Chapter One
I don’t blame them. Living with me since the end of my term has been like living with an elder who keeps to her bedchambers, asking for food to be sent up and only periodically coerced out of the house for a few minutes of sunshine.
It didn’t make sense to keep my LA apartment when I was first elected, so I moved back in with them.
I was always working when I was home anyway, and I could barely afford my DC apartment as it was.
With the private security, the flights back and forth, my wardrobe that was always meticulously critiqued, there was barely enough of my congressional salary left over to afford food, and I didn’t have generational wealth to fall back on like many of my colleagues.
But when I moved the last of my stuff out of my minimalist Georgetown studio, the only refuge for the once-great Isabella Rhodes was her mommy and daddy’s house, and that’s where I’ve been hiding myself ever since.
Until now.
My tiny attic bedroom in Beachwood Canyon wasn’t far enough away from my failure; I had to put an ocean between me and my shame.
“Benvenuti a Roma,” the cheery flight attendant says to me as I deplane, and I mutter back some semblance of a “grazie.” I haven’t been to Italy in over a decade—not since a study abroad program in college.
It was the social media flashback post from my friend Emma in the program that led to the first spontaneous decision in my entire life.
The sensory memory of the dreamy, sunlight-soaked Umbrian town of La Musa came flooding back.
Gelato in the afternoon, late nights drinking wine and eating, long walks at dusk, taking in the clifftop views of endless rolling hills of vineyards—a true worry-free existence.
A few clicks later, I had a plane ticket and a room in a villa booked.
The university suspended the study abroad program years ago due to budget cuts, so the town that used to increase its population by a couple dozen college students every summer would instead be filled with aging Italians who, from what I remember, were far removed from American culture.
Therefore, completely ignorant to the existence of a certain United States congresswoman—well, former United States congresswoman, once named the future of her party, the rising star of politics, the one to watch, who was now, instead of meeting with the budgetary committee, scraping the bottom of her backpack for a loose almond because she slept through breakfast service.
The name Isabella Rhodes will be meaningless to them.
Thank god. I am free to be the woman who lost everything, staring listlessly off into the scenic countryside, willing the powers of the Tuscan sun or whatever to heal all I’ve lost. I’ll eat amazing pasta, I’ll drink great wine, I’ll befriend a wise older local, I’ll have a torrid, no-strings affair with a hot local, and before long, all my previous troubles will fade into the background.
Now that I’m in Italy, I’ll never worry about what happened to me in America ever again.
I’ll learn the power of distance, of time healing all wounds, of a slower paced life that my culture rejects but I will soon find suits me much better.
My perspective on life will change and therefore I will change. I’ll wear great outfits.
Congresswoman Rhodes, who once dreamed of building a better America in which all people can thrive, is dead, and now I’m just Izzy in Italy. Screw making the world a better place. It’s Levi’s problem now.
The drug-induced sleep haze wears off as I chug a piping-hot espresso in the café car on the dusty train from Rome to La Musa.
The countryside whips by for close to two hours before I finally see it: a medieval town perched atop a cliff in the middle of rolling green hills of vineyards upon vineyards.
The giant duomo cathedral with its intersecting arches stands out in the middle of the village, keeping watch.
Butterflies swarm in my stomach as the train lurches to a stop at the La Musa station, the first pleasant feeling I can recall in months.
I drag my bags off the train in just enough time before it lunges forward, carrying its passengers to more popular destinations like Perugia, Siena, or Florence.
A rickety cable car takes me the rest of the way, up the side of the cliff with the views of the countryside becoming more spectacular as the hills bask in the golden light of the midafternoon sun.
I was too young to fully appreciate it when I was 19.
Everything was new and exciting then. New experiences were as much of a guarantee as the sun setting and rising every day.
My whole future was ahead of me. My dream was my purpose.
Now, I know what monotony looks like. I know the grief that comes once the dreaming part is over and reality takes hold.
