Chapter 3 Strawberry Love
Strawberry Love
Often, here in Bologna, when Harold Gibler looked across the table at Alice, her freckles scattered across her cheeks like glitter, her sparkling statement of hair the same red as an Aperol spritz, his mind would slip back to his life in Denver before she’d strutted into the coffee shop with her headphones on, shaking it like she was listening to the Black Pumas.
He couldn’t believe it had only been a couple of months since he’d first had the pleasure of witnessing her take over a room simply by appearing.
It was dangerous territory, going back to that day, that bad place where guilt waited. In his twenty-three years on earth, he’d never pretended to be someone he wasn’t before, and though effective, it had become increasingly difficult to keep up the ruse.
Stay here in the present, he would tell himself. The relationship might eventually go down in a burst of flames, but he was not ready to let what they had slip from his grasp.
Despite having created a souped-up version of himself, Harold still wasn’t exactly sure why Alice was so into him, but she was, and therefore miracles do happen. She’d made him believe in himself for the first time in his life.
He was a scrawny geek who’d been picked on and bullied throughout his youth.
How many times had he begged his mother to move to a different state, even a nearby town, anywhere in a different school district?
Harold didn’t tell anyone what growing up was like—how his father had left one day and hadn’t come back, how his mother had to figure out a way to make a living, often working three jobs at a time, which meant Harold had come home from school every day to an empty house.
Perhaps his struggles were unexceptional, but that didn’t dull the hurt he still carried with him.
Nevertheless, Alice saw something in him no one else could.
She appreciated his intellect, his quick wit (as subjective as such a trait might be), his deep trivia knowledge, and his ability to do complicated math in his head.
If only he’d had Italian lessons growing up, he’d likely be getting along fine here in Bologna, as he never forgot a thing.
She’d be extra dazzled. Due to his linguistic deficit, though, he’d become a prisoner to Duolingo, the language learning app that stalked him with notifications on all his devices. Even his new watch!
A spritz at the wine bar was their routine after she’d finished her classes and studying for the day.
They’d join the army of tourists and locals alike who filled every table in the city to linger over late-afternoon spritzes and bowls of free aperitivi like potato chips, peanuts, and olives.
She’d come up to the apartment, drop her backpack, and then they’d storm out into the city, two lovers ready to rise as the sun fell.
This place was one of their favorite haunts, an ancient wine bar called Sorso Sospetto that was two blocks down on the same street as her (their?) apartment on Via Giulia.
The eight outdoor tables were almost always occupied—no matter the season or weather.
Cigarette smoke and perfume wafted through the air, mixing with the aroma of warm chocolate from the pasticceria across the street.
Chatter in multiple languages buzzed through the air.
The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cobblestones.
Around the corner, someone—likely a busker—played a violin, the slow and easy bowing matching the hum of city life and creating a perfect soundtrack to their love.
“Question,” he said, all smiles and fully relaxed, never wanting to go back to the person he used to be.
“Would you call your hair an Afro? I would assume it’s either politically and/or factually incorrect.
” He didn’t stammer with her, which was beyond unbelievable. He’d been stammering all his life.
“What do you call it, this . . . this sort of Bob Ross thing?” He gestured toward her hair. Maybe she even liked the way he talked, how his words ran over each other sometimes.
“Who’s Bob Ross?”
Harold grabbed a fistful of his own hair in a dramatic display of surprise. “Who is Bob Ross? Happy little trees? Did you not watch PBS growing up?” He and his mother certainly had while eating their microwave dinners on TV trays. Those were sweet memories.
Alice let loose the creamiest of giggles. “We didn’t have a television in our house, so no, I don’t know who Bob Ross is, and no, I don’t call this an Afro. It’s just a perm.”
“Just a perm?” Harold said with great animation, his voice nearly chirping. “It’s exquisite, the best hair I’ve ever seen. I’d like to put whipped cream on top and eat you like a strawberry shortcake.”
A standard eye-roll response followed, but one that came with a smirk, making her look even more tempting. Perhaps he’d top her off with a gumdrop and sprinkles.
“I will be forever curious about your childhood,” he said.
“What does a family do without a television? My mom and I, that’s how we bonded.
