What Kills Me (2 page)

“That I shouldn’t walk around without
a map,” I said. “And that dish soap doesn’t go in washers.
Actually, I’m here because I want more life experience. I feel like
I’ve been pretty sheltered in Winnipeg.”

“I’ve never been there. Is it
nice?”

“Yes, but it gets cold.”

“Cold doesn’t bother me.”

“This cold would. Our winters are
brutal. It’s so cold sometimes that my eyes water and then my wet
eyelashes freeze together.”

He chuckled. His teeth were small and
perfect. For a moment, I imagined walking with him through these
streets, laughing and holding hands. I imagined him teaching me
Italian. I imagined him kissing me. Then I could add “kissed a hot
guy” to my experiences, right after “traveled outside of
Winnipeg.”

Suddenly I recognized the square
planters in front of Sofia’s apartment farther down the
street.

“Thank God, we’ve found it!” I
blurted. Then I turned to Paolo. “I didn’t mean thank God because I
don’t like your company. You’re wonderful company in
fact.”

“I also enjoyed your
company.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you my life
for helping me get back to Sofia’s.”

One side of his lips curled up. “Then
repay me,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. I channeled Ryka’s
boldness. “I could buy you a gelato?”

“Yes. Let’s meet tomorrow at nine
fifteen.”

“Where?” I asked. I could feel my
cheeks flushing.

“Right here,” he said, pointing to the
pizzeria to his left.

“Done,” I said. “It was nice meeting
you.”

“Goodnight, Zee.”

“Goodnight, Paolo.”

Sofia was waiting for me in the foyer.
Her arms were crossed over her blue robe, her weight on her left
foot so that she could tap her right. Her white hair was pulled
back in a thick navy headband, and I could see the angry lines in
her forehead.

“Sofia, I am so sorry,” I said, with
one foot in the door. “I got totally lost and I didn’t remember the
street name. This guy had to help me find my way.”

She clucked her tongue. “Axelia, we
were so worried,” she said. “It is not safe for a young girl to be
walking around at night. I sent Giuseppe out to look for
you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make
trouble. It won’t happen again.”

“Miyuki always carries our address and
phone number in her purse.”

“These are for you and Giuseppe,” I
said, hanging my head and presenting her with the box of
cannoli.

“We will talk about this tomorrow,”
she said.

I retreated to my room, where Miyuki
was sprawled on her bed watching a Japanese show on her
iPad.

“Where were you?” Miyuki said in her
child-like, halting voice. “Sofia was so worried.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “I got
lost.”

“Lost? What happened?”

“I lost track of time and then when I
tried to rush home, I guess I took a wrong turn somewhere. And of
course, because I’m a moron, I didn’t bring this,” I said,
snatching up the paper with Sofia’s address and slapping it back
onto the dresser.

I walked into our shared bathroom and
bent over the sink.

“So, I was wandering around,” I said
in between splashing my face, “and I ended up meeting this gorgeous
guy. He walked me home. I told him about that white church down the
street and he knew where it was…”

I looked up in the mirror and Miyuki
was beside me. “Guy?”

I laughed. “He’s Italian. We’re going
out again tomorrow night.”

I examined her happy face in the
mirror. Our dark hair was the same length, down to our chests,
except hers was straight and mine was curly. All of her tiny,
doll-like features were concentrated in the middle of her milky
face. I imaged that she looked like this when she was twelve. When
I was twelve, it seemed like my eyes and lips were too big for my
small, thin face. A few of the boys started to call me “Fish Face”;
they’d follow me around with wide eyes, sucking on their cheeks. I
also had braces because my teeth were crooked and crowded together.
By the age of sixteen I was friends with Ryka, who had biting
criticism for anyone who tried to tease me. Eventually, my braces
came off, my cheeks filled out, and everyone just called me
“Zee.”

“Zee?” said Miyuki. “What time are you
going to see that boy?”

“Nine fifteen.”

“Uh oh.”

I paused in the middle of rubbing my
face with a towel. “What do you mean, ‘uh oh’?”

“Sofia says that we have a curfew
now.”

“What? What time is the
curfew?”

“Nine.”

“Nine? Every day? But it’s the
weekend!”

I strode back into our room, gesturing
wildly.

“That is ridiculous,” I said, hopping
into purple monkey-print pajama pants. “We’re seventeen. We’re
almost adults.”

Miyuki shrugged.

“No way. She never said anything about
this when we first moved in. She can’t just spring this on us. Did
she say this was every day?”

What if I couldn’t see
Paolo? How would I get him the message? I couldn’t just leave him
to wait.

“If I stand him up, he’ll forever
think that Canadian girls are evil,” I told Miyuki. “I have to date
him to protect Canada’s reputation.”

I smirked and Miyuki giggled, covering
her mouth with her hand.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll talk to
Sofia about it in the morning.”

I went to bed practicing my speech and
picturing Paolo’s face. I had never seen anyone with such bright
eyes. I had never met a boy who was so confident and cool. But
clearly, Italian guys were different. More mature. More
gentlemanly.

I liked that he knew nothing about me.
He didn’t know that I wasn’t the summer fling type. He didn’t know
that my only friends were Ryka and her boyfriend, Raj. I was a
blank canvas and I could create a new image in his eyes. I could be
fun, exciting, and adventurous. I could have stories to tell. I
could become the person that I was meant to be.

At breakfast the following day, Sofia
was unbending.

“It is not safe for young girls to be
out after dark,” she said.

