Chapter Twenty-Four
When we step into the arid heat of evening, Andrew says he’s taking us both to dinner.
“That’s good,” Luca says, “because Story just cleaned out my wallet.”
“Not funny,” I say while they laugh. “I will pay you back.”
“Haud yer wheesht,” Luca says. “It’s just a present among friends.”
“Friends buy each other smoothies. Or fuzzy socks. Or, if they’ve been best friends since fourth grade, maybe sterling silver jewelry.”
Andrew makes a face at Luca like he’s just tasted sour mayonnaise. “Her world sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”
“A nightmare.”
“You two should have your own late-night show.” Luca links a pinkie into mine because it’s too hot to hold hands. We walk to a restaurant down the street and get an early seating. I put the Tiffany bag on the table in front of me to keep it safe, which amuses Luca. We spend a long time over dinner, the way Italians do.
After dinner, Luca wants to go to the overlook that’s on the way to Villa Borghese. We stop at his hotel, and he asks the valet to get my Converses, which are in his trunk, and bring them to his room. The paparazzi are waiting across the street. They’ll think we’ve ordered the car.
Luca tips the valet when my shoes arrive. Andrew says he’s babysat us enough for one day, so Luca and I leave him and slip out a back entrance. Somehow, though, Andrew’s parting warning look comes along with me. We navigate a few small alleys and emerge not far from the Spanish Steps. The evening has suddenly cooled to almost normal, the way it can in Rome, and there are lots of tourists for us to get lost among. A ballerina dances in a square for spare change by the light of souvenir shops. We sidestep pigeons begging for snacks and listen to a girl playing a cello and drop some euros for her. Children chase each other in the piazzas as their parents chat. The scent of roasting tomatoes and chicken in basil follows us around a corner.
“Most people go to the Terrazza del Pincio,” I say, “but I think the Viale della Trinità dei Monti is nicer.”
“Then let’s go there.”
“We can do both, if you like. They aren’t far from each other. But Pincio will be more crowded.”
“No crowds tonight. I just want to be.” He takes my hand.
He pulls me in whenever there are people passing too close or the way narrows. By the time we climb the hill to the Viale della Trinità, though, the crowd has thinned considerably. A few couples and small groups cluster along the wall on the hillside. I watch Luca’s face for his first view of the city from here and smile when I see his surprise at all of Rome spread before us. We find a spot away from others and gaze over the Eternal City as golden shades fall across terra-cotta roofs. Venus’s Belt has wrapped around the skyline in violets and pinks.
“You weren’t kidding.”
“Everyone should see this at least once in their lives.”
Luca pulls out his phone and takes a photo, and then a selfie of the two of us with the view behind. “?‘I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.’?”
“Are you testing the tour guide? Augustus Caesar said that.”
Luca laughs. “How about this one? ‘Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.’?”
“I’ve never heard that one. But it’s definitely true. Who saidit?”
“Now I’ve forgotten.” He looks it up on his phone. “Giotto di Bondone. Crivvens, what a name.”
“Anatole Broyard said, ‘Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.’?”
“Oh, that’s magic.”
“But my favorite quote is from Edmonia Lewis, an American sculptor: ‘I thought I knew everything when I came to Rome, but I soon found out I had everything to learn.’?”
Luca gazes at me until I look away.
“But I think Rome is like someone who steals your heart while you weren’t even paying attention.”
He pauses before he replies. “That may be the best one yet.” He contemplates the city as the stars throw off their daylight veil. After a while he says to himself, “I soon found out I had everything to learn.”
“You okay?”
“Aye,” he says. “I just wish I knew how to be me and still be me.”
I slip my hand around his arm.
“I guess that makes no sense,” he says, shaking his head slightly.
“No, I know you feel pulled to be what your family wants even though you want something else.”
Luca looks down at me until I nudge away and lean my back against the wall.
“Listen,” he says, “there’s something I need to tell you. I have to go home for a few days this weekend, for my grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday. There’s going to be a big party at the house, black tie and all that.”
