Italian for Beginners (27 page)

I don’t know whether it was the fairy-tale setting in the shadows of a glowing castle, or whether it was the soft romance
of the music, or whether it was simply the way a first kiss with the right person was supposed to feel, but when Marco kissed
me, gently at first, it felt like magic.

I don’t know how long we stood on the deck of the boat, swaying in the moonlight and kissing each other. It might have been
mere moments; it might have been an hour. Time seemed to collapse around us, and I didn’t care. Marco didn’t seem to be in
a hurry to make this more than what it was. There seemed to be no rush, no urgency. Being forced to savor the moment that
way was absolutely delicious.

Finally, Marco pulled away and gazed down at me. “You are an incredible kisser,” he said softly.

“You, too,” I said. I smiled up at him, my heart pounding like it had earlier at the Mouth of Truth, but for entirely different
reasons this time.

Marco stroked my hair. “Let us sit and enjoy the moonlight on the river for a little while,” he said.

We settled on the bow of the boat, facing out to the river, Marco’s arm wrapped tightly around my shoulders. We sat in silence
for a while, then Marco turned and pointed up to the bridge. “Do you know the story of the angels that guard the Ponte Sant’Angelo?”
he asked.

I shook my head and he continued.

“Long ago, the bridge was called the bridge of St. Peter, because it was the bridge that pilgrims used to reach the Basilica
di San Pietro,” he began. “But, as legend has it, an angel appeared above the castle to announce the end of the plague, which
is why the castle and the bridge were both renamed. Angels became very important to the meaning of the bridge after that.

“In the late sixteen hundreds, Bernini launched a program to create ten angels to watch over the bridge, at the request of
the pope,” he continued. “The ten angels, sculpted under his guidance by his students, carry the tools of Christ’s crucifixion.
They are said to watch over the city, angels guarding Rome from all evil.”

“That’s beautiful,” I said.

“
Sì
,” Marco said. “As are you.” He kissed me on the top of the head. I smiled into the darkness and closed my eyes.

A few moments later, we heard footsteps behind us and turned to see Nari returning with a paper bag in his hand. He smiled
at us and stepped aboard the boat as we stood up. He and Marco chatted for a few minutes, and he handed the bag to Marco.

“He brought us two cannoli from the café,” Marco said.

“Oh,
grazie
,” I said to Nari, smiling at him.

“
Prego
,” he replied.

He and Marco chatted for a moment more, and then Marco took my hand. “Are you ready to go? I have something else I’d like
to show you.”

I shook my head and laughed. “There’s more?”

Marco smiled. “If you don’t mind.”

I smiled and nodded. After saying good-bye to Nari, we made our way back up the stone steps and climbed onto Marco’s Vespa.
Twenty minutes later, we were walking through the door to his tiny apartment. He poured us each a glass of wine and offered
me a seat on the couch. He sat down beside me.

“
Cin cin
,” he said, raising his glass to me. I met his eyes, and he added in a slow, deliberate voice, “To making the ghosts go away.”

I clinked glasses with him, but I wasn’t sure what he meant. Then, he leaned back on the sofa and studied me carefully.

“I was thinking a lot about what you said about your mother and her family here,” he said, “and about getting rid of ghosts.”

I swallowed hard. “Yes,” I said. I looked down. “It sounds silly. But I’m not sure that I’m ready.”

Marco nodded. “Yes, you are,” he said firmly. He put his wineglass down and stood up. He crossed the room to a small bookshelf
in the corner and pulled out a DVD. “
Roman Holiday
,” he said, holding it up for me to see. “I think we should watch it.”

I stared at the box in his hand as though it contained anthrax. “Why?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, instead of answering my question.

I hesitated. “I think so,” I said. “Yes.”

“Then trust me about this,” he said.

I regarded him warily.

He smiled gently and went on. “You will understand when you watch the movie,” he said. “But I wanted to change the meaning
of it for you. I think you will find now that when you watch
Roman Holiday
, it won’t just be about your family. It will be like a souvenir of today.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You will,” he said.

I took a deep breath. I looked at the DVD case in his hand. Audrey Hepburn, who reminded me so much of my mother, beamed happily
out, perched on a scooter, her arms wrapped around Gregory Peck, with the Colosseum in the background.

I looked down at my lap. My mind was reeling, my heart pounding. It was ridiculous; I knew it was just a movie. But it was
a movie that had haunted me since I was twelve, something that represented everything I loved and hated, everything I’d had
and lost. But Marco knew that. And maybe he was right.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes briefly. “Okay.”

Marco smiled at me. “Good.” He put the movie in the player, pushed
PLAY
, and sat down on the couch beside me. He put his arm around me and pulled me close. “This is a good thing, I think,” he said.
“But if you want to stop, just tell me. We will stop anytime.”

I nodded. “I think I’m okay,” I said.

The movie began, and I felt strangely empty as I watched the opening sequence of Audrey Hepburn’s character, Princess Ann,
traveling around Europe to various dignitary appearances. I smiled slightly as she struggled through an official appearance
in Rome, and later, as she gazed out her window at the sparkling city below, I felt a swell of pride that Rome was, for the
time being, my adopted city, too.

“Are you okay?” Marco asked, squeezing my shoulder.

“So far.” I nodded. And I was. But I still didn’t understand what Marco meant.

On the screen, the princess snuck out of her room, hitched a ride into Rome, and wound up sleepily wandering streets that
looked familiar to me. When she finally settled in for an inadvertent nap on a little brick wall near the Forum, my eyes widened.

“Oh, my God, that’s right around where you found me, isn’t it?” I asked, looking up at Marco.

He laughed. “Now you see why I was so convinced that you were just another American trying to reenact the movie,” he said.

