Page 26 of Two Chances With You

“Come on. I’ll eat one tomorrow morning for breakfast, okay?”

“Okay, as you prefer.” Paolo watches me get ready to leave and then focuses his attention on the morselletto and tries to bite into it. “Ouch, it’s hard.”

“Warm them up in the oven,” I tell him before I go.

I’m in the elevator, and I button up my jacket. What a pain in the ass. I run my hand through my short hair, mussing it up a little, as much as I can. Morselletti are the best cookies in the world. They’re not too sweet, they’re hard to chew at first but then…They seem like a kind of chewing gum, just a little harder than that, they take on a taste all their own, and now and then you bite into a hazelnut.

Mamma. I remember her there in the kitchen. “Mix up the honey in the pot, stir and stir it and, every once in a while, take a taste…” She’d lift the very tip of a long wooden spoon to her mouth and then roll her eyes, half shutting them, to concentrate better on the flavor. “This needs a little more sugar. What do you think?”

Then she’d invite me to join the game, sampling a little with the wooden spoon. I would nod. Always in agreement with her, with my mamma. Then she’d sing, “Makes the medicine go down, the medicine go down.” She’d take off the red lid of the sugar jar and shake it ever so slightly with her wrist, sifting a little into the pot. Just enough, at least, according to her. Then she’d put the lid back on the jar, set it down, rub her hands on her flowered apron, and come over to me to see how it was going. “If you finish studying early, I’ll give you one morselletto more than Paolo…after all, he’ll never know.” And we’d laugh together, and she’d kiss me on the back of my neck while I hunched up my shoulders, shivering at the tickle…

It’s hard to forget nice things.

I zip away fast on my motorcycle. The wind is pleasant and warm on this September evening. There are very few cars out on the road. I turn up Corso Francia off of Vigna Stelluti, and I arrive at the traffic light. Then I turn and take the Via Flaminia. I twist the throttle and accelerate. The traffic light at the end of the street is green so I accelerate harder to make it through before it turns red. It’s colder here, and a shiver runs through me. It’s the greenery along the edge of the road, through the higher hills, with the occasional concealed cavern and tall trees that occasionally hide the moon.

The motorcycle slows down all on its own. I’m down to my reserve tank now. Strange. I’d filled up recently. Maybe the carburetor is fouled. That would explain why it’s consuming more fuel than usual.

I twist the throttle again, and without shifting, I reach down to the left of the tank until I find the lever. I push it down to start the reserve tank. I need to stop for gas. I go past the big Centro Euclide shopping center on the right, and just a short distance past that, I spot the lights of a self-service gas station. I pull to a halt next to the pump. It’s working.

I kill the engine and put the key in the lid of the gas tank. Then I stand up and pull my wallet out of my jeans pocket. Still holding the motorcycle steady between my legs, I pull out two ten-euro notes and slide them into the slot. The second ten-euro note is rejected, and the machine spits it out. I slide it back in, and as the slot pulls at it, I slam the heel of my hand into the side of the pump. A few more seconds and then a mechanical quack informs me that the second bill has been digested too.

I wheel the motorcycle back a short distance and reach out for the pump handle. Fuck, this just can’t be. Impossible. There’s a padlock on the gas hose. I can’t use it. And it’s not the usual kind of padlock they have at gas stations. This one is bigger. Big enough to block the button to get the receipt. This is a con game! A trick some fucking jerk has pulled so he can fill his tank on my twenty euros. That bastard basically just held me up…

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I don’t have time. I have to get to dinner. This is the last thing I need. I shut the gas tank, put the keys back in the motorcycle’s ignition, and take off, furious, engine roaring.

The gas pump stands there, all alone now, in the silence of the night. The occasional car goes racing past, heading out for who knows what magical weekend or else, more prosaically, a cheap dinner out somewhere around Prima Porta. A cat creeps across the asphalt of the gas station. Suddenly it stops as if it had heard some strange noise. It stands there motionless in the shadows, its head turned, its neck twisted, its eyes half-shut. As if it was searching for something. But there’s nothing to be found. The cat relaxes and continues on its way, heading who knows where.

A few clouds scud past overhead. A light breeze occasionally uncovers the moon. From behind the daytime station attendant’s little building, a car pulls out. It’s a dark blue Nissan Micra, with only its running lights glowing. It rolls slowly toward the gas pump. It parks, the motor switches off, and someone gets out, not too tall, wearing a somewhat feminine black hat and a dark Levi’s denim jacket. The person looks around. Then, seeing no one, they pull the key to the padlock out of their pocket and open it.

But before they can lift the pump handle, I’m on them, slamming them on the hood of their car, climbing on top of them. “Like fucking hell are you going to fill your tank with my cash!”

I grab them by the neck but they’re struggling to get free. In the struggle, the hat flies away. A cascade of long dark hair spills out over the car hood. I pull my right fist back, ready to punch them in the face, but a pale shaft of moonlight suddenly illuminates their face. “You’re a woman!”

She tries to wriggle free. I hold on to her a little while longer as I slowly lower my right arm. “A woman, a fucking woman.”

I let her go. She gets up off the car hood and adjusts her jacket. “Okay, so I’m a woman. So what? What the fuck do you have to laugh about. You want to fight? I’m not afraid of you.”

This woman is pretty cool. I take a better look at her. Her legs are spread wide, a pair of low-rise jeans and a pair of Hi-Tec sneakers. She’s wearing a black T-shirt under her dark denim jean jacket. This gal has style. She picks up her hat and shoves it in her back pocket. “Well?”

“Well, what? Listen, you’re the one who was trying to steal my money.”

“So?”

“This again? So nothing.” I climb into the Micra and pull the keys out of the dashboard. “That way, we can avoid the whole car chase.” I put the keys in my pocket. Then I continue walking. I emerge a moment later with my motorcycle. I had circled back around behind the hedge with my engine off. I start the engine, and in a second, I’m right in front of her. I kill the engine, and I unscrew the lid on the gas tank. “Hand me the pump.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

I shake my head, grab the pump myself, and start filling my tank. Then I get an idea, I put only ten euros’ worth of gas in my tank and then stop. I walk around her Micra with the pump in my hand, I open her tank, and I put the other ten euros’ worth of gas into her tank. She watches me. She’s pretty with a kind of tough-gal demeanor. Maybe she’s just pissed that she got caught. Her eyes are big and dark, and she has a nice smile, from what little I can see of it.

She makes a strange grimace of curiosity. “Now what are you doing?”

“I’m filling your tank.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going out to dinner together.” I roll the motorcycle away and put the lock on it behind the gas station.

“Not happening. Me going out to dinner with you? I have better things to do. I have a party, a rave. I’m supposed to meet my friends.”

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