Linda Grady-Troia

Guilty, guilty, guilty. That’s how she felt, skipping out on Brenda for the day. Brenda and the others in the tour group. But when she’d agreed to go on a trip with her best friend, she hadn’t figured on being joined at the hip. And it’s not as though she were leaving the other woman to cope with a foreign adventure all on her own.

Brenda was the one who suggested they join a group tour. Ellie had been afraid of being stuck for two weeks among the sort of American tourists who wanted to be able to say they’d been to Italy, but who really thought the pasta at The Olive Garden was better. People who knew the Sistine Ceiling was supposed to be a masterpiece but who, in their day-to-day lives, wouldn’t know the difference between a Michelangelo and an Any Warhol. Or care. But Brenda had pointed out that the logistics of seeing Venice, Florence, and Rome might be daunting for two unseasoned travelers who didn’t speak the language. Indeed, Ellie knew when she was being honest with herself, she’d been just a bit intimidated by the idea herself. Oh, sure, she remembered a few phrases of Italian from some time spent with language CDs a few years back, back when she and Adam had been considering a European vacation, back before Adam got sick. But no, for two middle-aged women who had never traveled on their own before, one widowed, one divorced, women who until this trip had been used to having husbands around to carry suitcases and figure out tips, a group tour was not a bad idea. It would be less stressful even though that also made it less adventurous.

And it had been fun. Ellie had to admit it had been fun. Brenda had done the research on various options and the small group tour she’d come up with was led by an art historian, was aimed at travelers like Ellie and herself. They were a nice bunch, honestly. But three years of widowhood had left Ellie used to a lot of private time. The tour was arranged to give participants time to, as the brochure had promised, “explore on your own,” but somehow exploration was always with Brenda, and it always seemed to end up as shopping. Ellie was not usually one to consider shopping a hobby. It had been fun at first, the shops being rather a change from a

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suburban mall, but she had found the quick jaunts between shops much more interesting than the shops themselves. Brenda, however, had scouted out her destinations ahead of time in some shopper’s guide to Italy, and then plotted them out on a map, so that they didn’t need to, as Brenda put it, “waste time wandering.” Ellie had loved the little bit of wandering they had done. And tomorrow, their last day in Rome, was due to be spent at the Vatican Museums. No, today was Ellie’s last chance to steal a bit of time for private exploration, and guilty or not, she intended to seize the opportunity.

So when the bus had pulled up in front of the Roman hotel to take the group to Tivoli for the day, to tour the gardens of the Villa D’Este and the ruins of Hadrian’s villa, Ellie had claimed to have a case of the runs, although it wasn’t true.

“I think I’d better stick close to the hotel,” she had said. “And the bathroom. If I feel better later, maybe I’ll go sit in that cafe next door to the hotel, you know, the one where we had the cappuccino the other day. The waiter spoke English pretty well. Otherwise, I’ll just hole up in the room and watch Italian TV. I keep thinking I’ll pick up some of the language if I watch enough TV.”

But getting rid of Brenda had not been as easy as she had expected. Brenda had first insisted she should stay with a sick friend, that friendship required nothing less. “Oh no, no,” Ellie had insisted. “I’ll be just fine, and you’ll be bored silly.” She’d had to run on like that for several minutes to spare Brenda pangs of guilt, but Brenda probably hadn’t really wanted to stay anyway, hadn’t wanted to sit around a hotel room all day, watching Ellie, as Brenda would have expected her to be doing, running to the toilet.

Once she’d convinced Brenda, she then had had to convince the tour guide, Claudia, that she wasn’t going to get in trouble with the tour company over a sick client. No, the restaurant to which she, Claudia, had taken the group the night before had not given Ellie a case of food poisoning. “Oh, no,” Ellie had assured her. “Lots of people ordered the saltimbocca, and nobody else is sick, are they? No? So you see. This happens to me sometimes when I travel. I’ll be fine in a few hours. I just need to rest today. And to stay near the bathroom.”

Then Claudia had wanted to call “un medico,” which had caused a bit of confusion because Brenda, who was of course still attached to Ellie’s hip, had heard the receptionist at the

hotel address Claudia as “dottoressa,” which had convinced her the the other woman was a medical doctor as well an art historian and a tour guide, but that she was unwilling to expose herself to a possible malpractice suit by treating one of the tour clients. It took both Claudia and Ellie to convince Brenda that dottore was a salutation to anyone with academic credentials and that a medico was a doctor in the American sense. And that Ellie didn’t need one in any case.

By that point the rest of the group was already ensconced in the tour bus, which was snarling traffic in the Piazza della Repubblica, so it had not taken Ellie too long to convince Claudia and Brenda that she did not need to visit a farmacia either, despite the extensive training of Italian pharmacists. Ellie might have gone along with that one if she’d ever in fact had the medical problem she was laying claim to, but was afraid of being caught out in a lie if she couldn’t describe convincing symptoms. Not to mention the fact that she was suffering from, if anything, the exact opposite problem, and any medicine that would alleviate the problem she didn’t have was likely to make the one she did have much worse. And Brenda might well insist on standing over her while she took it.

Thus by the time Ellie had managed to escape from her tour group, the tour guide, and her best friend, she practically did need to lie down and rest from the effort of all that unaccustomed lying. But Rome beckoned, and tucking Brenda’s copy of an Eyewitness Travel Guide under her arm, she set out to revive herself with a cappuccino instead of a nap. The waiter at the place next door had, in fact, spoken English very well, the cappuccinos had been delicious, and the pastries the Italian couple at the next table had been eating had looked worth a try. She’d be able to enjoy one without having to listen to Brenda worrying about the calories.

So fifteen minutes later she was settled at a table outside, watching traffic flow into the large round piazza with its fountain of naiads who, according to the guidebook, had been quite controversial when they were installed, although why in a city with so many naked statues these particular naked statues had seemed controversial Ellie couldn’t quite work out. She asked for a cappuccino and a croissant.

“Cornetto?” the waiter asked.

That confused her for a moment, but hey, she was in Rome. She was in Rome, not in Paris, and maybe in Rome a croissant wasn’t a croissant. Ordering a pastry without being quite

sure what she was ordering might not be exactly an adventure on a footing with trekking across the Gobi dessert, but it was a tiny bit of an adventure, so she went for it. “Si,” she said, trying out one of the Italian words she did remember from those language CDs years ago.

Then she immediately wondered if that had been a mistake, because the waiter then asked something else in Italian that sounded to her American ears like “Seems peachy, choco lotto, oak on mama lotto?” Lotto indeed, Ellie thought, since I’m gambling here. “Chocolate?” she guessed. A good guess apparently, for the waiter nodded and vanished, and then reappeared five minutes later with a steaming cup of frothy coffee and a warm croissant filled with melted chocolate. Choco-lotto, Ellie said to herself as she ate. I’ve got to remember that. Good word to know.

As she refueled on her midmorning treat, she angled her chair a bit so as to avoid having to look at the McDonald’s sign blighting the piazza and leafed through the guidebook, trying to decide what to do next. As long as she was back at the hotel before the tour bus returned with Brenda, who would be worried sick if Ellie wasn’t there, she had a whole day in Rome to do whatever she chose. There seemed to be museums by the dozens, ancient ruins by the score, churches by the hundreds. She leafed back and forth through the book, undecided. It was an American couple that finally helped her to make up her mind.

She’d known they were American as soon as she’d noticed them, the wife’s sturdy walking sneakers, the husband’s baseball cap, the Rick Steve guidebook, and the hotel handout map of Rome in hand. The wife paused to look at the menu posted in front in front of the cafe. No, Ellie reminded herself, not a cafe, a bar. In Italy coffee places are bars. This bar didn’t please the Americans.

