Page 69 of Two Chances With You

“Okay. Just follow me.”

I climb aboard my motorcycle, but I can’t resist. I position my rearview mirror so I’ll be able to watch her get into her car.

I drive past her. I keep her at the center of my line of sight. There she is, she’s getting in. Gin leans forward, she seats herself, and then lightly and softly she makes each of her legs fly up off the pavement. Quick and agile, almost simultaneously except for a fleeting instant, that tiny frame of lacey underwear that is like a whole film though. What a sensual flash.

Then I return to the realm of reality. I put the bike in gear and take off.

Gin follows me easily. She drives like an experienced racer. She has no problems in traffic. She swings wide, overtakes, and slides back into line. She honks her horn occasionally to forestall impending drivers’ errors. She anticipates the car’s oscillations as it enters and follows the curves of the road, her head swaying, I imagine, to the beat of some music. Every so often, she flashes her brights at me when she can see me keeping an eye on her in my rearview mirror, double brights as if to say,Hey, don’t fret, I’m right behind you.

A few more curves and we’re there. I stop. I let her slide past. Then I pull up next to her. “Go on, find a place to park here because you won’t be able to get in.”

She asks no questions. She just locks her car and climbs on behind me, tugging her skirt high. “Too cool, this motorcycle, I like it. I haven’t seen many like it.”

“None. They only made one, just for me.”

“Sure, no doubt, I believe you. Do you know how much it would cost to make a single model for just one person?”

“Yes, four hundred and fifteen thousand euros.”

Gin looks at me sincerely amazed. “So much?”

“And just figure that they gave me a major discount.”

She sees me smile in the rearview mirror that I’ve turned in her direction to catch her gaze. I try to do a little bout of wrestling with our gazes. Then I give in and smile.

She punches me hard on the shoulder. “Oh, come on. What the hell are you talking about? You’re such a bullshit artist!” This is something that hasn’t happened to me, not since the times of legendary brawls on Piazza Euclide, the raids down the Via Cassia as far as Talenti and back. Step, a bullshit artist. Who had finally dared to say it? This woman, the one riding behind me.

And she’s not done. “Leaving aside the cost, I really like this motorcycle. One of these days, you’ll have to let me drive it.”

Sheer insanity, someone asking to drive my motorcycle, and who asks? The same woman who just called me a bullshit artist! But the truly incredible thing is what I say back to her, “Yes, certainly.”

We turn into the park of Villa Borghese, where I drive fast but without undue haste, and I park in front of the little café next to the lake. “Okay, here we are. People don’t come here much so it’s nice and quiet.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you need to put in an appearance somewhere for your adoring fans?”

“Hey, are you trying to pick a fight? If I’d known, I would have taken it out on you a little harder at the gym.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t,” Gin says.

“Okay, okay, truce, come on. Let’s have an aperitif as a peace offering, okay?”

Chapter 23

Gin smiles, and we sit down at a small table. Not far away, an intellectual with a pair of tiny eyeglasses and a book on the table is sipping a cappuccino. Then he picks up an article inLeggere, the literary monthly. Farther away, a woman in her early forties with long hair and a small mutt under her chair is languidly smoking a cigarette, sad and nostalgic, perhaps, for all the joints she can’t smoke anymore.

“Nice little place, huh?”

Behind me, a waiter has appeared. “Buongiorno, signori.” He’s about sixty, and he treats us with old-fashioned elegance.

“I’ll have an Ace cider,” Gin says.

“And I’ll have a Coke and a small prosciutto and mozzarella white pizza.”

The waiter nods slightly in a nominal bow and then heads off.

“Hey, after the gym, you give yourself a treat, don’t you? A small pizza and a Coca-Cola, the diet of athletes!”

“Speaking of athletes, since you’re a freeloading athlete, you’ll need to let me have your list of your gyms, one for each of the three hundred sixty-five days of the year.”

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