CRAVING U (The Rook Café) (20 page)

His friend, who
had been standing behind his back and monitoring the game, held his arm.  “Why
leave now?  You’ve got a good hand.  Wait ‘til the end.”

Matteo didn’t
answer, staring into space toward the silvery moon that had risen into the sky
above the Gothic niche of the adjoining building.

When Dario saw
what Matteo had seen – Marika limp in the arms of Marcello, like a prey
annihilated by its predator – he blurted out, “You’re jealous.”

“Don’t be
ridiculous,” was the only reply he got.

“Oh yeah, you’re
jealous!”  Dario pulled him back next to him.  “I just don’t get you.  Why do
you insist on playing the part of ‘just friends’?”  He pointed at Marika.  “Go
over there and tell her before it’s too late.”

Marcello, in
fact, was putting on all the moves, caressing the length of her back and paying
her all sorts of compliments, all strictly within the bounds of propriety,
though, so she wouldn’t have an excuse to pull away.  “Wait here for me just a
minute,” he whispered huskily, kissing both of her hands before leaving her
there.

Marika watched
him head toward the poker table to speak with someone who was hidden in the
semi-darkness of the crowd.

“Can we speak?”
he said to the pirate, resting an elbow on the latter’s shoulder.

“Get talking.” 
Matteo was burning inside and hotly shrugged Marcello’s elbow away from him.

“Alone,” he
added, giving the nod to Dario to disappear.  They watched Dario walk away
while the table of card players began to deal another hand, and then Marcello
started his strange recital.  “You don’t like me, and quiet honestly, I don’t
like you either.”

“Couldn’t have
said it better myself,” Matteo concurred, studying his moves.  “Problem solved.”

“We hang out with
the same group of friends, but we hardly even notice each other...” Marcello
continued, keeping to his script.  “On the field, we are teammates and nothing
more, and to my everlasting joy, you have just stolen
San Carlo
out from
under me.”  He didn’t give Matteo time to rebut before throwing down his ace in
the hole: “And then there’s Marika.”

“What about
Marika?” Matteo interrupted him loudly.

“You two are
friends, right?  Just friends...?” he lingered, reveling in the nervous, tense
look on the pirate’s face.  “I’m asking you because I want to try to hook up
with her.”  He was hitting him where it hurt.  “But if she’s already yours, I’ll
back out.”

“She’s a free
woman.  She can choose,” he said violently, baring his soul.

“Right on!” 
Marcello took his leave with calculated malice.  “Later, bro, and thanks!”  He
rushed back to her.  She had missed the entire scene and was just sitting tight
at the bar.  “You look like an angel.”  He pulled her towards him confidently
and quickly; he didn’t want to waste a moment of the advantage over Matteo that
he had just created for himself.

“Yeah, well I may
have fallen from the sky...” Marika sensed something strange as she saw herself
reflected in his eyes, heralds of inauspicious events, “but you must be the one
who took a knock to the head!”  Something told her that she was not the source
of his desire at that moment, that there was something else, a need for
revenge.

“Come a little
closer.”  He wanted to seduce her.  “Give me the green light!  If you’ll be
mine, you’ll be my only lover.”  He smiled his crafty smile.  “No competition,
no one else.”

“I’m impressed,
you must have been practicing at home for weeks:
give me the green light,
give me just one night!
” she laughed at him, ridiculing his pathetic
attempt to flirt with her but, at the same time, unable to drag herself away
from his attention and from those wandering hands that moved about her body.  “But
the revival room is down at the other end of the palace!”

“Why do you treat
me this way?” he cooed, sugary and sweet.

“That’s just what
I was about to ask you.”  She didn’t like his game.  Instinctively, her eyes
scanned the room for Matteo, whom she found standing near the doorway, staring
at her.

“It’s not because
of Matteo, is it?”  Marcello was pouring salt on her wounds.  “I’ve already
talked with him, don’t worry!”  This was the moment he had been waiting for.  “It’s
OK by him.”

“Excuse me?  What
did you say?”  She pushed him away, sickened by the touch of his skin. 
“You asked Matteo’s permission?” she
barked, “
and he gave it to you
?
”

“He’s a friend,
and I didn’t want to act like an asshole.”