“Can’t anybody in this city scramble an egg?” the wife asked.
Well, Jeannie,” her husband replied, “You know what they say. When in Rome, ... .” “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jeannie answered dejectedly. “Do as the Romans do. For

breakfast eat rolls and a thimbleful of coffee strong enough to remove paint.”
“I know,” the gentleman said. “You wanted to go to Florida. I’m sorry I suggested this.” “Oh no, Al, don’t say that. I’ve liked it, most of it. The Colosseum was pretty amazing.

It’s just the breakfasts ....”

“Florida next year,” Al promised her. “Or maybe San Diego. We won’t come back here.”

“Okay,” Jeannie agreed, and then, looking up, she said, “Oh look, Al! There’s a McDonalds! Do you suppose they have Egg McMuffins?”

Al looked where she was pointing and his face too lit up. “I don’t know,” he said, “but let’s go find out.”

And they hurried off, in search of Egg McMuffins and coffee weak enough to wash your laundry in. Ellie watched them, thinking to herself, they must not be staying at our hotel. Our hotel has a full buffet breakfast, and I’ve been eating the scrambled eggs. But I could get used to a cappuccino and a croissant -- no, a cornetto -- with choco-lotto. And I do want to come back. With a group, by myself, maybe with one of the kids. I do want to come back.

And that’s when she knew what she had to do that day. They’d walked by the Trevi Fountain. They’d walked by it and Claudia had talked about its history, and the significance of the sculpture, and about the famous scene in “La Dolce Vita” where Anita Eckberg goes wading in it. And she’d talked about the superstition that throwing a coin in the fountain guaranteed that you would return to Rome. But they had not, as a group, descended the steps and thrown coins. So that’s what Ellie decided to do. She would go throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain!

But first she needed to figure out how to get back to the Trevi. She could take a cab most of the way, of course, but wandering around Rome was part of what she had wanted to do that day. She had managed to grasp a vague sense of the city’s geography in the past few days, being ferried and shepherded around, and she was pretty sure it was a walkable distance. She opened the Eyewitness Guide to the index and looked for a listing of fountains, planning to plot a route to her goal.

The listing took up most of a column in the index. Rome had dozens of fountains, the Trevi only the most famous, and as she skimmed the names a plan crystalized in her mind. Why throw only one coin in one fountain? She knew she wanted to come back to Rome, so she would spend her free day wandering and throwing coins in as many fountains as she could manage.
She would start with the one almost in front of her. She would throw a coin in the Fountain of the Naiads. She downed the last drops of cappuccino, scraped the last bits of milk foam from the side of the cup, and signaled the waiter for the check. She paid with a 10 euro note to make sure she had plenty of coins, and she set off around the circular piazza to the crosswalk that led to the fountain.

She waited for a large group to accumulate at the outer edge before crossing to the fountain along with the group. The Roman traffic was intimidating, and even in the midst of a small crowd she thought she could feel a breeze from the little SmartCar that shot past them with inches to spare. Still she reached the fountain safely. People, tourists it seemed, were taking photos. A young couple, Italian high school students playing hooky if she had to take a guess, was flirting, the boy pointing out the naked buttocks of a water nymph, then cupping his hand over the same portion of the girl’s anatomy. She slapped his hand away, but she was giggling, not at all offended. Nobody was tossing coins but Ellie didn’t let that stop her. She pulled one from her wallet and, without even looking to see what denomination it was, she tossed it in.

A very earnest young woman with a large camera round her neck and a Blue Guide liberally fringed with Post-It notes in various colors shook her head condescendingly. “Wrong fountain,” she said in a Boston accent. “It’s the Trevi you’re supposed to throw a coin in. With your right hand, over your left shoulder, with your back to the fountain.”

“Oh, I’m going to do that too,” Ellie assured her. “I’m just hedging my bets. But how did you know I was American?”

The other woman shrugged. “You’re dressed like an American. And you have an English language guidebook.”

Ellie glanced down at her sneakers, jeans, polo shirt, and windbreaker, and the Eyewitness Guide under her arm. She was dressed like an American, she thought. Funny how she’d never thought about it. “What was that again about how to throw your coins?” she asked. “I know I want to come back to Rome, so I plan on throwing a coin in every fountain I can.”

A young man about the same age as the Boston tourist had come up as she spoke, putting a lens cap back on a camera even larger than his traveling companion’s. “You could go broke doing that in Rome,” he put in.

“Well, I figure one day’s worth of coins will run me less than the Armani jeans I didn’t buy. That was right hand, left shoulder, back to the fountain?”

The young woman nodded. “Right. Good luck. Hope it works for you.” She nodded at her young man and they took off at a run across the crosswalk, dodging and being dodged by traffic.

Ellie pulled another coin from her pocket and threw it with her right hand, over her left shoulder, with her back to the fountain. She closed her eyes too, although that hadn’t been part of the instructions, all the better to concentrate on her wish to return to Rome. One down, she said to herself as she opened her eyes, only to see the Italian teens looking at her, seeming both curious and amused.

The boy addressed a question to her that sounded something like “Pear bone for a tuna?” Ellie searched her memory for any Italian she remembered that sounded similar. Could he be saying something about the fish the fountain depicted? No, surely not. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t speak Italian.”

The boy looked to his girlfriend who, it turned out, knew a bit of English, although she didn’t speak it with a great deal of confidence. She frowned a moment, seeming to search for the words. “Is for good fortune, the ... ?” And apparently not knowing the words for throw and coin, she mimed the act of the toss.

Well, Ellie thought, coming back to Rome would count as good fortune. “Yes,” she said. “Si, for good fortune. For good luck.”

“For good luck,” The girl nodded, first to Ellie, then at her boyfriend, seeming pleased with the addition to her English vocabulary. “Good luck,” she repeated.

“How do you say it in Italian again?” Ellie asked, and then, seeing she hadn’t been understood, she tried again. “In Italian, Italiano. For good luck?”

The girl got it that time, and repeated slowly and clearly, “Per buona fortuna.”
Ellie tried. “Per bone-ah ... .”
The boy interrupted her. “No, signora, buona, bwoh-na.”
Ellie got it -- or at least close enough to satisfy her eager teachers -- on her second try.

“Per buona fortuna.”
“Perfetto!” The boy assured her. “Thank you. Grazie,” Ellie smiled.

“Prego,” the boy assured her. Ellie realized that this word, which she had been hearing all week, must mean “You’re welcome.”

Then the young Italian reached in his own pocket, pulled out a handful of coins, inspected them, choosing, Ellie guessed, the smaller denominations, handed one to his girlfriend, kept one for himself, and put the rest back. He grinned at Ellie before turning his back to the fountain, closing his eyes, and tossing the coin over his shoulder. “Per buona fortuna!” he said. His girlfriend followed suit. “Per buona fortuna!” “Buona fortuna,” Ellie echoed, grinning. “Ciao!”

And turning toward the crosswalk and spotting a gap in the traffic, she trusted in her buona fortuna and dashed safely across the piazza to the sidewalk. When she glanced back she saw that coin tossing -- or perhaps giving a coin for tossing -- did seem to have brought the young man a bit of good luck, for his hand now rested comfortably on the girl’s rear end without interference, while he leaned over to whisper something in her ear. Sweet nothings, Ellie thought, sighing. Then, wryly, no, he’s probably commenting on what a crazy old American lady they just ran into.

Still it wasn’t worth spending time worrying about. She did have a limit on her available time, the return of the rest of the group, and there were more fountains in Rome than she could possibly get to in that time. She opened the guidebook to the maps in the back, plotting her next move.

Heading southwest she could reach Piazza Barberini where, the book showed her, she would find not one, but two fountains. And one of the streets leading out of the piazza was the street of the four fountains. Six in close proximity! It was a no brainer, so she noted the streets she needed to take and then stuffed the book in an outside pocket of her purse. It barely fit, but she’d be able to reach it easily if she got lost. True, she was a tourist, and yes, her clothes apparently marked her as an American, but there was no need to call any more attention to the fact than she could help.

It turned out she didn’t need to refer to the book again to find the piazza. Finding the Bee Fountain turned out to be a bit more difficult. She had assumed it would be large and in the middle of the piazza, but when she came out into the open area, she didn’t spot it right away.

