Beautiful Things Never Last (8 page)

 
 
 
 
 
             
“
Posso aiutarla?”
she says.

 
 
 
 
 
             
I wring my palms together like I’m dry washing them and bite my lip.
“Posso aiutarla?”
I repeat back, the words fumbling off of my tongue in my bastardized version of the language.
 
 
 
 
 
             
The woman puffs her cheeks and blows out a big breath in annoyance. “I said, may I help you?”
 
 
 
 
 
             
I let out a shaky laugh, “Oh, thank god you speak English.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
She nods and wipes her hands on the front of her apron. “I do.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“I’m sorry, I just…I didn’t have a lot of notice before this trip
,
and I don’t speak a lot of Italian. Or any. Or whatever.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“You are with the American school?” she asks.
 
 
 
 
 
             
I nod and take a few steps toward her. “I just got here, but my room isn’t ready.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“You arrived early. I was going to go home to let you in when I left for
siesta
. Sit down, I’ll make you a sandwich while you wait.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“Are you the owner of the
Bianchi
house?”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“
Si
.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“I’m Quinn,” I say. I offer my hand to shake, but she leans in and kisses each of my cheeks instead.
It should be weird. I hate having
people up in my bubble, but it doesn’t
feel awkward
.
I
nstead, it feels friendly and comfortable.
 
 
 
 
 
             
“Amalea,” she says. “Sit
.
” She motions to the round, rod-iron table in the corner of the small shop and I do as I’m told. I stare up at the handwritten menu and find myself fighting the urge to run away right now, before I’ve even been to a single day of class. Because I can’t read a single word of that menu, and how the hell am I supposed to make it here for two months?
             
“Would you like a drink?” Amalea asks, interrupting my internal-panic-attack.
 
 
 
 
 
             
“Cappuccino, please,” I answer.
 
 
 
 
 
             
She shakes her head and makes a
‘tisk-tisk’
noise with her tongue. “I’ll make you a
Caffè alla Nocciola.”
             
Shit, I already forgot the one rule Carter told me before I left
:
never order a cappuccino after eleven AM, or you’ll look like an asshole tourist. I nod appreciatively even though I don’t have the slightest clue what she just offered me. I do know that she just placed the most incredible looking sandwich I’ve ever laid eyes on onto the table
,
and it’s all I can do to not grab the thing and start tearing into it like an animal.
 
 
 
 
 
             
“This looks incredible, thank you.” I pick up the flaky
Panini
-style sandwich full of cured meat and creamy cheese and pesto oozing gorgeously out
of
the sides and I take a less than lady
-
like sized bite.
             
“Oh my god, this
tastes
incredible.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
“
Prego
,” Amalea says. “You finish eating and I’ll take you to the house.”
 
 
 
 
 
             
Amalea wanders back behind the counter
,
and I devour my sandwich.

             
I slide my cell phone out of my pocket, and frown when I realize I have next-to-no signal. Figures. I seriously doubt there are any cell to
wers remotely close to Spello, which I guess is okay, because from the itinerary that the school gave me, it doesn’t look like I’ll have a whole lot of time for social stuff.
Ben will understand.
As m
uch as we love being together,
one thing I’ll never have to explain to Ben is getting lost in my art.
It’s the same reason I let him off the hook night after night when he drags his cold ass to bed at ungodly hours and his chilly skin shocks me out of deep sleep. I
get needing
that release, having to answer that call. If I can forgive his freezing feet on my calves in the dead of
night, he
can forgive my
craptastic
cell service and need to devote myself to herb blends and the perfect homemade pasta consistency.

After Amalea closes up the shop, we make the short walk back to her home
, passing a woman selling flowers, a man selling cheese
,
and a stray chicken, but little else.

             
“You live here alone?” I ask Amalea as she shows me up the tiny, narrow staircase to my room. It’s the only room on the second floor and it’s dark and poorly insulated. The weather outside is gorgeous, but inside the room it’s several degrees cooler. I hug myself to keep warm,
hoping my discomfort isn’t obvious. There’s a single, thin blanket draped over the foot of the bed, and I make a mental note to try to find a street vendor that sells down comforters.

             
“I do,” she says.

             
I scanned the walls when I came in, looking for photos that might tell me more about the woman I’ll be sharing space with for the next few weeks. It’s a habit, thanks to Ben, to notice people’s photos, to try to dissect their lives based on those images. But other than a few religious pieces, Amalea’s walls were bare.

             
“Must be quiet,” I say. Idiot. It’s obviously quiet. Which reminds me, it’s also quiet for Ben, who is stuck at home alone.

             
“Do you mind if I make a call?” I ask. “Actually, do you know where I can get a decent signal?” I hold up my iPhone.
While I get that calls will be limited, all decent girlfriends call their boyfriends to let them know when they’ve arrived safely in a foreign country. Even I know that.

             
“Try the roof,” Amalea says. She points out of the room into the cramped space outside my bedroom. There’s a small cutout in the ceiling that I didn’t notice on the way up the stairs. That explains the draft.  “Pull that chair over if you need a boost.”

             
I wait until Amalea has left me in the space,
and
then
do
as
she suggested
, and slide
the flimsy desk chair over to the hole in the ceiling and hoist myself up through it.

             
The sun setting over the town
looks like it
is straight out of a movie as I crawl through the tiny space. I hold the phone up toward the sky, squinting to see the screen with the glare
of the
last bit of daylight. Sure enough, three solid bars. I don’t bother trying to calculate the time change because I know Ben will be waiting to hear how my flight was.

             
But he doesn’t pick up.

             
His voicemail message is one of the prerecorded deals, so I don’t even get to hear his voice. Though, I’d never admit that I miss his voice already— it hasn’t even been an entire day.

             
“Hi, it’s me. So, I’m here. And it’s beautiful. And I’m watching the sunset and remembering how I said I never wanted to miss another sunset with you. So, I guess since I’m leaving you a message, you’re sort of here with me. Or not. That sounds really stupid. Okay. Well, I love you. I’ll call again soon.”

             
I hang up the phone with more of that itching inside of me that says things are changing. Only now, even though I’m here, in Italy, it doesn’t feel like it’s changing for the better
. I
stand on the rooftop for a moment longer and take in the incredible view of th
e
medieval village and gorgeous orchards,
and gulp in a few deep breaths of fresh, Italian air to try to push my panic away. Because Ben in solid. He loves me. And I have to believe we’re okay.

Six

BEN

I don’t have school because of the holidays, and Ron, the
photographer  I
work for
,
is on vacation, so there isn’t any work to do. I head into the studio anyway to develop a few rolls of film I’ve been carrying around for a while. I’m lucky to have found a boss
who
still
has an actual darkroom and uses real film to take photographs, even if he shoots all digital for his clients.