“Ah, he’s a
friend?!”  This was an absurd, paradoxical situation.  “And since when have you
two been friends?” she blurted with all the bile she could muster.  “You’re
both pathetic.”  Disgusted and in disbelief over this strange triangle, she
stalked away, cutting between the archipelagos of lovers on the dance floor.

“Wait.”  Marcello
tried to keep her from going, but only halfheartedly.  He was enjoying too much
the humiliated and angry face of Matteo who, cut to the quick by what he
thought was Marika’s choice, turned to disappear into the darkness of the
night.

But a pair of
arms embraced him from behind and held him tight.  He quickly looked at the
hands holding him and was unable to hide his disappointment.  “What do
you
want from me?” he said tiredly, his head in another place.

“What all women
want,” Lucrezia replied, slithering along his body in her latex bustier and
thigh-high boots.

“Women like you,
maybe,” he sighed weakly, confused and disoriented in the very depths of his
soul, pushing her away, but not enthusiastically enough.

She kept up her
attentions, unabashed.

“To hell with it
all!” Matteo swore, pulling Lucrezia toward him and kissing her violently and
coldly.

Lucrezia did
everything she could to raise the visibility of that kiss, practically begging
for everyone to see it, especially those who never should have.

Marika got one
look and was nauseated.  She felt like she was living through the worst of her
nightmares.  She left Carlotta – herself aghast – behind, planning to get as
far away from that spectacle as possible and to wake up in a kinder, gentler
place.  But just before she reached the door that led away from this inferno,
her sadness was transformed into rage, and she spun around and ran straight up
to her tormentor to speak directly to his face.  “Well done!  Congratulations!”

The pirate
managed to free himself from the sadistic kiss of his lover and turned on
Marika with a hostile tone.  “Look who’s talking!  You sure didn’t take long to
jump from one guy to another.”

“What?  What did
I do?”  He staggered back a step.  “You shit!  What makes you think you can
pawn me off on your friends like I was your toy?”

“All I said was
that the choice was up to you.”  Matteo couldn’t look her in the eyes, he
couldn’t believe what he had just done.  His head was aching, the noise was
deafening, and he had lost his handle on the situation.  “And from what I saw,
you’ve made your choice.”

Disillusioned by
him and by all that surrounded her, she said simply, “You were the one who
chose for the both of us.”

“I don’t owe you
any explanation,” he cut her off, though his voice was weak from guilt and
could barely be heard above the din of the party.

“Take a look at
yourself!”  Marika quickly rubbed her eyes with the backs of her fists to hide
two tears that would have revealed her true feelings more than a thousand
words.  “You’re disgusting!  You’re totally drunk!  I don’t even recognize you
anymore.  Who
are
you?!” she sobbed.  “Where is the sweet, sensitive guy
I thought I knew?”

Matteo lowered
his hands, which had instinctively grabbed hers, and looked guiltily into the
golden center of her limpid eyes.

“You haven’t even
left for Milan yet...” she continued breathlessly, “but it’s like you’re
already gone.”  And with those words, Marika left the room.  He did nothing to
stop her.

In the noise of
the party, no one had been able to hear what had transpired between them, not
even Lucrezia just a few steps away.  Only Carlotta and Dario had understood
what had happened, and they walked toward Matteo who was standing motionless
there underneath a wall of mirrors.

Even though they
had been friends forever, Dario could neither understand nor justify Matteo’s
actions.  “What did you do?” he upbraided him, disappointed.  Matteo could
totally get on his nerves at times.  They were two opposites who complemented
each other: Dario, self-controlled and brainy; Matteo, impulsive and
passionate.

“None of your
business.”  He wriggled away from them and found the exit.  Regret was making
his head throb even more than the alcohol running through his veins.  Walking
along the edge of the indoor pool, he thought he saw her there, a dream of
chiffon, in the midst of all of the people and the steam rising from the
fountains, while the speakers played lounge music that was completely out of
step with his state of mind.  Matteo hesitated, squinting to try to make her
out again, but the mirage had already dissolved in the mist.

“Let him go!  Let’s
go find Marika and get out of here.”  Carlotta was now giving the orders.  “What
a jerk,” she thundered, exasperated with Matteo.