The Piazza Barberini was sort of a large triangle with one corner lopped off, and she could see what must be the Triton Fountain at the far end, in a pedestrian area surrounded by a lane of traffic. But there was no second fountain at the near end of the traffic-free zone. She turned in a circle, she walked back and forth, and finally she spotted it. It was somewhat smaller than she had expected, and instead of adorning the center of the piazza, it was sitting up the sidewalk, a sort scallop shell some eight or ten feet tall, with a few bees the size of house cats crawling on it and some inscription in what Ellie took to be Latin. It didn’t strike her as a very impressive fountain, but she tossed a coin in anyway without a problem. When she opened her eyes she found a rather tall, somewhat elderly Italian gentleman, walking a very small dog and looking at her curiously. Still, when she gave him a big smile, he smiled back. She summoned up another Italian phrase, pulled from memory by having heard it earlier on the trip, and wished him a good day. “Buongiorno.” And his response, which sounded at first like “Ankle hey” must be, she realized quickly, “Anche a Lei,” that is, to you too. And so, smiling and nodding at each other, they went their separate ways. Ellie headed toward the larger Triton Fountain at other end of the piazza and the older gentleman spoke sharply to his dog as it tugged against its leash, trying to chase down a pigeon.

It took a bit more of her buona fortuna to reach the Triton safely through the Roman traffic, but Ellie was sure it was worth it as soon as she got a good look this fountain. Much more impressive she thought. More sea shells, a couple of them, but these were held aloft by several arching fish, and a sea god, crouched atop them, was blowing enthusiastically on a shell trumpet.

Large as the fountain was, she had to wait a few minutes for a good spot to throw her coin. There was a low railing around the fountain, perhaps to protect it from traffic. It certainly didn’t keep back the tourists, most of whom just stepped over it. The space inside was crowded with large group of them. They were obviously together and they obviously felt their right to take multiple pictures of each other in front of the fountain trumped Ellie’s right to wish for good luck. She might have complained if she’d thought they would understand, but they obviously weren’t American, or Italian, and she didn’t recognize whatever language they were chattering at each other in. Some of the chattering was directed at her, and she had the distinct impression she was being berated for being in the way of the photos, the taking of which was apparently more important than actually looking at the fountain. Still, after a few minutes they moved away as a herd, following a guide waving an closed umbrella over his head. Once they had flocked off, she took her time, choosing the perfect spot and tossing her coin in peace. Since she’d done it from beyond the railing, she turned to check that her coin had in fact made it in. It had. She knew it had to be her imagination, a trick of the light playing on the water, but it seemed to her that the sea god was smiling, as if pleased with her offering.

Then she sat down on the little protective railing and pulled out the guidebook, checking to see which of the streets leading off the piazza led to the four fountains. And deciding where to go from there. Piazza Quirinale, she decided, a straight run down Via del Quirinale from the intersection with all the fountains. That should be simple enough not to need the guidebook for a bit. She tucked it away again and headed off.

She felt she was getting quite good at crossing the streets. A good thing too, because tossing a coin in each of four fountains, one on each corner of the intersection, set into the corners of four buildings, involved multiple crossings. That mission accomplished, Ellie could feel the big grin on her face as she headed off towards the next fountain awaiting her coin.

Piazza Quirinale was very large and rather stark, and there were armed men in elaborate uniforms guarding the entrance to the largest building on the square. Ellie had a vague recollection that this was some kind of government building. It had been pointed out during the bus tour they’d taken the first day in Rome. Ok, Ellie figured, I need to make it very clear I’m tossing a coin in the fountain, not a bomb! Where is the fountain?

This one was towards the middle of the piazza, of course, but the basin of water was rather overshadowed by a couple of large sculptures of men and horses, not to mention an obelisk. She headed over and made a rather elaborate show of pulling out her change purse, examining the coins to select one, the smallest she had, hopefully the least suspicious, and then putting the wallet away before turning her back to the fountain to throw the coin.

She checked to see if the guards were looking at her. She didn’t think so but they were too far away for her to be sure. She closed her eyes, ready to toss, but then someone touched her arm and a male voice said something, and she was so startled she dropped her coin and opened her eyes, half expecting to see a guard come to arrest her, and how would she ever explain that to Brenda?

But it wasn’t. It was a man holding a camera. He seemed startled to have startled her, and he bent to retrieve her coin before addressing her again. In the flow of rapid Italian Ellie made out something that sounded a bit like “photo,” and the man was holding out her coin with one hand and his camera with the other, while a woman and two small children crowded up behind him.

“Oh, I get it!” Ellie exclaimed. “You’d like me to take a photo of you and your family in front of the fountain!”

Apparently there was enough similarity between the English and the Italian for understanding to have been established. “Si,” the man said, smiling. “Foto, famiglia, fontana.”

“Well sure,” she agreed. “Just a sec.” And then another word from those long ago language CDs came back to her. “Momento!” she said, taking her coin back, closing her eyes and tossing. “Per buona fortuna,” she explained.

The whole family nodded and smiled and the father held out the camera again. She took it and the family posed themselves in front of the fountain, father, mother, son, and daughter. Ellie had to back up to fit them and the statues, but even so the photo session took only a minute. When she handed the camera back, the parents crowded together to look at the results on the view screen. Everyone seemed pleased. The parents said “Grazie” several times, giving Ellie lots of chances to practice her pronunciation of “Prego.” The children watched the fountain, pointing things out to each other, and Ellie realized hers was not the only coin glinting under the water.

Ellie was about to turn to go when the little boy, maybe 10, said something to her, a question judging by the intonation, but Ellie made out only the final word, “fontane.”

She looked at him, and then at his parents, all of them baffled. “Sorry,” Ellie said. “I don’t understand.”

The boy frowned and then turned to his mother and asked her something. She shrugged but took from her bag an Italian language guidebook to Rome and handed it to her son, who leafed through it with a determined look on his face while the adults all watched him and his younger sister continued to watch the water dancing in the sunlight in the fountain.

After a moment the boy held the book out to show Ellie a particular page, which had a photo of an oval piazza with not one but three fountains. “Piazza Navonna,” Ellie read out loud. The boy nodded, satisfied, and Ellie realized that he had wanted to recommend another fountain, in fact another whole set of fountains to her, as one fountain lover to another. She smiled at him. “Piazza Navonna,” she agreed. “I’ll go there next.” She pulled her own guidebook out, checked the index, found the right page, and showed the boy to demonstrate that his suggestion had been understood. Grinning, he let his parents thank her yet again and move off towards a museum that stood on one side of the piazza as Ellie turned to the maps in the back of her book.

She was actually very close to the Trevi she saw, much closer than she was to Piazza Navonna, but it felt to her as though she ought to leave the Trevi for last. She’d hit it on the way back to the hotel, she decided, and she began to plot her course for Piazza Navonna.

She was heading into the older part of the Centro Storico, the historical center of Rome, and while there certainly were a few long straight streets with lots of traffic, there were also lots of narrow streets that ran short distances before dead-ending, forcing her to head left or right to the next little alleyway. But what alleyways! Charming little shops that would have delighted Brenda even if they weren’t in her shopping guide. Bars with business suited Italians downing tiny cups of coffee while tourists licked off cappuccino mustaches. Gelaterias whose glass- fronted cases showed off whole rainbows of cold creamy sweetness. She found herself slowing down without intending to. This was the side of Rome she’d gotten glimpses of the past few days while Claudia guided them to another museum or historical site or Brenda hurried to find the next shop. This was the side of Rome she wanted to explore, had been waiting all week to explore.

