13 Little Blue Envelopes(33)

“What’s that?”

“Travestere? The best place in Rome,” he said. “My sister will like you. You will like my sister. Get your ice cream, then we will go to see my sister.”

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Beppe’s Sister

Travestere couldn’t be a real place. It looked like Disney had attacked a corner of Rome with leftover pastel paint and created the coziest, most picturesque neighborhood ever. It seemed to consist entirely of nooks. There were shutters on the windows, overflowing window boxes, hand-lettered signs that were fading perfectly. There were wash lines hung from building to building, draped with white sheets and shirts. All around her were people with cameras, photographing the wash.

“I know,” Beppe said, eyeing the photographers. “It’s

ridiculous. Where is your camera? You can take a picture too.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Why don’t you have a camera? All Americans bring

cameras.”

“I don’t know,” she lied. “I just didn’t.”

They walked on a little farther and finally stopped in front of an orange-colored flat-faced building with a slightly

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green-tinted roof. He pulled some keys from his pocket and opened up an ornate wooden door.

The inside of the building was nothing like the outside. In fact, it looked like Aunt Peg’s old New York apartment

building—chipped tile floor and dented metal mailboxes. She followed Beppe up three flights of stairs to a stifling, dark hallway. From there, he showed her into a very clean, somewhat spare apartment. It was just one room, carefully divided into sections with folding screens and furniture.

Beppe pushed open a large window above the kitchen table, and they had a good view of the street and the bedroom of the neighbor across the way. She was sprawled on her bed, reading a magazine. A fat fly came in through the unscreened window.

“Where’s your sister?” Ginny asked, looking around the

empty room.

“My sister is a doctor,” he explained. “She is very busy, all the time. I am the student, the lazy one.”

This wasn’t exactly an answer, but there were a number of family pictures around the room, several of which included Beppe. There was a tall girl standing next to him, with honey-colored hair and a distracted scowl. She looked kind of busy.

“Is this your sister?” Ginny asked, pointing at the girl.

“Yes. She is a doctor . . . with babies. I don’t know the English for it.”

Beppe opened a cabinet under the sink and produced a bottle of wine.

“This is Italy!” he said. “We drink wine here. We’ll have some while we wait.”

He filled two juice glasses halfway. Ginny sipped at her

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wine. It was warm, and she suddenly felt exhausted but also very content. Beppe was talking with his hands now, touching her hand, her shoulder, her hair. Her skin was sticky. She looked out the window at the light blue of the building across the street. The woman from the bed had gotten up and was adjusting her blind and watching them with a detached

interest, like she was watching the progress of something cooking in an oven.

“Why do you wear your hair like this?” he asked, holding up a braid and scowling.

“I just always do.”

He pulled off the rubber band that held the braid, but

Ginny’s hair, so well trained (and still a little wet, she guessed), refused to debraid itself.

Her first thought when he kissed her was that it was way

too warm for this. She wished there was an air conditioner.

And it was so awkward at the kitchen table, leaning across the chairs. But this was kissing. Real, unquestionable kissing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be kissing Beppe, but for some reason, it felt important—like she should be doing it. She was making out with an Italian boy in Rome. Miriam would be

proud, and Keith . . . who knew? Maybe he’d be jealous.

Then she realized she appeared to be slipping down out of her chair onto the floor. Not in a falling kind of a way—in a

“guided down by Beppe to have more room to make out” kind of way.

This, she really didn’t want.

“There is a problem,” he said. “What is it?”

“I have to go,” she said simply.

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“Why?”

“Because,” she said. “I just have to.”

She could see from the baffled look in his eye that he hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. He didn’t seem to understand.

“Where’s your sister?” she asked.

He laughed—not meanly. Like she was a little dim. It

annoyed her.

“Come on,” he said, sounding conciliatory. “Come sit back down. I am sorry. I should have been more clear. My sister isn’t here often.”

He started in again. He was giving her quick little kisses on her neck. Ginny craned her head to look out the window, but the woman across the way had lost interest and was gone.

Now Beppe was reaching for the button on her shorts.

“Look,” she said, pushing him back, “Beppe . . .”

He was still working at it.

“No,” she said, starting to get up. “Stop it.”