Burning the Map Read online

  “The most beautiful women are Americans.”

  “Oh puh-lease,” Lindsey says, but Kat is sold.

  “Come with me,” she whispers as she stands and throws her hair over her shoulders.

  I glance at Lindsey, ready to say, “It’ll be fine,” or some other platitude that she usually looks to me to provide when Kat is on the prowl and we’re dragged along, but she doesn’t turn to me this time. Instead, she mutters, “Jesus Christ,” and heads down the stairs.

  We learn that Alesandro, the poster boy, had attended boarding school in London, hence his perfect English. His friends, Massimo and Francesco (of the lame moped), have quite good English, too, making it easy enough to talk. The fourth, Paulo, speaks no Inglese whatsoever, and he stands there kicking a foot back and forth while he watches the group. I make an effort to have a brief conversation with him using the minimal Italian I’ve retained. Unfortunately I can’t get past the, “How old are you?” “Where do you live?” stage.

  “Why don’t you ladies join us for a cappuccino? I know a very good coffee bar near the Pantheon,” Poster Boy says.

  “As long as we can get food and beer there,” Kat says without a glance at Sin or me.

  I smile at Sin, geared to reassure her, to tell her that they’re just a bunch of harmless pretty boys as far as I can see, that we’ll be perfectly safe. Again, her eyes don’t seek mine. No conspiratorial grin comes my way.

  Poster Boy makes room for Kat on his scooter, and Massimo, a tall, lean guy with an angular face who’d been making eyes at Sin, does the same for her. But she just stands there with a hand on her hip.

  “Can we talk about this?” she asks Kat, who’s already climbed behind Poster Boy. I take a step toward them, but neither seems to notice.

  “Please,” Kat says, practically bouncing up and down on the seat. “We need to eat, so we might as well have them take us somewhere.”

  “Any of them could be Italy’s version of Ted Bundy,” Sin says.

  Kat responds with a shout of laughter.

  “Oh, all right.” Sin climbs cautiously on Massimo’s scooter.

  Poster Boy’s machine roars to life, and he takes off with Kat, while Massimo and Sin follow closely behind. I watch them pull away, two trails of blue-gray smoke shooting from the scooters, Kat’s hair flying in the wind.

  I turn around and realize that I’m left there with Paulo and Francesco. I prefer to ride with Paulo, who has a state-of-the-art scooter that could fit a family of five, but he’s facing in a different direction.

  “He does not feel comfortable because of his English,” Francesco explains to me. He’s a shorter, solid guy with inky-black, wavy hair and kind eyes.

  Paulo and Francesco exchange a few words, and then Paulo is off. Francesco straddles his tiny pink moped, gives me a smile and waves his hand toward the two inches of space behind him as if he’s inviting me into a palatial villa. I suck in my stomach, perch on the minuscule seat and hang on like hell.

  I’ve always been the sane middle between Kat’s desires run amok and Sin’s inability to let hers run enough. The first time I knew I’d found my place was freshman year in college. I hadn’t known them long, so I was more the type of friend who passes you a beer rather than one who holds your hair back when you throw up after too many. But they were tight. They’d known each other only six months longer, yet they gave the impression of having been friends since biblical times.

  One night, though, something was off-kilter. They’d brought me along to a party given by some senior guys I thought were godlike at the time. The apartment was chock-full of smoke and people and Zeppelin music so loud you could feel the bass in your stomach. I walked into the kitchen to find Kat sitting at the table with two guys, a bottle of Jaegermeister between them. Though easily fifty pounds lighter, Kat was matching both guys shot for shot in some kind of contest. About eight people hung around the table chanting and cheering with each drink. Sin was one of them, but she stood slightly apart, her arms clamped over her chest, her face tense, eyes staring.

  “Don’t,” she said to Kat when another shot was poured, but Kat waved her away with a lazy arm that seemed to float.

  I watched this for a minute. I don’t know why Sin didn’t speak up more, tell her to fucking knock it off, but that’s how it is between those two. It’s as if Sin can’t comprehend Kat’s behavior, or maybe she wishes she could be more like her. Either way, at Kat’s craziest moments, Sin seems to lose her usual strength and drop into the background.

