Francesco stops for a light. “You see there? You see this bank?” he says, pointing to a solid, stone building with an ATM machine outside. “This is where Mussolini was hung.”
“Oh.” I’m imagining Mussolini dangling from a rope, his bald head at a sharp angle, when Francesco guns the bike. I seize him around the waist again.
After a minute, we putter to a stop at a neighborhood grocer. “Un momento,” Francesco says, untangling himself from my limbs.
He disappears into the shop. I attempt to lean against the parked scooter in a feminine James Dean kind of slouch, but the damn thing starts to tip over. I scramble to upright it, grabbing the handlebars and pulling with all my strength, which, admittedly, isn’t what it used to be. I finally succeed in straightening the thing, and I’m searching for the kickstand when Francesco returns, brown bag in hand, a bottle of wine peeking out.
“Trouble?” he asks, dark eyes laughing.
He relieves me of the handlebars and adjusts the kickstand without looking down.
“You are perspiring,” he says in a matter-of-fact voice.
Mortification makes me mute. Of course I’m perspiring. Between the ninety-degree heat, the damned black shirt, Francesco’s proximity and my grapple with the bike, I’m a sweating mess.
“I will be back.” He places the bag on the street and returns to the store.
I stand by the scooter, mopping my forehead with my hand. Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe.
Francesco returns with a fistful of napkins.
“Let us see what we can do.” He says this in a low voice as he gently starts dabbing at my cheeks, temples and collarbone with the napkins. I am paralyzed with embarrassment, my arms hanging limp at my sides. I feel my face become a deeper shade of fuchsia, and my heart beats like a rabbit’s, making me sweat all the more. Francesco doesn’t seem to notice. He keeps dabbing me with a light touch, like an artist sponge painting.
“Now,” he says after a minute. “You have to remove this. It is too warm.” With slow hands he slips my camouflage shirt from my shoulders.
Francesco’s face is only inches from mine, and when I look, he’s staring directly into my eyes. I return his gaze, unable to turn away.
I am undeniably cooler without the shirt, but I feel bare in more ways than one. John and I don’t really baby each other, at least not lately. We take care of ourselves—we go to school or work, we pay our own rents, buy our own groceries and clothes—and when it’s all done, we spend time together. Being pampered like this leaves me exposed, my nerve endings jangling.
Francesco takes a step back and looks me up and down with a quick, appraising glance. “Now,” he says with a nod, “you are better.”
And he’s right.
Francesco and I are on the road again, and this stretch seems more comfortable. I feel lighter now that my black shirt is tied around my waist. My mind seems lighter, too, though I still have my arms wrapped around Francesco, anticipating a possible collision. I’m all too aware of my breasts pushing against his back as the scooter stops briefly at a corner.
I turn my head to the side, and without letting myself think about it, I rest it against his shoulder. The scooter starts to fly again, and Rome whizzes by—myriad fountains, marble statues, larger-than-life doors with gigantic handles, streets that look like alleys. Neon lights blaze from the trattorias and bars, illuminating the history of the place.
The rigidity that has settled in my bones and head over the last year seems to thaw a bit. Yet with the thaw comes an army of questions from some unused corner of my brain. What about John? Will you tell him about this little excursion, this man you are hugging? What happens when you get back, when you have to start work, when you can no longer escape the world? I lift my head and let the wind snarl my hair around my face, trying to forget these questions, the ones with rifles in hand that are waiting to fire holes in my flimsy curtain of contentment.
It pisses me off that my good feelings are so fleeting, so damned hard to hold on to. Like so many of the other uncontrollable parts of my life, I have little mastery over my emotions. Lately, it’s been even worse than usual. I’ll find myself in a situation where I should be ecstatically happy—my law school graduation, for example—and yet, inexplicably, I can’t match my mood to the circumstances.
My parents threw a party for me after the ceremony at the apartment of one of their friends, a place with a rooftop deck and a view of Wrigley Field. My family was there—my little brother, Danny, who as a college sophomore is not so little anymore, and a handful of cousins and aunts and uncles. Kat and Sin were there for a while, too, spending most of their time fending off Danny and one of his friends, both of whom had made too many visits to the beer cooler. I was touched that my girlfriends had made it, especially Kat, who normally worked Sundays.
The sun was out. There was a game at Wrigley, so we could hear occasional surges in the noise of the crowd. It was hypothetically perfect, but the tension between my parents was thick as they circled the party like planets at opposite ends of the solar system. John hadn’t shown up yet. He’d already missed the graduation ceremony because of some technology merger he was working on, yet he’d assured me over the phone that he’d be there for the party. “Right there at your side,” was how he put it. But he wasn’t. As the party swirled around me, I felt incredibly alone. I drank more champagne, but couldn’t get a buzz. I tried listening to my uncle’s advice about office politics, but it just depressed me further. I wanted nothing more than to flee. Instead, I resigned myself to sitting at a table piled with gifts and plates of food.
“We are almost there,” Francesco says now, as he slows for a stop sign. He throws me a smile over his shoulder, and I notice how white his teeth are against the improbable pink of his lips.
“Great,” I say, pushing away all the memories and squeezing him tighter because I’ve suddenly discovered a day, or at least a night, that I want to stick around for.
I feel a flash of wariness as we slow down again and pull into the circular drive surrounding the Colosseum. The actual Colosseum. This massive, ancient auditorium, a popular tourist destination by day, is now completely deserted and locked up for the night.
Gravel crunches as Francesco maneuvers around the back of the place. He stops, and an eerie quiet descends as the chugging of the bike dies. The only sounds I hear are the revs of the spitfire Italian cars hundreds of yards away. Francesco busies himself, gathering random items from the basket on the front of his scooter. I see a blanket, the wine and bread he recently purchased, another bag.
“Come,” he says, gesturing.
“Come where?” A nervous giggle escapes my mouth.
“Come,” he repeats with a grin. He turns away, walking with his arms full.
“Francesco,” I call after him. “What are we doing?”
He gives me an exasperated look. “We are having a picnic,” he says, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
“Um…okay, but where? It’s almost ten o’clock at night.”
“Inside.”
He turns again and keeps moving until he reaches an arched entrance protected by medieval-looking prison-style bars that are driven into the ground.
I follow with tentative steps, feeling as if I should tiptoe. Is this legal?
Francesco drops to his knees, the blanket and bags at his side. He grasps two of the bars, shakes and jiggles them with practiced movements of his arms, and miraculously slides them upward. He stands, holding the bars up about four feet.
“This way.” He gestures with his head toward the opening he’s created.
I