Lost in Rome

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  This is a book about sisters, so this is for Sue as well as all my other special gal pals whom I consider sisters.

  In the pizza of life, sisters are the pepperoni.

  Acknowledgments

  Writers often ask me for advice, and I always tell them to find trusted partners. I’m lucky to have this in Gale, Carolee, Josette, Jane, Chris, and Shannon, and the Northern Delaware Sisters in Crime group: John, KB, Jane, June, Chris, Janis, Susan, and Kathleen.

  Thanks to my friends, who understand that I talk to imaginary people and are fine with it.

  Mille grazie to my literary agent, Mandy Hubbard, and editor, Alyson Heller. Sometimes we’re so like-minded that it gets scary.

  As always, to my family: Ellie, Evan, Happy, Kevin, my parents, nieces and nephews, sister, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and mother-in-law, thank you for your continued encouragement! Special thanks to my niece Taylor and daughter, Happy, who for the low, low price of a diner breakfast helped me plot out a Summer Rome-ance with Extra Cheese.

  Also a grazie goes out to my helpful translators: Shari, Eddi, and Vic.

  To teachers, librarians, and, most of all, my readers: I love getting your e-mails, letters, pictures, selfies, posts, and tweets. . . . Keep ’em coming!

  1

  I’d been planning to be a counselor-in-training at Camp Hiawatha, but there was an issue with fleas, mice, lice, and snakes and the camp closing, leaving my summer wide open.

  The only question was, what would I do with all my free time? Thankfully, my parents were able to make alternate plans.

  “It’s all set,” my mom said.

  “For real?” I asked.

  “Totally for real,” Dad confirmed. “Your great-aunt Maria can’t wait to have you.”

  My great-aunt Maria was my dad’s aunt, and she was more than great, she was my favorite relative in the adult category. She was sweet, nice, an amazing Italian cook, and she owned this insanely cute pizzeria. Plus, I always felt like she and I had some kind of special connection—like a bond or something. I can’t explain it exactly.

  Oh, and that pizzeria she owned? It just happened to be in Rome. Rome, Italy!

  Basically, Aunt Maria is all that and a plate of rigatoni, if you know what I mean.

  “When do we leave?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Mom said. “But this isn’t going to be two weeks of sightseeing and touristy stuff. I told her you wanted to work.”

  “At the pizzeria?”

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “She’s planning to teach you how to make her signature sauce.”

  “The secret sauce?” I asked in awe.

  “That’s the one,” he added. “I don’t even know how to make it.”

  “That’s a major deal,” Mom said.

  Just then a girl who looked a lot like me—long dark curly hair, light skin, brown eyes, except she was taller, prettier, older, and more stylish—walked into our parents’ room, where we were talking. A cell phone was glued to her ear.

  “It’s on!” I said.

  “For real?” she asked.

  “For real!”

  She pumped her fist in the air. “I’ll call you later. I’m going to Rome! Ciao!” She hung up the phone, looked at herself in the full-length mirror, fluffed her brown curly locks, and practiced, “Buongiorno!”

  Maybe I should tell you who “she” is: my older sister, Gianna. She’s like my best friend. There’s no one I’d rather be with for two weeks in Rome. Next year she’ll be a junior in high school, where she is most often seen with a glitter pen and scrapbooking scissors.

  Me . . . not so much. I’m more of a big-idea gal. Then she builds or glues or sews or staples my ideas into reality.

  This fall she’ll start looking at colleges. She’s excited about it, but the idea of her leaving home makes my stomach feel like a lump of overcooked capellini. Maybe some sisters fight, but Gi and I are tight. (Okay, sometimes we fight like sisters.)

  Mom said to Gianna, “I told Lucy that you girls are going to work at the pizzeria.”

  “I love that place,” Gianna said. “I hope it’s exactly the same as I remember it.”

  “Do you think she still has Meataball?” I asked. I had visited Aunt Maria and her pizzeria years ago, and I vaguely remembered her cat.

  “The cat?” Dad asked. “He has to be dead by now, honey. But maybe she has another cat.”

