars and you said, “Infinity.” I remember that night well, drifting out on the lake in the dark beneath the Milky Way. I remember because I felt God so strongly. You did too, didn't you? How do you say Milky Way in Italian?

My birthday wish for you is that you will always seek Him with all your heart.

Your friend, and your dog,

Danny and Sailor

P.S. Are you still planning to come back to be a veterinarian?

Yep, I am. And Danny still thinks about me. He remembered our night under the
Via Latteo,
the
Milky Way
.
I turn over the photo. There's Sailor sitting in my dinghy with his lifejacket on, like he's waitin' for me to come home and take him driftin'. Tears start down my face until the picture becomes too blurry to see. I fold the letter up, and slip it and the photo back inside the envelope.

Mama and Daddy are dancing by the pool beneath the moonlight, without music. Well, that's probably not entirely true. I think Mama and Daddy hear music of their own.

My eyes shift upward and search the heavens for the brightest star in the Tuscan sky.
I wish … I wish to go back home.

My weary head drops forward and comes to rest on my desk. A vision from long ago pops into my mind: the television cartoon,
Tooter Turtle.
Whenever Tooter Turtle got himself in trouble, he'd cry out, “Help, Mr. Wizard!” Then Mr. Wizard, a lizard, would say, “Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for zis one to come home!”
and Tooter Turtle would be instantly propelled back home. Tonight I wish it were time for this one to go home too.

4

Mamma Mia

Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome, time for zis one to come home.…
Dang, I'm still here.

Seeing the photo of Sailor has thrown me into such deep despair, I may not come out of it until I see him again. Daddy says I can probably go back to Idaho to attend veterinary school when I'm eighteen. But that's not for four more years!

Lost in a daze, I'm mechanically shoveling cold cereal into my mouth when Mama enters the kitchen. “Morning, sunshine. How's my big fourteen-year-old today?”

I give her the don't-call-me-sunshine look, then report, “Mostly cloudy with a high chance of thunderstorms.”

She has the nerve to tell me I need to snap out of it and go to Rome with her for Adriana's runway show.

“Snap out of it?” I glare at her. “Snap out of missing my dog? Snap out of living in a foreign country where I'm considered a freak of nature? How do you snap out of that? I don't care about Adriana's fashion show, and it will not help me one bit to go to Rome.”

“My, my, who's been rattling your cage, young lady?”

“Nobody's been rattling my cage, but everything here is rattling my life.”

“Oh, A. J., everybody has a bad day now and then …”

“A bad …
day
? I don't just have a day, I have
weeks
… no, I have
months …
make that, I have
years,
Mama. And I have
four years
of
bad days
ahead of me before I have something to look forward to again!”

Pushing my bowl of cereal away, I run out the front door. I keep running, all the way to the convent. With great determination I climb the wall, stone by stone, and sit on the ledge at the top. Hoping Sister Aggie is on laundry duty, I scan the courtyard. No one is out this morning except a few sisters singing as they work in the garden
.
I'm on my own.

Closing my eyes, I try to picture what I look like before God right now. There He is, sitting on His big throne, and here I am, a teeny-tiny person sitting on this stone wall. My arms and legs hang limp, like a weary rag doll. Any minute now I'm going to topple off this wall like Humpty Dumpty, and all the kings' horses and all the kings' men won't be able to put me back together again. What would God do? What would He say?

… I think He'd bend down from heaven and scoop me up with his big hands. He'd hold me out up in front of Himself, and my weary little head would just flop to one side.

“Hey there, little Raggedy A. J.,” He might say. “You're still the apple of my eye.”

“That's sure nice to hear,” I'd say.

Then He'd set me on His big lap for a while, and I might just curl up and take a nap. When I'd awake, I'd lean on His big shoulder. I'd tell him how lonely I am. How it feels to leave my home and dog, and everything familiar, and how it feels to change schools … again … where no one seems to understand me. How I feel so detached, like no one really knows me anymore.

Then God would remind me, “I know you, A. J. I know everything about you. Would I not keep a close eye on the keeper of My critters?”

A gentle breeze rustles through the olive trees. Angelic voices rise up from the convent. The sisters' songs sound like Italian lullabies to my weary ears.

Sister Abigail, from Indian Lake, once said, “Did you know that God sings songs over us?”

“No, I didn't know that,” I told her back.

“He surrounds us with songs of deliverance,” she assured me.

That's good to know, because right now I need to be delivered from Italy back to Idaho.

By the time I return home, Mama has already left for Rome. Daddy is standing out on the balcony, looking out over the hills with his giant coffee mug in hand. This is how he drinks his coffee every morning—looking over the hills, enjoying the view.

“Morning,
ficuccia,
” he says, without turning around.

I join him, leaning over the rail. “Mornin'.”

“How's life, Little Fig?”

“About a two on a one-to-ten.”

“That good, huh?” Daddy keeps staring out there, sipping his coffee.

“No. That bad.”

Daddy turns and zeros in on me with that father-daughter look.

Here we go.

“You know, A. J., I've seen people who have everything they could possibly want in life. They're some of the most miserable people I know. And some of the happiest people I know have very little, but they're thankful just to be here.”

“Why is that?”

“Different perspectives. It's all about how one chooses to look at things. Happiness has very little to do with what one has, but everything to do with how you choose to look at what you have.”

“But it's not something I have or don't have that's making me miserable—it's about where I want to live and can't.”

Daddy sighs. “So you're going to dismiss all of this beauty and this short time of living with your family—in a castle—in the Tuscan countryside—because you aren't on an island for a few years out of your life? You know how many people would give their right arm to live in a place like this?”