“Oh.” I turn and lean my forearms on the wall, still warm from the sun, to hide the pang that skitters across my face. “I hope you have fun.”
“Well, the thing is, I’m hoping you’ll come with me?”
I look up, pretty sure I’m channeling Andy’s cautionary face. “You want me to come home with you and meet your family? As your girlfriend? That seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?”
“Well, they already know about you from the tabs. That’s why my dad asked his business friends to check up on me.”
“Right,” I say, and I’m a bit thrown because it hadn’t occurred to me that his family would know about any of this, but it should have. Of course they’d be watching the tabs to see what mess Luca got himself into next. They weren’t just checking up on Luca. They were checking me out, too. They’re probably worried I’m a gold digger, but I wonder what they’d think of Jasmine strutting across the stage in some dominatrix outfit as she belts out how many ways she knows to please a guy.
“They’ll all be expecting you, honestly, and Andrew thinks you should come, since everyone’s asking about Rowdy’s recovery. You can ask Dani to send a dress to my parents’ place. Your mom won’t mind you going, will she? I can assure her that, after five kids, nothing goes on in our house that my mum doesn’t know about.”
I laugh a little. “I don’t see why she’d mind, considering I’ll be leaving for college in less than a month. But I don’t like lying to your parents, especially as a guest in their house? It doesn’t seem right, even if it is Andrew approved.”
“It’s no big deal. They think I go through girlfriends faster than I go through cars, so they won’t be expecting you at Christmas anyway. They’ll be very polite and hospitable, and then they’ll have a rousing pool on how long you’ll last. Somehow, my mother always wins.”
“Ooh, can I get in on that?”
Luca laughs and pulls me in and kisses my temple, I guess out of habit. “I can’t wait to show you how bonnie it is at home.”
“Is this why you and Andrew said I need diamonds?”
Luca exhales. “You need diamonds because they’re classic and so are you.”
I let his evasiveness pass. We’re silent together for a few minutes.
“And I was thinking that, when we get back, we should take your mum up to my uncle’s place on Lake Como for the weekend. We could take her sailing.”
The Colosseum shimmers in a golden glow as if there were thousands of candles around it instead of electric floodlights, while St.Peter’s dome has faded into darkness. The delicate scent of flowered window boxes that decorate the apartments behind us drifts to the ground. I wish he didn’t always have to live in the moment, as if we’ll be friends forever. It would be better for me if he could just be realistic for once. He and Andrew won’t even remember they met me six weeks from now.
“That sounds really nice, Luca, but I don’t think it’s a very good idea. We’ll only have a couple weeks left of this by the time we get back, and I don’t want my mom to fall for you any harder than she already has.” Jasmine and Rowdy’s first single drops in less than a week.
Luca shakes his head. “I guess you’re right. Now that you don’t despise me, I keep thinking summer is going to float on. There are so many places I want you to see, like Edinburgh and Amsterdam. You’d love those cities.”
Sometimes I wonder if Luca just loves the one he’s with. It’s Jasmine he should be thinking about taking everywhere. But then I think that’s a jerky way to think. He’s just trying to share his overabundant world with his little Cinderella friend.
“I never despised you.” It’s unsettling how much I’d like to see these places with him. To take my mom sailing with him.
“Oh, I think you did.”
“I just didn’t think I was going to be able to stand your company. But I never despised you.”
He grins. “That seems like the same thing. And now?”
How do I answer him?
“You often surprise me.”
He nudges closer to me. It’s hard to breathe. “In a goodway?”
I stare at the azure-washed city below. “Aye.”
He pulls me into a hug. A friendship hug, not a hug for show. I think. I want to see where Luca grew up, but I don’t want to make Jasmine any more jealous. Maybe she’s smarter than me. Maybe she knew that sooner or later I’d fall for him, just like everyone else does. This whole idea seems to be tempting fate a bit too much, like some Shakespearean drama.
“Luca, you don’t think Jasmine would intentionally sabotage this, do you?”
