When In Rome...Lose Control: Cynthia's Story Read online

  At first, she prayed, but after a while, she let the lull of quiet voices carry her to a place of absolute calm. In her trancelike state, she was aware of the singing, and the solemn chants, and the creak of ancient pews as obedient Catholics knelt and then stood again. Cynthia did not participate, but let the activity flow around her. She loved the meditative calm of the place, a place that had probably seen more visitors than she’d see people in her lifetime.

  The magnitude of history enveloped her, and she felt smaller and more alone than she’d ever felt. She was glad she’d come alone, instead of on a trip or with her friends, to look around at the cupolas and the statues as if they were in a museum. Of course she’d do that later, but for now, she was in a separate world, one her friends would never grasp. They were seeing Rome, but she was absorbing it.

  At least that’s how it felt to her sometimes. They were so carefree about the whole trip. She was the fraud, trying to force it, and the harder she tried, the less she succeeded. Maybe she’d never be sort of girl who could travel the world like it was her birthright.

  Her mom was right. She didn’t deserve this trip. Deep down inside, she still felt like the little girl who sat for hours at the window, waiting to see if her dad’s truck would pull up one more time, or if this would be the night he disappeared again. If she prayed hard enough, his truck would come bouncing along the narrow, unlined road and roll to a stop at the curb. If she was good, God would hear her and send her dad home to give her kisses and tickles. He’d call her mi vida, and tell her that he’d stay if she promised to be good.

  But if she wasn’t good enough to deserve a dad who stuck around, how could she possibly imagine she deserved the whole world?

  When communion began, she opened her eyes and went to the altar to receive her blessing. While she waited, she studied the ornate carvings above the altar. She couldn’t remember who had done the altars in the church, just that Baroque had done some of the sculptures. Her mom would have known. Her mom deserved this trip more than she did. But all she could do now was to make her mom proud, see everything they’d dreamed about as they waited to hear back about her grant, as they planned the trip after her acceptance letter came.

  When the priest’s fingers brushed her forehead, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Forgive me.”

  After the service was over, she made her way around the huge church, determined to see every fresco and every statue in the place before she left. Stepping outside at last, she blinked against the bright sunlight streaming down over the crowded piazza. While she’d been inside, the clouds had disappeared entirely, though the dampness of the morning remained. A steady stream of tourists admired the fountains and overflowed from nearby cafés.

  Cynthia approached one of the cafés, eyeing a crowd of men sitting at an outdoor table, talking and laughing loudly. They looked so intensely European she couldn’t take her eyes off them. They were all dark-haired, all with the laidback air of people who had absolutely no concern for what others thought of them.

  Their confidence made her feel small somehow, and the thought of eating alone in the café, which had so appealed to her as she walked out of church, was now horrifying. She hurried past, for once glad that no one seemed to notice her. If she’d been with her friends, she would have paraded by, flipping her pink hair and adding a little swish to her step, practically begging for a “Ciao, Bella.”

  She settled for another café, which was just as busy with the post-church crowd, and wedged herself into a tiny, round table in the corner. Waiters rushed by, and someone asked if they could use the other chair at her table, and then she was obviously and conspicuously the only person eating alone. Three women squeezed by, impeccably dressed and polished, speaking in rapid Italian. All at once, they burst into a round of bawdy laughter, bumping Cynthia’s table as they passed. She suddenly felt like she’d missed out on a joke, or worse, like they’d been laughing at her. She shrank down in her seat as if she could disappear. Where was her latte?

  The words her mother had said the day before flashed in her mind. Was she still being that scared little freshman in high school, the one who hid behind her books and dreamt of the day she’d get revenge? And here she was, a success. She was living out her revenge—not only had she gone to college, she was traveling the world, something that most people could only dream of. And yet, she hadn’t changed a bit.

  Sure, the rest of high school had been better. Once she’d set her sights on college and convinced her guidance counselors that she meant to get there one way or another, they’d set her on the college track. She’d ignored the naysayers, those who scorned college as thoroughly as her dad, and those who said it was selling out. With a goal in mind, all those voices melted away. She didn’t have time for that. She had SATs and ACTs and AP classes to ace. And she’d done it, forming casual friendships with likeminded college-bound classmates along the way. But she’d never had a best friend, or gone to a crazy party, or even drank a beer at a boyfriend’s house. Amid all the stress and studying, she’d never managed to squeeze in time for a boyfriend.

  When she’d been accepted to University of Arkansas, only a few neighbors had come to the party her mom threw. Cynthia had decided right then that she wasn’t going to spend all of college focusing so much on the future that she didn’t have any fun in the present. Despite her mom’s invitation to live at home, she’d moved into a dorm that August with a vow to start over and be more balanced. She’d done it, too, starting with a makeover. She dyed her hair for the first time and joined campus social groups as well as study groups. It wasn’t as hard as she’d imagined—she’d never been shy, only overly-focused on academics.

