A Semester Abroad (3 page)

I was warned about this. This was the program to go on if you really wanted to learn the language. No one speaks English in Siena. It’s what I thought I wanted.

Then I heard it. English, American English, drifted toward me on the street. I turned and saw the short brown bob of Olivia, a girl who was in my Italian class for two straight semesters. We studied for an Italian final once and we compared our programs’ Financial Aid packages. Now she was in Siena with a group of Americans.

“Olivia,” I shouted. Olivia looked up at me and then, like some sort of long-lost siblings, we rushed to each other and embraced. I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see Olivia, to hug a girl I barely knew. She was smiling, too. I was something not quite known but familiar. The last time we saw each other was over coffee in the student union, and now we were standing in a medieval town. It felt like a miracle.

Olivia told me where her hotel was. She used the Italian word for hotel, 
albergho,
 giggling. The hotel was further down the street from my apartment. She and her group would live there for three weeks before going on to Florence. She introduced me to four people from her program, and I forgot their names immediately, my brain was already full of the people on my trip.

“We have to meet up with our group,” Olivia said. “Do you want to meet up later at the Barone Rosso?”

“Sure,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. If I could have, I might have held her leg and dragged along to keep my eye on something familiar. “Where is that? What is that?”

“I’m not sure where it is.” Olivia laughed. “It’s a bar. I’ll give you the address.”

When we said goodbye, I was thrilled to have a plan for the evening with someone I barely knew.

I turned into the Piazza del Campo, the town square surrounded by stores and restaurants. Inside the piazza, there was a narrow pink tower, Torre del Mangia. It was the tallest thing around, nothing beyond it but gray sky. There were steps to the top. Arturo told us that it was bad luck to climb the tower as a student; you must wait until you finished your studies to climb. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like in five months at the end of May when I could climb the tower. I wondered if I would be able to make any sense of this language by then.

After the tower, I looked to the shell shape of the piazza fanning open and up. It was there on the sloping ground that everyone sits or stands and gossips and watches. I walked up, looking for people. I was looking for Jonas for some reason, thinking there was a chance he could be among these strangers, even though he was still across an ocean. But maybe if I sat down and waited, he would eventually some day pass by.

Instead of Jonas, I ran into some of the people from my group by the white fountain directly across from the tower. They were sitting on the pink tiles in spite of the weather. I joined them and felt the chill through my jeans but decided to stay. Of all the people in the cluster of them, I only remembered Lucy’s name. We all reintroduced ourselves. Lucy told us about her apartment outside the walls of the city. For some reason Arturo couldn’t explain to her, she was not matched up with anyone from our group or a family. Maybe it was because she was older. She was way into her twenties with the oily skin of a teenager and a kind smile. She lived with other 
stranieri
, a Brit and a Greek. There was something reserved about Lucy that I liked immediately. Another guy, Tim, was also older; he had been in the army before becoming a student. Pam was from the Midwest, and she spoke in non sequiturs, pulling out a menacing shot of adrenaline, that she instructed me to plunge it into her heart if a bee ever stung her.

“Are there bees here in Italy?” Pam asked in her friendly accent. I shrugged and looked to see if anyone else knew. Pam didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she asked, “Do you know where to get some hash?”

The piazza was the meeting place. Another bunch of the kids from the group showed up. We traded names again and information. Where we would take the placement test for the university? How hard was it going to be? Where does someone shop for food? What about toilet paper? The climate eventually bested us, and we decided to go to a café for panini. It was Lucy’s idea. Lucy spoke with an authority about this city that I envied.

My 
panino
 was delicious. It seemed impossible that a sandwich could taste so good. I ordered one with speck. I had no idea what speck was—I still forget sometimes if it’s beef or it’s pork—but my life has been better for trying it that day. It was delicious. Lisa showed up with Adam. They sat with us but insisted on speaking Italian to each other. They brought the optimistic vibe down. We all knew that was what we were supposed to do, but I was overwhelmed by everything and happy to not have to try hard. We were caught up in excitement for a minute over our prospects, instead of fretting about an unknown future in a little-known language. With their arrival, that minute was over.

Instead of joining their conversation, most people stopped talking and stared blankly ahead. I felt myself pulling out, wanting to go back to my room and close my eyes and try to remember Jonas’s face again. I was trying to remember it there, but the language distracted me. At last, Pam obliviously interrupted Lisa and Adam to ask if they knew where she could get hash.

The table laughed, and I doubted Lisa knew what hash was. I felt a breathy voice in my ear.

“This is really something else isn’t it?” It was Lucy, smiling.

“That girl is my roommate.”

Lucy offered me a cigarette. I didn’t really smoke, but I took it, happy for another smile.

My mood turned again.

Janine and Michelle were home when I got back. I stopped at a 
tabac
 to get postcards and stamps and to get away from Lisa. For some reason they sold stamps at a candy and tobacco store according to reports, from the other kids in my group.

It took forever because I tried to do business in Italian and the woman behind the counter kept asking me to repeat myself. She kept saying 
cosa
? and 
non ho capito
. I could understand her, and I didn’t believe she couldn’t tell what I wanted. I was holding postcards. I knew the word for stamps and the word for the United States. I double-checked it in the damn 
dizionario.

It would have been comical if it weren’t happening to me. I questioned whether I was even in the right place, but the cigarettes and postcards made me believe that I was. I waved the postcards around again and again, pointing to the box where the stamps went. Finally, she handed me the stamps I needed and gave me a sigh when I counted my change, trying to figure out if it was correct.

I never went back to that 
tabac
 again.