“I appreciate your concern but I am
seventeen and…” I started.

“You’re here in Rome to study, yes?
You should stay at home and work and wake up early for classes like
Miyuki.”

I looked at Miyuki, who was silently
eating her frittata across the table.

“I always get my homework done before
dinner. I have the same deal with my father and he lets me stay out
until midnight on weekends,” I said.

“Axelia,” Sofia said. “I can’t have
you girls coming in at all hours of the night. Giuseppe and I need
to sleep and if you are not home, we will just worry.”

I drew a breath to speak
but exhaled as if I was letting the argument leave my body.
What could I say to that? I had to be considerate
of my hosts.

“I understand, Sofia,” I said. But for
the rest of the meal, I tortured myself, fantasizing about the
summer romance I could have had. Sofia rested her hands on my
slumped shoulders.

“Here,” she said, putting the box of
pastries beside me. “Eat some cannoli.”

***

“Hi Dad.”

“Good morning, Zee,” he
said.

“Dad, it’s dinnertime
here.”

“Right. Daddy forgot,” he said. My
father often referred to himself in the third person with me. “How
are you?”

“Good. How’s the family?”

“We found a bird’s nest outside of
Tiffy’s window. Yesterday, these birds kept flying back and forth
around the yard so I figured they built a nest in the tree. Daddy
looked, and sure enough, there was a nest with three baby
birds.”

“Cute.”

“Whenever we go out, the mother bird
dives at you. They fly very low and in front of you to scare you
away. Daddy was sitting by our pond, feeding the fish and one came
and touched the back of Daddy’s head.”

“That’s crazy. Mom must be freaking
out.”

“Mommy’s outside right now gardening
with a tennis racket.”

I pictured my mother outside in her
floppy straw hat, twirling around, wielding the tennis racket like
a giant fly swatter and I burst into laughter.

“I told her not to hit them,” my
father said. “They’re just protecting their babies.”

“Dad, Sofia instituted a curfew of
nine o’clock.”

“Well, you know, maybe she’s more
conservative. She’s just concerned about you. Especially with
single, young girls, you don’t want them to stay out
late.”

I decided then not to tell him about
getting lost.

“I understand, but nine is really
early,” I said.

“You should respect Sofia’s wishes.
She is taking care of you.”

“I guess,” I said. “Hey Dad, can I
call you tomorrow? Ryka’s online.”

“Okay, talk to you
tomorrow.”

“Bye Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I wrote Ryka an instant message: “U
there?”

“Just woke up.”

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I met a boy.”

“TELL ME.”

“Calling you on Skype. Turn your
camera on.”

When Ryka appeared on my screen, I
said, “Nice hair.” Her short hair stood up in two puffs like cat
ears.

“Shut up. We all don’t have Italian
stallions to impress, okay?”

“Ry, I met the cutest guy and I’m
never going to see him again.”

“What? So dramatic! What
happened?”

“I went for a walk last night and
because I’m an idiot, I didn’t have a map and I got lost. So, I’m
wandering around Rome, trying to find Sofia’s house and I turn
around and there’s this beautiful guy standing there.”

“How beautiful?”

“Like dark-haired, blue-eyed, ten
times prettier-than-me beautiful.”

“Shut up,” she said, rolling her
eyes.

“At first, I thought he wanted to rob
me. But then he helped me back to Sofia’s house and asked me to
meet him tonight.”

“Look at you, Miss Zee!”

“Wait, you forgot the rest of it. I
can’t meet him.”

“Why not?”

“Sofia imposed a curfew on us. It
becomes a prison at nine.”

“No. Can you sneak out?” she asked
with a wink.

“Very funny Ry. I can’t risk getting
caught and getting kicked out.”

“Zee, why would the universe introduce
you to the most beautiful guy in Italy only to have you never see
him again?”

“Because the universe likes to torture
me?”

“Come on. You’re in Rome. Live a
little!”

“I know but…”

“But what? You’re just going to leave
him hanging?”

“Oh, Ry. He probably won’t show up
anyway.”

“He will. And then his feelings will
be hurt.”

She knew how to guilt me into action.
After I hung up, I came up with a compromise. Before I lost my
nerve, I wrote a note:

Dear Paolo,

It was so nice to meet you yesterday.
Thank you for helping me home. I really wanted to hang out tonight
but my homestay family surprised me with a curfew of 9 p.m. I’m so
sorry. Please let me make it up to you with twice as much gelato.
Are you free Monday afternoon? Please meet me at the pizzeria at
3:30 p.m. Also, here’s my e-mail address and number.

Later that afternoon, I
gave the waiter at the pizzeria a description of Paolo (“Dark hair,
blue eyes,
bellissimo
,”) and the letter, and ran home.

What if he gets annoyed
and decides that he doesn’t want anything to do with me? Well, he
would be missing out.

Shortly after 9 p.m., I lay
on my bed, staring at the ceiling fan and listening to its hypnotic
whir. I imagined Paolo’s crooked smile. I imagined the husky way he
would say my name.
Zee.

I sat up. I heard my name.

“Did you hear something?” I asked
Miyuki. She shook her head. But then we both heard a voice from
outside. I walked over to the window, pushed open the green
shutters, and looked down.

Paolo smiled at me from the middle of
the street.

My memory had not done him justice. He
wore the same coat but he had spiked his short, dark hair. His
half-smile was so sexy.

“What are you doing here?” I said,
grinning.

“I came to see you,” he said. He held
my note between his index and middle fingers. “I got your
letter.”