“I'd give both arms to be with Sailor on Indian Island.”

“Then how would you pet him?” Daddy smiles. “A. J., it's all summed up in what a good man once said: ‘Folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.'”

“Who said that—Jesus?”

“Abraham Lincoln.”

Hmm.
My favorite president. Interesting.

Daddy swigs down the last of his coffee. “Looks like a good day to add another brick to the ol' castle. What do you say we meet back here around dinnertime and try to catch a glimpse of your sister on TV?”

According to Mama, Adriana's fashion show is the biggest annual fashion event of the year, and Models of Milan is representing the best new lines. Daddy and I have decided to pop up some popcorn and watch the big event as long as we can stand it, hoping Adriana is in the early part of the show. The boys would rather swim, and told us to holler at them when she comes on. They'll try to race to the house in time to catch a glimpse of her. Brotherly devotion at its best.

Neither Daddy nor I are ones for the big city, but Mama thrives on this stuff and is just tickled pink that her daughter could get her free tickets for the show. I, for one, enjoy the opening riffraff more than the actual show itself. I'm catching all the hoopla of the glamour queens arriving on the scene in limos while Daddy's popping up the corn. “Make that with extra butter, please,” I yell toward the kitchen.

“Yes, ma'am,” Daddy yells back.

There are some really kooky people in this fashion business according to Adriana, especially some of the designers. “They're like this class of people stuck somewhere in between feminine and masculine,” she'd told me.

She works with a male designer named Marcello, who wears sequined jackets and has a long ponytail halfway down his back, and is married to Chanay, who wears jean jackets and has a short, chic haircut. Sounds confusing, but I'm beginning to get the picture. There are some real characters strutting in front of the cameras. They are mostly young and very thin, with outlandish getups. The reporter is talking to a gal with a ponytail sticking straight up out of a six-inch tube before it fans out at the top. He's trying to get her name, but there is some big commotion going on off screen that everyone is running off to—including the reporter, who just cut off what the whale-spout lady was saying.

He informs the crowd that there's a celebrity movie star attending the show and they're trying to confirm who it is. The cameras swing to the gathering crowd and zoom in on the unexpected guest …

Oh, no … it can't be … it's …
“Daddy! Hurry, come quick!”

Daddy comes hustling into the room. “Is it Adriana? Is she on?”

“No, Daddy, it's not Adriana … it's Mama!”

“
Sophia
?” Daddy swoops in front of the television to get a closer look.

“I can't believe Mama's pulling her Sofia trick on
live TV …
look, she's signing autographs!”

“
Bravissima
, Sofia!” The reporter goes on to confirm that they have Sofia Loren right there in her home town of Rome … and what an honor it is for her to so graciously sign autographs for her fans.

The camera zooms in on my Mama and there she is basking in all her glory, just signing away like this is what she was born to do. “She had better get out of there before this goes too far …”

Daddy sinks onto the couch, shaking his head in amazement. He looks like he's not sure whether to laugh or go haul Mama out of Rome.

Now the paparazzi are storming in for photos. Mama is creating a scene, and the reporters have to yell over the crowd just to get a few questions to her.

Mama turns and blows a kiss to the crowd. Her trademark tactic for avoiding conversations. She's said it before: “It's one thing to pull off looking like Sofia, but they can't expect me to sound like her too.”

As the crowd starts to close in, Mama has claustrophobia written all over her face. She loves a crowd, but this is more like a mob. Her eyes dart around nervously. All of a sudden Mama makes a mad dash away from the cameras, trying to shake off the crowd.

“I think your mother bit off more than she can chew this time,” Daddy says.

The crowd chases after her until she runs out of view. That's the last we see of Mama. The cameras swing back in on the fashion event, and the reporter tries to resume his former interview, but the little whale-do lady looks totally put out that Sofia stole all the thunder.

The very moment the whale diva regains her composure, here comes Mama back into the camera frame behind her, with police escorts on each arm. She is being personally escorted into the show. Mama carries herself with so much class it's hard for these young waifs to hold a candle to her.

I look over at Daddy, who is just beaming with pride. “A. J., there goes a real lady if I ever saw one.”

Once the show is under way, the camera only occasionally flashes to the audience, but when it does, you can bet where it lands. Right on Mama. We don't have to wait long to see Adriana either. Models of Milan is first to present the new fall line, and Adriana is leading the lineup in a dazzling fuchsia pantsuit with big flaring legs. She struts to the end of the runway and takes a turn in front of the crowd with the confidence of a queen, and I know exactly who she gets it from. She and Mama are two peas in a pod. She could even make my jumpsuit look good.

Daddy looks over at me. “Is that something you'd like to do someday?
”

I give Daddy a blank stare. “Is that a joke?”

“No, I think you have the cutes for it.”

“Daddy,” I sigh, “I can appreciate your attempt to try and salvage my fragile ego from the trauma of having a sister who is taller, prettier, skinnier, and richer than I am. But let me assure you that cutes only go so far in life; short is forever, and neither will get me very far in the world of fashion.
However,
do take comfort. As the younger sibling of a fashion model, I have neither envy nor desire for her life. All the glamour getups and sequins would only get in the way when delivering ponies and stitching up bloody canine accident victims.”
Dramatic sigh.

Daddy looks over and smiles at me. “Popcorn?”

“Sure.”

Two hours later the phone rings. “Hi, Mama … Yes, Mama, we saw you—the whole world saw you … Yep, saw the police escorts, and the paparazzi, and the reporters—saw it all, Mama … Yes, Daddy saw the whole thing too. Here, I'll let you talk to him.”