Soon she crossed the busy Via del Corso. Despite the fact it was a major, busy street, crossing it was relatively simple, as the narrow sidewalks spilled shoppers into the street itself, forcing cars and buses to proceed at a snail’s pace. Once she was across, the streets became even more confusing, but she spotted signposts with arrows indicating the direction of various landmarks. There had probably been others all along the way if she’d thought to look for them. Ellie tucked the guidebook back into the outer pocket of her bag. True, the signs didn’t always agree exactly from one street to the next, but they kept pointing her in the same general direction. I’m in no hurry, she told herself. The bus probably won’t be back till four. Well, maybe I’d better figure on three, just to be safe. Still, I don’t need to check for the shortest possible route.

She even allowed herself a short stop for another look at the Pantheon. It had been overcast the day before when Claudia had taken them there, so she wanted to see today’s sunlight streaming in through the occulus, the hole in the top of the 2000 year old dome. She’d left her camera at the hotel, afraid she’d forget and show Brenda photos she wouldn’t be able to explain having taken. Now she regretted it. Next visit to Rome, she promised herself, and set off to throw more coins.

She didn’t spot another directional sign right away, but she knew pretty much which way the last one had pointed, so she set off down one of the narrow streets heading in the right direction. In just a few minutes she found herself coming into a street with traffic barriers, a guard booth, and more armed guards. Another government building, she told herself. They’d passed some government building on the way to Piazza Navonna the other day. She must be getting close.

When she came around the corner of the Italian senate -- she was pretty sure that’s what Claudia had called it -- she recognized the street the bus had driven down that day. It had stopped around the corner, but they’d entered the piazza on foot from one end. Ellie was pretty sure she would come out in the middle through that little alley she could see almost directly across the street. It was a two-way, rather busy street, and there was no traffic light where she wanted to cross. She hesitated a moment but a middle-aged couple, loaded with shopping bags and chattering away in Italian, started across confidently, so she fell in behind them. She got distracted though. A priest was proceeding up the sidewalk on the other side, wearing a full- length black cassock and one of those round-topped, broad-brimmed priest hats that Ellie had never seen before except in pictures. How picturesque, she thought, not realizing she’d stopped walking to gape. A car horn reminded her.

The little Fiat had braked and would not have hit her, annoyed as the driver might have been, even if she’d stayed put a moment longer. But Ellie was startled and leapt guiltily for the sidewalk. Unfortunately she misjudged the height of the curb, tripped, and went sprawling, bumping into the woman she’d been following and knocking a shopping bag out of her hand, which spilled a small pile of books, children’s books with brightly-colored covers, onto the sidewalk.

“Sorry!” Ellie exclaimed as she clambered to her feet. And Ellie, the woman, the woman’s husband, and the priest whose hat had caught her attention all stooped to gather up the woman’s purchases. The couple was not angry as Ellie half feared they might be, but seemed concerned to know if she was okay. At least she thought that was what they kept asking. And she kept apologizing. (None of them realized that the pile of books shoved quickly back into the shopping bag now included the Eyewitness Travel Guide that had slid from the outside pocket of Ellie’s bag when she fell.)

When all the books, including the extra, were back in the bag, and Ellie had dusted off the knees of her jeans, she tried again to apologize, hoping her tone of voice would make her meaning clear even if she had no idea how to say it in Italian. She thought they understood, for they kept shaking off her regrets and assuring her everything was fine. At least she thought that was what they kept saying. Unless, Ellie thought to herself, “two-toe Benny” is Italian slang for a clumsy American.

After a minute or two of this mutual game of verbal charades, the Italian couple headed off in one direction while she walked, a little stiffly with her knee hurting, into the alleyway and then out into Piazza Navonna.

The piazza was long, and rounded at the ends, and Ellie couldn’t figure out how she had forgotten that it featured three fountains, smaller ones at the ends and a larger one, topped with another obelisk, in the middle. It was crowded too, as it had been the other day when the tour group stopped there briefly. It was probably always crowded. Artists sold their work or reproductions of others’ work. A woman dressed as a silver statue of liberty, molded plastic torch held aloft, stood on a box at one end, hoping tourists would drop coins in her basket in exchange for posing for photos with her. Or maybe with him. Ellie realized it was hard to be sure who was under the elaborate costume and silver makeup. From the other end came the strains of an accordion player, wheezing his way through “O Sole Mio” with his case open at his feet, also hoping for payment. And Ellie was fairly certain that not all the people sitting on benches or strolling around were tourists. Surely a place this lovely was popular with locals too.

Ellie had entered the Piazza near the large, central fountain, but she headed off to her left to throw her coins in a straight line, working her way from one end to the other. The central figure in the first fountain she came to appeared to be wrestling a fish, while the surrounding figures blew horns from which water poured. She tossed a coin and turned to see she had startled a pigeon that had been perched on one figure’s head. The figures on the central fountain were lounging around peacefully, although one did have an arm thrown up protectively, as if afraid the obelisk might topple over on him. Ellie remembered Claudia saying these statues represented specific rivers so she walked all the way around, trying to decide which, if any, stood for Rome’s own Tiber. If so, that was probably the best side to throw her coin. But she couldn’t tell and ended up tossing it at a carved lion that was leaning down to drink. The final fountain had a man spearing a sea monster of some sort, surrounded by little kids and mermaids or water nymphs or something. She tossed her third coin with a flourish. No one paid any attention.

The sound of the splashing water, however, brought on a sudden urge to find a bathroom. She glanced at her watch and saw it was a bit after twelve, and while she wasn’t all that hungry after her midmorning cornetto, she decided to treat herself to lunch at one of the restaurants with outdoor seating that dotted the edges of the piazza. They were probably tourist traps, she told herself, and a pizza or a sandwich in any one of them would probably cost twice what the same meal would cost on a side street, and might not be as good. But part of what she would be paying for was the view, and what a view! Besides, she could be pretty sure the waiters in a tourist trap would speak a little English. She selected the one closest to the central fountain and, since pizza seemed to be their speciality, she ordered a pizza.

She decided as she ate that she had been right about the price and the waiter’s language skills. As to the quality of the pizza, well, it might not be the best in Rome but it sure beat most of the pizzas she’d eaten at home. And the view was worth every cent, and the bathroom had been clean besides. She took her time over her meal and had a second glass of wine, and then an espresso.

When she went to pay her bill and took her wallet out of her purse, she realized she had lost Brenda’s guidebook, with its maps of the city. For a moment she panicked. She looked under her chair.

“Have you lost something, signora?” the waiter asked. “There are pickpockets in the piazza sometimes.”

“No, no,” Ellie assured him, wondering if he was worried about getting paid for the meal. “My wallet is here. It’s my guidebook I lost. A pickpocket wouldn’t take that. I must have dropped it.”

He too made a show of looking under the table, and under nearby tables as if something as heavy as a book might have blown away in the slight breeze that ruffled the overhead awning every now and then. He shrugged expressively. “Mi dispiace. Sorry, signora. Is not here.”

“That’s okay,” Ellie said as she handed him the money. “I’m pretty sure I can find my way back to the hotel.” She felt a bit less confident than she sounded.

It wasn’t until the waiter brought her change and she was putting it in her wallet that it occurred to her that she should probably have paid with a credit card because she was running low on euros. She’d have to keep an eye out for an ATM. Only that’s not what they were called here, she knew, and she couldn’t remember the word. She did remember, however, that Claudia had had to help her with the one in Florence because it hadn’t had English translations. So maybe she’d better wait to get more cash. She wondered if a Roman taxi would take a credit card if she were running late getting back to the hotel. Or had trouble finding her way there.

But she needed to find the Trevi Fountain before she worried about that. She knew she had seen a sign for it off to her right as she’d wandered towards Piazza Navonna, so she would simply have to keep an eye out for signs to her left as she backtracked the way she had come. She could keep an eye out for her guidebook too. She’d probably just dropped it somewhere. (Unknown to her it was at that moment in the hands of an eight-year-old Italian girl in the Prati neighborhood, who was wondering why her doting grandparents had included such a strange item in the shopping bag of books they had dropped off a few minutes before. They had promised her presents if she got her school grades up but she’d been hoping for a doll or even a cell phone. Not books. And one she couldn’t even read! Although it did have pretty pictures of the city.)

