Far from Over
A Love, Lucy Novella
April Lindner
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A hotshot in an Armani suit yells into his cell phone, drops something paper in my guitar case, and keeps on walking. So far, it’s been my worst day ever as a street musician, with only a handful of coins to show for the four and a half hours I’ve been playing. I’d just been starting to wonder if maybe I should pack up and call it a day, but now it seems my luck is picking up. I hurry through the rest of the song and take a peek into my case. Did Armani drop in a mere five-euro note or, by some miracle, a twenty?
The answer is neither. I fish out his offering—a napkin smeared with chocolate gelato—and that settles it. I’m going home.
I count up my earnings: a depressing two euros and fifty-nine cents. I can’t help wondering: Have I been playing the wrong songs? I thought a handful of Italian pop songs might go over better than my usual American music, but they didn’t seem to help. Even my lucky song—the Nico Rathburn cover I was playing the day Lucy turned up in my crowd of listeners—didn’t attract a single soul.
Or maybe I just picked the wrong place to set up shop. With all the stores and restaurants in this part of town, you’d think Piazza Carita would be the best place to busk in all of Naples. Today the street is crowded with shoppers and the occasional tourist, but nobody has slowed down to listen for more than five seconds. They just keep averting their eyes like I’m some kind of beggar, and that bothers me even more than the pittance I’ve taken in—not even enough to cover my share of gas for the ride into town.
I’ve just started packing up my gear when I see a familiar face coming my way. It’s a girl I’ve seen somewhere before. I stop what I’m doing and think hard, trying to remember where I know her from. Something about the way she walks—stopping to glance in a store window, smiling to herself about something she’s noticed there—reminds me just a little bit of Lucy, the girl I met in Florence and spent a few pretty intense days with. But then lately, everything reminds me of Lucy—even this girl who, apart from being pretty, looks nothing like her.
I can tell at a glance the girl’s not Italian, and not just because she’s very blond. Her clothes—shorts and a lacy white camisole—make her stand out from the Neapolitan girls, who tend to wear darker colors and show a lot less skin. When she’s a few storefronts away, she catches me watching her. Instead of averting her gaze, as most people would, she smiles as though I’m an old friend she’s happy to see. Then she heads straight for me. She’s slender, with long legs and hair that glistens in the sun. I let go of my guitar case and it drops hard to the sidewalk.
“I know you,” she says in English, surprising me again. From looking at me, most people guess I’m Italian, instead of Italian American from New Jersey, but she’s guessed right. “But from where?” Her accent is German, maybe, or Scandinavian.
“I’m not sure,” I answer.
We gape at each other for a minute, and then she snaps her fingers. “I know. I’ve seen you on the CV.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” I say. “That’s it.” CV is short for the Circumvesuviana, the train that runs between Naples and Torre Annunziata, the town where I’ve been staying with my friend Nello and his family.
“I’ve seen you carrying your guitar case, and figured you must be a musician.” She sounds pleased with herself for being correct. “But you’re done playing for the day?”
“No! Not if you want to hear a song or two. I even take requests.” Feeling hopeful for the first time in hours, I start unlatching my guitar case.
But she glances at the delicate silver watch on her just-as-delicate wrist, then shakes her head. “I’m late for an appointment. Maybe another day?” She gives me an apologetic smile, and then she’s gone as suddenly as she arrived.
“There might not be another day,” I mutter as I watch her hurry down the street, ponytail swinging. For the first time, I wonder if maybe I should call it quits not just for the afternoon but for good. It’s hard to believe that just weeks ago, when I was performing in the streets of Florence, crowds would gather almost as soon as I started to play. There would be actual applause and song requests. The crowds even seemed charmed by my feeble attempts at speaking Italian. When I counted up my change at the end of the day, there was enough to save up for wherever my future might take me, like quitting my part-time job at the Hostel Bertolini and coming here in the first place.
But Naples is way less touristy than Florence. For a few weeks now, I’ve been telling myself that’s why my luck here hasn’t been that great. Nobody wants to stop and listen to me play when they’re late for work or headed to the grocery store. Now, as I shrug into my hoodie and pick up my guitar case again, I wonder if maybe it isn’t time to move on.
The worst part is I really love it here, despite all the people who warned me I wouldn’t. Yes, Naples has poverty and crime, and Torre Annunziata is pretty run-down, too. But the city’s so colorful, so noisy and busy and quirky, that I instantly fell in love with it. My first day here, I hopped a funicular up to the Castel Sant’Elmo for a good look around. I took in the mist rising off the electric-blue bay, the intricate carpet of the city spread out in all directions, and Mount Vesuvius looming just beyond, and I felt like I had come home. And maybe that’s not so strange; from the spot where I was standing, I could look down on the cruise ships and oil tankers at Santa Lucia, the very port where all four of my grandparents set sail for America. Behind where I was standing, a band was doing a sound check, playing snippets of Neapolitan folk songs, and I felt as if everything in my life had been leading me here.
I loved Naples at first sight, so now it hurts that the feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual.