  I didn’t know the whole pattern that night. I just saw one friend about to pass out on her face and another about to combust. So I leaned over Kat, poured a huge triple shot in the plastic cup she was using, and chugged it.

  “There,” I said, trying not to gag. “She won.”

  The guys protested, but the crowd around us burst into applause. I pulled Kat from the chair and out the door into a chilly Michigan night.

  She slung her arms around my neck in a stumbling hug. “You’re all right,” she said, her words a little slurry.

  “Thanks,” Sin said, when she came out with our coats. She squeezed my hand and shot me an open, relieved kind of smile I’d never seen on her before.

  I hadn’t done much, at least I didn’t think so at the time. But I had earned my role in our little group that night. I’d found my place.

  The piazza surrounding the Pantheon is aglow in a warm, gold light that shines from the fountain in the middle. Francesco knows the owner of the bar and is able to get us a table just to the right of the fountain. Kat, Lindsey and I order Moretti beers, while Poster Boy orders cappuccinos for his crew.

  Once we sit, Poster Boy places his arm around Kat in a way that strikes me as proprietary rather than friendly, but she doesn’t seem bothered. She keeps touching him—her fingers grazing his hand, her head resting briefly on his shoulder—and even the way she gazes at him when he’s talking seems more a stroke than a look. She’s always been a flirt, but this is fast. Maybe it’s the change of scenery, being on the other side of the pond for the first time.

  I keep glancing at Sin to see if she’s noticing this, but she seems more loosened up than usual, too. She asks the guys questions about living in Italy and kids them about their need to tie sweaters around their shoulders.

  Meanwhile, Francesco pays little direct attention to me, which is slightly insulting, but just fine, since I’m not looking to hook up. I let the conversation swirl around me while I stare at the Pantheon, a huge circular temple made of stone and cement. The interior design classes I took in college taught me that it’s an engineering marvel because of the massive domed ceiling that lets light onto the marble floors, but what really baffles me is that it was originally built in 27 B.C. Ironic, because it’s now surrounded by cars and cell phones and platform sandals.

  As a History Channel junkie, John would have loved it here if only he could have ripped himself away from the office for a few weeks. Lately, I’ve wondered if he enjoys his work more than he enjoys me. As I sip my beer, I start to review the moments we’ve spent together during the past few months, then going back further, to come up with the last time we’d had fun together, real fun, not just the getting-dressed-up-to-go-to-a-cousin’s-wedding-and-drinking-bad-table-wine kind of fun. I want to remember the belly laughs, the accidental fun, the spontaneous good times at the end of an otherwise crappy day. We’d had those times at the beginning—the pub crawl we arranged with John’s neighbors during a blizzard; the time John surprised me with a weekend trip to Manhattan because I was depressed about a bad grade; the New Year’s Day that we drank every bit of leftover alcohol in his place and watched football and movies for fourteen hours. But where are those times lately? Absent, it seems, lost somewhere in the desire for career advancement and the late nights at the library.

  “Casey,” Lindsey says, bringing me back to Rome, back to the now. “Ready to order dinner?”

  I nod.

  She leans across the table. “Are you
okay?”

  I haven’t told Kat or Sin about the distance I feel growing between John and me, probably because a different kind of space has grown between them and myself as well. But now with Sin looking at me, some concern in her eyes, I wish that we were alone, just the three of us, so I could spill everything out—my parents’ problems, this thing with John that I can’t put my finger on, the way I’m terrified to start working for a living. But Massimo and Francesco turn to me, too, waiting for me to answer Lindsey’s question, so I just nod again and take the menu from her hand.

  Kat orders spaghetti carbonara, a rich, egg-filled pasta. She’s one of those criminally thin people with a perpetually high metabolism. I opt for a light caprese salad to try to whittle away some of my post bar exam girth, and Lindsey orders the same. When the food comes, she offers bites to everyone at the table, although only Kat accepts. The tomato and mozzarella, dribbled with olive oil and sprinkled with basil, taste ridiculously fresh and healthy, two foreign concepts, since I subsisted the entire summer on various members of the Frito Lay family.