As the tower
bells struck three,
The Rook
crew had turned into nothing more than an
assembly of disparate parts with no center.  Matteo had left just after seeing
her image reflected in the water; Lucrezia was instructing her adepts in the
fine art of hooking-up in the hardcore room; Marcello and Valerio were
celebrating man’s weaknesses at the open bar; and Marika, in a surreal silence,
pretended to be asleep in the back seat of Dario’s Mini Cooper, where they had
put her after finding her curled up in the dark recess of an indoor waterfall,
reflected in the ripples of its pool.

“
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious
moon

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair
than she.
”

–
Romeo and Juliet
, Shakespeare, 1595

THE HUNT FOR DESDEMONA

The last day of
school vacation dragged by, as if it were mired between past, present, and
future.  At home, Marika had feigned a tremendous migraine – a classic excuse –
so as to avoid answering the telephone, and to let her parents believe that
nothing else was the matter.  “
Matteo?  Problem solved!
”

Yeah, right, totally solved!

“
Desdemona, had
it pleased heaven to try me with affliction
...”  Such a poetic passage, but
it was followed only by a long pause, filled with
hmmms
,
wells
,
and
ummms
.

“Urbani, either you know it or you don’t,”
sighed Ms. Baker, the perturbing teacher of English literature directly from
the county Kent.

“What do you mean, Miss?  That’s what I
have written down here in my notebook.”  The sight of him clutching at straws
was embarrassing.

“God Save the Queen!” she begged, asking
for mercy.  “Let’s just say that you have given a rather free interpretation of
Othello, the Moor of Venice
, the Shakespearean tragedy that we studied
in depth last month.  Too bad that I asked you to say something about
The
Merchant of Venice
, the subject of our oral test today.”  Ms. Baker sighed
and picked up her fearsome red pen, ready to update her equally feared grade
book.  “Go back to your desk,” she said to him with an airy wave of her right
hand.  “Go on, Urbani, get going.”

“What did I get, miss?”  His head drooped
sheepishly, as he rearranged his XL cargo pants.

“You’re kidding, right?”  From the teacher’s
desk, looking down over her fancy, designer glasses, Ms. Baker asked him
rhetorically, “What do you think you deserve?”

“I don’t know, maybe a C minus?” he said
hopefully.  His hopes were soon dashed.

“Urbaniiii!”  She pulled herself
together.  “F... for ‘fails to come to class prepared’.  On Saturday, for the
next quiz, I want you to be the first to volunteer for it.”  It was the fourth
quiz that had gone badly, and it was only second period.

“But Miss!” he protested.

“I see the vacation was not profitable for
you guys...” she said, launching into a paean of the British educational
system.

“
I wouldn’t say they were that bad for
me
,” Marika was thinking.  “
I’d say they took aim at me and... FIRED!
” 
In her interior state of anguish, she took very little interest in the debate
between teacher and student.

After school, Carlotta came over to Marika’s
house for lunch, hoping to get more info about what had taken place at the
Ball
de Casanova
.  But lunch progressed in the usual family manner, as if
nothing had happened; there were even the special Carnival sweets that her aunt
made every year.  To be fair, though, Marika had already repeated to her time
and again that everything was fine, just fine!  But it was hard to believe, and
so once they were alone in Marika’s bedroom,  Carlotta dropped the veils of the
18th century noblewoman and put on the jacket of an analyst.  “You want to tell
me now what happened at the Villa?”

“Nothing,” she said, avoiding the
question.

“Oh sure,
nothing
.  You can’t play
that game with me, you know!”  She followed her around the room, as persistent
and annoying as a bee around honey.  “It felt like I had dropped right into an
episode of
The Hills
.”

“OK.”  Marika shut the door, wanting to
muffle their conversation.  “But you have to promise that you won’t make me
repeat the gory details, and that you won’t make nasty comments,” she
whispered.

“Would I ever...?”  Carlotta settled into
the armchair, waiting for the beginning of the movie.  “That’s not fair!”

“Promise!” Marika repeated, while the
image of her cousin with popcorn and coca-cola flashed through her head.

