Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Lexi
Halfway to Trevi Fountain for my never-tell-anyone wish mission, Julie video calls me for a check-in. I stop outside a gelateria. The sweet, cool air from the open door revives my sweaty skin.
“So how’s Rome? Any more of that Passport-Luggage guy?”
“Hang on. Look at this place.” I flip the camera and show her the glass cases of pastries and colorful gelato choices through the window to tempt passersby.
As I pass the phone over all the flaky choices, Julie calls out, “Ooh, get one of those, no wait, get that puffy one with all the layers—is that lemon?”
I lift the phone back to my face, groaning. “I wish. I’m too full from lunch to eat anything, and I need to be hungry for dinner.”
Wasting a meal in Rome is the worst catastrophe imaginable. I’m pretty much in a constant state of waiting to be hungry so I can eat something else.
“Pity.” The camera bounces around as Julie walks the streets of NYC. No surprise, even this early and while on vacation, she’s up and about, seeing and doing with all her energy and verve for life. “So? Passport Guy?”
I tell her about the bet, the prank and trash talk, and lunch with Mark and his cousins. “He called me Stwalker, like stalker and Walker.”
Julie knocks her head back, giving full release to her Laugh of Abandon, which is so awesome it should be trademarked.
“It’s not funny, Julie.” It totally was, but I want her to take my side.
“If I’d called you that, you would have died laughing. Why is this guy getting under your skin?”
An odd flutter in my chest gives me pause. Mark is definitely affecting my time in Italy, and at least I haven’t been lonely. Not that distracted and vexed is that much better. “He’s going to sabotage my trip.”
Julie sobers. “Well, we can’t have that.”
“Exactly. I’m a full day behind schedule at this point.”
Julie pulls the phone close so I don’t miss her eye roll. “Oh yes, The Schedule. I wondered when we’d get to that.” She glances at her Fitbit. “We made it twenty-two minutes into the conversation before it came up. That’s probably a record, thanks to Mark.”
She’s made it abundantly clear that she thinks I should “let Italy guide me.” Open the letters when I feel like it, wander aimlessly.
Celebrate Rome. Which is why she’s on the marketing side of our business instead of the event planning.
That’s the thing about festivals and parties.
The fun happens because someone was working behind the scenes to think of all those contingencies, order the food, think about the flow of people and time. “Jules—”
“I know. I won’t argue with you.” Her expression is thoughtful, and a tiny furrow of worry wrinkles her brow. “The thing I can’t figure out is if this Mark development is a good thing for you or not.”
“Not. Anything knocking me off course goes in the cons column. Even the fact that we’re talking about him instead of Mom’s letters, the painting’s location inspiration, or the festival is all wrong.
” I wander across the street to a charming boutique shop with bright scarves and purses hanging from a rack on the sidewalk, fingering a silk fuchsia wrap.
“But maybe he knows about the temple. Maybe he can give you insight into Rome that will make you closer to your mom. Maybe he’s the love interest in your—”
I let the fabric drop from my hand. “He’s engaged, and he thinks my trip is doomed to fail, Julie. End of story.”
“Is it, though?” She lets that hang dramatically, and even though I change the subject, I get the distinct impression she’s not done with the question of Mark.
After we hang up, I continue my walk to Trevi Fountain and arrive in the midst of the afternoon tourist influx. The crowd is so thick I can’t even see the bottom of the steps in front of the fountain. Three large tourist groups cluster around their leaders, and a couple of dogs bark at one another.
But that’s not why it’s so noisy and chaotic. A policeman just caught a man stepping out of the fountain.
Which is crazy. In plain sight of all these people and with the polizia milling around, there’s no way someone thought he could get away with that. If he was thirsty or hot, there are fountains all over the city for drinking and this man chooses the forbidden one? Or was he stealing money?
I move higher up on the side wall for a better view. Funny, the criminal is wearing the same color shirt Mark had on today. And same color hair, but Mark is too correct to—
I wheeze.
No way. It is Mark.
I clap a hand over my mouth, pressing hard to stifle the delighted hoot. The man is bonkers. What would possess him to do that?
Oh, I am never letting him live this down.
I pull out my phone and take a picture. I’ll delete it if he’s being hauled off to actual jail, but if he only has to pay a fine, this is going down as the heart of Italy right here, at least in my book.
Golden.
The policeman looks like he can barely contain a grin and winks at someone to his left as the crowd moves aside to clear a path for them. My concern turns to glee again—Mark seems to have been set up.
Sure enough, he scans the faces around him with a look of half-amused revenge, not worry, before they head away in the opposite direction, and I duck before he sees me.
But now I can’t see and I don’t want to miss a second of this. I can’t help it. I peer over the wall again. Stoic, respectable, grumpy Mark, his pant leg soaked and wrinkled, is being marched off in the firm grip of a policeman. Another wave of uncontrollable giggles consumes me.
As soon as things calm down and I’ve scrolled several times through my brand-new shots of Mark the Criminal, I make my way to the water.
This wishing business is a ridiculous waste of time, but I’m on vacation and everyone knows people do strange things when they’re out of their comfort zones.
And . . . maybe it’s not a waste of time.
“Back so soon?” a voice asks in Italian.
I swivel. The old man from before is standing at my side, a small smile on his face. I could swear he wasn’t standing there moments before.
“Oh. Hello again. Yes, I thought I’d try making another wish since the others came true.” Just a delusional lady wondering if the impossible is possible, don’t mind me.