Dinner in front of the television. And she grew up watching Bob Ross and would always track down reruns.
He’s a painter guy, had this big, I don’t know, bloom of hair and had the worst clothes and was always holding his palette of paints.
It’s a nice memory. Anyway, take me once again back to your strange household in backwoods Colorado?
Tour me through the early life of Alice Richter. ”
She pulled her spritz toward her, still a smirk on her face. “How many times do we have to do this?”
“Until I see it. Till I see my girlfriend when she was younger, finding her way toward the exceptional woman she’s become.”
She reached for a cigarette, and he was there with his Zippo, a recent purchase. “We did chores,” she said with the first exhalation of smoke. “We read the Bible. Prayed. Went on walks. We shared what we learned that day at the dinner table.”
He closed his eyes and imagined this younger Alice among her six siblings. “Okay, okay. I’m seeing you. It’s very cultish. Was there any part of you that wondered if your life was normal?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed normal at the time.”
He lit a cigarette himself, trying hard not to cough, then snapped the lighter closed. “Was there any fun to be had? Not that my childhood staring at a computer was any better, just trying to understand here.”
“We played lots of games.”
“Ah, there we go. Four Square? Monopoly? Cards Against Humanity—Religious Edition?”
Her smile sprouted again, a flower stretching for the sky after a rain shower. “Parcheesi.”
“Parcheesi? I should have known.” He took another drag, a lighter one this time. “My mother and I played our fair share.”
“And we read,” she continued. “A lot. Not only the Bible. Reading is how I came to know the world, how I realized I wanted to travel.” He was well aware of her love of reading. She’d dragged him into the bookstore below her apartment multiple times. The comic selection was abysmal.
For the first time, he looked around at the other tables, a blend of students, businesspeople, and travelers, five or six languages among them, all easing into their evenings through the same Aperol spritz doorway. “They’d let you read whatever you wanted?”
She smiled as she blew out an oval of smoke. “For the most part. They were strict in some ways, but they gave us a thirst for knowledge and understanding. Let me study in Italy my senior year, you know. After some coercing, of course.”
He might be the smartest person in the room, but she was no slouch.
He adored talking to her, the way they could go on forever, forgetting even where they were.
Though he was not a smoker, he was learning, because it seemed to enhance this person he’d become and these wondrous Italian moments they were inhabiting.
Alice was near the top of her freshman class at the University of Bologna and had lived here for almost a year now. Having studied in Bologna when she was in high school, she spoke impeccable Italian, and there wasn’t anything sexier than when she rattled off their order like a native.
Only because fate does exist—as Harold could now attest—had she happened to be in Denver visiting her best friend when the two came upon each other.
Their meeting in fast-forward: her grand entrance in the coffee shop in Denver, a surge of energy as they spoke for the first time, a few lies spilled, followed by a fancy lunch together, then an even more expensive dinner, then a weekend of museums and art galleries, Harold falling harder with every passing hour, followed by Alice saying as she kissed his lips, “I’m going to miss you, Harold. ”
There had been only one possible response to that: “What if I came with you?”
Sometimes he couldn’t even hear what she was saying, as he was too taken with her presence.
Her sunglasses were pulled up and nearly lost in her Bob Ross, strawberry hair.
Her leprechaun eyes (a cute leprechaun, naturally) sparkled like emeralds in the setting Italian sun.
Somehow, he had the sweet fortune of being in current possession of those lips, molded by the Stradivarius of lip makers.
Her petite body was a masterpiece of wonder, and she was currently offering a glorious, braless side-boob shot due to the nature of her loose top.
If he were a poet, he could write endless verse on the wonders of her small but mighty breasts.
Alice was the perfect balance of sexy, brilliant, and adorable. For God’s sake, she was Gen Z, but she loved The Cure and her favorite movie was Say Anything, about as eighties as you could get. In other words, she was into the oldies.
She had a silly, bubbly nature that made up for his own shortcomings. He could embrace his geekdom, staying quiet, while she played the role of the spokesperson, the press secretary of the Harold Gibler White House, if you would.
“Are you listening to me?” she asked, pulling the president from his musings.