The Loose Ends List(58)

“And then, of course, Gram took me to get the tattoo.”

“Was it a large lady covered in tats?” He pulls down the elastic of his shorts. Right in the crease near his hipbone, he shows me a tattoo of a red teacup with a soccer-ball-shaped tea bag coming out of it. I run my finger over it.

“I can’t believe I haven’t seen this yet. I didn’t think you were the tattoo type.”

“It’s for my dad, you know, in his memory. It took him a long time to die. He fought hard. Every day at the end”—Enzo clears his throat—“I would bring him tea, and we’d watch football on TV. It was our thing.” He lies down on the grass and stares up at the cloudless sky. “God, it’s been years, but I miss him. I wish you could have met him. He had this charm. Everybody loved Dad.”

“I’d love to see pictures sometime.”

He shifts his gaze to me. “Sorry. I don’t want to be a downer.”

“Enzo, I’m on a death-with-dignity trip. It’s kind of a downer theme.”

“Good point.” He laughs, then looks back to the sky. “Mum took it harder than all of us. She lost my granddad that same year. She’s the type of person who needs to do something positive to deal with the grief. So Mum used most of Granddad’s money to start up the ship.”

“That’s amazing. Gram says when bad things happen we should take the pain and grow something beautiful. Your mom has done that.”

“She has. She works too much, but she’s pretty fantastic.” He moves closer and snaps the elastic on my shorts. “Hey, stop stalling. I want to see the tattoo.”

“Okay, but it’s a little red and crusty.” I pull down my underwear just enough to reveal my little starfish.

“It’s so cute. It’s perfect.” He looks at me with those gray-green eyes and leans in. We kiss and sink into the grass, and there is nothing left on this earth but Enzo and me and the salty sweat taste and the voyeuristic birds. He grabs my hand and pulls me up, and we walk up an embankment and behind a vine-covered temple building into a thick grove of flowering trees.

“I want to,” I say.

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

So here, in the shade of this tangled grove in the middle of Rome, Enzo Ivanhoe fishes a condom out of his gym bag, and it happens. Just like that. It’s kind of like getting the tattoo: It’s a little painful and intense and, when it’s done, my body is permanently altered in a very good way.

We lie on our backs looking up at the trees. I lean on my elbow and stare into Enzo’s eyes. I run my fingertips up and down his tanned chest, and one word repeats itself in my head. More.



I thought a whole day together would be a gift after all that waiting. But the soccer game and losing my virginity took almost two hours. Now my family wants me to go to some underground tomb outside of Rome so I can waste the last eight hours I may ever have with Enzo Ivanhoe.

I could ignore my bee, but they will surely send the polizia looking for me, and Gram does not like no-shows.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s like a haunted house, only real,” Enzo says.

“I want to stay here with you.”

“Let’s go. I have a little surprise. Trust me.”

They call the place the Catacombs. It’s hundreds of miles of tomb tunnels under the city. My family waves like a bunch of idiots when our cab pulls up.

Today, they’re a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around my head. Dad is wearing a ROMA ITALIA T-shirt. Wes is passing out granola bars and loose change to a pack of street urchins who probably pegged him as a sucker from a mile away.

“Yay, you made it,” Mom says. She claps.

Francesca comes over with tickets. She’s wearing a dress that belongs on a Greek yacht and sunglasses perched on top of thick layers of black hair. Nobody would suspect this woman is a mastermind of an illegal international death-with-dignity fleet.

“Where’s everyone else?” I ask Mom, trying to act like I haven’t just lost my virginity.

“Oh, Gram and Bob visited with Celia Hobbes until the wee hours of the morning,” Mom says. “They are spent. The two of them, and Rose, are snoring away in Gram’s bed.”

I came to be with Gram. Now it’s even more of a waste of time.

“Yeah.” I “yeah” Mom when I’m not listening. I’m pretty sure she’s going on about Aunt Rose’s infection. I’m thinking that I left my virginity back in that park.

I look over at Janie. I’m desperate to tell her, but I can’t. She’s too excitable. She’ll say something to tip off the mosquitoes.

The creepiest individual I have ever seen lurks around our group sporting a full priest dress and a buzz cut. He’s gearing up to lead the Catacomb tour. I’m starting to panic. I can’t walk through dark tunnels of tombs. I hate tombs.

“So what’s after this?” Uncle Billy says. “Should we try to make it back to the Vatican?”

“Don’t popes hate gay people?” Janie says.

Dad shoots her a look and nods toward the creepy priest.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I thought it was a costume.”

“I can’t do this,” I blurt. “I can’t deal with tombs. And I want to spend time with Enzo in Rome. Okay? Sue me.”