His eyebrows lift.
“I know it’s all been a coincidence. But it’s fun to pretend.” I pull the euro from my pocket and hold it between my thumb and finger. “Got a regular coin this time.”
He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter what you throw in. You’re out of wishes.”
Uh, okay, what?
He holds up his fingers, counting. “You wished to get your luggage. Then you made a wish this morning. I saw you. That’s two.”
Fine, I’ll play along. “Don’t I get a third wish?”
“No, where’d you get that idea?” He chuckles.
I want to grab someone, anyone, and ask if they’re hearing this. Prove I’m not insane. “Only every single fairy tale since the beginning of time.”
He shakes his head again. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s Italy.”
I blink at him and let out a laugh. Well, I stepped right into that one.
He pats my shoulder, like I’m a spoiled child learning to face hard reality.
“So you’re not an Italian genie?” I tease to cover my own foolishness.
His eyes spark with amusement. “No, only an ordinary, unexceptional old man with my own unfulfilled wishes.” He holds out his hand. “Santino.”
“I’m Lexi.”
Instead of a regular handshake, he covers the back of my hand with his second hand, as if wanting to comfort me, but also to hold onto something.
“You’re not ordinary. You’ve made Trevi Fountain special for me.” I point to the various people nearby throwing coins over their shoulders. “Because of you, I know the real way to make a wish instead of all that Hollywood brainwashing.”
His kind eyes soften.
I want to ask what his unfulfilled wishes are, but that’s way too personal. Maybe I can still get my wish, though. “What would you say is the heart of Italy?”
He folds his hands over his stomach. “The heart of Italy. I don’t know, these poetic ideas are never my thing. All I can say is that when I was a kid, my heart would beat faster when I talked about my mom’s pasta.”
I smile and thank him, but pasta is exactly the kind of shallow thing Mark expects me to say.
I shake Santino’s hand again. I’ve spent two days coming to Trevi Fountain and there are a million other places to visit in Rome. I doubt I’ll run into this man again or have another chance to hang out at Trevi Fountain. Guess I’m on my own finding the heart of Italy.
“It was nice meeting you. Addio per sempre.” Goodbye for good.
His face is full of mischief and amusement as he corrects me. “Goodbye for now.”
After several thick slices of pizza margherita for supper, I sit on my balcony in the twilight with the paperback I brought. I reread Sense and Sensibility every summer, and I’m sorry, but even Italy isn’t going to break an eleven-year Jane Austen streak.
With the floodlights on the buildings, the city below and beyond glows orange and gold, like an ancient myth of fire and kings.
I’m relaxing in the lounge chair with a glass of Prosecco when I turn the page and find a faint, penciled note in the margin.
I know this well-worn copy inside and out, and though I’ve underlined a lot of my favorite lines, there shouldn’t be any notes in the margins.
I squint at the faint writing, strong block letters I’ve seen before but can’t place.
I’ve underlined the paragraph with Elinor’s qualms about her sister putting too much stock in her time spent with Edward, with the quote “to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.” The handwritten note on the side reads, Rebellions are built on hope.—Rogue One
A laugh bursts out at the thought of a rebellion in Elinor’s genteel world.
Rogue One . . . wasn’t that one of the Star Wars movies? Who in the world wrote a Star Wars quote in my Jane Austen novel? Sense and Sensibility lives on the bookshelf in my apartment bedroom. During this trip, it’s been in my bag with me the whole time.
No, wait. I fell asleep reading it on the plane, and when I woke, it was in the seat-back pocket with a pencil.
Mark. That’s where I’ve seen this handwriting—the luggage forms in the Rome airport.
I flip through the book, searching for more.
Where I underlined “. . . it is very fatiguing to him! For he is forced to make everybody like him,” he’s jotted a quote from The Empire Strikes Back: You like me because I’m a scoundrel.
That one hits a little too close to the mark.
If he wrote these on the plane, it was after I poked him and called him crazy and forced him into a bet. He deliberately left a ping-back to our effervescent first meeting in the airport when I quoted Star Wars out of relief in a raw unguarded moment.
I flip through the pages, grinning. His margin notes are only at the places where I’ve underlined things that made me smile or swoon, and finding his additions is like a treasure hunt.
The one that makes me cackle out of control is on the page where Marianne cries that she hates herself.
He’s written, Let go of your hate.—Return of the Jedi.
The clashing of the two worlds, the thought that Star Wars characters have something to teach Austen’s characters (okay, maybe with Marianne there is some merit in that) gives me a fit of the giggles, and I almost spill my wine.
I should be angry he defaced my favorite copy of my favorite book, but he’s written it in pencil.
It would take seconds to undo his work if I wanted.
I don’t. Maybe he meant to school me on Star Wars after I misquoted it, but notes in a paperback are similar to texts sent at all hours of the night, a look across a crowded room of strangers, a joke cracked just in time to save someone from an emotional outburst.
Offers of friendship.
Which I ruined by snapping at him during the reception, throwing accusations at him in our luggage exchange, and rudely running away in the middle of our lunch.
This isn’t who I am, clinging to a tiny offense, shooting from the hip, and responding with my emotions instead of a polished reply, but Mark has a way of turning me inside out.
And in distracting me during this trip, he’s threatening the only thing I want.
So fine, yes. He really pays attention and sees me. He quietly steps in to help others and loves his family fiercely. He’s hilarious and incredibly attractive. Good for his fiancée Katie. But I can’t afford his friendship.