Page 18 of The Fake Date Deal

“Mm, disappointment with tasty meat sauce.”

Marco guffawed at that. “Oh, the truth comes out! I knew size did matter.”

“Not that you’ve got anything to worry about in that department.” I nudged him. He stole a quick kiss. The streets were filling with tourists as the sun climbed in the sky, all stopping to snap the same vacay shots. Marco took my arm and guided me to a little café. We sat at a table on the small corner terrace and Marco ordered us pastries and coffee.

“I like to come here,” he said, as our waiter headed off. “You see across the street, where one flagstone’s missing?”

I looked where he was pointed, and, yeah, I saw it.

“It’s been like that for years. I keep thinking they’ll fix it. But they never do, and I sit here and wait, and tourists come by with their heads in the clouds, trying to take pictures of that tower over there.” He pointed at a tower rising between two buildings. “They back up and back up trying to fit the whole thing in, and I bet on which ones’ll fall on their asses.”

I laughed, then I smacked him. “Really? That’s mean.”

“I warn them if they’re old, or if they seem like good people. But the loud ones, the mean ones dragging tired children, pff. I say screw ’em. Let them tip over.”

I snickered at the image of a loud, red-faced tourist going ass over teakettle in the pothole. Becoming a story for other tourists. He was yelling at his kids to get in the picture, and then whoom. Flat on his tuchis.

“Here comes one now.” Marco sipped his coffee. We watched a sweaty tourist back toward the pothole, his expensive Nikon pressed to his face. “Five euros he trips.”

“No, he’s dragging his heels. He’s going to feel that before he goes in.”

The tourist glanced our way, and I thought he’d heard us. Then he adjusted his camera and eased back one more step. He snapped, checked the preview, and cursed in English. Slid his other heel back, and off he went. He didn’t fall, but he danced all around, waving his camera, flapping for balance. He bellowed his outrage, shit bastard pothole, and a mother covered her child’s ears with two loaves of bread. Marco stretched out his hand.

“You owe me five euros.”

“What? No, I don’t. You said if he fell.”

“I said if he tripped. That counts as tripping.”

I dug in my purse and came up with five euros. Marco took them, smirking, and tucked them in with our bill.

“They’re used to big tourist tips. We can’t be cheap yokels.”

We sat and ate pastries and drank strong black coffee, and watched the pothole, but no more tourists keeled over. A woman in a big hat got flapped by a pigeon. Kids went by smiling, eating gelato. I tried to imagine this place long ago, pre-pothole, pre-tourists, pre-penis pasta. Market stalls. Mule carts. Women in shawls. Congregations flocking to all those old churches. Strangers from out of town tripping in potholes, their eyes on the skyline, all those high towers.

“Guess it hasn’t changed much,” I said.

Marco frowned. “Hm?”

“Just picturing how it must’ve been when it was built. How old is this town?”

“Well, there’s been a town here for three thousand years. But what you see now is mostly more recent. Built between eleven hundred and around thirteen hundred.”

My head spun at the thought of such a vast span of years, lives coming and going here, roads trod flat, then cobbled. Other couples must’ve sat here as we sat right now, maybe even fake ones out for revenge. I felt suddenly small and a little petty. But Marco was smiling, finishing his pastry.

“Are you ready for a longer walk?”

I nodded. “Where to?”

“That’s the surprise. We have one stop to make first.” Marco paid our bill, then led us up the street. He stopped at a bakery with its door painted blue and picked up a wicker hamper from a smiling old man. The two of them chatted in easy Italian, the old man laughing and shaking his head. I couldn’t help noticing no money changed hands.

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah, he’s my uncle. Well, my great uncle, but close enough.”

“So you grew up here?”

“No, in Siena. But a lot of my family still lives up here.” He held up the hamper. It smelled of fresh bread. “Uncle Sal there’s a baker. He made us a picnic. I thought we’d go eat it out in the hills. Watch the sun set over the vineyards. Then we’ll spend the night here and drive up to Monza.”

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