As Ellie wove her way out of the piazza through another herd of tourists following a guide waving a small banner over his head, she realized the knee she had landed hardest on when she fell had stiffened up while she had lingered over her second glass of wine. She was going to have to walk more slowly till it loosened up. If it did. And she was going to have a nasty bruise that Brenda would want to have explained.

So she waited a long time for a large gap in the traffic before trying to cross the Corso del Rinascimento, finally falling in behind yet another tour group. They must have been Americans, because she overheard their leader explaining in English to one of his charges the best way to cross a street in Rome. “Look the driver in the eye. Or wait and cross behind a nun or a priest.” Good to know, Ellie thought.

She had no trouble finding her way back to the Pantheon, although she fell well behind the tour group, who seemed to be heading there as well. She was walking slowly because her knee hurt and because she was scanning the cobblestones for a lost Eyewitness Travel Guide. Coming into the piazza in front of the church she saw there was a fountain there that she had somehow managed to miss in her eagerness to see the church again. Maybe it’s just as well I paid cash at lunch, she thought. I was running low on coins. She tossed one quickly, then opened her eyes to see a guy dressed in plastic armor meant to make him look like an ancient Roman centurion. She smiled at him. (He grinned back even while wishing the American lady had paid him the coin to pose for a photo instead of wasting it by throwing it in a fountain).

Ellie realized that the fake centurion’s smile, while not unfriendly, was also a bit mercenary. Already feeling a bit unsure of herself without the guidebook and its maps, she hastened a few steps off to avoid embarrassment and then hesitated, unsure which of several possible streets to take off the piazza in front on the Pantheon. She couldn’t remember which way she’d come in that morning versus which way she’d come in with the tour group earlier in the week. She hadn’t been paying all that much attention because she’d expected to have a map going back.

There was a line of horse-drawn carriages in front of the church and one of the drivers seemed to take her hesitation for possible interest in his services, for he called to her, gesturing towards his vehicle. She shook her head and hurried off a few more steps in the other direction, to the other side of the fountain. There one of the omnipresent flower vendors tried to present her with a rose. She’d been smiling and shaking her head at these people all week, tolerant of their efforts to make a living off the fringes of the tourism industry. But right now, when she was lost and worried about getting back to the hotel, they just seemed annoying. She shook her head and turned quickly away, starting resolutely down the closest street. I think it was this way, she told herself. That second glass of wine was a mistake at lunch. I’m tired after so much walking, and it’s not going to make it any easier to get back to the hotel. Isn’t this the street?

But it wasn’t. She realized that almost at once, for the street ran only a short way before ending in a small piazza. Rather than backtrack she turned down the street to the right, certain that was at least heading in the correct direction. It too ended abruptly before she’d gone very far, but she could see a large piazza off to her left and decided to look for one of the directional signs there. She turned off before she reached it though, as it seemed to front another government building, this one not only with armed guards but also with a demonstration of some sort, protestors and news crews. Rather than trying to steer through that she cut down a small street to her right and was relieved to come out into the large Piazza Colonna. She recognized it right away from the bus tour. It was hard to miss, what with the tall carved column picturing some ancient emperor’s military victories. It annoyed her that she couldn’t remember which emperor and her first thought was to pull out the guidebook to look it up, but of course she couldn’t. She did remember that the street beyond it was Via del Corso, which meant she was heading in the right general direction after all.

There was a building directly opposite the piazza, and streets to the left and right of it, but the one to the left seemed to be a bigger street. I’ll go down that, Ellie thought. It’s more likely to have signs. The signs said the fountain was off to my right walking over from Quirinale, so I just have to keep looking for signs off to my left.

But Ellie didn’t realize that she had gone so far north during her circuitous walk from the Pantheon that the fountain was now again to her right. Hence she managed to miss the signs pointing to it while she was looking for signs on the other side of the street. And because her knee was hurting and she was walking slowly, it was a good half hour later before she found herself back in Piazza Barberini, where she had been that morning. She could see the Triton Fountain where she had thrown her coin, and if the sea god had seemed to be smiling at her around his conch shell in the morning, she felt he must be laughing at her now. It was after two and she still hadn’t thrown her coin in the Trevi, the most important fountain on her list. She was ready to give up and head back to the hotel, assuming she could even find the hotel. She looked around for a sign pointing out the way to Piazza della Repubblica. She instead saw one to Fontana di Trevi, which pointed her back the way she had just come. She heaved a sigh and wondered again if it was worth it, but she turned around and headed back.

This time she checked both sides of the street for directions. She walked even more slowly and stopped at every intersection to check. And lo and behold, about halfway back to Via del Corso, she found one of the signs she had missed before. A few minutes later she was in the rather small piazza in front of the very large fountain. The space was was mobbed.

It was mobbed but this was what she had come to do, what she had been building up to all day, and a few hundred other people with the same idea weren’t going to stop her. She threaded her way through the crowd to the closest set of steps leading down to the narrow walkway directly in front of the fountain.

The steps were old and uneven, there was no handrail, and the bruise on her knee made her feel stiff and awkward. She was edging her way down carefully when an overexcited little girl dashed past her, jostling her elbow. She stumbled a bit, jostling in her turn an older woman on the step behind her. In a chain reaction, that woman stumbled only to have her balance restored by a young man behind her, who reached forward to place a steadying hand under her elbow. Both the woman and the young man called out sharply, and Ellie, thinking they were yelling at her, turned to apologize. But their irritation was instead directed at the child whose hurry to reach the fountain had begun the whole thing.

Ellie realized immediately that the three of them, and a second, younger girl as well, were all together. The first girl turned, shamefaced, from the fountain and muttered something to the older woman, obviously an apology. The woman nodded curtly and gestured towards Ellie, apparently indicating that she too was owed an apology. The girl faced her, although she wouldn’t meet her eyes, and muttered again.

“It’s ok,” Ellie said. “No harm done.”

Then the other woman addressed her, but Ellie had to shake her head and say, “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Italian.”

The woman looked uncertain for a moment, then turned and said something to the young man, who in turn said to Ellie. “My grandmother also wishes to apologize for my cousin’s behavior.”

“Really,” Ellie said, “it’s ok. I’m just glad I didn’t knock your grandmother over!”

The young man translated, his grandmother said something more, and he turned again to Ellie. “My brother has not brought his daughters to Rome since they were little and they enjoy it. So they are eager to throw a coin for coming back.”

“Me too,” Ellie smiled and she began to dig through her wallet for her coin. The two little girls already had theirs, had apparently been instructed on how to throw them properly, and all three were tossed, one after the other, while grandma sat herself on the stone ledge that surrounded the fountain and smiled approvingly.

“You aren’t going to throw one?” Ellie asked the young man.
“Oh no, no need. I am Roman; I live here. That is why I play tour guide for my cousins.” “You speak English very well.”
“I had one year of university in the United States. In Chicago. Do you know Chicago?” “I’ve been there,” Ellie said, “but I live just outside New York.”
‘Oh, New York. I spent two days there before coming home. Not enough time”
“It’s a big city,” Ellie agreed, and then, glancing at her watch, “Oh, I need to get going.

I’m supposed to meet a friend at our hotel and she’ll worry if I’m late.”
“Of course,” the young man said, and he held out his hand for her to shake. “It’s been a

pleasure to practice my English. I get little chance here.”
“It’s been a pleasure for me too,” Ellie said, and then, remembering that she had no map

and that he was Roman, she asked, “To get back to Piazza della Repubblica, is that the best way?” And she pointed at the street she’d come out of.

“You can certainly go that way, but it’s a long walk.”

“Well, then I’d better get started,” she said, and she turned to the steps. But she winced a little bending her knee for the first step up and the grandmother noticed and said something to the young man.

“You are hurt,” he said. “It’s my cousin’s fault.”

“Oh no, really. I tripped earlier today. I just have a bruise on my knee. It’s not too bad but the steps are a bit awkward.”

