“Shizzzz,” I say, sounding more like a released balloon than a grown-ass woman.
Verga nudges my hand and brings me back to reality. I lift one foot to make sure I haven’t grown roots into this spot. Then the other.
It isn’t until I’ve plopped on top of my comforter fully clothed with a hundred pounds of soft wrinkles beside me and the room spinning like the Gravitron that I realize I never got that pitcher of water I’d been promised.
TREDICI
James
The students look like they’re crawling out of the grave. All but the select few locals who are used to the Italian social clock are wearing their tourist hangovers like neon flashing lights, slumped in their chairs with their pitiful bloodshot eyes unfocused and the noxious fug of alcohol wafting from them in gusts. They aren’t going to make it. And there’s no way in hell I’m wasting one of my favorite lectures on a bunch of hungover zombies.
I click off the projector and the picture of my hero, Federico da Montefeltro, dissipates to blackness on the screen behind me.
“Alright, people. Listen up. I get it. Second night abroad—you want to party like the locals. Start your night at midnight. Dance into the morning in fabulous footwear. But this”—I gesture with an open hand to all of them—“this is not what a local looks like. Luca, do you mind standing up?”
“Certo, Professore.”
Luca stands easily and faces the crowd. His facial hair is freshly groomed. His gray pants are perfectly tapered. Shoes quite probably shined this morning. A few girls and guys lean in to whisper something to a neighbor. Luca doesn’t even bat a lash. Kid looks like a million bucks. An Italian Ryan Gosling. He smiles. Points to a few people in the seats a few rows above him. And sits back down.
“Thank you, Luca. That is what a local looks like.”
At least they are smiling now. Still hungover. But smiling.
“Here’s the deal. You have one hour to go get espresso, eat something greasy, take a shower, whatever you need to do to not look and smell like”—I pull up my nose and open both hands toward them—“this. Meet on the West Hill at exactly nineAM.”
There’s a communal sigh of relief that still reeks of vodka and about fifty thank yous thrown down at me from above. I wave them away and gather up the stack of assignments they’ve left behind. Typically, we do the architecture lesson on the third day, but it’s too beautiful outside today (and the smell inside is making me nauseous) to be stuck in this amphitheater. And now if someone vomits, we won’t need to clean it up.
Ava shows up when the room is cleared out.
She pushes through the doors calmly, as if she took a huge settling breath before doing so, and looks around, then stares straight at me. Her hair is wet, twisted up into a bun on top of her head, and she’s wearing a long cotton dress. She makes her way down the steps with her eyes on me, chin up. The armor’s back in place and she looks just like the spoiled, expectant American I picked up at the curb. The urge to poke at that armor is impossible to resist. Especially now that I’ve caught a glimpse of what’s underneath.
“You missed the entire class,” I tell her.
“I’m never late. Honestly, I haven’t been late since—”
“You’re late now.”
“I really don’t want to apologize to you—”
“Then don’t.”
“But obviously it is completely unacceptable for me to be late on my second day.”
She looks like she’s in pain. And it’s not the hangover. I’m enjoying this way more than I should.
“It won’t happen again. I don’t usually drink like that. And without my phone”—she glares at me and I shake my head—“I had to use an alarm clock from Nina that was set to the twenty-four-hour European time. It just won’t happen again,” she assures me and I know I shouldn’t be smiling because she’s genuinely apologetic and obviously embarrassed, but I can’t stop thinking about how this is a completely different person standing in front of me than the one I escorted home last night.
“Ava, as much as I enjoy seeing you grovel—”
“I’m not groveling.”
“You need to lighten up a bit. This is an art history class, not a prison. And you are in Italy, not boot camp.”
She narrows her eyes at me, but nothing about her stance relaxes.
“Where did you send the students?” she asks, taking a few steps closer to me.
“To sober up. We are having class on the West Hill at nine.” And there’s the smell of the lavender shampoo. I can smell it from ten feet away. She’s stopped on the final step, either to keep her distance after last night or to even out our heights.
