Lost in Rome (16 page)

The first order I took a few nights later was from Murielle duPluie and Angelo.

“
Bonjour
,” she said.

“Hi!” I was excited to see her.

“I am going to do the follow-up article we talked about,” she said. “And have dinner with
mon amour
at the same time.”

“Great.” To Angelo I said, “Nice to see you again.”

“The place looks different,” said Angelo in perfect English. “I love the outside seating and new menu.”

“Thanks.”

“I just
adore
the walls,” Murielle duPluie said. “The exposed brick is
très jolie
.” The paint had been scraped from the rest of the bricks and the walls really did look great.

I took their order and was about to leave when Carina, the lady selling flowers who I'd met on the Spanish Steps, walked by with her basket. “Flower for the lady?” she asked Angelo.

“Of course,” Angelo said. “I'll take two.” He gave one of them to me and the other to Murielle duPluie.

“
Grazie
,” I said, and walked away with Carina. I asked her, “I'm just wondering, what did Aunt Maria do for you that you would do anything for her?”

“She introduced me to my husband.” She smiled and offered roses to two more customers.

Ha. Even when Aunt Maria had stopped officially matchmaking and was “no messing with the love,” she'd still managed to create some very happy couples on the sly.

AJ called to me from the kitchen, “You have a phone call at twelve o'clock.”

I looked straight ahead.

The only thing there was the men's room.

“No. Sorry. I meant right here.” He held up the phone.

Who would be calling me at Amore Pizzeria?

“Hello,” I said.

“Hi, honey.”

“Hi, Dad. I'm kinda busy right now.”

“I know. I just wanted to tell you that Mom and I are reading all these letters on the website and looking at the pictures of Amore Pizzeria. It's just incredible.”

“Thanks. There's actually a lot more I can tell you. Like Aunt Maria reconnecting with her Dante, whose name is Mossimo, and the menu and the dance club, but I've got a lot of hungry people here who need me to match them.”

There was a long pause. Finally Dad said, “Okay, honey. I didn't understand all that, but I wanted to tell you how proud we are of you.”

“Thanks, Dad. Bye—”

“Lucy! Wait.”

“What?”

“I was wondering if you ever met Enrique. He used to hang around the shop.”

“Who's that?”

“A boy you were friends with last time we went to Italy. You were in, like, first grade then.”

“I don't remember any boy.”

“Sure you do,” my dad said. “He's in your stories. You call him something different every time, but I recognize him.”

I knew the character Dad was talking about, but I didn't know anyone named Enrique.

“No, Dad, I haven't seen him.”

“Too bad. You were pals back then,” he said. “I'll see you at the airport tomorrow night, honey.”

I hung up.

I finished the dinner crowd, wondering if I had a Dante of my own and didn't even realize it.

How would I find him in a huge foreign city like Rome?

Vito tapped my shoulder and pointed to several take-out tins of food filled with pizzas and spaghetti Parmesan sandwiches. He chattered something in Italian. I understood that he wanted me to deliver that stuff to Rico, who was in charge of the Amore Pizzeria mobile cart, which sold food in the piazza. It had a huge Amore Pizzeria sign and an arrow pointing down the alley.

I took the warm tins toward Rico. On my way I passed the Fontana del Cuore. I set the tins on the ground, reached into my pocket, found a coin, and tossed it in. I closed my eyes and thought—
Enrique
.

When I opened my eyes, Enrique hadn't miraculously appeared, so I took the tins to the cart, which was manned by Rico and one of his buddies.

“Who's hungry?” I asked.

“Actually,” he said, “I'm starving. Do you want to take a break and chow with me?”

I untied my apron. “Yup. I absolutely would.”

He asked, “What can I get for you?”

“Spaghetti Parmesan sandwich,” I said. “I hear they're fabulous.”

“If there was a zombie apocalypse and all we had were spaghetti Parm sandwiches, we would never have to worry about zombies wanting to eat brains. They would be totally satisfied with these.” He handed me a warm sandwich wrapped in foil.

Had he seriously just referenced a zombie apocalypse?

“What are you going to have?” I asked him.

“Duh. My favorite. I haven't been able to get it anywhere. Until now, that is. You added it to the new menu.” He held out a plate of ham-and-pineapple pizza. “The Los Angeles.”

Did you get the part where I said Rico's favorite pizza was ham and pineapple?

That's my favorite too, and best matched with
another
ham and pineapple, generally speaking. Of course, it isn't an exact science. I use my gut, too. And right now my gut was tangled like linguine al dente being dumped into a colander.

“When my parents decided to move back here from the US, I was homesick for my American friends. Then I met an American girl here on vacation. She introduced me to it, and ever since then it's been my numero uno favorite.”

“As a kid? An American?”

“Yeah. She was on vacation here in Rome and I met her. We hung out for a week and then she was gone. I never saw her again.” He bit into the pie. “But she left me with ham and pineapple.”

“Enrique?”

Rico made a face. “Oh man, I hate that name. Don't call me that. Rico is much more fitting to my personality, don't you think?”

“Totes.” He didn't put it together that I was the American girl, and I didn't tell him. At least not yet.

This was going to make a great story someday.

Then it happened.

Rico reached into his back pocket and took out my matchmaking notes. “I won the auction,” he said, and gave them to me. Then he took me by the hand. We walked down the cobblestone alley—which was now lined on either side by glowing luminaries—with Meataball waddling behind us.

Can one girl find luck and

adventure on the Emerald Isle?

Read on for a peek at

Lost in Ireland

by Cindy Callaghan.

Previously titled
Lucky Me

I
f I had to pick one thing that I believe in more than anything else, it would be this: LUCK. I'm Meghan McGlinchey, the most superstitious thirteen-year-old girl in Delaware, and possibly the world.

