Lost in Rome Page 2

  “Yay!”

  She shuffled to the back of the shop, picked up a broom, and klonked the handle four times on the ceiling, knocking.

  Knock—knock—knock—knock.

  “Are you going to stay away from him?” I asked while Aunt Maria was away.

  The knocks were followed by the sound of four stomps coming from the floor above.

  “You saw him. Is that even humanly possible?” Gianna asked. “Besides, it’s summer break. We have two weeks in Italy, one of the most romantic places in the world. And I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  I didn’t say anything to Gianna, but I’d had a strange feeling in my gut when she spoke to Lorenzo. It was a feeling I’d been having kinda a lot lately. Like bubbles spilling over the edges of a glass of Coke.

  Aunt Maria returned. “Signorina is on her way down.” She left again with our dirty plates and empty bottles.

  I felt something brush against my leg under the table and reached down to swat it. It wasn’t something swattable.

  “Meataball!” I exclaimed. “You’re alive!” I bent down to lift him for a hug. Lifting Meataball was no small task. I kissed him. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  Gianna said, “He’s gotten bigger.”

  “And heavier.” I sat down with him in my arms and scratched his ears. He purred and exposed his belly, inviting me to rub it.

  As a kitten, Meataball found himself trapped in a trash can behind Amore Pizzeria. Aunt Maria kept him and called him Romeo, her Romeo. And Romeo, a beautiful gray tabby, grew, especially in the belly zone, and was lovingly nicknamed Meataball.

  I petted him and he purred. “That is one impressive hunk of cat tummy,” I laughed.

  Meataball yawned.

  “He’s so sweet,” Gianna said.

  While we spoiled the cat, Jane Attilio swooped in from a door in the kitchen that was visible through the opening in the wall between the kitchen and dining room. She was now wrapped in an extraordinarily long plaid pashmina. I’m no fashion expert, but it didn’t go with any of the other crazy stuff she was wearing.

  She joined our table and patted Meataball’s belly like someone looking for good luck from a Buddha statue.

  “So, which one of you is going to work with me?” Jane poked a straw into the extra Aranciata bottle and sipped.

  “Me!” Gianna raised her hand. “I love that wrap and those glasses.”

  “Thanks. I painted them with nail polish.”

  “Nail polish? Great idea. I could probably Gorilla Glue some bling on those,” Gianna said.

  “Bling? I love bling!”

  “The bling-ier, the better, I always say,” Gianna declared. She had just found a new BFF.

  “Let me guess,” I said to Jane. “You like mushrooms on pizza.”

  “It’s my favorite. How did you know?”

  “I haff my vays,” I said with squinty sort of mysterious eyes.

  Gianna glared at me with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t start with that.”

  Jane asked, “What’s ‘that’?”

  Gianna shook her head subtly so that only I could see. She didn’t want me to tell Jane about “that.”

  I ignored her. I said, “ ‘That’ is my unusual ability to tell things about people based on their pizza preferences. People who like mushrooms are creative types, generally; it isn’t an exact science.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Jane said.

  “That’s not all,” I said.

  Gianna said, “Yes, it is.”

  “No,” I added. “There’s more.”

  “Do tell.” Jane leaned in and flipped her nail-polished glasses onto the top of her head scarf.

  The sound of a plate scraping against the tile floor came from the kitchen, and Meataball struggled to jump off my lap.

  “Meataball! Mangia!” Aunt Maria called.

  He hustled, his belly swinging beneath him, to lap up whatever had just been set on the floor for him to eat.

  I explained, “Once I know someone’s pizza type, I can create a couple with someone else based on their pizza type.”

  Jane asked, “Like a romantic couple?”

  “She’s only done it once,” Gianna interjected.

  I clarified, “I’ve only actually done it once, like for real, but I’ve made lots more couples in my head. Those should count.”

  “And the one you did for real, it worked?” Jane asked.

  “So far,” I said.

  “It’s only been a few weeks,” Gianna said.

  “Six,” I said.

  “This is very cool,” Jane said. “You’re like a live, one-girl dating service.”