“Let me help,” he said, offering her his arm.

And while she could have managed on her own she did feel quite a bit more secure with his help. If Brenda could see me now, she thought, walking up the steps of the Trevi arm in arm with a handsome young Italian. Who’s young enough, she reminded herself, to be my son. Maybe even my grandson. Still, wouldn’t Brenda be jealous! What a shame I can’t tell her.

And thinking of her friend she immediately felt guilty again for her lies of the morning. Guilty, but not regretful. Sore knee and all, she’d had a wonderful day.

She thanked the young Roman at the top of the steps, waved goodbye to the grandmother and little girls, and headed off the way she had come, trying not to limp although her knee was starting to hurt quite a bit. Maybe she had wrenched it a little bit when the girl had banged into her.

Even going slowly it took only a few minutes to get back to Via del Tritone, the street where she had managed earlier to miss the signs for the Trevi. Now that she wasn’t watching out for those, she paid more attention to her surroundings. It seemed to be a shopping district. But then, what area of the Centro wasn’t? Stores sold everything from cell phones to shoes. The wedding shots outside a photography studio might have been on display at home, she thought, but at the next storefront she realized she had never seen such scanty lingerie on a mannequin in a window on Fifth Avenue.

She passed an ATM outside a bank, a bancomat it was called, and hesitated, wondering if she could manage to withdraw cash for a cab back to the hotel. Not only was her knee sore, now her feet were starting to hurt. She’d done a lot of walking that day. But if she pushed the wrong sequence of buttons, the machine might eat her card, and she didn’t want to have to ask Brenda to loan her money for the last few days of the trip. Especially since Brenda might very well be furious with her if she didn’t manage to get back to the hotel before her friend. Better to wait and have Claudia help her tomorrow. As she kept walking she resolved to pay more attention to exactly which buttons Claudia pushed and to what the various screens said. She’d need to know how to get cash on her own the next time she came. And surely she’d thrown enough coins for there to be a next time.

After a while she got back to Piazza Barberini, where the sea god on the Triton Fountain was still blowing into his conch shell. She was at the narrow end of the roughly triangular piazza, and she paused to look around and try to orient herself. The street off to her right was the one she’d gone up to reach the intersection of four fountains that morning, and she’d first seen the Triton Fountain from behind, she recalled, so she must have entered the piazza from the other end, where the Bee Fountain had been hiding. Having figured out that much, instead of working her way around the outside sidewalks, she recrossed to the pedestrian section in the middle of the piazza, hoping that going back as closely as possible to the way she had come would help her remember which of the streets on the other end she’d come out of. But the fountain was so lovely she couldn’t help pausing for another look.

There were only a handful of tourists there at the moment, and no one paid any attention to her when she paused, pulled out her second to last coin, and addressed the deity. “The one this morning was for coming back to Rome. This one is for finding my hotel!” And she turned her back on him and tossed the coin. She heard its tiny splash, turned to nod at the stone figure, but this time he ignored her. She shrugged. Well, she hadn’t really expected him to let go of his shell horn and point, had she?

She approached a group of tourists who were consulting a guidebook, hoping they might help her plot her route. But they spoke neither English nor Italian, and didn’t seem to understand when she said “Piazza della Repubblica?” in as inquisitive a tone as she could. They did understand her gestures that she would like to take a look at the map in their book, and they obliged, but it was labeled in Russian or Czech or something, and not being able to read the labels, she didn’t find it any help. She still thanked them for their effort, hoped they understood that, and then proceeded to the far end of the piazza.

Four streets led off from the wider end, three roughly parallel and one at right angles. That one was larger, wider, and she could see a glass-enclosed cafe she was sure she had not passed that morning. But she wasn’t quite sure which of the other three she had come out of earlier. Because she had had trouble spotting the Bee Fountain, she had turned around a couple of times, walked back and forth looking for the fountain that wasn’t where she had expected it, and thus all the streets looked equally familiar. There was an entrance to the subway. She remembered passing that, and wondered if there might be a map in the station.

As she was debating with herself about going down a whole flight of stairs to look when she’d had trouble with a few steps at the Trevi, a man approached the steps, striding briskly and checking at his watch. She called to him, “Excuse me, sir. Piazza della Repubblica?”

He glanced at her with barely a pause in his walk, pointed to the sign labeling the subway exit, and said, “No, Signora. Piazza Barberini.” Then he hurried down the subway steps before she could figure out how to make it clear she not asking where she was but how to get where she wanted to go.

A woman coming up the steps passed him and walked toward the wider street. Ellie approached her and tried again. “Excuse me, Signora. Piazza della Repubblica?” The woman stopped, appeared to give the matter a moment’s thought, then pointed back over her shoulder vaguely in a gesture that could have meant any of the three streets Ellie had already narrowed it down to, before continuing on her way.

Maybe if I go partway down one it’ll look familiar, Ellie said to herself, or maybe it won’t. But they all go in the same general direction, so I can probably take any of them. She started down the nearest.

It did not look familiar, but she could see a major street up ahead so she kept going, thinking that maybe she would recognize that one. When she reached that street, which a sign informed her was Via Bissolati, she looked around hopefully. But it did not, alas, look like anything she had seen that morning. She was about to retrace her steps to the piazza and try another street when out of the corner of her eye she spotted, of all things, an American flag waving from the front of a large impressive palazzo. The US Embassy, she said to herself with a sigh of relief. They’ll be able to help me!

She had come up along the side of the building so she had to walk half a block to reach the guard booth in front of the main gate, but she was relieved to see it was manned. “Excuse me,” she started, “but I’ve lost ... .”

The guard anticipated her, but as it turned out incorrectly. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but the office that deals with lost passports is closed already today. If you’ll come back first thing tomorrow, they’ll be able to help you.”

“Closed already?” Ellie said, startled, and looked at her watch. It was almost four.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “They closed a little early today because there’s a reception at the embassy tonight. But as I said, first thing tomorrow morning. Or I can call someone if it’s an emergency.” And he started to reach for a phone in his booth.

“Oh no, I didn’t lose my passport,” Ellie assured him. “I lost my guidebook.”

That seemed to puzzle the young man. He stopped with his hand still hovering above the phone. “We don’t give out guidebooks,” he said. He did seem eager to be helpful though. As he dropped his arm he suggested, “Your hotel probably has a map, and a number of the bookstores carry a selection of books in English. Maybe you can buy a new guide.”

“Yes,” Ellie said, her frustration mounting rapidly. It was getting late, she’d finally found someone who spoke English, another American in fact, but she still didn’t seem to be able to make herself understood. So she tried again, but once she had started, she didn’t seem to be able to stop. “I can buy a new one tomorrow, but I lost the one I had, and now I’m lost, and I need to get back to my hotel, and I can’t find Piazza della Repubblica, and Brenda, that’s my friend, she’s going to be worried sick, because she thought I was sick, but I wasn’t, I just didn’t want to go to Tivoli, and now I’m tired, and my knee hurts from when I fell, and the Italians I ask all seem like they’re trying to be helpful but they don’t understand, and, ... and when I saw the US flag I thought, well, at least somebody there will speak English.”

She could see her outburst had embarrassed the young guard, which embarrassed her, so she pulled herself together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I love Rome, I really do, but I just ... I overdid it today and now I’m just exhausted, and lost, and worried about my friend being worried about me. I didn’t mean to unload on you like that. If you could just tell me which way Piazza della Repubblica is?”

“Of course, Ma’am,” he said sympathetically, although he did have to stop a think a moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s down that way. I think if you just stay on Bissolati ... .”

As he was trying to explain what he thought he knew, a little motor scooter, piloted by an attractive young woman, cut across traffic from the other side of the street and pulled to a stop a couple of feet away. She pulled off a bike helmet, shook out a mane of dark curls, and cooed in an Italian accent that Ellie was sure she would find charming if she were a 20 something American boy standing guard outside a US Embassy, “Ciao, Billy. ‘Ow are you?”

