Lucy tipped her head back to find Jesse watching her, a smile playing on his lips. “Hello,” he said.
“Did I sleep long?” she asked.
“Not very,” he said. He twirled one of her light brown ringlets around his finger, then gave it a tug so that it bounced back like a spring. “I’ve been dying to do that. And this…” He brought the curl up to his face, holding it under his nose like a mustache.
She giggled. “You’re easily entertained.”
“My needs are pretty basic,” he agreed.
A moment later they were kissing, though Lucy couldn’t have said which of them had started it. When his lips found her neck and his hands slipped under her tank top, gently easing it over her head, she couldn’t help trembling, but this time she didn’t apologize.
“Did you bring…” she began, hesitant to ruin the mood.
Luckily, though, he knew what she meant. “Yes.” He patted the pocket of his jeans.
Lucy let herself exhale. “Good,” she said. A moment later, when he reached for her again, she didn’t hesitate. She slipped her hands under his T-shirt, then helped him pull it off over his head, leaving his dark hair crackling with static electricity. Any trace of shyness vanished the moment his skin met hers and she felt that he was trembling, too.
XI
When Lucy and Jesse finally made it out of the hotel, the sun was just about to set. Ravenous, they ate dinner in a trattoria not far away. “Where shall we go after dinner?” Lucy asked, her fork hovering over her order of cacio e pepe.
“What would you like to see?” Jesse asked.
Lucy tried to remember the list of sights she wanted to see in Rome. “Everything,” she said finally. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
“That narrows it down.” Jesse’s grin implied that the two of them now shared a secret, which in a way they did.
Lucy couldn’t help but smile back. She was just about to suggest that he pick the evening’s destination when a thought occurred to her. “Have you ever seen Roman Holiday?” she asked. And when Jesse shook his head, she grabbed his arm excitedly. “It’s the reason I came to Italy.”
There was that grin again. “Thank you, Roman Holiday.”
Over tiramisu, she related the plot to him: A bored princess tours Europe and, sick of her long days of public appearances, runs away to enjoy a day of freedom. When a broke newspaperman recognizes her, he knows he’s stumbled onto the story of the year, so he takes her all over Rome to do everything she’s always dreamed of.
“He doesn’t tell her he knows who she really is,” Lucy explained. “And the whole time his friend is taking photos of her for the newspaper.”
“Let me guess,” Jesse said. “He winds up falling in love with her.”
“Of course! It’s a romantic comedy. And she falls in love with him, too.” Self-conscious, she looked down into her little cup of espresso. “But then she’s got to choose between love and duty. And he’s got to choose whether or not to turn in his story.”
“And?” Jesse reached across the table for her hand.
“I’m not telling,” Lucy said. “You’ll just have to watch the movie.”
Jesse signaled for the check. “So where does this princess go while she’s in Rome?” he asked. “Because I’m thinking we should invent our own Roman Holiday tour.”
“Really?” Lucy bounced a little in her chair. “You would do that?”
He nodded.
“Well, first she goes to a salon and has her hair cut short.”
“Can’t we skip that part?” He brushed the long, wild hair back from her face.
“Audrey Hepburn looked adorable with short hair,” Lucy said. “But okay.” Then she wrinkled her nose, thinking. “Next she goes to the Spanish Steps.”
A long, breathless walk later, Lucy led Jesse to the exact spot on the Spanish Steps where Audrey Hepburn ate gelato with Gregory Peck, and looked out over the same view they must have seen. Above them, the Spanish Embassy towered, and below, a little boat-shaped fountain burbled. Though it was well after dark, the steps and the nearby square were still crowded with people enjoying themselves.
“Is it what you expected?” Jesse asked finally.
“It’s even better,” Lucy said. A breeze—the first she’d felt all day—played over her skin.
Jesse leaned in a bit closer, his arm rubbing hers. “This is one of my favorite spots in Rome,” he said.
“You’ve been here before?” Lucy asked.
“Once or twice.”
With someone else? Lucy wanted to ask. Instead, she bent to pick out a pebble that had worked its way into her sandal.
“Where’s the next stop on our Roman Holiday tour?” Jesse asked.
Lucy thought. “The Trevi Fountain. And then the Colosseum.”
“We could squeeze in a visit to the Trevi Fountain tonight,” Jesse said. “Or we could go back to the hotel now, and save the rest for morning.” He rubbed his cheek against her bare shoulder, then gave it a kiss.
“Mmmm,” Lucy said. So what if Jesse has been to Rome with other girls? she thought. He’s here with me now. And right there, in front of about a hundred tourists, she kissed him with great concentration, as though one amazing kiss could wipe out his memories of those other girls, whoever they had been.
Lucy’s last few days in Europe were spent crisscrossing Rome on foot and by subway, taking in all the sites from Roman Holiday. They returned to the Spanish Steps just so they could have a stranger take their picture together, Lucy with a cone of vanilla gelato in hand, pretending to be Audrey Hepburn, and Jesse smiling down at her, doing his best impression of a bemused Gregory Peck. In the midday heat, they hiked past the Roman Forum—those gorgeous ruins that had somehow lasted more than two thousand years—and wandered in a big loop around the Colosseum. By then their money was running out, and they couldn’t afford the admission fee. But even from the outside, just the sight of it—familiar from so many films and photographs—thrilled Lucy.