  “Except that dating services use science or formulas,” Gianna said.

  “But in Italy, people like tradition. I think they’d be excited about a good old-fashioned matchmaker that they can meet face-to-face right here in a pizzeria in Rome,” Jane replied.

  “And,” I added, “if dating services ever suddenly just disappear, due to something like a zombie apocalypse, we’ll have an experienced matchmaker ready to go.”

  “Zombies?” Jane’s face scrunched.

  I remembered what Dad had said about cooling it with my stories. “Or something like zombies,” I said.

  5

  Gianna went upstairs with Jane, while I went to the kitchen to see Aunt Maria.

  “This is AJ.” Aunt Maria pointed to a boy about my age who was tearing romaine lettuce into bite-size pieces. “And this is Vito.” She indicated a man pounding chicken breast with a wooden mallet. “He no speak English.” She said something to him in Italian, and he waved to me.

  “Buongiorno,” he said.

  I waved back with a smile.

  To AJ she said, “This is Lucy. I told you about her. Please show her the things around here.” Aunt Maria took off her apron and hung it carefully on a hook. “I go to the bank and be here in one hour.” With her black purse over her shoulder, she left through the back door.

  “Hey,” AJ said to me, and held out his fist for a bump, which I gave. Nothing about AJ seemed Italian: bushy blond hair, blue eyes, light skin. “Your aunt told me a lot about you.”

  “You know about me, but I don’t know anything about you,” I said. “Doesn’t seem fair. What’s your story, AJ?”

  “Let’s see, I’ve been working here for about a year.”

  “Do a lot of Americans work at pizzerias in Italy?” I asked.

  “Hardly any,” he said. “My dad was transferred here for his job. I started coming in here every day to pick up dinner. Sometimes I would help Maria talk to tourists or translate things for her.”

  “You speak Italian?”

  “Not like, fluent, but I took a class in school and I had a special tutor for a few months before we moved here.” He continued, “Anyway, I asked her if I could have a job. I needed the money and she needed a translator and I had some experience as a busboy. The waiter quit, so now I’m a one-man show. Let me show you around.” He pointed to glass containers. “These hold oil.”

  “Got it. Oil.”

  He walked past the ovens. “This is where we cook the pizza.”

  “Why are they empty?”

  He pointed to the dining room. “No customers.” I looked at my watch. It was still set to Pennsylvania time, where it was nine in the morning. “What time is it?”

  He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked. “Three.”

  “So you’ll probably start getting ready for the dinner crowd soon,” I said.

  AJ laughed. “We can roll out some dough, but since Pizzeria de Roma reopened, we don’t get crowds the way we used to. In fact, if something major doesn’t happen soon, your aunt will probably close this place.”

  “Close it? It’s been in the family for years,” I said. I pointed to a faded black-and-white picture that hung on a wall in the dining room. The glass covering the picture was smudged with grease. “Do you know what this is a picture of?”

  He shrugged.

  �
��These are my great-grandparents and their six children.” I pointed. “This is Aunt Maria, and this little boy is my grandfather, Luciano—I’m named after him. He left for America with his brother when he was only eight.”

  AJ looked unimpressed, so I added, “It took ten stormy nights by sea for them to arrive in America. They’d lost their shoes and had to walk miles through snow to meet people they were going to live with. They lost a few toes but managed to start a family.” Man, I could make up a good story.

  He’d perked up around “stormy night.” I showed him another picture. “And this small house was the original Amore Pizzeria. My great-grandparents started making pizza and invited friends over on Sunday nights. The crowd grew, so they added tables into their living room. People started placing orders to bring the pizza to their own homes. Soon they had so many customers that they built a restaurant at the end of a narrow cobblestone street near Fontana del Cuore. It’s been a landmark ever since.”

  At the last sec, I added, “It’s rumored that the Pope himself orders his pizza from here under a different name.”

  AJ raised his eyebrows at me and said, “I think maybe you made that part up.”

  Sometimes a story needs extra spice. My teachers all say I’m good at those little details that make a story really interesting. Although I might go overboard sometimes.

