Camptown Ladies (42 page)

The only one who was completely against us going to Italy was Mom, who said, “You don’t go flying across the entire world hoping to find somebody.”

I answered, “It’s Europe, Mom, we’re not crossing the globe, it’s an eight-hour flight.”

“Besides,” Vince said, “it’s not just somebody, it’s Erica.”

“Still,” Mom said, “we were supposed to go outlet shopping together. I need good shoes and your father needs underwear. And your brother was going to come with Katie and Buddy and me to the movies on Sunday.”

Later, Dad pulled me aside, looking concerned. He looked around suspiciously, like we were two spies meeting on a park bench, before he explained: “It seems your mother has come up with a reverse case of agoraphobia. Ever since Camptown Ladies closed for the season, she never wants to be in the house anymore. She always wants to be outside or heading somewhere. She acts like she is afraid to be alone in her own house.”

This was the first I had heard of it.

Dad continued, “Your mother drags me around with her all over the place. I’m friggin’ exhausted! If you kids take off to Italy, it will all be on me to keep her busy!”

I told Dad I would discuss it with Vince and Lisa, and that if it was still going on when I got back, we would address it.

“Oh, it will still be going on,” he said. “Yesterday, she followed me into the bathroom, and I had my newspaper with me! That is a sacred time for a man.”

Vince and I drove to the airport, armed with information Mom had reluctantly supplied, which was the married name of Uncle Freddie’s niece, though she was recently divorced, and a vague reference to a village just south of Naples. Vince said it amounted to no information at all.

Vince waited until we were walking toward our gate before he said, gently, “You should be prepared we might be wrong, and that she might not be there.”

“She’s there,” I said.

I tried not to think about how I might have stupidly convinced
myself she was there, just to have one more shot at finding her. I also knew Vince was coming on the trip because he thought I might be wrong. I didn’t care. As we walked, an announcement came over the loud speaker that caught our attention: “Will Asini Stupidi please meet your party at gate B12. Asini Stupidi, your party is waiting at gate B12.”

Vince and I stopped dead in our tracks, then simultaneously asked, “Did you hear that?” We must have looked like we were in a comedy routine, as our eyes bugged out. “Holy Shit!” we both said, before we busted into a competitive run toward Gate B12.

Gate B12 is where we found Lisa hitting on the young woman behind the ticket counter. She spotted us barreling toward her, but she took the time to turn back to the girl to say something charming before turning to us.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded as Vince and I hugged her. She ignored my question to introduce us to her new friend.

Lisa said, “Stupid Asses, meet Natalie. She’s great with a loud speaker. Natalie, these are my siblings. We’re heading to Italy so my sister can bang my brother’s ex-girlfriend.”

Natalie said, “Oh. That’s . . .” and looked back and forth between Vince and me.

Lisa said, “I know, kind of an extravagant trip, especially when there are so many good-looking women right here in the airport.”

“I’m OK with it,” Vince assured the girl.

Lisa had gotten our flight information from Mom and Katie and made them promise to keep quiet until she could fly from Florida to meet up with our flight. With Lisa joining us, her overconfidence was contagious, which made me think we could pull anything off. Lisa rarely failed. Like her building a four-star restaurant at a campground that catered to gays and rednecks alike; bringing Erica out to work on Camptown Ladies to play matchmaker again (OK, wrong sibling, but still); bribing a cop to sign his own divorce papers, etc. Now finding Erica seemed much more possible, and I could see by the way Vince was smiling, that he thought so, too.

The flight was packed, so we weren’t able to sit together, but Lisa
had finagled a seat up front in the exit aisle, and Vince and I sat on opposite sides at the rear of the plane. We didn’t know it at the time, but Lisa knew slipping a nice tip to do thy bidding was just as effective as flirting, and quite a time saver, especially with the Italians. I was fighting hard not to drift off to sleep when the Italian pilot, with a melodic accent that reminded me of Uncle Freddie, made the usual announcements about safety and the weather.

Then, there was one not-so-usual announcement.

“We will be touching down in Naples on schedule. I want to give special thanks to the Santora family, who are traveling with us today.”
My eyes popped open and I craned my neck to lock eyes with Vince, who was sporting an identical
what-the-fuck
look.

“The Santora family has made a generous donation to cover any food or drink you may like on your way to Naples, so la prego, quindi mangiare e divertiti!”
Upon hearing “so please eat and enjoy!” the passengers burst into applause, and a few passengers shouted Italian cheers of bravo, as the pilot continued.
“The Santora famiglia is traveling to the Naples area in search of their only living Italian relatives. If you have any connections in that area that might help them find their uncle, or his niece, kindly please alert your flight attendant.”

An hour later, when the flight attendants were inundated with free food and drink requests, Lisa joined in to help the two attractive women serve the crowd. She ran drinks and food to the passengers, despite making time to flirt with her new co-workers, who instinctively treated Lisa like the restaurant manager. I marveled at how my sister had assembled an efficient (though mediocre) cuisine version of the Dove Gaio Mangia at forty thousand feet.

