Page 30 of My Dark Fairy Tale
Damn.
I’d been texting them almost every day, except those few days when I was so sick and concussed I could barely open my eyes, and they still worried about me. I was twenty-three years old with a master’s degree, and they still couldn’t stop worrying.
As I hesitated, another text came in.
Mom: Are you taking your medicine? Don’t forget, the humidity will dehydrate you quicker than you’re used to!
My sigh unwound like a spool of thread over my tongue. I looked around and saw a building that could pass for something in Paris. It made my chest ache to perpetuate this lie to my parents, the first of my life, but it also felt necessary. A rebellion against a totalitarian parenthood. I smiled into my camera phone and took a photo.
Jinx: I’m alive and well if a little pale from being stuck inside. Don’t worry about me if I don’t check in every day. I missed a whole week to sickness. I want to soak it all in!
I sent the message and the photo, then resolutely stuffed my phone deep into my purse and quickened my pace as if I could leave the past and my reality back in Michigan in the dust.
A moment later, my worries faded to nothing as I took in the bustling, stunning sight of Ponte Vecchio ahead of me. The famous bridge was built up on either side with stores, most of them tourist traps, I knew from my research, but the effect was still unlike anything I’d ever seen. Tourists milled between the narrow bridge walls, looking at overpriced jewelry and licking fast-melting cones of vibrant gelato.
A giggle bubbled up in my throat as I took my first steps onto the bridge, and even when a tall man bumped into me, I just beamed up at him in response.
It hit me all at once, a week after I’d arrived.
I washere.
I’d made it.
Five weeks in Italy stretched out before me like a red carpet lined with bright lights. I was so excited it was hard not to get ahead of myself and imagine how I might feel when I returned stateside to my predictable life and boring self after what had already been a fairly life-changing trip.
But that was a future-me problem.
In that moment, I had nothing to worry about but luxuriating in the setting and finding authentic Toscana food to fill my hungry belly.
I took some time to look through one of the arches in the middle of the bridge with a fabulous view of the Arno. The sun was a huge golden medallion kissing the edge of the horizon, the river blushed pink from the embrace, and the sky tinged tangerine. I took a photo, but I knew nothing would ever capture this experience for what it was.
Total freedom and the realization of a dream I’d first conceived of in a hospital bed as a child.
“I’m here,” I whispered, perhaps a little foolishly, to the spirit of my sister I imagined I carried with me on my travels. “I made it, Gemma. And I think you’d be proud of me.”
I let the swell of tourists push me gently forward over the bridge onto the opposite bank and then turned right instead of heading straight to the Duomo. According to my phone, Trattoria Umberto was a little restaurant with rave reviews off the beaten track deep in the Santa Croce neighborhood.
There were other restaurants I had in the typed itinerary on my phone (I’d lost my physical laminated copy along with my suitcase), but I was trying to be more impulsive and a little less uptight about everything. Control had always been my favorite method to combat the uncertainty of being ill. When your own body acted against you, it was easy to cave into helplessness, and while I wasn’t immune from bouts of rage and frustration, being organized and disciplined was its own kind of balm.
Besides, I figured a local would know the best places to eat, and I was ready to make a fool of myself over a proper plate of Italian pasta.
The restaurant was nothing special from the outside. A wooden overhang with the restaurant name written in golden paint and two small windows filled with hanging legs of prosciutto to either side of the door. There wasn’t a line, but when I entered the dark, fairly cool interior, it was packed with diners, most of them speaking fluid, loud Italian.
I grinned at the bustle, noting the crooked art and photographs on the walls, the way the building seemed to be a collection of varying rooms at slightly different elevations, the wood dark and the beams exposed.
It was gorgeous.
A curvy older woman with iron-gray hair and sharp creases beside her mouth bustled up to me and asked me something in rapid-fire Italian.
“A little slower?” I asked in my own timid Italian.
Her smile softened a bit, but she didn’t switch to English, which I was grateful for. “Table for one? We only have space in the back.”
“Yes, please.”
She nodded briskly and turned to weave her way efficiently through the tables. Even though I wanted to hesitate over the fragrant plates of food at the tables and eavesdrop on some of the louder conversations, I followed quickly so I wouldn’t lose her in the maze of rooms. She dropped me off at a table in the very back where the room opened up to allow for a second wooden bar and a small band playing live music in the opposite corner.
“Bene?” she asked me, already setting down the menu.
