One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(52)

“Thanks, Lombardi. Please be seated.” Signora Giacci continued calling roll: “Ilari…”

“Present.” A young woman at one of the desks in front raised her hand.

Signora Giacci put a P next to her name. Then she looked up. Her gaze met Pallina’s. A mocking smile appeared on the teacher’s face. Pallina turned red. She looked away, embarrassed. Could her teacher know something? On her desk was the phrase that she herself had carved into the surface with a pen: Pallina and Pollo forever. She smiled. No, that was impossible.

“Marini.”

“Present!”

The teacher had gone back to calling the roll, so Pallina relaxed. She wondered where Babi was at that very moment. They’d definitely already eaten breakfast. Perhaps a nice maritozzo pastry with whipped cream at Euclide, along with one of those cappuccinos that were all foam. She wished with all her heart that she could take Babi’s place, but with Pollo instead of Step.

Signora Giacci shut the ledger and started lecturing. She laid out her lesson with joy and seemed particularly relaxed. As she strolled along between the desks, a ray of sunlight struck her hands. Illuminating the finger she was toying with, an antique ring glowed with a violet light.

*



From the noises of the city, just awakened, Babi and Step rode away, their lips faintly smeared with the foam of an unsweetened cappuccino and their mouths sweetened with the whipped cream of a pastry. It was easy to predict that their path had led them to the big Euclide on the Via Flaminia, farther away and more discreet, where it was less likely that they’d run into familiar faces. Then, minutes later, up the ramp and down to the right, in front of that tire repair place and then a sharp left at that green public drinking fountain, along that narrow street with the speed bumps, the cows on the right, and the bus stop on the left.

They continued on toward the tower. Enveloped in sunshine all around them, meadows, tinged in faint green, stretched out gently rolling between the edges of darker woods. They left the road. The motorcycle moved along, bending the tall, golden stalks of wheat that stood up again immediately after its passage, unfazed and bold. All around a warm wind wafted gently over the field of wheat like the hand of a delicate pianist.

The faint wake in the field of wheat slowly vanished behind them. The motorcycle was parked there, beyond the hill, a short way from the tower. Off to the right, farther down, a good-tempered dog was sleepily keeping an eye on several mangy-looking sheep. A shepherd in jeans was listening to a small beat-up radio while smoking a joint, light-years away from his comrades in the standard manger scene.

They pushed on a little farther before stopping. Babi opened her bag and pulled out a large Union Jack. “I bought it at Portobello Market when I was in London. Help me stretch it out. Have you ever been?”

Step gave her a hand. “No, never. Is it nice?”

“Very. I had the time of my life. I spent a month in Brighton and several days in London. I went with EF. Education First.”

They lay down on the flag and warmed up in the sunshine. Step listened to her account of London and a few other trips she’d taken. She seemed to have been to a bunch of places but he, largely uninterested in those past adventures and by no means used to that hour of the morning, quickly fell asleep.

A bird sang loudly, and when Step opened his eyes, he barely managed to glimpse the last flutter of wings and the shadow veering away, flapping over distant stalks of tall wheat. The sun was higher now, and Babi was no longer beside him.

He stood up, worried, and looked all around. Then he saw her. Farther down, on the hill. There she sat, among the wheat.

As he walked over to her, he called her name but she seemed not to hear him. When he was close enough, he understood why. She was listening to her Sony Walkman.

Babi turned to look at him. The look in her eyes promised nothing good. She went back to gazing into the distance at faraway fields. Step sat down next to her. He, too, sat for a while in silence.

Then Babi couldn’t stand it anymore and took off her headphones. “Do you think that’s respectful, to fall asleep when I’m talking to you?” She was really angry now. “That’s a total lack of respect!”

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that.” Step smiled. “It’s really a total lack of sleep.”

When she huffed in annoyance and turned away again, Step couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was. Maybe even prettier when she was angry. She held her face high, and everything took on a special quality, chin, nose, forehead. Her hair, lit up in the sunlight, reflected its rays, golden, and seemed to exhale the fresh scent of the wheat. She had the beauty of an abandoned beach, he decided, with the wild sea fringing its distant edges. Like foaming waves, her hair framed her face.

Below her hair, thin eyebrows, dark and determined, resembled the wings of a seagull, soaring confidently. Motionless in the wind, the bird looked down at those twin blue oceans of her eyes. Then those eyelashes, lighter at the tips. Her golden skin, that sweet velvet. Her pouting lips, caressed and dried by the wind.

Step leaned toward her and gathered her soft beauty in his hand but Babi tried to elude his grasp. “Leave me alone!”

“I can’t help it. It’s stronger than me. I have to kiss you.”

“I said leave me alone. I’m offended by you.”

Step smiled and leaned closer to her lips. “I swear that from now on, I’ll listen to it all. England, London, the trips you’ve taken, you name it.”