They paid a visit to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where Audrey Hepburn had gone dancing on a river barge. They wandered into a sixth-century church to see the huge, scary stone face Gregory Peck called the Mouth of Truth. They even visited the Piazza Venezia, though it had made only the most fleeting of appearances in the movie’s credits. Each stop on their tour was like glimpsing a movie star on an ordinary city street—otherworldly but utterly familiar.
They tossed coins over their shoulders into the Trevi Fountain because the superstition said that meant they’d come back someday. Let me come back with Jesse, Lucy thought, squeezing her eyes shut, as she released her twenty-cent piece into the air. The crowd in front of the fountain was so noisy with tourists she could barely hear her coin plop into the water. To be safe, she tossed in another, and another.
“I can’t believe I’m really here,” Lucy told Jesse again. With you, she added silently, but, still trying to keep things light, she didn’t let herself say the words out loud.
At the end of each day, they hurried back to their little room at the Albergo della Zingara and undressed each other in the moonlight that filtered in through the gauzy white curtains. Each night, as their time together dwindled, they returned to the hotel a bit earlier and slept a bit less. Though she’d taken about a hundred pictures of Jesse, Lucy still found herself trying to memorize the line of his jaw, the full curve of his lower lip. Not to mention the things her camera couldn’t capture, like the scent of his hair and the feel of his skin.
By their next-to-last day together, Lucy and Jesse were almost broke, so he carried his guitar to Piazza Navona and she set out her sunhat—the one her mother had made her pack but that she’d never bothered to wear—to collect coins from passersby. On the long walk over, they’d worked out a list of songs Lucy already knew. She and Jesse took turns singing harmony. In the middle of the Nico Rathburn song Lucy had heard Jesse playing back in Florence, she let herself look at the crowd gathered around them, their faces rapt and eag
er to be entertained. Of all the memories she’d been storing away of Europe, she already knew this would be one of her favorites.
The last night of Lucy’s trip came all too soon. She and Jesse dressed up in their best clothes, took the metro to the Via Veneto, and blew their earnings on a fancy dinner in one of the little glass-walled cafés that lined the wide and shady street. Afterward, they walked hand in hand back to the hotel. Though Lucy wanted very much to be happy, she couldn’t help thinking how every minute that passed brought her that much closer to the end of their time together.
“I just remembered the Catacombs!” she exclaimed out of the blue.
Jesse looked at her quizzically.
“And Vatican City. And Trastevere. They were all on my list of things to see in Rome.”
Jesse looked as though he was about to say something but didn’t speak.
“I’ll just have to come back someday.” Though it won’t be the same without you, she thought. Then she forced a smile. “Good thing I threw a coin into the fountain.”
Jesse still didn’t reply. In fact, he’d been quieter than usual the whole evening. Now they walked on through the darkening streets, not talking. Just a few blocks from the hotel, Jesse’s step slowed, until the two of them were standing in front of the wrought-iron gates of some kind of government building. Lucy reached for her camera, thinking it must be a historic site, but when she looked up at him, she saw that he wasn’t looking at the building at all.
“The movie has a happy ending, right?” he asked.
Puzzled, Lucy looked at the building, then back at him.
“Roman Holiday,” he added. “Tell me the princess chooses love over duty.”
Lucy didn’t respond. And though she waited for him to start walking again, he remained frozen in place, his arms folded over his chest.
After a long and awkward pause, he spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about how maybe you could stay.” His words sounded casual, but he was looking at her in a way that made her stomach flip over.
Lucy stammered, “S-stay?” Was he saying what she thought he was saying?
“How you could maybe come back to Florence,” he said. “With me. And stay there.”
A cool evening breeze lifted Lucy’s hair, and she rubbed her bare arms.
“For how long?” she asked.
“As long as you want.”
Lucy struggled for the right words: That’s so romantic, or There’s nothing in the world I would like more. But what came out of her mouth was “I wish I could.”
“You can,” Jesse said. “If you want to.”
“Of course I want to. I do.” She allowed herself another glance at him, and the look on his face—intent, expectant—made her heart speed up.
“Then stay,” he said, unfolding his arms and taking a step toward her. Before she could answer, he had gathered her up and was kissing her. He really does care about me, she thought. I’m not just some hookup.
He released her. “Will you at least think about it?” he asked.
Lucy could hardly believe this conversation was happening. Jesse wanted her to stay! And though she was glad—giddy, even—to know that he’d been feeling the same things she’d been feeling, the reasons she couldn’t stay began flooding into her mind. “But my flight leaves tomorrow.”
“So miss it.” His lips brushed her forehead.
“Where would I sleep?”
“In my room,” he said. “At the Bertolini.”
“But what about Nello?” As stunningly unromantic as all her objections were, Lucy couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“He can room with someone else. He’ll understand.”
“What would I do for money?”
“I could talk the signora into hiring you,” he said. “She likes me. I’m sure she’ll like you, too. And we could sing on the streets. Together.”
