The music was too loud, and I knew full well I’d end up with ringing in my ears even in my dreams. Matteo was behind me, Silvia in front. She could really move it on the dance floor, whereas I, like everything else I did, was merely average. The smell of marijuana was intense, but I couldn’t work out exactly where it was coming from. Silvia’s short black bangs, catlike features, and wistful expression reminded me of Björk. Until last year she was with a surfer dude: she, a photographer and student at the European Institute of Design, he a video maker and the scion of a wealthy family. Then the surfer dude went to visit his father in Costa Rica and nobody heard from him again. At the time, I thought she was too good for the surfer dude. I’d love to have had a girl as pretty as her, but I was a humble salad guy, and I deserved her even less than he did.
Silvia floated around the smoky room. She was still gorgeous, maybe a bit whiny, every bit the brooding world-weary artist and not even thirty, making her much less desirable than I remembered. That evening I was particularly nice to her, even though I felt hollow and useless. Matteo was turning on the charm with a girl from Bologna, a newcomer to Rome. I liked the girls Matteo schmoozed. Glass after glass, I started feeling light-headed, slurring my words. “I’m okay, I can hold my liquor,” I said to myself. “Stop drinking, you’re not okay, you can’t hold your liquor,” said Matteo.
The alcohol got my thoughts drifting to kitchens, to the party on the riverboat the week before, and the €250 that Giangi and I split between us. My bike was parked outside my apartment building, its gas tank full, a bill, paid, lay on my nightstand, there was some ganja in my left pocket, and in my right, my last €50. The fridge came to mind, inside it an Époisses de Bourgogne that I’d bought as a treat immediately after getting paid for the riverboat party. I can’t fucking stand people who call it Taleggio. Sure, to all intents and purposes, it’s a classic French cheese sporting the usual mold, but the difference hits you the moment you cut into the sticky rind and get to the creamy, almost chewy heart. Époisses cheese is one of those flavors and textures that I got hooked on after meeting Sandro, and I met the only supplier of the cheese in Rome through him.
“Are you coming to the restroom with me?” Silvia whispered, bringing her lips to my ear, still dancing.
When we got home we were all pretty smashed, and the girl from Bologna immediately headed to the bedroom with Matteo. Good-quality coke doesn’t take your appetite away, nor does it keep you awake. It generally does take away your sadness. Silvia’s coke was excellent but left my sadness intact. I suggested tasting the Époisses and uncorking a bottle of Riesling, given that they’re a match made in heaven. It’s a cheese from Burgundy, in France, I tell her, and it’s made only in a handful of communes in the departments of Côte-d’Or, Yonne, and Haute-Marne, and only four cheese makers export it.
While I was talking, I opened the small round wooden box as if the label said Tiffany’s. She barely tasted it and said she didn’t like Taleggio, but did like Riesling, but enough already with the geography lesson, let’s go into the bedroom. I put the spurned cheese away without defending it or complaining. I told her to make herself at home. She stripped down to her bra and panties and then took them off too. I did the same. Some girls are more beautiful when they are clothed than naked, and she was one of them. She said she wanted to take a shower and it would only take a moment. As she closed the bathroom door, I started thinking that I liked her a lot more when she was the girlfriend of the guy who didn’t deserve her.
Not even ten minutes later, a bathrobe was on the floor next to Silvia’s wet footprints, the bedroom door was ajar, and she was lying up against the mirror nailed to the wall like a headboard. Weird how reality can turn ugly when least you expect it. I paused, turned off the light that showed off her stretch marks, kissed her on the neck, detached myself from her, and said I’d be back in a minute, don’t run away. She gave a little whimper of surprise, shrugged, and then I heard her sliding down onto the pillows.
One second later, I was stretched out on the sofa in my aunt’s apartment, the one next to mine, butt naked and with a lime green blanket wound around my waist, the TV on and my camera on the coffee table, which I had grabbed before absconding, because you never know. I mean, I didn’t really know Silvia that well, perhaps in a fit of rage she might have smashed it out of sheer spite. I brought the Époisses with me too, not because I thought it might be in danger, but because it’s always a good idea to have something delicious at hand. I smiled, trying to imagine that little Björk face, mulling over my sudden disappearance, and I fell asleep instantly.
Next morning the incessant ringing of my cell phone woke me up. I opened my eyes and grabbed it.
It was ten thirty and it said Caller Unknown.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, I’m … Hey did I wake you? Do you want me to call back later?”
“Nah, don’t worry … Who is this?”
“It’s Longo Longo, we met the other night, do you remember?”
“Long … who? No I don’t, sorry.”
“Longo Longo, that’s my capoeira name. We’ve crossed paths at a few training sessions, I spoke to you at the party on the riverboat. I came into the kitchen at the end of the evening. My name’s Michele, by the way.”
“Ah, Michele, of course I know who you are!” I was actually lying, but there was no use investigating any further.
“I wanted to tell you back then, at the riverboat, but you looked shattered, and I wanted to be sure first …”
“Sure about what?”
“Of getting you involved in a project of mine! Are you busy now, are you working anywhere?”
“I’m in negotiations about a job at a restaurant that’s opening soon,” I lied again, because it’s always best not to show yourself too willing or too desperate.
“Have you heard of the Verve?”
“That renovated farmhouse where they hold a jazz festival?”
“Exactly. In May they’re opening a restaurant there and later the summer festival season begins. They’ve taken me on as chef, and I need at least one other person in the kitchen with me.”
“Ah. And when do you need an answer by?”
“Tomorrow. Mauro, the sommelier in charge of the restaurant, is interviewing for staff at around four. If you’re interested, I’ll get an appointment for you at three, that way maybe you guys can work something out. See, I’d rather have you than a complete stranger … How about it?”
“Sure. Will you be there too?”
“Yeah, I’ll be in the kitchen getting things ready.”
“Oh, by the way, Michele, thanks.”
Click.
Time to take stock: not a dime to my name, a probable court appearance, which — glass half full — might cost me as much as €7,000. I needed to study and pass some exams in the July and September sessions at the university; I wasn’t ready to give up capoeira or photography just yet. I did not feel like being stuck in a kitchen all summer long. As things stood, the only real options for survival were: slip on a white polyester jacket with the name of the dry-cleaning service stamped on the pocket and work in some dive in Rome’s working-class Torpignattara quarter, or consider the possibility of becoming a professional drug pusher as a profitable enterprise, since I now had a police record anyway. So, tomorrow at three o’clock I’d be at the Verve, freshly showered and with my hair neatly combed and parted, wearing my best smile and hoping to be hired.
My aunt’s apartment was empty; she and my cousin must have left already. Before going next door to my place, I peered outside to see if Silvia’s car was still parked there. It wasn’t, which was fine by me.
Sometimes it takes little or nothing to turn things around, sometimes a random phone call pushes you down a certain path. This random phone call suddenly placed the world at my feet. The fog had lifted and the sun was blazing.