Chapter Thirty Judy
Chapter Thirty
Judy
It is just after ten in the evening, and in Rome, the night is just getting started.
Beverly and I are sipping a cappuccino at an outdoor table in the Piazza Navona in Rome, reminiscing about the adventures we’ve had these past few weeks. Jet setting and zigzagging whenever and wherever seats became available. We’ve crossed a few off our Sinatra list, and added ones he didn’t sing about.
Now, our adventure is nearing its close. One more stop after Rome. We have just finished a shared plate of bucatini alla carbonara after the soup course, the fish course, and the cheese course.
No one eats like the Italians.
Beverly leans back in her chair and rubs her stomach in the most inelegant fashion I’ve ever witnessed with her. “I never thought I’d eat again after Cairo. I will forever treasure seeing the pyramids, but the mummy’s revenge is a very real thing.”
“I think it’s called Montezuma’s revenge,” I correct.
“Can’t be. Montezuma was Aztec. Not Egyptian.”
“The where doesn’t matter. The how is the thing. The guidebook said not to drink the water. And even to brush your teeth with Coca-Cola.”
“But I didn’t drink the water,” Beverly bellows.
“I know, I know. But you drank the hibiscus juice at the perfume shop.”
Beverly throws her hands up, almost looking like the Italians have rubbed off on her. “When they offered it, I didn’t want to be rude. And I wasn’t thinking about how water is the base for juice. I was going for the cultural experience. That’s the Pan American way.”
“Good thing one of us was thinking. I’ve never played nursemaid to one quite so—indisposed.” Goodness, she’d been a mess.
Beverly rolls her eyes, a gesture that is usually my territory. “If we weren’t already friends, that would have cinched it.”
“And you did buy me a beautiful alabaster vase afterward.”
“A small token of gratitude,” she acknowledges.
“One I will always treasure.”
We’ve declined the salad course and the cannoli that the waiter tries to offer. After a meal such as what we’ve just had, the cappuccinos are all we can fit in.
Besides, we have one more stop on our grand overseas adventure and then it’s back to Pan Am regulations. The end of my suspension is almost here, and I’ll be back to rolling carts down slim aisles in no time.
I haven’t yet told Beverly that I’m going to put in for a transfer to Miami. I have missed Joe terribly these last few weeks. I’ve sent postcards to him and to Ronelle, but neither could respond as we never knew where we’d be staying.
One expensive phone call during a layover in Athens was all we needed to acknowledge that being a country apart was not a very good plan for our future.
If we marry, I’ll have to give up being a stewardess. But I’ll stay long enough to at least meet the eighteen-month average of a career like this.
Beverly leans forward. “Why do I get the feeling that everything is about to change?”
I don’t know if she’s picked up on my musings or if she’s having some of her own.
“Because it is.”
She folds her arms. “You’re going to move to Miami, aren’t you?” She must have seen the startled look on my face. “Don’t act all surprised. You wear your heart on your sleeve. You and Joe are going to go off and make babies and live happily ever after.”
I nod. “Yes. Probably. Eventually.”
“Yes. Definitely,” she corrects. “Just don’t forget your old friend Beverly.”
“As if I could.”
“Yeah. I’m like that. Unforgettable.”
“It’s not as if you don’t have your own plans.”
She shrugs. “You’re right. We haven’t talked about it, but gosh, I miss Mark. And I’m pretty sure it’s mutual.”
“Of course it is.” Beverly doesn’t know that I’d met up with Mark on a Honolulu layover and he’d taken me shopping to get my opinion on an engagement ring. When I’d first encountered Beverly at the interviews in New York, I would have said that she was a woman who expected something opulent. The kind of ring you could see from the moon. But the Beverly I’d come to know had grown up. I had a feeling that she would appreciate something that was elegant in its simplicity.
“So London will be our last hurrah for now. But at least when everything changes we’ll have our annual girls’ trip,” she prods. I get the impression that she’s afraid we won’t really do it. It’s not often that Beverly seems insecure.
“Whatever happens, wherever we each live, we will make that happen. You will always be an important part of my life.” I feel my eyes getting teary as I say it. The love of a good man is a sacred thing. But the love of a good friend may be even more so.