  “You may not be able to relate to this the way I can, but trust me, Amore Pizzeria can’t close. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it open,” I promised.

  “How are you going to do that?” AJ asked.

  I paused. “I don’t know yet, but I will!”

  He lifted his hands in an I give up gesture. “I believe you. I’ll even help.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I might not be related to Maria, but I like her and I like this job. I need to save money.”

  “Well, let’s get started with a little old-fashioned detective work,” I said.

  He scratched his head, signaling that he didn’t understand what I meant.

  “We need to spy—check out Pizzeria de Roma,” I explained. “To understand what we’re dealing with.”

  “I’m in, but don’t tell Maria. She wouldn’t like us going to that place.”

  “Roger that.” I walked to the door. “Andiamo.” I’d figured out that meant “Let’s go.”

  6

  We strolled down the alley, which was complete with a trio of stray cats who, all put together, were smaller than Meataball. The stores—a bakery, a handbag store, and a butcher shop—that lined the quiet street were dark, closed, out of business. Sprigs of ivy that had sprung up between the cobblestones crept up the buildings’ facades, and terra-cotta pots were overgrown with weeds.

  “What happened to the stores?” I asked.

  “The same thing that’s happening at Amore,” AJ said. “At the end of this road is a piazza built around the Fontana del Cuore. There are bigger, brighter, and more modern stores there,” he explained. “They may not be better, but you know what they say . . . location, location, location.”

  We came to the end of the alley.

  I had to shade my eyes from the sun, which drenched the crowd of people in the square. It bustled with tourists snapping pictures of the ancient Roman architecture, throwing coins into the Fontana del Cuore, kissing under marble statues, and painting at easels. I had to admit that both the beauty and excitement attracted me.

  There was one wide main street that led people, bikes, and motor scooters to and from the piazza. The little roads and alleyways off the square were like unnecessary tentacles around the big attraction that had everything: shops, cafés, restaurants, and carts selling souvenirs, trinkets, key chains, and Pinocchio puppets. It was strange that the crowds and hubbub were so close to Amore Pizzeria without any of it being seen. Of course, that also meant that all these people couldn’t see Amore either. That was a problem.

  “Isn’t there a story about this fountain? I think Uncle Ferdinando told it to me once, but I can’t remember it.”

  “You throw a coin in and wish for your true love, blah blah blah.”

  “Blah blah blah? You’re such a guy.” I looked into the fountain. There were enough coins to make someone very rich. Apparently, lots of people were looking for their true love.

  Shining on the other side of the Fontana, like the big deal of the piazza, were multicolored letters spelling PIZZERIA DE ROMA. We entered. Inside, a small group of people waited near a podium for the hostess to seat them.

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I said, and followed an arrow down a hall. There were three doors. Two were restrooms. The third was cracked open, so I peeked in. It was a small office. There was a red motorcycle-type helmet on a desk and a pile of clothes—jeans, oxford shirt—on the floor. I wanted to go in and snoop around at the papers and files on the desk, but I was too nervous.

  When I returned to AJ, he had moved up a bit in the line. It seemed like the hostess was super slow. The place wasn’t even that busy!

  “Where are you from?” I asked AJ.

  “I was born in California.”

  “And what are you saving money for?” I asked.

  “A new guitar,” he said. “Right now I play the ukulele.”

  I asked, “Can you sing?”

  “Sure. Who can’t sing?”

  “Well, everyone thinks they can sing, but not many actually can. Let me hear,” I said.

  “Now? Here?” He pointed out that we were in a crowded line.

  “No time like the present,” I said.

  “Unless we were in the past or the future,” he suggested.

  I thought. “Maybe. But we’re not. So, stop stalling, SpongeBob SongPants.”

  AJ cleared his throat. “All right.” He sang, “Pizza! Ohhhh, how I love pizza!! Pizza, ba-a-a-by.”

  Maybe I should tell you about AJ’s singing: It wasn’t great, but it didn’t matter, because he was cute in a California surfer kinda way. The cute and not-great (okay, “bad”) singing combo somehow worked for him.