Since I haven’t made enough money to cover subway fare on top of my share of the gas money, I skip the metro and walk up the Via Toledo. As always when I pass through the Spanish Quarter, I wish I could bottle up all its craziness and beauty. I detour down a side street, where a woman leans out her third-story window, hanging dresses from a clothesline. An old man scoots past on a Vespa, a scruffy little dog clinging to the footboard. Heavenly aromas waft from each restaurant I pass, reminding me that, apart from a cappuccino hours ago, I haven’t eaten today. My stomach growls, but I press on, cutting across the city toward Piazza Garibaldi and the hotel where Nello works.
On a narrow side street, I walk past an open window, then double back. It’s just the kind of sight you can see everywhere in Naples and nowhere back home: a fluffy orange cat hanging halfway out a first-story window, its paws hooked over the sill, avidly watching everyone pass. Inside, the cat’s owner bends over a table, repairing a violin in the light of a gooseneck lamp. The violinmaker’s cat makes me think of Lucy again, of how thrilled she would get over the tiniest things—funky window displays on the Via dei Calzaiuoli in Florence, or those guys who dress up like gladiators and take pictures with tourists near the Colosseum in Rome. Her delight in just about everything we saw was part of what made being with her so much fun. If only I could take a picture of the violinmaker’s cat and send it to her.
Forget Lucy, I tell myself. She’s probably already forgotten you. I’ve been t
elling myself this over and over, since that e-mail she sent a few days ago, the one that said she’d met some college guy at a party and was going out on a date with him. Until then, our e-mails were low-key and friendly, but this one felt different: almost like she wanted to hurt me. But why would she?
Instead of writing back, I closed my e-mail account. If she was trying to tell me things were completely over, then I would beat her to the punch. Not that we could be anything but over. Not with an entire ocean between us. Could I really blame Lucy for moving on?
Anyway, I couldn’t send her a picture even if I wanted to. I don’t have a camera or a phone, let alone a camera phone. My mother begged me to take her cast-off cell phone as I backpacked through Europe so she could keep in constant touch with me. But I didn’t want to be in constant touch, my folks paying the bill for my calling plan and Dad grumbling about how I was bumming around the world instead of going to college like he did. But why would I want to end up like him? He was an art major, and the seascapes he painted when he was my age hang everywhere in our house, but every night he comes home from work too wiped to even think about picking up a paintbrush. And all the stuff he’s bought with that hard-earned money just ties him down.
I may not have a college degree or a steady paycheck, but I have everything I need: my acoustic guitar, my iPod, an increasingly ratty pile of clothes, a Swiss Army knife, and an open-return plane ticket I have no plan to use. Though not owning a phone means I don’t have a single photo of Lucy, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not having pictures should eventually make it easier to forget her—even if it hasn’t so far.
At the corner a string of cars breaks my stride. While I wait for my chance to cross, our few days together rush back to me. Wandering the streets of Rome, showing her the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain—all the sights she’d dreamed of seeing since the first time she watched her mom’s DVD of Roman Holiday. Or, even more vivid, the nights in our cozy little room at the Albergo della Zingara. Her soft skin, her crazy brown curls, that way she had of smiling at me, her eyes sparkling. How during our first night together in Rome, I woke with a start in the middle of the night, unsure of where I was, or for one panicky moment, even who I was. But watching her sleep—facing me, lips parted, curls wild and tangled on the pillowcase—made me feel like myself again.
The next morning, we woke together in a patch of sunlight, and when she opened her eyes and smiled, surprised to see me there, I had to fight the urge to tell her I was falling in love with her. We’d known each other just a few days; how ridiculous was I for thinking the word love? How crazy would I have been to say it out loud?
But all the happy memories of our time together are tainted by how it ended a few days later, with me asking her to stay, and her refusing. Not that I could blame her, exactly. She’d come to Europe hoping for one last adventure before starting college; we’d met less than a week before her trip was scheduled to end. I’m sure she never bargained on some guy she’d just met trying to talk her into giving up her freshman year in college, cashing in her return ticket home, ticking off her parents, and wandering around Europe just for the fun of it.
Even so, a part of me had thought she might feel the same way I did—willing to rearrange her plans to stay with me. Though I should have known better, I couldn’t help feeling hurt when she said no.
No camera. No phone. No car. No girlfriend. But plenty of freedom.
Stop obsessing, I tell myself, and press on for the Hotel Dolceaqua. As I wend my way through the crowded streets along Piazza Garibaldi, I try to focus on the vendors selling knock-off designer purses, selfie sticks, and electronics—on anything but the memories that keep flooding in. My family home in Neptune, New Jersey. Practicing guitar barefoot on my front porch. My mother’s apple crisp. Our beagle, Chips, snoring beside me in bed, waking me in the morning by snuffling in my face. All the things I’ve given up so I can wander around Europe. The kinds of things Lucy wasn’t ready to give up to be with me.
Whatever this feeling is, it can’t be homesickness. I’ve been in Europe for more than a year, and I’ve never once wished I was home. Any time I’ve ever felt the slightest bit aimless or exhausted, I’ve hopped a train to somewhere else and started over, getting swept away by new places and people. Dr. Jesse’s surefire cure for the blues.