“I have an idea.” Beverly sits up rashly enough to scoot the chair back.
“I’m bracing myself.”
“Hear me out. London is our last girls’ trip for a while. But what if we cap this off with a trip with the boys when we get back? They’ve never met, and I’m sure they’d get along like cheese and crackers.”
“I like it. But where?”
Beverly drums her fingers on the table. “Somewhere none of us has been.”
That could be a tall order. But I’m game.
“It would have to be pretty close to Miami,” I say. “Joe used up all his vacation time coming to see me in Burlingame, so it would have to be over a weekend.”
“Perfect. Mark has a swim meet in Atlanta the first week of December, so that puts him in the same corner of the world.”
She thinks. “Key West?”
I shake my head. “Joe has been. The Virgin Islands?”
“I went in high school over a summer break.”
We are both silent for a moment. Then Beverly has another idea. “Puerto Rico.”
I think of beaches and palm trees. Similar to our love of Honolulu and Tahiti, but with its own unique culture.
“I like that idea.”
“Me too. Let’s send a telegram to the boys and stop into a travel office when we’re in London to see if they have some brochures.”
I sip at the foam of my cappuccino, well aware that it will keep me from sleeping tonight. But it’s all worth it.
Our discussion is interrupted when the tone in the restaurant changes. A buzz makes its way around the room. Conversation shifts from person to person, stranger to stranger. It’s like the childhood game of telephone, though with Italians, it’s accompanied by the flailing of arms and the rapidity of speaking that we’ve come to appreciate in our short time here. Some women pull handkerchiefs from their pockets and dab their eyes.
“Mamma mia,” we hear. Several people cross themselves. “No, no, no!”
“Whatever could have happened?” I ask Beverly. The steam from my cappuccino has disappeared, and my drink cools as I watch this strange occurrence.
Our waiter hurries over to us. His eyes are red and puffy.
“You are Americano, no?” he says.
“Yes. We’re Americans,” Beverly reassures him. I can see the confusion in the wrinkle of her eyebrows.
“Mi dispiace. Mi dispiace per il tuo presidente.”
Presidente . That’s not a hard one to translate. But why was he saying it?
We learn soon enough. John F. Kennedy has been killed. Shot in Dallas today while parading in the presidential limousine through the downtown area.
For the next few days, everywhere we go, we hear, “We are sorry about your president.” It is as if this one tragedy has united the world in collective concern for our well-being over such a senseless event.
Even our beds in our simple hotel room are adorned with fresh flowers and a note from the hotel manager expressing his sorrow for his “American friends.”
I am actually relieved to be here across the pond during this unusual time. While thoughtful in their words of sympathy, the Europeans are nonetheless getting on with their lives. But to read the American newspapers that made their way here, it is all anyone at home can talk about.
I don’t think I would want to be saturated in it. It is too much to bear.
Beverly and I had one good cry about it together and then resolved not to let it ruin the remainder of our trip. “If anything,” she’d said, “it’s a reminder that life is short and you should enjoy every minute of it. Which I think we’ve been doing.”
So it is with this renewed fervor to give life everything we have that Beverly finally lets me in on a secret. A surprise in London.
Our trip to Paris had been funded by Beverly’s very generous mother, and the stay at George V was like something out of the movies. But we’d spent the following weeks in hostels and small hotels to save money and ate two meals a day rather than three.
London was to be indulgent like Paris.
“This was Mother’s idea. I promise,” Beverly says when we have left Italy behind and pulled up to our hotel in London. “She set us up at the Savoy. Not only because it’s her favorite place to stay or because the cocktails at the American Bar are like nothing else anywhere, but because of its proximity.”
“Its proximity to what?”
She lets the black cab pull away, then points across the River Thames.
“To that bridge. The Waterloo Bridge. And on the other side of that, the Royal Festival Hall.”
None of these words mean anything to me. And she knows that. She is just ratcheting up the dramatic revelation. I let her have her fun and play along.
“And what is showing at the Royal Festival Hall?”
She grins wide enough to power all of London.
“Frank.”
My heart stops. I fall back onto my bed before sitting back up. Then, my heart starts to race.
“Frank?”
“Sinatra, baby!”
I think I fainted after that.