Lisa returned to the apartment right after me and looked at me suspiciously. Janine and Michelle were there in sweats and sneakers. I was finally learning to tell them apart. Janine’s sweat pants sat low on her hips, revealing stomach, the top of a thong. They said that they spent the day running around the city. They found a supermarket and bought a ton of supplies and food. They even cleaned up the place. They scrubbed the floor. Then Janine asked Lisa and me for money. It was a little presumptuous, but since they got stuff like toilet paper and dish soap, and dealt with whatever communication difficulties on their own, I gave them 25,000 lire, the equivalent of around seventeen dollars. Lisa demanded to see the receipt and then handed over only 15,000 lire.

“I’m on a budget and besides, I don’t drink milk.”

“Well,” said Janine, “we just got stuff I thought everyone could use. Milk does not equal 10,000 lire.”

“Well, no one talked to me about it before hand.” When Lisa talked her eyes kind of fluttered underneath lids that were half closed. It was as if she had already explained whatever she said and couldn’t believe that she had to go over it again. I thought Lisa was one of those people who don’t really understand how to interact with people and thus she was a little intimidated by Janine, who was more than a little intimidating. Michelle left to fix instant coffee in the kitchen.

“Look, Lisa,” I said. “It was cool of them to go shopping for us. We need that stuff. We’re all on a budget, right? Why don’t you just give her some more money and in the future we’ll all do our own shopping.”

Lisa sighed. She got another 5,000 out of her purse and handed it over to Janine. “This is all I have right now.”

“I just think it’s pretty stupid and cheap,” Janine looked directly at Lisa for a full second, “for us to all buy our own toilet paper. And if we want to keep this place clean, we’re going to need soap and shit.”

Michelle’s tentative voice came from the kitchen. “Maybe we should make a list of supplies and take turns buying it.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” I said.

Lisa looked annoyed again. Janine grimaced at me behind her back, and I tried not to laugh. In her own way, she would be just as bad but more entertaining.

“Look, Lisa, I can’t see how you have a problem with that. We are living together we are going to have to make some sacrifices,” I said.

“We have to wipe our asses,” Janine said cracking up everyone up. Lisa laughed the loudest but nervously.

We sat around the dining room table for the remainder of the afternoon. Lisa brought some Italian book she had and kept thumbing through it, saying words and their definitions to us. Janine wanted to talk about the boys she had seen on the trip to the grocery store.

“Do you have a boyfriend, Gabriella?” she asked me.

“No.” I answered without hesitation. I wished Jonas didn’t flash into my mind.

“Well, I do. I have more than one,” Janine said. Michelle laughed. She knew all of Janine’s stories, the way Kaitlin and I knew each other’s. And she listened the way we did, as if she hadn’t heard it before.

“It’s not exactly going to stop her,” Michelle said.

“Doesn’t sound like it.” I said, smiling. I wanted to get along with them, but I was cautious. I had been through it all already. The first few weeks of college when you think everyone in the world is your best friend, you get close and then you realize you are nothing like them. I already sort of sensed I wasn’t like them. I didn’t feel I could be like anyone. Jonas had zapped my emotions, I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest so much again.

“American boys suck,” Janine said. That I could agree with. “Bring on the Italian men.”

“
Uomini italiani
,” Lisa said. I looked at her. She mistook my expression for not understanding and relished the thought of explaining to me. “Italian men”

“Yeah, I got that one, thanks.” I said.

“Whatever,” said Janine and inexplicably lifted up her shirt to flash us her red bra.

I met Olivia at the bar Barone Rosso. It took me forever to find. I got lost off the main streets and meandered around for a while, not wanting to embarrass myself asking for directions with the wrong words.

We sat upstairs. Downstairs, a band was singing songs in Italian and English. All the Italians were singing the words to every song. They sang with passion, their voices traveling into the upstairs section.

One of the boys from Olivia’s group drank a big mug of beer called 
birra alla spina,
 which cost 7000 lire. I bought that because it was a cheap way to get drunk.

I dodged the crowd in the bar and the women with the trays. These women wore short skirts and held the trays of drinks high above their heads. They said 
permesso
 as they tried to get past patrons. Their voices rose above the music and the singers, repeatedly punctuating the sound of the bar.

Upstairs, one of the guys from Olivia’s group, Kurt, began talking to me. He raised his eyebrows and held my gaze, flirting. He laughed about my big beer.

Then Olivia came over and introduced Suzie, her roommate from the program. Suzie was thin and tall. She had a thick mess of brown curly hair. And when she arrived, Kurt turned his attention completely to her. He did not look at me again. He acted as if he was waiting for Suzie the whole time, just practicing on me.

“He was talking to her on the plane. He came to our room before dinner to hang out with her,” said Olivia in a type of explanation. I tried to explain that I wasn’t the slightest bit interested in Kurt. It was just something to do.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s not my type. We were just talking.”

We drank for a while, taking the scene in, smiling at everything. The boys in Olivia’s group reenacted scenes from their favorite movies. The girls danced to the songs on the jukebox. The Italians who were upstairs were watching and whispering even though we wouldn’t have understood them in their regular voices. I liked that neither Olivia nor I needed to talk. We could just hang out and chill.

“Do you smoke?” I asked Olivia.

“Sometimes.”

I laughed and said I sometimes smoked, too, when I drank. I held up my beer to indicate that I was, in fact, drinking.

“Will you help me smoke one if I can bum it?”

Olivia nodded.

Beer brave, I walked a couple of steps to a table of Italian boys in leather jackets of varying colors. Hesitantly, I pointed to the pack on the table. “
Cigaretta
?”

“
Prego
,” said one of them, holding the pack out to me. The other three shot out their lighters like it was some kind of standoff at the end of a Western. The boy who was the quickest draw smiled as he lit my cigarette.