I stared. “Oh, no,” I murmured, shaking my head in disbelief.

I laughed as Joe Bradley happened upon Princess Ann and had an exchange that sounded eerily similar to the one I’d had when
I first met Marco. And then, when Joe Bradley was forced to take the princess back to his small apartment, I turned to Marco
again.

“This is unbelievable,” I said. I sank back into Marco’s arms to watch the movie, but to my surprise, I found that instead
of desperately trying to scan the crowd of extras for the faces of my grandparents, and instead of disliking the Princess
Ann character based on everything she represented to me, I was watching the movie to pick out the places Marco and I had gone
together.

I watched in disbelief as the adventure we had today unfolded on the screen in black and white. Joe Bradley took Princess
Ann on a Vespa ride to the Colosseum, and I understood why Marco had made the comment he did about wishing he had more time
to take me inside. As they whizzed through the outdoor market, knocking things over, I understood why Marco had made his strange
detour through vendor stalls today and why he’d made the comment about not having an American Press card. I laughed aloud
as Joe Bradley and Princess Ann visited the Mouth of Truth, shook my head in wonderment as they dined just across from the
Pantheon, and finally, felt tears in my eyes as they made their way down the steps near the Ponte Sant’Angelo to a big dance
party on a barge in the river.

“You did all of that for me?” I asked as Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn danced together on the deck of the barge.

Marco nodded. “I wanted you to be able to look at this movie as something other than the movie that represented your mother,”
he said. “Now it’s about you and your time in Roma. Good memories, I hope, to replace the bad ones.”

We watched in silence as the movie ended, and my eyes filled with tears in the final scene.

We sat quietly while the final credits rolled in the darkness. I felt shaken.
Roman Holiday
had always represented something larger than life to me, and now, it had taken on a different meaning entirely. It felt disconcerting,
as if I really had let go of something.

“Did you like the movie?” Marco asked.

I hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “I really did.” And I meant it.

“Good,” he said. “But the rest, it is up to you.”

I looked up at him. His face was illuminated oddly with the black-and-white light of the TV screen, making it appear almost
as if we were in our own black-and-white movie. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that this movie, it was your most important ghost, right?” he said. “And now, you have faced it. And you are okay.
The world has not ended. You are still here. So the rest, the rest is up to you.”

“The rest?”

“You have two more weeks in Rome, right?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Then figure out how you can change your life in that time,” he said. “Stop being haunted by the past.”

I thought about his words for a moment and nodded. “I’ll try,” I said.

He looked me in the eye. “You have the power to change things,” he said. “It starts here, in Roma.”

I spent the night with Marco that night, both of us pressed together in his bed, unlike the last time, when he’d stretched
out on the uncomfortable couch. We kissed for a while, but nothing happened beyond that. I was an emotional wreck, and Marco
knew it. I dozed off for a while and woke up with tears running down my cheeks. Marco was already awake, wiping them away.
He pulled me closer, and when I fell asleep again, I slept deeply, feeling safer than I had in ages.

T
he next morning, Marco cooked breakfast, and we laughed about how he was obviously not cut out to be a chef; he overdid the
eggs, burned the toast, and even spilled the orange juice on the counter.

“At least the espresso is perfect,” he said with a laugh as he poured me a small cup of thick, dark liquid from a little metal
pot on the stove.

“Hard to believe you own a restaurant,” I teased, examining my charred toast.

“I know!” He laughed. “I don’t know what I’d ever do if my chef quit. The place would go to ruin.”

After breakfast, Marco drove me home on his Vespa and kissed me good-bye. “I’m out of town for the next couple of nights,
to visit my family in Venezia,” he said. “But when I am back, we should get together.”

His words gave me a strange sinking feeling. My days here were growing shorter, and it felt profoundly disappointing to know
that I couldn’t spend them all with him, although I had no right to expect that. As he smiled at me, there didn’t seem to
be any regret in his eyes, though, any disappointment at having to miss some time with me.

“Okay,” I said. I smiled at him. “Yesterday was amazing. I don’t even know how to thank you.”

“You can thank me by thinking about things,” he said. “You only live once, and nothing should hold back the adventure.”

He kissed me again, asked me to come by Pinocchio in a few days, and said good-bye. I watched him as he rode down the street.
When he reached the corner, he turned and waved. Then he disappeared.

I smiled to myself and turned to walk inside. I was startled to see Karina standing in the shadows of the doorway, her arms
crossed over her chest, regarding me with an amused expression.

“Well, good morning, Cat,” she said, grinning at me. “I see you have found a souvenir in Rome already.”

I felt myself turning red. “It’s not what it looks like,” I said. “Nothing happened.”

I didn’t even know why I was defending myself. But she looked amused by it.

She laughed. “Then you are crazy!” she exclaimed. “He’s gorgeous! Who is he?”

“The guy from Pinocchio,” I said. “The one I told you about.” I quickly recapped my day and night with Marco as she stared
at me, wide-eyed.

“Forget
Roman Holiday
,” she said when I was done. “This sounds like you are starring in your own romance movie.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll see what happens.” I was still thrown by the fact that he was
vanishing for a few days. And he hadn’t even thought to ask me to go with him, even though he knew I had nothing scheduled,
nothing keeping me here in Rome.

“So, you watched the movie?” she asked. “And you weren’t upset?”

I thought for a minute. “No,” I said. “I think I needed that push. And the way he created a whole new set of memories to go
along with the movie”—I paused and shook my head—“it was amazing.”

Karina nodded. “I am glad,” she said. “Good for you.” She reached over to give me a spontaneous hug. “You know, Cat Connelly,
I am starting to like you.”