When in Rome by Amabile Giusti Read Free Book Online Page A

mine, but he’ll never be yours.
    Having made that satisfactory pact with myself, I move forward.

FOUR
    It’s Saturday night, and to celebrate my new job, Lara and Giovanna have arranged a blind triple date for me. Meeting a guy named Tony Boni is not exactly my idea of a perfect weekend. I’d rather watch a documentary on the mating rituals of hooved animals than worry about what to wear to please a stranger who doesn’t even have the decency to change his name.
    Luca left hours ago. He works late on the weekends and never gets back before dawn. I look in the mirror and grumble. Nothing new here. The same old Carlotta—the line “You’ve got a lot going for you” will never apply to me. I’m wearing a camel-colored wool skirt, black boots, an angora sweater that will certainly have me spitting out fluff all through dinner, and a coat. I’ve wrapped a striped scarf around my neck, Gryffindor-style. Anything but sexy. Not that I’m trying to be sexy, mind you, but I wonder if I could be. I search the corners of my mind for just one moment when someone has looked at me with approval. I remember the emerald-green dress with a sailor collar and a tulle skirt I wore to my third birthday party that was tolerable. Other than that, I come up short.
    When Giovanna buzzes at the downstairs door, I quickly head out. She’s in the seventh heaven phase of a new relationship. Not that she’s new to such emotions, though. From a practical standpoint, her lifestyle isn’t all that different from my sister’s. The big difference is that Giovanna is always hoping to find Mr. Right. Her infatuations run like clockwork: on average, they last about twenty days and go from rags to riches at a dizzying speed. She suddenly and inevitably discovers that she has given herself to a total asshole, so she spends a week crying before she moves on to kiss the next frog. At the moment, she’s head over heels for a young interior designer who’s into minimalist homes and has forced her to replace her grandmother’s furniture with more fashionable stuff. Her bed is currently a mattress thrown on the floor. Her clothes are hung up in the open, her windows have no curtains, and the only things on the walls are abstract prints with polka dots, like a connect-the-dots puzzle. He even tried to get her to upgrade her dog to a Chihuahua or a whippet, which he thought would be better than her fat, cumbersome sheepdog, Bear. Fortunately, Giovanna wouldn’t budge on that. When this is over, I predict she’ll miss her grandmother’s things, including the huge lacquered armoire that hid her messiness and those nice, thick curtains that blocked the view of the Peeping Tom across the street.
    Curtains or no curtains, Giovanna is happy right now, and she greets me with a hug. She’s alone; we’re meeting the others at the restaurant. She’s wearing tight pants, a white blouse, a fuchsia leather coat without buttons, and heels that are so high she’s practically walking on her tiptoes. She’s very beautiful, so beautiful that she can’t go anywhere without attracting looks. Her magnificent hair is long, black, and smooth as water. She’s got blue eyes, she’s tall even without heels, and she’s never lacking in suitors or amazing clothes. As we walk, she tells me about Tony.
    “He’s an interesting guy. He’s a painter, so you have a lot in common.”
    A shiver of panic runs up my spine. “That doesn’t make me feel good. When you call someone interesting, that’s because you’re trying not to mention that they look like a Porta-Potty.”
    “I would never set you up with a Porta-Potty.”
    I look at her, perplexed, and half laugh. “You’re forgetting about Eusebio. Remember him? The guy who wore flip-flops in December? He was pretty interesting, too . . .”
    We look at each other and can’t help but burst into laughter.
    “He really was interesting!” she says “Remember how many jokes he knew?”
    “Yeah, and they were all