Expiration Dating (15 page)

Chapter
Twenty Four

             
After our last exam, Emilia, Megan and I went out for a celebratory drink to get spring break started. We shared a pizza and a bottle of wine, and discussed our plans for the upcoming travels.

             
“I haven’t seen you guys in forever,” I said between bites. The mozzarella was soft and the basil was fresh; the smells wafting to my nose took my thoughts temporarily off the conversation.

             
“Ditcher.” Megan guzzled wine without sympathy.

             
“It’s been busy.” Emilia cut her pizza with a knife and ate it with a fork. I reached for a slice the old fashioned way, with my fingers.

             
“So update me,” I said.

             
“Megan’s been busy.” Emilia cast a quick glance in her direction.

             
“What she means is I may or may not have brought Nick home on Tuesday,” Megan said. “It was lucky, though. My roommate walked in and saw us on the couch before things went… well, you know.”

             
“Nick? You guys look like siblings,” I said. “Nearly sixty people in the program and you pick the kid that looks like your brother.”

             
Emilia snorted in an uncharacteristic fashion. “I never thought of that. So true! It’s the curly hair.”

             
Megan and Nick both had wildly curly, bleached blond hair. If they stood next to each other with their heads touching, you wouldn’t be able to tell where one of their fro’s ended and the other began. Nick even had hair down to his shoulders like Megan – from the back they could be twins.

             
“Now enlighten us about your love triangle,” Megan said.

             
“What do you mean,
love triangle
?” I asked.

             
“You, Andrew, Roberto,” Emilia said.

             
“Andrew and I are just friends,” I insisted, trying to free a piece of basil from between my two front teeth.

             
“Mmhmm.” Emilia and Megan exchanged a glance.

             
“I’m friends with Andrew, too, and I don’t hang out with him all the time,” Emilia said.

             
“Yeah, but it’s complicated.” I wiped the basil on a napkin. “I have Roberto now, and Andrew still misses his stupid ex.”

             
“I dunno,” Megan said. “You guys seem pretty friendly in class.”

             
“Then why does he still talk about her?” I asked.

             
“Well, you did go and get yourself a boyfriend-”

             
“He’s not my boyfriend-”

             
“Basically a boyfriend,” Emilia continued. “Not to mention, it’s not just some dude. It’s an Italian model that buys you stuff. Come on, of course he’s going to try and pretend like he doesn’t care.” She sipped her wine. “The question is… do you still care?”

             
I sat in silent thought, picking at the food. “Of course I care, but-”

             
“But what?” Emilia asked. “Why did you come to Italy?”

             
I started mumbling an answer about my family being from Italy, and how I wanted to travel, but my answer came out unclear. “There were a lot of reasons.”

             
“Bullshit, you were running away!” Emilia said. “You keep saying how your life was boring, how you were so stuck in a rut of school and work. On top of that there was all of this
pressure
from a scholarship and your parents.”

S
he sliced another piece of pizza and looked up, “You came here to get away from it all.”

             
Emilia let me stew for a second. I glanced around at the cobblestone courtyard. Italians with buggies flooded the streets, old men smoked and chatted outside bars and the trees were flowering in pinks and whites. Nobody seemed in a hurry.

Sometimes all it took was having an outsider’s perspective to blow everything wide open. I suppose it should have seemed obvious, but self reflection wasn’t my strong suit, and I realized
Emilia was right. I nodded.

             
“Dana, that’s okay, we all avoid things. But running can’t always be your solution,” Emilia said.

             
“But what does that mean for Andrew and Roberto?” I asked.

             
“That’s for you to decide. I can’t tell you, but you need to figure it out based upon who you
actually
like, not who it
won’t
work out with.”

             
“I don’t see it working out really with either of them. Listen, I really like Andrew. The thing is – is that I didn’t expect to get involved with him. We both fought it; him because of an ex and me because of… other reasons. But we gel and he gets me.” I took a few more bites of pizza, trying to organize my thoughts into coherent phrases. Another life skill I lacked.

“
Roberto, he’s great. He is successful, Italian, beautiful,” I stopped.

             
“But?” Megan asked.

             
“But he’s almost too polished. I sometimes feel like he wants me as a sidekick, as his token American girl. I don’t feel like he always
listens
when I talk to him, and he pretty much has his life planned out. Granted, it’s a great life, but I’m not sure if it’s mine, you know?” I looked at the girls.

I was word vomiting my thoughts up, but I needed
to talk to them more than I’d realized. “He would
marry
me. Like,
MARRY
me. I’m only twenty one!”

             
Emilia and Megan both nodded in understanding.

             
“The thing is, if Andrew and I work out, we’re still going back to different schools. We have a year of school each to finish, and we’ll be far apart. Andrew already says he doesn’t do distance, and I don’t see the point of dating when you know there’s an expiration date.
That
is our problem.”

There was a moment of silence as the waiter cleared some empty plates and refilled our water glasses. I took a sip and continued, still swallowing my last bite,
“I like Andrew a lot, but he has already said not to expect to even stay in contact when we get back in the states. I believe him, too. He dates people even when he knows there is an ending date, and I don’t understand it. Why would you do that?
Why
are you trying to get your heart broken?”

