Tutti Italia: A Novel Page 7

  “So…what exactly is the story behind this room? It’s not like cursed or something is it?” Elena burst out laughing and had to actually grab on to the counter that ran along the side of the room to steady herself.

  “No. There’s no curse or anything. It’s just hard to find someone who wants to leave their comfortable home for a job in another country. I, for one, wouldn’t want to do it. Then again, I already live here.” She smiled at Rachel and hoped that her little joke would be received well. Rachel forced a smile, but she could understand what she meant. After all, Rachel had briefly considered turning the job down, because she was a little afraid of having to move to another country where she couldn’t even speak the language. “We have another week until classes actually start. This is the last week of the summer term. But it won’t take us that long to get the room cleaned up and ready for the munchkins. Do you know yet what you want to do for a lesson plan?” Rachel was a little confused.

  “Don’t they just play and we make sure that no one gets hurt?” Elena smiled at her naivety.

  “They do take naps occasionally, but it’s up to you to provide a structured activity that the children can opt to join in. Not many of them do, but that’s where I come in. While you’re doing the structured activity, I’m going to be monitoring the ones that don’t want to do whatever it is you come up with for the day.” Rachel smiled. One activity a day? How hard could that be? She used to babysit. She knew what kids liked to do…ish. It took them less than an hour to get the room cleaned up, and Rachel was already brainstorming ideas for the first few days that she could do. She was also thinking about decorating the room in an ocean theme. That always made her happy, so it must make other people happy, too, right?

  It was lunch time, and true to her word, Elena took Rachel over to the bank. It was almost right across the street from the school. The only building that was in between was the library. That fact alone made Rachel smile. She would probably spend every lunch hour here at the library. This would be her safe haven. Rachel loved to read. The characters in the books were her friends, and the books themselves became worlds that she could visit when life got her down. Elena escorted her into the bank, and showed her where she had to sign in to get service. Rachel had barely been waiting five minutes before she was called. She was happy about that. Maybe it wouldn’t take the whole hour. She followed the woman into a cubicle, and twenty minutes later, Rachel had a checking account, a savings account, and a debit card in the mail. That was really easy. Now if only her bank back home in the states were so nice. When she came out Elena had a big smile on her face and it made Rachel wonder what she was scheming.

  “What? You look like Christmas just came early.”

  “Oh, nothing. But we have plenty of time to sneak over there to the gate and let you talk to your lover boy.” Rachel blushed furiously.

  Chapter 12

  Rachel wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to go down to the gate and see Jason. Part of her did, and part of her didn’t. She just didn’t know which part was bigger. Elena was grinning at her and hustling her along so they would make it to the gate and back in time before lunch was over. She couldn’t exactly get away from her, either, because she didn’t have a valid excuse to get out of it anymore. She’d already been to the bank, and that was the only thing she’d needed to get done. It seemed like she was being strong-armed, and yet, she wasn’t. The gate shack was looming in front of them, but it wasn’t Jason that was checking ID’s. It was an Italian army man that Rachel had never seen before, but Elena obviously knew, because she was waving and calling his name, speaking in Italian. As they approached the gate, the door opened and Jason came out to see what all the commotion was about. His face lit up when he saw that it was Rachel.

  “Hi. I didn’t know if you’d be coming by to visit or not.” Rachel didn’t have anything to say, so Elena spoke for her.

  “We finished our errands early and decided to visit. After all, it’s not every day that we have such handsome men guarding the gate.” She winked at her friend. Rachel smiled and looked like this minor flirtation was nothing new.

  “Well, if you have a few minutes to talk, you can step in here.” Jason opened the door to the shack and went inside. Rachel wasn’t exactly sure if she wanted to follow him, but Elena gave her a shove, and closed the door behind her. She preferred to stand outside and chat with her friend instead. Hoping that Elena would pull her out of the shack before anything awkward happened, she raised her eyes to Jason’s. He took that as encouragement. He smiled at her. “I was going to ask you for your number on Friday, but when I turned around you were gone.” He sounded a little hurt. Rachel blushed, but she was a little put out, too. If getting her number had been so important to him, wouldn’t he have done it before he sat and talked with his friends?