The young guard blushed a bit. “I’m fine, Anna. But you know I’m not supposed to socialize when I’m on duty.”

Anna pouted prettily. “I just want to ask you to a party tonight. And you -- what word it was? -- you socialize with this lady.”

“I can’t, Anna. I’m on duty tonight. There’s a reception. And this lady is a US citizen who needs my help. Now go on. You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“Come late. Francesca and Paolo’s place. You know it?” Anna said, and she began to put her helmet back on.

“I know it. I’ll try,” Billy said. And then he turned back to Ellie and pointed the way he’d pointed before. “I’m pretty sure it’s ... Oh, Anna, you’d know for sure! This lady can get to Piazza della Repubblica down this way, can’t she?”

All three of them looked in the direction Billy was pointing, and then Anna and Billy spoke at the same moment.

Anna started to say something like “Repubblica, si, but I go ...,” but Billy said, “Oh, jeez, Signora Rossi. She’ll report me for sure.”

Ellie saw a stout woman around her own age advancing up the sidewalk toward them with a look of stern disapproval on her face.

“She works in the kitchen,” Billy muttered, although whether to himself, Ellie, or Anna, Ellie wasn’t sure. “And she hates me.”

“Well, thank you so much, Officer,” Ellie said, much more loudly than strictly necessary. “Not only for giving me directions, but for calling this young friend of yours over when you weren’t sure. I’m certain I can find my way now,” and she turned in the direction he had pointed her.

“Thank you,” Billy breathed softly, but Anna spoke up as loudly as Ellie had done. “But if you go to Repubblica, Signora, Billy called the right friend over, because I go through there on my way home. I can give you a ... how you say? ... a lift. I give you a lift!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ellie said, looking dubiously at the little Vespa scooter as Anna slid off the seat so that Ellie could climb on the back to perch behind her.

“It’ll help keep me out of trouble,” Billy whispered as the dreaded Signora Rossi came ever closer. So, not wanting to get the helpful young man in trouble, Ellie resolved she could manage one more adventure that day, and she swung a bit awkwardly up onto the scooter, glad that the sore knee was the one she had to swing over the seat and not the one she had to pivot on. Anna, with a bit more grace, climbed on in front of her, and Ellie held on to the younger woman’s waist a bit tentatively. Signora Rossi passed, presumably on her way to a staff entrance, still looking suspicious but returning Bill’s polite greeting with equal if stiff courtesy.

Anna pulled the little Vespa out into traffic and Ellie stifled back a yelp and clutched her driver’s waist a little more tightly as her stomach did a back flip. “Tutto bene?” Anna called back over her shoulder.

It wasn’t going to be easy conversing like this, Ellie thought. But here, she realized, was a chance to find out if that phrase really did mean "clumsy American," a sentiment that could apply equally to an old lady who almost falls off the back of your motor scooter or to one who bashes into you on a sidewalk. "What?" she called over the traffic noise.

"Everything ok?" Anna called back over her shoulder.

"Oh, yeah," Ellie yelled back. "I was just startled by the ... tilt when you swerved. Is that what it means, two-toe Benny, everything ok?”

Anna had to stop a moment for traffic on an intersecting street. That street, Ellie realized, was the one she had taken that morning, leading off from this Bissolati they were on at the moment. Now she knew where they were. The pause made conversation a little easier for some 15 seconds. Anna repeated the phrase with clearer pronunciation. "TWOtoe bay-nay." And then repeated quickly, as she'd said it earlier, as Ellie had heard it earlier in the day, "Tutto bene, everything ok?"

The traffic from the other street let Anna continue, so Ellie had to call a bit louder, delighted to understand what she was answering. "Everything is A-ok," she yelled. And it was. She saw the fountain of Piazza della Repubblica ahead, the fountain where she'd thrown her first two coins. Anna steered around it to the right and pulled up directly in front of the hotel. " This hotel?" she asked. “Here?”

"Perfect!" Ellie said. Anna jumped off so that Ellie could clamber down from the back of the scooter. She was still favoring her knee but she felt a bit less clumsy getting off than she had getting on. Perhaps that was just the relief of getting her feet back on solid ground. Then again, maybe it was an adrenaline rush. Not only had the ride had been sort of fun, but even that brief respite from walking had restored a bit of her energy.

"Thank you so much," she said, and then, almost an afterthought, "How can I say that in Italian? Thanks a lot instead of simply thank you?"

"Grazie mille,"Anna told her, "thanks a thousand."

"Grazie Milly," Ellie sort of repeated, and then, hearing that she’d mispronounced it, she said, partly to herself, "I have to find someplace to take Italian lessons before I come back!"

"You come back?" Anna asked.

"Hell yes," Ellie said. And she meant it. What with exhaustion, a bruised knee, sore feet, feeling lost, her resolution had been faltering a while before. But now, a brief conversation with an American who liked Rome, and a lift from a Roman who liked Americans had restored all her earlier enthusiasm. "I love Rome. How do I say that?"

"Amo Roma."

"Amo Roma," Ellie repeated. "Maybe we'll run into each other next time. Unless you've followed Billy to ... where?"

"In-dee-an-ah," Anna answered, pronouncing the word with care. "But no, is not like that. Next time I be flirting with his replacement, maybe. If as cute as Billy. And working at the bar."

“You don’t work at the embassy?”

“Oh no, at a bar on Via Veneto. Billy takes coffee there. You come tomorrow morning. I make you a cappuccino. Billy says I make the best cappuccino in Rome.”

“I’m supposed to go to the Vatican with a group tomorrow,” Ellie said. “And we leave the day after.”

“Bene. You should see the Vatican, is beautiful. But don’t drink their cappuccino. No good.”

“I’ll remember that,” Ellie promised her. “And I’ll come find your bar and try your cappuccino next time I’m in Rome.”

"Alla prossima volta," Anna agreed as she remounted the Vespa, and then, heading off into traffic again, she called back over her shoulder, "Arrivederci!"

"Arrivederci!" Ellie called back, and with a huge grin on her face she turned back toward the entrance to the hotel.

The grin faded quickly when she spotted Brenda and Claudia watching her. They were standing at the edge of the outside seating of the bar next to the hotel, and the waiter who had served her that morning was standing with them. They must have been looking for her, asking after her. She’d said she’d go there for something to eat if she felt better. She approached slowly, feeling as though the sidewalk had turned into a sheet of thin ice. “Ciao,” she said.

“Everything ok?” Claudia asked.

“Tutto bene,” Ellie assured her. Claudia raised her eyebrows at the Italian, but turned her attention to the waiter, speaking rapidly and incomprehensibly, presumably assuring him they’d found their friend, everything was fine now, and thanks for his help.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Brenda spoke. “I was worried sick when we got back and you weren’t in the room.”

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “I felt better and I went for a walk. I meant to get back before you but I got lost.”

“You felt better!” Brenda said. “After drinking cappuccino and eating pastries in the middle of the morning? Right after the rest of us left? First time I’ve heard of carb loading as a cure for diarrhea!”

“I only had one pastry,” Ellie defended herself weakly.

“I see you later,” Claudia told them both and edged away toward the hotel entrance, obviously wanting no part of this conversation now that she was assured her missing charge was alive and well.

“Oh, well, only one pastry, that’s much better.” Brenda said sarcastically. “Much less likely to cause a recurrence of the runs.

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said weakly.
“You weren’t sick at all, were you?” Brenda demanded.
“No.”
“Just sick of me.”
“No,” Ellie said. And it wasn’t true, at least not completely true, but even if she wasn’t

really sick of Brenda, she was sick of lying. “Come on. We can’t stand here in the middle of the sidewalk discussing this all day.” She took her friend by the arm and led her over to an empty table at the bar. It seemed like the Italian thing to do. Brenda didn’t exactly pull away, but she came along rather stiffly. The waiter came hurrying over. “What do you want?” she asked Brenda. “My treat. I’m gonna be decadent and have a glass of wine.” She had a feeling she was going to need a drink.