When Lisa came to my row to take my order, she indicated with hubba-hubba eyebrow moves which flight attendant she had her eye on. The woman was watching Lisa with a mix of rapt interest and fear, a look I had seen at the beginning of all my sister’s relationships. I laughed as I thought how, whenever Lisa was around, every day had its dog, and the dog was Lisa. When the woman winked at her, Lisa proved my point by crouching down low, to say toward her crotch: “See, vagina, there really is a Santa Claus.”

After we landed, Vince and I waited by the VIP Lounge, well
beyond the limits of my patience, as Lisa exchanged numbers (and probably body fluids) with her flight attendant. She came out of the room forty minutes later and Vince said it looked like the VIP (Very Immediate Pussy) Lounge had served her well. When Lisa wasn’t forthcoming with any details, Vince and I silently agreed with our eyebrows that there might be something a little different about this hook-up.

Lisa led us to the correct luggage carousel and traded in the driver I had found for one she said wouldn’t gouge us. She rattled something off a piece of paper in Italian, and as she did, I realized it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask where we were heading. Lisa had taken over this trip, and I, with a lifetime history of this type of thing, had completely turned it over to her.

“We’re going to Uncle Freddie’s niece’s house, of course,” she said, like I had asked the stupidest question she had ever heard.

“But how?” I asked.

“She probably bribed a cop,” Vince said.

Lisa answered, “Someone on the plane knew somebody in Frederica’s village. We’re heading there.”

There were times when I couldn’t imagine doing anything without my sister. Times like this. Not that this was always the case. When Lisa made a debacle, it was usually a goliath one that Vince and I could laugh about for years to come. Vince and I liked to goof on those times so we didn’t feel so inept during at times like this. Also, they were fun to relive.

There was the time she scored a date with a woman she had been stalking for weeks. Lisa was so mesmerized by her looks that she never bothered to ask for a name to go with the coveted phone number. Lisa had to call her “sweetheart” from the first phone call, which was fine with Lisa: “Dumb as a box of rock but hotter than an August pussy planted on a pavement.” But after her second date, the woman disappeared on her. Lisa insisted she had only sent her a charming text message about how pretty she was, only to receive a message back that she would like Lisa never to contact her again. Ever. It wasn’t until weeks later, when Lisa was scrolling her sent messages, that she saw the text she’d sent to the unnamed beauty:
“If only you weren’t so damned petty.” Petty—so similar to the word pretty, and yet, so very, very different. (Lisa guessed the woman had had this happen a few times before.)

Right out of college, on her first “real” job, Lisa tried to bond with the boss’s daughter by taking up smoking on coffee breaks. Like ex-president Clinton, she had all the moves except for the inhale, and she was working toward the stain on the dress. On day two, Lisa felt she was gaining ground charming the girl with her smart aleck remarks. So when a guy from accounting walked by, Lisa shared her observations about him. “Damn, that guy creeps me out. He looks like a child molester.”

The woman asked, “Why would you say that?” and Lisa mistook her stunned expression for admiration of her cutting-edge humor. (Lisa has had this happen a few times before.) Lisa took a fake pull on her borrowed cigarette and said, “Obviously, the creepy longish nails, but mainly it’s the stink of his cologne, Ode de Candy and Lost Puppy.” The woman stomped out her cigarette, and before she stormed off, she said, “I will let my father know you don’t like his cologne.”

As our taxi cruised along and Lisa attempted to make conversation in her broken Italian, I had to admit that Lisa’s blunders did not nearly outweigh her victories. The longer we drove, the harder my heart pounded in my chest, like a blip on the radar getting closer. I believed we might actually find Erica, and realized I hadn’t believed it before right now.

Vince squeezed my hand, and when I looked at him he was wearing his most confident face. But better than that, I could see he really wanted me to find her. I took a deep breath and he nodded at me, smiling. I wondered if Vince knew exactly what that smile meant to me. It meant that even if I couldn’t find her, at the very least I could still love her without hurting my brother. Maybe that would have to be enough.

It was late afternoon by the time Dominic, our taxi driver, deposited us in the center of the beautiful little village. We had no specific address, so we’d asked him just to leave us on the first corner in the center of town. He refused, deciding it was best instead to deposit
us at a busy café, where we hoped to find a local who could lead us to Frederica’s home. Dominic was hesitant to do even this but finally relented after he’d had long talks with several of the café staff. He did not know them, but Dominic spoke with the familiar way of a bossy relative. (He spoke like Lisa, in fact.)

When we got out of the car, Lisa said to Vince, “Damn, it’s humid. Good day to be a girl, cuz I’m betting you’ve got a severe case of batwing.”

Vince had the afraid-to-ask look that we grew up seeing on each other’s faces. He asked, “You’re a girl?” but then his curiosity finally won out and he had to ask. “All right, what the hell is batwing?”