When in Rome(28)

“So,” says Emily, leaning onto her forearms. “Where were you headed before you broke down in Noah’s front yard?”

I take a sip of my second beer and then lick my lips. “Uh…here actually.”

All three ladies frown.

“Here?” asks Madison. “As in Rome, Kentucky? You came here on purpose? Why the hell would you do that? I’ve been trying to get out of this town for years now, but Annie and Em won’t let me.”

“You’re damn straight,” says Emily before Annie gives them both a frustrated look and whips out a little pocket notebook, adding a tally to some sort of chart. “Sorry, Annie. I mean, you’re darn straight,” Emily amends, adding a jaunty little arm gesture to the word darn.

Annie sees my confused look as I peer at the notebook. The names Emily, Madison, Annie, and Noah are all written and have marks beside them. Actually, Annie doesn’t have any marks, and Noah has at least twice as many as the sisters do. This makes me smile for inexplicable reasons.

“I’m trying to break them of swearing so much. When anyone reaches twenty tallies, they have to pay twenty bucks to the cussing jar,” says Annie, closing the notebook and setting it aside.

I laugh lightly. “And why’s that?”

“Because she’s a wholesome, sweet, little baby angel,” says Emily with a taunting smile.

Annie sticks her tongue out at Emily. “At least one of us should make it through the pearly gates and represent for the Walkers.”

Madison grins sardonically. “Pearly gates? I’m just trying to make it past the city limits of the fu—orking town.”

Annie smiles. “Nice catch.”

Madison tips her beer. “Only because I love you and also because if I get one more tally I have to pay up. Now, will you return the love and ever let me leave Rome?”

In unison, Emily and Annie both say, “Nope.”

Emily, who I get the feeling is the mother hen of the sisters, adds with a final note to her voice, “Noah’s back, and we’re family. This is where our roots are, and where we belong.”

Noah’s back? I really want to ask Emily where Noah came back from, but I don’t get the chance.

Madison sighs and so much is conveyed in that one expelled breath. Longing, defeat, resolve. A whole slew of emotions I’ll probably never learn the origin of because I’ll be gone by Monday. She turns her eyes back to me. “Sorry, we get sidetracked easily. We were talking about why you came to visit.”

Now that I’ve spent a few days in the town, I can understand her astonishment. It’s not exactly a regular tourist destination. I take another drink of my beer to buy me some time to formulate an answer. But then the room wobbles a little, and my tongue feels heavy, but loose at the same time. Momentarily distracted by this sudden sensation, I blurt the truth. “I searched Google Maps for the nearest city called Rome, because that’s where Audrey goes in Roman Holiday.”

I’m met with blank stares, and I wonder what part of that statement is shocking them more. I decide to start with the least odd part of it. “You know…the classic movie?” More blank stares. “Oh, I’m sure you know it. It stars Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Audrey plays Princess Ann who runs away from her life of royalty one night, and…you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

All three women shake their heads. Emily speaks first. “I actually don’t think we’ve ever seen an Audrey Hepburn film. Are they good?”

My mouth gapes open. I am epically distraught. How can they not know who Audrey Hepburn is? “What?! How have you gone through your whole lives without experiencing Audrey? She is all things grace, and precociousness. Beauty yet oddity.” I shake my head, bemused. “She’s…wonderful.” And my best friend, I don’t say because I have no desire for them to learn just how freakish I really am. Or lonely. Because only a friendless person would claim a dead movie star as their BFF.

Madison smiles. “Sounds like Annie.” She pauses dramatically, cutting her eyes mischievously to her sister. “The beauty yet oddity part at least.” It’s clear this is affectionate banter by the singsongy way she says it.

But still, Emily nudges Madison’s shoulder playfully. “Okay, enough picking on the baby for tonight. You know she’s too sweet to fight back.”

“Hey, you don’t have to defend me. I can hold my own,” Annie says, pulling herself up two more inches in height. Both her sisters eye her patiently and then wait with hands primly folded below their chins. “Maddie is so…well, she’s just…” Annie grunts an annoyed sound, rolls her eyes, and settles back against her seat when she can’t think of anything mean to say. “Clearly Madison is the grace and precociousness part, and you also look really pretty in that shirt tonight, Maddie.”

The sisters erupt in laughter and Emily affectionately kisses Annie’s cheek, who looks absolutely annoyed by her lack of zingers. “Don’t ever change, Annie.”

Sitting here watching these sisters banter, fuss, and love one another so well, I feel the lack of it in my own life so keenly. I’m desperate for this. To know and be known. I want to burrow my way into their little family and beg for them to make fun of me like they do each other. I want them to skewer me with the obvious truths about myself that I don’t see. I want to laugh and roll my eyes and be one of them. Have what they have. But to do that, I have to be honest and open about myself. I would have to let them in, let them see that I’m a little weird and dysfunctional, and I’m not sure it would even be worth it since I’m leaving Monday.