Page 22 of The Love Scam
“This is no way to live,” the woman who was going to change her name from whatever it was
(Debra? Dana?)
to Nedra Naseef commented. “I’m not reliving my childhood. The first time was bad enough.”
“Guh,” Rake replied, because he was too exhausted to attempt words of more than one syllable. Armed with an out-of-date Fodor’s, he and the cute brunette he met at the Bridge of Sighs had decided to find the infamous Cruising Pavilion and christen it. And by “met,” he meant “was bowled over by.” In fact, he’d heard her
(“It’s called the Bridge of Sighs because it was the last thing prisoners saw before they were locked up! For years! And sometimes tortured! Brutally! It is not romantic in theslightest,morons!”)
before he saw her. One thing about American tourists,you can always spot them. Or hear them. Often without trying! His admiration only increased when he saw the petite brunette with the curves of a courtesan and the mouth
(“Oh,I’mout of line? You’re the shithead who thinks it’s romantic to take a selfie where dead men were chained up! So go fuck yourself!”)
of a Red Sox fan.
“Bad enough I’m falling back into bad habits,” Nedra was saying, pulling her woefully grass-stained shirt back over her head, “but the Cruising Pavilion isn’t even a club. It’s an exhibition. A closed one,” she added in a mutter, as if an art exhibit should be open at 1:30A.M.on a Tuesday.
“Toldja.” Hey, two syllables! Maybe his heart rate was starting to come down. “But I like how this little park served as a handy substitute.”
“Not to mention,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “it’s an exhibit about homosexual cruising.”
“What?” He sat up from where he’d sprawled on the grass. “But that means we did it all wrong!”
She gaped at him for a moment, then let out a string of giggles. “We’ll never be able to hold our heads up in high society again. Or low society.”
“Oh, the humanity,” he agreed.
“And don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re never to speak of this again.”
“The screwing-up gay sex part, or the—”
“All of it. Any of it. It’s gonna be the thing we know about but never talk about, like the Noodle Incident trope.”
“Weird. But fine. But I think you’re overreacting. It’s not like we’ve done anything wr—”
“Polizia! Sei in arresto per aver commesso un atto osceno in un luogo pubblico!”
“Oh hell,” she groaned. “It’s my senior prom all over again.”
“Osceno?Obscene?” Rake yelped at the cops coming forward. “It was beautiful, dammit!”
Fifteen
“… so then we paid the five-hundred-euro fine and went our separate ways and I never saw her again. And we were sort of… uh… banned.”
“Uh-huh.”
“From the city of Venice.”
“Oh.”
“For life.”
“Ah.”
“Our kids, too. They were pretty mad—the cops, the mayor, the guy in charge of keeping the park sex-free…”
“That’s not fair,” Lillith protested. She tossed the latest wet washcloth on the floor for emphasis. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t want to be banned. What if I want to go to the Accademia di Belle Arti?”