“Fine, have it your way, I promise!”  She
sealed the promise by kissing her two crossed index fingers.  “So?” she
demanded, her nerves frayed: for someone as curious as she was, nothing was
worse than waiting.

Marika took a deep breath before revealing
the secret truth about the Villa.  “Let’s start with the fact that I argued
with Marcello.”

“Reason?”

“It seems that he asked Matteo for
permission to hit on me.”  She pretended to retch.  “And for the record, I don’t
even think he likes me; I get the feeling that it is all some kind of competition
between the two of them.”

“Dumbasses,” Carlotta decreed.

“And as if that weren’t enough, I’m afraid
that I somehow admitted to Matteo that I am in love with him, and have been
forever,” she revealed, still confused about the details.  “I don’t remember
everything clearly, but I think I said something to him about being a sweet and
sensitive guy... and with tears in my eyes....”  Her hands started to sweat
just thinking about it.  “All in all, I made myself look like a total tool!”

“
What
did you do?” her cousin
asked, trying to calm the flurry of questions that were crowding  her brain.  “And
how did he react?”

“Basically he didn’t,” she admitted,
slumping to the bed after having marched miles back and forth across her room.

“Ouch!” was all Carlotta could say.  “But
look, we all know he’s a moron,” she said, mortified for Marika.  “But I still
don’t understand what Lucrezia has to do with all of this.”

“What does she have to do with it?!”
Marika shouted at her bitterly.  “They practically did it right there up
against the wall!”  This time, the retching feeling was real.  “Jesus,
Carlotta, I knew you would want to talk about these things!  I still feel like
puking when I think about it.”

“OK, none of the nasty details,” she
smiled maliciously.  “Anyway, I already saw all of those.”

“Carlottaaaaa,” Marika warned.

“OK fine, you’re right, I promised.”  She
blew a kiss Marika’s way.  “But what I don’t understand is why Matteo did it
that way.  He’s had a million opportunities to hook up with Lucrezia: why last
night in front of everyone?  Why in such a disgusting display?” she wondered
aloud, while Marika listened to her, her nausea rising.

“What I know for sure is that if I had had
a shovel, I would have dug a hole and buried myself in it out of shame.  What
made me ever think that he could be mine?”  She was blaming herself, suffocated
by the lurid image of Lucrezia’s lips glued to those of Matteo in a lascivious
dance of pleasure and nirvana, stamped forever on her brain.  “The
Ball de
Casanova
is my Waterloo,” she sighed, depressed.  “And what am I going to
say to him now?  How can I even look at him?”  She started to panic.

“Don’t be such a drama queen!” Carlotta
upbraided her.  “You’ll act like nothing happened and you’ll do the same things
you always do.  After all, he’s the only one who knows about it, and I
seriously doubt that he is going to say anything about it to anyone.”  She was
trying to make Marika feel better by saving her public image.

“That’s easy for you to say.”  Marika was
squeezing her favorite stuffed animal, Spank, to her chest.  “I’m not worried
about the others.  I don’t want to see the two of them together!”  She pounded
her fists against her pillow.  “I can’t take it, I can’t bear the thought of
it!  It’s a nightmare!”

After 45 minutes of psychoanalysis,
Carlotta was at least able to convince Marika to leave the house.  They rode
her scooter to
The Rook Café
, taking the back roads, lengthening the
trip by at least five miles.

It was already late when they met up with
the crew.  At first glance, everything seemed normal: the girls were sitting on
the grassy hillside behind the café, chatting, whereas the guys were circled
around Alessio’s scooter, checking out the modifications he had made to
increase its horsepower.

From afar, everything looked simpler than
how she had imagined it in her obsessive fits of jealousy: Matteo was on one
side, and Lucrezia on the other, far away from each other.  What had tormented
her the most, even more than that kiss, was the maddening thought that he might
fall in love with her.

Unfortunately, the appearance of normalcy
disappeared as soon as they reached the group of girls, when she heard Lucrezia
boasting about her most recent conquest to Livia.

Maybe it was the way it had to be.  After
all, she was the girl Matteo had kissed in front of everyone.  Maybe she was
the one he truly loved.  That was the way it was supposed to be, after all,
wasn’t it?  The sports star and the pretty girl.  The odds had always been in
favor of it.  So why should she be surprised?

