“You’d never think that I came from a story like that,” people told me, though I didn’t know I came from “a story like that,” you see, did I? It was the personality that came along with it; spritely, I guess, out of the box, and happy to be alive, genuinely, and that was an obstacle. In most people’s eyes, my story appeared to be like arriving in a foreign country.
I moved behind a trash can. I sipped a cappuccino with a faint aroma of grass in it, a little out of sight so I could spot my cousin first. I didn’t want to stand there and not be recognized waving like an idiot. Remember me? I smelled the rinds of a clementine cupped in my hand. It was always the first thing that I grabbed. I always loved the scent of its remains, sharp and sweet like a quiet day down the shore long ago.
Gliding through the lot with hair like black silky sails, my cousins sent Carmine to pick me up. He could understand me when no one else could. It struck me. He was no longer a boy. His cheeks were my favorite feature along with his owl eyes behind his round glasses that eliminated any possibility of discerning what he was thinking. They weren’t round anymore and neither was he.
A friend of mine from Genoa remarked that the Neapolitans were “the actors of Italy,” snickering at my accent in Italian because it was Neapolitan. Cool, matter-of-fact yet poetic, Carmine wasn’t going to become an opera for you. Subtly stunned to recognize me in stride, fist over his mouth, how to cross fifteen years? He did it because it wasn’t a dense material to him. I couldn’t move. I also had luggage. I moved my hands like the storm, the storms! He had no idea what I was saying. The years flew with his steps, ages flickered across his face. I searched for the words. He hugged me. A direct hit. I wasn’t expecting that, that fifteen years could be so easily crossed.
He pulled me in front of him with a firm grip as if to feel the reality of me.
“Merí, your hair…”
“Merí!”
My coat was “totally enormous.”
I forgot that they called me by that name — Merí. I masked that with a bright smile. “Yes,” he nodded. “This is you, Merí.” I took this as an opportunity to practice the letters of the alphabet. “Not…” He nodded. “Mary,” I cut it short. “Baa baa,” I made the sounds for lamb; he found my coat “bello, is it vintage?” But Italian lambs do not make the same sounds as English ones. “Mangiar.” I patted my hands, moved around “l’animale…” with hair that you shave to weave. He thought I looked “bella.” I got uncomfortable, he noticed, I responded strangely. “You! You look.” He reached for my giant suitcase, I felt bad, so we did a pas de deux over who would take it. “No, no,” I didn’t want him to. I packed for a month. He dismissed me politely. He wasn’t going to let me…I liked taking my own bag. I was strong, I meant it. Really. I did not…He stopped. He adjusted his glasses, a stone pine, behind me. What was my fidgety insistence about? He spoke with a blunt tone. Just like his mother. I did a readjustment dance, he got it. “Work…” as in “job…” “Ah,” he was sincere, “agnello.” With two claws sinking into the subject, “this.” He patted down my fumes. I didn’t remember the word for “lamb.” Everything was okay. That was first. Taking in my hair, my coat, my giant beat-up suitcase, my pristine ostrich carry-on….
“Si, si,” he said flatly, “you were always like this.”
I had to laugh at his tone. “What?”
My hands were always “imaginative.”
“What?”
“Si si,” no change in tone, my hands were always creative, even a little fantastico…
“Vero? True?” I arched my thumb into the past. “You, you, know, this? Me?” Carmine said, “si, si. You were always like this.” Uh, laughing…really? I cast my gaze toward the ground. It was a compliment, I appeared lost. With owl eyes, he didn’t make fun of me, Carmine. “This is a quality….“
“You,” I gestured, “you think this, you know this, you,” I made an arch backward with my thumb. “Si, si,” he looked away. He rubbed his palm when he was thinking though his face rarely changed. I interrupted him in feeling. I understood what he was going to say. Shrugging, it was obvious. He looked side to side as if it say—isn’t it? And then, with a small shrug, if not a stare, it would be strange…I got it before he had to say it. He didn’t care. We shrugged back and forth. It’s just a little song and dance. Everyone has one here, it’s just my way. I was so excited! Suddenly. He was unmoved. Napoli! I froze. Too fast. I got self-conscious. He rang to signal my attention.
“Meri—”
“We must hurry, it is time to eat…”
I froze in fear. His brows rose, his eyes owl.
“I cannot eat…”
He didn’t know how to take that with my cracking up. “What do you mean you cannot eat? You are not hungry, or you cannot eat because you feel sick or tired or something? Are you okay?”
Uh, no, yes. I didn’t have the words.
Looking at me as if were strange without moving his face, he broke into a slight smile. I laughed. He rolled on with my bag.
“Mama, lunch-time, let’s go…”
Slowing down my steps to delay his, he whistled like he knew. He wagged his finger as if he remembered me more and more with every step he took. I caught up with him, the wind through his jacket, his chest affronting the seas once more.
Stone pines grew tall with rough skirts, ancient. Words with sharp beginnings and harsh endings crashed into one another like waves, cymbals. Doors slammed shut, a beautiful day—“solé, solé, solé!” O Sole Mio.
Carmine was sensitive to the shift in my feeling, but he didn’t know what it was, I could tell, but then, who knew what he knew and what he didn’t? I was nervous, for sure, though I wouldn’t say that I was totally aware of that. My bag was a little awkward. I lunged for it apologetically. Like a sharp conductor, he paused in suspension, his eyes large and innocent. “Be careful.” I didn’t want anyone to do anything for me! It was my responsibility, sincerely, to take the large bag. I packed enough for a month. Yes, yes, I did well. “Why are you apologizing?” I acted like a dumbbell so this moment would pass, throwing my hands around my head, I was “tired,” yeah. Claws for hands…um… he rolled on. I inserted my hands where words should have been. “I loved!” With a fist. All this! Speaking like this, with fists, not knowing the language, cracking up. “Ti!” My steps quickened, emotional. I caught his nails—they were longer—he played guitar! I beamed and pointed. “Muschi!” I stumbled over a curb in my black suede boots. “Musician” was not an easy word for me to pronounce. “MUSCHI.” Carmine threw his hands at a silver car attempting to go around the parking kiosk by accelerating up and onto a grassy median we were crossing. “HO!” He kept moving as if there was nothing abnormal about it, me, because there wasn’t. Stopping at a white 90s Peugeot, opening up the trunk, I pointed to it. Plumping onto the pavement, the silver car booked it.
“Hey! Giggino!”
“Si si,” Carmine was smooth with his keys. It was his father’s old car, “si.”
“We were children in the…”
I saw little Carmine in the backseat swinging his sandal in the summers, just the cutest, with slick hair, too, the two of us children beginning to turn our fingers towards the point that we always arrived at to the amazement of his family.
His eyes went side to side—si. No, he got the picture. I wanted him to see the past in the car. He did. “We did questo!” He turned my wheels towards the present — the passenger seat I needed to get into, putting invisible food in his mouth. I laughed. He made sounds as if the deal had been made. I proved his point. He got into the car.
On guitar strings, we took off down the autoroute.
