Waiting To Be Heard - A Memoir Part 6

I nodded. This was the first time I'd invited a guy into my bed since I'd arrived in Perugia. We went to my room and had s.e.x. Then we both pa.s.sed out.

The next morning I got up before he did, got dressed, and went to make myself breakfast. Bobby came into the kitchen a few minutes later.

We were eating cookies when Laura came out of her bedroom. I'd never entertained a lover at the villa for breakfast, and it was awkward, despite Laura's proclaimed sense of easy s.e.xuality. All three of us tried to ignore the feeling away.

After breakfast Bobby left to return to Rome. I walked him to the door. He smiled, waved, and walked away.

I didn't feel the same regret I'd had after s.e.x with Mirko, but I still felt the same emptiness. I had no way of knowing what a big price I would end up paying for these liaisons.

A few minutes later, Meredith came upstairs. She and Giacomo had slept together for the first time, and she was giddy. It had been a wild night at No. 7, Via della Pergola, but it turned out to be a one-time thing.

A couple of days later Juve told me that Patrick wasn't entirely happy with my job performance and wanted to meet with me on the Duomo steps. I knew I had been slow delivering c.o.c.ktails and that I wasn't attracting customers as they'd hoped.

To my surprise, Patrick was kind. "You really need time to pick up waitressing," he said. "On busy nights I need someone who's more experienced. You can keep working the slow nights-Tuesdays and Thursdays-if you'd like. That way you'll be learning."

I was relieved. I liked the purposeful feeling I got from working, but I knew this wasn't the right job for me. I'd already started leaving my name at bookstores and other places around town.

I was just beginning my second month in Perugia, and I still felt uprooted from Seattle. But I felt I was finally starting to hit my groove. I recognized the faces I pa.s.sed every day as I walked to and from school. More important, I felt that the choices I'd made were educating me. I just had to wait for what, and who, would come next.

Chapter 5

October 25November 1, 2007

By chance.

I found my roommates by chance. I saw a poster advertising a performance of a string and piano quintet by chance. I met Raffaele Sollecito by chance.

On Thursday, October 25, Meredith and I went together to the University for Foreigners to hear Quintetto Bottesini. We sat together by the door of the high-ceilinged hall. During the first piece-astor Piazzolla's "Le Grand Tango"-I'd just turned to Meredith to comment on the music when I noticed two guys standing near us. One was trim and pale with short, disheveled brown hair and frameless gla.s.ses. I was instantly charmed by his una.s.suming manner. I smiled. He smiled back.

When Meredith left at intermission to meet friends for dinner, the guy walked up to me.

"Are these seats open?" he asked in Italian.

"Yes, please to sit," I said in my imperfect Italian.

"I'm Raffaele," he said, switching to English.

"Amanda."

Later I would wonder what would have been different if this hadn't happened. What if Meredith had stayed at the concert? What if Raffaele had gotten there in time to get a seat? Would we have noticed each other? Would he, naturally shy, have introduced himself without the excuse of a needed chair? Would never knowing him have changed how I was perceived? Would that have made the next four years unfold differently? For me, maybe. For Raffaele, absolutely.

But we did meet. And I did like him. Raffaele was a humble, thoughtful, respectful person, and he came along at the moment that I needed a tether. Timing was the second ingredient that made our relations.h.i.+p take off. Had it been later in the year, after I'd found my bearings and made friends, would I have needed the comfort he offered?

Waiting for the return of the quintet, we talked. His English was better than my Italian.

"Do you like the performance?" he asked.

"Yes, I love cla.s.sical music," I said.

"That's unusual for someone our age," he replied.

He was right. The rest of the audience looked three times older than we were, and I hadn't yet found anyone my age in Perugia who talked about cla.s.sical music. Grabbing a friend and going to Benaroya Hall to hear the Seattle Symphony on my UW student discount was something I had done as often as I could back home.

During the second half, I whispered to Raffaele just as I had to Meredith. It was nice to have a shared, uncommon interest.