  Once I’m finished, I notice that Francesco sits silently while Kat is busy making faces at Poster Boy. Lindsey, surprisingly, appears to be enjoying her conversation with Massimo. My side of the table is overly quiet except for the clinking of glasses from other diners and the lilting Italian music wafting from the bar.

  “Pretty hot, huh?” I say to Francesco.

  His mouth turns up slightly at the corners, and his eyes skate to our friends. “It seems to be getting that way.”

  I follow his glance to find that Poster Boy and Kat are now kissing like they’re alone on a couch somewhere. I wonder if I should stop her, maybe reach an arm across the table or toss some cold water like you do with unruly dogs, but I’m suddenly unsure of myself, of my role. I try to meet Lindsey’s eyes, but she’s talking to Massimo, her back turned to Kat.

  “So,” I say, looking back at Francesco, who wears an amused expression.

  “So,” he says, mimicking me, and we both crack up.

  Silence settles between us then, during which I try to focus on Sin’s explanation of her job to Massimo and ignore the forms of Kat and Poster Boy, which have become a single, entwined mass across the table.

  “You are going to be a lawyer?” Francesco finally asks. I’m startled for a second, but then I vaguely remember hearing Lindsey mention my new job to the guys while I was drifting off about John.

  I only nod and sip my beer, not sure that he wants a real answer, and a little nervous that he might expect me to follow in Kat’s footsteps and lock lips with him.

  “What kind of lawyer will you be?” he says, without a trace a flirtation.

  “A litigator,” I say, thinking this sounds pretty interesting, even if the thought of doing it every day doesn’t particularly interest me right now.

  “What is ‘litigator’?” He’s apparently confused with the English and unaware of how cool I am.

  “Trials. In front of a judge,” I say.

  Actually, what I’ve learned is that litigation really means taking a million depositions about car accidents and medical treatments, compiling page upon page of tedious written discovery, attempting for years to make a settlement, and then maybe, just maybe, eventually trying a case in defense of some company or some person lucky enough to have an insurance company behind them. But for some reason I want to impress Francesco—and maybe myself—about the job that’s waiting for me, so I embellish my soon-to-be reality, prattling on and on about fascinating lawsuits and standing before a high-powered judge every day. Total crap. I’ll probably see more of the library than I ever will the courtroom, and even if I do work on a big case, it’ll be on the grunt end for a very long time.

  “And this is what you love to do?” Francesco seems to be going deeper than the surface conversation, making me squirm a little. On the other hand, his question flatters me. John assumes I’ll love the law as he does, so we’ve never truly discussed the subject of whether I’ll actually like my chosen profession. I’ve never even told John that I always wanted to be an interior designer before I convinced myself that the law would bring money and a decent lifestyle easier and faster.

  “I haven’t started yet,” I say to Francesco.

  “But you believe you will love it?” He holds his head a little bit to one side and waits for me to speak, those nice brown eyes watching me.

  “It’s a job.” I squirm again and glance away. Sin is still talking to Massimo, and luckily, Kat and Poster Boy are chatting again instead of giving each other tonsillectomies.

  “How do you like Roma?”

  This is a much less complicated topic, and I give Francesco a smile. “I love it. I went to college here for six months.”

  “Ah. So you know Roma?” He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs so that one ankle rests on his knee. He strikes me as someone who’s completely comfortable with his body, a trait I envy.

  “I do. I have such wonderful memories of this city.”

  “Why are the memories so good?”

  I think about this for a second. “I was in school and in a new place. Everything was simple.” I close my eyes for a moment, remembering how my life was then—sleeping in, going to a few classes and spending the rest of the day exploring Rome, drinking wine and mooning over my favorite bartender.

  “Things are not simple now?”

  I open my eyes and shift about in my seat. I’m out of practice talking about things like feelings and wants and desires and realities. Somewhere along the way John and I had stopped doing that, too.