Maybe because Marika believed that he was
different, that he was special, that he would never have allowed himself to
become just another one of Lucrezia’s trophies.  Because that’s all he was to
Lucrezia, while for Marika, he was her very body and soul.

She barely even said hi to him.  Neither
dared to look the other in the eyes, much less speak.

Dario, meanwhile, bored by the story of
tailpipes and nitrous injection, was thinking about his friend’s strange
behavior over the past weeks.  “What’s going on with you?”  He pulled him
aside, trying to draw him into conversation.

“Nothing,” Matteo said.  “What should be
going on with me?”

“Come on!  At Mardi Gras, you looked as if
you had drunk engine coolant.”

“Just drop it!  I don’t want to talk about
it.”  His body tensed.

Dario didn’t like it go.  “Then at least
explain to me your performance with Lucrezia.”

Irritated by the questioning, Matteo
turned on his friend with a sour look.  “Which part of I DON’T WANT TO TALK
ABOUT IT don’t you understand?”

“Marika, then,” Dario said, changing
tactics.  “What about Marika?”

“What the hell, are you her lawyer now or
something?”  Matteo looked him up and down, reluctant to continue the
dialogue.  “Just because you’re with Carlotta now doesn’t mean you can bust my
hump with all of your romantic crap.  Or do you just want me to call you
pussy-whipped in the future?”

“See what you’re doing?”

Matteo threw up his hands in disbelief.  “What
am I doing?”

“You’re acting like an asshole.  Like
someone who is willing to ruin everything just in order to prove that he doesn’t
need anyone or anything,” he criticized.  “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, there’s something wrong.  So what?” 
Matteo stared into his eyes, feeling argumentative.  “We’ve all got problems,
right?  It’ll pass.”

“What the hell are you talking about?  You
just got selected by
San Carlo
Milan
.  It’s like stumbling into
Eldorado!  Do you even get that?  Plus, if you wanted to, you could have a
great girlfriend who, believe it or not, actually wants you.  And we’re not
talking about the typical stupid chick who would jump into bed with anyone.” 
Dario was getting worked up, and his cheeks had changed from their usual pallid
white to a scarlet red.  “And yes, I mean Lucrezia.  Do I have to go on?”  He
took a breath.  “What more do you want from life?”

“A Budweiser.”  He smiled in spite of
himself.

“Better not, considering your last
performance under the influence....”  Dario’s natural skin tones returned, and
his voice softened.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Dammit, Dario, what do you want to know?”

“How long.”  He had decided to push his
friend into facing the truth.  “I want to know how long.”

“How long
what
?”  His face and
voice were strained.

“How long you have been in love with her.”

Matteo lifted his eyes from the ground and
sucked in all of his pride and insecurities.  “I don’t know,” he exhaled,
telling the truth.  “I don’t know how long it’s been.  All I know is that she
is everything to me.  I love her more than I’m willing to admit.”  He ran his
hands through his hair.  “You want to know why I kissed Lucrezia?”  His words
were full of remorse, and they stuck in his throat.  “Because I’m an idiot!  I
just followed my gut in that moment and now I don’t even have the courage to
look Marika in the face.”  He lowered his face, hiding his eyes momentarily,
before raising them again toward his friend.  “Is that what you wanted to hear?” 
He spread his arms wide.  “There you have it.  Satisfied?”

“Yeah,” his interrogator said quietly.  He
had no other words.  Dario hadn’t expected this confession.  “You can still
make up for it.  At the end of the day, a kiss is hardly a punishable offense. 
Like I told you before, you two are indissolubly linked to each other.  You can’t
run away from what you are.  No matter where you go, your feelings for her are
going to follow you.  You’re the only one who doesn’t see that yet.”

“Maybe you’re right, but that’s not the
only problem.”

“Then what is?”  He began tapping his
foot.  “I don’t understand you.”

“What’s so hard to understand?”  Matteo
watched the puff of steam that rose from his heavy breathing in the chill air. 
“If they decide to sign me to
San Carlo
, my life is going to change
forever.  I always thought that I’d remain near Vicenza; it was already a pipe
dream to fantasize about a minor league team.”