Page 10 of One Hot Summer

“My name is Alessandro.” He held out his hand, to shake ours in turn.

“I’m Sarah, and this is Jenny.”

“It is nice to meet you, ladies. But I must apologise. I must leave. Maybe we will see each other again, yes?”

“Yes. That would be great, yes. Jenny?” Sarah looked at me.

“Absolutely.” This was the first time in a long time that any smile on her face had seemed genuine. Until now, any man who’d dared to speak to her in the past three months had been kindly told to eff off. “We’re here for a few days so, definitely.”

“Good, good.” He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a card. “This is my number. We can meet for a drink, or something.” I could almost feel the electricity as his hand touched Sarah’s and she took the card from him. She ran her other hand through her hair, brushing a strand of it behind her ear. She wasn’t even blushing. If that were me, I would be as red as a pepperoni.

“I’ll let you know what we’re doing, and then we can arrange something.”

“That sounds wonderful. Grazie.” He stepped back, ready to walk away from us, having one final glance at Sarah. “Ciao, ladies.”

“Yes, ciao.”

“That accent though. Did you hear how he said his name?” Sarah had been busy swooning over her new Italian friend throughout our entire meal. We followed Alessandro’s advice and found a restaurant near our hotel that was filled with locals. And he was right. The food was perfecto as well as cheapo.

“I did.” I picked up another slice of pizza. I was having a foodgasm, and hardly even listening to what she was saying.

“Alessandro. Oh, how his tongue rolled when he said it. Alessandrrro. Imagine what else that tongue could do.”

“Well,” I said, with a mouthful of melted cheesy goodness. “We’re here for a little while longer. Plenty of time to find out. My God, this is good pizza.”

“Do you think we should meet up with him? Is that a good idea? No, we can’t. I can’t. Can I? No, no, I can’t.”

“Why not?” I asked, taking another huge bite.

“Because it’s our holiday. A girly holiday. Not a man-meeting holiday.”

“Neither was Zante, and we both know how that turned out.” I cringed at the memory, and about the awkwardness of Sarah’s parents picking us up from the airport just thirty-six hours after they had dropped us off. They had kindly agreed not to call my mother and allowed me to hide at their house for the remainder of the week so she never had to know of my shame.

“That was different! We were twenty-one. Single girls in their twenties can get away with that kind of stuff. I’m thirty-one now. It’s time to be mature. Sensible. One must refrain from climbing on top of sexy Italian men.”

“What are you talking about? You can do whatever you want.”

She leaned back in her chair and swirled her fork in her spaghetti, but not lifting any to her mouth to eat.

I tried to ignore the giant, sparkly pink elephant in the room, but it was difficult not to work out what was on her mind in that moment. Max The Wanker’s girlfriend Ellie was in her twenties. Twenty-three, to be exact.

“Age has nothing to do with it.”

“You say that, but you’ll notice it from now on. Everywhere you go, there’ll be a bunch of twenty-year-old girls having more fun than you. They go around in groups, hunting. You’re okay, you have a man who adores you. I’ve got a battle on my hands now, if I ever want to meet someone.”

“Well, Alessandro didn’t seem to notice any of the twenty-year-olds standing around us in their miniskirts. It was us he pulled from the crowd, and he only had eyes for you. Text him if you want. We can meet him tomorrow evening. I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you feeling like a gooseberry.”

“I’ll be fine. Just tell him to meet us somewhere near the hotel, so I can sneak back if I want to. It’ll give me an excuse to give Zack a call.” And try out phone sex.

“Okay, but I’ll text him in the morning. I don’t want to seem too eager.”

The sun was setting. It was still humid outside, but this place had air conditioning, so we were nice and cool inside. Sarah took her last mouthful of pasta, and I crunched down on the pizza crust, which was too delicious to leave on the plate. I was full. The antipasti, the salads, the bread, and finally the pizza.

“Your meal is good, si?” Our waiter, Matteo, returned. He was the only English-speaking waiter at the restaurant. He was funny, although it was sometimes difficult to understand him. Or to get him to understand us.

“Si, yes, it was perfect, thank you.”

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