  “Life gets more complicated as you get older. There’s more to worry about.” In one swoop, my memories of Rome are replaced with the prospect of fourteen-hour workdays.

  Francesco pauses a second, his eyes never leaving my face. “I think life is what you do with it. How you decide to live it. It can be simple or not.”

  I want to say, “Easy, Pollyanna” but instead I opt for, “It’s not that easy.”

  “Why not?”

  I look at his face. Can he really want to have this conversation with me, some American girl he just met? He leans toward me, and the humid air seems to lighten and swirl with his nearness. I guess he does.

  “It’s not that easy,” I say, “because you have responsibilities as time goes on.” Awaiting me when I get back are loans to pay, my family to deal with. Hell, I’m not even sure what to wear to work. I’ve perfected my student wardrobe—jeans, khakis, two pairs of leather boots (both black, one high-heeled, one low), and nearly every sweater put out by Banana Republic in the last three years. That’s all I’ve really needed. But now, I’m entering the world of pinstripes, pumps and pearls, and I’m clueless. Petty, I know, but this is the stuff I think about.

  “If you are happy and living how you want to live, responsibilities can be a joy, not a job,” Francesco says.

  “You’re reading too much Deepak Chopra.”

  “Scusi?” Francesco cocks an ear toward me, and he looks adorable in that earnest, coffee-shop guy kind of way.

  “Nothing.” I start asking him about his family, his work, what he wants to do with his life. He tells me he’s from a big family and works in his uncle’s restaurant supply business, which is how he knew the café owner and could land us this table. His two best friends are his sisters, both of whom live in Milan and work in the fashion industry. I glance down at my cotton dress as he says this, wishing I’d worn something fantastically hip, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s going to school at night to get his college degree, he tells me, so that someday he can open his own business. He wants to have something to hand down to his kids.

  Francesco smiles when he says “my children,” as if he knows them already. It reminds me of the dinner I’d had with some high school girlfriends recently, when I’d felt left out listening to them talk about their babies and husbands. They seem to be adults already, worrying about adult things like preschools and mortgages and car seats, while
I fret about whether to have another glass of wine and what to wear to John’s holiday party.

  Our conversation continues to flow. I try to seem disinterested so that I don’t give Francesco the idea I’m as fun as Kat, but he intrigues me. He doesn’t seem to have the quick temper of many Italian men, and he says he loves women. Of course, he could be lying through his perfect white teeth—lying being another characteristic Italian-male behavior.

  “Casey,” he says, briefly laying a hand over mine. “I think we could be friends.”

  “The way they’re friends?” I jab a finger at Poster Boy and Kat, who’ve begun full-throttle kissing again.

  He laughs. “Different than that. Better.”

  I’m not sure what he means, so I give sort of an embarrassed guffaw, yet I don’t want to doubt him. I want to believe that this man finds me interesting and stimulating. Logically, I know I shouldn’t need a man to make me feel good about myself, but lately being with John has made me feel like putting on a housedress and curlers and schlepping off to a Tupperware party.

  I shove all thoughts of John out of my mind and try to concentrate on what Francesco is saying. Something about the differences between American and Italian women. There seem to be many.

  At this point, Poster Boy announces that he’s going to give Kat a tour of Vatican City at night.

  Kat beams a smile at me as if this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her, when I know for a fact it’s not. She has hundreds of crazy stories about getting it on with rock stars, sneaking into movie premieres and getting ludicrously expensive gifts from men of all ages. But I’m glad she’s happy, and there’s no denying how hot Poster Boy is.

  “Would you like to come?” Poster Boy asks the rest of the group.

  Francesco barely glances at me before he answers with a definitive, “Sì.”

  “No!” I say, more harshly than I intended. I’m not a big fan of people answering for me, and I’d suddenly envisioned myself in an Italian housedress (okay, it is cuter than the American version), beating out a rug on the side of a dirty pensione, while Francesco yells at me to cook his favorite fusilli arribiata. When I see everyone’s surprised looks, I add in a nicer tone, “I need some sleep.”