As I struggle with dragging my four-wheeled suitcase across the cobblestone piazza from the cable car stop at the top of the cliff and to the villa-lined streets that lead to the center of town, I try to find the instructions to my new home.
A blank white screen stares back at me when I open my email app.
No data, no Wi-Fi. Damn it. I negotiated it all with the woman advertising a big room in her glorious-looking medieval home on Airbnb.
I had launched into hyper-fixation mode so swiftly once the idea to relocate here came to me that it seemed like fate when I saw her post. The rent was cheap, and she seemed eager to find a renter.
No one moves here anymore, she’d said, excited to find someone to take the room.
Looking around now, I see what she meant.
While the town looks roughly the same as when I was last here, there’s an eeriness in the air as I trudge forward.
It feels emptier, sadder than I remember.
Shops are closed, no people mill about the winding street.
It’s colder than I thought for an early April day too, and I wonder if I packed enough of the right clothes.
A frigid breeze cuts through, sending a chill down my spine—maybe this wasn’t fate, maybe it was just a bad decision.
I’ve never been spontaneous before; I don’t know why I thought I could start now.
I try to remember where exactly the house is located.
I know it was near the center of town, looked yellowish from her photos, was big—every building in La Musa looks different but also that same shade of historic, beautiful, grand.
It had a name though, Villa Farentino. I think.
A woman, holding a jacket closed with one hand and a bag of groceries in another, approaches as I round the street closer toward the Piazza Duomo in the heart of La Musa.
I figure if I can get there, I can knock on doors until I find the right one.
“Mi scusi,” I say, and the woman turns toward me, alarmed by the presence of a tall, blond American with a giant suitcase rolling toward her.
“Parla inglese?” I ask. She shakes her head no.
I planned on using my phone to translate in such situations, but again, no data, no Wi-Fi, damn it.
I try to scrape together any remnants of the Italian I haven’t used in over a decade.
“Dov’è Villa Farentino?” She smiles, points ahead and answers back in rapid Italian.
I catch zero words of what she says but she nods at me and sort of gestures at her groceries in hand to communicate she’s not going to help me further.
“Grazie,” I say, though I do not feel thankful.
I keep walking, the wheels of my suitcase clacking harder as the sound of them struggling against the cobblestones echoes down the hill.
I reach the clock tower, the second highest structure next to the duomo in town, and stare at its big arms pointing out the time at the top.
It’s nearly 4 p.m. and I haven’t eaten since the dinner service last night, or this morning, or whatever time that was in relation to the time it is now.
My stomach growls, suddenly activated by the realization of its deprival.
Once I find this place and drop my bags off, I’ll venture back out and find something to eat.
All of the food is good in La Musa, and I was aware of that when I was 19, but now I have money, a more sophisticated palate, and less fear of carbs.
That’s one good thing about your whole life going to shit: You learn that of all your enemies in the world, pasta is not one of them.
I see another person walking toward me on the other side of the street and I excitedly wave at him, hoping he’ll be more helpful than the last lady, but he does not acknowledge me.
“Signore!” I call out. He looks up at me briefly but does not slow down or cross the street.
I pull my suitcase, even less malleable when trying to drag it sideways across the cobblestone, and quickly intercept his path so he has to face me.
When I reach him and he finally looks up at me for longer than a second, I’m surprised to find he’s about my age, maybe a little older.
He’s dressed in a way that suggests he does his shopping outside of the lone boutique in town, with a fitted blue button-down and gray trousers.
His hair is slightly unkempt, like he’s been running his fingers through it all day in distress, a notable flaw in his otherwise perfectly put-together appearance.
And he’s handsome. Actually, he’s hot. Even through his shirt I can tell his arms are toned, his sleek physique rounded out with strong shoulders and a sharp jawline.
If I weren’t standing close enough to see the pores in the smooth olive skin that surrounds his piercing hazel eyes, I’d be convinced he was one of Michelangelo’s statues.
They’re a dime a dozen around here anyway.