“Cappuccino,” Brenda said a bit haughtily.

Ellie remembered something from the lost guidebook about how only American tourists drank cappuccino after mid-morning, but this didn’t seem to be the time to bring that up with Brenda. “A cappuccino and a glass of red wine,” she told the waiter.

He seemed to remember from this morning that she’d been trying to pick up some Italian, so he repeated slowly and clearly for her benefit, “Un cappuccino e uno rosso. Si, Signora.” He really was an excellent waiter, Ellie thought, very attentive. She would have to tip well. But on her credit card. She turned her attention back to her friend.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. “For two things. For making you worry and for lying this morning. I didn’t mean to do the one, and the other ... I’m not sure how to explain.”

She paused a moment in case Brenda had anything to say at this point, but her friend just sat there, refusing to meet her eye, staring stonily at the traffic circling the fountain in the middle of the piazza. So Ellie gave explanation her best shot.

“When we started planning this trip, even when we first talked about it over lunch that day, you remember?”

“I remember talking about it, yes,” Brenda said stiffly, still watching the traffic.

“When we started talking about maybe doing it, you said we should take a tour, and I wasn’t sure about that, but you convinced me it would be simpler, remember?”

“Of course I remember! I’m not senile you know.”

“Right. Well, we didn’t have to find hotels and stuff, and you said you would check out the various tour options, so I let you do all the work. You said you didn’t mind.”

“I didn’t,” Brenda said, finally glancing at Ellie quickly, before turning her attention to the napkin dispenser on the table. “Joe and I had gone on tours a few times. I knew what to look for and you were clueless.”

“Right. I was clueless, and I let you do all the research. I never even bought a guidebook. Oh, that’s something else I have to apologize for. I lost your guidebook.”

“You lost my guidebook?” Brenda finally looked right at her friend, confused by what seemed a non sequitur.

“I’ll get to that,” Ellie said. “What I’m trying to say is that, at the beginning of the trip, when we had independent time and you would ask what I wanted to do, like in Venice and Florence, I had no idea. So we did what you wanted. Shopping.”

“You didn’t seem to mind!” Brenda said defensively.

“I didn’t mind. When I try to fit everything in the suitcase tomorrow night to head home, I may mind, but no, I had no other suggestions and I didn’t mind, at least not at first. But Brenda, I liked Venice, and I liked Florence, but I love Rome. And I just wanted to spend some time wandering around. Only after a week and a half of saying, ‘Oh, whatever you want to do is fine with me,’ I was uncomfortable saying “Ok, here’s what I want to do. I want to just walk around and look at the city.’”

The waiter brought their drinks just then, and Brenda stirred a packet of sugar into her cappuccino while Ellie took a sip of wine. “I still don’t see what this has to do with lying,” Brenda finally said, although she was beginning to seem more perplexed than angry.

“I guess I lied because I was too much of a coward to say that I wanted to skip the trip to Tivoli and spend a free day in Rome. And then, too, I was afraid of hurting your feelings, so I lied. I thought I could lie, and wander around and be back before you, and you’d never know. But I blew it. I lost your guidebook with the maps, so I got lost, so I got back late, so I made you worry, and I hurt your feelings anyway. So I’m sorry. I don’t know what else I can say.”

Ellie, looking over to gauge Brenda’s reaction, saw that the waiter, at this hour when the bar wasn’t busy, seemed to be hovering near their table. Was he expecting them to order something else, Ellie wondered? Or was he curious, after having been questioned by Brenda and Claudia earlier, about what was going on? Damned nosy if that’s the case, she thought. Maybe I don’t want to tip well. But then it occurred to her that she was worrying about this to distract herself from worrying about what Brenda’s reaction might be to what she’d just said, so she turned her attention back to her friend. “Does that make any sense at all?” she asked. “Do you see what I’m trying to say?”

“I guess some,” Brenda admitted grudgingly, but then, with a fresh burst of resentment, “but you might have told me you knew somebody in Rome you wanted to go see! Somebody you didn’t want to introduce me to!”

“Knew somebody in Rome?” Ellie was completely taken aback. “I don’t know anybody in Rome.”

“Oh no?” Brenda shook her head. “You just hop on the back of motorcycles with complete strangers and come cruising up here like ... like ... like Audrey Hepburn!”

Ellie was baffled. “Audrey Hepburn?” she exclaimed. “Brenda, look at me! I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Audrey Hepburn,” Brenda insisted. “In Roman Holiday. You must have seen that movie!”

It took Ellie a few moments, while she sipped her wine, but then it clicked. Of course, Roman Holiday. She had seen that movie. A very young Audrey Hepburn as some minor princess, playing hooky from her diplomatic responsibilities and wandering around Rome with Gregory Peck. And yes, there was a scene with a motor scooter. She burst out laughing. “Me?” she snorted, having to grab her napkin to keep wine from dribbling down her chin as she giggled. “Me? Audrey Hepburn? In my dreams maybe. When I was twenty!”

Brenda seemed to be trying to maintain her dignity along with her indignation but once she’d seen the absurdity of the comparison she obviously couldn’t. Ellie saw her mouth twist as she tried not to laugh too. She failed. It was a good half minute before she could splutter out, “Well, if not Hepburn, maybe Gregory Peck!”

“Gregory Peck,” Ellie agreed. “Or maybe Eddie Albert. He was in that movie too, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Brenda agreed, “but I don’t remember him on the motorcycle.” She took a sip of her cappuccino, put the cup down with a clank of china, licked a bit of milk foam off her upper lip, and shifted in her chair to face Ellie. “But seriously,” she said, “if you don’t know anyone in Rome, who was that girl on the motorbike?”

“Some girl who’s friends with the guard outside the American Embassy. Her name’s Anna and she works in a bar on Via Veneto.”

“The Embassy!” Brenda said. “What kind of trouble did you get yourself into that you ended up at the US Embassy?” And now she sounded worried again.

“I just got lost,” Ellie shrugged. “I saw the Embassy while I was trying to find my way back to the hotel, so I asked for directions, and the guard’s friend offered me a ride. I think she was trying to impress him. I got the impression she likes him. And he was trying to not get in trouble for flirting with her while he was on duty. And I was trying to get back as quickly as possible so you wouldn’t worry. Or at least not worry for as long”

Ellie finished her wine and looked around for the waiter. He had abandoned his post right behind them and retreated to the doorway, where he was chatting with his colleague who manned the indoor tables. Now it struck her that perhaps he had stayed close initially because the tension between Brenda and herself had been so obvious that he was positioning himself to save the crockery if they began to throw it at each other. Once they’d started laughing he had probably figured it was safe to go tell his friend how crazy these American tourists really were. She signaled for the check and turned to Brenda. “So,” she asked, “friends again?”

“Friends,” Brenda agreed, with the faintest hint of hesitation still in her voice. “But next time you want to go wandering off on your own, just tell me.”

“Agreed,” Ellie said, and she handed her credit card to the waiter. He swiped it through his little handheld device and she added a generous tip before signing.

“So,” Brenda said as they stood to go, “Did you want to wander a bit more before dinner? Did you find anything interesting earlier?”

“Lots,” Ellie told her, “but right now I wouldn’t mind resting for a bit. And you can tell me all about what I missed at Tivoli. What’s the plan for dinner anyway?”

“Independent time,” Brenda said. “Bill and Joanne, you know, the couple from Massachusetts, said they had a recommendation for a place their neighbors liked when they were here last year. They asked if we wanted to join them. I said yes, but if you’d rather not ... .”

“No, that’s sounds fine,” Ellie said.

“It’s apparently near the Trevi Fountain,” Brenda added as the doorman at the hotel ushered them into the lobby with a flourish. “We could go throw coins in, like you’re supposed to. Ellie? What’s so funny, Ellie?”

But Ellie was laughing too hard to answer. 

 The End