  “Gi, she’s gonna teach me how to make her sauce.”

  “Just you?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe she loves me more.”

  Mom said, “No. She loves you both exactly the same.”

  “Maybe,” I started, “she wants me to take over the pizzeria when she retires, and I’ll be the Sauce Master, the only one in the entire Rossi lineage who knows the ancient family signature sauce. Then, when I’m old, I’ll choose one of my great-nieces to carry on the family tradition. And—”

  Mom interrupted. “Lucy?”

  “What?”

  “This isn’t one of your stories. Let’s bring it back to reality.”

  “Right,” I said. “Reality.” But sometimes reality was so boring. Fiction—my fiction—was way better. I’m pretty sure I’m the best writer in my school, where I’m a soon-to-be eighth grader.

  Gianna asked, “You’re totally gonna teach it to me, right?”

  “It depends on if I have to take some kind of oath that could only be broken in the event of a zombie apocalypse,” I said.

  Dad suggested, “And let’s try to cool it with apocalypse-related exaggerations, huh? Aunt Maria probably doesn’t ‘get’ zombies and their ilk.”

  “Roger that, Dad,” I said.

  “I’m going to pack,” Gianna said. “I can bring a glue gun, right? That’s okay on the plane, isn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty sure they have glue guns in Italy. Or maybe you could refrain from hot-gluing things for two weeks,” Mom suggested.

  “Ha! You’re funny, Mom,” Gianna said. “Don’t lose that sense of humor while the two of us are spending fourteen days in Italy!”

  Gi and I looked at each other. “ITALY!” we both yelled at the same time.

  We would’ve screamed way louder if we’d had any idea how much this trip would change the future—mine, Gianna’s, Aunt Maria’s, Amore Pizzeria’s, and Rome’s.

  2

  STAMP!

  The customs officer, who sat in a glass-enclosed booth, pounded his stamp onto Gianna’s passport.

  I slid mine through a little hole in the glass, and he did the same.

  New stamps in our passports!

  “Yay!” Me and Gi high-fived.

  A few moments later my eyes caught a paper sign that said LUCIA AND GIANNA ROSSI.

  The lady holding it wasn’t Aunt Maria. She was as different as possible from our older Italian aunt. She was young, maybe twenty-three, and was all bright colors and peculiarities. Her head was wrapped in a dark purple scarf that hung like a long tail down her back. Her sunglasses were splotched with mismatched paint, and her pants were unlike any that I’d ever seen: one leg was striped and short and snug (maybe spandex), while the other leg was flowery, long, and flowing (possibly silk).

  We made our way over to her and her sign.

  “Are you Lucia and Gianna?” she asked without a trace of an Italian accent. She was as Americ
an as me.

  We nodded.

  “Buongiorno!” She hugged us just like Aunt Maria would have: tight, and extra long. “I’m Jane Attilio, and I’ve come to take you to Amore Pizzeria. Andiamo!”

  Gi and I looked at each other, unfamiliar with the word. Maybe she didn’t know that we didn’t speak Italian.

  “Let’s go!” Jane added with a big smile. With one hand she dragged my wheely suitcase. With the other she took Gianna’s hand and led us out of the airport. “We’re going to have an incredibly awesome two weeks.”

  Jane Attilio effortlessly crammed our bags into her small European automobile (a Fiat) and whizzed us—and I do mean “whizzed”!—through the streets of Rome. While Jane’s driving was fast, it was no crazier than everyone else’s. I would’ve buckled up twice, if that was possible.

  We passed ancient and crumbling buildings and statues, monuments and ruins. When traffic stopped, we were next to a big stone wall, where a very long line of people stood.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “Behind that wall is Vatican City. Those people are in the queue to go in.” Jane pointed to a half-moon of gigantic stone columns. “That plaza is Saint Peter’s Square. See that big dome behind it? That’s the Basilica. People travel very far to get in there.”

  “So cool,” I said, and snapped a picture with my cell phone.

