All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(48)
St. Peter’s Square was enormous and buzzing with tourists, the basilica grand and ornate behind us. Two news vans were parked outside the square, since Nana had tipped them off that something was going down. The reporters looked bored, smoking and leaning against their vehicles, but started to take notice when Rafi and his troupe arrived. They were in full makeup and five- and six-inch heels, and were dressed in rainbow-sequined tank tops and tight shorts. Giorgio and Jessie hugged and chatted (with the help of their translation app) as more of our group started to gather.
In all, about fifty people showed up, which didn’t seem to make much of an impact. We were like a little army of ants, given the vastness of the square. We held our heads high though and joined hands in a show of unity. I held Jessie’s hand to my left, and a dire-looking goth teenager took my other hand. I was pleasantly surprised when he flipped his long, black bangs out of his eyes and smiled at me shyly.
Rafi’s troupe fired up some music on a big, 1990s boom box, and started dancing. The camera crews looked bored again and started to pack up their equipment. But then, Nana happened.
When I saw her round the corner at the far side of the square, I whispered, “Dear Lord, please don’t let her be naked.” She was riding a huge, white horse, which was being led by an oiled up bodybuilder. The man was dressed (more or less) as Cupid with wings, little white briefs, and combat boots.
And then there was Nana. My grandmother was doing her version of Lady Godiva. She wore a very long, white wig, which was dotted with colorful flowers, and either body paint, or a skin-tight rainbow body stocking (I prayed for the latter).
As Nana did a lap around the square and we danced with Rafi and his troupe, a family of tourists with cameras around their necks came up to us and started dancing, too. Then a second family joined us. And a third. Over the next few minutes, almost every tourist in the huge square came over and became a part of our group. Young and old, singles, couples, families, people from all over the world gathered with us and started dancing. Jessie and I handed out all the rainbow flags we’d brought. The sight of all those people waving the flags and dancing with us made me a little choked up.
Jessie tilted his head all of a sudden and exclaimed, “Holy shit, he actually did it!”
“Who?”
“Ollie! I didn’t think he’d go through with it!” Jessie pointed at the sky, and when I looked up, I saw that someone was parachuting into the square, dressed in a rainbow-colored jumpsuit and a white crash helmet with some kind of large, pink horn stuck to it. The chute itself was rainbow-striped and said in giant block letters, “GAY OK.” A banner streamed behind him, which read, “Make love, not hate.”
All of a sudden, a lot of people were yelling, including the reporters and their cameramen, who were running toward the descending figure. A couple of the Vatican’s Swiss guards were yelling and running, too. Parachuting into the square was probably all kinds of illegal, judging by the commotion it was causing.
“Oh no,” I murmured. Ollie was headed straight for the obelisk in the center of the square, but he spread his stubby legs and swung them up just in time to barely clear the tip of the structure. As he descended, I noticed he had a harness strapped to his chest. In it was Diego Rivera the Chihuahua, his skinny little legs sticking straight out, panting happily and wearing a rainbow sweater and a miniature crash helmet.
Ollie ended up landing all the way across the square, near the entrance. He actually hit the ground fairly gracefully. Clearly it wasn’t his first time skydiving. He pulled a couple cords and his parachute and the banner fluttered away. Sirens could be heard in the distance, growing closer every minute. This wasn’t going to end well. Jessie and I began running toward him, and as we got a bit closer I asked, “Is that…does he have a dildo stuck to his head?”
“Yup,” Jessie said.
“Should I ask why?”
“He thought it would be fun to jazz up the plain white helmet with a unicorn horn, but we couldn’t get the glue to hold. Then he remembered that some dildos have suction cups on the base. Worked like a charm!” It was right then that I realized my grandmother had found her perfect match.
Nana trotted up beside us on that huge, white horse (I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she was wearing a body suit) and exclaimed, “Shit, the fuzz is onto us! I need to help my man!” She dug in the heels of her bare feet and snapped the reins as she yelled, “Yah!” The horse took off like a shot with a clatter of hooves.
I doubted Nana had been on a horse in forty years, but she looked like a jockey as she leaned close to its mane and rode it expertly. She reached Ollie before anyone else, and took his hand as he used the stirrup to swing himself up behind her. He kissed her cheek and grabbed her waist as she flicked the reins again and the horse took off.
“Well damn,” I mumbled as I stopped running and watched their escape, the stallion bolting out of the square and disappearing from sight. I then calmly pulled my phone from my pocket and began finding my grandmother a lawyer.
Chapter Ten
By sheer luck, Nana and Ollie somehow managed to evade the authorities, and their gay rights demonstration made news throughout Italy. They decided they needed to lay low after that, and were well-behaved for the remainder of our time in Rome and Venice.
Ollie accompanied us to our third and final vacation destination, and since Nana and her new boyfriend were pretty inseparable (more so than ever after all of that), I again assumed the role of tour guide for Jessie and made sure he got as much as possible out of his vacation. We saw the sights, ate and drank way too much, and had a great time.