  I started clapping, and everyone else joined in. A few people hooted and whooped. The crowd parted, creating a path for us to move to the front of the line. We got seated right away. I guess they must’ve been hungry for live music if they thought that was good.

  Pizzeria de Roma was definitely decorated to stand out. The lights were bright, and the walls were painted lime green. It looked more like an American frozen yogurt place than a pizzeria in Rome. There was a stage and a dance floor, both covered with old-fashioned pinball machines that were unused and seemed out of place.

  I studied the menu, which was not only in Italian but also in English, Spanish, French, and German. We ordered two Aranciatas and three kinds of pizza. I chose eggplant and sun-dried tomatoes. AJ went with two orders of anchovy. Blech!

  Not surprisingly, they didn’t have ham and pineapple (my fave)—that was more of an American thing.

  “What do you think of this place?” AJ asked.

  “It’s nice, I guess. Exciting and colorful, but it lacks . . . something. . . .”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Tradition,” I said. “I don’t even feel like I’m in Italy. I don’t even feel like I’m in a pizza place. I mean, this could be an arcade in Pennsylvania.”

  He looked around. “Yup. You’re exactly right.” He sipped his soda. “So, Lucy, what do you do for fun in Amer—” He snapped the menu open in front of his face.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stretched his mouth around the menu to talk, but kept the rest of his face hidden. “Lorenzo,” he whispered.

  I glanced around and caught a glimpse of him. He wore a crisply ironed white shirt with the Pizzeria de Roma logo and his name on the lapel and matching white pants under a black apron that was tied at the waist.

  “Don’t look!” AJ snapped.

  I casually brushed my hair in front of my face and refocused my eyes to my fork. Aunt Maria was right, they were shiny.

 
We waited a minute.

  I scanned the floor to see if Lorenzo’s feet were still there. “He’s gone.”

  AJ lowered his menu. “That was close.”

  Just then, a waitress appeared with our pizzas. I had to admit, they looked really good.

  I hung my nose into the steam. “Smells good,” I said. I cut a piece of eggplant, closed my eyes, and slid it into my mouth. I let it sit on my tongue for a second. Then I opened my eyes.

  “What?” AJ asked.

  I didn’t answer, just chewed and swallowed.

  “Good?” he asked. “Do you like it?”

  Again, I didn’t answer. I cut a piece with sun-dried tomatoes. Again, I put it in my mouth, closed my eyes, and let my tongue roll around it.

  When I opened my eyes this time, I saw that AJ had finished both of his anchovy pies. BOTH!

  How do boys do that?

  Through a full mouth, he asked, “Good?”

  “No. The crust is doughy and undercooked. And Aunt Maria’s sauce blows this away. This could be”—I lowered my voice—“from a jar.”

  I looked at all the people in the crowded restaurant. “Look, there’s no, ‘Ooh. Mmmm.’ Or ‘This is so good.’ They’re only here because it’s convenient. There’s nothing special or memorable about this place except maybe the big dance floor, but they don’t even use that. The food is like blah with a side of meh.” I smiled and pushed the food away. “This is great!” I said.

  “You just said it was ‘meh.’ ”

  “That’s what’s great. Amore Pizzeria is way better. We just need something to attract customers. And the place could use a little sprucing up, if you know that I mean. Luckily, I know the Queen of Bling, who can help with a makeover.”

  “I like your optimism.” AJ eyed my plate. “You going to eat that?” I slid the plate to him. “Do you have a good idea for how to attract customers?” he asked.

  I grinned. “Actually, I have two good ideas.”

  7

  My ideas: samples and couples.

  The next day I started with samples. I rolled the dough for a big pizza, very thin like my dad had taught me—of course he learned from Aunt Maria. I planned to top it with cheese, Aunt Maria’s sauce, and an amazing classic Italian topping, sausage. Its deliciousness would lure people down the narrow cobblestone alley. Once they arrived, I’d match them. Then word would spread—maybe it would even trend on social media. All those coin throwers looking for love would come here. If my plan worked, I’d spend the rest of my visit teaching Aunt Maria how to match when I was gone.