  Jane navigated the roads onto a white marble bridge called the Ponte Principe Amedeo Savoia Aosta, which took us over the Tiber—a river that ran right through the middle of the city.

  Finally Jane’s little car halted at the end of a cobblestone alley. “Amore Pizzeria is down there,” she said.

  Gianna started getting her bags out of the car and setting them down on the street.

  Jane said, “That’s okay. Leave your bags. I’ll drop them off at Aunt Maria’s apartment. It’s not far.” She hugged us both again, real hard. “She is so excited to see you girls. You’re all she’s talked about since she found out you were coming.” Jane got back into the car and yelled, “I hope you’ll be able to cheer her up.”

  Why does she need cheering up?

  3

  Ahhh! I recognized the smells of roasting garlic and simmering tomatoes from my great-aunt Maria’s signature secret sauce. I hadn’t smelled it in years.

  “Lucia! Gianna!” Aunt Maria called from the kitchen through a big rectangular opening in the wall. The hole was for passing hot food from the kitchen to the dining room. It had a ledge where the cook could set plates while they waited to be picked up. “The girls are here!” She shuffled out.

  Aunt Maria looked older than I remembered; her hair, which used to be black, was now peppered with gray. She grabbed hold of me—thankfully, her snug embrace hadn’t changed. She switched to hug Gianna and then back to me again. Either she’d shrunk or I’d grown—probably both—but now I was taller than her.

  I said, “It’s good to see you, too.” After three rounds of embraces, Gianna and I were both dusted with flour from her hands and apron.

  She stepped back and studied us from head to toe. “Look at you.” She grew teary. “You are so bellissima, beautiful.” She lifted the tomato-sauce-speckled apron and wiped her eyes. “I am so happy you girls are here. You are like a breath of the fresh air.” She took us each by the hand and led us to a table. “Look at how skinny you are. I am getting you the pizza.” She frowned at our figures, then hustled behind the counter. “Sit. Sit. It will take me one minute.”

  • • •

  I hadn’t been to Amore since first grade. Even though I didn’t remember the visit well, I knew the familiar scent of spices seeping out of the walls like ghosts of old friends.

  Now the pizzeria looked worn, like Aunt Maria had tried to redecorate at some point but hadn’t finished. Paint covered the exposed brick wall. The chairs and tables needed attention—they were chipped, stained, and a little wobbly.

  A picture of my great-uncle Ferdinando hung in the center of a wall covered with framed photos that looked like they hadn’t been dusted in months, maybe years. There was a ledge holding trinkets that seemed to be layered with a thin coating of Parmesan cheese.

  Aunt Maria returned with two plates and three bottles of Aranciata (an Italian orange soda that I love!). Not sure why she had brought the extra bottle. “Mangia, mangia,” she said. “Eat, girls.”

  Crispy crust.

  Aunt Maria’s signature sauce.

  Steamy, melty mozzarella cheese.

  Ooey, gooey, cheesy, and crispy.

  It was, like, delicious with an ice-cold glass of mmmmm.

  We had totally hit the jackpot with these temporary summer jobs.

  Let me tell you about Amore’s pizza, because it’s different from American pizza: First, they’re round, not triangle, slices. It’s like everyone gets their own small individual pie made specifically for them. And the toppings are different. The ones she brought out were smothered with roasted garlic.

  “It’s quiet in here,” Gianna commented.

  “Sì. There are not so much customers.” Aunt Maria sighed sadly. Maybe this was why she needed cheering up. “You like the pizza?”

  “It’s as good as I remembered,” I said through a mouthful of cheese.

  Aunt Maria nestled herself into a chair across from us and exhaled as she took her weight off her feet. “I have something to tell you.” She looked us both in the eye. “You cannot work here.”

  Splat! Those words landed like a meatball plopped onto a plate of spaghetti.

  “What?” Gianna and I asked together.

  “Well, one of you can,” she clarified. “But not both.”

  One of us has to go home? But we just got here!

  “How come?” Gianna asked. “What’s wrong? We promise we’ll work hard.”