  Determined to carry out her makeover plans, she’d gotten a job at a popular restaurant on Dickson Street, where her freshman orientation guide said all the college kids went to hang out, drink, and listen to live music. With the money she earned as a hostess, she replaced her entire wardrobe one hard-earned paycheck at a time, until she no longer looked like a poor slob who was too focused on grades to wear anything other than sweatpants and t-shirts. And at long last, at the end of her freshman year, she’d finally met that special someone. The person she’d been waiting for all that time, without even realizing how much she was missing it—not just a friend, but a best friend.

  Cynthia finished her latte and strolled back towards the tram stop. She was glad to be out of the café, away from the painful self-consciousness of being alone while everyone else was surrounded by friends and family, chatting and laughing and eating together. The truth was, she hated being alone. She’d gone down that path in high school, putting academics and her future career before her social life, and even now, she felt like she’d missed out.

  True, all that hard work had led her here, but that stressed out, lonely, driven person wasn’t her at all. She’d faked her way through high school, sure that at any moment, someone would see through it to the real Cynthia. The one who loved to read about Brody Villines in celebrity gossip magazines, lusted after guys with ridiculous muscles, and chose leopard print every time Victoria’s Secret sent her a coupon for a pair of free panties. The one who loved her mom, but deep down, had always wanted a best friend to share everything with. That’s why she’d insisted Nick sign up for the study abroad program with her. And now she’d lost him, and she was alone again. This time, she knew what she was missing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  At class on Monday, Cynthia sat alone, as far as she could get from her usual seat with the others. She didn’t know if any of her friends were talking to her, and shunning them first would hurt less than letting them all flock in together, give her dirty looks, and sit across the room from her. When Nick walked in, he gave her a hopeful little smile, but she turned away. It just about killed her when he sat down next to Kristina. But he deserved to be happy, and stringing him along so that she’d have a best friend to share things with was unfair. She just wished she would have known before they booked their trip toget
her.

  She tried to think back to the moment when she should have known, when she should have seen he liked her more than she liked him, or at least in a different way. If she’d liked him that way, she would have been looking for signs, hoping for them. But after being friends with him for so long, she was used to the flirting. How could she have known when he started to take it seriously? She couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment when he’d started treating her differently. For all she knew, he’d always liked her.

  At the end of freshman year, she’d been walking to work when a sudden downpour hit. She was already soaked by the time a boxy old Volvo pulled over two minutes later. Even though she knew better than to get in a car with a strange guy, she’d done it. Maybe it was the grandpa car, or the nerd glasses, or the fact that he was cute. Maybe it was her intuition telling her that this was someone she’d been waiting for without even realizing it. Still, she’d held onto the door handle as he drove her back to her dorm, ready to jump out of a moving vehicle if he made an unexpected detour.

  Of course he hadn’t. He’d delivered her to her dorm, where she changed in a hurry and ran back out, this time with an umbrella, to catch the bus. To her surprise, the Volvo was idling in the parking lot.

  “Just checking to see if you needed a ride…wherever you were going,” he called out the window.

  She started to say no, but she was already going to be late, and the bus wouldn’t show up for another ten minutes. And if he was a psycho rapist, he would have already tried to kidnap her. On the way to her dorm, he’d offered small talk that had made the car ride pass without any awkwardness at all. In fact, as she climbed back into the car and he pulled out onto the road, she didn’t even feel the need to fill the pauses in conversation. She watched the raindrops rolling down the sides of the windshield and the wipers swiping back and forth as she directed him towards Dickson Street.

  They were almost at Grubb’s before she realized she didn’t even know his name. “What year are you?” she asked after they’d introduced themselves.

  “I’m actually not a student here,” he said. “I came to check out the campus. I’ll be a sophomore in the fall, if I enroll.”

  She was glad she hadn’t known that, because she definitely would not have gotten in the car with him if she’d known he wasn’t a student. For some reason, that made him more of a stranger. But she found herself saying, “You should.”

  “Oh yeah?” When he glanced at her before returning his attention to the road, she noticed the little dimple in his cheek when he smiled for the first time. “Why’s that?”

  “It’s a great school,” she said quickly. To cover her embarrassment for being too forward, she rambled on for the next two minutes without stopping, concluding with an offer to show him around campus. When he pulled into the parking lot at the restaurant, they exchanged numbers and agreed to meet that weekend, the last weekend before school ended, to explore the campus.

  Even now, she could remember her trepidation as she went to meet him that first Saturday on the greens behind Old Main. She remembered asking herself what she was doing, and thinking that she should never have offered a strange guy a tour of campus, and that she definitely should never have given him her number afterwards. But she hadn’t stopped walking. She hadn’t texted him to say she couldn’t make it, or disappeared before he showed up.

  And now here she was, still not sure what she was doing. Their personalities matched so well, and he was so easy to hang out with, that it was impossible not to be friends with him. But what if he’d always taken that compatibility as something more? He was cool and confident, but he wasn’t the kind of guy who would assume she like him back because he liked her. He was steady and a good listener, the kind of guy every girl wanted for a best friend.

  That was why she’d never taken it further than flirting. On their tour of campus that Saturday, she’d found him so easy to talk to that the next thing she knew, she was telling him about the opening for a dishwasher at Grubb’s, urging him to apply. Had he already liked her then?