When we stood up to leave, he asked for my number. In Perugia, where I'd gotten this question a lot, my stock answer was no. But I thought Raffaele was nerdy and adorable-definitely my type. He was wearing jeans and sneakers that evening. Like DJ, he had a pocketknife hooked to his belt loop. I liked his thick eyebrows, soft eyes, high cheekbones. He seemed less sure of himself than the other Italian men I'd met. I said, "I'll be working later at Le Chic on Via Alessi. You should come by."

At 10 P.M., when I got to the bar, a handful of customers were drinking beer. Juve pumped up the music, and I tried to keep busy doing mindless tasks-refilling the snack bowls, wiping tables, ensuring the bathrooms were clean, checking my appearance in the mirror. I was grateful for the distraction while I waited to see if Raffaele would show up.

Every time I heard the door open, I looked up hoping it was Raffaele. When he walked in with three friends, my stomach did a nervous flip. I went over to their high-top table with menus and a huge grin. I found out later that, to get his friends to come, Raffaele had promised to buy their drinks.

For the next hour, I waited on other customers but only really paid attention to one. It was the first time in my lackl.u.s.ter waitressing career that I did exactly what Patrick had asked for all along: I magically materialized at Raffaele's table well ahead of his last sip.

"Another round?" I asked.

"No, thanks," Raffaele said. "When do you get off?"

"In about half an hour," I said. "Would you like to walk me home?" Walking with a guy was a tactic I'd used a few times in Seattle to figure out if I wanted to see him again. A walk is a much smaller commitment than a date.

We wandered slowly through town, away from my villa, to the far side of Corso Vannucci-Piazza Italia. We stopped at an overlook in front of a low brick wall.

We stood high above the Tiber Valley, staring out at the speckled lights below. "This is the perfect place to think," Raffaele said. His nervousness was palpable-and contagious. A fidgety silence hung between us as we gazed out, until, gradually, we looked less at the view and turned toward each other.

It wasn't an electric first kiss that bound us together. It was gentle and soft-comfortable and rea.s.suring.

I don't know how long we stood with our arms wrapped around each other. When we pulled apart, the air was so sharp I could see my breath. But I knew that this was the warmest, safest, most enveloped I'd felt since August, when I'd hugged good-bye the people I loved most. After a month on my own, the exhilarating feeling of taking charge of my life had receded a bit. I wavered between feeling self-confident and needy. I was reveling in everything new and feeling homesick for the familiar. Raffaele, with a single kiss, had bridged the gap. He was a soothing presence.

Afterward we walked past the fountain in Piazza IV Novembre. Another five minutes and we'd be at my house. I so badly wanted to extend the moment. "Do you like marijuana?" I blurted.

"It is my vice," Raffaele said.

"It's my vice, too," I said. I loved the phrase in Italian.

Raffaele looked surprised, then pleased. "Do you want to come to my apartment and smoke a joint?"

I hesitated. He was basically a stranger, but I trusted him. I saw him as a gentle, modest person. I felt safe. "I'd love to," I said.

Raffaele lived alone in an immaculate one-room apartment. I sat on his neatly made bed while he sat at his desk rolling a joint. A minute later he swiveled around in his chair and held it out to me.

We talked as we smoked. He was twenty-three, from Bari, in southern Italy, and three weeks away from getting his degree in computer science. "I'm moving to Milan in the new year," he said. "I'm hoping to get a job designing video games."

We learned we had a third language in common, German. When I told him I'd studied j.a.panese in high school, he said he loved Sailor Moon, a j.a.panese comic book about girls with magic powers fighting evil; the TV series it sp.a.w.ned had been my favorite when I was younger. I was surprised by how childish his comic book interest was, but I thought his willingness to admit it was endearing.

The marijuana was starting to kick in. "You know what makes me laugh?" I asked. "Making faces. See." I crossed my eyes and puffed out my cheeks. "You try it."

"Okay." He stuck out his tongue and scrunched up his eyebrows.