“Prego,” she says quietly. And then the assistants arrive with our dishes and the room is filled with gasps of delight and scents of tomato sauce and basil and I am honestly so happy to be here that I feel my eyes well up a bit. I feel Marina’s hand on my thigh and then she’s leaning in close. “Hey. Are you okay?”
I turn to meet her gaze, and the concern in her eyes is so real, so genuine, and that doesn’t help the wetness in my eyes. I do my best to smile and reassure her. “I’m actually great. Just…enjoying the moment.”
Her response is to smile and pat my thigh, and I can admit that I’m a little bummed when her hand leaves.
Dinner is fun, with lots of cross-table conversations, all in English with various accents attached. It really is a study in international friendship, and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed myself so much. We finish up, and when I try to pay, I’m told it’s not necessary. I can’t tell if Marina already paid or if they let us participate for free, but either way, they won’t take mymoney. I finally talk them into letting me leave some extra to tip the employees.
“I think they only let me leave money to get me to go,” I say to Marina as we exit out onto the street.
She laughs. “Probably.” She doesn’t tell me how we didn’t have to pay. I don’t push. For now. “So?” she asks as we stroll leisurely down the street, in no hurry to get where we’re going. “Did you find some inspiration?”
“I think I might’ve felt a bit, yeah.” The street is bustling, dusk beginning to settle over the city.
“Well, I have some other ideas as well. But I will leave—” She makes a face like she’s thinking, then looks at me, her brow adorably furrowed. “The phrase has to do with a ball?”
“You’re leaving the ball in my court.”
“Yes!” She points at me. “That’s it. I am leaving the ball in your court.”
“Got it.”
“So, you text me if you’d like to be inspired more. Okay?”
I realize as we walk that I have mixed emotions about that. Ultimately, though, it’s probably a good thing that it will be up to me to reach out. I’m not okay verbalizing that. At all. Even in my head. But I know it’s true. Another thing I know is true? I’m probably going to text her again. Yeah.
“Gelato?” Marina asks, pulling me out of my spinning thoughts. She’s stopped at a little gelato shop and indicates it with her thumb.
“Absolutely,” I say, even though I am stuffed beyond belief. “I’m so full, but I am never going to pass up gelato in Rome. Never.”
“This is a decision I approve,” Marina says and holds the door open for me.
The shop isn’t terribly busy, but the wonderful smell hits me the second I enter. Why does Rome smell so good all the time?This place smells like chocolate and coconut and almonds, and I inhale deeply as the door closes behind me.
“Nice, eh?” Marina says, noticing my sniffing.
“Amazing.” There are easily fifteen flavors under the glass display, and they don’t look like ice cream at home at all. The tops are wavy, like the gelato has just been poured into the bins recently. It probably was. “Okay, what flavor do Romans choose most often?”
Marina lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know about all Romans, but I can tell you my choice.”
“Which is?”
“Pistachio.” She says it differently, though. She doesn’t say it with an SH sound, like Americans do. She says it with a CK sound. Like, pi-STAHCK-io.
“It’s not pistachio?” I ask, saying it the way I always have.
She shakes her head and says it again.
“I say it wrong.”
“Yes.”
I correct myself and say it like she does.
“Bene.”
I’m pretty sure that means “good,” and I feel like I just got a gold star from my favorite teacher.
Most places I’ve been to so far have employees who speak at least some English, but this doesn’t seem to be one of them. Marina speaks in Italian, then looks over her shoulder at me. “Pistachio?”
