Babi stared straight ahead again, holding tight and determined to the handlebars. Pallina’s Vespa could go faster than hers, but hers would never be able to reach these speeds.
They covered the length of Corso Francia and then climbed the hill of Via Jacini, all the way to the piazza. Step gave her one last shove, right in front of her apartment building. Then he let her go. Slowly, the Vespa lost speed.
Babi braked and turned to look at Step. He was stopped now, sitting upright on the motorcycle, just a short distance from her. He sat there, looking at her for a second. Then he smiled at her, put it into first gear, and pulled away.
She followed him with her gaze until he vanished around the curve. She heard him accelerating, faster and faster, a rapid shift of gears, tailpipes roaring as he sailed away at top speed into the distance.
Babi waited for a sleepy Fiore to raise the gate arm. Then she rode up the ramp to the apartment building. When she turned in to the curve, she had a grim surprise. Her whole apartment was lit up brightly, and her mother was standing there, looking out her bedroom window.
“Claudio, there she is!”
Babi gave her a desperate smile. It didn’t do a bit of good. Her mother slammed the window shut.
Babi put the Vespa away in the garage, barely managing to fit it between the wall and the Mercedes. As she was pulling down the rolling door, she thought about that morning’s slap in the face. Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to her cheek. She tried to remember how badly it had hurt. She wasn’t all that worried. She figured that she’d know exactly how badly before long.
She climbed the steps slowly, doing her best to put off as long as possible that discovery, by now inevitable. The apartment door stood open. She walked resignedly onto that gallows. Condemned to be guillotined, by no means hopeful of a reprieve, this latter-day Robespierre in overalls was going to lose her head.
She shut the door behind her and as soon as she turned around, she caught the slap full in the face. “Ouch.” Always on the same side, she thought to herself, massaging her cheek.
“Go straight to bed, but first give your Vespa keys to your father.”
Babi walked down the hallway. Claudio was standing there, by the door.
Babi gave him Pallina’s key ring.
“Babi?”
She turned around, worried now. “What?”
“Why this P?” her father asked.
The rubber P on Pallina’s key ring dangled interrogatively from Claudio’s hand. Babi stared at it, stunned for a moment. Then reawakened by the slap in the face, freshly creative in the moment, she improvised. “Oh, come on, Papà, don’t you remember? It’s the nickname you gave me yourself! When I was little you used to call me Princess Savina, from the Smurfs!”
Claudio swayed hesitantly for a moment but then a smile appeared on his face. “Oh, of course! Princess Savina. I’d almost forgotten.” Then he turned serious again. “Now go to bed. We’ll talk about all this tomorrow. I didn’t like it one bit, Babi!”
The bedroom doors swung shut. Claudio and Raffaella, somewhat relaxed at last, discussed that rebellious, unrecognizable daughter of theirs, that young woman who had once been so calm and untroubled but who now came home at four in the morning, took part in wheelie competitions, and wound up with her photograph in all the morning papers. They wondered what had become of her…What had happened to the little Princess Savina they once knew?
In her bedroom nearby, Babi undressed and got into bed. Her reddened cheek found cool soothing on her pillow. She lay there like that, dreaming of reality for a while. She felt as if she could still hear the sound of the waves and the wind caressing her hair, and then she remembered that kiss, so strong and tender at the same time.
She turned over in bed. She thought of him, and as she was sliding her hands under her pillow, she dreamed she was embracing him. Between the smooth sheets, tiny grains of sand made her smile. And in the darkness of her bedroom, the answer her parents had been searching for so frantically slowly unfolded. What had become of her was really quite simple. Babi had fallen in love.
Chapter 18
That morning found Babi, oddly enough, wide awake even before the alarm clock went off. She rolled up the blinds, dancing to the beat of the dance music blaring from the radio. The sunshine aggressively invaded the room.
Babi took off her pajama top and turned up the volume. She looked at herself in the mirror. She smiled, making a funny face at her own cheerful features. Then she realized that the young man who lived across the way had just stepped out onto the terrace. She hid in the far corner of the room. Her pajama bottoms flew onto the bed while her bra and panties vanished from the chair and reappeared on her body. She adjusted the shoulder straps, running her thumbs playfully up and down as if they were a pair of suspenders, and all that enthusiasm even hurt her a little bit.
She finished dressing to a tune from the radio. Elton John suited her perfectly. She put on her blouse, writhing and rocking inside it as she did. She did up all the buttons, bobbing her head. Like a daring young toreador with long blond hair, she whipped her skirt off the chair and wrapped that dark blue cape around her hips, with a simple “Olé.”
The young man from across the way was staring at her window. They looked right at each other for a second. She smiled at him, welcoming the attention. She opened the door of her closet so it covered the window, concealing her. Amused, she put on her shoes. The young man was perplexed as he found himself looking at that poster. Some huge guy was pulling a wheelie, and behind him, for all he could tell, was the same young woman who lived there. When Babi shut the door, the guy was gone. So much the better. It wasn’t a great idea to bother her. In case he hadn’t received the memo, she was taken already. Or was she?
She turned to look at the photograph. She looked at Step. What a shameless smart-ass, to judge from that face. As for that smile, it didn’t offer any certainty to anyone. Maybe she still was unattached after all. That thought tormented her throughout breakfast. Worse than Daniela’s questions, than her mother’s scolding, even worse than the completely unwanted words her father came out with.
“I’d never have expected this from you…Princess Savina.”
Daniela looked at Claudio, stunned. “Princess Savina? Since when do you call her that?”
“I always have. Since the day she was born. It’s the nickname I gave her.”
Babi watched her father leave the room, so confident, so untroubled by that tiny lie. And for her, it was the only laugh she enjoyed that morning.
In the car on her way to school, she turned around continually, hoping to spot Step. But she never saw him. Just kids on motorcycles with similar-looking jackets and haircuts. Each time she saw one, her heart raced.
Later, at her desk at school, she filled her notebook with question marks, indecisive hearts, simple letters, or else his whole name. Every motorcycle she heard passing in the distance, she wondered if it was him.
A longer bell rang. That was a relief. Recess.
Pallina walked up to her. “So, how did it go? You disappeared.”
“Great, we went to Ansedonia.”
“All that way?”
Babi nodded.
“And did you do it?”
“Pallina!”
“Well, excuse me very much but, if you went all the way to Ansedonia, you must have gone down to the beach, right?”