Thirty Nine! Oh my God!

So back at the roadside eatery of Café Wars, the would-be musician had just taken his accordion, tip jar, and perseverance down street.  Mom and I were sharing our orders of Pizza Margherita and Lasagna.  The table settings at the cafes are often family style, and you will find it difficult not to strike up conversation with the family or couple sitting alongside you, which is just what happened next:


As the young man at the table next to ours ordered the "best beer in Rome", the owner took his own spin when translating, and brought him what was no doubt the "biggest beer in Rome".  I smiled as he and his girlfriend took turns posing with a beer stein bigger than each of their heads.  Giggling, I commented, "Good thing you're not driving."  to which they both laughed, and agreed.

From there, it was easy enough to ask where they were from, which turned out to be, England and Romania.  They asked the same, and the reason for our trip which gave me the opportunity to talk about Cory.  I gave them each a Cory bracelet, and a picture, which they accepted kindly, and with solemn faces. 

It is a bittersweet mixture of joy and pain to share her with others.  I am happy that her name and face will continue to live on, but long to have her giggling in the seat beside me, asking my opinion on what she should order, and storing up people watching fodder for later conversation.  Our relationship was like nothing else I've experienced.  Being her parent -at times her only parent- was a responsibility I took seriously, but knowing her was also a simple joy.  A privilege.

  We had, through the challenge of her illness, spent an unnatural amount of time together for a teenage girl and her mother.  At a time when most girls her age were complaining to their friends about their mother and plotting plans to move out, she was running into my arms, her only safe haven.  Our already close relationship was cemented in the trust and respect we had for each other as we battled her illness.  And always, illness be damned, there was Cory.  The girl she had been before the illness, and the girl she would always be was hilarious, insightful, and kind.  There was no one else in the world I'd rather talk to, take a ride with, or have as a movie companion.  We had a bit for every occasion, private jokes that ran weeks at a time, and hundreds of references to movies, books, and people.  She could make me smile or laugh no matter what, and I could do the same for her.  We even had a silly dance made up for those particularly dark nights of the soul.  Looking back at the trip, and how wild I went over those Italian men, you must understand, my Cory-Girl, my delightful accomplice, was with me every moment, and we had a fantastic time that we'll laugh and talk about for years to come.

On the blog, I'd been writing about how good looking the young Italian men were, and my readers had requested photographic evidence.  Was I to become a stalker, taking pics on the street like a photographer from a tabloid magazine?  Yes, my readers answered.  I put my cheek to one shoulder, and smiled innocently, "Okay!"

So here we were at the café with the bright orange chairs and the hot waiter, who couldn't be more than twenty.  When he came by to check on our meals, I flagged him over.  "Mimmo, you take picture with me?"

He smiled, a glorious event full of white even teeth and sensual lips that spread leisurely across his handsome face, much the way I could imagine myself draped across his bed.  Embarrassed he took one hand and half covered his face.  "What?  Here?  But my clothes!"  he said, looking with dismay down at himself, before the owner glowered at him, barking something in Italian, punctuated with an erratic waving of one arm.

 "I have to go.  I'll be back."  he said before scurrying away.  He came back moments later to whisper hurriedly as he pretended to check on our beverages, "Ten minute, I break.  Wait, and we take picture then."

I nodded silently, feeling the butterflies start up in my stomach.  Hot Italian waiter and conspiracy?  Secret meetings and living under the radar?  Now, we were talking!  I would do whatever was necessary to uncover the journalistic truth about these men...for the blog, for the blog, I tell you.

It rained every night we were in Rome- a sudden downpour that lasted only a few minutes, and cooled things off perfectly for evening walks.  Just then, we were doused; the rain driving Mom and I indoors to sit at a corner table in the back, waiting for Mimmo.  I set out to ask Mom if she minded waiting, but closed my mouth at the look on her face.  I didn't need to ask.  She was having a great time.  Maybe she was feeling young.  Maybe she was happy to see me smiling.  Either way, she was content to wait as her middle aged daughter sought photographic evidence of the twenty year old hotties that roamed the city.  I didn't just introduce Mom to a new country on this trip; I think I opened up a whole new world.

 Across the table, my mom frowned, "That boss guy is so mean to that poor boy.  He shouldn't be allowed to yell at him like that."
 I smiled; My mom loves an underdog.  Seconds later, Mimmo whipped off his café apron, and plunked a seat down beside me.  "It's okay.  We take picture."

As I fiddled with my phone, he readied himself for the pose, taking one bronzed hand and snaking it around my waist.  My belly did a great big somersault as he pulled my body closer to his, and raised his hand confidently a good three inches, placing the underswell of my right breast directly into his hand.
Whoa!  My sharp intake of breath was noted by no one other than my vagina, who finally responded to my brain's question of   "Hey, anyone out there?"  It had had nothing to say to anyone on any subject for the last year, and was the last body part I expected to hear from on this trip.
The picture was over far too fast, and Mimmo was explaining with gestures and broken English that he wished to ask about the picture, but could not talk there, lest his boss string him up by a body part he'd rather keep whole.
I slowly pieced together that he wanted me to come with him, and shook my head no, I could not come to his place.  "No, not my place.  Just around corner to next shop."
I looked at his eager face, the pouring rain, and the café in the backstreets of Rome.  This would make a great story.
"Let's go!"  I responded.
"Mother to stay here, rain, rain, rain.  Be right back."  he stated, stopping at the broom closet to grab an umbrella.
That is how I found myself running out into a warm downpour of rain on the cobblestone streets of Italy, with an unnervingly sexy young man half my age holding an umbrella over my head, with his hand familiar about my waist.

Laughing, I stepped into puddles -sans Hunter boots- and followed Mimmo into the cover of a storefront awning.  "Here, bella." he said, offering me the deepest part of the shelter.  When I looked up, he had Cory's picture in his hand, asking sincerely, "Now tell me what happen your sister."

"Oh, she's not my sister.  She's my daughter."  I responded.

He furrowed his brow. 

"I am her mother."  I said.

"Mother back there."  he pointed, looking confused.

"My mother there.  I mother, too.  Cory my daughter."  I said, pantomiming a smaller version of myself.  "She was nineteen.  I am thirty nine."

To this, he exclaimed, "Thirty nine!  Oh my God!"

Yes, Mimmo, I know.  I have often felt that exact same way.

"You too young.  You not thirty nine; you twenty four!"  he insisted.

Could he get any more attractive?

He stared back down at Cory's picture, and asked me what happened.  I explained as best I could, with lots of gestures, which is the way I talk anyway, often knocking a beverage into a friend's lap back home.

Mimmo listened, his face growing graver by the moment.  Finally he spoke, "Oh baby!  Nicola... I look at this picture... and I just feel for you in my heart...I want to make you feel better."

Gulp.

I looked into his eyes, chanting in my head, I am married, I am married, I am married, I am married.

"Nicola, I like the talking to you.  We meet tonight around eleven.  I make you feel better."

Boy, I just bet you could.

As he closed in for the romantic rainstorm Roman kiss, the sound took place in my head as if a record player's arm has been pulled roughly off the record.

"I have to get back to my mom."  I stammered, noting the crestfallen look on his face.  "May I borrow the umbrella?" 

He smiled.  "Bella, you must keep umbrella for all forever.  Try to see me tonight, okay?"

Feeling a little bad for the poor guy, I ran off into the rain to get my mother.  I'd gotten him yelled at by his boss, took up his smoke break, and stolen what might be his only umbrella, and he still wasn't going to get any tail.

I guess sometimes I can be a heartbreaker, too.

Ciao!