WANTED: Love of my Life

37. The bull next door

In the end, I guess that nearly being robbed and raped and stabbed to death and spending the entire night out in the park watching over the sleeping Giacomo was worth it – because the next morning, it helped me to accomplish an astonishing feat: I slept through both of my alarm clock's alarms. In the end, my mother had to come and shake me awake. And she had to shake a good long time, too.

“Did you stay up too late last night?” She asked, her voice critical.

“Yea, had to study,” I yawned.

“Oh.” Her voice instantly softened. “Well, that's all right then, I guess. But hurry up now, or you'll be late for school.”

She left the room. Hmm... wasn't lying prohibited by the ten commandments? As I threw on a couple of the rags my parents got me for clothes, I wondered idly whether they meant lying to your mom or lying in bed too long in the morning. In either case, I could only plead guilty, so it was a mute point, really.

When I came into the kitchen, I was greeted by a beaming mother and a bowl of slobber that was pretending to be cereal.

“I already made you your breakfast,” my mom announced fondly. “So that you wouldn’t be late.”

Oh yes. Lying was a sin all right, and the punishment came right after the deed.

“That's nice.”

I forced myself to sit down and taste the contents of the bowl my mother had prepared, fervently hoping it wouldn't taste as bad as it looked. It didn't. It tasted much, much worse. How was it possible, I wondered, to make a bowl of cereal in a way that made it taste different from cereal? I mean, you used the stuff that's in the carton, mixed it with a bit of milk and – voila. Your average, every-day bowl of cereal. Did my mother have a special gift, to make anything she touched taste like regurgitated castor oil?

I would have continued in this depressed stupor for a while, occasionally stuffing a spoonful of sludge into my mouth, but mostly staring off into the distance, trying to come to terms with the events of last night. But then...

“Did you hear?” My Mom asked.

“What?” I groaned.

“We've got a new neighbor. He's Italian.”

Those words woke me up all right. I spewed sewage – excuse me, of course I meant cereal – all over the breakfast table. Fortunately, my mother was standing at the sink with her back to me and didn't see it. “Who... what...” I spluttered, while I furiously tried to wipe the table clean with my sleeve. Hey, I am fashion-conscious! The sweater I was wearing was just so horrible it might actually look better with spittle on.

“A man in his thirties, I think. Tall, bald, thick-necked. Looks a bit like a bull.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, I chastised myself, it didn't have anything to do with Giacomo. There were a lot of Italian immigrants in America. If you believed the Mafia movies, the country was swarming with them. So why should this particular Italian have anything to do with my secret boyfriend? But for a moment, just for a moment I had thought.... it had been stupid. Really stupid. He wouldn't even come near the house, why would I think that suddenly he'd...

My thoughts were interrupted by my mother, who seemed to think I'd had enough time to eat breakfast and shewed me out the door. I just managed to grab a jacket before I was pushed out of the flat by her well-meaning, menacing motherliness. Out in the corridor, I could see that she had indeed been right. A massive man with a bald head and a thin black mustache stood there, arms akimbo, and oversaw a few nervous-looking furniture movers who were carrying old cabinets and stuff into the flat next door. He looked like he could have carried more than all of them put together.

I was already past him when I hesitated. Why not? After all, he was Italian. He didn't know me, and he certainly didn't know Giacomo. It couldn't hurt to ask. And I was dying to know more. And I was already late for school, anyway. Quickly, I turned around and ran back to the massive man. There I put on my most polite harmless little girl face, and cleared my throat.

No reaction.

Once more, I cleared my throat.

Again, the man didn't say or do anything. He just continued to glare at the moving guys, whose nervousness was increasing with every piece of furniture.

“Excuse me?” I said.

The man turned his head and looked down at me. His eyes narrowed and he looked me up and down. Well, mostly down, really. It was really annoying to be so tiny! Why couldn't our new neighbor have been a nice little old Italian lady of 5 feet 3 inches? If, after such a close examination, I was hoping for an answer from the mountain of a man, I was disappointed. He returned to staring at the movers.

“I have a question. Perhaps you could help me.”

Again, no answer. God, was this guy dumb?! Perhaps if I put it a bit more directly...

“Would you help me?”

He heaved a sigh, and looked down at me again.

“'With what?” he grunted.

Obviously, we'd gotten Mr. Polite as our new neighbor.

“I am taking Italian in school.” A lie, but a moderately plausible one. “And our teacher mentioned this word... I just can't remember what it means.”

Silence.

“Could you tell me?”

Grunt. I wasn't sure whether it was affirmative, until he asked: “What's the word?”

“I'm not sure whether I remember correctly... but I think it was 'Segaioli'.

That got his attention all right. He stared at me. “Sons of bitches!”

“Hey, there's no need to swear.”

“That's what it means. Sons of bitches.”

“Oh.” I could feel my ears burning. “Well... thanks. Now I know why our teacher said not to use it. Thank you so much.”

What did I get as a reply? A grunt. I could see me and my new neighbor were going to get along fabulously!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Being late for school actually had its disadvantages. It meant that I missed the cable car and had to wait for the next one to come. Its driver wasn't quite as lenient as Enrique and expected me to pay for the ride, imagine. I complied, but only after heavy protest. It seemed that for lack of money, today both my breakfast and lunch were going to be disgusting.

Thoughts like these didn't manage to occupy my mind for long, however. It soon drifted back to the one thing I was missing more than money for a decent lunch. Were would he be right now? What would he be doing? I had no idea. And dammit, it only made him seem more sexy. How could it be that I still wanted him that badly? Wanted him more with every day that passed? After all, last night, I had clearly seen that he was off several rockers, his own among them. The look in his eyes when the knives had appeared in his hands... I shuddered. I shuddered with fear, and, I realized to my chagrin, with excitement. I really had read far too many romance and adventure novels. In real life, It wasn't good to fall for a dangerous, foreign and in the truest sense of the word, insanely hot guy. I should like somebody boring and steady. I really should. Yeah.

That's probably why I sucked at math – logical argument didn't work very well for me.

At the stop nearest to the school, I jumped out of the cable car and ran towards the two white towers in the distance, knowing that what I should do and what I would do would never be the same. Not while there was a Giacomo.

The question was, what would that cost me?

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Hi!

I've done a new cover for this story, since the last one looked a bit old-fashioned in my opinion. What do you think of the new one? Feedback, pretty please?? :)

Cheers

Rob