One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(33)
“I do, but luckily Babi noticed.”
“Wait, which Babi? You mean Babi Gervasi?”
“The very same.”
A girl with Il Messaggero in her hands glanced over at the other girls with a curious look on her face. Some of them nodded at her. The girl worked up her nerve. “Listen, Pallina, but isn’t this her?”
Pallina tore the newspaper out of her hands. She read the article rapidly. The other girl, still intimidated, went on. “We’d heard that the two of you went to the races, but we didn’t believe it. But instead, it turns out it’s true.”
Oh, it’s true, and then some, Pallina thought to herself, as true as this article. She folded up the newspaper and glanced toward Babi. By now, she’d almost reached her mother’s car. Pallina shouted at the top of her lungs but the traffic noise drowned out her voice. By this point, there was nothing more to be done.
Babi stuck her head in the car, pushing the seat forward to get in back. “Ciao, Mamma.” She leaned forward to give her mother a kiss. An open hand slapped her right in the face. “Ouch!” Babi fell back, flat on her butt, onto the rear seat. She rubbed her stinging cheek, and as a red patch appeared on it, a sullen scowl spread over her face.
Daniela got in the car. “Hey, have you seen this cool thing? Babi’s in the newspaper…”
She looked around. The heavy silence. Raffaella’s expression. Babi’s hand massaging her stinging cheek. It was all clear in a flash.
“Let’s forget I ever mentioned it,” Daniela said.
They waited, arguing, for Daniela’s friend Giovanna to arrive, and as usual, she was late. In the meantime, Raffaella was shouting like a madwoman. At last, Babi understood the whole story, and she tried to explain. Daniela testified in her favor but Raffaella got even more upset and angry. Pallina became the lead defendant. Even though she was found guilty out of hand, she could not face prosecution because she wasn’t there. Daniela, who was within reach and available to have her face slapped, decided it would be wise to say nothing.
Babi was grounded. But not before she got a glimpse of Il Messaggero. When she saw the photo, she smiled because she really looked good in that shot. However, she decided to keep her opinion to herself.
At last, Giovanna arrived with her usual “Sorry I’m late” and got in back. Daniela pushed the front seat back in place and got in, and the car pulled away. The rest of the trip unfolded in utter silence. Giovanna decided that this situation was too tense. That said, the sisters had really overdone it this time.
In the end, Giovanna managed to work up the nerve to speak. “Well, at least today I wasn’t very late, was I?”
Daniela burst out laughing. Babi controlled herself for a minute or two, and then she let loose too. Even Raffaella smiled.
Chapter 11
The old black leather purse was clamped tight under Signora Giacci’s arm. A cloth jacket, mustard yellow. Short, drab hair that looked as weary as her gait. The dark brown opaque stockings made her look a few years older than she actually was, and the worn loafers with low heels and beat-up toes were making her feet ache. But that hurt was nothing like what she felt inside. Her heart must have been wearing shoes two sizes too tight.
Signora Giacci opened the glass door of her apartment building. The hinges squealed but that didn’t surprise her. She stopped in front of the elevator and pushed the button. A red light lit up faintly. Signora Giacci looked at the glass fronts of the letter boxes built into the wall. Some of them were unmarked. One of the little doors didn’t even have a glass pane and hung off-kilter, missing one of the two screws, imparting a sense of chaos and disorder and neglect, as did the apartment of Nicolodi, the owner. Is it people’s possessions that grow to resemble their owners, or is it the owners who grow to resemble their property?
Signora Giacci wouldn’t have known how to answer that question. Maybe the blame belonged to both owners and possessions. She stepped into the elevator and reminded herself to tell Nicolodi to fix that mailbox.
The elevator started up. There was graffiti carved into the wood. It was especially easy to read the name of some past love. Higher up, the symbol of a political party was perfectly etched by an optimistic sculptor. Down below, on the right, a male sex organ had turned out slightly inaccurate, at least to the best of her recollection.
When she reached the third floor, she opened the elevator’s metal grate. She reached into her purse for a bunch of keys and inserted the longest key in the middle lock. She heard a sound behind the door. It was him, her beloved, her one and only. Her reason for living.
She opened the door with a shy smile. “Pepito!”
A little dog came running toward her, barking as he came. Signora Giacci leaned down. “How are you, sweetheart?” The dog leaped into her arms, tail wagging. He started eagerly licking her. “Pepito, you can’t imagine what they did to your mamma today.”
Signora Giacci shut the door behind her, set down her purse on a cold marble table, and took off her jacket. “A silly girl dared to upbraid me in front of everyone in the class, can you imagine…You should have heard the tone she took with me.”
Signora Giacci went into the kitchen. The dog trotted along after her. He seemed sincerely interested.
“I just made a stupid, miserable mistake, and now she’s ruined me, you understand? She humiliated me in front of the whole class.” She turned an old faucet, and water ran through a rubber hose, yellowed by the passing years. The water sprayed chaotically onto a white rubber grate with odd, imprecise outlines. It had been cut by hand to fit the kitchen sink.