For example, I never got out of bed when my digital clock read an odd number. Odd number = bad luck.

7:02. Perfect.

I dressed in a snap because every day it was the same school uniform—boring plaid skirt, plain white shirt, itchy button-up navy-blue sweater, matching headband, horrendous blue leather shoes, and kneesocks. The outfit was—how should I say this?—ugly!

I dashed down the stairs, especially careful to skip the thirteenth step today because it was a very important day, one I'd been looking forward to for weeks. I was running for eighth-grade class president. And today was the election. I had done a stellar job campaigning FOREVER. If I didn't totally mess up my speech, I was pretty sure I was gonna win. With all the practicing I'd been doing, it would take a major freak of nature for me to mess it up.

I passed my four sisters and parents scrambling around in the kitchen. I opened a can of food for my cat, Lucky. He ran over when he heard it pop. I scratched his ears as he lapped up the food.

I loved Lucky, but he and I had a problem. He was a black cat. And people like me, we didn't mix well with black cats. But we had an understanding: He didn't cross my path, and I took good care of him. It worked for us.

The kitchen was louder than usual this morning. My younger sister Piper (the fifth grader) yelled at one of my older sisters, Eryn (the eleventh grader), “Why did you touch my playlist? Why? WHY?”

Dad yelled across the kitchen to my mom, “Can you put a bagel in the toaster for me?”

The baby, Hope, cried while my oldest sister sang her an Irish lullaby to calm her. It wasn't working, so she tried some applesauce, which the baby threw across the room. It nearly hit my white shirt, but I ducked out of the way just in time.
SPLAT!
The applesauce hit the wall behind me.

Phew, that was lucky!

I stood at the front door, under the horseshoe mounted on the wall and next to my snow globe collection, watching the insanity.

The living room was a mess with suitcases and duffel bags. We were leaving the next morning for Ireland, where we would spend spring break. The purpose of the trip was for my father to meet his newly discovered sister. You see, he'd been born in Ireland. Sadly, something happened to his parents when he was just a kid, and he'd been raised at a home for boys.

Until a few months ago he hadn't thought he had any family. But thanks to some online research, he'd found a long-lost sister. I imagined that when he met her, he'd introduce me as his middle daughter and president of Wilmington Prep's eighth-grade class. It was gonna be totally impressive.

I crunched the granola bar I'd packed in my backpack the night before—instant breakfast. With a little planning, my morning was the way I liked it: mayhem-free.

In fact, I liked most things organized. I might have been the most organized eighth grader at Wilmington Prep, an all-girls private school that went from kindergarten through twelfth grade. This meant that Piper and Eryn were in my school. If you knew either Piper or Eryn, you'd know this wasn't a good thing. (Piper was known as the bigmouth, while Eryn was quiet and filled with a bad attitude. I'd heard a lot of nicknames for her, most made up by my bestie, Carissa. None of them were nice.)

While I waited for someone to realize it was time to leave, I flipped through a Forever 21 catalog.

“Meghan,” Mom called through the chaos. “You have a letter on the table.”

“A letter?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “You know, the regular old-fashioned paper kind that's delivered by a mailman.”

I stepped around the chaos. Sure enough, on the hall table was a letter addressed to
moi
.

Who writes letters anymore when you can just text or e-mail?
The postmark on the envelope said Limerick, Ireland.
Hmmm.

Dear Friend,

I am starting this chain letter and mailing it to three people to whom I would like to send good luck. In turn they must send it to three people. If you are receiving this, someone has sent the luck to you—as long as you, in turn, send it to three more people within six days.

Chain letters have existed for centuries, and many have traveled around the world. A United States police officer received $25,000 within one day of sending his letters. However, another woman ignored it and lost her life's fortune because she broke the chain. A Norwegian fisherman thought for sure he would never find true love, but just two days after sending his letters, he met the woman of his dreams.

To get your luck and avoid the unlucky consequences, you must:

• Copy this letter

• Add your name below and remove the name above yours

• Mail it to three people within
six
days From,

4. 
Clare Gallagher, Ireland

5. _________________________

Clare Gallagher?

I didn't know anyone by that name.
How does she know me?
That wasn't important now. What
was
important was that I send this letter to three people ASAP. No, double-ASAP. Maybe I could get the good luck as soon as today—for the election—and avoid those “unlucky consequences.”

I went into my mom and dad's home office and rummaged around.

“What are you doing in there?” Mom called over the havoc.

“Looking for envelopes!”

“I don't have any,” Mom said. “Sorry. I'll bring a few home from work tonight.”

That would be too late. Maybe I could get a couple from the school office. I only needed three. “How about stamps?”

“Sorry. The baby used them as stickers. I can buy more after vacation.”

After vacation wasn't
today
, and I needed the luck
today
.

Eryn bumped me out of her way, causing me to drop the letter. “Move it, buttmunch,” she said. She stepped on the letter as she left the house. (This is what I meant about her attitude—bad.)

Piper did pretty much the same thing on her way out, not because she had attitude issues but because she wasn't paying attention.

Shannon picked the letter up for me. She was twenty-two years old and definitely the nicest of my sisters. She commuted to the University of Delaware, and itched to finish school so she could move out of our house and “find herself,” whatever that meant.

I took the letter, followed Shannon to the car, and climbed into the back with Piper. Eryn sat shotgun. Always. I didn't even try to beat her to the front seat anymore. Shannon always dropped us off at Wilmington Prep, then headed to UD. She picked us up later, on her way home. After school, we did homework or whatever until Mom or Dad got home from the law firm where they worked together. They were always home for a late full-family dinner, when we talked about our day, whether we wanted to or not.

On our drive Piper chattered about our spring break trip, while I just stared out the window.

“What do you guys know about chain letters?” I asked.