Luca pulls back and studies me. “What do you mean?”
There’s no way for me to tell him what I mean without telling him what she’s already done. “I don’t know. I’m just worried she might get mad about me being in Scotland and tell people enough that it gets out or something.”
“Jasmine has the most at risk of any of us. She wouldn’t dothat.”
I don’t say anything. Luca isn’t going to see her as she really is until he’s ready.
“You don’t think so?”
I shrug. “She’s the most famous, so, in a sense she has the highest stakes. But that also insulates her to some degree. At least half of her fans would defend her no matter what she does, which is still a significant fan base. People will keep buying her albums, even if it’s just for the confessional songs she’d write. I see a lot of ways she could spin this to her advantage if she decided to.”
“And to your detriment?”
I keep my eyes on the sparkling lights of the darkened city. “The longer this goes on, the more I see how badly I look in all of it. But she could hurt you, too.”
“She’s not like that.”
I’m not sure he really believes this. I should let it go, but I can’t stand him defending her.
“Look, Luca, she’s like you, she has a public persona and a private one. Her public persona is sugar sweet, but her songs show she’ll do what it takes to be on top. How much do you really know her? I mean, really know her, and not the persona she struts around in.”
Luca shuffles. “Story, I know Jasmine can be harsh sometimes, but it’s just because of all the pressure.”
I nod. More for his sake than because I believe him. “I get that she doesn’t want this to blow up, but if it does, she’s got a nice cushion to work with.”
Luca stares into the blue. “She knows what’s at stake. I promise I won’t let you lose anything in this.”
“That’s not a promise you can keep.”
“What are you saying, Story?”
“I checked Princeton’s rules about offers. It seems unlikely the school would come after me for something that happens off campus unless it’s an actual crime, but Harvard rescinded a bunch of offers a few years ago over some social media memes. Anything that reflects poorly on my honesty or judgment is fair game. It would probably come down to how badly the tabloids make me look and how much blowback the school got for my role in it. She’s more than just a big star, Luca. She’s at the epicenter of the music industry.”
His face clouds up. “You have a backup plan, right?”
“I’ve already had to decline the other schools I got into. Besides, if Princeton won’t take me, why would they?”
He shrugs, but not with his usual confidence. “Some schools would fluff it off as celebrity nonsense. Where else did you get in?”
“Brown, Tufts, and Oxford.”
“Oxford? We could get the band back together!”
A couple walks past us a little too closely, and I lower my voice. “There is no band, Luca. And, by now, they’ve given away my spot, even if they were willing to overlook whatever fallout might come.”
“There’s always someone who doesn’t show up. And Oxford could hardly blame you for all this. They’d be more likely to blame me.”
“Great, we can both get kicked out, except I’m not actually in at this point.”
“Look, Story, you worry too much. We’re lying about something that no one has any right to expect us to tell the truth about.”
I don’t say anything.
“Story?”
“All I know is that I’m helping Jasmine lie to her fans, and she’s going to make a fortune because of it when this album drops. Otherwise, the label wouldn’t have made her keep it a secret in the first place. Her fans aren’t just buying her music. They’re buying her whole lifestyle. It feels like fraud, and I’m at the center of it.”
He shakes his head, but I’m not sure if it’s at me or at himself. “Jasmine doesn’t owe anyone the details of whom she dates.”
The girl literally traffics in boyfriends by selling songs about them. But I don’t throw that in his face. “A lot of people wouldn’t be happy about her lying to them, which gives her a lot of incentive to make it someone else’s fault. But,” I add to make him stop frowning, “I’m happy to see that you know the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom.’?”
He shakes his head. “Crivvens, where did I find you?”
“In a gelateria off the Piazza di Spagna. I made the mistake of wearing yellow that day.”
Luca laughs and pulls me into him. “Dai, we have a big day tomorrow. I’ll keep Jasmine under control. I promise.”
I slip my arm around him, and we walk back down to my flat as if we’re the lovers we pretend to be, wishing Luca’s promises were as solid as he wants them to be.