  “I’m sorry. I saw you talking to some friends of yours so I just went on home. I didn’t know that you wanted to talk to me.” She’d said it in the sweetest way she could, but the point she was trying to make had gotten across just fine. Jason blushed. It almost made Rachel want to laugh. It was cute how he fumbled for words when he was coming up for a reason why he’d left her. She had to bite the inside of her cheeks not to laugh.

  “I’m sorry myself. Let’s fix this problem right now. Would you be ok with giving me your number? I would like to hang out with you some time.” Rachel’s cheeks were burning so brightly she thought she would turn into a supernova at any time. She pulled out her cell phone and found the information, reading it off to him. She’d barely had the phone for over a week, and she still didn’t have the number memorized. He listened attentively, then made sure he saved it. The Italian came in, and Jason checked his watch. “I have to excuse myself. It’s my turn to check ID’s for an hour. I’ll text you when it’s my break again. If that’s ok?” He searched her face for the permission he was hoping for. Rachel nodded, and hurriedly got out of the gate shack. Elena was still outside, grinning from ear to ear, and trying her best to start a conversation with Rachel, but she cut her off at every attempt until they were out of earshot of the gate.

  “So?!? What happened? Come on! Tell me. You have to tell me what happened. I’m living vicariously through you.” Rachel laughed.

  “How can you live through me? That makes no sense. You’re happy, aren’t you?” Elena waved her hand dismissively.

  “Yes, I’m happy, but that means that I can’t have romantic adventures anymore, and I need to hear about them from other people. Or read about them in books.” That made a little more sense to her, and she let the matter lie. The two of them went back into the school, to the room that they’d been working on cleaning up. By the end of the day, the room was positively sparkling. The two of them, however, were covered in grime and dirt, and all Rachel wanted to do was take a shower. When Elena dropped her off, she also handed her the new ID she’d need to get through the gates. Rachel thanked her and made her weary way to the stairs. She was dragging, but she had a high sense of accomplishment to match the soreness in her limbs.

  Rachel let the water run over her for a few minutes before she started to feel her joints loosen up. When she did, she washed her hair, got out, and dried herself off, ready to relax with a little sewing before she went to bed. When she finished putting on her pajamas, she jumped onto the bed, causing her cell phone to bounce on the blanket. It caught her eye, and the little light in the top corner was blinking red, indicating that she either had a missed call or that someone had sent her a text. She picked up the phone, but was surprised to see that it was a text from Jason. She smiled to herself, and opened the message. He was telling her that he got off at six and was wanting to know if she wanted to walk to the food court with him for dinner. She looked at the time. It was ten minutes till six. She wrote him back, saying that she would love to, and let it be. She didn’t change out of her pajamas, though. She’d had it happen too many times before that she got herself all dolled up for someone who never showed up. She’d continue to do he
r own thing until he was at her front door to walk over with her. Then maybe she’d believe that he was being honest. She picked up her sewing.

  Half an hour later, her phone pinged. She looked at it. Jason was letting her know that he was home, and was going to get a quick shower in before they went to eat. He asked her for her dorm’s building number and her room. Rachel sat staring at that message for a while. This could go two ways. One, he could actually be a nice guy and want to meet her at her room, or two, he was a predator and knew how to get what he wanted once he was allowed into someone’s room. She texted him back telling him to meet her at the foot of the stairs of her dorm. He shot back a quick ok, then the conversation went dead. Rachel picked up her canvas. She’d just finished the petals of a flower when her phone pinged again. Jason told her that he was going to be at the stairs in about five minutes. He was leaving his dorm right now. She decided to take the risk. Rachel put on her favorite pair of jeans and a loose hanging sweater. She didn’t want him to think that she’d gotten herself dolled up just for going to the food court together. Besides, he hadn’t exactly specified that it was going to be a date, so she wasn’t going to treat it like one until he did. She got to the foot of the stairs, and saw that he was actually there, waiting for her. She wanted to smile, but she kept her expression neutral.