  “It is not that. It is the Pizzeria de Roma.” Aunt Maria spat the name. “It’s an old pizzeria in the piazza by the Fontana del Cuore.” That’s the Fountain of the Heart. “Now it has a big new flashy sign and shiny new forks,” she said. “Everybody go there. They see it right there in the piazza!”

  “How’s their pizza?” I asked.

  “You think I know?” She pinched her fingers together and flipped her wrist back and forth as she spoke. “I never go.”

  “Then how do you know that they have shiny forks?” I asked.

  “Signorina Jane Attilio. She live upstairs.” Aunt Maria pointed up. “She see them when she walk past.”

  Gianna and I looked at each other. “Are you going to send one of us home?” I asked.

  “No. No. No. You stay. Signorina Attilio, she says one of you can help her. She is very busy.”

  “Oh great,” I said. “Let me guess. She works at a funeral home, or a toothpick factory, or vacuuming dirt out of USB ports?”

  (I didn’t think there was really any such thing as a toothpick factory.)

  “What is this ‘ports’? No. No,” Aunt Maria said. “She is a tailor.”

  Gianna’s eyebrows shot up. “Like, she makes things? I’m great at that.”

  “Sì?” Aunt Maria asked.

  “Yeah. See these jeans?” Gianna stood and showed the rhinestone embellishments on the back pocket. “I added them myself.”

  “Bella! You are good at the designs,” Aunt Maria said, admiring the bling. “You will like to work with Signorina, sì?”

  “I think I will.”

  “Then you are the one,” Aunt Maria said to Gianna.

  Phew! I would’ve skinny-dipped in the Fontana del Cuore before I’d have given up working at Amore.

  At that moment, a boy walked in Amore’s front door. Not just any kind of a boy. He was extremely cute, with a thick head of dark hair to match his thick arm muscles. He looked like he was Gianna’s age. Gianna’s eyes popped out of her skull at the sight of him.

  “Buongiorno,” he said.

  “Hi,” we said.

  “I am Lorenzo,” he introduced himself in English.

  “Tu!” Aunt Mar
ia pointed at him. To us she said, “I know who he is. He cannot come in here!”

  4

  Lorenzo set a Vera Bradley bag on the counter next to the cash register and held his hands up in surrender. “I just wanted to deliver this. It was on the ground at the end of the alley.” One of Gianna’s bags must not have made it back into the Fiat. “The tag says it belongs to Gianna Rossi. Since your last name is Rossi, I figured I’d bring it over. You are lucky it wasn’t stolen!”

  “Yup, that’s mine,” Gianna said. She got up and took the bag from him. The luggage tag clearly stated her name and cell phone number. “Grazie,” she said. Her eyes locked with his.

  “Bene.” Lorenzo stared at Gianna. “You are bellissima,” he said to her. “Pretty.”

  Gianna flipped a few locks of hair over her shoulder. “Grazie,” she said again, this time with a blush and a shy smile.

  I rolled my eyes at her flirty maneuver.

  “Are you American?” Lorenzo asked.

  “Sì.”

  “Vai!” Aunt Maria yelled at him. “Go!”

  Lorenzo pointed to the cell phone number on the luggage tag, moved to the door, and mouthed, “I’ll call.”

  Through the window we watched him strap on a helmet and vroom away on a bright-red Vespa scooter with an unusually loud motor.

  Aunt Maria placed her hand firmly on Gianna’s. “He is with the Pizzeria de Roma. He must stay away.”

  “But he seems so nice,” Gianna said.

  “And he ain’t bad to look at, if you know what I mean,” I added under my breath.

  “Do not think that his words and beauty are true. He is very bad. They take my customers,” she said. She gave us both a look that meant business. “Promise me you will not talk to him again.”

  “Okay,” Gianna said. I watched her cross her legs under the table. “I promise.” I was pretty sure she wasn’t planning to keep that promise.

  “Buono,” Aunt Maria said. “Now I tell Signorina Attilio to come down.” To me she said, “I am going to teach you my sauce this summer. It is true.”