Step gave the car door a quick shove, and Chicco called out, helpless and wedged in place between the car and the door.
Babi got up off the ground, smarting from the impact. She, too, started yelling for help.
Just then, a car went by. It was the Accados, friends of Babi and Daniela’s parents. “Look, Filippo! What’s going on? Why, that’s Babi, Raffaella’s daughter!” Marina Accado said.
Filippo slammed on the brakes and got out of the car, leaving the door wide open.
Babi ran toward him, shouting, “Separate them. Hurry, they’re killing each other!” Even if that wasn’t exactly an accurate description of the situation. “Let go of him!”
Filippo threw himself on Step, restraining him from behind. Then Chicco thrust the car door open, sending Step flying into Filippo, before getting back behind the wheel and escaping at top speed.
Step, wrenching free from the arms of Signor Accado, turned to see that the back of his head had struck Filippo’s face during the fall, breaking his nose, which had begun bleeding. Now Filippo staggered to his feet, both hands on his nose and with no idea of where to go.
Marina hurried to her husband’s side. “You criminal, you miserable wretch! Don’t get any closer. Don’t you dare touch him!”
Step stood in shocked silence, observing the screaming woman.
“Do you hear me, you little thug? This doesn’t end here!” Marina helped her husband into the passenger seat and then started the engine and pulled away.
Babi stood boldly in front of Step. “You disgust me! You have no respect for anything or anyone.”
He gazed at her with a beaming smile. “Do you mind telling me what you want from me?”
“Nothing. What could I possibly want from you? What can you expect of a filthy beast? You injured a man, someone much older than you.”
“First off, if he hadn’t grabbed me from behind, I never would have struck him. Second, too bad for him, he should have just minded his own business.”
“Oh, really? So if someone doesn’t mind his own business, you hit him in the face?”
“Again with this bullshit?” Step went over to his motorcycle and climbed aboard. He started the motorcycle, and for a moment, he lit up Babi with his headlight. She partly shut her eyes. Step put the bike in first gear. The headlight swept away. “Well, so long.”
Babi looked around. There was no one in sight. The piazza was deserted. “What do you mean, so long?”
“All right, I take it back. I won’t even say so long.”
Babi heaved a sigh of annoyance. “What about me? How am I supposed to get home now?”
“How the hell should I know? You could have asked your friend to drive you, couldn’t you?”
“Impossible, you beat him up and made him run away.”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault.”
“Whose fault if not yours? Come on, let me get on.” Babi went over to the motorcycle and lifted her leg to one side, ready to climb on.
Step let out the clutch. The motorcycle moved slightly forward. Babi looked at him. Step turned his head and looked back. Babi tried to get on again, but Step was too fast for her, and once again darted forward.
“Stop it, hold still. What’s the matter with you?”
Step looked at her with that arrogant smirk on his face. “You can’t be thinking of accepting a ride from someone as awful as me.”
Babi half shut her eyes, this time because of how much she hated him. Then she went walking off, with great determination, down Via della Farnesina.
Step twisted the accelerator and caught up with her. He was rolling along beside her, sitting on his motorcycle. “Forgive me, but I’m doing it for your sake. Otherwise you’d be bitter about having had to compromise. No, far better that you stick to your guns and get home on your own two feet. Agreed?”
Babi crossed back over to the other side of the street. Step followed her. He rose up off the seat of the motorcycle as it bumped down off the sidewalk. He reached out with one hand and grabbed her sweatshirt. “Come on, get on.”
She tried to walk past him but he yanked her close to him. He looked into those pale blue eyes, clear and deep, as they stared at him. He carefully released her, and then he smiled gently. “Come on. Let me take you home. Otherwise you’ll get in a fight with half the city before the night is through.”
In silence, without a word about where she lived, she quickly grabbed her shopping bag from where it had fallen and climbed up behind him. The motorcycle took off, lunging forward. Babi shot backward. Instinctively, she threw her arms around him. Her hands wound up, unintentionally, under his jacket, which had puffed up in the blast of wind. His body was warm in the cool of the night. Babi felt clearly delineated muscles slip beneath her fingers, shifting with every slight movement he made. The wind ran over her cheeks; her wet hair fluttered in the air.
The motorcycle veered to one side, and she clung tighter to him and closed her eyes. Her heart started pounding harder. She wondered if it was merely fear.
She heard the sound of other cars. Now they were on a larger street, it wasn’t as cold, and she turned her face and laid her cheek on his back, still without looking, allowing herself to be lulled as the bike rose and fell, at the powerful sound she could feel roaring beneath her.
They were racing faster and faster, overtaking cars, leaning right and then left, whizzing between the vehicles, downshifting again to climb hills, higher and higher, a climb and then nothing. Absolute silence.
Babi opened her eyes and recognized the shops, closed now all around her, the same ones she’d seen every day for the past six years, ever since her family had first moved there. She got off the motorcycle.
Step heaved a deep sigh. “Well, that’s a relief. You were crushing me to death!”
“Sorry, I was afraid. I’ve never ridden behind anyone on a motorcycle.”
“There’s always a first time for everything.” Then he put the bike into first gear and, with a mocking “arrivederci,” roared away into the night.
* * *
That night, a great many people slept poorly, some because they were at the hospital emergency room, others because of their nightmares. Among the latter was none other than Chicco Brandelli. He was going to have to face up to his father, exactly as Roberta had been forced to do that same evening with her parents. Babi was in bed, exhausted from the evening. She decided that the blame for everything belonged to that half-wit, that uncouth oaf, that wild animal, that filthy beast, that violent roughneck, that rude bumpkin, that arrogant, smirking idiot. Then, when she stopped to think it over more carefully, she realized that she didn’t even know his name.
Chapter 3
Step poured himself a beer and switched on the TV set. He turned it to channel 13. On Videomusic, an Aerosmith video, “Love in an Elevator,” was playing. Steven Tyler was getting a very warm welcome by an insanely hot babe. Tyler, with a voice ten times better than Mick Jagger’s, was showing the proper appreciation for the young woman.
Step thought about his father, sitting right across from him. Who could say if the old man appreciated her too?
His father picked up the remote control lying on the table and switched off the television. “We haven’t laid eyes on you for the past three weeks, and first thing you do is turn on the TV. Let’s talk, all right?”