  “Hey. Sorry that it’s so late. We usually get off later than the end of our shift because we have to wait for someone to relieve us. We can’t just leave when it’s time to go home. Then we have to go turn our weapons in, and it can be a big fiasco sometimes.” He looked almost embarrassed that he’d gotten off of work late.

  “It’s ok. I understand that you have to do those things. You don’t have to apologize. None of that is your fault.” He looked up at her through his eyelashes, trying to gauge if she was being serious or sarcastic.

  “I just feel bad that the first time we hang out it’s to get some greasy food at the nasty food court. I work twelve hour shifts, then with the prep for it, it usually turns into a fourteen hour one. The days I work, I’m usually completely wiped. Sorry.” He seemed overly sheepish.

  “Hey, Jason, it’s ok. We all have jobs, and it’s a hazard of the job. It’s not something that you can control, so don’t apologize for it, ok?” She stopped walking, forcing him to stop and look at her. It took a few seconds but he nodded.

  “If I were to let you know what my schedule is, would you want to hang out again on a day that I’m off? I’ll have lots of energy and time then.” He said the last part with a lot of enthusiasm, and it made Rachel want to laugh at him. He was being serious though, so she had to bite her tongue.

  “Sure. I would like that. When are you free?”

  “Well, I’m in this thing called a Panema schedule. One week I’ll work Monday and Tuesday, have Wednesday and Thursday off, and work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then the next week it will be the opposite. This week is the long work week.” He looked disappointed by that fact. They’d started walking again during the conversation, and had reached the food court now.

  “Ok, so maybe we can work something out for next weekend.” Jason looked like she’d just stabbed him with a double edged sword. She’d said yes that she wanted to see him again, but not until almost two weeks from now. Rachel realized that it was a mixed signal as well, but she wanted to make sure she knew what he was looking to get out of this friendship before she committed to one or the other. She’d been down that road before and she wasn’t going to be the loser again.

  “Ok, that sounds good. I’ll look over at the ITT office to see if they have any interesting trips coming up.” Now it was Rachel’s turn to stop and look at him.

  “What’s ITT?” Jason slapped himself on the forehead.

  “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you’re not military, and that you don’t know what all the agencies on base are. The ITT is short for Information, Tickets, and Travel. They usually have really cool trips to different places. Like, last year they went to Dracula’s castle in Romania for Halloween. I’m looking forward to that one. I’ll take leave if I have to. It’s a three night, four day trip through Romania.” Rachel could see that he was really into traveling, and she was too, so that was at least one point in his favor. They decided to get in line at Taco Bell.

  “That sounds really interesting. How expensive is it though?” She was thinking about her dwindling supply of cash, and even though she now had the information that her mother needed to wire her money from the states, the debit card that came with it wouldn’t be in her hands for probably another week.

  “It’s really cheap, actually. That’s the whole point of those adventures. They like to make them affordable so that people won’t just sit home and drink or play video games.” That was kind of neat.”

  Chapter 13

  They finished their food, and Jason walked her back to her dorm. She still didn’t want him to know exactly where she lived. One quick date at the food court wasn’t going to be enough for her to trust him completely. She said goodbye, then watched him walk away before she went up to the second floor and to her room. When she got in, she could hear her roommate blaring loud music; but it still wasn’t enough to cover her sex noises. She rolled her eyes and went into her bedroom. Luckily for her she had her little cd player. She put on her headphones and went to sleep.