Now I try to pick up speed, but the crowds of Piazza Garibaldi slow me down. I pass the central train station, and the sight of so many people pulling their suitcases or hailing cabs fills me with the desire to be moving. And why not? I could take the little bit that’s left in my bank account and buy a cheap ticket to somewhere. There are still so many places I haven’t seen yet. Madrid, I think. Lisbon. Maybe even Morrocco. Or, better still, I could just show up at the station with my backpack, look up at the departure sign, and pick a destination at random.
If I’m going to move on, I’ll have to do it soon, before the last of my money runs out. Anyplace else would have to be better for busking, and I can always find another hostel to work in for room and board. Of course, I’ll need to toughen myself up again for the road. I’ve been getting soft, staying with a real family in a real home, with access to a refrigerator and a TV set and people to watch it with—people who are happy to see me when I walk through the door. Now I’m used to the big family dinners Nello’s mother cooks, and his tiny white-haired Nonna yelling at me to mangia! even while I’m stuffing my face with lasagna. When I do move on, I’ll miss Nello’s six sisters teasing me, fussing over me.
Most of all, I’ll miss Nello—my only real friend on this entire continent. Nello, who saw I was in danger of falling into a funk, who invited me to move into his family home in Torre Annunziata. I said yes because I couldn’t imagine staying on in Florence with both Nello and Lucy gone. With eleven people living in one apartment, things are tight at the Zamparelli house. At first I tried to chip in a little money for my room and board, but Nello’s parents refused to take even a cent. Signora Zamparelli would bat my hand away whenever I tried to hand her a ten-euro note. “When you stay with us, you’re family. When I come to America someday, you will make me your guest.”
“Of course,” I would say back in the best Italian I could muster. “But until then…”
“Until then you must let us feed you.” And she would go back to chopping and sautéing and whatever else it took to whip up dinner for a family of ten actual Zamparellis and one honorary one.
When I finally reach the Hotel Dolceaqua, I go up to the big front desk and wait in line until it’s my turn to speak to the receptionist—Nello’s twin sister, Angelina.
“Ciao, Jesse!” Her face lights up as though we haven’t seen each other in ages, as if we didn’t commute together into Naples just this morning. She comes around the desk to give me that double-cheek kiss she uses for hello and good-bye. A cloud of expensive-smelling perfume wafts from her hair, which she’s swept up in a sexy-librarian bun. Angelina always manages to look sophisticated and stylish, though I happen to know she pitches in most of her earnings to her parents. “You had a good day of guitar playing?” Like her brother, Angelina speaks better English than I do Italian.
“Not bad,” I say, because why share what a flop my workday has been? “But I’m ready to pack it in. I’ll drive if you and Nello need a break.”
Angelina makes a clucking noise with her tongue. “You and I will have to take the train home tonight. Nello got asked to work a second shift, so we should leave the car with him, don’t you think? I could strangle him for saying yes. My feet are killing me.” As per usual, Angelina’s rocking a pair of dangerously high heels, black ones today, to match her blouse. I have no idea how she walks on cobblestones with those shoes, but she makes it look easy.
“I’ll be through here in fifteen minutes or so. Maybe you can go find Nello for a bit? He’s on break right now.” She doesn’t invite me to rest in the lobby, where an uptight-looking man in a suit is reading a newspaper and two matronly types are showing each other
their hauls from an afternoon of shopping. I get it, though; in my threadbare jeans and Ryan Adams T-shirt, I don’t exactly class the place up.
“Sure.” I slip away as the phone rings and Angelina reaches for it.
I know my way around the inner workings of the Hotel Dolceaqua. Right after we moved here, I washed dishes in the hotel restaurant until my fingertips started cracking and bleeding—very bad news for a guitarist—and I gave notice. Now I find Nello the first place I look for him, perched on a milk crate in the alley behind the hotel, catching a little sunshine between shifts. It’s always a shock to see him in his porter’s uniform—the gold-trimmed jacket makes him look like he popped out of an old movie.
“Sorry to make you take the train home, dude,” he says. Nello must have picked up the dude thing from those American movies he’s always watching, and I’ve taken to calling him dude right back. “But a chance to make extra money? You know how it is.”
I do know how it is. Nello would love to have the opportunity I threw away, to go to college on my parents’ dime. Unlike me, he cut his travels short to help his parents make ends meet. “No problem,” I say. “Don’t sweat it.”
But Nello’s still in full-on apology mode. “I know how you hate the Circumvesuviana.”
He’s right about that. I’ve ridden trains and subways all over Europe, but there’s something about the CV and some of its riders that sets my alarm bells ringing. “It’s okay. Anybody who tries to pick my pocket today is going to be severely disappointed.”
“You had a bad day at work?” He upends another milk crate beside his, inviting me to sit.
“You could say that. Today was even worse than yesterday.” And because Nello’s Nello, and in the past few months we’ve become tighter than I’ve ever been with my own brothers, I let loose. “Listen, dude, as great as your family’s been to me, and as much as I like it here…”