  That summer, he’d gotten the job, and they’d worked together for the next year. They had one class together, and ended up becoming study partners, coworkers, and friends. He was always there with his ugly car to give her rides when it was raining, or hot, or she was running too late to walk. When his ex wanted him back, he hadn’t ditched Cynthia as a friend. And through her half dozen boyfriends over the next two years, he’d been there to listen to her swooning, then ranting, and then, inevitably, crying. And since they shared an anthropology major, and they were best friends, of course she’d wanted him to come to Rome with her. It hadn’t been a decision—it was only natural for her to want him with her during the most exciting trip of her life. She hadn’t meant to give him the wrong impression.

  She didn’t want to openly spy on him and Kristina, so she let her hair down, running her fingers through it until it formed a curtain that she could peek through without being noticed. She wondered if it was the most exciting trip of his life. Maybe she’d ruined the whole thing for him. Maggie and Kristina had each other, but he didn’t have anyone but her. Or he hadn’t. Now, he was holding a lock of Kristina’s blonde hair, coloring it with a blue highlighter. Cynthia hoped it stayed that way forever. She glared at her notes, pressing down with her pen so hard it almost bit through her paper as she wrote.

  If Nick was mad, he should have come and talked to her. Not practically made out with her friend right in front of her. And for that matter, what a catty thing for Kristina to do, just to prove a point. She didn’t like Nick. She had Armani. Talk about stringing someone along!

  Cynthia fumed all through class, then stormed out before anyone could talk to her afterwards. The day was hot, the sun blaring down at her as she walked towards her flat. Her friends had ditched her, and she hadn’t talked to her mom since their fight. For the first time in her life, she was truly, utterly alone. At least in high school she’d always had her mom. She reached for her neck, automatically feeling for the globe charm on her necklace when thoughts of her mom entered her mind. To her horror, it wasn’t there. She stumbled, then caught her balance and took a breath. She hadn’t put it on that morning, that was all.

  Only she couldn’t remember the last time she had worn it. She’d been so consumed by her friend drama the last few days, she didn’t think she’d put it on. When the trip had started, she’d meant to wear it every time they went to see something new. But the day before, she’d been angry, and instead of rooting around in her jewelry for the globe, she’d worn a silver heart necklace, as if to spite her mother. Now it seemed vitally important that she have it. She walked faster, scaring a black cat from its perch beside her building. Though she didn’t believe in all that superstition, she crossed herself, just in case. With the luck she’d been having, she couldn’t be too careful.

  Inside the flat, she rushed to her room and rooted through her jewelry, which she’d left in a tangle on her bureau. It was all cheap, so she didn’t bother to put it in boxes or keep it neat. Her heart was pounding as she tore through it, already suspecting that she wouldn’t find it. She didn’t.

  She dug through her laundry, hoping it had slipped off with one of her shirts or that she’d stuffed it in a pocket without thought. Suddenly, it seemed of dire importance. Her mother had given her something to think of her by, and she’d lost it. After shoving her laundry back into the closet, she got down on her knees and looked under the bureau, then under the bed, praying it had fallen behind something.

  When she didn’t find it anywhere, she sat on the floor with her back against the bed, buried her face in her hands, and cried.

  *

  The next day, they had a scheduled trip to the catacombs. Cynthia agonized over when to arrive, but in the end, she decided it would be more awkward to get on the bus after the others, so she got there early, claimed a seat, and crammed in her earbuds. She turned her music up, lay her head back, and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t even have
to see them sitting together, without her.

  But even with her music blaring, she could hear Kristina’s high-pitched giggle bursting out every five seconds. Cynthia refused to open her eyes and see if Kristina was laughing at her. She didn’t want to know. And it might be something even worse, like Nick tickling her.

  When they arrived, Cynthia hurried off the bus, relieved to get away. She managed to make it through the entire tour without talking to anyone, but when they were climbing back on the bus, she saw that she was right behind Maggie. When she turned around to let someone else in front of her, she found herself inches from Nick’s chest.

  “Oh my God, sorry,” she said, backing up a step, this time bumping into Maggie.

  “Hey,” Nick said while she apologized to Maggie, who said it was fine. Then they all stood in silence for three agonizing seconds, until the person in front of Maggie climbed onto the bus. “Go ahead,” Nick said to Cynthia when she stepped aside to let him follow Maggie.

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. “You go.”

  “No, you.”

  She couldn’t bear the awkwardness for one more second, so she turned and climbed onto the bus, the ache of Nick’s presence behind her almost enough to knock her flat on her face. She rushed to her seat and ripped her earbuds from her bag, sinking into the protective blur of noise. All the way back, she kept replaying that encounter, wishing that she’d said, “No, I mean, I’m really sorry,” after apologizing for bumping into him and Maggie. He would know what she meant.

  She kept thinking of what to say to him, how to break the silence. She’d never gone so long without talking to him. In fact, she couldn’t remember ever going more than a day without at least a text saying “I’m bored. What’s up?” But neither of them had gotten an international plan on their phones during the trip, so she couldn’t text. She considered telling him about her dream, but when she thought about their fight, when she’d told him he wasn’t her dad, she cringed. Telling him about a dream where her dead father turned into him was probably not the best idea.