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

obscene. And he’d pound beers straight from the can, calling everyone who walked by a weirdo, without realizing he was the biggest weirdo of them all! And his laugh sounded like he was blowing raspberries.”
    “But you’ve gotta admit, you had fun that night.”
    “Yeah, right. Once I saw his checkered cardigan, I wanted to escape out the bathroom window. Too bad it was barred. If Tony is anything like that, I’m going to strangle you.”
    We reach Il Buco, a quiet, almost monastic restaurant. This place would be a good choice if I were going to have dinner with the man I love, but right now it just makes me feel uncomfortable. What if I don’t know what to say or do in front of him? I’ll embarrass myself with either silence or mindless babble. Whatever happens, the quiet atmosphere can’t be good.
    We go inside. The small room is full but silent. I get the feeling that everyone is staring at us. A cemetery in the wilds of Alaska would be livelier than this place. I see Lara at a table in the back with three men. One is her temporary flame, one is Giovanna’s temporary flame, and I think the third one is my very temporary blind date.
    As I get closer, I realize that Tony Boni, at least at first glance, is less disgusting than I pictured. I introduce myself, and we sit down. He’s actually quite good-looking. He’s tall and wearing glasses and a dark suit. He doesn’t seem to have any weird tics, and he doesn’t ask me if I’ve heard the one about the ice queen whose husband slept with a thermos. He’s actually rather polite.
    Lara won’t take her eyes off of her phone, which she keeps on the table, lest she miss a call from Emma’s babysitter. Now that her stormy marriage is over, Lara is disillusioned by men. She only goes out to make Giovanna happy and to give her vagina the occasional workout—although she worries the whole time that something could be happening to her little girl. While she’s a lovely woman, with caramel-colored skin and a shiny bob right out of the roaring ’20s, her negative experience with her ex-husband has left her in a permanent bad mood. To compensate, she eats like there’s no tomorrow. Now she weighs almost 180 pounds and is more pissed off than ever, which makes her want to eat even more.
    She met Filippo a few days ago. He’s pretty buff, which makes her look slimmer, but he’s got a really long face. The relationship won’t last. Filippo will say, do, or think something wrong, and she’ll say the same thing she always does: “I knew it. All men are assholes. I’m going to Google how to become a lesbian.”
    Armando scans the almost-bare walls and the few tables in the restaurant. “We were just noticing that this place is a bit too heavily decorated,” he says. His words reverberate in the sepulchral silence.
    “Oh . . . you’re so right!” Giovanna says. “What would you do to make it more cutting-edge?”
    “I’d get rid of some of the light, reduce the number of tables, and tone down all this shouting we’re doing.”
    I have to wonder if he’s just messing with us. I’d like to argue that a quartet of corpses would be more exuberant than we are, but Armando’s kind of touchy, and I don’t want to risk offending him. So I keep my mouth shut while he babbles on pompously. Lara fumbles with her phone, seeming to think she may have missed a call, but in here, the ringing would be as loud as a jet engine.
    I get to talking to Tony Boni, and I discover that his real name is actually Antonio.
    “I heard you paint,” he says enthusiastically.
    “Yeah, but I only do it for myself. I’m no Caravaggio.”
    “But who is? I’m not even sure I know how to paint seriously. I’ve never studied it, I’ve never had training,” he explains. “My work isn’t for everyone. I love still life and portraits, and I like to portray genuine, spontaneous, everyday things. How about you? Giovanna said you work in theater?”
    I explain in detail what I do, and he