“I’m Moroccan,” she says, as if reading my thoughts. “On paper, anyway. Where are you from?”
I must make a face because she quickly covers her mouth, though I don’t think it’s to hide her teeth—I’ve just met her, but she’s already giving off Isla vibes.
“Sorry,” she says. “I hate it when people ask me that! And now I’m doing it.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. Really.”
Normally, I hate that question, too, but somehow I don’t mind giving Kenzi the whole born-in-Scotland-to-Italian-parents spiel. And, anyway, I’m also curious about her. What’s she doing here when she’s clearly fluent—accent and all?
Before I can ask, a guy in mustard chinos and a creased T-shirt—creased as in you can see exactly where it was folded—walks into the room.
“Salve a tutti!”he announces, before hooking a thumb toward his chest.“Io sonoMassimiliano.”Only he says it like this: I-o so-no Mas-si-mi-li-a-no, stretching out each syllable as if he’s spelling it instead of saying it.
He looks and sounds like a kids’ TV presenter, Inner Isla says.
I’d laugh, but there’s an A-frame whiteboard with the numbers one to ten in Italian on it. Am I in the wrong class? Or worse, did Nina and Giulio put me in with the beginners? But Kenzi’s here, I remind myself. Then Mas-si-mi-li-a-no explains, through acombination of melodrama and mime, that the teacher for the intermediate to advanced class had a fa-mi-ly e-mer-gen-cy—big sad face—and so he’ll be teaching both classes together—wild hand circling. He doesn’t know for how long—points to an imaginary watch and shrugs.
“Aiuto.It’s like charades … but you’re allowed to speak Italian,” I whisper to Kenzi, sinking into my seat.
She does her own mime of someone looking supremely bored, and we smother a shared laugh.
I check how everyone else is reacting to Mas-si-mi-li-a-no and see a mix of genuine interest, mild concern, and abject horror on the twenty or so faces around me. I’m pretty sure I’ve just identified the beginners, intermediates, and advanced students based on that alone.
One boy in a graphic tee and cargo shorts is actually clutching his head, his silky black hair spiking up through his fingers.
We spend a painful hour going around the classmaking introductions and another working on photocopies of the numbers one to ten. Just when I’m sure I won’t be coming back, no matter how ungrateful I seem to Nina, we’re shuffled into small groups, and I find myself sitting in a four with Kenzi, Graphic Tee Boy, who introduces himself as Ren, and Sofia, a Brazilian girl with a bright yellow mane of hair—yellowyellow, not blonde-gone-wrong yellow.
We start with the usual “how many brothers and sisters do you have?” questions, but by the end of the lesson, the four of us are actually having a conversation.
Ren, who’s here to do a crash course before he starts culinary school in September, describes himself as a matcha crème brûlée—his way of saying he’s half Japanese, half French, and obsessed with fusion cuisine. Then, for an uncomfortable minute, I wonder if I’m a deep-fried pizza. Yeah, not quite the same thing.
Sofia, unlike Mas-si-mi-li-a-no, talks at onehundred kilometers an hour, although I suspect it’s so we don’t notice there’s some Portuguese thrown in. I love how she just goes for it, though—guessing at words and making them up as she goes along. We don’t catch everything, but the languages must have something in common because, between us, we piece together quite a bit. Her Italian grandfather emigrated to Brazil from Bologna when he was young, and she gets Italian mixed up with a Bolognese dialect. A year older than us, she’s technically on a gap year to “explore her roots,” but she’s also putting off telling her parents university’s not for her. She tells us this while answering the notifications popping up on her multiple social media feeds at the same time.
I’m actually smiling by the time we leave the classroom. It’s a little safe space where I can practice Italian without Nina staring down her Roman nose at me, the bar customers looking nervous, or Giulio waiting for me to slip up like I did with Signora Pedretti’scaffè.
Ren and Sofia peel off toward the Metro as soon as we’re out in the street, but Kenzi falls into step beside me.
“That’s my nonna’s bar.” My arms are wrapped around our new workbooks, so I tilt my chin toward it instead.
“This one?” Kenzi considers it as if it were a painting, and I clutch the books more tightly, seeing it through her eyes—the tired old furniture, the dim lighting, the two elderly men playing cards outside. A couple of girls hover in the doorway. For a second, it looks like they’re going to go in, but after a whispered exchange, they move off again, probably to the livelier bars down the street where young people are clinking their brightly coloredaperitivi, laughing and chatting before going to dinner.
“Carino,”Kenzi says at last.
I wrinkle my nose.Cute?Does she mean Giulio? He’s sitting inside, bent over a textbook, completely oblivious. My face heats up at the thought, butKenzi gestures to the outdoor tables, and I realize she’s talking about the bar, not him, which makes me feel strangely relieved.
“It’s nice that there are still places like this where older people aren’t pushed out. I could see my jad—that’s my mama’s father—coming here, if he ever went out. Not that he does … or will,” she says, rolling her eyes.
I pause at Kenzi’s words. Where would the regulars go if Nina’s bar weren’t around? Ma and Pa have been chatting nonstop about its finances on their nightly catch-ups. And I’ve seen enough to know breakfast is the only time it’s actually busy. The worry gnaws at me, especially with Giulio so easily slipping behind the counter as if he owns the place—could he be dipping into the profits, too?
“Let me guess, two cappuccinos, right?” Giulio scoffs as I walk past his table to get Kenzi and me something to drink—he thinks we’re both so cluelessly foreign we have no idea it’s practically against the law to drink cappuccinos after 11:00 a.m. here.
Inner Isla rears her devious head.Smile, Liv. Flies prefer honey, remember?
I force my lips to curve upward. But pretending to find Giulio funny is like swallowing an entire barrel of vinegar.
My heart sinks when he gets up and leans over the counter, eyeing me as I pour two small bottlesof lemonycedratainto glasses filled with ice. “Hope you’re paying for that, Scotland. You’re supposed to be helping Nina, not guzzling her profits, remember?”
“Don’t worry, Ma’s on it with the takings.” My eyes slide to where she’s tucked into a corner with a calculator, rifling through a box file like she’s lost something. She’s so focused, she hasn’t even noticed I’m back from Italian class.