  Tuesday was going to be a free day for her. Actually, the whole rest of the week was that way. Classes didn’t start until next week, and the room was already clean. She and Elena had worked hard to get it to where it was now. All she had to do was to buy herself some supplies, and get decorations for the room. She wanted ocean themed things, and she decided that she would go and get a few things for her room, that she could bring them with her on Monday. Until she was able to get a paycheck, and then a car, Elena told her that she would come and pick her up. Rachel didn’t know what she’d do without her. It was a good thing that Elena had become her friend. She’d woken up to a strange siren blaring right outside her door, and a red blinking light was flashing at top speed above her bed. She had no idea what was going on, but she was hoping that she would get a chance to ask someone about it…then again, the only people she knew that she could ask was limited. Her roommate was a frigid bitch that didn’t talk to her. Elena wasn’t American, and so probably wasn’t privy to the inner workings of what things meant on the base. That left Jason. She took her phone off the charger, and started writing a text message. She didn’t get an answer until she’d brushed her teeth, gotten dressed, and combed her hair out. She’d just finished plaiting it when her phone pinged. She opened it and read the message. She could forgive him the lapse in answering because he’d written her an entire paragraph explaining that it was a summons for all of the police that lived in the building to get dressed and run to the armory. Apparently it meant that there was an incident going on that was under the highest priority, and they needed everyone that was available to respond. She could understand that. The fact that she was living in a police dorm was an intriguing one, because she thought that it would make her safe, but now, it seemed more of pain in the ass. She hurriedly typed a message back, thanking him for the explanation, and asking how often things like this happened. She waited eagerly for his reply, than groaned as she read the next text. They did this once a month. If they did badly, there would be more practices the next month.

  She looked at her watch. It was nine in the morning. The store opened half an hour ago, and she was going to comb through it to see what she could find for her room. She went down one aisle after another in the home décor department, and she found a few things that she liked. The only problem was that none of it was child proof. She’d had to leave it all on the shelf. A thought came to her. The children’s toys department would probably have some things that she could use. She said a sad goodbye to the beautiful knick knacks she’d wanted, and headed to the toys department. What she found there made her smile. There were blow up ocean creatures that she could blow up and hang from
the ceiling. There were banners with alternating ocean creatures that she could hang up around her blackboard. There were a few very large stuffed animals, and she found a dolphin and a starfish. Unfortunately, that was all she could find. She carried her loot back to her room, and left the bags on her desk so she could leave on Monday morning with them all ready to go. Then she had an idea. She grabbed her phone and called Elena.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Elena, it’s Rachel. I was wondering if I could ask you for a favor.” She paused, hoping that her friend would be free today.

  “Hey. Yeah, what’s up?” She sounded eager to help.

  “I was thinking we could decorate the room with an ocean them. I’ve gone to the store here on base, but I didn’t really find a lot. I was going to ask you if maybe you would be so kind as to take me somewhere that we could find more.”

  “Yeah, sure. I know a few places that have decorations. When did you want to go?”

  “Whenever you want to. Just let me know. I have nothing to do all week.” There was a pause, and what sounded like rustling paper.

  “I’m free tomorrow. I can pick you up at one.” Rachel’s heart sank. She was hoping to go today.

  “Yeah, sure. That sounds great. Thank you.” She hung up the phone. Oh well, tomorrow wouldn’t be so bad, but that meant that she had to figure something else to do for the rest of today. She knew it was still a little on the early side, but she decided to shoot a text to Jason. Maybe he wanted to do something today. She wasn’t really expecting an answer right away. She curled up on her bed, grabbed a book and started reading. She’d barely made it two chapters through the book before her phone pinged. She marked her page and looked at the message. It was from Jason, and he said he would love to hang out. He had nothing going on all day. She asked him what he wanted to do, and he replied that he had an idea but that she had to trust him. She shot back an ok, and he told her to meet him at the foot of the stairs in ten minutes. She had a little less doubt today that he was actually going to be there, so she got herself ready and went downstairs a little early. Even though she was early, he still beat her there.