Lucy rested her head against his chest. I should be so happy, she thought. She felt like a kite that had reached the limits of its string and was being yanked back to earth. “I want to stay. I really do,” she heard herself say, her words muffled by his shirt. “It means everything that you want me to.”
“Does it?” Jesse mumbled, his lips close to her ear.
Lucy nodded, not wanting to say what came next. But it had to be said. “I’m supposed to start college in a few weeks.”
“That’s why it would be so perfect.” He stroked her hair as he spoke. “You wouldn’t have to. If you stayed here, you wouldn’t be dependent on your parents, and they couldn’t manipulate you anymore.”
Lucy drew back, surprised. “You’ve never even met my parents. You don’t know anything about them.”
“I know they’re trying to bully you out of doing the thing you love most.”
Her voice came out in a squeak. “Bully me?”
“What would you call it?”
She shut her eyes and imagined her mother’s face—young and still pretty. And her father—his proud smile when she made him happy. Was it so wrong that she wanted to please them? And was it so wrong that they wanted her to be safe and successful? “They just want what’s best for me,” she said.
“What they think is best. But what do you want?”
“I don’t even know anymore,” Lucy said, but then all at once she did know. She wanted to start college, and she wanted to be with Jesse. And, while she was at it, she wanted not to disappoint her parents. She pictured Charlene having to face them at the airport and explain how she’d left their daughter in Italy. Then she imagined trying to call home and explain why she was breaking her part of the bargain and dropping out of Forsythe University before she’d even started. Her father would have every right to be furious. She’d promised. And he’d already paid her tuition.
“I need to go to college,” she said finally.
“Because they want you to?” he said.
“No! Because I want to.” That much was true. She wanted to move into a dorm and make new friends, and walk around campus in a red sweater, backpack slung over her shoulder. And she wanted her degree so that someday she could make decent money at a job she might even like. “I love being here with you, but my life is back in Pennsylvania.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding defeated. “I get it. But—” He broke off and stared over her shoulder, into the distance. “I don’t understand how you can just give up acting. You’ve got such a great stage presence, and your voice… it’s amazing.”
Lucy’s eyes grew wide. This was a beautiful compliment, the best he could possibly have given her.
“I just hope you’ll make your own choices,” he added.
“I’ll try,” Lucy said, but the words came out sounding tentative, not terribly convincing.
“I just want you to be happy,” he said finally. “That’s all. Whatever happiness means to you, I want you to find it.” He reached for her hands, interweaving his fingers with hers, pulling her toward him, kissing her again, and after that, how could Lucy even think straight?
Back at the hotel, they exchanged e-mail addresses. “I don’t check my messages very often,” he said. “I’ll try to get better about it.” Then Lucy suggested they program their numbers into each other’s cell phones, but Jesse shook his head. “I’m between phones.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I’ve got more important things to spend my money on,” he said. “What little money I have.”
More important than calling me? she wondered.
“Nello says I’m living in the wrong century,” Jesse volunteered.
Lucy bit her lower lip, working up the courage to say what she really wanted to ask. “I don’t suppose you ever plan to come back to the States?” As they’d walked back to the hotel, she’d realized what she really wanted: for Jesse to fly back to his home in New Jersey—for him to want her badly enough to give up his travels. “Not even for a visit?” she added.
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
Lucy hid her disappointment behi
nd her bravest smile. “Oh, well,” she said lightly.
“Maybe someday,” he relented.
But someday sounded so far away. Lucy didn’t want to think about it, not really. If she was never going to see Jesse again, she at least wanted him to remember her as the girl who got away. She undid her ponytail holder, letting her hair fall loose over her shoulders, and smiled at him again, this time trying for flirtatious, trying for sultry. Then she reached for the lamp switch, and in the light of the waning full moon, she slipped the straps of her sundress from her shoulders.
After a night that passed too quickly, Jesse kissed Lucy good-bye on the platform at the Termini Station.
“Send me a postcard from college,” he said. “Care of the Bertolini.”
“You, too,” Lucy said. “Write me from everywhere you go.”
Because the airport train cost fourteen euros, they had agreed it didn’t make sense for Jesse to make the trip. Lucy chose a window seat so she could see him standing on the platform as the train pulled away, so she could wave and call to him through the open window. But those last few minutes before the train took off—knowing she could still change her mind and jump off, back into Jesse’s arms—were sheer torture. When the train at last started into motion, Lucy blew him one last kiss and then watched his form grow smaller and disappear.
Now that it was too late to change her fate, she resigned herself to looking through all the photos she’d taken in Italy. There was Jesse, hanging from a strap on the subway, grinning beside the Mouth of Truth, leaning against a wall overlooking the Trevi Fountain. And there the two of them were, posed Roman Holiday–style on the Spanish Steps. Lucy clicked back in time to the picture she’d taken of him on the Ponte alla Carraia, the night of their first date, the Ponte Vecchio gleaming behind him, golden in the twilight. Looking at it, Lucy could recall his aftershave and the crisp feel of his shirt. Already she could imagine showing this picture to her friends at school, friends she hadn’t made yet.