One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(23)

She checked the volume and, guessing at it, turned it down a little. Then she lightly touched the PLAY button. Tears for Fears started singing softly. The volume was perfect. Babi opened her eyes. She turned on her pillow and lay belly-down now.

Pallina smiled at her. “Ciao.”

Babi turned away from her. Her voice came out, slightly muffled: “What time is it?”

“Five to seven.”

Pallina leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Truce?”

“At the very least, you’d need to bring me a chocolate pastry from Lazzareschi.”

“There’s no time. My mother will be here any minute, I have to get my blood drawn.”

“In that case, no truce.”

“You were incredible yesterday.”

Babi turned to look at Pallina. “I told you I never wanted to hear about any of that again.”

Pallina threw both arms wide. “Okay, whatever works for you. Hey, what should I say to your mother if I run into her on the way out?”

“Try ‘Good morning, Signora Gervasi.’” Babi smiled at her and pulled the blanket up under her chin.

Pallina took the bag with her books and threw it over her shoulder. She was happy they’d made peace. Pallina softly shut the door behind her, quickly tiptoed down the hallway, and made it to the apartment door. It was still locked. She twisted the dead bolt, and just as she was easing through, she heard a voice behind her, “Pallina!”

It was Raffaella in a pink dressing gown with her face stripped of makeup, slightly faded but, most of all, astonished. Pallina decided to follow Babi’s advice and, with a bright “Good morning, Signora Gervasi,” she fled down the stairs.

*



Babi walked into the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. It wasn’t her best look, she had to admit. She turned on the cold tap, let it run for a bit, and then put both hands under the stream and vigorously scrubbed her face.

Daniela appeared behind her.

“Tell me all about it! How did it go? How was the Greenhouse? Is it really as much fun as people say it is? Did you meet any girlfriends of mine?”

Babi opened the toothpaste tube and started pressing on it from the bottom, doing her best to make Daniela’s thumbprint disappear from where her younger sister had squeezed it, right at dead center.

“It’s a completely stupid activity. A group of lunkheads risk their lives for no good reason, and every so often one of them manages to lose their life doing it.”

“Yes, okay, but were there lots of people there? What do they do? Where do they go afterward? Did you see the chamomiles, and weren’t they awesome? Weren’t they courageous? I’d never be good enough to be a chamomile!”

“Oh, it’s really nothing special, I can assure you, and now I’ve got to get ready.”

“There, that’s what you always do! There’s just no satisfaction with you. What good is it to even have a big sister if she won’t tell you a thing that happens? Anyway, Marcello and I have already decided that next week we’ll go too! And if I feel like it, I’ll be a chamomile!”

Daniela left the bathroom snorting with anger. Babi smiled to herself, finished brushing her teeth, rinsed her mouth, and after drying off, picked up the hairbrush.

Daniela reappeared from behind the door.

“What did you do with the pair of Superga gym shoes I loaned you last night?”

Babi set the hairbrush down on the edge of the sink. “I threw them away.”

“What do you mean, you threw them away? My brand-new Supergas…?”

“You heard me, I threw them away. They wound up deep in manure, and so they were so messed up I had to throw them away. Also because, if I hadn’t, Step would have refused to take me home.”

“You wound up in manure, and then Step took you home?” Daniela followed Babi into her bedroom. “So, Babi, are you or aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”

“Listen, Dani, I promise to tell you every last detail later, okay?”

Dani heaved a deep sigh of discontent. “Okay.” Then she went back to her bedroom.

Babi put on her uniform. She’d never tell her a single word of it, she knew that.

Raffaella walked into Babi’s room. “So, Pallina slept here?”

“Yes, Mamma.”

“But where?”

“In my bed.”

“How could that be? When I came in to kiss you good night last night, you were all alone.”

“She showed up later. She couldn’t stay at her house because her mother was throwing a dinner party.”

“And where had she been before that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Babi, I don’t want to be responsible for her too. Just think if anything had happened to her, and her mother thought that she was here at my house the whole time…”

“You’re right, Mamma.”

“Next time, I want to know in advance if she’s coming over to sleep at our house.”

“But I even told you she was coming, before you went over to the Pentestis’ place, don’t you remember?”

Raffaella stopped to think for a moment. “No, I don’t remember.”

Babi smiled at her naively, as if to say, So what am I supposed to do about that? She knew perfectly well that her mother had no way to remember such a thing. She’d never said it, after all.