             
I wasn’t even sure if the girls were still listening. “But then you have Roberto who would marry me the second I graduate. Why can’t they just find a happy medium?”

             
Emilia patted my arm after my rant subsided. “I know it sucks, I have the same thing going on with Luke. He convinced me to enjoy my summer with him, and if things work out after, that’s awesome! If they don’t, though, we had time together that we otherwise wouldn’t have had, and I like him enough to be okay with that. Maybe it hurts more when they leave, but at least you don’t have to wonder
what if
. Plus, you never know.”

             
“True, but the scariest thing is – what if it
does
work out?” I said. “What if Andrew and I end up dating and never break up? That scares the shit out of me. What if we date and stay in contact, and never have a reason to break up?” I said, my fingers tracing circles on my wrist.

             
“Then you don’t break up. But if you’re not happy, you do,” Megan said bluntly. “Stop making this difficult.”

             
“Yeah, true. Sorry,” I said, mumbling into my water glass. I could feel my emotions starting to drain.

             
“Just remember, running away from people, places, life – the thing is, even if you change your street address it doesn’t change who you are,” Emilia said.

             
We paid our bill and left the café. I felt pounds lighter than I had in days, just by talking about everything swirling about in my head. With a fresh perspective and new confidence, I felt like I was starting my spring break on the right track.

I decided to send
Andrew a text off the cuff, asking what he was up to tonight. In the message, I invited him to meet up with some friends and said I’d really like to see him. My heart fluttered when he replied that he’d like that, and I gave him a place and time to meet.

I wanted to see him before I left for Malta. H
is family was coming in town the next week, and he’d be spending the first week of vacation in Rome with them. After, he would head to Morocco with a friend from college. It was actually a relief Roberto was out on business; I could spend some much needed time with my American friends.

I
stopped at my favorite fruit stand as a reward on the way home. I eyed all of the luscious freshness and cartoonish colors, and said hi to the friendly fruit man. I splurged and picked up a pineapple, some beautiful blood oranges, their citrusy scent leaking through the peel, and the sweetest, juiciest plums you could imagine. They were so soft, you could set one on your tongue and the dark purple fruit would
pop
from the weight of the juice. It was better than candy.

I passed a few hours running necessary errands, then
brought the fruit home and shared a feast with my roommates who had gone straight home from the café. We had a true Italian style dinner; long and lingering. We ate pasta with a delicious pumpkin sauce as a first course, followed by an artichoke and balsamic salad with fresh shaved Parmesan sprinkled on top as a second course. It always seemed backwards to me that the Italians started with pasta and ended with salad, but apparently salad was the
digestive,
or as Laura would say,
dee-gest-eeve
.

In between
bites, we sipped a local Italian red wine and enjoyed freshly baked bread, which I’d also picked up at the grocery store. The bread was viewed as a utensil in their culture; we used the bread to scoop up the remnants of our pasta sauce and balsamic dressing.

We finished with a few scoops of Nocciola Gelato –
the light, hazelnut-y gelato with a creamy texture and rich taste that Emilia and I had fallen in love with. When we finished and set the dishes in the sink, we were all content to spend the rest of the afternoon lying around the apartment in the afternoon sun, enjoying the wonderful comatose state of eating far too much good food, and packing when we felt the urge to move.

             
The half semester mark also spurred some reflective conversations between the four of us. Even Maggie finally commented on how fast the semester had gone. She still spent most of her time painting, not going out or talking to anyone, but at least she would enjoy meals with the rest of us these days.

             
“Where has this semester gone? I feel like I was getting off the plane two days ago,” Megan said.

             
“I know! I don’t think I can leave,” I said. “Seriously.”

             
“I will be sad to go, as well,” Emilia agreed. “It will still be fun to see friends again, though.”

             
“Not really.” I was upset that they were even thinking about leaving. We couldn’t be ready to leave. Not yet, maybe not ever. “I could live here.”

             
“You don’t think it’d be different with everyone gone?” Emilia asked.

             
“Of course, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to stay.”

             
“Okay,” Emilia said, as if sensing my discomfort. “I don’t want to leave, either. I just meant it’ll be nice to see friends and family again.”

             
Megan was nodding in agreement. I continued, feeling the sarcasm creep into my voice, “Isn’t that what Skype is for?”  

             
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Italy’s great and I’d stay here for a long time if you guys did, but why do you want to stay so bad?” Megan asked.

             
“Because my life is different here!” I said, unconsciously tapping my foot against the metal of the chair. Emilia put her hand on my leg to still the insistent noise.

I stopped
then started again, “The Italians have it right. Life should be about enjoying the small things; cooking, sharing drinks with friends, spending time with family.”

             
“But,” Emilia tried to cut in.

             
“To leave here, frankly, is a scary thought. I’m terrified my life will go back to what it was before. It will take more guts to go home than it took to come here.”