August, 2020 Five days ago, we ordered our bed. It is the first piece of furniture we’ve ordered for the place, which for the days since we’ve moved back in, has lain stark and bare, like the dining room, like the foyer. We feel no rush. After all, while the renovations were being done, we […]
Narrative
Eau du Thief
Don’t quote me on this because I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, but there was this study somewhere, at some time, done by some psychologists. Basically, these psychologists set up two rooms – Candy Shop A, and Candy Shop B. Both Candy Shop A and Candy Shop B were virtually identical; […]
Keeper of the Castle: A Play in One Act
CAST OF CHARACTERS E: Writer. American. Early 30s. Breathtakingly gorgeous. OLD MAN ANTONIO: Pensioner. Early 60s. Italian. Haunts the bar where E goes to write. Scatters outrageous, unsolicited advice like so much birdseed. MARCO: Policeman. Italian. Mid-40s. MARCO was once one of E’s interview subjects for an article she was planning to write. FRANCESCO: MARCO’s […]
USA vs. USA
What happens sometimes – when you’re living in a foreign country, a country where you’re almost one of a kind – is that people want to pair you up with other stray members of your species. There’s another American who lives three towns over, they say. I’ll invite him over. You can chest bump […]
Tight Spot
It’s Saturday night and I’ve just left Rico’s sister’s 30th birthday party. Art studio. Bite-sized frittate, panini, focaccie. Frequent champagne top ups; a big pink-and-black polka dotted American-style birthday cake from an American bakery in Rome. I’m wearing a skirt and stilettos, which is dumb, because – something I didn’t know until this evening – […]
La Donna di Mistero
There are the folks who run the pensione across the street, and then there are the folks who work at the restaurants, at the shops on the main drag of the centro. The osteria my new friends run is at the foot of the hill that leads up to the antique city. It’s a […]
Life In These Here Hills
It’s 1 September, the night before I leave for Dublin. I’m having an arrivederci dinner with my upstairs neighbors, Maria and Eugenio – parents of the screaming Giada. Maria says it’s her mission to find me a man. She says this over spaghetti alle vongole, as Giada grabs fistfuls of table and kicks her feet […]
Country Roads
The landlords have a realtor called Patrick whose job it is now to troop prospective renters through my soon-to-be ex-bedsit. Sometimes he calls first, other times he doesn’t. I’m hungover one morning when I hear the timid knock on the door – hello? And then it’s all, dammit, because when falling into bed tipsy the […]
Perfect Strangers
“Listen,” says my mother. “I think you need to go over and visit Zia Malvina.” Zia Malvina is my mother’s aunt. In the summers, she lives across the hall from my Nonna Lucia’s old apartment – the place I am now calling “home.” Zia Malvina is 80, and her husband passed away ten years ago. […]
Someone’s Knocking at the Door… in Dublin
They tell you that Dublin is a dangerous city; rough and full of crime, like New York City used to be before Giuliani turned it into the Disneyland of your twenties. Listen, people say. You’re not to go wandering about the seedier parts of town, where the knackers in their track suits are running about. […]